Summer Nights and Fireworks

Last night I had a Summer Nights for the kids at church. The youth group did a sort of field day with them. We had all kinds of fun games. This one that Nathan is doing is a strength challenge. The kids had to stand and hold the hymnal for as long as they could without bending their elbows. It seemed to be much harder than I thought it would be. Nathan won this challenge.


Outside they had all kinds of skill games, catching water balloons, throwing footballs through hoola hoops and carrying eggs on spoons. If you look really close you can see the water balloon that Turner is about to miss. It is camo and just above his left foot. That is little Holly L just to right of Turner.



Parker should have played T ball. He hit this ball so hard (tennis) that it hit a pick up truck at the other end of the parking lot. Way to go, Parker.


I carried dinner out to the kids tonight. This is a shot from the 4th fireworks stand. Don't the signs look good? Makes the stands look very professional, don't you think?



Only 15 year old boys could get into trouble like this. Reminds me of Andy when we first started selling fireworks. Ralph and I would be busy selling and Andy would be in the back watching everyone else do their fireworks. While Ralph, Amanda and Allen were selling, well, Parker and Turner were slipping roman candles out the back to Dylan and Russell. Dylan got his off before Russell ever got his lighted. As you can see, Russell was fortunate that the ball didn't hit a little higher. Ralph and I were livid. And they ALL heard about it- Ralph on Saturday night and from me on Sunday as the waitress was taking drink orders for lunch. (I just couldn't keep quiet another second) poor waitress didn't have a clue what was going on. I didn't even know about it until the middle of church when Russell turned a bit and I caught sight of the black eye.


And here is our almost grown up soon to be 7 year old Parker. Dylan pulled one tooth on Wednesday night and the second came out Thursday morning. The tooth fairy got scared off on Thursday night at the camper because Daisy started barking and scared the poor thing right out of Jackson county. She did come back on Friday night while Daisy was at home.


And the famous trailer. blown over in the storm, damaged on the front and a bit underneath but still good for air conditioner and a table for dinner. The fridge is good too for ice and drinks. Oh we have moved up in the world! The camper is parked between the last storage unit and the fourth stand.

The inside is small, however there were 9 of us in there for dinner tonight. The door at the back is the bathroom, right behind the fridge are two bunk beds and I am squished up against a door that has a queen bed behind it. The outside door is just in front of the chair back that Turner is sitting on. The table turns into a bed and there is a small couch to my right that makes a bed just to the end of the sink on the right.

So here it is, June 30 and we are counting down the days. It wont' be 100 until Wednesday and on Saturday it is suppose to be in the 80's. It is a good year! Amanda says I can stay in the camper on the 4th and do computer work. I like the sound of that alot.

OSU Caravan June 23 08

Thanks for the picture Betty. My husband, Ralph was so sweet. He asked me if I wanted a steak dinner for our 42 anniversary, and I was so excited. He said, “and I have a surprise for you! We will be eating with a bunch of our friends who are going to celebrate with us!” Wow, I said, you are so thoughtful.

He said, “you might want to wear orange” I said, don’t have anything but T shirts, he said Never mind, let’s don’t be late!.... The program starts soon. How thoughtful I said, to have entertainment for our anniversary. But, I just didn’t get it, what is a full back and a line backer?

Jim, Nancy and Betty, Thanks for coming to our party.

In the Summertime at the VanO's

Hi everyone. It was a busy June this year. I got home from Annual Conference in Tulsa to this sight in my front yard. It was the second annual garage sale. Annual because Ralph has decided that a sale at the house is the best place to have the "what's left in the storage units" sale. It was three days of work (really four or five because it all had to be lugged to the house.
Ralph is more than fair about giving everyone the opportunity to pay up with phone calls, letters, etc and more than the required amount of months before foreclosure.
You can imagine our horror, when one of the "shoppers" recognized her things. Ralph said, pay for it and you can have it back. She didn't. Amanda was beside herself embarrassed but the woman should have been the one embarrassed. The woman borrowed money from her friend to buy back one or two things.





Surprisingly, when the sale was over, we only had two small pickup loads to take to the Goodwill donation place.



The dark picture is the night the kids did a fireworks preview for our vendors. We also put an article in the local paper and advertised it. We had rain just before but ended up having a good turn out.
We have also had some storms. Been to the cellar twice (came right back out again, because of a poor little rabbit that fell in and couldn't get out. It was a little smelly, so we went to the Pope's house.) So there has been some clean up to do as well. Thankfully we only lost one stand completely. It was already damaged from an earlier storm, but the 90 mile an hour wind put most of the stand in the Jr. High School parking lot and front yard. There was lots of damage on Broadway and in the Presidents addition. Amanda says she saw a tornado come out of the sky.

Then there was Vacation Bible School at church. On the last day, we had a county fair. The children brought money for our mission project which is to support the start of a new ministry of feeding the general public once a month. Salvation army has lost their kitchen, so there is no where for those without to go to eat. Anyway, there was a pie in the eye contest between Pastor Dave and Pastor Margie. The results are evident, as I wait with two of my friends to receive the pie in the eye.

Each child that learned their Bible verses got to put their name in a drawing to get to throw the pie. Here I am "getting" it. The kids loved it!

We also had a pie eating contest and gave blue ribbons. They were drawn from the same group of names for learning their verses.

I got some farm animals for the children to see- three baby goats, two baby pigs and a lamb who looks full grown. Amy brought JT down to see the animals. He loved the animals but he would not let me hold him with the painted target on my face.




We are in the full swing of fireworks now.

I should tell you that this year for the first time in 19 years we have an air conditioned trailer at the stand. Ralph bought a travel trailer from a renter at the storage unit. It blew over in the "storm" and the guy couldn't even afford to have it turned back upright. So we think we are living in "hog" heaven. It has been nice for eating, because it has a table and a refrigerator. We can keep the flys and other critters away from our food. The temperature has been moderately hot (only in the 90's so far), for that we are so thankful.