Happy Birthday

Sundays are starting to fall into a pattern here.  But the pattern will be broken as this was our last Sunday here.  The pattern is the 10am worship service at the Hope House Chapel followed by a brunch at an area restaurant.  Today was a repeat of the first Sunday at the Breakfast Cafe in Homedale.

The afternoon followed a similar pattern: chatting with kids and grandson and watching our home church service online.

After that, the pattern was broken by a birthday party.  Debbie, one of the residents of the Sonrise house, had a birthday, and we were invited to come to the party.  Debbie was arrayed in a white dress and a tiara and sat at a table in the cavernous living room surrounded by all her family and opened her gifts.  And the near-pandemonium from nearly a dozen special adult brothers and sisters and five dogs made for quite a party.  Each person there loves sports and is a fan of a different team, so lots of friendly rivalry going on.  Rebecca was showing me pictures of one of the players on the San Francisco 49ers, Debbie was batting several of the many balloons around, Tim was showing me all the games he had on his iPad.  I’m not sure that this kind of activity goes on all the time, but with that many living under one roof, it’s an active and noisy household.

And now it seems very quiet back here in the RV.

After a couple weeks we’re starting to get to know some people here.  Nearly all of the people at this party we know by name and some we’ve been able to talk to occasionally.  I’ve talked with Tim a few times as he shares my name and he also noticed that I carry an iPad to church.  Sarah works in the kitchen serving up the salads and likes heavy metal music and romance books.  She says the SOWERs take nearly her whole supply of lettuce.  She is warming up to us and I actually got a hug from her at the party.  Rosa sits next to us in church and likes to show us the new bracelet she is wearing. 

Tomorrow starts our last week here.  The week will be one day shorter as we worked the sale yesterday, so Wednesday will be our last day of work. We will probably take off and head for home after work on Wednesday.  Nearly 1900 miles to go, so it will take a few days.