McPherson Marathon: Trash Beach and Big Girl Dentist Trip

This past week we have had some fun making a trip trash beach to collect items for our women's retreat and finished it off with a dentist trip!

Trash beach is a little tucked away beach on the north of the island. We thought going after the typhoons there would be a lot of the "new" trash on the beach. Everyone was armed with buckets and boots and ready to collect lots of sea glass to use for decorations and give aways for the upcoming women's retreat. Flip Flops, Friends and Faith is our retreat theme and the beach is a great resource for our limited budget!! Now that we have things ready for those who feast with their eyes we can focus on the actual meat of the retreat:) We will be going through John Piper's Seeing and Savoring Jesus and are pretty excited to see all the connections made during the retreat!

Dentist - Wow let me just say things didn't go as planned today. Molly and I have been talking about how she saw her sisters going to the dentist last month and they cried. We were discussing how there was nothing to be afraid of and kept going of the verse - "God did not give you a spirit of feat but power, love and sound mind too." Parking she asked if she would get treat if she did good. I then told her if she didn't cry we would go to the store and I would let her buy a treat. She then got excited about buying a card - yes a greeting card is what she really wanted. After deciding what she wanted she then had questions about if I had a pen on me so she could write in it immediately. After assuring her we had lots of pens at home she locked into the card idea. We walked up to the office and there was a huge signed posted that parents could go in the room but must be silent and no siblings allowed. Well I happened to have the other two with me so I looked at Molly and said you are going to have to go back by yourself are you ok with that? She looked at me and said if I don't cry we are going shopping right? My answer yes we will go right after and she looked at me a smiled. When the tech came out and called her name I just sat there with the other two and she walked away holding the tech's hand. Not gonna lie I was probably more nervous than her but I just kept smiling at her and giving her a thumbs up. A little while later she walked out with the tech and dentist and they both said how impressed they were with her and how well she did. She was so excited about her new tooth brush and telling me how they counted her teeth let her choose sunglasses while they tickled her teeth. I was so happy that things went well and she was super happy to go shopping. We loaded up to go to the store and it was right around the corner. On the drive a man got out of his car and started walking towards me and it scared me as I realized I didn't have my seatbelt on. As I grabbed my seatbelt the man then turned around to get back to his car then turned around again and came to my window and said just so you know you could loose driving privileges here 30 days for not wearing a seatbelt. After that the girls said mom wear your seatbelt we don't want you to get arrested - ahh the voices of reason! Once we made it to the PX we went to the card aisle and Molly walked around in ahh and then picked out a Barbie card. A lady who was getting a card for someone asked what we were doing and I told her we were her for a reward for a good dentist trip. She looked at me like what kind of a mom thinks that is a good gift and then Molly ran up to her and showed her the Barbie card with stickers and said I didn't cry I get to buy this all myself. The lady then looked at me, smiled and said that is the best I wish my kids got that happy over small things like this. Riley really wanted a card and Molly kept saying that she needed to get one for her sister - love how they look out for each other but NO!