Pastor Pirschel's Installation

Dad's last few moments as Senior Pastor.  

Right before he becomes Pastor Emeritus

 Pastor Pirschel's Charge

 "Passing the Torch"

 A very emotional moment.

 Pastor Pirschel's first benediction as Senior Pastor

First Day of School

Two Middle Schoolers and a High Schooler sporting the new uniforms

 My Elementary crowd is shrinking

 Everyone showing their grade

 Mollee, 9th grade

 Tavis, 8th grade (without a bookbag because he left it at school on Locker Day)

 Daegan, 6th grade

 Capps, 5th grade

 Mac, 3rd grade, finally got a new lunchbox

We did not get the annual bookbag picture since Tavis was without.

Procrastination Annonymous

"Hello, my name is Gretchen, and I don't want to be in your stupid group"

I've always been the planner.  Always been on time.  Always been orderly.

I never planned to be a working Mom, but it is the hand the Lord gave me.  I am thankful to have multiple skills that allows me to help provide for the family.  When my home office job didn't work out, I never intended to work outside the home.  I was frantically trying to find something that was going to utilize my home office.  I found multiple things, but none of them "seemed right".  As much as I wanted to be home this Summer, I did work outside the home, three days a week.

Between working, trying to be a super mom and be fun on my off days, orthodontist appointments, exhaustion, errands, laundry, and starting a new business with Rodan + Fields (shameless plug that I will tell you more about later), etc. I procrastinated on a lot of things.

Thankfully, Mimi offered to take the kids school supply shopping for the big things.  Thankfully, I bought iPads last Spring for the two younger kids that needed them.  And, thankfully, I ordered the new school uniforms back in May when there was a sale.

BUT, the day before school still left me scrambling.  Those of you that procrastinate often, I don't know how you do it.  It is no wonder why America has such high blood pressure.

Today, I had to do the following:

1) Pay late bills (because no money before)
2) Go to work for the morning
3) Go to the grocery store so I could make lunches for the first day of school
4) Get ADD meds filled, because school was starting
5) Take Capps for sports physical as the last squeezed in appointment because I forgot we needed 5th graders to get a physical too (..for..a..Spring...sport)
6) Dinner, because everyone seems to want to eat
7) Last minute school supply shopping for the things we didn't have at Desk Day
8) Mollee's first soccer game - yes, the day before school starts?
9) Dye Mollee's hair - the ultimate procrastination - her hair was still blue from the Summer and I hadn't thought about it, home from the game at 9:30 and trying to bleach it out but it turned green/gray, so I had to cut out a lot of it.  UGH!
10) Crash into bed at midnight and be ready for the alarm at 6:00 AM

Desk Day/Locker Day

Pure exhausting chaos, but everyone is ready for school and butterflies are a little bit lessened now that they know what to expect.  

And they know there is no need to fight this picture, because I'm gonna force it!

 Mac and Ms. Gordon - 3rd Grade

No photo of Capps and Mrs. Sikkema - 5th grade - Mrs. Sikkema had the stomach bug on Desk Day :(

Papa Retires

Today was definitely a bittersweet day.  Today was Dad's last sermon as Senior Pastor.  We all knew this day was coming, and we all know this day is needed.  

Many tears have been shed today, but I do not feel sad.  Just tears of joy on how Dad was honored today.  Tears of angst towards change.  Tears of excitement for new beginnings.  Tears of stress relief that the day is finally done (working at the church adds a stress of prepping).  

Today was beautiful and I believe it was honoring to the Lord.

 Dad's sermon title was Who...Whose...Why?

Benediction, which Mom walked out with him afterwards and everyone appreciated.  I didn't even know she had done it until people started commenting.

The service also included a baptism of a Horton kid, which seemed appropriate, since Dad loves the babies!

The Evening Service of Thanksgiving was incredible and sweet.  A time of singing and remembering and prayers.  I snapped a picture of everyone that participated.

Jeremy

 Eric

 Dad scratching his face with this bulletin :)

 Ken, aka Harold

 Jimbo

 Danielle

 Tom

 Todd

 Cal, who did a great "Get Over It" impression of Dad

 Tommy

 Nick

And, Dad giving his final benediction as Senior Pastor - now, that is emotional!

Afterwards, there was a nice reception with pictures displayed of Dad throughout his ministry.  A slide show of various CPC pictures and memories, A gift presented by the Women in the Church of a mosaic print of the church building.  And a gift presented from the Congregation of the stained glass window that Dad helped design.  And a lot of story telling by Dee.

 It was a wonderful evening!  Dad was too emotional to speak, which was sorta nice to see.  Sometimes the man can be too stoic.

Tavis and Mollee with the Jacksons

Uncle Paul and Dana stole Mollee and Tavis today and went on an adventure.  They were gone a long afternoon and then are the pictures I was texted.

 So fun for them!!!!

Tucker's in town

With the Tucker's in town, it was nice to get together with the P. Caines, the Harris', the Tucker's and the Brown's.  *no kids

Tavis' Raccoon

When there is a story to be told in the Brown household, it usually starts with "Did you hear about Tavis and..."

Tonight we were at Mollee's soccer scrimmage at school and Tavis found a trap in the school woods.  Apparently, the school had set traps to catch stray dogs and they had caught a raccoon instead.  Tavis felt like he was going to set the poor raccoon free, but when he grabbed the cage/trap the raccoon bit him.

So...we had to get school authorities to call the owners of the trap, remove the raccoon and have the raccoon escorted to the proper facilities to be tested for rabies.

We discussed the incident with our pediatrician and he said we were fine to avoid the ER and high rabies shot expense until we knew for sure if the raccoon had rabies or not.  The trap owners along with state health officials did not approve of our decision to wait and they called hourly trying to convince me to take my son to the ER.  By the third or fourth call they were telling me stories of children dying from rabies.  I calmly reminded them that I was just waiting on their test results and everything would be decided on my part.  I do not think they appreciated my retort.

By 3:00, the next day, we got the the report of no rabies!  We were thankful we did not spend the money on an ER visit or the shots.

Ironically, Tavis was trying to set the raccoon free.  The only way you can test for rabies is by decapitating it and testing brain cells.