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My Mom will soon arrive to view the sad state of my garden. The garden doesn’t have much to look at other than the weeds, and I really need to get out there to wrestle it back under control. Unfortunately, we had heavy rain last night and I have bathrooms to clean and floors to mop and a coffee pot to run vinegar through when Dale’s not home to object. Long ago, Abby’s cousin Jeremiah told her that you vacuum the floor when it is dirty.

“No,”  she said, “You vacuum the floor when someone’s coming over.” (She learned it from the best…or maybe the worst.)

I made myself a “Mom’s Coming: Get This Done” list. Hopefully, it will spur me on. In case it doesn’t, I’m posting some photos of pretty flowers found in my garden this month to tide Mom over, and praying Mom can once again look past the weeds.

The grounds of Belmont, a historic home in Fredericksburg, are lovely and I couldn’t resist taking pictures of the flowers.

Garden Mary took Genean and I on a lovely stroll through the woods of Belmont, a historic home in Fredericksburg. God blessed us with a break in the rain and we even had a hint of blue sky for a moment. It was a blessing to walk and share together both the goodness of God and Garden Mary’s delicious fruit pie.

We had lots of fun at Bridgewater family weekend with Abby. We had a picnic, played frisbee, went to a concert, had a picnic, played frisbee,  and went to a football game. I’m fairly certain that after we left, Abby had a picnic and played frisbee.

My proudest moment was when we spotted Abby’s name tag for classroom observation and reading buddy at the local elementary school. It said “Ms. Manry” on it. As a sophomore, she already goes a couple times a week into the elementary classroom. She loves it.

Prior to traveling to Bridgewater for family weekend, I checked the Bridgewater College website for a last minute update. I was surprised to see a video containing 2 seconds of Abby playing her flute for pep band. (Abby had not yet learned of her own fame.) Because the video does not load on phones or tablets, my mom could not see it. We attempted to send it to her in a variety of ways, but had little success.

The following week, many at school (the head of the music department, Abby’s advisor, people on the frisbee team, etc.) started remarking on her two seconds fame.

“It’s like I’m the poster child of Bridgewater,” she said.

“No. Poster child is too old school. You’re the mp4 child of Bridgewater,” I said.

“It’s too bad Grandma can’t see it,” she replied.

“If only you were an old school poster child, you could fold it up and send it to Grandma in the mail,” I said.

“And write on the side, ‘When I saw this, I thought of you,’ ” she replied.

-Word around the church was: “Abby brought her boyfriend Nolan to the campout, and Dale had to go on a 10 mile run.”

-Gabe declared the mornings of the campout “the worst!”

“It used to be me and Mr. Talley and Mr. McKinney and hot chocolate. Now it’s me and my mom and work!” He complained.

-Elijah had a blast playing the “throw the rocks in the trash can game,” and was very sulky when he was informed that it wasn’t allowed. He also took great joy in grabbing the cornhole bags off the board and sticking them in the hole during game play. When he was told he could not do that either and needed to play with the truck, he performed a perfect slo mo fit reenactment. He stomped over to the truck, grabbed the truck, threw the truck, grabbed some rocks, threw the rocks, yelled, and threw himself down. Then, on the final morning, while we were packing the van, Elijah snuck in the open side door, climbed into the driver’s seat, and laid on the horn to get us to hurry up.

Susie was mortified by all these actions. I wouldn’t stop laughing. (I find great joy in no longer being a mother of a two year old.) On a positive note, for the first time in a while, Elijah didn’t do anything that required a trip to the emergency room.

-Abby, Lauren, and Linzi decided to camouflage themselves by color coordinating their wardrobe in hopes of fooling the black snake lounging near the women’s restroom. I, however, took the “carry a large shovel” approach.

-Dale got Sophie Grace and Elijah so hyper before bedtime that I recommended Susie use my Aunt Kim’s tactic of giving up on trying to calm her kids down, and yelling “Dale! Knock it off!” instead.

-Amanda, Mac, Maria, and Zack were good sports in their willingness to read Numbers chapter 33 for Dale’s sermon.

-Shelby’s phone kept going off causing Bob to try to silence it and forcing him occasionally to lock it up in the trailer.

-Zeke was tired and confused with all the late nights, early mornings, grey-green clothing colors and accidentally called Blue “Daddy.” Blue then climbed to the top of an old pine tree to escape early fatherhood.