Acts of Service

In addition to doing fun things this summer, it was really important to me that my kids be involved in Acts of Service to others.  Earlier in the summer, we started off by participating in "Live the Mission" weekend with our church where we did a day of yard work at 2 different homes of single moms, then we went shopping for toys for fire victims, we helped some friends move, we have helped out some neighbors with various projects, collected food for fire victims, made breakfast for one of Rick's staff meetings, and we are always collecting items and money for Swaziland.  Next weekend, we are participating in a Feed My Starving Children Event where we will help package meals for children around the world. 

On Monday, we had the opportunity to help Abby's piano teacher with some work in her amazing yard full of flowers, gardens, and greenery.  I just love this woman.  She inspires me and challenges me to become better as I am older, not bitter.  She truly is an example of a woman of God through good and bad times. She could have a list of reasons to live as a victim over the circumstances of her life, but she CHOOSES not to.  She has changed my view of my own life and given me an example to aspire towards.  It was a privilege for us to be able to do this small act that would ease some of the work she has to do.  

The crew, ready to work(Cody was already working on a project in the  yard) 

 Our job was to dig up and remove all the random Aspen trees that are growing throughout the yard.  We had a competition to see who could get the biggest root.

Laila with one of her roots.

 Do you see the bounce sheets pinned to our shirts?  

Those keep the bees away!  Who knew?

I am learning all kinds of gardening tips from Mrs. Hall!

 It is a amazing to me how a tiny little tree can have such deep and strong roots.  It gave me an opportunity to talk to the kids about the roots they are creating in their lives and how if they are not "rooted"to the right things, they are going to have a mess later on.  Rooted properly, those little tiny trees were not going anywhere!  It was a lot of work to get them completely out.

 Cody worked on the biggest ones for us

 Sam found a really long root

 Abby was so sweet to work with Laila the whole time

 Sam's root collection

Somehow I didn't get an individual picture of Isaiah.  Maybe it was because he was talking non stop and I was trying to keep him from pulling out the good flowers.  That boy keeps me on my toes.  I told Mrs. Hall, she might the whole afternoon to recover from his shenanigans!

Afterwards, we sat on the porch cooling off with some ice cold lemonade and popsicles.  Mrs. Hall even handed out quarters to the kids for their hard work and Cody won the root contest. You would have thought that Isaiah had won the lottery with his response to the 5 quarters he got!!  He was thrilled!

We are going back once the leaves fall for a boys against girls competition in raking them up!

On the way home, I thanked the kids for their hard work.  They all agreed that it was more fun than they thought it would be and they actually enjoyed themselves.  I look forward to more projects like these in the future.