Jane Austen

Jane Austen is simply amazing. I love reading her. I've recently been reading Northanger Abbey, which is one of the last of her books that I haven't read. The main girls love to read novels. I feel a kinship with them, not surprisingly! Here's a couple of quotes from the book:
"Provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all."
"Miss Morland, no one can think more highly of the understanding of women than I do. In my opinion, nature has given them so much, that they never find it necessary to use more than half."
"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good book, must be intolerably stupid."

She's so witty. She was not afraid to poke fun at her society. I just love it!

Okay, enough talking about books. On to real life...

This is a guy playing basketball. Isn't it a cool picture?

Then we play. Ben loves foosball! He's pretty good at it. :)

There's always a few readings and poems. Original and not.

This is a Chinese instrument. They played and taught us a Chinese worship song.

Then we have a variety show. There's always a lot of different things. This was alligator wrestling. You have to stay on your hands and feet. When your knees touch the ground, you lose. (The two wrestling are brothers who grew up doing this!)

At these retreats, first we listen to the speaker. This retreat's speaker was Dr. Steve Long from a seminary in Chicago.

Church Retreat

Every spring and fall our church has a reatreat. The spring retreat was last weekend.

We got to meet Grampa's cousins that live near us in KC. We're going to go to the Landers' family farm for Memorial Day! 

My dad got to come home. It's always fun to sit around and talk with family. 

This is all but two of the great grandchildren.  

Last Saturday, we had a party for my Grampa Sides 80th birthday. Lots of family showed up. It was great fun! 

Easter with Ben's family. This is the first time in many years that a picture has been taken with everyone. It's hard to get 26 people together and to stand still! It was fun. 

We took a picnic the first nice day of spring. This is in front of the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. I love it! ~Melodie

House Hunting

So we're going to look at houses on Saturday. Suddenly I feel very grown up...
~Melodie