Hanging Out With Abby!

Wow, you guys! Thanks so much for ALL the Abby love yesterday! And thanks for the encouragement about hiking that particular park. We would love to go back sometime in nice weather and actually DO the trails. We saw the lake, and it looked really pretty! (And big!) 

Today I thought I'd tell you about life IN the RV, since we did spend a fair amount of time in there! Maybe this will help answer some questions, too, because we do get a lot of questions about what life with her is like! 

First, let's talk about driving her! That cab is SO comfortable. So very comfy. The seats are old and not that pretty, but they sure are a delight to sit in! We found the cab to be really easy to sit in, which is good for when we have longer trips! Ryan's console was PERFECTION! We loved our cup holders and the little tray in the middle, where we could put snacks or my camera or whatever. And Ryan said she really is easy to drive. We tried not to use it unless necessary, but she can have some good pick up and go if she needs to! 

This chair? Also very comfy.

This was also an original from Abby, and she's SO comfy. I can use the back cup holder of the console for my end table when I'm sitting here, and I love it. I can use the couch for my ottoman. :) And that little mail/key holder up behind mem was also a great choice. We put our masks and sunglasses on the hooks when we were inside Abby, and I also used that chalkboard for an idea I'd seen on Pinterest. I saw a tip to write your campsite and the county you're in up on that board so if you have an emergency and have to call for help, you can quickly help the medics or police find you - and if there is a weather emergency, you know your county to know if it applies to you!

(Our park was in two counties.)

Our new couch? Shockingly comfortable. You always hear about RV furniture and how it's practical but not comfortable. That did not prove true with our couch. We enjoyed sitting on it AND even lounging on it together to watch a movie! 

We both fit on it very nicely, and because it doesn't have arms at the end, if our feet needed to hang off the end, they could! 

After we got rained out of our campfire Saturday night, we ended up hanging out on that couch, watching a movie on our TV - through Ryan's phone. That also worked better than we thought it might. It was a good movie and it didn't have a bunch of signal interruptions. We appreciated that! We also watched hymns on the TV on Sunday morning while we got ready!

OH! Those lights reminded me that the string of ambient lighting made PERFECT evening lighting in the RV. All our house lights are crazy bright bulbs, and while they're great for getting ready, etc., they're a bit much for just lounging quietly in the evening. We used only these lights when hanging out (and overnight, too) and they were perfect. Just perfect. 

We did some cooking in the RV, though we did not try the stove in it just yet. We used our Griddler we brought from home (which is one of my favorite extra appliances that we own). Cooking went well, though it did certainly heat up the place in a hurry! We had hoped to be able to cook outside some, but it wasn't meant to be on this trip. Maybe next time? :) 

The lack of counter space didn't turn out to be a huge problem - at least on this trip! And I adored having all my ingredients handy in the pantry and in the refrigerator. So much easier than digging through bags and coolers! 

We put up the table to eat, and while that can be a bit of a pain to put up and take down all the time, we really enjoy having the option of HAVING  a table without having it in the way all the time.

Ryan was in charge of making all the coffee, but this is one of the parts we think we need to modify (More on this another day.) Having said that, he rocked the barista life this weekend.

People seem surprised that we enjoy the bed in Abby, because it is pretty small. It's a full size bed, and one side of it doesn't have a ton of stretch-out room, because of the closet at the end of the bed. But we honestly do fit in it quite nicely and have plenty of room to turn over. It's not bad at all! And I am grateful to not have to sleep in an over-the-cab bunk. I think I'd get claustrophobic in that. Here are the pictures of our two sunrises from our bed. I'm glad I captured them, because the sun went on strike after this - both days!

And then...the bathroom. Abby has a wet bath, which means the entire room serves as the shower, while also holding the toilet and sink. I didn't take pictures (ewww) but here are some thoughts on the bathroom while we were gone.

I LOVE having a bathroom right there, at the ready, just as much as I thought I would. I loved being able to pull over in a parking lot for a bathroom break without going into a store or restaurant that may or may not be all that clean. It was one of the things I looked forward to the most, and it lived up to the hype. 

I chose not to do a hair washing on this trip, but we both fear for me when I do have to do that. It's not super conducive to it. We have a handheld shower head, but I just have SO MUCH HAIR! My goal is to try to use regular house showers as often as possible on trips. But it works okay for a shower - though we do have to get the hang of drying out the room after so it can go on with normal life as a regular bathroom. That will take the most adjustment, I think.

When we first looked at RVs, we considered trying to go with a conversion van, but one of the main reasons we didn't (other than cost...they're CRAZY expensive) was because of space. Though the goal is to always be able to go out and about while traveling, we knew that some trips might have bad weather, and we didn't want to be totally cramped in such an event. Who knew that our first trip out would prove us right on THAT!?!? 

We appreciated being able to walk around inside and stretch out comfortably while the rain poured outside. 

So there you have it! A glimpse of life on the inside!

Abby's First Official Outing!

Well, it was six months in the making, but Miss Abby's first official outing came THIS WEEKEND!! Weeks of prepping and planning, a billion Pinterest posts consulted...and then it was here! I thought I'd tell you about it today! I might tell you a few more things about it throughout this week - thinking out loud from other angles, if you don't mind. 

I had a speaking engagement this weekend (one postponed from last year and all carefully distanced) so we decided to take Abby with us and make this our first camping trip!

And so it was that Friday morning we did our official pre-trip photo shoot...

...and then we headed out!

We had a GORGEOUS day to travel...though it was incredibly windy. So Ryan learned right away how to hang onto the RV in a strong wind!

Hello, Ohio!!!

My speaking engagement was held at a state park, and this is the beautiful lodge where it was held!

We stopped in at the lodge, but literally just a few minutes after I took this picture, we headed toward the campground, which apparently was in a completely different climate!

It was our first time ever to check into a campground, of course we had to do it in a torrential downpour. Of course! We had no idea what all was required of a check-in...but it turned out to be pretty easy. We had registered for this site several months ago, so the lady at the little building basically just pointed us to the correct road and told us to have a great visit. :) 

And by the time we drove around the bend and down the road, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining again. GO FIGURE!

Our little campsite was simple but perfect for our needs. We only had electricity at this site - not water. But we were going to be in and out all weekend, so it was actually much easier to only have electricity. Didn't have nearly as much too plug in and unplug when we needed to move around. (We had to drive Abby everywhere we needed to go, because we didn't tow our car.) We had a picnic table and fire ring, and this beautiful sight out our front window:

Ryan had picked our spot at random, and of course we'd never been to this place before, so we knew nothing about any of the spots. But this was so pretty! And I was so grateful for the gorgeous bright green baby leaves and the blossoms. Perfection. 

We were probably a pretty boring campsite compared to others, because we didn't truly set up camp. We didn't have flagpoles or welcome signs at the edge of our drive or a dog run throughout the yard. (We didn't even bring our rug...but we do have one!) But we thoroughly enjoyed our spot.

Unfortunately, it rained THE ENTIRE WEEKEND. It was okay, since we had plenty to do, but when we were at the campground, we were limited on our outdoor activity! 

I'll have to tell you more about life IN Abby on another day, but I will show you this one snippet of time we got to enjoy a fire in our fire pit before the rain drowned it.

Saturday evening the radar showed NO rain, so we made a fire.

(Don't you love the giant mud puddle next to it? That was our only sadness over our site. The other sites all seemed to have grass or gravel around the fire pit. Not so much for us.)

We had our coffee outside, because of course...

And then we sat a mud puddle's distance from our fire to wait for it to get marshmallow-ready.

It was pretty perfect...

...until literally halfway through our marshmallow roasting. All of the sudden the skies opened and it rained the rest of the night. We scrambled to get inside with half-roasted marshmallows, which made for awkward s'mores. 

And that was the extent of our true campground adventures with Abby. We didn't even get to hike the park on Sunday like we'd hoped, because the rain game was still going strong throughout that day. But even though it was unconventional, we had a great time. I'll tell you more tomorrow, but I just had to tell you today that she's officially had her debut!!

Sunday Sentiments

I have friends who were (or still are) foster parents. I've heard many stories and watched them walk difficult roads for the love of kids who weren't born to them, but they love them as though they were.

We understood it...while we didn't understand it at all.

The work we do isn't foster care, but I think it has some similarities.

I remember the day we came for our interview. We knew we would meet the tenants, and we had no idea if they would like us. Rob told us a bit about the personalities of the people who lived here at that time, and he wasn't wrong about any of them!

One of them had a personality as big as the world. She was a brand new mom, and her sweet baby was just a couple of months old when we first met him that day. I still remember when we all sat on the couch together talking, and she yelled over all the conversations taking place to say "ROB! You should hire them RIGHT NOW!" 

He must have listened, because about a month later we moved in and slowly began to get to know her and the baby. We came up with things to talk about on trips back and forth to work. We did life together, day by day. We were strangers. Then friends. Then framily. 

And in the course of the last nine months, she has made us laugh until we cried. We've sat beside her through unspeakably hard meetings and conversations. We've advocated for her and her baby. We've taught her life skills. We've gone to coffee together. We've gone to church together. We've shared meals around the community room table. 

We have grown to love her with all our hearts. We haven't always agreed with her, but she's our girl. And that sweet baby boy has grown up right under our noses, and we've grown to love him, too. (He is Ryan's biggest fan, other than me, of course. He'll practically jump out of my arms to jump into Ryan's when he catches a glimpse of him.)

This work we do...it's a stepping stone. Everyone who moves in here is just here for a season. We know that. They know that. Some of the tenants who have lived here have been here for a very short time before heading on to the next chapter. But this one was here for over a year. And we were here with her for most of that time. 

A couple of weeks ago, she moved on to her next chapter, and we celebrated and grieved all in the same breaths. We celebrated for the goals she achieved, but we grieved the loss of her in this place. There will never be another one just like her. Never ever. 

She spent a couple of weeks slowly moving out, but on the last day, after she came to clean her apartment, Ryan and I drove her and the baby away for the last time - to their new home. She gave us a tour and somewhere in between the front door and the bottom step, I started sobbing. I was a mess by the time we got to the van twenty steps away. 

Ryan asked if I thought Culver's would fix it, and I said I wasn't sure, but there was no harm in trying. So we tried. It didn't fix the hole in my heart, but it was a good bandage. ;) 

(Funny story: that night when we drove her to her new place, everything about the day had taken so much longer than planned, so it was about three hours past my dinner time when we took her home. When I talked to her later, she asked what we did after we left her. I said, "Well I cried." She said, "You CRIED? I'm sorry! I didn't know you were that hungry!" I said, "NO, SILLY!! I cried because I missed you! Not because of dinner!") 

Some people have asked if we can still be part of her life, and the answer is yes - if she'll have us. We gave her our numbers and she's reached out multiple times to text, call, and FaceTime us since she left. We've told her we'll go visit her - and we have! We'll stay part of their lives for as long as they'll let us. 

Love sneaks up on you. At least it did for us with them. They went from being strangers whose building we invaded to being framily to the two of us. She's taken to calling me Momma. I told her that's fine, but that child is NOT calling me Grandma! I'll just be Aunt Bekah where he's concerned. I told Ryan once that if she decided not to keep us in her life after she left, the baby would never remember us. He's too young. We spent every day with him and he would never remember us at all. But we will always remember him and how he changed our lives so profoundly. 

Love can be hard work. But it wraps itself around you and pushes you through the hard moments. It doesn't quit just because miles create a distance. 

She's our first goodbye to a tenant we've developed a deep history with. We miss her terribly. We miss both of them. But we are so very grateful to have been part of their lives for these last nine months. 

We'll say goodbye again and again as tenants come and go. We know that. We know it won't be the last time our hearts are gripped by grief in letting go. 

But that's what this job is all about. Investing fully, loving well, and cheering them on as they step into their next chapters. And we pray that the Lord equips us to do all of this with His grace. 

The Saturday Six

 

One.

I love looking at the Apartment Therapy website for design and decor ideas. They are doing a "Small/Cool" contest where you can vote on actual homes that owners and renters have submitted. Currently the "small" category is open for voting, which includes homes that are 751-1000 square feet. There are almost 100 submissions in this category and I've been having a BLAST looking at them! Each Monday, a smaller square footage category opens up, so I'm really excited to see what the teeny tiny houses look like! 

Two.

I decided on Sunday that I would make macaroni and cheese for Easter lunch. I pulled up my trusty Pinterest link to the recipe Ryan likes and...GASP...the site was gone. (See, this is why it's important not to rely on other people's websites to last forever!) I scrambled to find a new recipe with things I had on hand and landed on this one. It received ALL the thumbs up from Ryan and the tenant who ate lunch with us. Try it out if you're looking for a new mac and cheese! 

Three.

Found this recipe for homemade cleaning wipes using coffee filters and Thieves cleaner. It's intriguing! I'm curious if the coffee filter holds up very well...anyone ever tried anything like this?

Four.

My mom had a book similar to this one for me when I was going through school. I regret now that as I got older and was sort of in charge of updating it myself...I didn't. I love the idea of having a handwriting sample from each year and answers to the same questions each year! 

Five.

Lindsay Letters has some sweatshirts in her shop now. I dearly love the heart one! 

Six.

And if your garden-loving heart is looking for some ideas for herb gardens, check out this one! Glass jars, some dirt and rocks, and herbs! (And a little chalkboard paint never hurt anyone...)

The Mobile Medicine Bag

It started back when we were newly married and we'd gone out on a coffee date. We lived about five minutes from Starbucks, so we usually landed there anytime we needed to get out of the house for coffee. We'd barely pulled into the parking lot when Ryan got the most panicked look on his face and immediately whirled the car around and headed back home.

Understandably alarmed, I asked what was wrong. He said he'd felt the tiniest little twinge of a cold sore coming on and he had to get to his medicine NOW. While it was fine with me if we ran back home for medicine, it seemed like something that could at least wait until we'd ordered our coffee. We could get it to go! 

But we couldn't, he declared, so we raced home. 

And we were too late. That cold sore owned his face for the next few days, and he was not thrilled about it. I was amazed that missing the meds within the first five minutes of the twinge would result in losing the cold sore battle. 

And that is how the mobile medicine bag was born. We were double commuters back then, so when he left home in the morning, he was an HOUR from his cold sore medicine (and everything else, too). While he didn't work in the middle of nowhere and could stop at the store, no one really needs 50 duplicate bottles of everything, do they?

He looked in the closet and found a promotional lunchbag cooler he'd gotten at work and started gathering random over-the-counter medicines from around the house. A little pain reliever. A little cough medicine. The cold store stuff, of course. Anti-itch cream for when poison ivy made its annual visit. Some tape for when he had an injury. Some bandages. A little of this and a little of that. 

And every day when he left for work, he threw his lunchbag over one shoulder and his medicine bag over the other shoulder...and off he went!

We learned quickly that the mobile medicine bag was actually pretty handy beyond the commuter status! Anytime we hopped in the car for a day trip to Indianapolis or a county tour, we could toss the mobile medicine bag in the back seat and if we ended up with a headache, a stomach ache, or anything else, we were set!

Vacations? No need to figure out if we've packed everything we might need. The medicine bag goes on the packing list and we don't have to sort it more than that!

You might remember that on Easter, I bought Ryan an updated medicine bag. His was looking a bit bedraggled and had suffered a few interior spills in the day. The one I bought him has a hard plastic inner core that can be removed and washed if needed. It's also quite a bit smaller, because the other one really was way too big for our needs. 

So I thought I'd share this in case any of you want to try it for your family! Granted, those who have more complicated medical histories or daily prescriptions to factor in might not find this idea quite as simple a process, but for those who might just need a few things on hand and on the go, this works really nicely!

(I also have a mobile oils bag that travels with me in my purse. I carry some of my more frequently used oils, like Thieves, Lavender, DiGize, etc. so I'm covered if I feel a bit off, have an upset stomach, or get a burn or bug bite. Yes, we definitely still use our oils!) 

The Stories of Stuff

My grandma used to stay with us a couple of times a year when I was little. I loved her visits. She'd stay for a couple of weeks, and we always had the best time together. She loved telling stories and was also very long-suffering about listening to my endless stories. We were a pair, for sure!

One day, Grandma asked me if I wanted to hear a story about the history of the Cross pen. Now granted, I was not the history lover then that I am now. But I already loved writing, so hearing about how a pen came to be sounded fairly interesting. I said yes and sat back to learn how the Cross pen came into existence.

I became lost fairly quickly. Not lost in the story. Lost about the story. She was telling me about some man from her church and I remember thinking...Grandma goes to church with the guy who invented the Cross pen? That's weird.

I kept listening, and the more she talked, the more confused I became. I even stopped her once and said, "Wait. You said this is about the history of the Cross pen, right?" She nodded and continued.

At long last, I figured it out. She wasn't telling me about the person who invented the Cross pen. She was telling me the history of her Cross pen. One that had been given to her as a gift - engraved with her name.

Of course by the time I figured that out, I'd missed most of the story, and it had been fairly detailed, so there was no time to ask for a do-over.

But even though I have no details on the history of the Cross pen (hers or the company as a whole), I do have her Cross pen in my office. It sits with my writing utensils, engraved with her name. I don't use it, because it doesn't fit my hand the way it fit hers. (She had much more slender hands than I do, and it's a skinny little pen. I need big old fat pens that don't make my hands cramp when I write for years on end.) 

I keep it, though, because her (granted, confusing) story that day taught me an important lesson that has stayed with me. That was the day I learned to care about the things I have and the stories of how they came to belong to me. 

I don't need a bunch of stuff. I don't want a bunch of stuff. But I want to be able to walk past everything in my house and know the story of its history in my life. 

I want to sit on this couch and look at our little electric fireplace heater and remember that it was the gift Ryan and I gave each other the Christmas after we built our sun porch. I want to remember that we sat out there on chilly days, huddled close to its heat. It makes me remember our sweet porch and the multiple memories we made there in a very short amount of time. It gives me hope that one day we might have another porch like that one, where we can put this little fireplace again and make more memories in its faux glow.

I want to look across the room and see our Surrender Cross hanging on the wall and remember the day I interviewed Jackie Drew on The Conversation Cafe. She was one of my first few guests, and after our interview, she gifted me the cross we have in our home. And when the next Valentine's Day rolled around, Ryan ordered a sign made of reclaimed wood with "Surrender" burned into it, which now hangs above the cross. I love thinking about the prayers we've surrendered on that cross in the time we've owned it.

I want to glance into the dining room and see the white pitcher holding fresh flowers. That pitcher was a gift waiting for me in my room one year when I spoke at a women's retreat at my beloved Webster Lake. Ryan makes sure it stays filled with fresh flowers, and right now it's stocked with red roses from our monthiversary last week. 

I want to walk past Brutus the metal rhino head that I gave to Ryan as an anniversary gift a few years ago. He saw it in TJ Maxx and loved it, so I bought it for him. When he worked at the rehab hospital, it was his coat hanger in his cloffice. Now it sits on our buffet as a very strange and out-of-place conversation piece in a mostly farmhouse-y apartment. 

I want to look up at the lantern that sits on top of our kitchen cabinets and remember my WBCL friend, Cindy, who gave me that for my birthday one year. It's still stuffed with hydrangea blooms that she put in it when she gave it to me. It's a sweet reminder of her, our friendship, and all the many conversations we had inside her office when I'd wander by...and then wander in.

On and on it goes throughout the apartment. The things themselves don't mean nearly as much as the memories of how they came to live here. The people who gifted them. The moments they were chosen. The life we've lived with them. 

And I learned how to appreciate it all from a little silver Cross pen. 

Let's Talk Laundry!

I was going to make the title of today's post, "Airing Dirty Laundry" but I figured that would bring in readers for all the wrong reasons, so I changed it up. Because today I want to talk about actual laundry. 

When I first left full time work at the radio, one of my goals was to experiment with a more frugal and non-toxic life. And one of my first projects was making my own laundry detergent. I grated the Fels Naptha bar, stirred in all the ingredients, added my newfound essential oils, and off I went to do the laundry. 

It worked for a while, but eventually we felt like our clothing was not getting clean enough, and the sweaty smell from our workout clothes just got worse and worse. I was still adamant about trying to be as non-toxic as possible, so while we did return to the land of purchased detergent, we tried to pick a better brand. No synthetic fragrances or all the other things I'd read about that make detergents bad for you.

But still...the workout clothes especially seemed tainted. And since we have both heavily pared down the size of our wardrobes, we wear the same items much more often, which makes it important that they are clean and smell like...anything other than sweat. 

I started researching and learned about stripping clothes. I think I've linked to it a time or two on the Saturday Six, but I'd never tried it. 

Have you heard of it before? Here is one of the articles I read that I found to be the most helpful, if you want to read up on it a bit more. But the bottom line is that our clothing can accumulate buildup. It can come from minerals in the water, dirt, oils, even laundry detergent! 

Laundry stripping is a process where you soak your laundry (which could be clothing, towels, sheets, you name it) in a tub full of hot water and a concoction of ingredients. You let it sit there for several hours, swishing it now and then, making sure everything stays fully submerged, and then you throw it in the washer for a rinse and spin cycle. 

I'd read the article, complete with its murky-water photos, and decided it was worth the investment of a few ingredients to give it a try. I picked some of the clothing items that offended me most in their aroma and threw them in the bathtub. I followed all the instructions, swishing everything around as I'd read I should do. 

It was disgustingly fascinating. Ryan and I peeked in on it all evening, seeing if the water was any nastier than it had been five minutes before. 

I did do mostly dark clothing, so some of the murkiness may have been a bit of the color from the clothing, but most of it was just straight up YUCK. 

When the soaking hours had passed, I sat there wringing water from the items, throwing them in the laundry basket and then hauling them to the washer to finish it up. I inhaled each piece thoroughly before throwing it in the dryer and everything smelled good to me. But I refused to believe it had actually worked until I took everything out of the dryer.

You guys.

I seriously couldn't believe it. Everything was softer. Nothing smelled bad at all. Even a couple of pieces that Ryan and I had actually considered throwing away, because they were so bad.

I folded up everything from that load and put it in its own location, so we know what's been done and what still needs done on the next round. But I'm definitely sold. It worked! I will be doing more loads with more of our laundry!

(Side note: the article I linked to above mostly blames homemade detergent for these messes. We haven't used ours in over five years now, and some of the things we had in that load we didn't even own back then. I'm not sure if the less-than-stellar town water has anything to do with it or if it's just all the sweat and grime buildup over the years. But what I do know is that regardless of the source, everything feels softer and smells better now.)

So how about you? Have any of you tried this? Did it work for you? 

Easter Sunday!

Last year was one of my favorite Easters. I loved being home the entire day (and am pretty sure I stand alone in that) and focusing on worship music, a handful of sermons watched online, and rest. 

But I also enjoyed this Easter! We had a great day. It was one of the warmest and sunniest Easters I can ever remember having. (How many years have Ryan and I run around in coats and hats during his family's egg hunt?)

We went to an early service at church, mostly because we needed to come home and start cooking the food, but I was also craving good, old-fashioned Easter hymns - the big anthems that I grew up on. I needed them. So we went to the traditional service and they sang all the ones I hoped for - even Because He Lives. (The original Gaither song. Not the new hybrid one.)

When we came back to WillowBridge, we found some shade and took our official Easter picture. It only took about four tries. 

Someone asked me about my Easter dress. If you've been reading here very long, you know that Easter dress shopping can be an annual headache for me. So here's the story on my dress. When Nita died two years ago - right before Easter - Ryan and I went shopping for new clothes for her viewing and funeral. I ended up buying three dresses that day. I wore one to her viewing and one to her funeral, and then a month later, when Easter rolled around, we were in the Caribbean on our cruise for Ryan's 40th. I wore my "He is Risen" t-shirt to the ship's service and didn't need a dress for Easter at all that year. Then there was last year, when I wore the "He is Risen" t-shirt again...to our couch. So this year, I pulled out that third dress to wear as my Easter dress. It may not be truly new, but it's new to Easter for me! 

Before we started cooking, we exchanged Easter baskets! 

CHECK OUT MY BASKET!!!!! 

It's a bike basket!! I'm so excited! :) He filled it with some of my favorite candy and a new shirt (that I adore) and a magazine. Perfection. 

And here is his:

Ryan has this giant old cooler/lunchbox that we use for our medicine bag. (We keep it packed and ready to grab when we go on trips.) It's seen so many better days, so I found a newer, smaller version of it for him. He was pretty excited about it. Gave him some candy and snacks and some sticky notes that are not heart shaped. He needed some for estate stuff the other day and all he could find were some of his mom's old sticky notes, so they were all bright pink and heart shaped. LOL!

He also got this to help him keep his estate paperwork organized. 

Then it was time to cook!

The ham turned out so amazing. The Dashing Dish glaze was perfect. We just kept basting it all morning! The green bean casserole was one of the best I've ever had, and I decided at the last minute to make some macaroni and cheese, too. The rolls browned up nicely, and we thought the strawberry shortcake was pretty tasty. 

We only had one tenant who was able to join us for lunch that day, but we had a great meal together, and then we had fun coloring Easter eggs. 

Ryan and I were on duty all day, but we did get a chance to go for a little walk that afternoon. It was actually HOT outside! YAY!!!!!

I was so grateful for a good day with Ryan and our tenant, a great church service, and everything the day represents!