Oysters and Pearls

Here's something fun that Madison tried out - Daddy ordered a few oysters online, the kind that more than likely had pearls in them.  The hope is that eventually, he'll get more for an upcoming service where we can talk about the Pearl of Great Price, while actually opening up a few oysters and checking to see if there is treasure inside.  As you can see from the picture above, Madison did find treasure - a nice, shiny pearl inside.

And look at this one.  It was another oyster, this one with three pearls inside!  This was quite a little gimmick, but a fun one for her.  Plus, she gets to keep the pearls afterwards, so there's a win there as well.

So the test run was a success, and in fact Daddy will be ordering more oysters and pearls for that future service.  We remember doing something similar in Hawaii on our honeymoon, where Mommy got a pearl from Hilo Hatti's.  It was the same thing - the pearl was in a shell, and for the occasion, Mommy even had it mounted on a nice ring.  We still have that ring to this day, a nice souvenir and a wonderful memory.  Recently, we saw the same idea at SeaWorld:  there were "pearl divers" there, nearby the tower.  They could hold their breath for amazing amounts of time, and dove to the bottom of a tank there to retrieve oyster shells that had pearls within them.  Kids and adults watched as the hosts there would tap on the shell and say a magic word or two.  And of course there was a pearl inside.  And you could buy this pearl, and also buy a ring to mount it on as well.

It's a neat little idea, one we replicated here on our back deck.  Of course, there's no ring to mount these on, at least there isn't yet.  But Madison got to harvest her own pearl today, which was a neat little moment for us.

Earlier in the afternoon, she was at tennis practice once again.  The new season for tennis lessons is upon us, and Madison was there, along with another girl.  And that was it.  Yes, there was a total of two kids in class so far.  This is unusual, as last year there was a waiting list to get in the class.  We'll see how it goes the next month, because I'm not sure how many kids have to be in the class to justify having it at all.  At least today she got a whole lot of practice.  I mean, fifty percent of the time was spent on her, right?  And it was her first time back, so she was probably slightly rusty.  Still, she enjoyed it greatly.  Tennis is her favorite sport, and she's been getting better and better at it.

Mommy and Madison read today, including a bit about the history of the turtle (according to legend), and how he got his shell.  Also, Madison read a bit about Pinkalicious as well.  She didn't get around to piano practice, but then again there was a bit of running around with tennis today.

There were rough storms again tonight.  In fact, for the first time since being there, we actually took the children into the hallway to keep them safe.  It may have been a false alarm, but at least we decided to err on the side of caution.  The service itself went just fine, as we were talking about the velella, a floating sea creature that goes with the flow.  We talked about resting with God, which actually featured a funny skit Daddy wrote about Jesus and the apostles, and calming the storm.  How ironic of a choice, right?

Everything went well, and we all drove home afterwards through the rain.  Mommy was still up, and the rain was still coming down.  We looked out on the porch and saw a special visitor:  a praying mantis.  Those usually signify good luck, don't they? He's been watching over our garden, no doubt.  Today, Daddy harvested a huge cucumber, really big - and a bunch of tomatoes too.  That was all before the rain came though.  Even now, it pours down.  Weather forecasters are estimating we'll get 2-4 inches tonight.  It has certainly been an unusual summer!