Time For Chuck E. Cheese's

We took a strongly needed family fun trip to Lawton last Sunday. As some of you may know, we are moving to Oklahoma City in the next couple months. I say "some" may know because for some reason I have failed to tell pretty much everyone. My wife knows; that's where the notifications pretty much stopped.

When we're in Lawton, my wife and I usually like to hit Olive Garden, Chick-fil-A, or McAlister's Deli. We went a different route this time, namely, cardboard-tasting pizza, pointless games, and giant mice.

It was basically what we expected it to be. We had a great time just relaxing and spending 25¢ tokens for 1¢ tickets that eventually were cumulatively spent on three giant suckers. If my math is right, those suckers cost $10 a piece.

The only rain cloud on the sunny day was when a older woman began to yell at her kid because he picked a briefcase that she didn't want him on the I'll-trade-your-fake-money-for-this-pretend-briefcase-so-you-can-get-25-tickets-worth-up-to-and-including-1¢ game. The snarl on her face and words, "See! You just wasted the whole thing!" will forever be burned into my memory.

The smiles and fellowship that we had was worth it. Here are some pictures of the stop.

A Little Rock And Roll For The Soul

The kids and I took last Friday as a day (actually, night) trip. We drove three plus hours up to Enid, Oklahoma to see a quadruple band show. The night started off with Manic Drive. Seventh Day Slumber and Group 1 Crew came next. 

The "headliner" was Audio Adrenaline featuring their new lead singer, Kevin Max. Some older folks will remember him from the group DC Talk. Extra credit for anyone that knows what the "DC" stands for. More importantly, he also happens share my Alma Mater, Liberty University. I'm a little surprised he didn't recognize me at the concert. I know he was busy, though. He doesn't come bothering me while I'm talking to airplanes or telling Airmen to do push-ups.

The show was great. My right ear recovered today and I can just barely hear the constant ringing as I write this.

The kids also took the opportunity to hone their photography skills. Apparently Nori and Christian bogarted the cameras, though. There's a clear lack of Wyatt below.

I've not listened to Seventh Day Slumber before and I couldn't hear a whole lot of what they were saying, but the lead singer had quite a testimony of God's grace, love, and faithfulness!

We got one picture with Manic Drive. We saw this Canadian crew in little ol' Altus a couple months back. They've become a family favorite since then. If you happen to see them, please let them know Altus, Oklahoma says "Hi" and follow it up with a "We love you!" That's generally what people say to super stars, especially if you're personal friends now.

Now we're just waiting for the call that Group 1 Crew is going to hand deliver the mini-guitar that we are going to win in the raffle we signed up for. I've got a good feeling about that raffle. A friend of mine generally wins at those things, but he wasn't there to win it for us. I hope my good feelings are as effective as his.

It's A Good Day To Dye

Nothing really says Easter to me more than forcing five people to sit around a too-big table with five very full, very spill able containers of vinegar and food coloring attempting to change the God-given color of shells for chicken eggs that were never given the chance to carry life.

Here are some of the great smiles (and eggs) we managed to pry from ourselves yesterday. Wyatt invented the method that made the eggs look like a colorful granite slab. (You probably have a better way of describing it... if so, please leave it as a comment below because I don't want to keep saying it like that.)

 

"Buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God who raised Him from the dead" Colossians 1:20

Altus Activities

One of the great things about Altus, Oklahoma is the easy access to outdoor... er, country activities. This day it was going across the street to hunt crawdads at the creek. These are some good memories.

A Star is Born... Maybe Two of Them

So this is the day that Nori goes world wide. Mark it.

There's not enough words for this. Just enjoy.

 

Awesome!

So this is a little late, but I had to include this in the running history that is the blogging experience.

Over the last few years I've had a desire to express the rugged man in me and also provide for my family in a little more direct way by hunting. Christian has been a huge supporter. So far we've purchased a bow and arrow for Christian. And we've had a few sling shots. And a b-b gun. We're really on our way.

So when a friend at work offered to take us shooting I new a man of my outdoors background had to jump at it. Here's some pictures of the day. I think my young men are so manly shooting this .22. The video at the bottom is the highlight, though.



Oh Yeah!



Pause for Gun Safety Brief



That's a bunch of guns.

 

A Highlight

I doubt I'll garner the 2012 Dad OTY but it'll be close.

Seriously though, I thought I would mention one highlight. We decided to devote one night of the week to what the kids dubbed the Boys and Girls Bible Study. Techincally there hasn't been any Bible though there is talk of God. Really the Boys go somewhere for ice cream and the Girls go somewhere else. Since we're in Altus we eventually ended up at the same place. Then the Girls decided that wasn't cool and they went to the other place available. They'll be back, I think.

We started by picking out books that had short chapters with a focus on just discussing being Men and Women, and how stupid it is to wait until we're physically mature before trying to become mature in our thinking and character.

If you're in the market for something similar I highly recommend the Boys book - Boyhood and Beyond by Bob Schultz. Mr. Schultz has had great experiences and shares those and other stories in ways that really grab a boys attention. The points ranged all over from training to be a good husband to what to dirty diapers to how to build a fence gate. Hunting, building, disappointment, sisters ... this book has it all.

The Girls book was equally great. Candi weekly spoke of how wonderful it was to hear poignant, straight-forward talk about issues that plague Womanhood in America. That one was called Beautiful Girlhood by M. Hale (revised by Karen Andreola).

I think you could find them both at www.visionforum.com.

"Yeah, I Schpreckin"

I'm sure by now most people know what the Rosseta Stone software is.  The kids started about three months ago using it to learn some Espanol.  It's great seeing them whip out a little culture when we're talking about canyons and quesadillas, and about how our gato es muy gordo y flaco.  I haven't yet started on it yet myself, but I did take one semester of Spanish in high school.  Mi llamo Miguel (at least, that's what I went with for that semester - don't tell my parents that I wished they named me Mike).

So going back to my high school days brought up other memories and other Mike's.  I'll be ever thankful to the one that introduced me to this other Spanish Mike.  Whoever you are, thank you.

I guess since the AF is providing the software for me to expand my skillset (is that a new buzz word?)  I should probably spend some time on it.  Maybe they'll let me say "clear to land" in other languages than English then.

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.

Clicker

Thanks Nori and Christian for picking out the web clicker.

Pruning and reviving

We (the kids and I) did a little yard work today. We have three fruit trees that hadn't been trimmed since well before we bought our house. I'm pretty sure the lemon tree wasn't going to produce much because it had all kinds of unhealthy growth. We bought one of those really long trimmers (15 ft or so) and as I grabbed the branches the kids pulled the rope to seal the branches doom. It was fun as long as the branches didn't come down on top of us; grapefruit and lemon trees have 1-2" thorns.

As we worked I reflected on how much God demonstrates spiritual truths in nature -- weeds and good trees, seeds and growth. I've seen how many plants won't grow well if they aren't pruned. Sometimes a flower will bloom, die, and be left on. The dead flower seems to be the object of all the plants energy. No other flowers will grow on it until it that dead thing is removed. The branches will continue to grow, but they won't grow healthy; they'll become calloused, skinny and frail.

It's the same with us. One dead thing can drain all the fruit-bearing ability from us. Meanwhile other sinful areas quietly pop up and grow. While we pretend the dead sin isn't there, other sins are taking hold and actually go unnoticed by us (because they look "o.k." compared to the sin we are rebelling against). We don't want to confess and allow God to prune that sin away. When we finally do, we also open ourselves to seeing the other sins. God removes them, though painful, and we feel the weight go.

But a pruned tree looks uncomfortable. With no fruit or flowers showing it looks useless. However, if we push on, drinking from the pure water of God and feeding on His Word, roses and fruit will be bursting forth when we aren't watching. Suddenly, we'll be serving our purpose and glorifying God as we were meant to do; and we'll look back and be amazed. And we understand though painful, God needs to cut the dead and evil away from us.

He is good!

I'm glad I took the time to

work in the yard today.

Weekend events

Well, this Saturday we were invited by our friends to a homeschooling conference. It was by the Maxwell family who has been homeschooling for over 25 years. They have eight children and some amazing fruit has come from their labor. All of their children are very impressive, are outgoing (the stigma with homeschooling is that the children won't know how to behave in public or relate to others), and have done some very impressive things. You'll have to visit their website to see it all.

One of the things they feel strongly about is that TV is completely out. Again you'll have to check out the website to read their reasoning but I see a lot of value in what they think. The biggest thing to me is preventing Nori, Christian, and Wyatt from having to overcome the lies, false values, indoctrination, etc. that comes from watching years of television shows, movies, and commercials. Now that I have children I realize kids don't need to see or know about wrong things in order to live a right life. So I agree with a lot of what the Maxwell's taught this weekend. We're going to try 30-days with out the TV (we haven't had any channels really (cable or local) for that last year, but we still watch plenty of movies and play video games.). I'll go ahead and say now that I have to keep one going because my Theology 201 (starts Tuesday!) is half online and half DVDs!. I'm interested to see if the time we spend with the TV is time God actually wants us spending elsewhere.

What's snow funny?

Today was another awesome day in the snow! Uncle Peter hooked up a sled and a tube to his ranger (four wheel drive ATV type thingy) and pulled the kids all over his property. We have a DVD slide slow of the pictures that is hilarious. The joy on their faces in some pictures was only matched by the shear terror displayed in others. All was well until Christian decided the sled had done enough work and tried using his face instead. The sled failed to tell Christian that it doesn't cry or feel pain when drug across hard packed snow/ice at speeds in excess of six mph.

Anyway, I doubt any of them will forget that for a while. It's probably best that Wyatt was asleep with his daddy while this was all going on. We've found that high danger recreational activities and 100% fearless toddlers don't mix well.

Merry Christmas to all.

Snow much fun!

So far the kids have been having a blast sledding and playing in the snow. We stopped at Walmart and picked up some gloves, mittens, and snow boots. We borrowed snowsuits for the boys and my mom made a new batch of winter hats for everyone. There actually wasn't much snow when we got to Minnesota and it was too cold (about 7 degrees F) to make snowmen (I won't go into that for those that don't understand how snow works). The kids were kids, though. They made fun out of it anyway.
The next day we bought saucers and went to a local hill. We all (Wyatt included) had a lot of fun on the slopes.. er, slope. I'll add pictures later. We were out there for hours until our cheeks were red and Wyatt was mistaken for a snowman. Of course, we returned to the house as victorious sledders and basked in the steam of hot chocolate. There are disadvantages to living in sub-freezing weather, but there are some fun parts, too. Plus, it is just a vacation and we can keep telling ourselves that in two weeks we'll be Tucson again.