Our Saturday and some random info

This past Saturday we had a chili cook-off at our church. Thomas is headed to Belize in a few weeks for a missions trip and this was a fundraiser for it. Joanna and Shane (my sister and her future husband) decided that they would enter a chili.

How it works: you enter and sign a form agreeing to the "rules" and "guidelines" of the chili cook-off. (it's very high tech. I might also mention that Thomas did not put together any of the rules or guidelines. This is our churches 3rd year having the chili cook-off so he just did what was done in the past) You come up with a name for your chili, you decorate a table and serve your chili anyway you would like. Joanna and Shane decided to be "nerds". They put together a formula for their E=MmmmmChili². They had all kinds of decorations and even had a bowl with nerd candies in it. Throughout the event there are judges who are judging the chili and the people who come to the event are also looking for the best chili.

There were three categories this year.
1. Judges choice
2. Peoples choice
3. Best presentation

Joanna and Shane won...
1. 2nd place for the judges choice
2. 2nd place for the peoples choice
3. 1st place for their presentation (I might add 9 people were entered into the contest)

They won a whole bunch of goodies and they used the chili recipe that I always make. Man, Thomas always told me I should have entered it, but I didn't think I'd win. Guess I know now.





On a few side notes...
Awhile ago I posted how I have to hold Garrison while I vacuum. I wasn't a big fan of doing that. Plus, I don't want to him to be 3 or 4 or 5 years old while I'm still having to "protect" him from the big, bad, vacuum cleaner. (I'm totally kidding, of course, but you get the idea. He needs to learn now that the vacuum cleaner is ok even if Lady and Bear want to kill the thing.) I figured he's old enough to sit by himself on the couch and I trust him enough to know that he can get up and down without breaking a bone. So I decided to set up a little area where he could look at books and have his juice while still watching me and out of the vacuum cleaners way. He absolutely loved it. He didn't cry or freak out once. He was a very happy camper and now when I pull the vacuum out he doesn't run (or crawl) the other way. Yeah!!

Here is a picture of Garrison and Maddy (the girl that I watch after school) Garrison was cracking us up. He kept putting his cheek against her whenever I'd go to take the picture. He's such a character.