Yesterday evening we went to the park to enjoy some time with our neighbors for National Night Out.

Fuller had a ton of fun playing on the playground and racing around with a balloon. I was excited that there would be a firetruck for the kids to explore, because Fuller’s fire truck has been a constant companion to him lately. He liked it a lot.

We took watermelon and brownies to share with the neighbors, which was a big hit. Before we left, Damon and Fuller got to use a radar detector to run radar on the main street. I kind of wished I could have done it. Esther and her boys joined in the fun, even though they don’t live here anymore.

I posted more over on the Chattanooga blog, in case you wanted to check it out.

This picture was shot by our friend Marylu. She is documenting the work that is finally going on at our church.

I think I have mentioned before that our church is very full. Ever since I started going there, about nine years ago, there has always been at least one pregnant woman in the church. Usually, there were more than one. That means that our church is always expanding.

We went to two services over two years ago, which helped during the worship services, but when it comes to the other stuff- fellowship, Sunday School, and youth groups- we are very tight on space.

After a few years of raising money and talking to the appropriate people (architects, contractors, city personnel) construction has begun! We are getting an expanded nursery (we need it- the Sunders just had their sixth boy and the Nichols just had their fifth child) and better Sunday School rooms.

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Todd commented on my blog! Todd commented on my blog!

We miss Todd and Liz. They disappeared to St. Louis never to be heard from again. Oh, except for that one time they came back in December.

Anyway, I was going to add my phlox pictures to Tracey’s Picture This Snap HappyTuesday word association: Spring. And while I was digging for the photo, I found a picture that supported Todd’s comment about how our phlox didn’t look like much when we planted it. Check out this “before” shot.

What I cropped out of the picture was D watering this plant. Damon did a lot to get our creeping phlox to bloom in such a manner- he planted them, he watered them, and sometimes he weeded them. This picture states it was last modified on 1-1-2002, so I think it is from the 2001 season. (I should also state that my Dad did some serious weeding in 2004, which was awesome of him.)

Seeing that picture and looking out my window now, I have a great appreciate for hard work and God’s miracle of nature.

I am a Covenant College alum, so I have paid some attention to the recent issue about Soulforce arriving in the area to meet with Covenant College students. The most recent post from another alum, Josiah Roe, reports that Covenant will be denying Soulforce access to the campus.

Covenant has a sent a letter, dated March 27, 2007 to the riders. You can read it here.

On our way home from church this evening we saw their bus parked outside the St. Elmo United Methodist Church. I had my camera so we stopped to take pictures just so I could post this before Josiah. The rider we spoke to said they were at the church for a community dinner.

My own relationship with Covenant College is a rocky one, so I don’t have any commentary on the situation other than I will be praying for both the college and the riders tomorrow.

It has been a long three days. In our family Damon deserves the most pampering because he has been the hardest working. Fuller and I go to the playground site and hang around, taking pictures, eating food, offering drinks to workers and we feel wiped.

I think a lot of it is the heat. It was 84 degrees when we came home at 6:30 this evening. Very, very warm. I am afraid that Fuller got sunburned, despite my sunscreen efforts on his chubby cheeks.

I kind of became the unofficial photographer of the playground build mainly because of the sheer volume of pictures that I have put up on Flickr. I have a lot more on our computer, so if you see our Flickr sets and think, “That’s a lot of pictures!” just imagine what we didn’t post.

I wanted to pass on that if you are following our playground pictures that I have divided them up into separate sets:

PreBuild
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

That is all for now. I have to go get Pizza because Damon was expecting pizza for lunch. And the burgers from Captain Jack’s were very good, but apparently D really, really wanted pizza. And he deserves what he wants. He has worked very hard.

This is the tower in the toddler area of the new playground. A lot of people showed up yesterday to work, and today they need 200 or more volunteers. This is truly a community effort and it is so much fun to watch!

I was going to help today but my childcare fell through. Since Fuller isn’t potty trained, he can’t go to the free childcare at the rec center. So in about 20 minutes I may start calling around to see who can watch Fuller.

The group also needs more tools, especially generators. If you are reading this on Saturday and think you can help… come on over. They are taking anyone who walks up to the registration table. They have an awesome tool cataloguing crew, so your tools will be returned to you. And there is plenty to get done. Tomorrow is the last day!