It has been a fairly social week at the Chartier's. Monday Jamie and I went out with some friends and partied like it was 1984... I really don't know what about 1984, but we had a great time, stayed out a little late, and paid for it like old people. Nevertheless, it was really nice to see some friends that we haven't seen in a while, and connect socially with the rest of the world. Tuesday was spent working and trying to cement it into our minds why we don't usually go out late, also on Tuesday Jamie joined the gym!!!! Collective applause from accross cyberspace please!! I was sooo impressed, I worry about that guys heart and really want him to be healthy, plus it is fun time we can have together when our schedules permit. Tuesday night Brenda and I went to Bible Study sans Jamie (he was studying). We are still discussing Nehemiah, and the topic this week was discouragment.. hmmm... what are the causes... stress, sleeplessness etc. Funny, Tim our "leader" told me that he thought of me as an Otter, fun, fun, fun, and never discouraged.... baha!!! I still havent stopped laughing. Aside from that the entire night was quite enjoyable, I feel like I got to know the people in our group just a little better. Any input you have into dealing with discouragement, or causes of would be greatly appreciated, we're continuing our discussion next week.. I love our group! Wednesday Brenda and I spent most of the day pre-planning and shopping for Friday, we had two major catering events totalling about 450 people, so we made meatballs and Lasagna for 2 different events for about 200-250 people each, It was a long but reallllly productive day. At the end of the day, Brenda and I were scanning the internet researching her plans for a trip to Cuba when suddenly a bird was chirping in our midst. You have NEVER seen two more afraid people, we jumped so high we nearly hit the roof, What the.... heck!!!???? We looked around and suddenly felt incredibly foolish to realize that the sound was actually coming from the hidden computer speaker. It was a sound effect from the website... hmmm.. I'd say we blushed (and giggled) a little! Thursday was my day off and was spent cursing the gymnastics club and T4 slips, I am NOT, I repeat ... NOT meant to be an accountant. We are talking about the girl who couldn't organize herself out of a paper bag, nor add a column of numbers twice and end up with the same answer, but the long and the short of it was it is done (mostly :-) In the evening we had friends over for a BarBQ, it was a fun, but NOISY evening, our kids were REALLY rambunctious (if that is even how you spell that word). We watched our new favorite show, "Big Love", it is really quite an interesting show about a group of polygamist mormons. It's not anti-mormon, it is obvious that these people are a unique sect, but the whole concept is kind of intreiging (?) in a creepy and crazy sort of way. Friday we catered, catered, catered and still found time in the middle of the day to stop for a cheeseburger at "Good ol' boys" (tee hee) what a trashy week! It was really fun, and thanks to mucho prayers all the catering turned out well. For the evening catering we made lasagna for 250 people. When we took it out of the oven, finally.. we were worried it wouldn't be hot enough.. at the last minute it was, but... it was runny like soup. We were thinking Oh no! Do we need to bring bowls, spoons and crackers... ARGH, we were 1/2 an hour until show time, and there were no adjustments that could be made... so we got in the van and prayed. Our destination was about 20 minutes away, and when we arrived I sneakily peeked under the foil of a pan and... VOILA!!! Perfectly set.. Thank you Lord! I don't know how it happened, I knew it would "set" a bit, but really, it was way more than I could have hoped for! Everything was set and it was home to bed! Saturday Tannis and I went on a shopping spree! Probably we should not shop together, as for the one child that recieved almost 100% of my DNA, it was crazy! You have never seen two more distracted people. We needed Jeans for Tannis and Runners for me, we got both... and a bit more.. and ALOT of "oooh look at this" and "check this out.. I really should...." and "Hey one time we could get something like this for..." Wow, it's a wonder that we made it home by our deadline, we had a blast! We got 2 pair of Jeans for Tannis... success since she's so skinny and long, and I got a pair of CRAZY FANTASTIC runners that I've been begging for. To punish myself for spending a ridiculous amount on runners (even though my old ones had holes right through each of the soles) I went for a SUPER long run when I got home, I beat my personal best, I ran 7.5 miles in 65 min. It was SOOOOO fun! Anyhow, after that we have mostly just watched Connor and Ben playing their new Monopoly game that Tannis and I picked up at Value Village, and waiting to make the fridge magnets from scrabble pieces from the game we also picked up... fun eh??? I can't wait, maybe we'll post a picture once we're done and writing words on our fridge with magnetic scrabble peices. Anyhow, that was our action packed week.. Also, another Praise item :-) Jamie got %84 on his most recent EMT test, and is carrying an average well into the 80's. His next section is about learning how to read EKGs, and he's a bit worried, so keep praying. Any test scores under 80 are a fail and if your average at the end of the course is below 80 it is an automatic FLUNK... so far, so good, my man is brilliant, but he's still got to work at it and prayer never hurt! So, that is life within the walls of this house, full of fun, busy, crazy, little bit of everything but all in all... I am the luckiest gal alive! Mmmm.. me and my coffee are going to trip over a "middle of the floor game of Monopoly" and stumble bleary eyed but cheerfull to a really warm shower. Hopefully today will be somewhat productive! Cheers!