My Beautiful Mess

I have recently started working on the daunting task of organzing all my digital photos on my computer and then getting them onto CDs. So before too much more time gets away from me, and since I often use my blog as a digital scrapbook, I wanted to put pics of 2 events on here before I get even further into the busyness of October (within my immediate family there are 6, yes count them, 6 birthdays in October!).

We made our third trip to the State Fair this year, much to my husband’s dismay. But I LOVE the fair! Despite the obsene amount of money you can spend there, I love the zaniness of the rides and the food and the people. And the pics you can get.

We go on a week night to avoid some of the crowds and we rarely eat anything but cotton-candy there. This year found Cooper somewhere between the Little Partner rides and the Bigger Kid rides.

He was even TOO big to ride these bumper boats - but Drew loved them!

They got to play one carnival game just so they could take something home - like swords. Always good to have a few swords around - balances out the light sabers, ya know.

And when everyone is good and tired, we head home and straight to bed…

Then later in the month, Ryan and I decided to host a block party for our street. In the 10 years we have lived in this house, there has never been a block party. And since we had several new neighbors move in this summer, we decided to get to know a few. So we rented a moon bounce, pulled the grill around front, and cooked up some hotdogs and hamburgers.

We had maybe a third of the street show up but it was a diverse crowd which made it fun.

We had more kids than adults but that was great too! Check out the slew of bikes in our driveway..

So before it gets too cold, I challenge you - get to know your neighbors! What could be a more natural way to reach out to the world in which God has placed you! We have great neighbors on either side of us. We take care of each other’s dogs when we go out of town, we spur each other on to do yard and home improvements, our kids play with each other. It’s great! And no, maybe they don’t “do life” like we do, but they are our neighbors.

The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Galatians 5:14.