{"id":1409,"date":"2012-07-24T23:47:10","date_gmt":"2012-07-24T23:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paytonandgrace.com\/?p=1409"},"modified":"2012-07-24T23:47:10","modified_gmt":"2012-07-24T23:47:10","slug":"summer-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/payton-downing\/2012\/07\/24\/summer-fun\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer Fun"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even though we have been on quite a sharp learning curve this summer, Payton and I have been able to enjoy all sorts of things. I’ve learned that “fun” can mean something different with each phase of life and can find many forms. Here are some of the things we’ve enjoyed.<\/p>\n

During “Car Week”, we drove up to Denver to look at a vehicle, which turned out to be a rusty, run-down and tattered specimen. But, it just happened to be Cow Appreciation Day at Chic-Fil-A, which was perfect, especially since our car had just gone kaput and our budget was tight. They gave us both a free meal–probably because I looked so goofy. Free lunch was an absolute blessing after a crazy morning in Denver!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

VBS was full of fun moments and laughter. Part of Payton being the Pastoral Intern is helping out with skits. His silliness birthed much love and affection in the hearts of the kids, especially when he squirted one of them in the face with a water gun during target practice. And it even earned him the term of endearment, “Stinky Payton” from one of the 3 year-olds.\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is my table of rambunctious kiddos!\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Let’s see…well, I cut my own hair a couple of days ago! All the while, I was wishing Beth Luyendyk was around to help me not make a mess of my head. I tried to follow the previous cuts she’d made that had long-since grown out. I was pleased with the final result and no one said, “What did you do to your hair?” so I think I’m in the clear. Here’s to wavy hair, which hides a multitude of sins!<\/p>\n

We also celebrated Payton’s quarter-century birthday ahead of time at a Chinese buffet where they have a whole variety of ice cream besides everything else—perfect for Payton! After full plates of Mongolian BBQ, the ice cream was the finale to our lunch. I tried the Green Tea variety, which was actually quite amazing. It was not too sweet and tasted mildly of Jasmine. \u00a0We hadn’t been on a date in a while, unless you count Chic-Fil-A, so it was a treat indeed.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Besides finally being able to eat most of my veggies out of the garden, I have begun another form of scavenging. It all started when I was hungry and went to the library. Besides coming away with 11 cookbooks, I found this book. It has changed everything–well, maybe not that drastic, but I can’t stop staring at vegetation.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As you might have guessed, it’s about eating weeds. I keep wandering around the backyard looking for things more exciting than my lettuce–and I’ve identified quite a few. Our salads are super exciting now! And I am being very careful in case you thought I had started sampling all of the mushrooms in the back yard. It all makes me feel a little better about not always being able to have garden or plant all of the things I need for winter.<\/p>\n

We’ve enjoyed listening to a lecture series by John McWhorter (a linguist) called The Story of Human Languages. It has been fascinating to see the variety and intricacies of the spoken word around the globe. It was pretty nerdy, but right down our alley since language will be a big part of our lives very soon. Here’s a 4 minute\u00a0Language Clip-Tsez and Russian Aleut<\/a>\u00a0that highlights two interesting varieties of sounds we may encounter. I, for one, never knew that it was even possible to wobble your uvula. Yikes!<\/p>\n

We had the pleasure of hearing Ravi Zacharias speak this past weekend. I don’t know how else to say it, but that man has a way with words! He crammed so much good stuff into 40 minutes that I could never write it all back out! It was very refreshing, and I was left with a desire to fall back in love with Jesus. This feeling was only compounded (for both Payton and I) by the sermon that Pastor Lance presented on Sunday as he is going through Luke. If we are to become more like Christ, it would seem that we should desire to know Him and study the account of His life. Pray that God would help both Payton and I along in that journey.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even though we have been on quite a sharp learning curve this summer, Payton and I have been able to enjoy all sorts of things. I’ve learned that “fun” can mean something different with each phase of life and can find many forms. Here are some of the things we’ve enjoyed. During “Car Week”, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1068,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[71321],"tags":[997,2485,75827,18716,433,9374,1037,886],"class_list":{"0":"post-1409","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-summertime","7":"tag-adventure","8":"tag-budget","9":"tag-experimenting","10":"tag-gardening","11":"tag-provision","12":"tag-reading","13":"tag-thoughts","14":"tag-vbs","15":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/payton-downing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/payton-downing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/payton-downing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/payton-downing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1068"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/payton-downing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/payton-downing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/payton-downing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/payton-downing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/payton-downing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}