Stories I can't forget (for Nik and Shannon!)

Scott took Rana on a date tonight to see The Nutcracker. This past week I took her shopping for the occasion and picked up a purse that matched her dress. She saw me, and said, "Mom, I am sooooo not carrying that." I guess you would have to hear the inflections she used in her voice. It was hilarious! When they get home tonight, and Scott's first comment was, "She is just like her mother." So, of course I want to know what fabulous thing she did ... She fell asleep! That's my girl!!!

Owen was singing, "Ice cream, soda pop, cherry on top. Who's your girlfriend? I forgot." (Rana is great at bringing back all the oldies from school." So I asked him if he had a girlfriend. He got really embarassed and paused for a while, "Yes." Okay, so I'm getting a little defensive, and he finally says, "It's you, Mom!" and quickly gives me a big hug. Ahhhh. I LOVE being his girlfriend!

Jace is nasty. I leave the boys with Julie, our trusty accounting assistant, while I take Rana to school. When I got home one morning, she was carrying a stinky diaper to the trash. I admonished her, telling her that I would take care of those things when I got home, reminding her that it was not her respnsibility. The next day I found out that she did try to get him out of the office, but he caught on, and thought it would be funny to stick his hand in his pants and chase her around. It's no wonder why we ask "Whose got problems?" and Jace answers proudly, throwing one hand in the air, "ME!!!" I'm so thankful Julie thought he was funny for thinking that was funny. What a jewel!

Since summer is officially over, I thought it was time to get some pictures out. We ventured down to Texas the first week of summer to pay respects to Scott's Uncle David who went home to be with Christ. He has a great family and left an incredible legacy. Scott and I are both blessed with a long heritage of Christian families. Uncle David was committed to Christ for many years, and it was neat to hear the stories of the people whose lives he touched. It's always nice to see this side of the family.

Fun-due, Fun Summer

The theme for this summer is FUN! We've had a lot of it, even though we're insanely busy (what's new, right?). Because I know some of you are into fun neighbor ideas (I'm so stealing Sunny's May Day idea for next year), here's one Rana pulled from her kids cookbook. It's a very simple fun-due recipe that she invited any neighbor available to. It was basically one cup of chocolate chips with 4 tbsp milk microwaved for 30 seconds. We doubled the recipe, of course. I'm wishing I would have branched out and bought white chocolate chips and peanut butter chocolate chips too. Doesn't that sound yummy? We served the fun-due with marshmallows, butter cake, brownies (all store bought, but do what makes you happy!), strawberries, cantaloupe and pineapple. It was half payback for 2 of my neighbors who insist on bringing desserts to my place like the one in this pic. Isn't that sinful? Our neighborhood is fun enough, but we'll take any excuse to hang with "the neighbors" (My kids still call most of them "the neighbors, as if they don't have names.).

And for the fam... here's Jace at the zoo with Aunt Jayan (Gina). He loves that girl!

Happy and Sad Father's Day

It was a happy Father's Day for our family because my kids celebrated a Dad who works really hard, loves them a ton, is a great example of what God wants a Dad to be, and he will never leave them (despite what Jace's face says). We went to church (thought that was important to include), bought Scott a new coffee maker and a coffee grinder (the old one was a wedding gift -- 10 years old), hung out and watched the Celtics lose :(

It was a sad Father's day because our long time buddies Rachel and Cody moved away today. They are largely responsible for helping Scott fulfill his dream of living in Colorado. Over 5 years ago Cody asked Scott if he would interview for the youth minister position at his church. Scott was hired and the rest is history. We met them my freshman year of college (don't care to figure out how long ago that was), and they've been more like family than friends since we've been up here. Our kids are more like cousins. We love them and will miss them.

Church

Since the closing of the church we were attending a year and a half ago, I have not been enthralled with the idea of going to church on Sunday mornings. It seemed like going to church didn't have much to do with being the church. Each week we rush 3 kids out the door to chase them around. There was little fellowship, little worship and a whole lot of frustration going on. After being out of that church setting, I began to see why church was not appealing to people. I've shared most of this with some of you. What's funny is that most of my friends on some level agree, and have the same frustrations. Not surprising since most of my friends are ministers or are ministering in the church in some way. Church equals work. You can define for yourself what work equals! I was challenged by Sunny in New York and we came to terms with each other's position with mutual respect. I've been challenged again recently by my friend Candice. I suspect we will end up in the same place, but I'm going to post my study. I am soliciting comments and thoughts. Iron sharpens iron. I am currently in Acts, but feel free to throw out Scripture from other books. Try hard to put me in my place. I can take it, trust me.

So I just began listing the characteristics of the first church;

Devoted to the apostles’ teaching (2:42)
Devoted to fellowship (2:42)
Devoted to breaking of bread (2:42,46) – I want to say that this one was also mentioned another time. I feel like it was an important one for them.
Devoted to prayer (2:42)
Had everything in common (2:44) – toughy
Met every day in the temple courts (Solomon’s Colonnade) (2:45) and prayed at 9am, 3pm and sunset (3:1 and study notes)
Praised God
Enjoyed the favor of all the people (2:47) – Luke talks much about how they were all on the same page. He talks about it again in chapter 4.


Some other things I took note of in Chapter 4:

While they met at the temple the Sanhedrin opposed them, imprisoning Peter and John and warning them not to speak to anyone in the name of Jesus (4:2ff)
The Sanhedrin was astonished by Peter and John because they were unschooled, ordinary men. The Message says they were laymen with no training in Scripture or formal education, yet they were confident and so sure of themselves (4:13).
No one was needy because they sold possessions to take care of each other and the disciples distributed it according to each person’s need (4:36). Taking my position on church, I thought it was noteworthy that it is specified that the money was given to people and not for a meeting place. I had a friend go to Israel a few years ago and was told by one of her guides that the church really grew when people loved each other and took care of each and quit growing wildly when hierarchy and buildings became the focus. I’m going to have to do some research on that one to see how true it is, but I do have that statement in the back of my mind.

Guitar Lessons -- Week One

Tonight was week one of 6 weeks of guitar lessons. I walked into the Adult guitar class with my ghetto guitar (it has some fancy crayola kid art on it and has been strummed to death) tonight and saw about seven 13 year old faces staring at me. At the other end of the room were 2 guys about my age. I was the only female in the room. Here's a little video of me after week one. It's down right embarassing. We'll see how I progress. Notice the Pampered Chef scraper/pick. I don't have the kahunas to take it to class, but it would be hilarious if I did. If you're a guitar player and have tips, feel free to give them. I'll take any coaching I can get.

BolderBoulder

I was waiting for the professional pics to come in to blog the race, and then got sidetracked with a last minute trip to Texas. Here's the link to the professional pics, http://www.brightroom.com/go.asp?32336120, and here are the thoughts that I'm taking away from the experience:

It was the second hardest thing I've ever done. Having a baby in a bath tub at home is the first!
"Take in the air. It's free." -- what FloJo and I would tell ourselves when we got tired.
"Bend and tilt." -- Diana's advice on race day for emptying the bladder completely.
FloJo was out of town one weekend and I had to train alone. I was told music would revolutionize my run, so I bought a shuffle to be my friend. It only made me want to dance. I still hate to run. I love to dance. Perhaps next year I'll enter a dance contest!