Rainy Games

Caeden's baseball team played in a tournament last night and today.  We hadn't checked the weather forecast for last evening, so were surprised when we were heading to Lexington and the sky suddenly turned dark and rainy.  As soon as the boys got warmed up and on the field it started to rain.  They went into the dugout.  The girls and I were all dressed in tank tops and shorts, and had no umbrella's or blankets or anything to keep us even relatively dry or warm.  Thunder was heard and the teams had to stay in their dugouts for half an hour before the game started.  We spectators stood under a tree during the several waves of rain the came over the next couple hours.  There was never any lightning, so the game went on--stopping and starting a few times.  

The girls and I were completely soaked through, but there was a beautiful double rainbow at one point.

Yesterday, Addie painted the girls nails Minnie Mouse style...  They were still admiring them during the game.

So, the boys lost their game in the rain last night.  But, it was a double elimination tournament, so they played another this morning. There was some rain, but we came much more prepared, and it wasn't even enough to stop the game.  They just played in the rain for about 5-10 minutes.

Caed's team only had 9 players this weekend, so he was up to bat 4 times.  He walked once and struck out 3 times.

He also got to play 2nd base for a couple innings.  He was part of a great play and caught a kid out at 2nd base!

They lost the game, so they are done with the tournament.  They will play in another tournament while we are on vacation, and Caeden will miss the whole thing.  So, he is done with baseball for the summer.  When we got in the car after today's game he cried because he didn't want baseball to end.  But, when we talked about all the things to be thankful for about baseball (improving, learning, new friends, lots of fun), he felt better.  It was a good experience for him and all of us.

"I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth." - Genesis 9:13 NLT

16 eyes

4 out of 5 Lopshires had eye appointments this afternoon.  

Caeden has better than perfect vision, Jeremy is 20/20 (and this was his first eye exam since high school!), I have no change but ordered new glasses, and...

Guess who's getting glasses?!  She is pretty excited, actually.

Since Daddy was along, he said to let her get whatever frames she wanted.  She cannot wait for them to be ready for her!

"For we live by faith, not by sight."

 - 2 Corinthians 5:7

Walking

The kids and I took a walk around town today.  Caeden hadn't seen this old tractor before, so we had to get a picture of all 3 of them with it.  

This old trailer sits in the yard of another neighbor.

Yet another of our neighbors has this beautiful yucca plant at the corner of her yard.  Before it bloomed, Sylvia thought it looked like giant asparagus, and she was "frightened" by the size of it.  She is still skeptical...

Share the Air

We have 3 window air conditioning units for our house, and put one in our bedroom, one in the girls bedroom, and one downstairs in our front room to keep it cool when my music students come for lessons.  So, when it's really hot, Caeden sleeps in his sleeping bag in the girls room to share their cool air.  So far, they all enjoy that.  Today, Caeden and Annah were play-attacking each other, and some part of their game was that Caeden would "capture" Annah in the sleeping bag.   

A lot of the time those two are after each other, so as long as they are laughing and playing it's all good.

Clue

Last summer we had a tradition of playing family Skip-Bo games, but we can't find our cards right now.  So, we've played a few games of Clue Mysteries this weekend.  The kids are getting good enough to beat me once in a while now.

General Assembly

This morning we arrived at the convention center at about 8:30.  It wasn't crowded yet.  Caeden had been asking to ride the escalators, so when he promised he would just go up and right back down, I let him ride once.  Annah went with him.

 Dave was one of the pastors serving communion this morning, so we sat in his section at the back right of the hall.  It was a great place to watch 20,246 Nazarenes gather for morning worship service!

Dave had met this couple last night and was so excited to introduce us to them.  The man is the youngest DS in the CotN, and they are from Spain.  Very sweet people.

The huge space filled, as did two overflow rooms.  It was amazing to gather with our church family from all across the world!

As we said The Lord's Prayer together, each person spoke in their own language...yet we each understood the same meaning.  An awesome experience to worship the One and only God together with people from such different backgrounds, yet one very similar faith!  Glory to God!

After the service, we joined Dave and Patti, Travis and Erin and the kids at Abeulo's for lunch.  It was yummy!!  We loved sharing the weekend with them!  Such blessings!

Indy w/ Fam and Friends

After the Quiz we had to get food immediately, since we'd not arrived in time to get lunch beforehand.  We walked a block to California Pizza Kitchen.

And the Benjey's found us along the way.

Someone had given Caeden a stack of metal coins with John 3:16 in another language on them, and he and Sierra and Carol played a spinning game with them while we waited for our food.

Caeden ate an entire cheese pizza by himself--every bite!

Indy is a much cooler city than I remember.  (Of course, I really haven't been there since I was a kid!)  We enjoyed the bit of walking around that we did this weekend.

We walked with Mom and Dad to the place they needed to enter Circle Centre Mall to get to the parking garage.  It was really special to have them there for the Quiz!  We were so glad they came!

Then we walked to our parking spot and enjoyed the cool sights of the city.

Travis and Erin had taken their kiddos to Katie's and Dan's house to get some rest, so we joined them there.  They had so much fun playing up in the loft and looking over the balcony at us below.

Bryce took a nap and I got to snuggle him for a while.

Grayson is not a napper, but more of a "party animal," so he entertained himself and us in the process.  

Tessa found a blanket and asked Sylvia to tie it around her like a dress.  Jeremy noticed her train was a little long and heavy for her, so he willingly took up the position of footman to Princess Tessa.

We played for a while, then left to get shakes at Sonic.  When we got back to Dave's and Patti's I enjoyed playing their beautiful piano while the kids took turns getting showered and ready for bed.  When Dave came home, he told us about the evening service, and we talked about exciting things going on in our church plants.

What a lovely day.  We are grateful.

World Quiz!

My words will not do justice to the excitement and blessings of this day--the day of the World Quiz!  But, I will try to record some details so we remember.

Sweet Patti made some amazing waffles for us this morning, and we had such a wonderful time visiting with her and Dave over breakfast.  Travis and Erin and kids arrived and added to our excitement just before we needed to leave for the convention center.  They were going to come watch part of the Quiz!

Jeremy dropped me and the kids off and went to find our parking spot.  Other kids immediately came up to us asking if we could trade pins.  Many districts had created a pin and had given each quizzer some to trade with others.  We didn't manage to find our director to get ours to give/trade, but some kids were generous to give theirs out without getting one in return.  This boy from the Rocky Mountain District gave us a really cool F.R.O.G. (Forever Rely On God) pin, and his momma wanted a picture of him with the kids he traded pins.  The pin trading was a wonderful way to get the kids talking to each other and meeting other quizzers!!

Gram and Krampa drove down to Indy this morning and were waiting for us at the convention center!  

There were about 1700 quizzers participating today--1,036 of them in the Blue Level!

The rotating lighted globe in the main worship area is really cool!!

I was a scorekeeper for 5 of our NWIL quizzers, so I got to sit right there with the kids through the Quiz.  (Everyone else was not allowed on the floor with the quizzers.) 

The kids were pretty nervous before the Quiz...

DaVonne Lee has written little songs to go with all 120 Bible verses quizzers learn in the 6 years of Children's Quizzing.  She has recorded CD's and DVD's of them and was there with her team of helpers to lead worship with some of the songs today.  That was a fun way to help the kids relax some before the Quiz started.

Making new friends on our district has been a wonderful blessing of Quizzing!  We were so happy to have Gracie and Addie in the row with us today!

The Quiz had two rounds of 20 questions each.  Near the beginning of the 1st round, Caeden missed a question, and I could see the tears building up.  Every speaker and official who had spoken before the Quiz began had mentioned having fun, relaxing,  not worrying about missing questions...but all Caeden could think about was the fact that he'd set a personal goal of not missing any and it was ruined in his mind.  I tried to reassure him that he was doing well and to just go on.  He was so disappointed.  

At the beginning of the second round, the Quizmaster came out in a costume and said, "I'm sorry to be late.  I just got back from a short trip to Alderon."  That definitely helped Caeden to cheer up.  Then he missed a couple more questions and was near meltdown.  Tears and frustration built.  I began to wonder if we shouldn't have allowed him to quiz in Blue level at his young age.

Fortunately, the Quizmaster, Steve Grundy, was sooooo easy-going.  A couple times, the correct answers were shown on the screen as soon as the questions went up.  The kids started to realize that they were already winners just by being at the World Quiz.  All they've learned through the book of Acts this past year is really so important, and really immeasurable.  Steve continued to be fun and encouraging, and even Caeden (who missed 3 more questions in the second round) loosened up and just had fun.  Steve was definitely the right person to give the questions at this quiz--very much a blessing to us!

The last question of the quiz had the same answer for all 4 choices, so many kids held up all 4 of their answer cards, and the whole room erupted with cheers!  Totally fun way to end the Quiz!

While we waited for official scores to be tabulated, we had a super fun time of worship!

It was cool watching the big cameras pan the room.  The kids saw themselves on the big screens several times!  

After each round of the Quiz, I texted Jeremy how the kids had done.  It seemed funny to be texting him in the same room, but it was a huge room, and there were thousands of people in it!   Besides, I was responsible for staying with the kids I was keeping score for, and no one besides scorekeepers was allowed to enter the quizzing area.

During the Quiz, our district quizzing director sent her daughter to give us a bag of trading pins.  Caeden started trading from the Quiz floor before awards.

It was really amazing to see huge groups of hundreds of kids go forward to receive their awards.  

All these kids have learned so much about the Lord in the book of Acts!!  Awesome!!

Sylvia and Caeden both received Gold Level awards!  Sylvia missed only 1 question!

So proud of these kids!!!

There were fewer than 100 kids who had a "perfect" 100% Quiz and were in the Gold All-Star Level. 

It was so exciting to see Annah among those Gold All-Stars!  

Proud of our girl!  

They were so relieved it was over, I think...and so tired of me trying to get just one decent picture!

The World Quiz was a wonderful way to celebrate our study of the book of Acts.  I'm so glad the kids have learned about how God began to grow the Christian church...and so appropriate that they studied it this year as we've been part of planting and growing a church too!  

We met back up with Jeremy and Mom and Dad for congratulatory hugs in the foyer outside the worship area.  They enjoyed watching the Quiz and were all so proud of the kids too.

As we walked through the convention center, we saw Carol and Will.  It was so wonderful to chat with them for a few minutes!  Carol is always so encouraging to me!

Nazarene Communications Network is putting out daily review papers during General Assembly, and here is their little article about World Quiz.