Winterim Week

Tuesday found us at the start of Winterim, our schools' fall break. I headed to Sharp Top Cove, a stunningly beautiful Young Life Camp, for 48 hours with 14 eighth graders and four other chaperones and their families. The experience revealed a few things to me:
1.) I never want to go back to 8th grade. NEVER.
2.) You CAN eat too many graham crackers (my attempt to be healthy on this trip full of raw cookie dough, coffee cakes, and chocolate chip pancakes).
3.) I am glad I was a dorm parent to eighth grade girls at Saint James when I was young and single...because I don't know if I could do it now. God bless dorm parents.
4.) 2 days without exercise drives me crazy.
5.) People have incredible stories. I loved listening to the other chaperones tell their life "stories" about growing up in Venezuela or learning how to "weather a storm"...I talked about the dynamic and crucial role that people have played in my life, specifically in terms of my faith journey, and how I see God in other people. I definitely saw God in these girls during these couple of days, and thus I am glad I went, but I also came home exhausted.

Poor Clay has been pretty sick this week, so he has taken advantage of the days off to try to get well. Friday and Saturday were glorious days of relaxation, good workouts, and long walks with Camden. I woke Clay up on Saturday with heart-shaped pancakes--and he surprised me with two pairs of shoes that he picked out himself! He noticed that my shoe collection has been dwindling thanks to the fact that they are Camden's favorite chew toys, so now I have a hot pair of black heels and a fun pair of white sandals for summer. Awesome. He is the best. I gave Clay a new leather cover for his car's gear shift (it fell off a couple of years ago and we never replaced it). Really romantic, huh? But it was something practical that he wouldn't buy for himself, which was the rule we followed this gift-giving time around.

We met our dear friends Kat and Nate for dinner on Valentine's at Canyon Grill on Lookout Mountain. YUM! We had so much fun celebrating with them. Check out Clay's dinner: the famous catfish!

Sunday School went well again this morning (today's topic was on conflict and war; last week was love) and then we geared up for our third dinner party in just about as many weeks. This one, thankfully, was the smoothest one of all in terms of preparation and execution. I just hate being in the kitchen the whole time we have guests over, so Clay and I chopped and prepped as much as we could ahead of time so that I wouldn't be quite as flustered when it came time to making the dinner. Tonight we started with baguette and brie, mixed nuts, and homemade hummus and pita chips; lime and honey marinated salmon over a bed of corn, black bean, red pepper, spinach, and mango salsa with roasted new potatoes on the side; and then our favorite plum, pear, and blueberry crisp (thanks, Ina Garten!) for dessert. We had a great time with John, Susan, Tim, and Melanie--we love having people over!

I have to go back to work tomorrow for an in-service tech day, but Clay gets one more day off before the boys come back, so here's hoping that he continues to feel better.

We love you all!