Secret Agent Michael

We finally celebrated Michael's 10th birthday with a secret agent party, while fighting rain - the first time the icing didn't struggle with SoCal fall temps - holding much of it indoors.

 Carolyn delivered again with a party capturing these boys' imagination. A laser beam obstacle course was an initiation rite,

ending with an ambitious scavenger hunt, complete with bomb deactivation

& party favor mug shots.

 We were a bit nervous with the energy level, but had great assistance from Elle, who has been through every one of these events: Indiana Jones, Narnia, Charlie Brown, Safari.

Closer to the actual day, Carolyn baked marshmallow-iced cupcakes for school.

 

We noticed a stronger sense of community with church and school circles overlapping, creating a peer identity;although the brothers' bond is, as others often comment, amazingly strong.

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Speaking of community bonds, GRC began an Awana-style, shared teaching of the Westminster Shorter Catechism for children & adults, creating a more active investment in one another. The famous summation, "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever," perhaps, reflecting a later formulation, the distilling of a tradition borne of struggle and centuries of getting it right. Certain reformed thinkers are now refining the "enjoy" part - ie, what happened to it - even as the Reformation nearly vanishes from the larger culture's memory.

For us, not so much a definite place, rather than a definite idea of place, seems to comprise a concentric pattern of church, school, family, & friends, threading together an intentional identity.