I have a new skill!

This past Friday my girls and I went to Red Robin to have dinner with my Mom, Step-Mom, brother and his wife. It was so much fun! My Mom and I shared a burger. And we asked the waiter if they would sing happy birthday to Anoe. I know her birthday was last week but we were kind of celebrating her birthday Friday with my parents. So anyways, Anoe loved it! She got a ice cream sundae with chocolate and had the biggest smile ever. At the table right behind us were some people from Clyde that Alexis knew. Well the boy she knew was Trenton Cauthen. I kind of sort of recognized his parents from church but not really. When school first started Alexis and Trenton became friends. She said they were boyfriend and girlfriend, but I quickly informed her she had no business having a boyfriend at her age. She could be friends with him but none of this boyfriend nonsense! Well a couple of weeks later he decided he didn't want to be "friends" with Alexis anymore because he liked some other girl. Well of course Alexis went into total 10 year old melt down and cried because she had a broken heart. I'm so not a nice sympathetic Mom when it comes to this kind of stuff. I wanted to tell her that's why she's not supposed to be worried about boys right now. But I tried really hard and told her what I thought Jennifer would say to her. It was really hard for me. I can't even remember what I said exactly. Of course with her only being 10 and having no idea what-so-ever about such things like boys and all she moved on quickly. I asked her if she still talked to Trenton awhile back when they were both on the same duty for Children's Church one day and she no. In fact her exact words were (and imagine them with a 10 year old attitude) "Ugh Mom! No!!! Gosh, don't you ever listen to me!?!?!" So I was like oh yeah I remember now. OK, so all of this to tell you the next part. We saw Trenton at the restaurant, but my back was to him and Alexis was facing him and my sister-in-law was sitting right next to Alexis so she was able to see the whole thing, and Trenton and two other little boys that were with him kept calling out Alexis' name to get her attention. Of course Alexis was putting on her perfect little smile and messing with her hair which I'm sure she thought was cute. I was like, seriously? I mean come on ya'll are in 4th freaking grade! So after that Alexis started acting right. Well when they got up to leave, Trenton made a little phone symbol with with his hand and said "Call me" to Alexis. I just looked at her and she said "No Mom I'm not going to call him, I don't have time for boys." I was glad she said that but, why in the world would she act so weird? I mean I'm trying super hard to raise her to be a good Christian little girl. Sometimes I wonder what I need to do so she'll understand that she is just way to young for all this stuff. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

But now on to my new skill! After dinner the girls and I went to Sweetwater to stay the night at my Mom's house so we could help them with the miniature golf course they're building. I made breakfast for us Saturday morning, and we were out at the lot by 9:00. I learned how to set bricks! Now of course I can't build a house or anything, but I can lay bricks around the edge of the putting green. It was such hard work! Moving all the bricks were we needed them, pulling out the weeds so the ground would be smooth so we could lay the runs down, making the mortar so the bricks would stick and not move, kneeling for hours on end on asphalt and of course there were still some pebbles. I have helped design a total of three runs, and designed design two all by myself. Like I said before it was super hard work, but it was so much fun! Sunday morning was no so fun though. I was hurting so bad! My hands are really weak and they hurt if I use them a lot. So of course they were hurting me pretty bad. I even have bruises on my knees from all the kneeling I did. I think we were all (except my freak of a brother who does manual labor all the time so it's no big deal to him) sore Sunday morning. My brother even said he was disappointed in the moral of everyone. After taking some ibuprofen we started feeling a little better but not much.We started the day by pouring concrete into two big holes that had big poles in them. It was kind of cool, I got to help use the level. And then the brick work started up again. At first I just couldn't do it. I wanted to cry I was so upset. My hand and wrist were hurting and me knees were hurting. I just went off by myself and sat down and Alexis came over to sit with me. She said she would pray for me if I wanted her to. Of course I wanted her to pray for me. She did and a little bit later I started feeling better. I was only able to brick 3 runs before I left to come home because of the slow start I had in the morning, but I'm really proud of myself for the work I did.

I almost forgot! My brother taught me how to use a skill saw too. He even let/made me cut a board for one of the runs he was making. And I did a good job. Or at least he said I did, and he didn't fix it after I was busy doing something else. On my way home I got to talk to my sister-in-law for almost 30 minutes which was really nice. She's eight months pregnant and having some problems so she could really use some prayers.