Jason’s birthday was in July while he was away at camp, and he wanted to wait til he got home to celebrate; then he wanted to wait til his friend came into town; then Jim had to unexpectedly go to an out of town meeting, so we finally celebrated on Friday evening.

We went bowling Friday afternoon, but on our 7th frame the proprietors had to reset the computers connected the scoreboards in each lane to the counter, which was supposed to take 3 minutes to reset and should have saved all our data. But they couldn’t get them to come back on. We waited for maybe 20 minutes or more, but then had to go because we had other events on the agenda. The bad thing was that I had bowled two strikes in a row and had a score of about 80 so far — a great day in bowling for me is when I break 100, and it looked like I was on my way! 🙂 Oh, well. When we told them we had to go, they gave us coupons for free games ad shoe rentals.

Jason’s visiting friend is of Indian descent, and Jason wanted to go to an Indian restaurant for his birthday dinner. I was apprehensive of offending his friend — I am not an adventurous eater and don’t like really spicy things. It did help with choosing what to order to have someone there who could explain the different dishes, and the waitress was also very helpful. They serve the food in little serving dishes in the center of the table, which each person then spoons onto his plate, so we were able to try bites of each other’s entrees. I was pleasantly surprised. I had tandoori chicken, which was very good. I also liked Jim’s beef masala and Jason’s chicken curry. Jeremy and Jesse had chicken tikka, which was a little too spicy for me. They had a type of bread called naan which was very good — it’s kind of like a soft puffy tortilla. I ordered mine with just butter, but some of the others ordered theirs with cheese. Both were great.

We headed back home to open Jason’s presents. The two major ones were a gift card to a favorite clothing store and a Nintendo DS light (what’s that saying about the difference between men and boys being the price of their toys? 🙂 ) He also got some flavored coffees (he’s my coffee connoisseur) and a few other little things.

Then we had cake and ice cream, and then Jesse took off for the all-nighter, a favorite annual event in the youth group where they go play laser tag and roller skate and other assorted things from 8:45 in the evening til breakfast the next morning. Why, I don’t know. 🙂 I do remember the thrill of staying up all night as a teen-ager, but I got over it.

So he was pretty much dead to the world Saturday afternoon. Jason took his friend up to the college Saturday so they could both check in and she could get moved into the dorms. We had had a lovely visit. It was nice to have a girl in the house for a change. 🙂

Jesse had had school camp last week: every year near the opening of the school year our school has a school camp with different chapel services, devotional times, and games, to get the school year started off on a right spiritual footing. Jim Van Gelderen was the preacher for the week. He was without the Minuteman team this time, but it is always a joy to have him at church.

But this week starts the first regular week of classes for Jesse, and Jason starts classes Thursday. So we’re getting in gear for our fall schedule.

The nice thing about the flurry of housecleaning at the beginning of last week is that, except for a few touch-ups, everything is done and I can relax on that front this week. Good thing, because I have the ladies ministry newsletter to work on this week (I can’t believe it is the last week in August already!) plus making up a master “wish list” for our missionary Christmas emphasis, plus a few other odds and ends.

So I have a busy but not too pressured week ahead. How about you?