Bible Smugglers

Friday night our friends the McNews hosted a family overnight Bible Smugglers party. There were about 70 people there to play and visit.

Chris visiting with Brian and Monty

everyone’s cars and the view

We set up our tents, had a hot dog roast and played Bible Smugglers! Most everyone was involved in some way or another. About 35 kids from ages 8 to 18 played and the grown-ups were the “churches”, “jailers” and “Bible hander-outers?”.

setting up the “grown up” section of camp (very far away from the kids section of camp)

heading up the hill to HQ

getting ready (because you always need a big machete to be ready)

at the top

 

having supper

Sheri helps with the camo

so did Dana

Tony (my favorite 8-year-old smuggler) looks for his cup in the cup box

 

rallying the troops

getting last minute instructions

They played 3 rounds until 11:00pm! It was so fun to watch them come back all out of breath and excited, get more Bibles and head back out to avoid capture and deliver God’s Word. The best part was watching all the kids play together!

When we headed to bed, the clouds were just beginning to roll in and cover up the starlit sky. And at about 3:30am, we awoke to the sound of rain hitting the tent. By morning everything was soaking wet, but we enjoyed a cozy breakfast of steel cut oats, banana muffins and hard boiled eggs.

  Inara and the boys eating breakfast

the boys built a fire in the rain

packing up the wet tent 

It was a great time and we are looking forward to our next Bible Smuggling adventure!

well, maybe not this part of it…

Youth Group Garage Sale

Despite my decision to “not bring anything new home”, I did come home from this year’s garage sale with a few goodies. But some of them I actually needed and everything is put away in it’s home, so that makes it ok, right?

Here are a couple of shots of the sale…

Lily being cute

Zack and Lily both being cute

We actually got rid of quite a bit of stuff despite the rain on Saturday morning. The last hour of the sale, we put up the “FREE” sign!

Farming, Food, Faith and Fun At The Fair

This year we took a day off from school to head to Puyallup to the Western Washington State Fair. We went a few years ago and decided it was time to go back. Oh, and the Newsboys were playing Thursday night… :o)

the Gold Gate

the fairgrounds

God blessed us with perfect weather and lots of fun! There was lots to see and lots of cool junk that we didn’t buy. (Not that we weren’t tempted…)

We like looking at all the different collections, hobbies, produce displays, crafts and animals. Well… some of them I enjoy more than the others. All that country atmosphere really inspires the “farmwife” in me!

the hitch and horseshoe turtle

 

one of our favorite photographs titled “Lunch on the Road” (taken in ND)

WA State Patrol drug dog demonstration

Glad ours didn’t get that big! :o)

the guys and the giant pumpkin contest

this year’s winner was an all-time record breaker!

I love all the displays from the different counties

 

Lego displays (the boys need to enter someday)

a huge Lone Ranger collection

this Speed (aka Lightning McQueen) collection picture is for our godson JD

a working wooden tractor model

nothing says Christmas like poker LOL

Zack gets one step closer to the tattoo he wants

SWEET!!!

the chainsaw guy carving a sign

baby goats

just some of the 13 baby pigs that she had the day before

 

I love this Swiss Brown cow

outside the World Vision African village

 the boys try grinding corn

it’s the John Deere store

I really want a scarecrow like this!

All I have to do is find someone who can weld…

watching “Al’s Brain” a 3D movie about the human brain with Weird Al Yankovic

they even let us touch a real human brain afterwards

baby chicks that hatched the day before

draft horses

we did have a great day!

me and the ashtray Chris won for me at the dime toss!

the craft hall (I love this place!)

so many gorgeous things

this quilt was the Grand Champion

this cake was definitely too cute to eat

On the other hand,  we all enjoyed the traditional foods (hot scones, cotton candy, shaved ice, funnel cakes, and caramel apples) and some new and funky ones as well.

making scones

 

Zack and I had our supper here

the day’s special sampler plate (clockwise from upper left corner): deep fried pickle, deep fried Oreo, deep fried frog leg, deep fried chocolate chip cookie dough. Mmmmm!!!!

The best part of all was the Newsboys concert at the Grandstand! We were all a bit apprehensive about Michael Tait and were feeling a bit reminiscent about Peter. It doesn’t seem like the Newsboys without the bald white guy with eyeliner. :o) But God is good and He has truly blessed their choice of a new lead singer! They ROCKED!!! I immediately felt good about the change when Michael Tait opened the concert in prayer. The whole concert was very fun and very God-centered! Who says worshipping God is boring??? And being a former DCTalk member meant it was a bit like being at both a Newsboys concert and a DCTalk concert at the same time. It’s pretty cool to sing both “Breakfast” and “Jesus Freak” at the same show!

getting ready for the concert

 

the guys on “Stage B”