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- I have a black thumb – I am absolutely horrible at growing pretty much everything.
With one exception: zinnias.
Zinnias must be the most hardy plant on the planet, because for some reason, I can grow them!
I discovered this incredible fact when we were about 2 years into being married. I didn’t even know what Zinnias were, but I picked up a packet of “Zinnia seeds” at the store to plant in this bare flower bed outside of our first house, and lo and behold: they grew! I harvested seeds off of those very first flowers and have turned them over every single year since then – including transporting them across the state when we moved.
So, this year was no exception! We planted our Zinnias in the back flower bed and they’ve grown up beautifully!
(If you’re thinking, hmmm, this Abbys Saturday looks a bit familiar, I did take a similar version of this same photo two years ago!) - It has been VBS week at our church here in Pennsylvania (I know, it’s confusing: we attended VBS at our church in Maryland a few weeks ago – we’re just that extra). This has been the very first year they have ever done a VBS program at our church here, so we jumped in to participate and help! Braelynn and Leander (who is technically a little too young to attend, but it’s okay) have had a blast all week. I volunteered to be the photographer/videographer of the week (after all, those are my strengths), so I got to observe all of the kids in every class (while simultaneously helping/keeping-an-eye on Leander in the youngest class). The team of teachers and volunteers has done an incredible job – not just with the decorations and lesson-plans, but with the organization, the presentations, and the overall atmosphere of the entire VBS. It’s been fantastic!
That’s not to say it hasn’t been a long week – because whew – it’s been a long week. VBS has started at 11:30am and gone until 2:30pm every single day this week. That means packing lunches every day, making sure we were in the car by 10:50am, and not getting home until about 3:30pm (and on Tuesday it was after 4pm because of a major car accident we had to drive way out and around). Mama is exhausted. But it’s okay – the kids had a wonderful time and that’s all that matters. - On top of it being VBS week, it was also Norwin Community Picnic day on Wednesday!! It’s the first time we’ve attended a Community Picnic in person since 2019 (it feels like it’s been forever!) Traditionally, the Picnic is held at Idlewild Park, but thanks to the pandemic-stuff, Idlewild was unable to commit to the Norwin Chamber (who hosts this huge event) that they would even be open on the first Wednesday in August. So, they pivoted and decided to hold the Picnic at the Irwin Park.
No one was really sure what would happen: would people come? Would the community show up? They brought in food trucks and vendors, hosted local talent as entertainment, and even held a rubber ducky race down the stream.
And HOLY SMOKES did people show up. Literally THOUSANDS of people packed into the Irwin Park to celebrate this amazing community we live in. It was incredible! The atmosphere was electric. The crowd was simply so happy to be together.
As usual, the central event of the Picnic was the huge prize drawing – emceed by none other than my Father. They gave away over 90 prizes this year (ranging from Keurigs to gift cards to a 65″ 4K TV). We sat and anxiously listened to my Dad call names – hoping, wondering if he would call one of our names next. And then we heard: “I know this person is here: Kara Abbey!” I won a tool set (nope, not the 65″ TV). We all laughed – at least a tool set is better than the Steelers canopy Braelynn won a few years ago!
It was simply wonderful to be all together with my family, sitting and listening to my Dad call out names and prizes, gathered with thousands of members of our community. - Until the very end.
See, Derrick did not attend the Norwin Community Picnic this year. Wednesday (which just so happened to be the busiest day of our entire lives) was also the day his Dad was stopping at our house for a few hours. Remember that new room he built us a few weeks ago? Well, we haven’t been able to finish it yet because before we could move forward with painting the drywall, we realized there was a leak in the one corner. So, Derrick’s Dad was stopping on his way through to figure out what was leaking, stop the leak, and repair the drywall. He was also installing our new storm door (that we bought weeks ago but arrived damaged and so we had to wait for a new one).
So, Derrick was busy helping his Dad with all of that (and the clean-up from those tasks) and so he simply drove us down to the park and dropped us off.
I texted him when the prize drawing was all done and he was coming to pick us up. As I was cleaning up the blanket, snacks, cups, and toys the kids had brought, I took my eyes off of the kids for 3 seconds – and in those 3 seconds, Leander disappeared.
In an instant, all of the “horror stories” that Derrick’s Mom has told me about Derrick running off as a little kid flooded into my memory. I frantically looked around, asked everyone if they had seen Leander, and we all started fanning out to look for him. We looked long enough that my Dad even announced from the amphitheater that: “We are looking for my grandson Leander”.
Thankfully, within seconds of him making that announcement, I spotted him. Jonathan (my brother-in-law) had spotted him too and was closer to run & grab him. He had made his way up past the amphitheater, through the parking lot, and out into the alley before we found him.
Why did he run away from us? I have no idea. Why did he go that particular direction? I can only assume it’s because he knew that’s the spot that Derrick had dropped us off, so he expected Derrick to still be there.
Needless to say, I came home (with several years of my life shaved away), cried, grew a slew of new grey hairs, and proceeded to buy one of those “kid leashes” off of Amazon (not really, but I seriously thought about it). - (Did you notice that for the first time in months, I didn’t have anything to note about kids being sick?)
