Cowboys and Stuff

The cowboys continued their mosey this morning at KidPak with a third "Trailblazers" message and skit of the series, although this time around, we're back to a one-month series and going with that for a while, rather than the two-month series.  We haven't been doing consecutive one-month series in quite some time, given the effort it takes to put together a stage and so forth.  It used to be that we did a one-month series each month, and I couldn't imagine all that work with a stage every four weeks, but we did that from 2006 to around 2013.  From time to time afterwards, we'd do a one-month series here and there.  But now we're right back at doing this and this only for the time being.  Part of the reason is that we keep doing our online services as well.  Madison gets to see those as well as the regular KidPak service, and in addition to that, the main service at 9am. 

In an odd game of "Where's Waldo" here, you can in fact see Madison - at least her head - in this picture above during our first service.  She goes there, and then attends the second service as a volunteer at KidPak below.

There's Daddy and our friend Daniel as cowboys in our ongoing series.  We've had a little story moving along, the bottom line to cover and a bunch of bad jokes too, but it's been a lot of fun.

Nerdo is is seen here giving everyone a lot of laughs.  Kids are so loud when he comes out, and he's so gifted bringing laughs to everyone. 

Afterwards, of course Pastor Lance is there to help share the message, although the kids are also going to the rooms in shifts to watch this week's edition of KidPak online.

It's a full morning, and I'm glad to see Madison so engaged in it.  We've been very, very proud of her lately.  She gets to enjoy the service at KidPak too, but she's also a volunteer helping out with some of the younger ones.  She's keeping pretty busy each Sunday morning.

We got home, and things were a little tense for a lot of the day, unfortunately.  Nana has been a little worse  recently, and in fact we didn't sleep that well last night, all of us.  There has been a lot of wandering, talking to herself, and difficult behaviors... we did manage to get some dinner tonight.  In the spirit of things, we ordered from Texas Roadhouse online, and brought back some steaks and other food.  Nana sat at the table to eat with us, but again, it wasn't long after that she was breaking down again.  It has been so emotionally stressful, and there have been plenty of private meetings between Uncle George, Mommy and myself about what the next steps are going to be.  One day at a time.

Strangely, tonight things suddenly calmed down at one point.  This may have to do with some medication that was taken, but Uncle George suggested another cowboy movie, "Cowboys and Aliens," and we sat down to watch this before bed.  And right about when it started, Nana joined us, and the five of us sat for nearly two glorious hours, watching a movie together as if everything was alright.

The movie was fun, one I hadn't gotten around to seeing yet.  Madison enjoyed it, as did the others, although we wouldn't put it at the top of any list right away.  It was just a decent movie we all sat together to enjoy, a cowboy movie, and a nice memory of things finally settling down.

Afterwards, we were able keep things calm and orderly in the house.  We put something in front of the door just in case Nana wanted to go wandering.  She did that a few times this afternoon, and not that far.  We kept an eye on her from a distant, tailing her like private eyes.  The rain suddenly came though, and that grounded her and everyone else:  it was a massive deluge.  In fact, on the way to pick up the food at Texas Roadhouse, the cars were going along Dawsonville Highway, making huge splashes just about everywhere, almost like we were all log flume riders at the end of a big plunge.  I've never seen it rain that much in Gainesville's downtown area.  I'm glad we had the RainX on.  

But tonight, Nana did well again, apologizing and at least carrying a more cheerful disposition, despite the consistent forgetfulness about certain things.

Through all of this, Madison has been outstanding.  She's shown love and support, and she's been so kind and wonderful and patient.  We're extremely proud of her.  She's done so well.

Tonight we read a few chapters from "The Wizard of Oz," and from the devotional as well.  We said our prayers, and not much later, we were all asleep.  Sort of.  Lately, it's been challenging.  We've all been getting up repeatedly through the night, waking each time Nana does.  We're all quite exhausted, but we'll get through this.