A Momentous Occasion

We moved into our house on March 1, 2002. Since that time we have been finishing little bits and pieces that we didn’t have time to do before with moved in. Alas, there are still a lot of things that need to be done, but we never seem to make time to do them and we are beginning not to care. That’s dangerous. But every once in a while we get so fed up with it that we spring in to action and work like crazy to get something done. (Well, let me rephrase that…every once in a while I get so fed up with it)

Anyway, just such an event occurred recently. I just couldn’t stand our garage any more. It was cluttered and dirty and smelly and, since we have never put in the sidewalks to the front or back doors, it is the only way for people to enter our house. I started cleaning and Brian soon joined in. It took us three full days but we finally accomplished something that had never been done in the history of this house…

We got both cars in the garage at the same time!!! Not to mention the bikes, toys, lawn mower, two garden tillers, and one kid sized John Deere Gator.

It was truly a momentous occasion that we had to document…because it may not last.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

We have always recycled aluminum cans. But the past two years in school Ryker has learned a lot about recycling and is very interested in it. So now it is his job to collect the cans from the kitchen, crush them, and store them until we can take them to the recycling center. He then gets the money for the cans. Once my grandpa got wind of this he started giving him all of his cans too and then Aunt Susan and Uncle David joined in. Needless to say he has been making a pretty penny considering that they pay 65 cents for every pound of aluminum.

Cainan has become jealous of Ryker’s new found cash cow ($12.90 at the last drop off). So when we were cleaning out the garage we found 4 old batteries that needed to be disposed of. Brian told Cainan he could help him take them to the recycling center and then keep the money. Cainan was thrilled. Unfortunately they only pay 4 cents a pound for lead so Cainan only came home with $4.00. He didn’t seem to mind at all. Later that night when he had graciously shared part of his treat with Ryker, he yelled out, “Happy straw for the rich man!”

A Dog's Life

Ryker and Cainan are the kings of make believe. They can play with a rock and two sticks and be totally happy (until they start bickering with each other over which stick gets to win the sword fight, that is.) They play a variety of make believe scenarios but one they continually come back to is being dogs. Every time they play Ryker is a dog named “Scout” and Cainan is his faithful companion “Bitty Dog”. They chase each other around on all fours and wrestle around in their dog house (a rickety contraption of blankets draped over chairs which Kinley continually knocks down). They speak only in barks, woofs, and yips but kindly translate into English for each other.

Sometimes one of them will be a human, “the petter”, while the other one is the dog. Of course, on these occasions the dog must wear a leash. The dog puts the loop end of the real dog leash around his arm (thankfully both of their heads are too big to get it around their necks or I’m sure they would) while the petter holds onto the clip end. Recently Ryker was taking Bitty Dog for a walk. As they started across the living room Ryker commanded Bitty Dog to stop and he ran into the other room to get something. When he returned he had the end of a gray plastic Indian tomahawk in his mouth. When we asked him what he was doing he said, in his best British accent, “I forgot my pipe. Come Bitty Dog.”

Apparently they had just watched “101 Dalmatians” and were reenacting the scene where Roger takes Pongo to the park. I forgot that cartoon characters used to smoke.

Jesus Fingers

While we are on the subject of make believe….

While folding laundry recently I heard Ryker and Cainan playing harmoniously in my bedroom. Since it was such a rare occasion, no fighting, whining, or tattling yet, I listened closely. I could tell that they were playing with their pirate ships because they kept calling each other “Cap” and “Matey” and yelling at various others to “Walk the plank!” But then I heard something that didn’t seem to fit. Cainan said, “Pretend my fingers are Jesus.” Of course, I had to go investigate. I found that the pirate ship was going over a water fall and the Jesus fingers were walking across the water to save them. They do listen in Sunday School after all.

Big Girl

Brian and I both just love this picture of Kinley. She is so cute sitting up on that little rocking chair all by herself with her hair all laying down…for once. She looks so grown up, though. I can’t believe she is almost one year old already.

What's Right with the World

In mid-June I attended the Arts Conference at Willow Creek in Barrington (suburban Chicago), IL. The theme for the event was “Hallelujah, What’s Right with the World.” It was an amazing experience. Envisioning a church service that takes place in that kind of atmosphere was difficult at first, but once I realized how well organized they were and how friendly, knowledgeable and helpful the volunteers were it was easy to see how they can accomplish such a large undertaking several times a week. (The picture above is a view of their stage in their sanctuary. Remind anyone of home? Didn’t think so.)

I learned so much! Not only did I get to hear speakers like Donald Miller and Erwan McManus, but I also went to 4 different sessions taught by the head drama director from Willow Creek. I came away with a lot of good ideas for how to form, maintain, and minister to my core drama group and a lot more confidence to audition and direct the members of the group in order to insure that our performances are as high quality as possible. The main thing I came away with was the idea that “drama asks the question that the sermon will answer”. Drama should be a vehicle to prepare the congregation for the message they are about to hear. I’m excited to start working with my drama group again and try to implement some of my new ideas.

It was also really interesting to see some samples of worship sets from other churches. I saw a multicultural presentation of dance (including break dancing), song, spoken word, rap, drama, and saxophone solo from a church in L.A. Very interesting! Not something we will ever use in Greenville, but interesting. The film festival was also a highlight. To see what churches are doing with video editing, etc. was truly amazing. We really got inspired to start making some of our own videos. We are starting next week with a Sunday School promo that involves people diving into a swimming pool fully clothed. We’ll see how it goes.

Overall it was a great time of fellowship with my team, good food, and lots and lots of information. It was definitely one of the things that is right with the world.

Celebration

We are all celebrating around here because Ryker was saved on May 19th and baptized on May 27th. Lots of our family was there with us to share in the special event. It was a great day! We are so proud of Ryker and his decision to follow Christ.

Close Encounters

On his way to the neighbor's house to deliver an egg, Ryker came upon a deer. It was about 20 feet from him at the edge of the woods at the back of the yard. Ryker was so excited. He had to tell everyone he saw about it over the next few days. He even wanted to reenact the encounter for me. So we started off across the back yard. He positioned me where he was standing and he walked over to where the deer had been. Suddenly he jumped up and started high stepping it across the yard yelling, "Snake. Snake. Snake!" Pretending to be brave and fearless I suggested we go look at it. Neither one of the kids or the dog took me up on it but I marched over to take a look. It was a really big black snake and Ryker had practically been standing right on it. I said, "Wow. That is a big one. No wonder it scared you." Ryker replied, "Yeah, I"m still shaking. I feel just like a kid herpetolgist."

Time Warp

I was recently transported 3 years into the past. I heard Ryker’s little 3 year old voice say, “Mommy, she’s ‘bodering’ me. She’s trying to get my trains!” When I turned to look of course it wasn’t Ryker whining at me. There was Cainan trying to play with his Thomas trains on the couch and Kinley grabbing and slobbering on every one within reach. It was so funny to hear history repeating itself and even mispronouncing “bothering” the same way. I laughed and grabbed the camera. Ever since Kinley started crawling and pulling up it has been a challenge for Cainan to keep his toys out of her reach. Some days he is feeling benevolent but he usually tries the old bait and switch and gets his things back, although thoroughly soaked. Cainan was finally getting paid back for all of the havoc he wreaked on Ryker. Fortunately for Kinley she won’t ever experience the same thing, not having any younger siblings, but I’m sure the dog will chew up enough of her stuff that she’ll get a taste of it anyway.

Up and Down

We have had a treadmill for 4 years. We’ve used it off an on throughout that time but we started using it seriously, almost nightly, last October. I have never really liked it…mostly because I can walk nearly as far on it as I can outdoors. My outdoor route through town is 3 miles and I do it in just under an hour. But inside on the treadmill I can only make it a mile before I am totally pooped and have to stop. The reason for this big discrepancy is the incline.

Our treadmill has the incline feature which allows us to increase the difficulty of our walks. Unfortunately the mechanism required to perform this task is located under the front of the machine and therefore makes it always at somewhat of an incline. So I am continually walking uphill. It is so irritating not to be able to walk on a flat surface. But I have been pushing the crazy down button for four years now and it won’t get any flatter.



That is until a couple of weeks ago…
Brian was walking one night when he suddenly jumped off and told me to get on. I complied and was shocked to find that the walking surface was totally flat!! “How did you do that”, I asked, “I’ve been pushing that stupid down arrow forever and it has never worked.” He replied, “Did you ever try pushing the up arrow?” That’s right. Down is up and up is down, apparently.

It seems that I was right about the mechanism under the front of the machine causing the incline, but the manufacturers anticipated this and therefore engineered the back of the machine to adjust up and down to change the incline of the walking surface to the desired level. So the “UP” button doesn’t increase the incline (as anyone with half a brain would suspect) but rather it raises the back of the machine to make it more level with the front.
So now I can top my outdoor walking pace because I’ve got a nice level surface and there are no uneven sidewalks or zooming cars to watch out for.

So the bad news is it took us 4 years to figure out how to work our treadmill. The good news is that we’ve been walking at the maximum incline the whole time…because I just couldn’t give up on that “DOWN” button. Was this clearly spelled out in the Owner’s Manual? Probably. But hey, we wouldn’t have these killer calves if we would have read the directions, now would we?