Held Hostage

There's never a dull moment with kids around. Take for instance when I go to download the digital camera and realize that at some point in time Nori has gotten a hold of it and snaps some doozies. I actually have a folder just for her special shots.

In all seriousness, I like it when she gets the camera, because she grabs memories that we either wouldn't see or wouldn't have time to seize. Behold.

Moving Right Along

Here are some pictures of Christian workbench project. I have to be completely honest (not that I was lying or anything). The table saw made the tenons much easier to make.

We're about half way done with the tenon-and-mortise joints. Then, we just have to gluing it all together and attach the top. Not bad for his first.

The Pumpkin Patch

This is from the Pumpkin Patch in Wilcox. The weather was beautiful, the company was great!

Wax On, Wax Off

Christian has been in Jiu Jistu for about two months. Last Tuesday, he performed his initial test which included three different "I can fall without getting hurt" techniques, a couple wrist-grab escape moves, the perfect push-up, and a couple other moves. He's still a white belt, but he officially belongs to the Kodenkan Yudanshakai dojo.

What Do You Hope For?

In an effort to teach our children how to handle money, about a year ago we started paying them for their "jobs." They each do a chore pack every morning and we pay them for their performance during school, which includes their "grade" for each class and their behavior(attitude, willingness to learn, etc.).

Nori and Christian get paid when we get paid and so they know paydays very well. God recently used that fact to encourage me. As I said, both of the kids are aware of when payday is. They know not to ask to be paid until the 1st or 15th. However, they've also seen that those days are very busy because of the things that have to be done as a result of us getting paid (groceries, bills, errands) so occasionally they remind me on the 16th that they haven't been paid yet. I let them know that I haven't forgotten about it.

They always take that answer and wait patiently for it. They know that I've promised them something and that I have to do somethings before they can be paid. They don't know the exact moment dollars will be in their hands, but they trust that I'll deliver as promised. They live with a sure expectancy.

We should do the same with God. He has clearly told us that we are not citizens of this world, that we are His children and heirs with Jesus, and that He is coming back for us (or taking us home at death). We have to maintain our faith and trust that God will deliver! He's able to come through on His promise! How should that effect our daily lives? I'm sure it should effect us in several ways - all of which are good. I pray that we will all remember that truth and remember what our identity is.

"And even we Christian, although we have the Holy Spirit w/in us as a foretaste of future glory, also groan to be release from pain and suffering. We, too, wait anxiously for that day when God will give us our full rights as his children, including the new bodies he has promised us. Now that we are saved, we eagerly look forward to this freedom. For if you already have something, you don't need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don't have yet, we must wait patiently and confidently." (Romans 8:23-25)

The Wood Man and others

I've recently been posting different small business websites up because I believe in capitalism and the American dream (you can see here for what I believe that is). Consequently, I'm putting up another website for anyone that might want or need Tim Becker's fine wood crafting services.
I'm also adding the website for other small businesses owned by friends and acquaintances that's we've used and that we can attest to their great quality.

Tim Becker
Yestertime Wood Works - might not be up yet.

Don Ross
Designs in Steel

The 5 Jalapenos - of course!

We also have used Amenity Construction, who do an awesome job, but do not have a website. Jason, the owner, put the wall up in our (now) bedroom and did a fantastic job. Here's his contact info:
Amenity Construction, LLC
(520) 631-2615
PO Box 16182
Tucson, AZ 85732

Anasi Tile and Flooring
No website either (that I could find) but they can be reached at:
1011 N Pantano Rd
Tucson, AZ 85710
520-750-8021

New and Improved

The company my dad has co-founded is moving forward. The 5 Jalapenos has widened it's clothing line, sponsored a race car, and opened their first retail location. Pretty exciting stuff. Check it out here.

It turns out it was a prank call...

So I haven't put any pictures up of the camping trip because I didn't take any. In fact, any pictures we would have taken probably would have had some scowls in them anyway.

I got to the mountain just after sunset, was served some scrumptious hot dogs, root beer, and marshmallows, and sat around the fire telling and hearing jokes and scary stories (that were made up on the spot pretty much).

We hit the sack around 9 and woke at midnight to rain. After 2 hours of heavy rain the girls tent was washed out. Travis and I re-arranged the vehicles so 3 girls could sleep in one car and Nori went into our tent. Another two hours of rain...

We woke to soaked wood, soaked tents, soaked shoes, and soaked chairs (from our van, longer story than belongs here).

But then Christi's cheerfulness brought the sun out and we gradually got everything loaded. I threw on three extra layers of clothes and road the motorcycle down.

All was not bad, though. There were some great jokes told. The root beer was outstanding. The kids had about 16 hours on Friday to play in an awesome camp site (good on the Harts for picking that one). Everyone was safe. We lived to learn to pack better for the next trip!

Nature Calls

We're heading up to Mt. Bigelow today in the Catalina Mountain range for an overnight camping trip with the Harts. It was going to be several families, but sadly a lot of people were busy or not feeling well. I'll get some pics up when we get back.

Off subject, I got this today from The Other Secret Agent. I thought it was a sharp reminder that we can't borrow billions of dollars too prop up a straw-man economy and not expect serious impacts.

Health Care Questions

I went through most of the July health care bill. The most interesting thing to me was how our government intends to irresponsibly pay for the new health care system.

In all, the bill will set up at least 8 trust funds to pay for the program totaling $2,352,000,000. However, I don't think that amount is the irresponsible part. There are successful companies in the world that have outgoing numbers in that range (of course, they have more than that coming in, too). The thing that says, "What kind of 9 year old mentality is spending our tax dollars?!!!" is this phrase which follows the establishment of each trust fund: "There are hereby appropriated out of any moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated..."

What?!

Anyone try that with your budget?

"Honey, want to buy a new car?" "Oh, yeah! Will it fit into our budget?" "Oh, I'll bet so. We'll just take whatever we have left over at the end of the payday and put that toward the car payment."
I think wisdom here says that if we have to do unwise things to accomplish something, it's probably not a wise goal to reach for. Basically, these are the things debt is made of - I've already given my thoughts on that here.

Mole hill out of a Mountain

Last year I put this post up about some work I was doing on our bathroom. My wife knows me very well - we have been married for over 10 years now. She told me she didn't want it to take too long, she didn't want me to go too overboard, and she didn't want to be stuck with one bathroom for a long time. Well, honestly, we only went with one bathroom for a short week or so.

However, November 19th will be one year and I'm trying hard to beat that date! I'm really close now thanks to the help of a plethora of friends. Standby for pictures...

Hold on. The suspense is killing me, too!

Somethings wrong with the counter!

I just noticed I've had over 11,000 hits on my blog since August. Either that thing is broken, or the big brother is watching me for bad-mouthing the president. I know it's not because my thoughts are that interesting to read.

It wasn't really a lie... really.

I read an article on Fox News.com today that shed more light on something President Obama used in the post-break, Health care-reform, motivational speech. At one point, he was giving examples of the atrocities of our current health care and health insurance systems. He ran a list of several people that had their insurance removed at a critical time or that were denied coverage for something important; all the examples truly seemed like atrocities.

However, because of my presuppositions about President Obama I told myself that while his points and examples were extremely convincing I should just wait and see how things unfold.

Here's the unfolding:

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama, seeking to make a case for health-insurance regulation, told a poignant story to a joint session of Congress last week. An Illinois man getting chemotherapy was dropped from his insurance plan when his insurer discovered an unreported gallstone the patient hadn't known about.

"They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it," the president said in the nationally televised address.

In fact, the man, Otto S. Raddatz, didn't die because the insurance company rescinded his coverage once he became ill, an act known as recission. The efforts of his sister and the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan got Raddatz's policy reinstated within three weeks of his April 2005 rescission and secured a life-extending stem-cell transplant for him. Raddatz died this year, nearly four years after the insurance showdown.

I know that all politicians spin in their favor, which is exactly why I'm a Republican. The less politicians are in control of, the better. I think we are all much better at running and dealing with our lives ourselves.

What can we learn from this?
1. The government can take some steps to ensure people aren't wronged. In this case, the government did their appropriate part.
2. Clearly, "taking steps" should mean creating reasonable boundaries to ensure righteous business practices. Again, that was done is the above case. If the gov wants to do a little more, that could be a good thing, possibly. Bring that to the congress and the American people will probably support it.
2. "Taking steps" should not mean mandating insurance, forcing insurance on people, or providing it for free.

Coming out in the wash

Here are some things that went wrong during our vacation to the land of 10,000 lakes:
1. woke up an hour and a half later than we should have to make our plane to Minnesota
2. there weren't any Harley's available to rent for anniversary ride
3. we lost Nori's DS
4. we lost Candi's wallet
5. we lost Dale's sunglasses and sweatshirt
6. the pool was in bad shape the Friday before the Sunday Wing-a-Ding

But...we made our plane, two bikes became available and the ride was awesome, we found the DS and the wallet, and the pool was great the day of the party (I wish I had pics of the three performing amigos!)

I ended up finding my sun glasses in the Target "glasses" section and I have plenty of other sweatshirts. All in all, it was a great experience for our kids to see that patience, peace and faith are much better than stressing and striving (not to mention that it was good for God to teach Candi and I that, too).

By the way, the list of things that were great about our vacation is too large to write here. I miss and love you, my family.

SNCO Induction Ceremony

These are pictures from the Senior Non-commissioned Officer Induction ceremony. Thank you again to everyone that prayed for me before my promotion testing. I wouldn't have made it without Candi's support while studying.

And thank you, Emily, for watching the young Sickels' so that we could have this date.

Happiest Place on Earth!!!

I suppose I could be accused of selling out (again?), and this time to the megacorp' Disney, but clearly it was like the happiest place on earth. Observe.

And everywhere is better with monkeys:

Jedi Training Video #3

Here's part 2... you'll have to listen closely to hear what the Jedi Master says. It's hilarious!

Jedi Training #2

This is part one of the funniest video. It was too big to upload all at once so I split the video in half.

Jedi Trainig #1

Jedi Master's Noria, Chris'tian Ess, and Wy Att

Behold, the hope of the Rebellion's next generation:

Vacation pics - Day 2

This was Disney Day 1. We met Travis and Kristi +4 and Don and Patty +1 at the gate and on we went to fun! It was a great time for sure. I was thankful for the crash course that Wendy had given four years prior. It really helped know how to navigate.