We’ve had another ridiculously busy week here in Omaha — a week where I actually took two days off work just to fit in everything that I wanted to get done. Those two days had some lovely, cool weather for working on the house, and Vivian and I had loads of fun with the kids on all the other days as well.

First off was a full five days of an Australian-themed VBS at Wildewood, most of which revolved around being “fearfully and wonderfully made,” a la Psalm 139:14. For five days straight, the kids got to do crafts like make boomerangs, dot paintings, sun pillows, fossils, blood bags, and fingerprints. They also got to do quite a bit of running around with 139 other kids, playing freeze tag with pool noodles and relay races with hula hoops.

Of course, they also had scripture time with a few “Aussie cos-players” in our congregation, doing a bible “game show,” and memorizing scripture in exchange for tiny koala bears as a reward. Hannah even got to be a part of an impromptu presentation of the Nativity Story (as a sheep). They also raised over $700 for the Children’s Hunger Fund, a charity that seemed to be tied in with the VBS program. Around 60–70 volunteers helped out (including Vivian and me, who took pictures) with just a few cute snacks to keep us going through the week.

It was exhausting, but quite a rewarding experience, particularly all the quality time we got with the kids being a part of the whole program.

I had a relatively quiet week at work otherwise. On Tuesday, Vivian brought the kids by for a picnic lunch down at Memorial Park. We ate underneath a shady tree and then gave Hannah and Aaron a while to roam the park, playing in the sandy playground area of “fighting bosses” elsewhere before it was time to return to the car.

Then on Friday, we took the kids down to BCC for a special movie night. They got to spend some time on the playground beforehand (putting on a show for us), with Hannah discovering some of the playground equipment had mysteriously shrunk since they’d been there last. Hannah and Vivian got some popcorn and ran around a bit before the movie started. Then we all sat down to watch The Little Rascals, a movie I hadn’t seen since high school. Among the films many cameos was a certain President of the United States, who Hannah commented later “looked a lot like Donald Trump.”

In the midst of all this, I had a bunch of actual work going on. On Wednesday night, we discovered leaving VBS that we had a flat tire, and the jack in my car somehow wouldn’t get loose. We also discovered the jack our friends had on hand, and the one I down to Walmart to buy just for the occasion, weren’t high enough to lift our CR-V off the ground. We had about three or four men from Wildewood helping us with this predicament, one of whom eventually decided to lift the CR-V by putting the jack under the control arm rather than the frame, which seemed to do the trick. Even after changing the tire, however, we weren’t out of the woods, as the air pump we used to fill the spare wound up draining the battery, and I eventually had to change it a few days later once we discovered it could no longer hold a charge. We’ll also have to replace all four tires, since there’s not enough tread to repair the one that went flat (but least we still got home)!

I spent the rest of my free time busy with home projects, such as power-washing the siding and the deck and then doing some painting and waterproofing on them, respectively. I rented a pressure-washer for this and enjoyed getting a couple years’ worth of dirt and grime blasted off our deck once again (especially comparing before and after). The weather was also quiet accommodating, with highs in the 70s and 80s no rain to keep me from finishing up before the end of the weekend.

All in a week’s work!