Chili Cook-Off 2011

This was a big weekend. Jenn and I had our Community Group on Friday evening, so the kids went to Grandpa and Grandma Gates' house. And with our 4th Annual Gates-Wingader Chili Cook-Off, the kids were going to be at their grandparents' house on Saturday evening, so Lincoln just stayed the night on Friday and woke up early with Grandpa for a Leesville Lake Day.

Grandma Gates said that in the morning, she wasn't sure who was more excited about the day, Grandpa Doug or Lincoln! After breakfast on Saturday, they went to Bierce's Hardware to get some gravel for the driveway. Lincoln got to watch the frontloader dump the gravel in Grandpa's truck! Then they went to the cabin, did odd jobs, spread the gravel, putzed, etc., etc. He came back pretty tired.

The Chili Cook-Off was another fun evening. Most of the folks who came this year were friends of the Wingaders, which was kind of cool, because while Jenn and I are friends with Patrick and Joy, our circles of friends don't cross much. This party is always a fun mix of people, and this year was no different. There were eight chili entries, along with some great corn bread and fantastic deserts. This year was also no different because Jenn won the Cook-Off for a second straight year. The choice this year was a White Chicken Chili, and it won with several points to spare. Patrick's chili, though it didn't place in the top three, was in my personal top 2, as it was with Jenn's. Sometime we'll have to have a chili party just between the two of us families because we each make some awesome chili!I haven't posted a swimming update in a while. Lincoln is doing well. Mr. Tyler is still his teacher, and he's becoming more comfortable in the water. Though he's not ready to swim on his own yet, we're very pleased with how he's doing with his lessons.Lydia has been putting more and more steps together. She still prefers to crawl when she needs to get from here to there, but the steps are coming better.

We're still waiting on U.S. Immigration for the next step in Henry's adoption. As we're butting up against Thanksgiving and Christmas in America and Chinese New Year in China, we'd really like to get this document so we can ship our information out to China. This is part of the waiting game.

Bird Feeder & Chili Party

Last Wednesday Lincoln and I went shopping for our Operation Christmas Child. I explained to him that we were shopping for Christmas presents for a little boy his age. Once he got into it, he said as we were walking up and down the isles through the shelves, "He would like that dump truck. He would like that drill. He would like that Thomas. He would like..." And every time I said, "We have to fit all of this in a shoebox."

Yesterday was a fun day. In the morning we took the huge pinecone that Jenn and Lincoln found on a walk the other day and coated it with peanut butter and bird seed for the birds in the yard. Lincoln had fun making a mess with the supplies!

Last night was our annual Gates-Wingader Chili Party. There were eight different chilis and it was again a fun mix of people. Our circle of friends doesn't overlap the Wingader's circle too much, so this party has historically been a fun time to meet new folks and catch up with others, and last night didn't disappoint. The criteria for voting on the best chili is that one has to sample all eight. Not that that was a problem, it was fun being a food critic and it was funny to see a number of people actually making notes (me included!). The icing on the cake was Jenn's chili taking home the trophy!Another nice thing last evening was that Lincoln AND Lydia stayed at Grandpa Doug & Grandma Paulette's and Lydia had her first bottle. That went very well, she didn't miss a beat.A mild case of the Sick Bug is going through the Gates Home. Lincoln has had a major runny nose. Lydia has had some mild congestion and Jenn and I are on the edge, not feeling sick, but definitely feeling on the edge. That may just be the lack of sleep.

Catch-Up post

September was a month where we weren't behind the camera or in front of the blog much. Our apologies go out to our out-of-town family that relies on this for their steady dose of Lincoln. I'm going to try and catch you up with this blog post.

First of all, some pics:
Listing our house brought a lot of excitement, but not much activity in the early going. Then, all of a sudden, we started having a number of showings in a short period of time. Almost all of the feedback was good (one thought we were over-priced, but they were comparing with Stow, not Hudson) but nothing in the way of an offer. Then on Saturday night at our chili party (more on this below) we got a call from our realtor saying that we'd received an offer. This was at 5:45pm. The offer

• was low, and they couldn't go any higher
• stipulated that they wanted to close on Nov. 6 (we'll be in St. Maarten)
• indicated that they wanted us out of the house shortly after that
  and
  
• said that they wanted an answer from us before 9:00pm that night.

Hmmmm....

So we countered with the number that we originally set out to receive for our house. Keep in mind that we don't have to move. We're not in a rush. So we've yet to hear from them. This set a number of things in motion for us... namely, that we may have to get our stuff out of the house soon. And, there's really only one house right now that meets almost all of the criteria that we'd originally set as our goals. And it's a short sale. From all that we've been able to gather, short sales generally don't move very quickly, so there's actually a number of variables and unknowns right now. We've been praying about the situation and we trust that the LORD will give us the wisdom that we need to proceed.

Getting back to the Chili Party, Saturday evening was our Second Anual Chili Party and this year we had a Cook-off format. Without any coordination between the chili providers we had 8 very unique and distinct chilis. It was a neat food experience, and because everyone was sampling all evening, it kept folks moving around but near the food, so there was lots of interaction. We even had a trophy this year for the winner, and it was the evening's host, Patrick, that took home the grand prize.

Lincoln has been growing up like a good little boy. He likes to push his toys around, but not because he needs the balance, but because they apparently need to get from here to there and he's the best suited for the job (in his mind). His words are coming along. He also likes to spin around and make himself dizzy.

(Since I wrote the above stuff about our search for a house, we found another great house that is not a short sale that we could move into in a timely fashion if we needed to. This doesn't shrink the number of variables, but it does give us something more to think about.)

In keeping with the theme of bouncing from topic to topic, last night was my first Edge Small Group night. I had 7 Sixth Graders, and from everything that I've been told from co-leaders who had Sixth Graders last year and the year before, my goal should be to "just get through the first year." On top of that, on my way out of church yesterday a mother said to me, "Mr. Gates, my prayers are with you for this evening." A real morale booster! But our evening was awesome! The guys are engaged, conversation wasn't forced and they're quite respectful. Most of these guys have parents that are extremely involved at church, mostly in the children's ministry, so their kids know what church is all about. I got the questions:

• What else do I need to do besides accept Jesus as my Savior to be saved?
  ~and~
• Do I really have to be baptized?

And then I got the comment, "Jesus' death and resurrection really makes me feel wanted." And after all of this deep theological discussion, most of the guys dog-piled on each other while I was greeting the parents at the end of our evening. If every week goes like the first, I don't think I'd complain.

Well this post has stretched out for quite some time, and I imagine that my next post will have some sort of big news, such as, "We're moving!" ~or~ "The offer fell through." So stay tuned........