What a busy weekend at the Eichler house!  We had the 5k race early Friday morning, then we went to a super fun 4th of July party where we got to hang with some of our really good friends, and loads of kids!  It was definately a house full~I only hope the house has recovered from all of us!!!  We settled in to watch fireworks, and were happily suprised that after Brady got over his initial ’shock’ both kids really enjoyed watching them.  Brady kept pointing and saying ‘Geen, Geen’, which is his language for green.  (the irony is, he said ‘green’ no matter what color was exploding in the sky & since there were loads of green, we got to praise him for being right…PART of the time!)

Saturday is a blur, I don’t even remember what we did Saturday…but yesterday however was very exciting.  C3 hosted a free Shane and Shane benefit concert to raise money to fund a well in Africa.  It is amazing to me what a learning experience it was for Kelsea.  We got to talk about what a ‘concert’ was, and why our church was hosting this concert. (people in Africa don’t have luxuries like we do~some don’t have clean water)  Jason and I were challenged to break out of the habit of just filling in a check and dropping it off; and actually consider, what we as a family could sacrifice in order to give a generous gift, so families in Africa can have clean water.  I only wish that we would have thought to include Kelsea in on the actual ‘giving’ part, to make that part a little more significant for her.   I’m thankful that I know the next opportunity for Jason and I to be stretched, and for us to give practical implications to our kids is just around the corner at C3!  We just love our church.  The concert was fabulous, we loved the music, and the kids had a ball doing all the games and bounce houses they had set up.  (Thank you Verna and all the loads and loads of volunteers who worked so hard for this event…it was spectacular!)

We actually were finally able last night, to get our hands on Barbaric Grace,  which was written by Pastor Byron, and I believe can be ordered here; Barbaric Grace. I’m trying to wait to read it in Costa Rica, but I found myself already reading it outloud in the car to Jason on the way home last night.  It’s the real-life story of the journey of our church.  Having not read it yet, I can still say that I know it’s going to speak volumes about what it means to be a church actively seeking to do God’s work, and give real life examples of how Satan can work to try and stop God’s movement!   It’s a drama, that has a very happy ending, I assure you!  You will want to read it~and we’re keeping our copy; its part of history afterall, so order your own!     

My goal is to clean 2 different rooms from ceiling fan to baseboard, everyday this week so by Friday my house will be spick and span before my mom arrives.  Being that’s its 2:30 and I haven’t even started, I better break away from this computer.  I need to re-read my post about time-management I guess!

I’ll post weekend pictures later tonight…