Each year, our church does a little "celebration of our heritage" day and it's called.....Heritage Day. You should have seen that one coming. Anyway, it's a super fun day filled with activities for the kids, tractors and hay bales, quilts and cooking demonstrations, and so on and so forth.
This year I was asked to do a cooking demonstration which, if you know anything about me, is like, WAY out of my comfort zone. But I am determined to not shy away from opportunities to stretch myself, even if they're not my forte.
Life is too short.
Oh and please notice Cindy's and my matching cherry-print aprons without even trying it. I mean, how often do you A. decide to wear an apron and B. match someone when you do? I must be easily amused because I am always amazed when things like that happen.
So anyway, I said I would do it, with a nervous knot in the pit of my stomach the whole time. Heritage Day arrived, and it came at a SUPER busy time. Doesn't everything? We had been out at the lake/camping the previous four days, and arrived home from all of that late Friday evening. So needless to say I didn't have tons of time to prepare, but I felt like I had everything somewhat in order, and it would go smoothly.
Well.
Somehow (I'm still not sure what happened) I was demonstrating a different recipe than the one that I had submitted to the cookbook. Did I send in one and use a different one? Were two similar ones submitted that got the wrong names? We may never know. But the whole point was to demonstrate recipes from the new cookbook so I was completely flustered and flummoxed, and frustrated.
I finished the demonstration as quickly as possible with my face aflame and palms sweaty, and gathered up my things and skedaddled out of there. And so that was the end of my "stretching my comfort zone" experience which proved to be worse than I thought it would be, and yet still strangely satisfying that I made myself go through that.
The bouncy castle was a big hit with the kids (of course mine were too timid to attempt it) and it was even a hit with some bigger, kids, as seen below:
Your secret's out, Ralph.
Look at all those cute kiddos in stripes. Oh and if you're into more pictures of cute kids playing in a wheat pit, and adults chasing greased pigs, you can view last year's Heritage Day post over here. Let's be honest, people chasing pigs just never gets old.
My little ladies are happiest when they are holding a baby. They are absolutely, positively, turning into little Mother Hens. It's rather adorable but it is also rather nerve-wracking. I have to mentally note before we go somewhere whether or not there will be a little baby in attendance, and then make sure I remember to watch them carefully because if I don't, they will be over there in a heartbeat. Rocking the car seat, trying to swaddle them with blankets, swiping their pacifier for a few test-run sucks and then offering it back to them, touching their face, playing with their toes....just nurturing and fussing and soothing and what not.
Very endearing and very exhausting, all at the same time.
John Schmidt was the star of the show at the evening concert. For those of you that have no idea who that is, he's like the Johnny Cash of the Mennonite world. Now you know.
And that's all for now folks. If you missed it this year, have no fear! At this time next year, it will once again reappear, bringing you much joy, gladness and cheer.
The End.
