A great week!

As we've had lots of young families staying at the Eden House for the past two weeks, Glenn and I have had quite a few families over for meals and let their young children swim in our kiddie pool. We've even done a fair amount of babysitting...

Glenn and I kept Bethany and Ethan twice while their parents went out with some friends and to a movie. The kids were great both times. Bethany rolled around contentedly on the floor in the living room and then out in the mud room, having a two-sided conversation with her dog, just having a great old time...until the Sandman overtook her. She fell asleep on the floor in the mud room! As soon as I realized she'd fallen asleep, I got a blanket for her to lay on. Neither of my kids EVER fell asleep while playing!

And Ethan? Well, he slept most of the time he was with us.

We must be boring. I'll have to work on that now that we have a grandchild. Give me a week or two and we will have grandchildren.

I just loved Bethany's teeny tiny purple and pink backpack. I'm going to have so much fun buying stuff like this for my grandchildren. (Don't worry, Kari and Jonathan. I'll buy a man purse for your little boy!)

Scott and JoEllen are on vacation this week so Glenn and I are covering for them at the Eden House. This morning we picked everyone up and took them to Danube International Baptist Church for worship (in English). This afternoon we will meet a couple in an hour or two to let them in, give them their room key, complete the paperwork, and show them to their room. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we will be taking various families to their doctor's appointments at First Med Centers. Busy, busy, busy!

Our blackberry bushes are slowly getting ripe. I hope a lot of them ripen in the next couple of days but I fear we will miss them entirely this year! Later this week we will be going to New Jersey to see Chris and Kate and meet our granddaughter, Jazmine, and then on to Senegal to see Kari and Jonathan and meet our grandson. (He's due Aug. 1 so we don't know his name yet!)

As you can see, unless they ripen quickly, we will not be able to enjoy very many of them this year!

The Doyles had to make an unplanned trip to the U.S. last week and so they gave us all their fruits and vegetables from their refrigerator. We've saved some to eat fresh during this coming week but Glenn chopped up the extras to put into our freezer for use when we get back.

These peppers are very, very hot and will burn your skin if you handle them much. We use these peppers to make our spicy salsa!

While Glenn was chopping peppers, I washed dishes from lunch and then started to pack a few things for going to Senegal. The suitcase of things going to New Jersey is upstairs. I have to keep them separated so that I don't put things in the wrong suitcase. We will visit in New Jersey for 10 days, make a quick trip to Atlanta to check on our parents, then fly back to BP for less than 24 hours before heading out for Senegal. Because we won't have much time here in BP in between trips, we are packing ahead of time for Senegal. I hope I remember to pack the cheese and sausage for Kari when we come back through BP!

Hope you have a great week!