Football & Dreamcoats

Last weekend had some more involvement with kids than the usual weekend.  In addition to the two services where I serve with 4th and 5th grades, there was an earlier event for single moms, a Christmas party.  No, I am not a single mom, but I (along with another from my Monday small group) helped out by leading games in the gym for some of the boys who came with their moms.  The age range was about 3rd grade through 7th grade, with a couple data outliers (I think that’s the statistical term) in the form of one about six years old and another in 9th grade.  What does football have to do with this?  Well, Mike, the other one from my small group, brought along a football.  We started with just one 7th grade boy, one I knew very well by the way since he was in my cabin at summer camp a couple years ago, while the younger ones were listening to a Christmas story in the other room.  The three of us tossed around the ball for a bit before the rest came in, including more older ones (5th-9th grade) who joined us in a game of touch football played in half the gym- the volleyball ministry had the other half.  While Mike led his team as QB, as a non-sports guy I let the 9th-grader take that position considering he plays at his high school.  While we played, the younger ones played with various other balls, tricycles, and whatnot as Mike and I kept order.  Eventually some left for awhile to do crafts or something in another room, but the football game kept going.  It was a pretty fun afternoon.

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The lesson for the weekend was part two of Joseph.  Of course, most knew the story, but with these intermediate grades the focus is on application.  In this case, obedience and perseverance in our relationship with God even when things in our lives aren’t going so well.  On Saturday there are three leaders who rotate teaching from week to week so I never teach this service, but there are only two of us for Sunday, though somehow I still only teach every other month- huh.  The other one does two Sundays a month while one of the staff rotates in the months I am not on.  Well anyway this was my week so naturally I wore my bright yellow overalls I wore when I was in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat several years ago.  I also sang from some of the songs from the show as we talked about Joseph before Pharaoh (where we left off last time), Joseph finally getting his reward after 13 years of obedience during hardship, and later Joseph before his brothers who were trying to get food during the seven years of famine.  It was a fun lesson though I think I went a little long.

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So that was my weekend in a nutshell.  I’ll have to think about if there is anything to write about my two days of subbing this week- one in early childhood, one in 7th grade science.  Until then.




Priceless dog therapy

Okay, those are two things mashed together in the title describing events of Wednesday, my only day of subbing this week (though I am still trying for some Friday work).  What happened to Tuesday?  Well, I had to push my Monday photo work to Tuesday due to that annoyance to the daily routine known as jury duty, or in my case non-duty.  Fortunately no driving was required for this civic duty as the location was Chicago.  In fact, I would just not show up rather than drive there due to the ridiculous traffic.  Fortunately, the train stations are within walking distance both from my home and the courthouse in the city.  I also was glad this was the civil court instead of the criminal one- I don’t know how people are able to serve on juries for criminal trials that can often take weeks to complete.  I realize jobs can’t fire you for jury duty but they don’t have to pay you, and that lack of pay would be a huge problem, at least for me.  You noticed, I’m sure, that I wrote “non-duty” earlier.  What actually happened was my group got called down (while I was in the bathroom no less) and we went down to a courtroom, only to wait and be told that the two parties came to a settlement so no jury would need to be picked.  So we went back up to the jury waiting room in case we might be needed again.  About an hour later we were called up again, jury trial take two, or so I thought.  However, this time we were given our checks and sent home- I guess being called up once can count as our civic duty even if we didn’t make it to jury selection, let alone trial.  We did have to wait until they were sure we would no longer be needed though.  With half the day still left, I stopped for lunch since the next train wouldn’t depart for another 45 minutes.  Unfortunately, with the light leaving us earlier these days I was not able to go to even one of the dealers since I couldn’t be sure how long it would take and didn’t want to make a wasted hour round-trip anywhere.  Yes, I could have blogged Monday, but I just wasn’t up to it.

Which leads us to the topic of the title, my sub-job Wednesday.  I had to get up at 5:30 to start looking since it is near impossible this year to get a sub job in advance for some reason.  I somehow managed to secure one at a nearby school in their mentally-impaired program.  I must remember never to show up any later than 10-minutes early at this school.  I was right on time, but ended up about ten minutes late because they closed the lot by the front doors due to buses meaning I had to ask where the other lot was, wait in traffic to get to it, suffer leagues of parents dropping off their kids in the very same lot, find a spot, then walk a quarter mile back to the front doors of the school.  I did note there were still spots left in the front lot as I headed to the doors.

So I eventually made it to the classroom, somehow still before the kids arrived to the class (though I still had to work my way around several at their lockers).  Being a MI class there were of course teaching assistants so I was able to cool down from the hassle of my arrival.  They showed me the schedule for the day, but being Vet’s day that schedule was just made to be broken.  Instead of an hour of guided reading, for example, they had maybe 20 minutes before heading to their 2nd-grade buddy class.  That teacher talked a little bit about Veteran’s Day, and then a couple of soldiers came in to visit- one from the Army, the other a Marine.  Both had served time in you-know-what part of the world (the marine couldn’t tell us where- essentially saying it was classified, but the army soldier had been to Afghanistan).  They talked a little about what they did, what life was like with their respective units, and their families.  The 2nd-graders had written several questions to ask them during their visit.  It was quite interesting.  Once the principal came in and whisked them to their next class to visit, we headed back to our own room for snack time.  The next schedule change came during this time.  Just as they finished eating and sat down to read silently, in walks a vet.  Okay, she wasn’t a vet but I just had to use that play on words.  Notice how I didn’t capitalize the word this time?  That’s because this person was a pet therapist, if not a veterinarian.  Both work with pets, though for different reasons- oh never mind.  So my pun didn’t work- sue me. 😉

Anyway, the therapist reminded the kids how to handle the dog (apparently she had been here before), making sure they let this lap dog sniff their hands before they could pet him.  She also taught them how to give the dog treats (in an open hand, because the dog could bite your fingers if you hold the treat by the thumb and forefinger).  She also had the dog do some tricks.  The kids one at a time rolled a die and the dog would jump through a hoop for the number of times it showed, then later they did dog bowling where the kids would hide a treat among foam pins, and the dog would knock a number of them down to get to the treat.  Cute.

The kids got their silent reading in, and then we skipped math to do calendar in the short time left before lunch.  This is where the next part of the title comes into play- the look of surprise on a 5th-grader’s face when you sneak up behind him while he’s eating lunch and ask him a question in a place he does not expect to hear or see his church and summer camp leader as he turns and recognizes me.  Priceless.  As I talked to him, two more kids from my church got up to talk to me- one of whom I was going to talk to next, the other a surprise to me.  What was funny about this encounter was the girl who I had worked with in church drama last year didn’t know what to call me since she only remembered my first name, which is what I use at church- Mr. Derek.  She had clearly been taught to not use an adult’s first name at school.  Maybe I told her last year, I don’t know.  I didn’t know the third one came to this school, but this school being the closest to my church means several kids do happen to attend school here.  I know of three others in the junior high area who I know I have mentioned before (two are the girl’s brothers, twins whom I have also worked with at church).

The rest of the day was pretty mild.  I had an extra half-hour off due to the kids going to music, and when they came back we scrapped writing for some reason to watch part of a movie.  You know, I don’t think I have ever watched 101 Dalmatians before even though I kind of know the story.  We only watched a little bit of it before getting ready to go home, where I rested up until choir rehearsal, where I just want to mention that another pair of twins I taught a few years ago are regularly a part of- they finally came down to the tenor section after singing alto for the last couple of years (hey, they were 12-13 at the time!).  I can even name a couple more sets of twins and a set of triplets too.  I don’t know why, but they are not all that uncommon at my church.  Well, if I can think of some story to write about them sometime I may say some more.




From The Twisted Mind Of A Thirteen Year Old

Tonight, my nephew/godson and his two siblings came into the store before Wednesday night CCD.  I thought… uh-oh what is this terrible trio up to.  Joshua (in his infinite wisdom) chose to ask me in his own special way if I would consider being his sponsor for Confirmation… “since no one else seems to be able to.”  I tried really hard not to laugh at the presentation but I could not resist firing back at the way it was presented.  What an honor to be asked when so many others turned it down.  How many others were asked I do not know.  After they left, I decided to think that he failed in his attempt to say that there was no one else he would rather have do it.  Hey… this is my blog so if I want to sugar coat some things, it’s my prerogative.

I remember when I chose the person I wanted to stand with me as I made the decision to accept my Christian faith that my parents and godparents made for me when I was baptized.  It also happened to be my godfather.  I also remember hearing stories about the bishop slapping each candidate on the face as they were being confirmed.  This practice must have stopped some time before I received the sacrament.

Ok, I will say that it will be an honor to be a part of Joshua’s Confirmation day.




Day Planning

A Saturday off with nothing scheduled?! What am I to do? Nice to have one off every other week, but then I go crazy coming up with fun things to do. Well… I volunteered myself to help in the reorganizing of the Huber costume room so we can begin blocking scenes while we await the usage of the grand stage. What’s this you say? A costume room large enough to rehearse in? Sounded unbelievable to me, too until last winter when I saw for myself while looking for costume pieces for Grandpa Prophater. I had grown accustomed to a small, cramped closet full of things that by a show’s end is always in need of an overhaul. Well… maybe once that $5 million complex is built…

Of course, there is the OSU/Penn State game today at Happy Valley at 3.30.  With 2 weeks to go until THE GAME at the so-called Big House.  My Saturday off better not be screwed up.  the Bucks are 7-2 (4-1 in the Big 10)  A rematch of last year’s conference co-champs and they are neck and neck for second place in the Big 10 behind Iowa.

Later tonight, I am filling in as song leader at mass. There really are so many there that each person only does one mass every month or so. I will be singing one of my favorites: “Prayer of St. Francis” (Make me a channel (instrument) of your peace/ Where there is hated, let me bring your love, etc).

Plus, it sounds like it i going to be a beautiful day with sun and near 60 degrees.  Not bad for November 7.




More of last week’s news…

When mentioning costumes for the 5th grade class I subbed for last week, I forgot to mention one other costume.  Or two, rather, though only one of them was in my class.  It is strange it slipped my mind because this boy was wearing a video-game-related costume which was very good.  He came as Mario, complete in the right colors with hat, large white cartoon gloves, and of course, mustache (though this piece kept falling off).  I mentioned to him that with his build he might have made a good Luigi too, but his costume did have the extra padding to make him pudgy ala Mario.  During the costume show, who walked across the stage with (I think) a third-grade class but Luigi, which from a distance also looked pretty good.  When our Mario waved to him I figured they were brothers, but when I asked him about it the only fraternal relationship was in the characters, so this just made for a cool coincidence.

I said I would mention Friday night, so I am finally getting around to it.  Friday night was our second annual movie night for 4th and 5th grade.  Last year we saw the excellent Meet the Robinsons.  This year was Bolt.  Having never seen this movie before I was looking forward to it even if I wouldn’t really get to see if I had to keep too much of a watchful eye on the kids (as it happily turns out, my fears here were unfounded and I was able to watch the whole thing).  Before the movie, however, there was game and pizza time.  This year they separated the boys and the girls so one group was playing games while the other ate.  We started out in the gym.  There was a fun game set up called “the gauntlet” but before we did that we warmed up with another game, link tag.  No, this has nothing to do with:

[collegehumor]https://www.collegehumor.com/video:1923420[/collegehumor]

though that’s a hilarious Family Guy-esque video (click to see it in a larger size).  It is a game with one (or a few) runner(s) and one (or a few) tagger(s) with the rest spread out, standing linked in pairs.  At any time the runner can link up with one pair and the person on the opposite side would become a new runner so the pair doesn’t become a trio.  If the tagger tags the runner, the runner becomes the tagger and the former tagger links up with a pair and a new person becomes the runner.  I think we had played this before a couple of years ago, calling it squirrel tag.  After this game came- The Gauntlet.  This is just as insidious as it sounds.  The kids have to run through a course, going over or under as the course dictates, while trying to avoid getting hit by balls thrown by us leaders (heh, heh…).  If hit, they would have to go back to the beginning.  For those of you crying “aww, no fair for the kids,” don’t worry- they got their turn getting back at us.  I didn’t make it very far…

So for food time, we had pizza.  I was expecting the variety made in our church’s kitchen, but it turned out they ordered from Little Caesars.  The parents had to pay for this event, so why not?  This was the time where we leaders got to hang out with a few boys sitting together, thereby selecting our small groups for the end of the night.  After the boys grabbed their dinner, I waited a minute or so before grabbing my own and sitting down with four boys.  There were almost a dozen guy leaders, so the small groups were quite small.  There were more girls and fewer girl leaders present, so their groups I understand were a bit larger.  Did I mention this was an outreach event?  The kids were encouraged to invite friends who didn’t normally come to our church, so it turned out that two of these boys were such invitees.  In fact, both were invited by one of the other boys, but all four actually knew each other from school.  After a brief time in conversation with them, it was time for the movie.  We cleaned up and headed to the learning center where the movie was shown on two screens.  We were supposed to sit with our groups, but the boys kind of crowded together, so I sat in the row right in front of them instead.  Don’t worry, the seating was tiered and the screens high up besides so I didn’t block their view. 🙂

As I wrote, we were able to enjoy the whole movie with no more distraction than some kids going to the bathroom now and again.  They even provided popcorn for the whole movie experience.  Now, I typically say I don’t like popcorn all that much, but it is strange that I typically find myself eating it anyway, and this night was no exception.  While not in the same class as Meet the Robinsons IMHO, I still enjoyed this movie about a dog raised thinking his “human” was a spy constantly threatened by the evil Dr. Calico (with his evil cats of course) and that he was a superhero- managing to escape from his trailer, he heads out on a mission to save his human whom he thought was captured (they ended the day’s shooting on this cliffhanger) but in fact headed home as this was after all just a TV show no matter what Bolt was raised to believe.

Finally, Pastor Steve came out and talked a little, focusing on superheroes and how God is the only superhero.  It was just a bit more exciting than what I just wrote, but you get the idea.  We then broke into our small groups and talked some more about it, ending with handing out Gospel tracts that folds in several ways to reveal the message.  I actually picked up a fifth boy who hadn’t been selected already by another leader so I may have ended up with the largest boy’s group of the night.  I felt the discussion went very well.  The two visitors actually attended different churches, so they weren’t as green as expected in an outreach event, but that was okay as I’m sure everyone still picked up something from the small group, especially on sharing Christ with others if they had already had a relationship with Him.

It was a great night- I can’t wait for Winterblast in a few months- the overnighter at the church.  The only disappointing time was seeing another fifth-grade boy at the church with his mom for a single-parents meeting who chose to not attend movie night because the ones he wanted to invite were not in 4th or 5th grade, which I learned was sort of a limit in this event though not strictly enforced.




The Drama…

I’m going on my third month as a youth group leader, and while I always enjoy myself at church on Wednesday nights, in recent weeks I’ve also felt a strange kind of dread.  I couldn’t put my finger on it until last night.  There was a huge drama in our small group of 7th grade girls involving a friendship between two of the girls.  The situation made for a lot of tension and was also a huge distraction from our lesson.  After group, I mentioned this to the other 7th grade girls leader and the youth pastor, and neither seemed surprised, especially given the dramatic nature of a specific girl in my group – their words, not mine.  I came home around 9 pm last night with 4 of my own little kids to put to bed while feeling entirely emotionally drained.  I realized that even though I enjoy being a youth group leader for the most part, that strange sense of dread that I feel in the beginning of the week has to do with bracing myself for the weekly Wednesday night drama.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the other 7th grade girls leader’s attitude has greatly improved since the beginning of the year.  Also, a few weeks ago, two students were transferred into my group because their friends were in my group – so now I have the entire clique in my group, and I get to oversee and facilitate all of their various factions.  Wonderful.  I have a theory that the other leader was very discouraged and emotionally drained by these girls and their drama by the end of last year, and so when I showed up, I was given the clique and their dramatics for my group.  Ah, the joys of being the newbie.  I’m happy to help, and I’m glad the other leader seems much happier, but I really need to find a way to encourage these girls to shift their priorities a little bit.

Complicating the matter is the fact that we meet in the youth pastor’s office, so it’s really hard to supervise everyone at once, especially when there is drama.  I have girls wanting to poke through his drawers, lie under his computer desk, read his post-it notes and memos, and to sit on his desk.  I’m starting to feel more like a babysitter than a small group leader, and the girls in my group are turning 13; it’s not like they’re little kids (which is what I’m dealing with all day and at night AFTER youth group).

Don’t get me wrong; I do enjoy it; I’m just really frustrated right now.  I really like the fact that it’s something I get to do with my husband (the small group part is only about 40 minutes.  For the rest of the two hours, we get to do things together), and I like hanging out with the other leaders and the girls when they’re not acting crazy.  I’m just saying that those times are getting few and far between.  I need to find a way to focus the kids and also to get our group back to concentrating on the weekly lessons.  We can still have fun while we do  that, but step #1 will probably be to get us out of the pastor’s office – I don’t even know where to start if not there.

When I signed up for this gig, I failed to realize that aside from the long-shot of the Chicago Cubs making the World Series, my two favorite yearly live televised events – the Country Music Awards and the Academy of Country Music Awards – air on Wednesday nights.  I cannot express how much I enjoy watching these shows, and it’s kind of like an athletic event – it’s not really the same to watch them after the fact.  One year, I even did a live blog while watching one of these awards shows, and it was hectic, but a lot of fun.  Tempted as I am to call in sick to youth group next week, I could not look seven 7th graders in the eyes and tell them that I missed our group to stay home and watch the Country Music Awards, especially after the major drama that was this week.  So next week, I will actually be avoiding cnn.com and the media from late Wednesday night until whenever I will get a chance to watch the recorded CMAs – which might not be until the weekend!!!  Yes, I’m pouting, but I’m going to put my best face forward and just do it.  But I reserve the right to complain about it all I want on my blog!!!!!




Not much really…

It has been a few weeks now with nary a post from me.  You’d think in all that time I would actually have something to say, but sad to say I don’t.  Not much at least.  This new job so far is keeping me a little poorer than subbing alone.  Finding half-days for subbing to go along with this job is not easy and I have gone a few days without.  Also, I just learned my commission is based monthly so the couple of weeks I was ahead did not make up for the weeks I was behind.  Base only again.  Sigh.  Soon…  This season has been none too friendly for this job either.  About 70% rain in the last couple of weeks.  In fact, I had to completely take off Friday and go to one of the dealers Saturday instead.  I wanted to go to the other one tomorrow since it’s Columbo day (or something like that… 😉 ) and therefore no chance of subbing, but it looks like the rain will likely make a return.  Looks like I’ll have to take half a day off of subbing Tuesday instead.  I already took a half-day sub job, and have jobs for Thursday and Friday as well, so aside from Wednesday I’m pretty set for this week.

Speaking (writing?) of subbing, no interesting subbing stories I’m afraid.  Mostly upper grades (4th+) and once with a student teacher whose observing professor came in to watch her teach.  I am now two days toward the five I need in order to get paid for the annual sub-training in Hometown district- both middle school days.  The last one was science.  I essentially led a small chemistry project for 8th grade.  I hope their teacher gave them more time the next day as no one finished.

Then there’s church, something I haven’t written about much lately.  I have been able to give four of my five cabin kids their DVDs I made.  Unfortunately the fifth hasn’t been to church in awhile due to multiple surgeries- yes, the one with the dwarfism condition (is there an official name?  I suppose if I had ever watched Little People, Big World I would know).  They are just trying to fix his body, but even with a lack of an emergency which would normally lead to invasive surgery, I’m sure it is still trying for him and his parents- and undoubtedly painful.  I pray he recovers well.

Well, sorry there isn’t much here.  Hopefully I’ll have at least one more post before all of you come out this way.  I’ll try to be less lazy about posting interesting news and links as well.  I think there were a couple, but I can’t recall at the moment.




Keeping The Congregation On Their Toes

Tonight was my monthly turn as worship leader at church. It seems like there have been a few songsters added to the roster making it seem like a longer stretch between turns. As usual, it went just fine with only one major goof… not musical.  Opening song: “Gather Us In” went well an old favorite, but good to start things off with.  The responsorial psalm had the same words as the offertory hymn but different melodies, but both versions of “Taste and See” went well.

THEN, came communion! We usually need to sing two songs to fill the time.  I announced the first song: #303 “Where Charity and Love Prevail.”  HOWEVER, what Dolores’ introduction was definitely NOT for “Where Charity and Love Prevail.”  Instead, she had the second song “At that First Eucharist” up.  So we sang that and then I announced that NOW we will sing “Where Charity and Love Prevail.”

The closing song, “Go, Be Justice” was a song that was unfamiliar to me until I heard the melody which was familiar but I could not place and still cannot.  I think it curious that many hymns have the same melody but different words   DeeDee and I both agreed that if anyone complained we would gladly let them come up and take our places next time.  Somehow, I did not hear a word.




Camp: Day 4

Whew- what a scorcher this day was!  I am certain temperatures were in the 90s…  The kids certainly got no breaks at meals with drinks other than plain water.  Normally, they have to drink a glass or two of water at lunch or dinner, and then they can have punch or lemonade but for most of this week it was just water.  Of course they could get pop or Gatorade during canteen time, but for meals it was all water because it was so hot for most of the week.  It was so hot, they moved the normal Wednesday evening game to Thursday!

So today, the teaching was on the ears in the morning.  As for the ears, it is what we choose to hear: (1) What do we listen to, (2) Who do we listen to, and (3) How do we listen.  For (1) a big thing is music.  At their age it hasn’t become such a big deal yet, but we talked a little about it anyway. (2) involves what people they choose to listen to- besides their parents.  We will blissfully assume that they do listen to their parents. 😉 )Mostly this is about other kids or so-called role models who model inappropriate behavior- will they listen to such people or remember what the Bible says instead?  For (3), even if we listen to the right things, what do we do about it?  As the Bible teaches, we must be doers of the Word and not hearers only.  The evening message was about a crowded heart, one where Christ’s teachings are there, but crowded out by other things in our lives like TV, sports, internet (er- including this blog 😮 ), hanging out with friends, etc.  These things aren’t necessarily bad, but if there isn’t room for God then something has to go.  The memory verse was Proverbs 12:15: “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,  but a wise man listens to advice.” Speaking of verses, today we added all the key verses around the room- the five memory verses and Psalm 51:10, an all-encompassing verse for the week (I’ll let you look that one up- you don’t expect me to do all the work for you, do you? 😀 )Incidentally, we won cleanest (boys) cabin for the second time this week!

Of the two game times, I unfortunately have no pictures for you.  In the morning, we played our nemesis team, the Biohazards- nemesis because we were the top two teams all week, dukin’ it out for first place.  The game was the obstacle course.  I really didn’t get any pictures here because I was helping out our team at one of the stations.  The stations included going through a tire, swinging across a hole with water (and a “6-foot leech”), navigating balance beams (logs) and stumps, going across tall monkeybars, a “meat grinder” (old wire/cable reel), going over a couple of walls, and going across steel cables (my station).  The kids had to help one another, and many came back when they were finished to help Diego out.

The evening game was against the same team.  It was another course to navigate, this time in the game field.  I have a video of just the course- I suppose I could upload it to Youtube or something later but it’s really not as exciting as I had hoped.  This time I didn’t help out at a station, but I only took videos with my camera this time around- no pictures.  We won this game, but mostly because we had less people on our team.  I have no idea who won the obstacle course but I suspect the other team got the nod making the two games a wash.

Today the kids got to do the all-time favorite instructional- the zipline.  Now, you may be thinking, “what kind of crazy camp allows children to use a zipline?”  Well, aside from the obvious answer that our camp does, let me explain that this zipline is not the sort where you hold on to some sort of handles while sliding down the cable, letting go when near the bottom onto a net or something soft.  No, these kids are strapped in and attached to the cable- there is no way they can fall, short of the cable breaking, and I am sure by law the camp has to make regular checks of the zipline to prevent that from happening.  At the bottom they are stopped by two burly staff members- one slows them down, the other stops them entirely and unclips them from the cable.  There are two lines, so two kids can go at once.  They had time to go down about a dozen times each even though three cabins were there (normally there are only two cabins at an instructional- I’m not sure why they did it this way).  The other instructional was biking, though this year I think they got less instruction than previous years.  The biking, by the way, was at the top of that hill I talked about in a previous post.  I think it is only 40-45°, but it feels more like 60-70° when climbing it!  By the way, it’s named after a student who went down this hill on a bike when she was in junior high.  She got to the bottom, flipped, and broke multiple bones.  Needless to say, bicycling down the hill is no longer allowed…

Well, I think that covers all the main stuff.  The afternoon canteen was at the swim front as it was every day, but hot as the day was, would you believe that only one of my kids hit the water?  Unbelievable.  I even joined him for a short time- the first time in all my years I have gone in the water- I have always been paranoid about wearing contacts in the lake.  Even this year when I did go in I made sure to wear goggles to protect my eyes, which worked for the most part.  I’m thinking of combining the last two days into one post to get it over with- what do you think?




My Little Man

My son is ONE year old today – how time flies!  He is starting to look like such a little man:

christophers-dedication-pictures-001

This picture was taken at our church for his baby Dedication ceremony we had in June.

Jesus said “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
Mark 10:14

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEEBER!  WE LOVE YOU!!!