Job Update

Sorry to those of you who might be wondering what I’m doing for work this year. I didn’t get called for any interviews this summer for teaching positions, which was discouraging. So, I am an aide in the special ed. room again this year at Techumseh-Harrison Elementary. This is my second week and I can already tell that it is going to be a better year than last year. I’ve also applied at three assisted living facilities in town. I get off work by 2:00 so I figured I might be able to work part-time in the afternoons. We’ll see if something happens.

We Are Moving!!

Don't worry...we're not leaving Vincennes. We still very much love it here, but we are moving to a house. We've enjoyed living in our apartment but we feel it is time to move into something bigger. Our landlords, Phil and Sharon, attend our church. This spring Phil's sister passed away so they decided to rent her house, which is right next to theirs. We heard they were going to rent it and thought it would be a great place to live. We called them about it Monday night and they said that just that day someone decided to take it. I was so disappointed. Well, Wednesday night they called to tell us that the woman backed out! So, Friday we went to look at the house and Saturday we decided to take it! We are so excited to be in a house! We will have so much more room when the youth come over! We will have way more storage space, so no more boxes and tubs just sitting out in the open! We are also very blessed to still have Phil and Sharon as our landlords and I think they are happy to have us for neighbors! We will have a nice big yard and it is on a lake. Not quite big enough for skiing and tubing but they said we could use their canoes any time we want. :) Maybe we'll take up fishing! We plan to move on Saturday, August 30. We are going to paint the kitchen before we move in. I'm not real fond of the wall paper that is there right now and they said it was alright to paint.

I'll give you a little tour of the house...which of course is empty right now.
The front of the house.

The living room walking in from the side door.

Living room/dining room from the other side.

Kitchen

The laundry room is off the kitchen. No more washing machine next to the stove!

Our bedroom.

Bathroom

Spare bedroom.

This is our view from the living room. Isn't it beautiful?

I know this tour would be more exciting if we actually had furniture and things on the walls but don't worry, you will get a second tour in a few weeks!

Cardboard Boat Race

You guessed it! Here is a video of the boat race. Enjoy!

Youth Group Olympics

This past Saturday we had Youth Group Olympics. We had so much fun and I think the students did too! I hope it becomes tradition for the Vincennes Free Methodist youth group. The Olympics kicked off at 9:30 that morning. We had 8 students show up. I was hoping there would be more but it turned out well having 4 teams of 2. The students were in teams but earned individual points because the teams changed for each event.

The first event was a Horseshoes tournament. None of the students had ever played before so it was pretty interesting to watch. There were only two ringers scored the whole time. Most points were scored by who got the closest!


Evan and Luke were the winners of the Horseshoe tournament.

The next event was Bocce Ball. The students did great with this event. They were given 45 minutes to score as many points as they could. We had to have a tie breaker at the end for 2nd and 3rd place.


Kourtney and Luke were the winners of Bocce Ball.

The third event was a Rock Paper Scissors tournament. That was probably the most intense event we did! Aaron had the students stand on a bench when they were competing while everyone stood around them cheering. It was pretty hilarious! For the championship round the students who were out were able to wager points on the remaining competitors.

Kelsey was the winner of Rock Paper Scissors.

For our fourth event of the day we went to the cemetery and had a scavenger hunt. The students were to find different things on the stones such as a name that is 13 letters long, or someone that was born on Christmas and take a picture of it. One of the groups got a little creative and found a statue of Jesus and counted it for someone that was born on Christmas. They were able to get bonus points for finding multiple things on 1 stone. Sorry..no picture of the winners.

After lunch we had our 5th and final Olympic event. Inspired by Reslife week at IWU we had a cardboard boat race. The students had to construct a boat made only out of cardboard and duct tape. The person racing the boat had to be on it or in it the whole race. We went to a couple's house from church for the race because they live next to a pond. The students had 1 hour to build their boats. We invited the church to come out to watch them build the boats and then race them. It was quite the ordeal! My favorite part of the day! After the students were finished with their boats they carried them to the pond with the Olympic theme song in the background. The students then shared why they constructed their boats the way they did and what they named them. We had three judges to pick the best name and best design of the boats. The winning teams were given points as well as the winner of the race. The race began at a neighbor's dock and finished at the one we were at. It was pretty hilarious to watch. The church people loved it and thought it was so much fun!

Evan, Steven, and Conner with their boat "Living on a Prayer". They won the best design award because it was actually shaped like a boat.

Sunny and Kourtney with their boat "Big Bertha". They also had a bumper sticker that said,"If you can read this, you are getting beat by girls." They won the award for the best name.

Kelsey and Evan with their boat "USS Cardboard".

Luke and Graham with their boat "Cardboard Cruiser".

Evan, Steven, and Conner were the winners of the boat race.
After the race we had the awards ceremony where the top three finishers were presented with their medals. Gold:Luke Yochum
Silver:Kourtney RingBronze:Evan Barmes
The whole crew
Here is a video of the parade of the boats!

Little Tid-Bits

The Zehr household has finally started to slow down. Our life hasn't been too action packed lately. However, a few things have gone on...Last weekend we went camping with our friends that are going to be adult leaders for youth group. We wanted to talk about their responsibilities for the year and what events are planned so far. For each meal we had a different kind of pudgie pie (taco, pizza, and breakfast with eggs, sausage and cheese) using the pie irons. That was a huge hit! Pudgie pies make camping so wonderful! We hope to go camping again with those couples in the fall sometime.

We've also been working on the youth floor. We've started some more painting in the hallway. One of the seniors that just graduated is painting a pear tree on the wall for the seniors to sign. The other wall has a verse about bearing fruit. It's not finished yet but I'll post pictures when it is. We also have a couch in one of the rooms that needed the cushions recovered. The fabric was really thin and there were holes everywhere. I bought some denim fabric and had an older lady from the church help me out since I don't really sew...at all. She said she was just tickled that I asked her to help me. They turned out pretty nice. Now if we could just recover the couch. :)

This week we also got to spend some time with Aaron's parents. They went to Brown County on vacation. The stopped to see us on their way on Sunday after church. We had lunch and played Euchre. We also got to talk to his sister Sam, who has been in Romania this summer and is coming home today! Tuesday we drove to Brown County to spend the day with them. In the morning the men went golfing while the women went shopping. The guys were golfing in style because they had a golf cart with GPS! It told them how far things were and kept score. It even asked them if they wanted to order food as they approached the clubhouse. We ate lunch when they got back and shopped some more. Sorry...no pictures.

This weekend in honor of the Olympics in Beijing, we are going to have youth group Olympics. We are so excited. There will be 5 events. The students will be on teams but be scored individually. Aaron even got engraved medals for the top three finishers! He is just so creative and makes things so much fun.