Wow! Blogging and posting daily, while also doing all the normal family stuff we do regularly, and doing this training course is getting harder and harder. We had lots of fun over the weekend, but were not able to do our posts, so this one is a catchup post.
On Saturday, we had a mandatory training event where all the guys spent about 3-4 hours hanging out and talking at a venue in Charlotte. They didn’t confirm until we arrived to the venue that there would also racing involved! We got to channel our inner Ricky Bobby and burn some (go-kart) rubber. Some of the older, ahem, “kids” had lots of fun.
One of our fellow ICC’ers leads a desperate pack of go-kart racers around a tight turn.
One of our leaders offered to turn his hat around for us, so that we would know it was him in front of us. This was my view for most of the race, as he hogged the lead.
After we returned from north Charlotte, we went over to the home of another Wycliffe couple and had a great dinner of hamburgers and bratwurst. The kids enjoyed it and we shared birthday cake to celebrate the two recent birthdays in our family. I forgot to get any photos of the cake and candles, so you’ll have to settle for a shot of the grilled items.
These are your brats. These are your brats on the grill. Any questions?
And then there was Sunday–on Sunday we attended the Charlotte French Holiness Church of the Nazarene (yeah, it’s got lots of words in the name). It’s a congregation of about 20-25 adults (plus their kids) that meets in an old industrial strip center in the northern part of Charlotte. Most members are from a French-speaking African heritage (many of them from the Congo). We’ll be worshiping with them, in French, for the next month. We’ll write more about the process as we get further into our studies here, I imagine.
This gentleman led the opening prayer at church on Sunday. It lasted about 25 minutes.
After church, we went out for birthday lunch, where Cyclops and I got free birthday pie. We both got chocolate pie–French Silk, if I remember correctly.
Cyclops and I both chose the French Silk pie at lunch. It was free. It tasted great.
And, because we hadn’t had enough sweets yet for the day, we picked up a dragon-brownie, cookie-cake to share with our new friends. There were many interested in helping us celebrate birthdays, so we had an impromptu party at the apartment playground. Lots of sugar was consumed, and much fun was had.
We shared birthday brownie-cookie-cake with everyone at the playground. They were more than willing to help us make the dragon disappear.
Before bed, Cyclops got his birthday presents from Nonna and Grandpa, as well as his present from Mommy and Daddy. He wasn’t that impressed.
What young man doesn’t love Legos? This was an extra-special set from the grandparents. I think he likes. Maybe. Hard to tell.
Cyclops finished out the day reading one of his Lego magazines to the brothers. It was another sweet moment in a very packed weekend.
Cyclops reads to the other boys. Nevermind he’s reading a book about all the characters in the Lego Chima world…he’s being nice to all three of them at the same time–that’s a win!
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