Bank holiday and more

I know I have missed a couple of weeks' blog but somehow the evenings just seem to speed by and fitting writing into my week just doesn't seem to work.

So what have we been up to??  We have had our church annual meeting and we reflected on what it means to be church in the community and are now spending time thinking about how the community sees the church and what we can do to shape that image.

Josh has been gliding with Explorers and they even managed to fly over our house, I did take a picture but it just looks like sky!  He had also started on the journey to his braces being fitted by having four teeth out this week (all at once) he is enjoying the freedom it gives him to turn food down and opt instead for milkshake at every opportunity.

The rain stopped and the sun even managed to put in an appearance during Bank Holiday weekend and Andy managed to build some more fence panels and the edge of the garden is starting to take real shape.

Caution men at work!

We have had three weekends of parties, each of which has been very different, my cousin celebrated her 30th birthday with a roller disco and we were amazed, firstly at how quick skating came back to Andy and I but secondly how quickly the boys picked it up as well.  At least it is easier and slightly safer than ice skating, there are no sharp edges and the floor is generally warmer and drier if you fall over.  We have also been to a friend's 40th birthday which was a 50's style prom party, complete with swing band and dressing up was almost compulsory.

The third party was a third party, as our God daughter was 3 this week and we have had fun watching her and friends enjoy the trampoline in the garden (while watched from the warmth of the house).

The break from the rain and a slight increase in the temperature, brief though it was, has seen the vegetable patch sprout shoots and leaves all over the place, and we are ready to crop our first salad from the garden this week, as long as the weather picks up to create a menu choice suitable for salad!

So my craft time has been concentrating on birthday cards, and as it my current way they have been finished just in time and I have no photographs to share with you.  We have also been preparing a craft for children who attend the bi-monthly Swindon churches' event, X:Site based on the story of David & Goliath.  The teaching was based on the fact that David was an unlikely hero for the Israelite nation and linking this to Jesus being the unlikely hero of the Jewish nation, neither of them were what the people were expecting.  So the craft was an unlikely hero to sit in the children's homes.

Sock monster - an unlikely hero

This monster was quick and easy to make, taking a sock, stuffing it with two carrier bags (which created a head and body definition and great crinkly noise), twisting the top and securing with an elastic band then cutting the remainder to hair length and then into strips.  The left over part of the sock made a great hair scrunchy to hide the elastic band.  Which just left feet, nose and eyes to be stuck one.  A great craft thanks to the X:Site writing team.

This week's Bible verse is from Isaiah and I think will look good as part of my prayer journal cover I am working on, or maybe as a reminder as we go out the door each day:

That’s how it is with my words.

    They don’t return to me

without doing everything

    I send them to do.

Isaiah 55:11

Our prayer this week is for those seeking the way forward in God's presence, as we ourselves go through redundancy consultation and friends attend interviews for a new place for ministry, we pray the God will guide and protect each of us, give us the strength to stand strong in the face of uncertainty and to be worthy witnesses of God's love in our lives that others will want to know what it is that makes a difference in us.

With God's blessings from my family to yours,

Jo x