What is that!!

As we were pulling into our parking spot Saturday night after a Sunday School Class Cookout we saw this Praying Mantus on the fence. The picture just doesn't do it justice to how big it is. Our friend the Christison's had one of these at their house too. I was creeped out but curious. Riley thought it was so cool. i just didn't want it to move until after we were in the house.

Wannna Kiss ?

Cheyenne found my makeup bag and thought she would help herself to my lipstick. She completely ruined it. Had it twisted all the way up and then slammed the top on it when I yelled at her. Five mintues later she managed to find a glue stick tried to do the same. Daddy saved her, but spanked her butt, so this beautiful smile didn't last long.

More Devotional Thoughts from Sara Young

SEEK TO PLEASE ME above all else. Let that goal be your focal point as you go through this day. Such a mind-set will protect you from scattering your energy to the winds. The free will I bestowed on you comes with awesome responsibility. Each day presents you with choice after choice. Many of these decisions you ignore and thus make by default. Without a focal point to guide you, you can easily lose your way. That's why it is so important to stay in communication with Me, living in thankful awareness of My presence. You inhabit a fallen, disjointed world, where things are constatnly unraveling around the edges. Only a vibrant relationship with Me can keep you from coming unraveled too.
Matt. 6:33; John 8:29;Colossians 3:23-24

More Devotional Thoughts from Sara Young

YOU WILL NOT FIND MY PEACE by engaging in excessive planning: attempting to control what will happen to you in the future. That is a commonly practiced form of unbelief. When your mind spins with multiple plans, Peace may sometimes seem to be within your grasp; yet it always eludes you. Just when you think you have prepared for all possibilities, something unexpected pops up and throws things into confusion.

I did not design the human mind to figure out the future. that is beyond your capability. i crafted your mind for continual communication with Me. Bring Me all your needs, your hopes and fears. Commit everything into My care. Turn from the path of planning to the path of Peace.

1 Peter 5:6-7; Proverbs 16:9; Psalms 37:5

Our Weekend of Fun

There are several new posts below of our weekend. Very busy weekend but lots of fun. So please read and enjoy. As a general update. Riley is enjoying second grade most of the time. He has started Awana and Cub Scouts (wolf). Riley is in his last year of Sparks. Dave and I are Sparks Leaders. They do it differently here. First we have opening ceremonies with TNT and Sparks combined, with pledges, and prayer time and announcements. Then we go to the Sparks rooms. The last week was our first official start so right now I have 5 sparkies. After handbook time it is concel time and then game time. Game is really different there are no colored teams. The kids are divided up to each line so the kids are on different lines with different leaders each week. The games of course are the same. No points are taken and no winning team at the end. Cheyenne has started Puggles . Puggles is for 2 yr. olds. It is part of the AWANA program. No book or vest but has color pages and bring home a 8x10 card that has a story on it and her verse. The verse that they are working on is "God Made Everything" (forgot where it's found). Right now it is only open to leaders kids. Dave is enjoying his job. Gets a lot of overtime. My job is going good. Have made some good friends and my doctor is very nice. I didn't think that they came nicer than Dr. Beattie but Dr. Acosta he great. We have had some great cooler weather are the leaves are beginning to change. Really looking forward to Fall.

Old Fashioned Sunday

In the evening service at Church tonight we had a good old fashioned service. The first picture is of some friends of ours, the Huber Family (four of them are missing from the picture) who came dressed up in "old fashioned clothes". We didn't have any "old fashion" outfits to wear, but I took a picture of the kids anyways just because they are so cute. We sang some great old time music:
"I'll Fly Away", "Rock of Ages", "Give Me That Old Time Religion" (one of my favorites), "When We All Get To Heaven" (another fave), "Victory In Jesus" (another fave), "The Old Rugged Cross", "Are You Washed In the Blood" (another fave) and several more. We had a "Amen, Praise The Lord, Hallejuah" offering. The offering baskets were attached to long poles. Every time a dollar bill went in the offering basket, depending on the denomination of the bill the usher would say "Amen", "Praise The Lord", or "Hallejuah". If the money given by a person was over $20.00 the Usher acted like he passed out. It was a lot of fun, and we did have an Usher go down a couple of times. There was a Ladies Trio that sang, and a Men's Quartet. Pastor Brown preacher a sermon from the mid 1800's preached by D.L. Moody. The service was great. Afterwards we went to the multi. purpose facility and had a ice and pie social. I had a piece of peach pie and a piece of apple. Dave had pecan and peach plus we both ate ice cream. The kids only ate ice cream. There was a pie auction. There was like 18 pies auctioned. Some of them were: Strawbery Ruebarb that went for $100, Dutch Apple $100, Pecan $100, Sour Cream Apple $100, Black raspberry and red raspberry $60, Blueberry $60, Peaqch $50, and Cherry $50. Our bids were to little to when a pie. It was fun to watch the younger men bid against the old men of the church. All the money raised goes to our missions fund that is helping build an orphange in Romainia. We didn't win a pie so we just put our donation in the basket. Maybe we paid for a couple of bricks. None the less we had a great time.

Sunday - Birthday Party at the Children's Museum

After Church today we went to the Family Museum in Bettendorf for a Brithday party. Abby is a little girl that is at Cheyenne's daycare. Abby turned 3 yrs. old. We had pizza,veggies, chips, drinks and cupcakes for lunch. Cheyenne really struggled with Abby getting all the presents and they were not for her. We gave her a pink purse that I knitted and a pink,blue, and green butterfly bracelett that I made too and Cheyenne was out of sorts, but she lived through it. The kids had lots of fun playing throughout the museum. I had a good time playing in side the big heart and taking apart the human body and rearranging the x-rays, but nobody would play with me. Abby got all the attention.

Saturday - VanDeVeer Park

After Fejervary Park & Zoo went to the Fall Festival at VanDeVeer Park
(we love free activities) the kids made kites out of plastic, dowel sticks and duct tape. Very cool. The wind was unpredictable so it was hard to fly the kites but the kids got them up a couple of times, I just wasn't fast enough withe camera.








Riley insisted on waiting in line for an hour to get a SpiderMan balloon. Cheyenne took a flower and a doggy and didn't argue one bite. So we let Riley stand in line while Cheyenne and I play on the playground equipment. We did other crafts like bookmarks, and tile decoupage. We looked at the antique tractors and listened to the lousy bands play. Thank God the music stopped at 4:00 p.m. It was like being at the bad tryouts for American Idol. There were a ton of people there, but we had a lot of fun.

Saturday - Fejervary Park

Saturday was free day at Fejervary Park in Davenport. They are celebrating 102 yrs. of operations. We took a picnic lunch. I killed five bees duirng lunch. They were quite annoying and the kids were freskin' out. I drowned one in orange pop and one in applesauce. The bbes were kind of slow, it was pretty cool outside.

I think a turkey's face is one of the uglist faces, but ya got to love 'em.

Freshly laid eggs. Yummy!
The kids loved the music makers, the louder the better,

The Goose that the kids love.
i kept telling Riley that the pump didn't work, but he insisted on pumping, then suddenly there was water. Very funny to see Riley jump, ya had to be there,
Cheyenne getting brave to play with the geese.
Riley and Cheyenne petting the baby goat.
A praire dog enjoying his lunch

Friday Night Fun Night

Friday night we went downtown Davenport to see the replica of the "Nina" that sailed to America 500 yrs. or so ago. Hard to believe a vessel like that would make it across the Alanta Ocean. I think there is actually more rope than wood on the ship. Riley thought it was super cool. We didn't go on it. We admired from the sidewalk. We then went to Whitey's and split a banana split between the four of us. W sat outside and shivered eating our treat. Cheyenne was bummed as we left she said, "Bye-bye ice cream", in the sweetest sadest voice.

Riley & Cheyenne Fishing on Labor Day

This was our first time to go fishing that Cheyenne was big enough to hold a fishing pole. She was so proud of herself. At one time riley had his own fishing pole and it broke so he used mine and Cheyenne used Dave's. Cheyenne kept screaming "I want to fish, I want to fish". We had no bites. Riley tried to lay on the dock and catch minnows but that was futal, but we had a lot of fun trying.

Labor Day Fun at West Lake Park

We went to West Lake Park in Davenport for Labor Day. We had Quad City Brauts which are made with saurkraut and cheddar cheese inside, cheesy potatoes, carrots and Bush's Bake Beans, and I made a double batch of Rice Crispie Treats. Man was that some good eats! We played disc golf, actually Cheyenne and I spent a lot of time watch Riley and Dave throwing discs into the trees and climbing the trees to get them out. The kids fished and we sat there holding down the benches since we didn't have fishing licenses. It was a beautiful day. We had a lot of fun. We came home for naps and then went on on evening bike ride.

Odd Ball Scavenger Hunt

We were bored one afternoon and decided to go on an "Odd Ball Scavenger Hunt" We drove around the greater Davenport are and looked for things that we thought we odd.

This is a MAN in a skirt at Eastern Park in Davenport he had just finished an afternoon of jousting.

This billboard is downtown Davenport.

This car was on display on Credit Island.

I didn't know that Santa Claus made appreances during the summer but I guess it's all in who you know. This was at Fejuary Park.

What got me thinking of doing this was a truck that I saw one day on the way to work in Moline on John Deer Rd. It said "Doo Dah Dave's" We will remove the doo for you! Dog Waste Removal. I tried to take a picture of it but I couldn't click and drive at the same time.

Seek & Soak

Friday night we went to LeClaire Park downtown Davenport for a worship concert. It was awesome. The weather was awesome, great breeze and cooler temps. It was a free contemporary music concert put on by the Quad Cities Prayer Center. The worship leader was Scott Schaefer , him and the band rocked out. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Our daycare lady and her kids were there. So the picture is of Riley and Zane, Angie's 3yr. old. We are very thankful for our Daycare Lady and her family, they are Christians and live in Davenport about 5 minutes from our house. They go to Church in Moline, I forgot the name of the Church but it is an Assemblies of God Church right off of 74 near Avenue of the Cities.

We saw a few people we knew from Church. Our big shocker was that we saw Phil Gleason (a flash back to the past). Anyways there are a few that we know who know him and know I need not say more.

Iowa Machine Shed

Dave took us for some good old country cookin'. We have need been the IMS probably in 8 yrs. or more. Awesome!! Awesome!! Food. It was Riley and Cheyenne's first time to go. Riley liked it because his food came in a real wagon not a paper one, although he was bummed that he couldn't keep it. The waiter even brought over a tractor for Cheyenne to play with. She tried several times to show the people sitting around us that she had a tractor. It is rare we splurge like that. We topped off the night we a piece of banana cream pie (we shared).