Backpack

 We picked this backpack up for a couple bucks at Salvation Army. It even holds Evangeline, though she prefers to practice for toting around a baby sister.

keep on rocking in the toddler world

Evangeline and I went to Natty Greene's (our local brewpub) seventh birthday celebration tonight. It was free and Cracker was headlining the show, so you really couldn't lose. Evangeline plopped down in the grass and sat watching Dead Confederate play, politely clapping when each song was done. I was probably more surprised than anyone else there that my daughter was actually into the band. After 30 minutes, she did decide it was time to stand up and dance a bit. Good job kid!

Hint

Evangeline hopes her dad gets the hint that it's
time for her bath.

A Family Portrait

Workin' On Her Car

Dad Time

Ordination Anniversary/Housewarming

Here are some pictures from our little party yesterday. Thanks to Becky for taking the pictures while I was busy eating meatballs.

It's so nice to see so many people in our house. You might
notice that there's a project in progress with the french door.
The other half of the door is in a similar state in the back room.

Busy dining room.

Mrs. Gail has a Ph.D and spent many years as a counselor.
Her husband was one of the Tuskegee Airmen, and taught at the college level.
No matter how much you do in life, you still may end up using a little girl's box fort as a table.

Me welcoming our Parish Nurse Marietta.

Ladies in the living room. Me looking huge. Some of the ladies
are worried they're not going to let me on the airplane.

Evangeline really got into Party Mode. She took a long nap
with her punch moustache when everyone left.

Mrs. Hill and Charletta

Mrs. Byrd and Iago.  He doesn't really get the joke.

Jayla might be getting in a bit of trouble with her
Aunt Margaret. Margaret lives two houses down
from us.

It was such a lovely sight to see everyone sitting and visiting
and enjoying in our house.

Men in the kitchen. Mr. Williamson and Mr. Johnson.

Jayla and Kaylie and Evangeline

One Year

Today was Kyle's One Year Ordination Anniversary (observed). We also had a little reception/housewarming here at the house after church. We had a nice crowd, about 30 people or so. Maybe more. I told some people what last year at this time I never thought I'd tell anyone: I cried the first night we were in Greensboro. It was extremely hot, we had only one small a/c unit, and all of our things were going to be delivered 3 days late. Luckily we had our air mattress. But most of all it was hot. Here we sit tonight, in our beautiful new house complete with a great a/c system (and record heat outside), a generous and kind new church family, a cute girl, a little sister on the way and even vegetables in the garden. Really just everything we need*.

The First Article.

Of Creation.

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

What does this mean?--Answer.

I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my limbs, my reason, and all my senses, and still preserves them; in addition thereto, clothing and shoes, meat and drink, house and homestead, wife and children, fields, cattle, and all my goods; that He provides me richly and daily with all that I need to support this body and life, protects me from all danger, and guards me and preserves me from all evil; and all this out of pure, fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me; for all which I owe it to Him to thank, praise, serve, and obey Him. This is most certainly true.

*I realize that we did also have everything we needed last year on that weepy first night. But it was just so hot...

Uh, Hi!

Hey! We're back from our trip. We got back last night and it is nice to be home though our trip was great. Here are a few photos of The Girl at the Creative Discovery  Museum in in Chattanooga. I'll post more from the reunion and rest of trip later. When I'm not so tired.

Puppet show, anyone?

Dance solo

You can have fun in Bob the Builder Land even if you don't know
who Bob the Builder is.

Practice for helping dad.

Kitty!

Taking a break.

Hula Hoop

Grandma showing the finer points of boat floating.

Catching Up

Evangeline and I are in Chattanooga having a great time hanging out at the Tenn Grands house. There's lots of visiting with Miss Kitty, toting around grandma's purse, and general grandma-granddaughter happiness (grandpa is in Houston for work, but will be back Wednesday).
In case you were wondering, Evangeline slept every minute of the 12 hours to Effingham, then was great the whole way back to Chattanooga (she did have the advantage of her Grandma and an ipad to help her out), with a combined total of fussing at about one minute for the whole trip. That is very good. I'll post pictures from the reunion when we get back to Greensboro this weekend. For now, here's what The Girl is up to:

Housework in Auntie Jessie's childhood apron.

Adios!

Hi all. We're off to Effingham, Illinois for the weekend. We shall leave tonight and get there in the morning. A twelve hour drive. Yep. Why the long drive? Well, lets just say it wasn't our first choice. But the yearly Mietzner family reunion is just that important. Maybe we'll try and make it fun. Like eat lots of junk food and tell jokes. And hope that Evangeline sleeps. And when she wakes up, she'll have grandparents and lots of aunts and uncles and cousins to dazzle.

Happy Birthday Da-doo!

Happy Birthday, Kyle! We had a nice evening, which included Kyle grilling some nice steaks and a "birthday cake" of rice krispies treats and cookie dough ice cream. And Evangeline not getting to eat steak but getting to eat rice krispies treats and cookie dough ice cream.

Then she said "please" really sweetly several times in hopes of getting more ice cream. Then she wouldn't say it for the camera.

Summer Day

Today was hot. But the mosquitoes died down enough for us to spend some time in our back yard, dancing in the sprinkler. While going out to the parks is fun, playing in our own yard on a lovely summer day is just perfect.

She licked the sprinkler a lot. Also, you can see the tree that
Kyle chopped down in the background.

Helping Dad with the garden.

Tomato break

Scuppernongs!

Scuppernong break

Now we're talkin. Watch out mud.

Watch out mud pt. 2.

Banana peppers

Beautiful Bushy Basil. Evangeline likes to eat this, too.

Birthday Party

We went to a birthday party for one of my parishioner's grandkids today. They really know how to put on a good cookout birthday party. There really is only one thing wrong with this scenario. Today is July 10th. It is hot. It is really hot. I can't really begin to describe the hotness. And apparently, the people here in Greensboro think it is okay to sit outside. We did this twice this week! I'm not even pregnant and I think it is way too hot to be outside. These people are crazy.

As we were leaving the park, we noticed that pretty much every shelter had a different colored group of people. Does it count as diversity if the Hispanics, Asians, blacks and whites are all at different structures within the same park? I feel like this isn't what I learned about in my college "values and virtues" class. Evangeline doesn't care.

She got these glasses at the last party, and does like to wear them. Unfortunately, they slip down her nose and she instantly becomes a librarian shushing the popular kids who have better things to do than read books.

I Don't Usually Wear Hats

Or shoes really. But today I went on a trip to Virgina for a fly fishin' lesson. So, I wore both hat and shoes. When I came home, Evangeline looked really surprised that I was wearing a hat, and she promptly removed it and placed it upon her own head, since she is normally the hat wearing one around these parts. She had to check out my suspicious shoes too.

We Were Wrong

We said at one point that Evangeline's hair might look like Joe Biden's. It's actually Frasier Crane.

A Video of the Artist As a Toddler Girl

Fun Fourth

We dutifully went down to the "Fun Fourth" doings in downtown Greensboro today. It was extremely hot. We saw some of our neighbors there, ate a snowball, and listened to some music. We didn't really stay that long because it was so hot, but now we know what Greensboro gets up to on the Fourth. We'll probably go and eat a snowball next year.

Downtown. (And there is a smudge on the camera lens
I keep meaning to clean off.)

Going through the sprayer.

Much better.

Deciding whether to dance.

Um...

Found some kids to play with

Wondering if his dad is seriously going to let
this girl hassle him.

Yep.