Young Women, Senior Thanksgiving, Missionary Work

These first 3 pictures actually go with the missionary activity at the bottom, but I had to copy them later and couldn't figure out how to put them on the bottom. This is Manu who is now our ward mission leader. This was him a few years ago when he was in Paris on his mission. The photos show how we did our chalk proselyting.

The young women from the stake had a really nice values night. They first met in the chapel for the spiritual part, nice talks and presentation and then they had a really fun play in the cultural hall. They took the different young women's values and acted out a little skit for each one. They began with the 2 girls on the left talking. They are reminising about how everything came about, how the friend learned about the gospel, about all of the different pricniples, and how she decided to become baptized. The first little scene is of them going shopping. One of the girls, the member, is choosing a modest dress, but the other one likes a little skimpy outfit. The first girl tells her how much nicer it is to be modest. She also teaches her about chastity.

The young women recruited some boys to help them with the skits. Here are two boys discussing what kind of girls they like.

There was a skit on the Word of Wisdom. The girl on the left is a cigarette trying to persuade the kids at a party to smoke. She is telling them how much fun it is to smoke and things like that. These two boys chase her out.

Then they had a skit about keeping the sabbath holy.

Another skit showed 3 girls and their dating habits and how the type of dating that you do can lead you to disaster and a sad, difficult life or to true happiness and eternal marriage. The skits were very fun, but it was so dark that my camera did not take good pictures.:(

The program ended with the young women singing a very beautiful song.

Yesterday we drove up to Brussels, well really to Kraainen, a suburb of Brussels to the mission president's home for a Senior Couples Thanksgiving. We all brought food and there were a lot of delicious things to eat with tons left over. We had such a fun time talking and enjoying each others company. There were 2 other couples who are setting up centers for young adults. One is in Brussels and the other one is in the Netherlands. We had lots of comparing and chatting to do with lots of hints and advice for each other. It was just great. All of the couples from the mission were able to make it and I was so impressed with each one. The have some very interesting life stories and experiences.

The couple in the middle are the Browns. They are working with the church archives right now getting the records in order so that someone else can come in and microfilm them. Elder Brown has had a very interesting career. He was a pilot for the navy and spent lots of time on an aircraft carrier. She followed him with their children from port to port. He also did a lot of work with engineering for the Navy. He was part of a team of about 5 men who were responsible for setting up the satelite and programing the information to the satelite for the GPS system that we all love and use so much. I always say that it takes 3 of us to drive over here: Dh, me and the GPS. We would be lost without it. Sister Brown was a professor at BYU.

The Longavelds are setting up a center in the Netherlands. He was an aerospace engineer and she was a teacher.

The table was set so cute. Sister Brubaker set out several pairs of wooden shoes and had them filled with fall harvest. Each place had a little pear with a leaf name tag on it. The centerpiece was a large pumpkin with flowers in it. It was really pretty and festive.

President and Sister Brubaker with the turkey.

The Langevelds and the Browns again.

The Pankratz to the left are the mission intendents. They open and close lots of missionary apartments, fix lots of things, and also order supplies and things for the missionaries plus lots of other duties. They have 11 children. Elder Pankratz ran a humongous church farm for over 25 years. Next to them are the Specks. He also was an engineer.

At the head of the table are the Solden's. Elder Solden was a radiologist and he worked for the Air Force and with the astronauts. He was part of a team that built some special machine that could x-ray all kinds of things that they used to test for the space program. In fact they had to x-ray the space suits because the inner part was having lots of problems and to get to the bottom of the problem they needed to x-ray the space between the outer suit and it's lining. They also worked with rats and some other animals doing certain testing for outer space. It's all quite complicated. His wife is also a radiologist.

I can't think of the next couples name, but next to them are the Dabl's. All three of these couples are proselyting missionaries in the Netherlands.

Here is Dh with the Phairs. The Phairs have become our good friends. They flew to Belgium with us on the same plane. They had 2 biological children and then, as he says, "adopted a whole slew of them". They are the center couple in Brussels. They are both teachers and he also had a large Real Estate Company.

Here we are. We are the Center couple in France. We love working with the young adults and we love working with the missionaries too. They are all awesome.

After the dinner we all had a chance to tell a little about ourselves and about the things that we are thankful for. It was a very special moment in time to hear everyone.

It is interesting to note that Pres and Elder Phair served missions in France as young men and 4 of the other men served in Netherlands as young missionaries. Sister Brown served in Germany at the same time as all the others served except for Pres who is quite a bit younger.

President designed this shield for the mission. He thought and thought about how to show the unity of the 3 countries that make up our mission and came up with this. The windmills are for Holland, the Fleur de Lys for France, and for Belgium, the center stripe. The black lion is the symbol for West Flanderen and and the Cock is the one for the East. The CTR symbols are in the 3 languages. I think it turned out just great. They are planning to make ties for all of the Elders and scarves for the Sisters with this shield printed on it. Such a fun idea.

Today we had a big activity with the missionaries and some the young adults. It was called chalk proselyting. We had 13 of our JA's participate in the first part and then 2 more came for the evening activity. We started out with a meeting and a little missionary training.

Then we all took the Metro to Fives, to the town square. There some drew the plan of salvation on the ground with chalk. We then talked to those people who showed an interest and wanted to know what it was all about. We handed out brochures, videos, and Books of Mormon to those that wanted them. It was a very successful activity. We have a family with 4 children coming to church tomorrow. We got at least 14 rendez-vous(meetings to talk about the gospel) set up, and we have 2 young people who want to come to our institute class and check it out. We stayed there several hours until it got dark and started to sprinkle. Then we all went back to church where we talked about our afternoon and our successes. Then a few of the young women and I made Croc Monsieur. That is a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. If we had made Croc Madame, it would have also had an egg in it. After eating, the JA's watched the last Superman movie and ate candy and dessert. Dh and I went home because we were tired and my back was hurting. We have had a super busy week and tomorrow we have to go to Calais again.

The only thing I feel really bad about is that when we were walking to the Metro from church, the JA's and the missionaries were way, way ahead of me. They were walking so fast, I just could not keep up. Dh was nice enough to stay back and walk with me, but it really made me feel sooooooo bad. I know I can only do as much as I can, but it just makes me feel really lame.

Same thing walking back when we were done. They are so speedy and I am just a slowpoke, I guess. I used to be fast and now I just can't, so I feel bad. I am walking a lot better than I used to, but it's not fast enough.

Dh

Tomorrow, the 19th of November, is my Dh's 70th birthday. Since he is so wonderful and his date is the 19th, I thought I would list 19 wonderful things about him.

l. He loves and serves God.

2. He loves and serves Jesus Christ.

3. He loves me and is always kind, thoughtful, and wonderful to me.

4. He is a great Father to each one of our children and they all love him.

5. He is a great Papa to his grandchildren and they all love him too.

6. He is very generous.

7. He always wants to help everyone who needs it.

8. He is a great patriarch, bishop, and priesthood leader.

9. He is very, very patient.

10. He does not lose his temper.

11. He is extremely smart.

12. He loves music and is always listening to music whenever he can.

In fact, he cannot even shave or work without having some music on.:)

13. He is a great whistler.

14. He can play the harmonica and the accordian.

15. He is very studious and loves to study and read scriptures and other books

16. He loves to have a good time and it is so much fun to hear him laugh.

17. He is a very hard worker and has always been a great provider.

18. He is a great teacher.

19. He is a wonderful example for others to follow and he is always the same whether he is out

among people or at home.

I could go on and on about his wonderful qualities and talents, but I will stop by saying that I am blessed to have him for my husband and for the Father of my children. I love him so much and am so blessed and happy to be sealed to him for time and all eternity. I pray that he will alway have all the blessings that he works so hard for and that he deserves so much.

This is a family picture that is several years old. We have quite a few more family members now. What a blessing that families can be forever.

Favorite Things Challenge

My OLF, Yvonne, gave us a challenge to list a few of our favorite things. I decided to take her up on her challenge with her twist. Like Yvonne suggested if we were like O and could give away gifts with no thought to the expense, what would be some of those things. Of course, my favorite things (that I would not give away) are always my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, my husband, children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and friends.
Now, like Yvonne, I will begin with M & M's. They are my favorite candy and I would give a big bag to everyone.


Then I would give everyone a set of scriptures; the Bible and the Book of Mormon. The way to happiness in this life and in the life to come can be found in these two books.

My laptop is one of my favorite things. I love to read other peoples blogs and to write one myself, but I especially love SKYPE and being able to talk to and to see my children and grandchildren and great granddaughter while we are gone on our mission. I think everyone should have a computer. Also, one can learn so many wonderful and interesting things by using a computer.

Next is a cell phone. When I was at home I loved talking to and texting my kids and grandkids. I really don't like our phones over here, though. We have 3 phones, French, Belgian and land line, but they are a real pain. Each phone only works in it's own country. We cannot use the Belgian phone in France or the French phone in Belgium. We get our messages and texts anywhere from a day to a week and a half late. If we want to use our land line, we have to pay long distance. We cannot send messages. It is a real difficulty. We often have to drive into France to call our JA's and to set up appointmets. I can hardly wait to have a normal working phone again. That being said, I would still give everyone a phone because I still love having a phone and think it's a necessity.

I love reading and books are one of my favorite things too. I would give each person a library full of books and each kid a children's library.

I love pianos. I love playing the piano even though I am not very good. Sometimes I have to play at church and then I am always so nervous and my fingers shake. It is sill so much fun to sit down and play when I am by myself. I have had 2 antique pianos that I loved. I gave one of them to my daughter and had to sell (practically give away) my other one before we left on our mission. One of our pianos looked a lot like the one below, but we painted it black. It had a great sound and I loved it. I hope to get one when we come back.

A couple of other things I love are my camera and traveling. Some day I would like to have a really good camera and I wish I could send everyone on an awesome trip to a destination of their choice.

***********I WON************

I won a print in Connie's contest. It is from Tanya Newberry's Gumball Grenade esty shop and I love it. I am so excited. I never win anything and this time I did.
YAY ME!
Now I will have a brand new print to hang up when we get home from our mission.

Baptism and Zone Conference

Saturday the 7th of November Dh baptized Geanilse De Souza Pruvost. "Ninha" as we know her is from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Her husband Rudy got baptized in March of this year. Ninha was pregnant and too scared to get in the water for fear of falling in there and hurting the baby. Then after the baby was born she just kept putting it off and was not sure when she wanted to proceed. We went to visit them and talked to them about the importance of showing the Lord how you feel and the importance of not delaying what is a commandment of the Lord. We also talked to them about eternal families and how wonderful that is. A few days later, she decided to go ahead with her baptism. This couple is very sweet. They are always kind and seem to always be in a very good mood. Rudy is excited because he just got a big loan to pay for his store which he will open very soon. He has been operating from his home for about a year. He sells cartridges and other parts for computers. He seems to be doing well and we are happy for him.

Some of the elders in front of the font. It was the sister missionaries turn to fill the font, but they got to church kind of late. When we got there, we found them heating water in the microwave in the kitchen and taking bowls of hot water to the font and dumping it in to help fill up the font. Poor girls they were making lots of trips back and forth. The hot water in the kitchen is broken and that is why they were heating the water. We all got a good laugh out of that as we helped them work.

The lady on the left is President Boutoille's sister. She lives in Boulogne. She is so nice and so pretty. Her husband was the Branch Pres. Each time we go to Calais she is super friendly and nice to me. Boulogne and Calais branches have recently been combined to be the Calais ward. The lady on the left is her friend.

When we got to church on this particular Sabbath day, we went in and I sat down and Dh sat on the stand because he was going to give a talk. Just before Sacrament began the missionaries came and got me and introduced me to an investigator who had just arrived. He spoke only Russian and so once again I was the translator. It is very difficult for me because I don't know all that much French, but I am getting better at it. I am still always amazed how I came to France to do so much translating into Russian. Do you think the Lord knew where I should be? Caesar, the Russian fellow is a political refugee, having official political asylum, living in France. He came to France after having been thrown out of Russia, the Czech Republic and several other countries for actively opposing the Communist regime.

President Boutoille and his family. This dear family invited us over for dinner after the meetings in Calais. The meetings ended at 12:30, but because Dh and Pres had so many things to do afterwards, we didn't even get to his house until 4:00. We all waited together and when all the business was done, we all drove the 1/2 hr to his house near Boulogne. They served a yummy dinner which included curry chicken and rice and beef bourginion.(sp?) We had such a fun time with them. All of the children were so especially nice and polite. They have a hedgehog for a pet that has free roaming privileges in their backyard. President Boutoille served his mission in England and speaks perfect English. Patrick also has a beautiful singing voice. He is so friendly and nice and has a great sense of humor. His talks at church are so uplifting and inspiring. We really like him a lot and enjoy spending time with him. His job now is as a financial specialist. He travels to Paris a few times a week as well as to Lille. His wife also speaks good English, but she is shy about it. She works part time as a speech therapist.

Every 6 weeks we have zone conference. At this time Pres and Sis Brubaker come and also all the missionaries from the zone get together. We have talks and instruction and we always hear uplifting things. We have lectures and we also teach each other. It is amazing to me to see the young missionaries conduct and run conference. Most of these young men are 19 to 21 years of age, although a few are a bit older. They do such a great job. They prepare well and present spiritually uplifting and important information. They are intelligent and poised and do a fantastic job. We all love zone conference. I love to see the elders and sisters greet each other after not seeing one other for weeks. The guys alway bear hug and slap each other on their backs. They also crash chests together. I really don't know how else to explain it. The sisters hug and give bisous (kisses). I love it because it is great to see the love that they have for each other as they serve the Lord together. They really develop a brotherly and sisterly love for one another. If a companionship has problems at the beginning of the transfer and think they cannot even get along, by the end of the transfer they learn to love each other. When one wants to serve the Lord and do as the Lord teaches, he learns to love everyone. This is so evident in the lives of the missionaries. Also, these awesome young people are so kind and nice to us. We love them a lot and they love us too. They always want to include us in all of their activies and we sure appreciate it and love being with them.

Here is our whole zone. We are in the back.

Every 6 weeks we also have transfers. That is when companionships are sometimes broken up as elders and sisters are sent to different areas to serve. On transfer day everyone is excited and sometimes a little sad to be leaving or to see their friends leave. They alway take lots of pictures. This is our district.

Elder Ertelt is from Germany. He actually served his mission on the Dutch side, but for this last week of his mission, he was in France.

Elder Dewey. Such a great elder. He and his companion made lunch for Dh and me one day after district mtg. They served a yummy salad and home made pizza. He even served us juice, bringing it to us with a napkin over his arm like in a real restaurant. We all chuckled over that.

Elder Scott and Elder Larsen. Elder Scott wants to be a pediatrician after his mission. Elder Larsen will be finished before Christmas. This is his last transfer.

Elder Paoli, a brand new elder from France and Elder Dewey. After only 6 weeks Elder Paoli is already picking up a lot of English.

Elder Hoskyns, our district leader and Elder Cabrerra, our zone leader. Elder Hoskyns signs. He lived with a family for a year that had deaf members and so he learned how to sign. Now he also knows how to sign in French sign language. He said it's not too different from ASL. He has a deaf investigator.

One Sunday in investigators class he was translating for her. I was sitting across the table from them translating from French into Russian for the Petrovs. After class Elder Hoskyns told me that his investigator asked him why I kept talking "so rudely" during the lesson. Ha Ha. He had to explain to her that I was actually translating.

Sister Gappmaeir is from Switzerland and Sister Fritsch is from France.

The two frenchies.

Paoli and Hoskyns goofing around.

See no evil, Speak no evil, Hear no evil.

Elder Cabrerra and Soeur Gappmaeir.

Elder Dewey and Dh.

This goes on for about an hour.

Elder Ertelt wearing his kilts. I was amazed to know that he paid over 300euros for them.

We really get to know the elders and sisters well. I have fixed the pants for lots of the elders, so we are familiar. We really love them and love working with them.

Het Loos, Cleaning, Crochet, Norma & Romain

On the 17th of Oct we went on a senior outing to the Het Loos Castle in Apeldoorn, Netherlands. The Dutch Royal family used to live in this castle, but now they live in one of their other castles. This is a picture of the garage. In this garage are cars from many different years and countries. I wasn't able to get any good pictures because of the reflection from the glass and then inside we were not allowed to take pictures.

This little cafe is in what was once the guard house.
In the garage were also many, many sleds although these are some of the children's cars.

One of the royal crests.

The walkway by the stables. The stables were huge and grander than most houses.

Th pathway to the castle.

The castle. Inside the rooms were fully furnished. We saw many lovely things; dishes, clothes, fans, portraits, rugs, furniture, weapons, stuffed animals, animal horns and antlers of all kinds etc. etc. I was sad not to be able to take pictures.

One of the side yards.

Amazing mazes and beautiful gardens.

After touring the castle, we had lunch together. The Servoss's, back right, were just about to finish up their mission. They organized this trip for the couples.

We had a really nice time. Most of the senior couples from both the Dutch and the French side of the mission were there. The Netherlands are very pretty. They are so flat and so clean everywhere that we have been. Of course being right at sea level, they have had lots of major flooding problems.

Quite a few of the missionary apartments are being closed down in this area. When this happens, the apt has to be cleaned and inspected. The inspections are very difficult. They are super picky about everything because they do not want to give you back your deposits. Here we are helping the mission couple and 2 sister missionaries clean an apt in St. Omer. Dh painted the whole apt in one afternoon. The rest of us helped do trim, cleaned windows, kitchen, bathrooms, and floors. Elder Pankratz was busy fixing things and doing plumbing.

This brand new sister is from Apeldorn.

Sister Pankratz cleaning and repairing a few things.

Dh and Bro. Pankratz

Elder Pankratz posing for the camera. I got to be the one who went for lunch. I walked around a bit with the young sisters and we found a nice boulangerie. We bought baguette sandwiches and drinks for all. The baguettes here are the best. France has the best baguettes anywhere, I think, although San Francisco also has wonderful French bread. Many of the French bread bakeries in San Francisco actually imported their ovens from France. I know this because I lived in S. F. for many, many years. I love to quilt and I have made many a quilt for many a baby. I have made lots of quilts for all of my grandchildren. In fact, my friend, Daisy, and I have made many quilts for the Baby Linus Project. But alas I cannot do it from here. Fabric here is very difficult to find and very, very, very expensive. I wouldn't even know where to find batting and then there is the problem of expensive shipping. So, I have not been able to make a quilt for my great granddaughter and coming grandson. Sad>:( I decided to knit a blanket for little grandson and here are a few pictures of the result.

Some cute little donkeys live a few blocks away from us. Whenever I see them, I always think of Mary coming into Bethlehem. That must have been such a difficult journey for her. I often wonder what she must have been thinking of, knowing she was to give birth to the Son of God. In early September we had a visit from one of Dh's oldest friends. This is Romain. He is the fellow whose bachelor party Dh was at the night we met. We haven't seen them for about 40 years. Wow! How the time flies by.

Here are Dh and Romain with Norma, his wife. We had such a nice visit. The guys had a great time reminising.

They treated us to dinner in downtown Mouscron.

My salad before the main course. It had lots of bacon pieces and freshly made croutons. I was surprised to see the egg on top. It was quite tasty.

Norma and I both had mussels. Mussels are very popular here in Belgium. They are often served with frites (fries). Yummy.

"Lilloween" Party 2009

Last night we and the missionaries put on a great Halloween party for the 2 wards. It was so so much fun and I think everyone had a good time. We had at least 130 in attendance. Lots of people and their kids came dressed up. Manu and the missionaries did the decorations and they were awesome. We had apple dunking, stick your face in the flour to get candy, eat the donut off the string, and of course we had a buffet. I made a huge( 4.5lbs uncooked) pasta salad. I also made severa pumpkin breads. Other people brought food too, so there was salad and cake left over. That was taken care of by the missionaries after church today. They ate every last crumb.:) They love when I have left-overs for them.
Guillaume and Cristophe. Enjoying some good conversation.

We had a room all set up where kids and older folks too could watch Halloween movies.

Some of the fun decorations. We also had a smoke machine. In this picture the party is just beginning.

Pumpkins all ready to be decorated.

This guy was watching over the drinks table which was not yet filled up. I bought 40 large bottles of various sodas, water, and juices.

There were lots of spiders everywhere. One could even find hidden spiders, like the hidden Mickey's, if one looked really hard.

Iris, Ben's wife is expecting her 4th baby. It's a little girl and she will be born in 2 months.

We had face painting which the kids loved.

This is the Geanilse Pruvost family. They have a fun love story. Rudy's friend had a friend in Brazil whom he went to visit. After his visit, he told Rudy that he must write via e-mail to Ninha, the friend's sister. They began e-mailing and their relationship grew. Finally Rudy took a long trip to Brazil to meet Ninha. His trip extended to about 6 months. They fell in love, got married and now live in France. Rudy got baptized in March and Ninha is getting baptized by Dh next Saturday. They have this cute little baby boy, Marc.

Samuel, Pauline and Clothilde. Samuel is already a member and we are teaching Clothilde the gospel. Little Pauline is so cute. She and I play legos a lot.:)

Jean Luc, whom Dh baptized and his son Jeremy. Joseph is Jean Luc's step-son. Joseph just arrived here from Ecuador about a month ago with his grandmother. Hisela, his mother, has been trying to get him into France for 7 years. She left him with the grandmother when he was only 3 years old. Here's Joseph again. It is a little hard for him right now because he only speaks Spanish and also he doesn't really know his Mom yet.

The kids had a lot of fun throwing balls at these cans and knocking them over. It was a very noisy activity.

There was a cake decorating contest, but we forgot to have a judging. Maybe next time.

Brigette was baptized last month.

Her little boy, Ryan, is probably the most active little kid I have ever seen.(I've seen lots and lots of kids) Anne-Lise is a sweet little baby. She is so quiet and she never cries. She's the complete opposite of her brother. The father "ran away". :(

2 little cousins.

Watching the movie.

Manu's Mom, Francoise. She is a kick. We have some good times with her.
Manu as the tour guide of "La Maison Hantee". He and the missionaries had the most awesome haunted house on the stage. As each group of 7 entered he told them that they were entering a house that was haunted, that there were only dead people there and lots of ghosts. He warned that you better hold hands and be very careful and that once you were in, you might not come out. Walking through the house one got grabbed by the ankles or jumped out at. One had to pass a spot where you had to feel guts, eyeballs, and brains.EWWWWWW! :) There were tattered curtains everywhere, lots of smoke, and a table with a head on a platter. When Manu lifted the cover off the platter, the head screamed. Then you had to crawl through a short tunnel to the backyard which was full of graves and headstones. Some of the graves had "dead people" who sat up or shouted or something. It was very well done. Some of the kids got too scared to go past a few of the scenes in the haunted house. Some of them left crying, "J'ai peur" I'm scared. We didn't let really little kids go in. The ghosts, dead people, grabbers, moaners, criers and screamers(aka the missionaries) had a ball.

Here are Raquel and Amaya. Raquel is from Spain and is expecting little Alex. Her husband Tomas served his mission in Spain. After his mission was over, he went back to visit friends and they met at an activity. They are a lovely young couple. Thomas is in the Bishopric.

Caroline was taking a break from the festivties in the foyer. She is preparing for an exam. Now that her children are older, she is back in school.

A huge spider guarding the entrance to the chapel. We didn't want anyone to go in there. The other door was barred with a tangle of ropes.

This picture shows the very last activity that we had. It was a pinata that looked like a pumpkin, although at this point you can't tell. All the pinata's here have to be hand made. The kids walked around in a circle singing e-i-e-i-o and then the one with the stick got to hit the pinata 3 times. They did it many times and sang louder and louder until it finally broke. I have lived through lots of Halloween's, trunk or treats, trick or treats, parties, parades, etc and have enjoyed it a lot. It's so much fun for the kids and me too. When Alec had his birthday parties, I think he also had a pumpkin carving contest. You know, boys love knives and carving.

I remember one year I dressed up as a clown. My son Michael was about 4 or 5 at the time. He did not recognize me. He asked me a few times, "Are you my Mom?" Then he said, "Are you Natalie?" and finally he said, "Are you Sister Arhets?" HA! I assured him that I was, but it took him about 1/2 hour before he was finally convinced. Maybe he was only 3. I guess my mind is going.

One year Anna's cat, Blackie, was catnapped on Halloween day. We always tried to keep him inside on Halloween and a few days before, but this year he somehow got out. We were all so sad, especially Anna. That night she was out with her friends when she spotted Blackie being carried by a group of older teen-agers. She, without any fear, ran right up to them, said, "That's my cat." and grabbed Blackie away from them. I think she was very brave to do that and I know she was so happy to be reunited with her best cat.

One year Alec and his family came to visit during Halloween. Katie was just little, maybe 2 or 3. We all dressed up and went trick or treating. Alec was dressed as a ninja guy. He ran ahead of us and hid in the bushes. As we came up to the hedge, he jumped out. Boy was that the wrong thing to do. Katie just lost it. He scared her so much. She cried for a long time. He still feels bad when her remembers scaring his little girl.

There are lots of other stories, but I'll save them for another day.