Journal of Daily Life

I thought I might attempt a daily journal this week. It definitely takes a lot of dedication for me to write every day, but it’s also hard to sit down and put several weeks worth of events into one post. We will see how it goes.

Sunday, June 22- Today was Max’s birthday! It was such a good day. We listened to Tyler’s wedding at Brooksville as we ate breakfast and got ready for church..he was senior boy when we got here and is the only one of our guys to make it to the marriage alter so far. I’m glad we haven’t had to miss more of their weddings. I should insert that we had our last guy switch out on Saturday, now we are the next ones to go home. Ryan Goossen left us and headed back to his Canada land and Quin Unruh from Guntersville, Alabama took his place. Anyway Kent Friesen had invited us for lunch, so we went to church at Glenn and then spent an enjoyable day at Chester and Wanda’s. Everyone sang Max happy birthday at the dinner table and I wasn’t sure if he was going to laugh or cry. We all ended up coming back up to Paradise for the evening…I was glad it worked out that way so we could have a little birthday party. Max’s meal of choice was pizza, so we whipped up some bbq chicken pizza which is M’s fave, and Jake made a freezer full of homemade ice cream. Our neighbors, Ian and Sam, stopped by for a while and they have a little boy only a few months younger than Max so he even got to hang out with a friend on his birthday:) I thought maybe God was watching out for us and making it a special evening despite me having had very little time to get anything prepped or planned since we had been in Sacramento all day Saturday and in the valley all day on Sunday. We spent the evening out on the patio around the fire and it was a great time. The guys were so kind and had bought Max a big excavator shaped balloon, and also this cool remote control space rover thing that literally climbs walls and drives on the ceiling. It’s super loud and needless to say Max was completely delighted. It uses two high speed fans to push itself to the ceiling or wall, and when it drives above the light fixtures all my poor cleaning habits are on full display haha.

Monday, June 23- Breakfast burritos and fruit were on the menu this morning. I spent the day doing many loads of laundry, cleaning up the house from the weekend, placing a grocery order, and settling fights over the new birthday toys. The guys had a shorter day of work today and got home in plenty of time to go for a swim at neighbor Freda’s pool. Also the RC plane hobby has been revived. 2 new ones have showed up in the last week and Quin isn’t wasting any time, his arrives tomorrow. I enjoyed watching them swooping and diving through the bright blue sky after they got back from swimming. Supper was chipotle bowls with grilled chicken and the best watermelon I’ve tasted in a long time. The house is quiet because everyone has headed back out to resume flying.

Tuesday, June 24- Breakfast this morning was scones that were very dry and crumbly plus scrambled eggs. When Ian and Sam came by the other night, Sam and I made plans to make sushi together Wednesday evening. Ian is part Japanese so she has sushi making figured out and she is going to teach me!:) She and her little boy Colton stopped by this morning to plan what ingredients we needed and who was getting what etc. It turned into a long play date for the kids! Tonight our friends Aaron and Shannon Singer came for supper. Tuesday is the guys’ night to cook. I offered to switch them if they wanted since we were having company, but they were totally enthused to cook for Aarons. John was head cook and he made a recipe his mom had sent him. Pork tenderloin with an apple based glaze. Also garlic mashed potatoes and creamy peas. Truly gourmet! Had a good light dessert of fruit. I love our supper conversations here. It’s lots easier to avoid “talking about people” because of the simple fact that we just don’t know very many of the same people. Tonight’s conversation covered lots of topics such as the 1893 world fair, wooly mammoth tusks found in western Kansas, Aaron’s cat that knows how to fetch, and all of the guys talking about their pets that they left behind at home. Aaron’s had never seen the unit’s “boat on wheels” roar down the hill so the guys pulled that out to astound them after supper. It is somewhat horrifying the first time you observe it, before you realize that actually lots and lots of guys have gone down in years past and so far everyone has survived… One of our neighbors told Jake the other day, “You all have no idea how much entertainment you provide for us!” I always feel the neighbors must be so intrigued. A 30ish couple with 2 little boys and then 4 random youth aged guys living with them, walking, running, biking down the road at all hours. Sitting on random boulders beside the road talking on the phone, careening wheeled boats down hills, flying RC planes, hanging out on the roof, cracking bull whips that sound like gun shots, shooting bows in the vacant lot, sitting around campfires til all hours of the night..the list could go on and on.

Wednesday, June 25-The last couple days the guys have been hanging cabinets and doing siding at the Habitat house on Terry Lane. I stopped by the other day and it’s a cute little 3 bedroom cottage that is going to house a single mom with, I think, 4 children. The kitchen cupboards are painted black, the walls were a light neutral color. Habitat houses are quite small, but they are cleverly designed to put the space to good use. The guys come home for lunch on Wednesday…I made pan fried tilapia, it’s easy and one of their favorite lunches! Also had sweet potato fries (from Costco), grapes, and chocolate chip cookies. Sam and Colton came over at 4:30 to get started with sushi! It was so cool to learn! She knows all the things, like which particular brand of sushi rice works the best, and the special Japanese mayo to make the sriracha mayo taste just right plus lots of little tips and tricks to get it to turn out and she so patiently showed me how to do every step. She brought over sushi mats that you use to shape the rolls, and all kinds of random ingredients and she left all of it here for us so we can make it again sometime! Colton even brought a Melissa and Doug wooden sushi set for Max and George, so the little boys could “concoct” sushi as well! Truly Sam is the sweetest neighbor!! Jake and the guys wanted to learn too, so we spread everything out on the dining table and Sam tried to show them how…they did quite well actually, we joked that their rolls were more like seaweed wrapped burritos…I mean if you put salmon, shrimp, crab, avocado, cucumber, green onions, cream cheese etc..all in one roll its not going to turn out very dainty..Lol. The guys loved it tho and were huge fans of their homemade sushi. They’ve already been talking about how we have to make it again! Ian and Sam hung out for the evening. The kids played, the guys flew their planes, we made a fire and just relaxed…

Thursday, July 26- Jake was home today to do bookwork and catch up around the place. We met the guys for lunch, tried out a different taco truck than our usual. It was good, but I think Fiesta Taco is still going to hold first place in the unit’s heart. The guys were invited to go sing with Princeton youth at a nursing home in Chico tonight, but we skipped this time…had a bit of family time!

Friday, June 27- Guys worked with FRAP again today… They got home a little earlier than usual because we were invited to go on a river fishing trip with our neighbor/friend, Bobby, from Paradise here. He’s around 65 and he’s had quite a life, but is truly a changed man since he found Jesus, as he puts it. He told me Jesus didn’t find him because Jesus had been there all along, but it just took a while for him to find Jesus. We packed a really simple supper of sandwiches, fruit, chips, and peanut butter bars. I brought my current read, Pride and Prejudice, and just relaxed. I am not a fisher lady. Anyway, Bobby’s fishing spot is truly beautiful. A nice sandy knoll for the kids with a gradual bank perfect for wading and building sand castles and dams and moats and things. The males caught a few small striper between them, I don’t think the actual fishing was so successful, but we still enjoyed the peaceful sunny evening by the river. I had to think of the song, “Give me a place by the side of the river, I’ll sit and I’ll watch, as the day passes by.” The guys had thrown camping stuff in, so at 9:30 or 10 when we got done fishing, (sandy, warm, and a bit mosquito tortured) they headed up the river a ways and found a spot to spend night. Seemed a little bleak to me, but I guess things look different when you are 20, footloose and fancy free with no little cubs to drag along:)

Sunday, June 29- Fell off the band wagon a bit with writing over the weekend. We met the campers for breakfast Saturday morning at Deja Vu Breakfast Company. Love that place! Then home to do chores. Jake and the littles and the guys ended up at a climbing gym in the afternoon while I did a little shopping.

Today was our home Sunday. Clark and Nicole and Alex and Bethany (+ Ari, Harper, and August:) joined us for church and lunch. Loved having them here, was especially fun singing with a few extra voices! We did country style ribs for lunch. The girls helped me out with a yummy salad and a lovely apricot galette for dessert. In the evening the Princeton youth gave a 5th Sunday program (mostly singing), and the guys were invited to help. They found out on Saturday they were supposed to have a quartet which stressed them a bit. Singing isn’t really a current hobby around here and these 4 guys in particular had never actually sang together since Quin has only been here a week. But they gallantly got up and sang “The Giver” and I thought they did great considering:)

Monday, June 30- Sourdough pancakes + ham and eggs for breakfast. I really did very little today. The guys forgot to bring laundry out this morning and I breathed a sigh of relief, “I will do it tomorrow”. Everyone went swimming after work and for some reason today it struck me as hilarious observing the constant dog fights and splashing and wild jumping and cannonballs and racing and diving that happens when guys swim. I thought of my friends and I and our sedate floating and visiting when we swim compared to that. Truly a difference between males and females. Ha. Supper was enchiladas made with leftover roast…Enchiladas with roast was recommended to me once and is surprisingly good. and instead of making sides that went with enchiladas we had fresh corn on the cob and lettuce salad.

Tuesday, July 1- How is it July already?? Truly wild! Made bacon and egg sandwiches on english muffins for breakfast plus orange julius. Did the guys laundry. The kids and I met Jake and the guys for lunch at Fiesta Taco. What are we gonna do when we go back to Kansas and have no good taco trucks just down the street? Swimming after work again today..and it’s Tuesday so the guys made supper. Riley was in charge and he made upside down pizza + ceaser salad. It was a huge hit with everyone! Comfort food. After sup we went to the icecream shop that opened here in Paradise and from there the guys hit the gym.

Thursday, July 3- Didn’t write yesterday I guess.. but guys came home for lunch since it was Wednesday. I had sourdough bread going and it needed to be baked in the morning so we had that and leftover pork from Sunday. Also fresh fruit and pickles. Simple! In the evening we had a supper invitation to Daniel and Rachelle at Glenn. Their property borders the river, complete with a big sand bar perfect for picnics, so we had supper out on the beach! Chris and Amy, Cam and Shawna, and a couple youth guys were there also. Oh plus hundreds of mosquitos, but they didn’t ruin the evening, we rallied against them with much bug spray. The kids had the best time swimming and digging giant holes in the sand! Supper was yummy disco + fixings and watermelon. Good times! We got home and the guys roared around the house for quite some time yet by the sound of things. Our bedroom is right off the main part of the house so I could definitely hear them. Someone fell down the stairs and the gorilla suit was out + the nerf guns + more stuff happened that I’m forgetting right now, but we got a full report at breakfast this morning.

Time to get this sent off. Paradise in summer is truly a land of sunny days. Maybe a cloud here and there, but never actually a cloudy day. I love it, although we Kansans (us and John) will occasionally talk about how we just miss good old Kansas thunder storms…