I can breathe this weekend

This is only the second weekend since September 1 that we haven't spent most of Saturday at a cross-country meet or one of us hasn't been working (away from home) for at least one of the days.

It makes a difference. I feel like I can breathe a little bit. We even had time (and mental space) to talk about things like Christmas presents, holidays, and our camping trip (which starts on Thursday).

Yesterday we did have a event planned. It wasn't too stressful, but we were a part of the planning. We helped organise a family BBQ for the fourth grade class. It was a "keep it simple" event, so the food was potluck, and David and I organised some easy games. David also was the staff liaison person, which became quite important when rain was forecast and we discovered that our wet-weather plan was somewhat thwarted by another booking of the school's cafeteria.

Here are a few photos of a couple of the games:

One of the parents, who is also a teacher at the school
participating with enthusiasm in the
blow-the-ping-pong-ball relay.

SO much energy. I'm so thankful the rain held off so we
could do some energy-using activities outside.

Challenging: building card towers. Not many groups were
successful at this one. The cards were too new and slippery.

In addition, David's been pecking away at an assignment he has due for a Master's subject he's doing this semester, the last one of the year. But in the middle of all that we've managed to do some online Christmas shopping, be very present at church, and rest a bit. 

David's also taught Sunday School, helped our two younger boys do some simple woodwork, and worked at cleaning up our pocket handkerchief backyard. 

Me? I've pushed a few more articles onwards in the editing process, written a couple of blog posts, and read a few more chapters of two non-fiction books that are very relevant to my daily life. Um, I also slept-in yesterday, which was wonderful: almost 11 hours sleep!

Overall, it hasn't been a slothful weekend, but productive as well as somewhat restful. I think what helped it to feel more restful were generally cooperative kids. For example, we had no major blowups or fights before church this morning which meant we got there 10 minutes early. Amazing!