Hello, and welcome! I'm Veronica Yardley, and I've been the church secretary at Calvary since 1985. I write our monthly newsletter, and this spring I started this page, since the church doesn't have one of its own yet. I figured if I could type a newsletter I could type a web page. I was mostly right.

Every year people ask for copies of the picnic pictures, and every year I order double prints and run out. So this year they're here, where they can't run out. I took them with my 35mm camera, except the one of us ladies in the shade, which my husband Ray took. The film was developed at the drugstore downtown, and our youth director, Curtis Landes, scanned the prints on the office scanner in July. Thank you, Curtis.

The pictures make this page slow to come in on a modem, so pour yourself some iced tea while you wait.

About 140 of us came out to the big shelter this year, which Ray says is a record. Two long tables pushed end to end and not an inch to spare: casseroles, fried chicken, slow cookers with their cords taped down, deviled eggs, potato salad, a green gelatin salad, sheet cakes, and more pies than anybody counted. Pastor Jeff Elkins returned thanks at the head of the table. Ray, in the white shirt, has been first in line at this picnic as long as I've known him, and one young man in a striped shirt decided grace was running long.

Pastor Jeff has brought his barrel grill to every picnic since he was called to Calvary in 1993. He made it himself from an old steel drum cut in half and set on welded legs. Burgers and hot dogs for 140, and as you can see, the smoke found him no matter which side he stood on. He says smoke follows the cook. We say it follows the pastor.

The children's sack races on the grass, with the grandparents cheering from their lawn chairs. That's our grandson Spencer, our daughter Jill's boy, who is nine, right in the middle in the green shirt, going down a couple of hops short of the line. He got up and finished and says it counts. Winners this year were Katie in the five-to-seven race and Michael in the eight-to-ten.

Once again the horseshoe final came down to Ray and Ralph Lake. That's Ray pitching and Ralph with his hands on his hips, looking like a man who has seen Ray pitch before. Ralph took it this year, 21 to 16. Nobody is keeping track of who has won how many of these over the years, except Ray, who is.

Three freezers this year: vanilla from Leonard and Carol Rackley, peach from Carl and Delores Neely, and strawberry from ours. Spencer cranked, Grandpa held the bucket steady and kept the towel on top, and every child in the park lined up with a paper cup. The peach went first. It always does.

Ray took this one, of some of us ladies in the shade of the big elm after the dishes were done. It was 96 degrees by three o'clock, and we'd earned the chairs. I'm the one in the middle in the pink dress. I don't remember what was so funny. Probably Ray.

The youth group's water balloon toss is the last event of the day, and this year Pastor Jeff got in line with them. He lasted three rounds. The young lady who threw the one that got him says it slipped. Nobody believes her, least of all Pastor Jeff, who laughed harder than anybody and says he'll be back next year. On a day like that, a wet shirt was the best seat in the park.

• Rally Day is Sunday, September 12. Sunday school starts back up at 9:15, with a pancake breakfast in the fellowship hall.
• Worship every Sunday at 10:30 a.m. Visitors are always welcome.
• The deadline for the October newsletter is September 20. Get your news to me by then.