Lots going on...

Things have been busy around the Adkins home lately. Last week, Maddie and Eli got some kind of stomach virus and so many nights and several days were filled with cleaning kids, carpet and clothes. I love it when the kids get old enough to make it to the bathroom! Anyway, they both seem to be doing much better now, still tired and irritable at times, but not the yucky symptoms. And so far no one else has had it as bad as they did. We're hoping it stays that way.

This week, Ron is studying for the GRE (Graduate Record Exam). He took this same exam last fall, but it is one of those where you can retake it as often as you like (and can afford to) in order to improve your score. If you think about it, please pray for him Friday morning around 8:30 (and anytime in the 4 hours after that). He will go to Ft. Wayne again to take it and would really like to improve his score.

This morning I took Ronnie to the doctor for his yearly check-up. He's grown 3 inches in the last year and 4 pounds. He's still at 75% for height and 50% for weight among other 7 year olds. The doctor told him he needed to work on eating more vegetables - maybe if it comes from another source it will mean more! Who would have thought any kid of mine wouldn't like veggies! (For those of you who are not my immediate family, my grandparents or even my Uncle Mike - that's a bit of sarcasm!) Anyway, Ronnie is doing well!

Yesterday, today and I'm sure again the end of this week - I'll be canning tomatoes! So far I have done 7 quarts each (yesterday and today) and there are many more in the garden. I use my water bath caner for tomatoes, and I like it better. I don't have to wait so long between caners because is doesn't take as long to cool as the pressure caner.

My Mom and Dad spent the last 2 weeks at a Ministers Retreat in Tennessee. They had a great time and although I haven't seen them yet, I can tell they really needed the time and got refreshed while they were there. For the remaining month of dad's sabbatical they rented a cottage on Big Turkey Lake in Indiana. They will be going back and forth between there and home and enjoying one more month before things get busy again. My mom will be starting the hormone pill soon and we are hoping that will be an easy thing with few (or even better - NO) side effects.

My sister and brother-in-law are planning to return to Uganda on Sept. 5th. They are ready to be done with traveling. We have a couple more days planned with them before that time.

That gets you pretty caught up on all the happenings around here.

One more thought to leave you with:

I mentioned in this post about our VBS and how we talked about being Heroes for Jesus. Well, the first nights saying was, "Heroes do the Unexpected". Eli has been going around saying, "Heroes do the Unaccepted". We had to laugh - how drastically a word can be changed with only a few letters! So while we are trying to get our kids to do unexpected kindness every day - occasionally the unaccepted slips in!

Have a great day!