We love games.

Jason and I enjoyed a little mexican dinner tonight and then came home for an intense game of Rummikub. It's been a bit of a busier week than usual. This is my busiest time of year at work (this past week and this coming week) and somehow we (I?) managed to fill all of our evenings with something this past week - Saturday we had friends over for dinner, Sunday night we went to a Bible study at church, Monday night we had people over for dinner, Tuesday we were interviewed by a friend for his internship and then I went to coffee with another friend, Wednesday we had Kingdom Group, Thursday we babysat, and Friday we had friends over for dinner.

Phew.

Jason, by the way, has been a rockstar husband and has done the grocery shopping for every evening we had people over and completely cooked the meal last night AND he's done a great job of keeping the apt neat.

So tonight we are relaxing as we are wait for a friend from home to come stay with us tonight.

Jason, carefully contemplating his next move...

Me winning...

Jason putting the game away.

I'd say it's been a good night!

Vander Mice

Jason and I had the pleasure of Vander Maas-sitting the other night (all except Josiah). It was easy schmeasy and super fun.

Ella became quite the ham when she turned 6. Look at that pose. You should have seen her dance moves.

Zoe (with two dots over the 'e' of course)

Sofie & Lydia - I should have posted the shot of these two glued to the movie. "Ella Enchanted" is a must-see.

After a little b-ball, Jason Isaiah and Malachai dug in to a little math homework. I already know that I will NOT be the one helping our kids with math homework.

Thanks, Ike

Okay, so I don't really have much of anything to complain about. We really didn't get hit by Hurricane Ike; we just got some major residual thunderstorms. And we of course didn't have nearly as much damage as Texas and other Gulf Coast cities. But I must say, I was surprised this morning by how much damage was done in St. Louis. We had a lot of people who couldn't make it to church this morning because of flooding on the streets, or flooding in their own house. One guy said that on his way to church, he literally saw a car whose front end was sunk in a couple feet of water, and the back end was FLOATING off the ground. We know several people who had really bad flooding in their basements. Jason helped the Reeves after church today tear up all of the brand new carpet in their basement and move a lot of furniture before it got damaged.

Again, we're house sitting, so we (and when I say "we," I mean Jason) had to take care of some things in the basement here to keep them from getting too damaged by a little bit of flooding here.

We really do want a dog, right?!

One of the fun things Jason and I get to do every now and then (or every couple weeks, it's seemed like lately) is housesit. Usually the only reason people need someone to housesit is if they have pets. Well, two pups that we get to hang out with a lot are Logan (the Golden Retriever) and Bailey (the Chocolate Lab). They are two of the sweetest dogs ever!


Sweet Bailey has had some hip problems for a while now. Every time we come, we end up giving her a few pain pills. She usually calms down and feels fine after 30 minutes or so. Well, last night Jason and I noticed that Bailey was panting/whining a lot. We thought it might be the weather... you know how dogs get anxious in thunderstorms. But she kept pacing, and then we noticed that every time she tried to sit down, she would let out a really loud yelp. We had already given her a pain pill, and the directions said that she could not have any more than 2 in 24 hours. So we gave her another one, but about an hour and a half later, she still had not sat down, and was still pacing and panting (she was probably in a lot of pain). Poor Bailey seriously had not sat down in over 4 hours. So we called the 24 hour Webster Groves Animal Hospital where they typically take the pups, and the vet said we should probably bring her in...

Luckily the emergency vet doesn't take quite as long as the human ER. We were seen in about 15 minutes, and vet was able to give us some stronger pain medicine/sedative so that she would finally feel better and hopefully lie down. We gave it to her when we got home, and we really really wanted to stay awake until we saw her lie down by herself. Well at 1 a.m. she still had not lied down, and Jason and I were exhausted. We finally went to bed and just hoped that she would calm down and fall asleep. I don't know how long it took but when I went to let the dogs out at 6:30 this morning, she was finally lying down... but of course she couldn't get up. You should have seen me trying to lift a 93 lb (yes 93 pounds) dog off the ground.

Jason and I love these dogs and really really want our own dog, but we certainly got a look at the energy they take, the health issues that can come up, and the cost of medical care! Maybe it's a good thing that we still have almost a year before we can get a dog. I think I need a nap.

My First Dance Recital

No, no. Not me dancing. I wasn't in a dance recital. But I did watch my first one ever yesterday. My friend Karen's daughter takes dance lessons, and yesterday I went to a little fair in South City where Nina and a bunch of other little girls performed for us! I think I would definitely be okay with it if I have a little girl who wants to take dance. They were so cute!!

Nina's little dancing team. Nina is on the far left.

Nina tapping her heart out... with a big smile on her face.

My favorite little dancer of the day (next to Nina, of course).

Karen and I worked together Wash U until this past February when she got a new job (moving up in the world!). Our cubes were right next to each other, so she was one of the few people here in St. Louis that I talked to almost every single day. I sure miss her at work!! It was so good to see her again.

Some Crossroads Cuties

I have to say "some" cuties here, because there are so so so many cute cute cute kids at our church. A LOT of them were on the retreat this weekend, but a lot of them weren't, and of the ones who were there, I only got pictures of a few. But as I was flipping through my camera, these pictures were just so cute that I couldn't resist putting them up.

Fall Retreat

This weekend was the Annual Crossroads Fall Retreat. We had a really really good time with everyone, the weather was perfect, and we got to use our new tent and my new sleeping bags for the first time! We were supposed to go on Friday evening, and our good friends the Pecks promised to save us a camping spot next to them. Well, after I had to work late on Friday, we decided to just drive up on Saturday morning. When we arrived, the Pecks had saved us a spot, just like they promised :-)

"Schub Land" spray painted on the ground!

Everyone enjoyed paddle boats, canoes, and most of all... the BLOB!!

Dan Reeve doing a sweet flip off the BLOB.

I think Jason's favorite part was the soft serve ice cream after meal.

Brooke, this is for you. This butterfly landed on me and I took the photo opp to practice my digital macro.

And of course, Saturday evening culminated with s'mores over the bonfire.

We love Atherton

I know we've said it plenty before, but we really really love where we live. This is one of the major reasons why! Good ole Atherton cookouts.

Talking with new neighbors late into the evening. Well, just til after dark. It was probably like 8:00. But it was fun! As always.

Soooo... sorry for the lack of posting (Brooke. Since you are probably the only one actually disappointed with the infrequent updates). I don't feel like we've been doing too much lately that actually merits a blog entry. We were house sitting for two weeks, and therefore were away from all our neighbors, and Jason was bored out of his mind until school started this past Thursday. But I'll do my best to give you a few of the highlights.

Posts below.