Comment Responses

I doubt I need to state the obvious, but it's been a while since I posted. In an attempt to get a post out so that people know I'm still alive, I'm taking the lazy way out. I'm going to respond to comments made in the past few months. Some of them I may already have responded to with another comment, but not as an official post. So here goes.

• Big Doofus, a couple of weeks ago I created my Linkedin account, per your suggestion. Thanks.
• Dawn, you are correct, we are crazy for having a fourth, but it's a good kind of crazy, I think.
• Scott, I had Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie for the free cone day.
• Marc, maybe in a couple of years we can come and visit y'all in Wales, and you and I can take a day to strap the jet powered wings onto our backs.
  
• Mr. E, unfortunately I was never able to make it to see the new Indiana Jones movie. Bummer.
• Re: Mary Poppins. It was a mixed bag as far as the kids response to it. Will took to it most but had the most questions, of course. Ben was quickly bored with it. Ellie in the middle. Though they do occasionally sing a bit of "A spoonful of sugar" or "Supercali.....", you know that big long word you can say but not spell (at least I cannot).
• Mr. E, if you guys are ever coming up this way, let us know.
• Mom, you are correct, back in high school I would never have thought I would do a lot of the things I've done as a parent, including wiping a bottom with my bare hand.
• Mr. E, thanks for the book recommendations. I'll have to add those to my list. Now I just need to get through the dozens of books I've purchased but never read yet.
• Stephanie, you're welcome for the day off. But don't count your chicks before they hatch. Next year's not a done deal yet. Four kids, with one under one, may be a show stopper.
• Big Doofus, the zoo we went to is the Roger Williams Park Zoo.
• Mom, I think we have the "What's so amazing about Grace?" book. I think it's one of my unread ones.
  

Tech Daddy Predicts

I'm sure many of you have already read the incredible story of the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and several other hostages from the FARC guerrillas. If not, I've included a couple of links to news sites at the bottom of this post and I encourage you to read them.

This is such a great true story and I'm predicting that one or more books will be written about it and a movie will be made about it.

What say you?

Article 1
Article 2

It's A Zoo Out There

Literally. But more about that in a moment.

Last Friday (yes, I know I'm behind a few days, Ok, a week), my lovely wife took a vacation day (actually a little longer) with two of her friends. They met at 11:00 a.m. on Friday morning and left their families at home until around 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, staying in a hotel for the night. There they did very important things like listen to seminars, eat junk food and talk all night long (at least two of them did).

While they were off enjoying the good life, us husbands were left to fend for ourselves and our kids. (Am I building any sympathy here? Probably not.) Two of the husbands belonging to the Brotherhood of the Abandoned (laying it on a little thick perhaps) decided to go to the local zoo on Friday. That would be Andy and I. For the third, Steve, the zoo is not so local. Sorry Steve.

So we met at the zoo at 11:00 a.m.. Two dads, five kids. Could've been a recipe for disaster. It wasn't, but it could have been. And apparently quite a number of other people thought that this Friday would be a good time to visit the zoo too.

We wandered around, looking at animals, constantly spurred on by one of the two oldest kids saying, "Come on, let's go see the next animal." We had packed our lunches and partook at the appropriate time. There was laughing at gibbons, watching the bears and the snapping turtle, getting soaked playing in the fountain, waiting for the next pass of the harbor seal, gazing at elephants and giraffes, tree climbing, and protests that, "No, I don't need to go potty."

It was a good day. God's creation is wonderful and the company of friends just makes it more enjoyable. Below are a few select pictures from the day.

Honey, we shrunk the kids


What's that over there?


Ellie: "See, I can do it too!"


I can climb this backwards


I think that's something I could out run


So this is what it's like to be a resident of the zoo


Tarzan, eat our dust!


What's that you say, it's an ape, not a monkey??


"No, my badge does not give me all access to the gibbons' enclosure." Good try though.


If the cute older kid can't get me access to the gibbons, I'm prepared to send in the really cute little kid.


He who is the wettest wins


Be the crowned crain

My Utmost for His Highest

Over the years, I've tried out several different devotional books to go along with my Bible reading during my quiet time. The one I keep coming back to, which consistently challenges and convicts me is "My Utmost for His Highest: The Golden Book of Oswald Chambers¹". I highly recommend it if you are looking for a devotional book.

Do any of you have a favorite devotional book that you would recommend?

The copy I'm currently reading from is one that belonged to my parents. I'd like to share with you the June 1st devotion.

THE STAGGERING QUESTION

"Son of man, can these bones live?" Ezekiel xxxvii. 3.

Can that sinner be turned into a saint? Can that twisted life be put right? There is only one answer: "O Lord, Thou knowest, I don't." Never trample in with religious common sense and say - "Oh, yes, with a little more Bible reading and devotion and prayer, I can see how it can be done."
It is much easier to do something than to trust in God; we mistake panic for inspiration. That is why there are so few fellow workers with God and so many workers for Him. Am I quite sure that God will do what I cannot do? I despair of men in the degree in which I have never realized that God has done anything for me. Is my experience such a wonderful realization of God's power and might that I can never despair of anyone I see? Have I had any spiritual work done in me at all? The degree of panic is the degree of the lack of personal spiritual experience.
"Behold, O my people, I will open your graves." When God wants to show you what human nature is like apart from Himself, He has to show it you in yourself. If the Spirit of God has given you a vision of what you are apart from the grace of God (and He only does it when His Spirit is at work), you know there is no criminal who is half so bad in actuality as you know yourself to be in possibility. My "grave" has been opened by God and "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing." God's Spirit continually reveals what human nature is like apart from His grace.

¹ Copyright, 1935, by DODD, MEAD & COMPANY, Inc.; Fifty-sixth printing

My Summer Vacation

This summer my family and I went to New Hampshire for vacation...

Sorry, I lapsed back into my elementary years, writing the ubiquitous "What I did this summer" essay. Now that I'm an adult, and since this is my blog, I don't have to worry about following all the rules of grammar and I can use bullet points (yeah!).

I'm going to do a single post on our vacation. My wife on the other hand, is dedicating a whole post for each day. So go over to her blog for fuller details. I'll list the links to each post as they become available (enter the above mentioned bullet points).

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
  

One problem with my wife getting a jump start on the vacation post is that she's been free to pick any of the pictures that she wants. Now I have to sort through the left overs so as not to duplicate the pictures for those of you who read both blogs (but they are good left overs). Well, on to the essay...

Monday was spent preparing and packing. Anticipating all the luggage that our family of five would need to cart to New Hampshire, I installed our roof-top luggage carrier on the van. By bed time, everything was ready to be packed into the van. I also printed off directions, prices and times for the various activities we were interested in, and I used a three-hole punch and put them all in a nice neat binder. For those who know me well, I'm sure this is quite a surprise. Stephanie was pleased to have an organized binder rather than to be handed a bunch of loose sheets of paper. Who said old dawgs can't occasionally do new things?

We awoke Tuesday morning to the fact that it had been raining during the night but was now trickling off. After a quick breakfast, I proceeded to pack that van. Due to my superb van packing skills and my wife's superb suitcase packing skills, I was able to fit all of our stuff in the van, without having to use the roof-top carrier. So while the family sat in the van waiting to leave, I took it off. I could have seen out of the back a little easier, and we would have been a little less crowded in the van, if I had put some items in the carrier. However, since physics was my favorite subject in high school, I knew the following equation to be true:

((roof-top carrier + van) x wind resistance x ($3.93/gallon)) > (van x wind resistance x ($3.93/gallon))

In other words, it was going to cost me more mullah to use the roof-top carrier if I didn't need to.

After a stop at the post office, the bank and Wal-Mart, we were off. The trip up to New Hampshire was fairly uneventful, except for the multiple bathroom breaks including the panic stop at the side of the road for a boy who declared that he needed to go potty, which, in his parlance, means "I've reached critical mass and it's going to come out soon, no matter where I am, so you better get me to where you would want it to come out ASAP." After arriving in Twin Mountain, checking in and unloading, we proceeded to settle in and have a light supper. We enjoyed smores thanks to the fireplace in the living room.

On Wednesday, we went to the Lost River Gorge. We ate lunch before enjoying a beautiful hike up and down, in and out of rocks and over the river. There were waterfalls to look at and caves to be explored. I had brought along a flashlight, which was not needed in most of the caves. However, in the Cave Of Shadows, I pulled it out and shone it around. I was glad I did. Water ran through the cave and made a lot of noise, however, due to the darkness, you could not see, without the aid of the flashlight, that waterfall at the back of the cave that was the source of the water.

At the bottom of the Lost River Gorge


This is actually looking down from the top of a approx. 40-foot waterfall

Will and Ben on the boardwalk

After we finished with the Lost River, we went on another hike through the woods on a trail that left the parking lot where we were. We then proceeded back to the cottage for a brief rest before venturing out to hunt down dinner. Dinner was obtained at Fabyan's Station Restaurant and Lounge, which is located in an old railroad station that sits by some still existent tracks.

On Thursday, we ate an early lunch and then drove to North Conway and rode on the Conway Scenic Railroad for an hour. That was fun and the scenery was beautiful, however, according to Will, the train did not go fast enough. After that was done, we headed back to Twin Mountain via the Kangamangus highway, enjoying beautiful scenery and stop beside the river to throw rocks, sticks, leaves and anything else loose that was not too heavy for the kids to pick up. We stopped at a pizza place in Lincoln at the end of the Kanc.

A couple of the engines

Will and Ben on the platform

On Friday, we packed lunch and headed out to find some waterfalls and do some hiking. The first falls were only about a quarter mile walk from the parking area. Because of that, we decided to leave the diaper bag in the van, a decision that I would later come to regret. The falls were more of a steep series of rapids but they were still fun to throw things in.

The falls


Ben, at the end of a throw


Stephanie, keeping Ellie safe

Will, looking for ammunition to launch into the river

The fun was interrupted by the announcement by Will that he needed to go poopy. I briefly panicked - we're out in the woods away from civilized facilities and we had climbed down the bank of the river to get closer to the water, so the actual trees were probably too far to make it (see comments on the emergency pee pee stop above). Then the answer came to mind - we were standing beside running water, take him a few steps down stream and let him give back to nature. So that's what I did. I grab him up, stepped across the top of some rocks that were down stream of where we were playing, stood him up, pulled down his pants, and had him squat. He did really well for not having a seat to support him. The only problem was that the poopy was very runny, not the nice firm kind I was hoping for that would allow us to dress him and take him back to the van to be cleaned up. Nope. Not to be. You cannot pull his underwear up over that without necessitating a change of clothes.

Oh for the diaper bag. Stephanie offered to go back and get it, but that would be at least a five to ten minute ordeal. So I took the hit, as only a dad of three kids could. Yes, I used the water and my hand to wipe my son's bottom. Ewww. But you gotta do what you gotta do. For some reason, even though I thoroughly rinsed my hand in the river, Stephanie did not want to hold my hand after that until I had cleaned with wipes and Germ-X once we were back at the van.

On the road leading away from those falls, Stephanie, with her sharp eyes, spied a beaver lodge in a little pond beside the road. That was cool.

Beaver lodge

Gnawed through tree

The next falls were located beside the road. It was a short walk up to the pool at the bottom of them. The pictures don't do them justice. The water volume was not much but they started off way up the ridge. Once again, the boys enjoyed pitching things into the water. We had lunch in the parking lot opposite the falls.

The Silver Cascades


The kids and I in front of the pool


Stephanie in front of the pool

Splash!

The last falls were a little over a half a mile hike away but the hike was definitely that. We had borrowed an backpack child carrier from a co-worker of mine, so we put Ellie in that for this one. She enjoys riding in it - I do the work and she enjoys the view. It was a great help, we could not have done this hike without it. There was a lot of up on the way in, several muddy stretches of path to negotiate and one small stream to cross. The falls were quite pretty and worth the exertion. On the way out, Ellie fell asleep in the carrier - what a sweetie.

Ellie and I at the beginning of the hike


The Ripley Falls


The family resting at the falls


We're on our way out


Fording the stream


Ellie and I near the end of the hike. She's exhausted from the hike...

That night we ate at a local establishment in Twin Mountain. More smores were had back at the cottage. And of course there was packing to do.

Saturday morning it was once again rainy but that's OK since we were just traveling home. The weather had been beautiful the three full days we were there, which was a blessing from God and an answer to prayer. The trip home was even less uneventful than the trip up. We all had a great time. The scenery was beautiful and the company was the best. The only thing that we had hoped for but did not happen was to have a good moose sighting. (Stephanie and I had a brief glimpse on Tuesday but the kids were not tall enough).

Update 06/09/08

The post about our vacation will be coming, I promise, sometime fairly soon. Meanwhile, I thought I'd give a brief update on this past weekend.

On Saturday we attended the wedding of some friends. It was a small gathering, which made it nice in that we knew a good percentage of the people. The ceremony was held outside in a pretty little garden spot that was, thankfully, in the shade (Saturday and Sunday were in the 90's). The wedding was at 10:30 a.m, followed by pictures and then the reception - sit down lunch and dancing afterwards. The boys were a lot of fun to watch on the dance floor, they "danced" even when no one else was out there. The whole family had a great time. Congratulations Brandon and Kat! Thanks for inviting us.

After the boys finished tearing up the dance floor, we drove home, arriving just before 3:00 p.m., changed clothes and went across the street to the birthday party of Samantha, who is Will's age (5). They had a great big inflatable bouncy castle which all the kids loved and got hot and sweaty on. There was stuff to dress up in, Snow White was doing make up on the girls and tattoos on the boys and things to dress up in. The kids had a great time.

Then it was home for a bath before bed - no need for supper with all the food eaten and the boys having enjoyed cake on two occasions during the day. The bath cleaned off all the sweat and grime, leaving the bath water with a good brown tinge.

On Sunday we went to church as normal, went to On the Border for lunch and home for naps. I broke out the fans to try and cool us off - we were resisting turning on the A/C as we like our rather low electric bill. Then we sat around a laptop and watched Mary Poppins, the first time for all the kids. Supper followed, then some play and then bed time.

Thus ends our tale. It was a good weekend for all, except for the heat. The A/C did get turned on today in the afternoon as the thermometer outside reached close to 97 degrees. Some things are just worth paying for.

Home Again

We are home again from our vacation to New Hampshire. We had a great time. The weather was beautiful, as was the scenery - thank you God. I'll post more details later; I'm a bit tired now.

Icarus Would Be Jealous

This looks like a lot of fun to me. Anyone else like to try it besides me?

Brain Dump - 05/18/08

It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted, so this is just going to be a brain dump of things, in no logical order.

• To answer Scott's question in a comment on my last post, I had the Chocolate Fudge Brownie at Ben & Jerry's. I normally get the Phish Food, but they were out. What's up with that? Free Cone Day did not start until noon and we went through the practically non-existent line at 12:20, and they were out?! I think my wife was right in her opinion - they didn't have any at the start of the day.
• Last Saturday, I got the pile of leaves carted off to the compost facility. Yeah! Now what to do with that big patch of dirt where the grass died of sun light deprivation while waiting for me to remove the leaves?
• This morning, the boys were up before we were. Usually they are pretty good. Not this morning. Stephanie was doing the Sunday School at church this morning. For snack time she had a bag (opened) of miniature Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. When I got up, I discovered Ben putting the bag of Peanut Butter Cups back in the Sunday School bag. He had a ring of chocolate around his mouth. At the same time Will was in the bathroom washing off his face. Caught red handed or chocolate mouthed in Ben's case. The trash can in the kitchen had a large number of wrappers in it. Stephanie looked at the bag and estimates that they ate about half of it. Will was very pleased with how sneaky he and Ben had been. They both got a lecture and as a consequence of their indulgence, they did not get to have any Peanut Butter Cups during snack time at church. Added to the chocolate decadence, I found sugar on the counter around the sugar bowl and on the floor below it. There was sugar stuck to the sugar spoon. Will confirmed my suspicion, they had been eating sugar with the spoon. What puts these ideas in these boys heads?
• We went to a party of one of the boys' friends. It was at a bowling alley. We had not taken the kids bowling before. Only the kids played, except for those of us adults who were assisting our kids - we got to bowl, sort of. Will did ok. We've got to work on get a little more force behind the roll. Ben got upset after his first time up and so did not play for about half the game. Ellie bowled in his place. She had a great time. I did most of the work for her. She was able to lift the six pound balls off of the rack, though her toes had a few close calls. Ben finally decided he wanted to bowl some more and did almost as good as Will. In fact, he knocked all ten pins down once, for a spare.
• I've gotten the front yard and half the back yard mowed between rain showers. Even weeds look better mowed.
• The pollen is driving my sinuses crazy. Over the counter allergy medicine makes life tolerable but not great. When I walk out of work in the evenings, I can feel my nasal passages filling with mucus, my throat starting to swell and my eyes start watering and itching. My nose feels like a stuck a dandelion under it and inhaled the spoors deeply. Not fun. Isn't it amazing the mucus producing capabilities which God built into our bodies? You can blow your nose clear and less than a minute later, they are stopped up again. Ok, enough of that, running on to the next item.
• One day I was taking my lunch time walk at work. My normal route takes me on a road behind the library that is adjacent to my office building. On this day, there were two middle aged lady librarians taking their lunch break playing catch. I thought that was great - it did not fit with the stereotype image I had of lady librarians, a la movies like "The Music Man".
  
• We decided to introduce the kids to musicals. So the past two weekends, the family has gathered around the laptop to watch "Singin' in the Rain" the first weekend and "The Sound of Music" this weekend. These were mainly for Will since he's the artsy one but Ellie enjoyed them too. Ben, not as much. Neither could hold his attention for the whole time, though he did not get up and leave, just got fidgety. "Singin' in the Rain" was preferred over "The Sound of Music" by Will, mainly because the story moved along a faster clip, it was shorter and the signing and dancing were more energetic. He and been have sporadically been singing the title song and the "Good Morn'n" song.
• For my birthday, I choose to get money and purchased myself an MP3 player along with accessories (case, car FM transmitter and charger, etc.). Yes, I finally decided to take that step into this century. After research, I choose the SanDisk Sansa e280. It's an 8 GB flash based MP3 player. I ordered it on line, so it had to be shipped. While it was on it's way, I began to rip my CD collect to our laptop. For ripping CDs, I decided to use a free ware application called MediaMonkey instead of Windows Media Player. The main reason for this is MediaMonkey allows me to rips CDs to MP3 files using a variable bit rate. Basically this makes the best use of space while still allowing the music to sound decent. I also found a music site, SpiralFrog, which allows you to down load WMA music files for free. It's advertisement supported. You have to renew your subscription, and licenses, every 30 days, but that seems to be a reasonable price to pay for free music. There's practically no Christian music, which is a bummer. However, I have found plenty to download, such as Chuck Berry, George Stait, and Glenn Miller. Does anyone have other good music download sites that are 1) legal and 2) cheap or free (preferably the latter). At present, I have over 1200 songs on the Sansa, with about half the space used.
• The last bullet point was getting long, so I decided to go to a new bullet for this next point even though it is related to the Sansa. Once I received the Sansa, the first thing I did was to update the firmware. What a pain, initially! I downloaded the officially firmware updater utility and ran it, multiple times. Every time it would download the firmware (the progress bar attesting that it was doing such) only to display an error at the end stating the files could not be downloaded. I ended up reading some of the user forums and found out you could do the firmware update manually. I downloaded the zip file from the link provided, extracted the firmware files, moved them over to the the root directory of the Sansa, disconnected the Sansa and viola, the player updated the firmware. Easy as pie, once you got there. I still think it's terrible that the company's updater does not work enough times that the support forums have the update procedure as a sticky post.
• This past Saturday morning, I took Ben with me to have the oil changed and the tires rotated on the mini-van, at a 7:30 a.m. appointment. I had planned to take Ben, assuming he was up by then. He was. He's usually an early bird. Surprisingly, Will got up too before we left. An even a bigger surprise is that Will did not mind in the least that I was only taking Ben with me. In the past this would have cause temper tantrum. I was very pleasantly surprise and told Will that I appreciated that and was proud of him. Ben enjoying watching the mechanics put the mini-van on the lift and the rotating of the tires.
• I only have one more week of work before vacation. The last week of May we are going up to New Hampshire for four days, where we rented a cabin. I'm very excited. We have not been on a vacation that did not involve visiting with family (as much as I love them) since before our eldest was born. This will be just us. We are planning on doing mostly nature things such as hiking and exploring caves, though we are also planning on riding on a train pulled by a steam locomotive. Giving work my full attention this next week will be hard.
• On this coming Tuesday, we are going as a family for "THE" ultrasound. You know, the one where you find out if the baby's wardrobe should be blue or pink.
• Now that the weather is warmer, we've been able to start grilling. Yum. Not much beats a fresh hamburger off of the grill.
• We've also been able to go for some walks after supper. Well, Stephanie, Ellie and I have walked. The boys ride their bikes. We had saved some of Ben's birthday money so that we could upgrade his tricycle to a bicycle (with helmet). Both boys are doing good and look soo big riding on their bikes (albeit with training wheels) with their helmets.
• Last Sunday I was able to participate in the ordination ceremony of our pastor and friend Andy. It was a privilege. The ceremony was low key - it was a ratification of what we all knew and operated according to - that Andy is gifted and called by God to be in ministry. He and his wife have been in collegiate ministry for about 10 years in Rhode Island, with the addition of pastoring in the past couple of years or so.
• The boys and I got hair cuts yesterday.
• One day in the past couple of weeks, Stephanie called me up at work, sounding as if she were about to cry. Ben had cut Ellie's hair. It was a good thing for him that she could not find the exact spot but could only see the loose hair evidence. Then his luck turned bad when she discovered, while on the phone with me, that he had also cut Ellie's new shirt. He is still alive, in case your wondering.

Ok, that's it for me, for now. My brain is now empty.

Update - 05/03/08

Yes, I'm still alive. Just been busy.

Last Friday one of my best friends, Mike, flew into town for his grandmother's 90th birthday. He stayed Friday and Saturday night with us. It was good to visit with him. For Friday lunch, we met our friend Andy at Pizza Hut for the lunch buffet and that evening the three of us went to a second run theater and watched National Treasure: Book of Secrets. It was an entertaining movie and prompted me to do some research into some of the "facts" stated in the movie to find out how much of it was truly fact and how much was fiction.

It has rained several days this week, including most of this morning. I was hoping to get the pile of leaves in the back yard taken to the recycle center today, but because of the rain, that did not happen. It was also rainy on Tuesday, which was free cone day at Ben & Jerry's. I met my family and some friends at the local Ben & Jerry's store at lunch to take advantage of this event. Due to the rain, there was practically no line and it did not extend out of the door, which was great.

That's pretty much all that stands out in my mind for the past two weeks.