Happy Birthday Kevin!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Quoted

"The word bipartisan usually means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out."

George Carlin

Cheekwood Pt 2

Make a Smilebox photobook

Cheekwood Pt 1

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Quoted

"Hell makes sense. Heaven is scandalous."

- Mark Driscoll

Savannah's Road Trip

When Kevin and I met, he told me about this tradition he had of taking his kids(individually) on some kind of trip once they were in the fifth grade. I loved the idea but as a working, single mom I never considered the possibility of being able to do it with my own children. Once Kevin and I got married and I quit my job, it was much easier to manage.

I honestly have not been alone with Savannah since she was 1 year and 5 days old. (That's when Kaylee was born.) She's a really great kid and as my oldest, she takes on a lot of work around here. She is so responsible that I end up asking her to do more just because I know she will do it without complaint. I'm trying to get better at delegating but I'm failing most of the time. Luckily, Savannah understands...or I hope she does.


We got a late start planning the trip so we didn't end up going until she was in sixth grade. We attended a Beth Moore Living Proof event in Memphis, TN. Savannah is probably the only eleven year old girl I would ever consider taking to a bible conference. She is so spiritually mature. It astounds me. It amuses me. It gives me hope for the other kids :)


The conference started on Friday night and continued through Saturday morning. I got lost in Memphis several times. We ate very late dinners at the IHOP and we saw Fame (a truly horrible movie) in a very scuzzy theater. And we had a fantastic time.

Quoted

"Without love, benevolence becomes egotism."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

2009

The summer that we got




Yeah...I know. Summer is long over. I'm behind on my blogging. Sue me.

Anyway...

I once worked with a girl who loved the Lost tv series. She talked about it all the ding dong day. At the time, I think it aired on Wednesday nights so I never got a chance to watch it beacuse it conflicted with church. Fast forward five years later and I added the available seasons to my Netflix queue. This is what I assumed would happen. Kevin and I and some of the kids would watch a few episodes. Eventually they would get sick of it and I would end up watching the rest on my computer by myself.

I was big time wrong. We watched the first episode which, of course, involoves the plane crash. My kids ran upstairs and refused to watch anymore. Kevin, Katie, Emily and I kept watching. Eventually all the kids ended up on the couch as we made it through several more episodes. Because school was out, we could watch two to three episodes per night. Somewhere in that first season, we became obsessed. Especially the little girls.

All their pretend play at the lake, in the backyard, etc, was entirely focused on Lost. Charlie, Sayid, Sawyer, Jack and Hurley became household names. We talked about them at dinner as if they were real people. Kevin would walk into the bathroom at night as I was brushing my teeth asking what I thought about a particular scenario and we would spend an hour debating a friggin television show.

The best/worst part was the weeks where we could not watch at all. Since Anna and Katie are only here every other week, we had to hold off watching any episodes while they were gone. When it was their Sunday night to come back to our house, all five of them and often Kevin would pester me with constant cries of "When are we gonna watch Lost?" We very nearly broke our 'no tv during dinner rule'.

I feel like we are a pretty close family and I know it's strange but somehow, this tv show made us closer. We laughed a lot. We cried a little (Charlie's death was very hard on Anna and me especially :) And we all waited for the logo to appear at the end of every episode so we could hear Ava say 'Lost" (She does this really creepy voice. You had to be there.)

And now we begin the long wait until the next season is released in December. At that time we will gorge ourselves on those episodes and await the final season which is supposed to air sometime in 2010.

I almost wish it would never end.

Quoted

"A society in which conjugal infidelity is tolerated must always be in the long run a society adverse to women."

C.S. Lewis

Book Review - Summer Confession Series

I know it's not summer anymore but I felt the need to explain the shortage of book reviews for the past few months. I made an innocent mistake and ordered the Sookie Stackhouse novels. (You know - the ones that are the basis for the True Blood series on HBO?)



These books are like Tootsie Rolls. No nutritional value at all yet I could not stop until the bag was empty. The stories center on a white trash barmaid named Sookie Stackhouse and her vampire boyfriend. I know vampires are ubiquitous right now. It's not my fault. Also, why aren't more books written about white trash barmaids? They should be.

So, no, I still haven't got around to reading 100 Years of Solitude but I still have loads of time before the new year. And in my defense, these books have werewolves and shapeshifters in 'em. How was I supposed to NOT read them all?