And He baptized us all!!

That title has multiple meanings...

Yesterday we baptized Colby and then while taking pictures after the service, he baptized all of us right back! He was quite enamored with the baptismal font and although he did stop short (or was stopped by us - depending on how you look at it) of splashing in it, he did dip in more than once and smear it around on himself and everyone else in the area. It gave us all a good laugh. Maybe it's in indication that he's headed for seminary someday - only time will tell!

The second meaning of the title pertains more to the He and not the he (Colby). God saw fit to celebrate Colby's baptism by showering down His rain; baptizing us ALL. That's how I'm choosing to look at it or else I'd have to be annoyed that we had what could easily be called a truly rotten rainy day yesterday!!!! It POURED buckets (that's an understatement) from about the time we were thinking of leaving the church all the way through everyone trying to get into the house (with children in tow) and into the time when it became obvious that there would be no one enjoying the festivities outside and that everyone would be enjoying them INSIDE which was my worst nightmare. In the end, everyone seemed to have a good time despite the lack of personal space and we kept the temperature to just below intolerable heat. Ha ha. I'm thankful that God gave us a day to be together and to celebrate Colby coming home to the States and home to Faith and our church. Maybe we needed the push of the rain to truly enjoy being close with one another. Although it was crazy there for awhile, I do truly enjoy having my house full of our family and feeling the warmth (yesterday it was LITERAL) that emanates from having your family surrounding you. How blessed I am to have such a wonderful group of people to call my family.

The whole weekend was pretty crazy, actually. Saturday was supposed to be an easy (ha ha) day of getting ready. My mom was coming to watch the kids so Steve could clean and I could work on food. That plan got off to a not so great start when my mom learned of a freeway closure that was going to severely impact her ability to get here. Thankfully Mom is tenacious, so she set off on a different route, but that did put her about an hour and a half behind. Meanwhile, I was working on making 10lbs of potato salad and a triple batch of baked beans. Steve worked on cleaning. Mom finally made it and Kailin immediately glommed onto her and was out of my hair (Colby was sleeping). When the potato salad was done and Colby was up, Kailin, Mom, and I headed off to the local cheese factory (no joke) to get some cheese for the festivities. We got what we needed and headed home for lunch and naps (for the kids - sadly not for the adults). After throwing together the quadruple batch of pistachio fluff, Mom and I went off in search of cupcake papers at "the little store" here in town. We were going to walk, but then saw that it was looking a little dicey outside, so we drove instead. We made it home in plenty of time, but it wasn't long before the day turned from party prep to weather watch. A supercell storm system descended on our area - one the weather guys (regular programming was interrupted in favor of continuous weather coverage) said was the worst they'd seen in this area in over 20 years. Tornado warnings abounded (though none for our county), flash flood warnings, severe thunderstorm warnings.... the map had so many different colors on it, it was hard to tell who needed to run for high ground and who needed to go into the basement! So my mom was trying to figure out how she could get home and we were trying to figure out how (or if) we could safely get Steve's brother and sister-in-law and their baby here for the night. Reports came from my mom's house that there was golf ball sized hail in the backyard. In the end, my mom left after dinner; promising to turn around immediately (and not look for a different way around) if she saw any standing water whatsoever and Jason, Sara, and Eva made it a little over half way here and decided to take refuge with Mike, Jodi, Olivia and Nicholas instead of braving it the rest of the way. That turned out to be a great decision since they closed the freeway due to flooding soon after. Our basement has stayed dry thus far and we hope that will continue to be the case. More rains are predicted for today, but nothing as severe or vast in quantity (the area got over 7" of rain this weekend). Our prayers go out to all the families whose basements are flooded or whose trees are uprooted, or homes destroyed. Let's hope this week brings a calmer state (the weather and in my house!!).