Do I Really Need a Title?

I don't really know where to begin this post. First of all, I'm trying to change the way this here blog looks and I'm having trouble with Paint.net and getting a header to look right. Secondly, I feel like I have had a lot to say over the last few days but that I'm really the only one interested in what it is I have to say. Which is fine since this is more or less a scrapbook for me more than anything. That being said, here comes another boring post about what we did over the weekend and then at the end I'll tell you how I'm tying this all in to Tuesdays Unwrapped.

Saturday I got so much done around the house that I really should take pictures of my clean closet and emptied office as evidence. Both rooms had gotten to be such a disaster that I was expecting the Clean Sweep crew to show up on my front porch any day now. I couldn't handle it looking like that one more day. So while Brian was helping at the Health Clinic at church for LoveLoud I was able to get both rooms cleaned up. When Brian got home he asked if I had noticed all the cars at the neighbor's house and that there was a LoveLoud sign in her yard. The kids had noticed the cars and I just figured she was having a birthday party or something since she has 4 out of 6 kids at home and there is always lots to celebrate over there like a wedding or birthdays or celebrating the day her two youngest children were adopted, etc., etc.. So I was excited to be able to go down and see how I could help. She's a single mom with A WHOLE LOT on her plate and I was glad that she had accepted some help. I went over again today and helped her start painting the kids' play room and hopefully I will be able to finish it for her while she is in the hospital over the next couple days while her youngest child has another surgery to repair a cleft palate.

Then Sunday Brian and I took June Bug out for his Day Out with Mom and Dad. He also chose bowling but I think he chose it more because that is what Cuddle Bug chose and he didn't want to feel like he was not getting to do something that his little brother had already done. He really would have had a better time if he had chosen another activity though. He's very competitive and had a rough time when he wasn't bowling well. We were proud of how well he was handling his disappointment, though; he was doing his very best to try and shrug off a bad round and giving it his all. And today I realized that our time with him at home is already half over!!! He will graduate from high school when he's 17 years old and he is now almost 8 and a 1/2. So I think I will go cry myself to sleep thinking about how these 8 1/2 years have flown by and how the next 8 1/2 years will be gone before I know it.Is it wrong to hope that one day he'll get laid off from his job and will have to move back in with us?

And yesterday and today I climbed a mountain all the way to the summit. There I planted a flag firmly in the ground to declare my victory over it's ...

Icy White Cliffs

it's Blinding Lights that could cause you to fall off the menacing cliffs

and it's Deep Dark Chasms.It took all of Monday to establish a Base Camp but finally today I made it to the peak but not without my share of exhaustion and frostbite.

I will say, however, that I am truly thankful on this Tuesday because that mountaintop experience was well worth it because these are the faces that greeted me at the top and made the whole journey possible (and necessary).
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Emily challenged us to find more than one gift today.

I found at least four.