NFN: VBS and Hosting Hilarities.

Normal for the Nichols Time!
For our 3rd year, we are blessed to have new family members from China (Chengdu) for 2.5 weeks. Not nearly long enough in my opinion.
I eat them up like they eat rice. That's not rude, they really do eat rice a lot- they told me so! It the equivalent to the way I eat cheese or popcorn rather.
 Lay off!

As John would say, what I think my wife means is that she loves them. Yes, I do. I love them. They are both 13 and Leelah loves having big sisters. She is in heaven. And John, well he is so sweet that guy. We almost lost our witness over our dog jumping all over them this weekend. John kind of "went off" and threw the dog bed at her to get her from acting like Kujo on them. JUST PET HER AND SHE WILL BE FINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But we prayed and asked for other peeps to pray and wouldn't you know it, all is well.

Why do they sleep with the lights on? Don't know.

And there have been several fails.
- Drinking any kind of liquid and some of the meals. Not so much.
- Me: "Y'all like Harry Potter?" Them: staring and then an abrupt, "No!"
- Me: "Hey we've got cheeseballs! (not actual cheese which they hate but the cheeseypuufs in ball form)." Response: Nothing.
- Me: "Do y'all like American music like Michael Jackson?" Them: "NO! We like Taylor Swift."
Oh.
- They've already got Apple stuff so that's not a big deal this year. But they want to buy "iPad 3 for my father." They both have iPads and iPhone 4's. Our family's iPadless, I'm rockin' an iPhone 3GS and fine with it.
- "Swimming?" - No.
- "Bowling?" - No.
- "Shopping?" - Which in the past has not been a big deal, but they were like:
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!

So yesterday we shopped it up at Charming Charlie, which makes Leelah act like she's on straight acid (whatever that must be like, but it's scary). There was some "glamour glitter dusting spray" at the check-out. I will let you extrapolate on what happened next with that....
I've never seen so many necklaces purchased at one time. I thought about busting out some Dave Ramsey talk, but then my eyes started to glaze over and I realized I was getting an early instance of what I like to call "10:30 (PM) eyeball." This happens when my over-surgeried eyes get fatigued usually at 10:30pm, not 5:30pm. So I just headed up front to the cashier. Sans kids- incl. Leelah. Whatever, they will figure it out. They did.

and then as if that weren't enough to set my child off at 5:30pm we hit Hobby Lobby, mid monsoon. Did you know that my child has actually prayed loudly before:
"OH, LORD PLEASE LET MY MOM LEAVE THIS PLACE!" Speaking of HL.

VBS was last week.
If you are a church goer I need not explain to you. But let's just say, I'm old. After sitting on the floor (non-carpet) for the Big Show for 35 min or so, I attempted to stand up and looked like my body was being reanimated like I was in the Thriller video. I felt like the Crypt-Keeper. "Ms. Gillian, are you okay???"
No, Ms. Gillian has issues kid.

Pink Army

Not gonna lie which is always true for this blog, this week's been hard.

Nature Camp was such a gift. So very thankful to the Lord for that little adventure for my animal-crazy daughter. She came home covered in dirt and smiles every day. She lived up to being what I call a "Dirt Princess." The time I spent while she was at camp in Starbucks was my own little social experiment and I ate that up. I wonder what all those people in the leather chair circle will do without me studying them next week? What a life of leisure they have and don't even know it probably. Hope I'm not being judgey.

But all those fun deterrents aside, the enemy stepped up his game last week and brought so much doubt into my heart that I almost forgot how to fight back the siege. The Word. Prayer.

Thank you to some very special people in my life my Inner Circle of Prayer Mavens, because I was broke down. I was even questioning hosting our precious students from China again. They arrive in a week. So I had 4 ladies talk me down and back into God's grace. Thank you Jesus.

His strength is perfected in my weakness. His grace is sufficient. And when I get befuddled I remember that I'm so silly to be fighting this fight like I'm alone. That battle's already been won by Him. And God reminds me that we have to keep strong and keep assembling our Pink Army.

The Pink Army is our sweet little Lovely Girls Club.
An army who's mission is to bring light and lovely back into the world and stand up against the world's message of girls striving for worthlessness. This little army wears bows and dresses (and in my daughter's case wolf graphic t-shirts).

Our prayer is this:
That these precious girls will hear and believe in their worth, which is Jesus. 
That they know they are LOVELY! They are His! 
They will see that they do not belong to this world and all it's trash, but that they are each princesses.
That as Christ followers, we will be putting our hearts where our mouth is and we will serve.
We are going out of the comfortable bubble and we are seeing the reality, the sick, the tired, the forgotten, the poor, the destitute and we are showing them love. 
If we say we believe the Good News, then let's BE THE GOOD NEWS! 
That our little Pink Army be MIGHTY for the Lord! 
And protected as we go forth to bring light into the darkness. 

We have 18 Little Lovelies as the members are called.
We are forming ranks.
Get ready world. Your message has no place for our girls!

Normal for the Nichols- Nature Camp

The Nichols do Nature Camp!
So what Gillian, everyone at one time or another does Nature Camp. Yeah, but do they blog about the foibles in an attempt at humor? Probably. Shut it. Who asked you anyway sarcastic inner-person?????
Yes, it's 7:24 am and I just had an inner argument typed out.

So I sign my kid who loves all things exploratory and dirt (animals, bugs) up for this camp at this Sanctuary where they normally hold a fun little dealy called, The Titmouse Club.

Pause for laugh.

Still pausing depending on what grade you are in. I'm mentally still in middle school so I'm still laughing.

Still.
Laughing.

Sigh of completion.

So this is not the Titmouse Club. I've always wanted to take her to that, but I've had a bunch of eye surgeries, blah blah blah, couldn't drive the distance, waah waaahhh. So when I heard about this Nature Camp in the summer from a random Grandmother at the library, I was like:
This is it Gillian! The way you redeem yourself for all those years of lost coolness to your child! Beg your husband for the money and sign her up!!!! 


Yesterday Day 1 of Nature Camp.
  Oh it's in Memorial by the way. For those of you Houstonians, you will definitely get this.
Memorial is a blog post unto itself. It's nice. Trees- not med center equivalent, but nice. Nice shopping. It has it's good schools. But don't go out of that bubble lest you want to be stabbed. And people think they are kind of a big deal there. And, they are. I'm telling you. You don't just move there, it's like a legacy kind of deal. Cinco Ranch you can move in, raise your family, eat at Chick-fil-a whatever, no one bothers you with "Oh do you know The Patterson's?" to validate that you've lived there 20+ years- i.e. Legacy. In Memorial it's Denalis or nothing. But father, I want a vintage Broncooooooooooo!!!!!!! You're so lame for not getting me that!!!!

We lived on the extreme outskirts of Memorial. Please don't ask. I'm still in counseling.

So back to Nature Camp at the Sanctuary of Memorial (Titmouse Club).

I pull my CR-V in and my tire light comes on. AWESOME! Right before I'm about to pull in mind you to RockTownBumpsVille, USA. Maybe, Big Red was trying to tell me that I was going the wrong way? I was.

Leelah and I enter this log cabin with NO signage- first clue. They were having a pump up meeting. I get quasi yelled at by a chick who looked like Gidget and I wanted to like her hair, but couldn't after she had made me look stupid. I made myself look stupid, but you get it. I pray for self-control and for the Redemption of my Coolness to come back and then this sweet older (maybe at one time European?) lady who's totally a docent of this guild or something helped show us the way.

She asked if I had read. OF COURSE I READ IT THAT'S WHAT I DO TO AVOID YELLINGS READ EVERYTHING!!!!! Calm. Calm. We leave the wooded area and proceed to the church next door (MDUMC) parking lot to wait with Memorialites.

How can you tell a Memorial kid? They are holding paper bags that read: Whole Food Market, Everything but Water and my favorite, Pappa Bros. Steakhouse. Awesome. At least I had made the snap decision to use her backpack from school and not the target plastic go-to sack that really holds up for multi-use.

So we stand there and I start chatting it up with cute kids. They are presh. Leelah is borrowing herself into my inner thigh from shyness.

And then the sweet teacher comes out and Leelah runs into the woods with her.

Once I pick her up- well John the man picked her up on a lunch break- he's the best. She wouldn't stop talking about all the fun she had. Totally worth it. She also claimed to have "fell off a bench and almost into a river." So glad to see she carries the Nichols Name with pride.

Now we shall see how Day 2 of Nature Camp goes....