I know what you're thinking. "Those lazy VSers skipped a week!" And it's true. Except not the lazy part. Perhaps it was the flush of warmer, spring-like weather that kept us from being able to sit still long enough to compose a new post. Or maybe the recent rush of new work, new plans and more commitments prevented us from fulfilling our weekly blog duty. Whatever the cause,we're sorry and we'll try not to let it happen too often.

The Highs
Here are a few highlights from the last two weeks of our lives:

• Our basement got a face lift! For those of you unfamiliar with the dungeon-like lower level of our house, our basement has been steadily building up dust and discarded relics of former VSers for...well probably forever. This is also where our washer and dryer is and this Saturday we decided it felt icky to clean our garments in a place that made us shudder and sneeze upon entering. So two hours and two overflowing dumpsters later, our basement is organized, clean and pretty gosh darn spiffy.
• Our church's upcoming performance of Godspell has been keeping all of us busy the last few weeks. The show is beginning to come together (performance is May 18th) and we've all enjoyed pushing ourselves creatively and mentally to make it a top-notch show.
  
• Young adult Bible study has been a bright spot for us as well. We've had the pleasure of welcoming a few new people to the group and our conversation continues to stimulate as well as comfort.
• There have been four new additions made in our home in the past week. Last week, we purchased Jude (our football), Andie (our frisbee) and a very squishy bat and ball (Donnie and Marie). These new friends have provided us many evenings of fun at nearby Tower Grove Park. Join us anytime!

In the World of Work
This week, Heather is starting a new job once again. She is still in search of that one job that will fulfill all her hopes and dreams but until then she's settling into a new administrative assistant position through her temp agency.
La Clinica, Amanda's employer, had a Health Fair last Saturday. Heather and Tiffany both tagged along to help out and get our current physical health assessed. We are happy to report to all three of us appear to be quite healthy (maybe Ted Drewes IS good for you!) and the Health Fair was a great day of community outreach and involvement.
Tiffany's HeadStart classroom continues to be in a state of constant evolution. They welcomed two more new students to classroom in the last two weeks, successfully meeting their space capacity. The steady flow of new children has made for several challenging weeks but hopefully they are at the end of that trend and can now start settling in with one another.

As we face our last season together (Tiffany and Amanda will be done with VS at the end of the summer) there are so many plans and ideas yet to be accomplished. So even if we skip a week here and there, you'll want to keep up, because we'll have a lot to report.

International Week
This week, the three of us decided to give ourselves a culinary challenge: make international food all week. This went very well on Monday when we prepared Pad Thai and spring rolls, both of which were quite fantastic and fun to make. And Tuesday's green Curry was also delicious. Wednesday, however, was a bad day in the world of international cooking. Amanda, brave soul that she is, took on the challenge of falafels. Things went well at first but when she tried to check the temperature of the oil that she would be frying the little falafels in, a sudden explosion of oil and glass indicated the end of a relaxing cooking experience. Bearing an oil burn on her cheek, Amanda disposed of the glass sprinkled oil and cleaned up as much of the former thermometer turned explosive as she could. She then managed to fry several falafels before tragedy again struck by way of too cold oil and destroyed falafel. Her rather clueless roommates came to the sparsely set dinner table to find a less than chipper Amanda. The ones that did turn out though were a hard-fought-for treat. The rest of international week went smoothly. Right up to the Chinese Buffet on Friday evening.

Must-See Thursday
This week, the VS house came to believe in the power of prayer: The Office returned. Thus, Thursdays are right again with Survivor, The Office, 30 Rock and Scrubs all coming together to make our lives laughable.

Relaxy Weekend
The three of us spent Friday and Saturday doing very little, which was very, very nice. We each had a few little errands and things to do before we settled in on Saturday night with a good movie and a bag of chips.
Sunday was busy, busy though with church in the morning, Godspell rehearsal in the afternoon and young adult Bible study in the evening. All of our Sunday activities brought smiles, surprises and challenges to last us all week.

Spring
After months of seemingly unrelenting rain/snow, cold and cloudiness, it looks like spring might have actually sprung here in St. Louis. We had a beautiful weekend with 70-degree weather, lots of sun and plenty of time to enjoy all that spring-time goodness.

At Work
Tiffany's HeadStart classroom welcomed two new students to the room this past week. Both are barely three-years-old and each brings some new issues to the room. Little Uriel only speaks Spanish and burly Cameron has limited speech ability. So, as always, the challenges of working with low-income families abound. At least you she can honestly say that working at HeadStart is never dull.
Amanda had a very busy at work this past week. As La Clinica dives into a new season of much needed fund-raising, is seems that the hours in the day are becoming less and less adequate. Always the resilient Clinic Manager, Amanda continues to hold her little ministry together.
Heather is still adjusting to her position as an Administrative Assistant. She's getting used to the sometimes frantic but often slow pace of her days there. Being out in the "real world" as they say, has also exposed her to some different political points of view. Keeping a respectful attitude while disagreeing strongly is not an easy challenge.

Friday
To start off our weekend, the three of us plus Dae and Dan went out to a local bar and grill called Blueberry Hill. It's a little St. Louis landmark with walls covered with pictures of celebrities (Nelly, Indigo Girls, Bob Dylan, etc.) that have frequented this trendy little restaurant. We had a great meal and basked in the glow of feeling so ultra hip.

Saturday
The last few weekends have been pretty hectic here at the house so this Saturday was absolutely perfect because we had NOTHING to do. We slept in, ate cinnamon rolls and read our books. Ah, simple Saturday. That evening, we had Dan, Dae, Clay and a friend of Clay's (Dave) over for a pizza dinner and games. The pizza was good, the discussion lively and the games far too noisy. Good times.

Sunday
Sunday was the first meeting of the Godspell cast at church. Tiffany is directing a minimized version of the classic musical with Amanda contributing to music leadership and Heather playing a huge supporting role as stage manager. It was a really exciting meeting that gave us all something to look forward to in the coming weeks.