What a weekend!

We had a wonderful and busy weekend! As James mentioned in this post we had a rare opportunity to travel down to LA without children for a 3 day date! The purpose of the trip was to go to The Getty Museum to see the exhibit of the St. Katherine Monastery Icons. I felt so blessed to be able to do this. It is still vivid in my mind. The beauty and the holiness! I do have to say it was astonishing how crowded it was. And knowing that the vast majority of those looking at the Holy Icons really had no idea of the awesomeness and holiness of the "art" they were viewing really did interfere with my ability to experience it fully. It was so crowded and so distracting. I even overheard someone joking, yes joking, by saying...."Hey, (someones name) you're suppose to touch them for luck." They both laughed! It was sad and offensive as many of us orthodox lovingly venerated these holy icons. But overall I am really glad that we took this opportunity and I know we were blessed being in their presence as God was there!
While down in LA were were truly blessed to be able to visit some wonderful friends. Friends we do not get to see nearly enough! Chance and Cybil were wonderful hosts. They opened their home to us and then promptly left for their own weekend trip to a wedding. So that visit was way too short (just a few hours) but it was so nice to see them and we are very grateful they offered their home to us the entire time. Thank you! Their little girl Salome is growing up so fast.


We visited often with the Aaron and Sara and their two little ones were very entertaining.

This is Basil, Juliana and me!

On Sunday we visited St. Barnabas Orthodox Church and then had lunch with the Plews and the Ma'ae family. Thank you all for such a wonderful time.

Above from left to right starting in back...Aaron, Sara, Juliana, Toy, John, Cassian and below Bella, Basil and Nava. We had such a great time!

And now the news that James speaks of...
Later that day I was in the house and all of a sudden I hear Charissa outside screaming as if for life. I think the worst and go running. She's standing in the chicken run screaming, as I get closer I hear that she is screaming "EGG, EGG, EGG" (You would have thought the child was being carried off by a hungry bear.) I ran back in to yell into the house, "She found an egg!". I run to the chicken yard and meet her as she is CRYING and holding this tiny egg, saying "I found an egg, I found and egg! Isn't it beautiful?" She is crying!!!! I said, "Why are you crying?" "I'm so excited!!" was her reply! Wow. After that we put it in the fridge and got to work getting the nests in. For an hour Charissa whistled and sang as she did farm chores for the chickens. She spread straw over mud and helped me with the nest. It was such a fun afternoon! (Despite my 3 hours of sleep the night before.)