Vacation Week...

When I was called to ministry with this congregation one of the terms of call was "A week of vacation between Christmas and Easter".  The first year Easter was late and so I took off the week of Spring Break, because it seems most fitting to take vacation time when the girls are not in school.  However, most years the Spring Break in our area is still actually an Easter Break, in that it begins with Easter weekend.  So that is not the normal week I can take.

As it happens however, the regional Teacher's Convention always falls the second weekend of March.  Which means it IS always between Christmas and Easter.  And has the girls off-school for 2 days of that week.  So naturally it is the week I take off (which also happens to allow me to not have to lead worship the Sunday that DST begins and the Sunday closest to my birthday).  And that means it is this week that I am off...

 So how am I spending my vacation week?  Well I started it by working.  Last Sunday we had communion and it is my practice to do communion at one of the care homes the Monday after that.  I did not want to take this from them so we did that.  And then we are in the midst of a 6-week faith study during Lent.  To miss this week would put us out of Lent and to miss a week in the middle of a study always throws off the rhythm of the study.  So we did that as well. True that meant about a total of 4 hours of work over teh two days but that was not an issue to me.

Then we left town (always the best way to avoid working while on vacation).  And today was the planned highlight of the week.  This year the Brier (Canadian Men's Curling) is in Edmonton.  So we decided to take in one draw.  And as an added benefit for the girls they got to take the train to get there!!!!!  It was a highly enjoyable afternoon.  The first time I had watched that level of curling in person. So glad we took advantage of the opportunity.

Now to relax for a couple days (well I might do up the bulletin for next week since I have registered for an all-day event on Monday)....