A Bus Story

This is the best picture I have of our church bus. Isn't it beautiful {sarcasm}? We hope to get it repainted and get the church name updated sometime this year. Anyway, thought I'd share with you "A Bus Story".

Once upon a time (this past Sunday), one of the CDL licenced drivers of the church told me the bus had a bad leak in the radiator. Since I am in charge of keeping the bus running for the church, that meant just one thing...take it to the shop on Monday. I can do many things, but auto mechanics does not even show up on the radar of things I can do well/correctly. On Monday, I checked and sure enough, the radiator was bone dry. I filled it with water and prepared to take it into the shop. I drove to church, turned it off, went to my office to get the paperwork from last time we had the radiator worked on and then started the bus back up to go to the shop. It started, then it died. I tried to restart it, but the bus would have none of that. GREAT! Now the bus not only has to be repaired, but it also has to get to the shop (on the other side of town) without running. Since I was trying to get it fixed for the youth department, and since I knew our youth pastor (Shaun) knew quite a bit about auto mechanics, I gave him a call. He came, looked at it and said he would work on it. Bless his heart...I don't think he had a clue what a time commitment he was making! Here's a brief overview of our week:

• Monday
• A call to another mechanic in our church helped me determine that the no-start problem was fuel related and not electrical.
  
• Called Shaun.

• Tuesday
• Went to AutoZone and bought front fuel pump.
• Shaun installed fuel pump. Bus does not start. Shaun determines to install new rear fuel pump inside fuel tank.
• Shuan found source of leak in radiator. I went to AutoZone again to get part. AutoZone does not carry it.
• Went to O'Reilly Auto Parts and got part of fix problem. Shuan installed it and radiator leak was fixed.
  

• Wednesday
• Went to AutoZone to get rear fuel pump. They do not have it in stock at that store, so I drove 40 miles round trip to get it from a store that had it in stock.
• Wrong fuel pump! Shaun and I researched and believed we found the correct pump.
  
• I went back to AutoZone. Could not order fuel pump we need...out of stock with vendor. Returned old one.
  
• Went to O'Reilly Auto Parts and order rear fuel pump.

• Thursday
• Picked up fuel pump from O'Reilly's. Wrong pump again!
• Shuan returned pump, talked to guys at shop and orders once again. Part will be in Friday.

• Friday
• Yea! Correct fuel pump this time. Shaun picked it up and installed it (this included dropping the fuel tank!)
• Bus wouldn't start.
• Shaun replace spark plugs. Bus started!!
• Shaun turned off bus, cleaned up and tried to start bus to park it...it would not start. Drained battery trying to start it.
• Shaun called me and I went over with jumper cables. Bus would not start. Then bus door would not close (electrical problem).
• Shaun fixed door issue (just a looses plug). Bus still would not start.

• Saturday
• Who knows what is going to happen. Shuan is going to look look through the manual he bought and see if he can find something else to check.
• I have spent several hours researching {the wrong} parts and going to pick up parts {both right and wrong parts!}. Shaun has spent double that time actually working on the bus.
  

To be continued...

The Hat

I LOVE this picture! This is the Octopus Hat I was telling you about from VBS this year.

Mystery Unsolved

Well, the turtle mystery is unsolved. We checked with the guy who we thought might have put the turtle in our yard, and he said he did not. And then, upon closer examination we noticed that the new turtle had a flat shell and webbed back feet...a water turtle. Looking even closer, we noticed a light red spot behind it's eye. This turtle is a Red Ear Slider...it not only likes the water but spends most of its time in the water. There are no creeks, ponds, etc. within a couple miles of us. We have no idea how this water turtle ended up in our back yard. Since it could not stay with our box turtles, we took a few more pictures (pictured here with Little George), measured it (8 inches long, about 6 inches wide) and looked for a place to let it go.


Amanda and I headed to a spot on Lake Arlington where we used to have a geocache. On the way down to the water, we saw several more Red Ear Sliders so we figured we picked a good place. Amanda took a picture of me with the turtle just before I set it down on the bank.


As soon as my hands came off the turtle, it dove into the water. If you look closely you can see it under the surface of the water (above and to the right of the shadow of my head) just before it disappeared into the muddy depths. We walked back up on the bridge and spotted it coming up for air and swimming around a couple times before we left.

The Good, The Bad, The Puzzling and Something to Be Thankful For

THE GOOD

This is a picture of the Prava Suites near the Galleria Mall. This picture off of their web site will have to do since I forgot to take our camera! But Brooke and I got away for the weekend to celebrate our 14 year anniversary (which was actually on the 12th, but we were just now able to get away). My parents came to pick up Amanda after VBS on Friday, we finished cleaning up the church after VBS and were able to head out around 4pm. With the rain and traffic, it took us an hour to get there, but the hotel was beautiful. It had a huge atrium with a a fountain and glass elevators looking into the atrium. We stayed in a nice suite that had a living room area, a large bathroom and a bedroom. We checked in, went to Chili's for dinner, walked over to and through the Galleria Mall to see how the "other half" lives/shops, watched a {loser!} movie and then did not stay up too late since we were both worn out from VBS. Got up this morning, used the GPS to find an IHOP, had a good breakfast, picked up Amanda and came home. As always, wish it could have been longer, but it was really nice to get away just the two of us.

THE BAD

This week, our washing machine started making noise. I know NOTHING about fixing problems like this, but since I'm a guy and it is expected, I pulled the thing out, unscrewed the back panel, took it apart and looked at it. Yup, the motor was making "a noise". My diagnosis...the thing is going to die soon. Time to start looking for a new one. (Part of the "Something To Be Thankful For": we have some friends and their parents just bought a new washer/dryer and said we could have the washer...free!). Anyway, I put it back together and told Brooke we would use it until it quit working. Well, after we got back today, Brooke went to wash and it quit working. I tried to pull it out and it was stuck. You see, several months ago the washer developed a leak and we didn't know. It leaked for weeks (maybe months). I only found the leak because the floor started to warp from all the water damage. So today, the washer stuck because the leg had worked it's way through the linoleum and into the rotted floor. I pulled it out and decided I would tear up the linoleum and put down a piece of plywood on top so we would be OK. I did not realize that once I tore the linoleum off I would be able to see to the ground! The sub-flooring had rotted that bad. I started trying to tear it up and figured I would have to replace all of that myself, but it did not take long to figure out I was in over my head. I called my Dad, but he was not home. I knew I was in trouble.

That was 3pm this afternoon. I walked over to the church to grab some tools and a friend was there to help me put chairs back in the sanctuary. He had not gotten the message that the chair setup time had been moved to 4pm. I'm not sure Mike would see it as a "God thing" since he ended up helping me for the next 4 1/2 hours, but I sure saw it that way. I told Mike we weren't doing chairs until 4pm and told him I just came to get some tools. When I told him what happened, he volunteered to come help me. He ended up helping for an hour, helping me put chairs up in the sanctuary and then coming back and helping me for another couple hours.

SOMETHING TO BE THANKFUL FOR

This is what the floor looks like now. It may or may not get tiled. But the important thing is, it is no longer rotten and I can get my washing machine and dryer back in there now. Oh, I forgot to mention that the guy who built the house covered half of the sub-flooring with cement (see picture above, right side) and the other half with particle board, Masonite, three layers of linoleum and some roofing paper (that black stuff) thrown in for good measure!

What I am most thankful for (besides having the project done) is my friend Mike. Mike and I are not like "best buds" who do everything together, but he proved to be the truest kind of friend today. He gave 4 1/2 hours of his weekend to help out a guy who didn't know what he was doing (me) and who would still be working on the project had it not been for his (Mike's) help. I could have covered the hole, but Mike did some stuff that I never would have thought of (which would have caused me problems later had he not done it) and it certainly looks a LOT better than if I had done it myself. I am so very thankful for a friend like Mike.

THE PUZZLING

Brooke let the dogs out this evening and Sully ran up to something and started barking his head off. It turned out to be this large box turtle. I tried to put the turtle next to Grumpy (our largest turtle) and Little George (our smallest turtle) for a size comparison, but since the new turtle would not come out of his shell for a picture, it's hard to see how big he really is. We're not exactly sure how he got in our yard. Brooke says one her VBS workers mentioned finding a turtle in his back yard, but Brooke thought he said he had let the turtle go. All we can figure is this guy heard we had turtles, so he brought it here. I don't know...we'll ask him tomorrow. In the meantime we'll take some more pictures before taking him out into the woods near a nice creek and letting him go. He's pretty cool, but he's too big for our turtle pen and I'm not sure how we'd get him enough to eat.

So there you have it: The Good, The Bad, The Puzzling and Something to Be Thankful For.

Proud of My Wife

I only wish I had a picture of Brooke wearing her octopus hat to put with this blog posting. Oh well...I will get a copy and post it in a few days!

Our church has been doing Vacation Bible School all week. This is not Brooke's first year to lead a VBS, but I think she has really come into her own this year. One of the biggest areas I have seen Brooke grow in since becoming Children's Director at our church is building and leading a team. She has recruited some great people at our church to help in the children's department on a regular basis, and she has done the same for VBS. Of course it helps that Vine has a GREAT volunteer team. Those that volunteer, volunteer for everything! One volunteer told Brooke this was the smoothest running VBS she has ever worked (here and at her old church). Brooke is building a team and is getting comfortable enough to be able to lead them. I watch her talking to the VBS leaders, giving them instructions, answering questions and praying with them. Her confidence level has grown a LOT, and with that, her ability to lead. She has a family working with her this week who have been children's pastors before coming to the Vine. I think one of the (many) hard things about being a leader is drawing in other great leaders to work with you. There is always the fear that there is somebody who can do something better than you. But leaders who can overcome this can build a great team. I have seen Brooke work with this family, reap the benefits of their excellent ministry, get input from them and now get excited about picking their brains and turning them loose in other areas. That's a sign of a maturing leader.

Of course Brooke has always been good at being the "designated fun person". This has helped her out this week with her workers as well as the kids. Really, you've got to see the crazy octopus hat!

I could go on and on and some might accuse me of being a bit biased, so I'll mention just one more thing. Being an administrative type, I can appreciate a well-oiled machine (project). Brooke is not a natural organizer (remember, she's the "fun" one"), but she really has had her ducks in a row for VBS this year. From visionary planning through the preparation and on into the execution she has had the plan and worked the plan. I'm impressed.

So if you've read all of this and think it is "a bit much"...too bad. My blog, I can brag on my wife if I want to. I'll rant and rave about immigration, "global warming", gun control or something else for my next post.

Brookie, I'm impressed and proud of all your work this week. I love you!

If You Can't Compete...Legislate!

That's what the liberals want to do. Companies sponsor radio shows (i.e. pay for advertising) that draw an audience. Radio stations play radio shows that draw an audience and draw sponsors. Conservative talk radio gathers a bigger audience and thus draws more sponsors. And liberals don't like the fact that they can't make the cut in talk radio, so what do they want to do? They want to legislate what radio shows a given radio station broadcasts because they can't offer anything that competes. So if Station A broadcasts Rush Limbaugh for three hours a day, five days a week, liberals want to force that same station to broadcast liberal whine for three hours a day, five days a week. It's what happens when your ideas are too weak to stand on their own merit. If you can't compete...legislate.

Read the article that got me all fired up here.

China Arming Jihadists

New intelligence reveals China is covertly supplying large quantities of small arms and weapons to insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, through Iran.

U.S. government appeals to China to check some of the arms shipments in advance were met with stonewalling by Beijing, which insisted it knew nothing about the shipments and asked for additional intelligence on the transfers. The ploy has been used in the past by China to hide its arms-proliferation activities from the United States, according to U.S. officials with access to the intelligence reports.

Some arms were sent by aircraft directly from Chinese factories to Afghanistan and included large-caliber sniper rifles, millions of rounds of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades and components for roadside bombs, as well as other small arms.

The Washington Times reported June 5 that Chinese-made HN-5 anti-aircraft missiles were being used by the Taliban.

Read the whole story here.

Happy Father's Day

I had a happy Father's Day...but it was on Friday. Sundays are kinda busy days at our house and today in particular was busy as we were decorating the sanctuary for VBS after service. So Brooke and Amanda celebrated Father's Day with me on Friday.

Do you like the watch to the left? I have one just like it (as if you didn't know I was going to say that). I told Brooke I was wanting a new watch, but I was not thinking of something quite this nice. This is a WaveCeptor watch which means that it captures the atomic clock signal from Ft. Colins, CO at 5am each morning and resets itself to the correct time. That is pretty cool. And unlike my last watch, when I hit the light button, I can actually see what time it is! Brooke also got me a couple pair of shorts and two nice t-shirts, both badly needed.

Today was a busy Sunday, as usual. We got to church around 8am and Brooke got stuff ready for kids church and organized some VBS stuff. I got the computer/video ready as well as our iGrow classes. We had a bit of excitement as a lady had an anxiety attack and thought she was having a heart attack. We called 911, the firetruck and ambulance came, she was taken to the hospital and her husband called later today to say they were at home and she was OK. After church, we stayed until 2pm decorating for VBS. We grabbed McDonalds for lunch, came home, Brooke napped, Amanda played on the computer, I went on a 2 cache geocaching run (found only 1) and now here we are. I guess the girls are going to watch a movie at 8pm and since it will no doubt be a chick flick, I'll either watch the Military Channel down here in my office or do some more reading. Happy Father's Day.

Good Things

If you've been following my blog this last week, you've read about the grueling parking lot work trying to remove dirt and grass that has taken over the edges of our church parking lot. Looking at what was left to do and the number of day left until the parking lot people are coming to stripe and resurface the parking lot, I realized I could not get it done on my own. I called an "emergency work day" for this Saturday and sent out an email asking 8-10 guys to meet me in the church parking lot this Saturday from 8am-10am to finish up. I just sent out a second email saying "Good news...we don't need to work on Saturday!"

I had considered getting a Bobcat or some other such equipment out to the church, but while shoveling up the dirt and grass, I realized that would tear up the asphalt. But all that time in the sun made me desperate for some sort of solution other than shovels and straight hoes. On Tuesday, I bought a stiff-bristled push broom to help clean up where I had removed grass and dirt. I took it to the grassy dirt area we had not done yet and began to sweep. The grass did not go away, but it did move some dirt. Thus, the idea pictured above was born...and it worked! I rented an 8 foot sweeper, swept over the dirt area 10-12 times, spent about 30 minutes with the shovel and hoe and it was done. The area looks great, I didn't have to spend another 4 days shoveling and we do not need another work day. These are all good things.


Speaking of good things...anniversaries are good things. Brooke was a bit disappointed that I did not blog about our 14th wedding anniversary this past Tuesday, June 12th. It's not that I forgot and not that it's not meaningful, it's just that we didn't get to do anything special that day. The bad news is, our schedule is pretty crazy right now on the weekends with VBS and all, but I'm working on something special for next Friday night, June 22. VBS will be over and I'm hoping to help Brooke relax and get away from it all for a short time. I can't tell you anymore because Brooke reads my blog too, but I'll have other pictures to share with you after next weekend. Good things.

Spending Time With GeoPunkin

Today was kinda a crappy day so I decided I needed to get out and relax with some geocaching. Brooke told Amanda I was going out and Amanda asked to go with me. Man, the only thing better than geocaching is geocahing with my favorite partner, GeoPunkin. So we went out and grabbed five of them tonight. We geocached, pretended Amanda was rich and owned every store in Texas, listened to a little Radio Disney, talked about how much we love Mommy and ran by QT before coming home. It was a good Daddy/Daughter night. Came home and finished Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia together before she went to bed.


Amanda is always better than me at finding these little ones hidden in evergreen tree limbs. Tonight was no different. I walked right past this one and she saw it in no time at all.


This cache was created especially for kids...lots of cool trade items. It's all abut the treasure as far as Amanda is concerned.

Ms. Butts Caught Stealing Toilet Paper

The story is not as funny as the headline, but it caught my attention nonetheless.

Base Burning

You've heard of base jumping, right? It's where crazy people jump off of cliffs, buildings or other structures with a parachute and hope it opens before they hit the ground. We'll, I've come up with a less lethal, yet still painful if wrong, alternative. I'm calling it base burning. Let me explain.

On Saturday, we had work day at church. I was out in the sun. One person offered me some sun screen. I refused but went to my wife to get some. She said I didn't need it. Well, it appears sometime between me asking Brooke if I needed sun screen and the end of work day something changed. I burned, but not badly. I was much more worn out than I was sun burned.

Jump ahead to Monday. We didn't get all of the grass around the edges of the parking lot cleared, so I got an early start (7:30am) on that this morning. I considered sun screen again, but then the idea of "base burn" came to me. I figured I had already burned and should be OK this time around. Now that makes about as much sense as jumping off a building and hoping your parachute will work, doesn't it? So I got too much sun again today. Noting severe, but the backs of my arms are pretty sore this time.

But I must tell you about the grass removal "experience" today. I tackled a section of the parking lot where the grass had grown into the parking lot as far as six feet. There was a lot of grass in the dirt, so it was rough going. I finally figured out I could wet the area down (actually try to SOAK it) and the grass roots came up easier. There were still remnants of parking stripes on the ground, so I tackled the area one parking spot at a time.

As noon approached, I was pretty "over-sunned" and pretty tired. I was ready to quit, but looking at the spot next to me, it seemed small enough. I thought, "If I have a goal in mind, I know I can do it". I was right, I got it done.

But there were a couple mis-calculations that cost me today, and they both had to do with a lack of understanding (or thought?) as to the weight of wet dirt. When I started out, I had two trash cans. The plan was to fill them with the scooped up grass and dirt and then dump those into the dumpster and start over. When I had the first two trash cans filled up, I tried to drag them toward the dumpster. I'm guessing they weighed at least 350 pounds each (no exaggeration). They were even too heavy to try and drag someplace to dump out in the field. So I borrowed Stan's pickup and hooked up the church trailer. For some reason, I thought I could heave those trash cans onto the trailer (on 18-24 inches off the ground), but I was wrong (again). So I proceeded to shovel the dirt from the trash cans into the trailer (talk about feeling silly) and then went to dump the trailer in the back of one of our fields. That was around 9:00am I guess.

Since the trash cans did not work, I just scooped the dirt/mud/grass roots into the trailer for the rest of my day. When I was looking at that one last section around noon and trying to determine if I had the strength to do it, I neglected to take into account how difficult it would be to empty a 4x8 trailer full of dirt and average of 2 foot high! When I got out to the field, there was no scraping it off the back of the trailer...it was wet. I tried to unload it one shovel at a time, but even that was challenging with all the grass roots holding big clumps together. By the time I got it the dirt out, I was beat for the day.

I cleaned up the trailer, put it back, put my equipment away, ate lunch, talked a friend into getting me a second 52oz. Gatorade, took a shower and then pretty much sat at my desk working the rest of the day.

So today I learned not to fill trash cans with heavy dirt/mud/grass roots, don't underestimate the amount of effort it will take to empty a trailer full of this stuff and do not subscribe to the idea of base burning.

Too Much Sun, Too Little Time...But Still Good

I've had church work day on the calendar for a couple months now, and sign up has been going on for the past three weeks.. Three people had to cancel, but three showed up who did not sign up, so that worked out OK. I had 14 guys and one lady come today. I was up a little before 7am and headed to Wal-Mart to pick up some bottled water which came in very handy in the heat today. My first helper showed up at 8am and I put him on the riding lawn mower. He mowed for three straight hours.

At 9am, the rest of the crew showed up. We hauled some brush to the dump, did some weed eating, trimmed the hedges, painted a warning stripe and stenciled "Watch Your Step" in front of step people often trip over, cleaned some hard-to-get-to windows and dug up grass that we had killed along the sides of the parking lot. When we prepared to get our parking lot re-striped, I found out just how much the grass had grown into our parking lot. We reclaimed almost 3 feet (width) to our drive in and out of the parking lot. I think this scraping and digging was the hardest work of the day. One of the guys commented that he thought this kind of work is what people in hell must have to do!

We we worked until 11:30am and then began cleaning up because it was HOT and the guys were getting pretty worn out. The one lady who showed up to help ran a weed eater for almost 2 hours! After that, she went to get us some pizza and even stopped by her house to fix us some fresh fruit.

Everybody helped clean up and I think we were done, lunch and all, by 1pm. I then came home and moved around the dirt that got dumped here. We have BAD sink holes in our back yard, so I had the guys dump the dirt and dead grass we dug up into my back yard. It does not look too good right now, but after a couple rains and about six weeks it will look OK. I have two pick up loads full of dirt and it still did not fill all the holes completely.

All in all, we finished about half of what needed to get done. I will have to call and see if I can get somebody with some sort of equipment out to finish scraping off the parking lot before we get it striped at the end of the month. I've also got some hedges that will have to be trimmed, but I guess the rest will wait until it cools off some in the Fall. I think I'm going to have to plan at least 2 work days a year. Although today's Work Day consisted of too much sun and too little time, it was still good. If 15 people worked for 2.5 hours, I figure that is 45 man hours. Think how much time I would be out in the sun if I had to all that myself! I will be writing a number of Thank You notes on Monday!

Glad I Mowed Last Night

The weather said there was a chance of rain today, so I mowed last night. I'm glad I did because I've been able to relax and not have to worry about much today. It's been a little over two months since I've been geocaching and I finally got back out today. It was pretty warm and the mosquitoes were out in force, but it was great! Amanda took this picture of me at the first cache of the day.


GeoPunkin did just one cache with me today. Brooke went along and read a book at the park while Amanda played and I geocached. This first one was called "Cross-A-Doodle-Doo" because the cache was found between this cross and a little "farm" that had roosters (which we heard). Amanda crawled back in the wooded are with me (see picture above) to find the cache and take a picture. When she did, she was SWARMED with mosquitoes. She snapped the picture and then literally RAN out of the woods.

Last cache picture. This was a red plastic coffee can (wrapped in cammo tape) hidden in an evergreen tree.

The Military Channel

We got DISH Network a couple months ago. The 100 channels plan we got what quite an upgrade from our USDTV plan we had, but we did not go with the big 250 channel plan. I mention that to say that we do NOT get the Military Channel which bums me out 'cause they have lots of great shows. But the good news is, DISH previews various channels each month. Our first month, we got a preview of Animal Planet all month. Well, guess what one of the preview channels is this month? You guessed it...the Military Channel! So now I'm watching shows like "Anatomy of the F-18", "Untold Stories of the Navy Seals" and "Firepower". I am liking it!

So that's what I've been doing today...watching recorded shows from the Military Channel, geocaching, sleeping late (slept until 9am this morning) and chillin' with the fam. Oh yes, also talked to my friend Stan who is coming home after being in the hospital since Sunday evening. It's bee a good day.

Now we're off to hang some door hangers advertising VBS coming up week after next, then I'm coming home, sitting down with my Diet Coke and reading some more Black by Ted Dekker. Suppose I'll have to think a little more about church Work Day tomorrow. Can't get in touch with one guy who is supposed to bring a big trailer that I need, another just called to say he can't make it and it might rain. Oh well, guess we'll take care of most of that tomorrow, but I'm glad I mowed last night so I could relax today.

Weekend Highlights

Been a busy weekend. Here's just a few highlights.

Spent most all day Friday and until 5pm on Saturday working on Holy Spirit teaching for our church's iGrow classes. The classes started today and I had to get my part done to print the manuals. We had 12 people today and think we will have at least 2 more joining us. I have the privilege of overseeing these doctrine/discipleship classes, and I really enjoy it. We have different staff members and elders teaching and it interesting to see different people respond to the different styles of our teachers. Our youth pastor, Pastor Shaun, taught on salvation today. He is a storyteller and a number of people who have never heard him teach before really enjoyed hearing from him today.

Today was busy as normal. I usually get to church around 8am to get the computer ready (I head up the team that runs the worship software, video announcements and Power Point for Pastor's sermon), to get iGrow stuff ready and to make sure the Greeting Team has everything they need. I ran the computer in second service and began training a new person to work as part of the team.

After church we went to lunch with a precious lady in the church who has adopted a number of special needs kids. She and her family are great and we enjoyed spending time with them.

After getting up from a brief Sunday afternoon nap, I had two messages on my phone. One was from a friend who was checking into the hospital tonight with bad arthritis and the onset of diabetes. The other was from a friend who just went and picked up his new motorcycle yesterday. So I called to check in on my first friend and went to visit the second.

Then I went for a bike ride, replaced the log book at one of my caches, came home and watch a little TV with the fam, cleaned my office and am now blogging. The only other plans I really have for the evening is to do some more reading on the first book of a trilogy I have started, Black by Ted Dekker.

One more thing. You may notice something new along the right side of my blog. It says "Rob's Twitter Status". I had heard about Twitter before but wasn't too impressed. A friend of mine mentioned it to me again not long ago and I looked at it again this week. There's not much to Twitter, you just sign up for a free account and send a quick post whenever you want to tell people what you are doing. I don't know why I like it, but I'm kinda hooked right now. It's certainly not like there is anything exciting about my life. I just think it's kinda cool you can log onto my blog and see what I've been up to. I could see how it would be fun if you had a bunch of friends on Twitter. I don't know...the draw may not last, but I'm having fun with it for now.

I still really enjoy my turtles. This is my favorite, Little George, going for a swim. Little George knows who I am...I'm the food guy. This little bugger is what I call a "meat-eating turtle". The other two enjoy lettuce and fruits as well as worms and bugs, but Little George is pretty much a meat-only guy. It is fun when I get into their pen with a box of worms...he literally comes running. If I don't get him something to eat pretty quickly, he tries my toes to see if they are giant worms!

My Angels

Monday, May 21st was awards ceremony day for Amanda's grade. We went to see her receive her three reading awards. During the ceremony, 2nd grade "angels" are also recognized. I have not found the exact criteria for being nominated an "angel", but I know the honor goes out to 3 people each year who are nominated by a committee as having made a huge impact on the students, 2nd grade in particular. A person can only be nominated as an "angel" one time. Brooke was nominated this year, and this is what was read as her name was announced. Needless to say, Amanda and I are busting-at-the-seams-proud!

Dean P. Corey Angel Award Nomination

Brooke Hurt

Brooke is a dedicated parent, children’s director and PTA member. To know Brooke is to love her. She spends countless hours working on things for Corey.

She shows a tremendous support to teachers. She has a teacher supply room located at her church for supplies that teacher’s would have to spend out of pocket. She is a member of Mom’s in Touch. In supporting teacher’s she in turn is supporting the students.

She has been a dedicated Room Mother. She does not only what is asked of her but goes the extra mile. She volunteers in teachers’ rooms to read with children. She has been on field trips and helped some very neurotic people (well- that would be me) with things for class room parties.

As a children’s director she is constantly reaching out into the community to help families. She even has gone to Nicaragua on a mission trip to help the Children of the Dump.

Field days last year she signed up for one slot and ended up working non- stop for four days. She takes flack for things that are not her doing but instead of complaining, she keeps smiling. She has taken on the huge task of Treasurer for two years. She also was a major advocate for the book room. Her philosophy is “If somebody needs something and we can help them – then it is our obligation to do so.” She doesn’t care about the politics but just in making sure the right thing gets done.

Brooke is fun, energetic, loving and child centered. Everything she does is for the benefit of children. I would love to see this angel get recognition for all she does. Thank you in advance for considering her!

Sincerely,

Michelle Willis-Estupinan

And then here are some pictures of my "other angel" on her special awards day.

Amanda's class receiving their awards

Amanda and a friend in a very serious moment


Amanda with her teacher from this year...a GREAT teacher we are very thankful for

Amanda and another friend

Both my angels together

Vacation Is Over

Well, vacation is now officially over, but the day was a good one. We got up and had a great breakfast of bacon, eggs and hash browns. We had some time to chill out after breakfast because, surprise, it rained!

Thankfully it rained a while but began to clear up as we cleaned up inside the trailer. When we were ready to hook up the camper and head out, it was all blue skies. We were able to get home, get the camper unpacked and cleaned out before it rained again.

I guess the one word that would best summarize this year's family vacation is...RAIN. But we are thankful to have had the camper. We did not get to be outside as much as we would have liked, but we were able to take a much-needed break and to spend some great time together as a family. We all have "If had not rained so much I would like to have..." stories, but we all agree it was a really good five days.

And so, in this last installment of vacation stories, I will post a few pictures we didn't want Stan to see (it was Stan and Caye's camper we borrowed). But since Stan reads my blog, all I can say is "We tried to keep the dogs off the furniture as much as possible, but they were just so dern cute! Plus, if it helps, I vacuumed everything thoroughly this afternoon."

Now who could look at that picture and now go "awww"?

I don't know what catches the attention more...the length of the tongue or the timing of the picture!

More doggie torture by Amanda.

The dogs are resting peacefully...I'm not sure what the child is doing.

Stomachs Feeling Better, Now It's Just Rain and Chiggers

Ah yes, the joy of chiggers. We've all got them, but Amanda has them the worst. They are not fun.

And yes, it rained again today. I already shared my "fun" experience first thing taking the dogs for a walk. After Amanda and I got back from the lake, I was wondering if we should call my parents back and have them come on out here after all since it was not raining. Good thing we never made that call...just as we were getting ready to load up the truck to head over to their house, another DOWNPOUR came. I gotta tell ya, I'm pretty sick of rain.

So we went over to my parents and carried all of the food we were supposed to cook here. We grilled out and ate "outside" on their covered porch. Hamburgers, corn on the cob, chips and Smores. Doesn't get much better than that, although the Smores did not have quite the same feeling being cooked over the stove burner instead of a campfire.

"Indoor Smores"

We finished our game of dominoes from Saturday night, hung out and talked for a while and then came back to the camper. It is not raining (right now) and it is nice a cool outside. We will be able to open the windows tonight and enjoy a nice cool evening. Since most everybody left the park today, it will be nice and quiet, too.

Two lousy points! But I want you to know, I AM NOT BITTER ABOUT NOT WINNING!

We are praying for no rain in the morning. We'd like to pack up and then take Amanda, Brooke and the dogs down to the beach while I hook up the camper and dump all of the storage tanks.

We are thankful everybody's tummies feel better tonight. We'll just scratch a few chiggers and enjoy the cool evening.

A Blur of Misery

Yesterday was NOT a fun day and it was NOT what vacation is supposed to be like! I don't know if Brooke and I got what Amanda had or what, but we were miserable. Mine started out in the morning. My stomach was upset and I got a fever. I finally just laid in bed because I felt so miserable. Brooke was nauseous and finally came down with a fever, too I think.

In the afternoon, I took some Tylenol which helped reduce my fever, so we all went down to the lake for Amanda to swim. When we got back, my stomach was feeling better so I ate. Shouldn't have done that. Never got sick like Amanda did, but my stomach was upset all night long. We laid around the rest of the evening while Amanda read and watched movies. My back hurt from laying around so much, so Amanda and I took the dogs for a walk right before she went to bed. Once we got to the far end of our loop, we realized we had come out WAY TOO FAR. We were both exhausted when we got back and I felt terrible again.

Amanda at the beach. She didn't feel it necessary to wear her swimsuit, but she ended up going swimming anyway!

We all went to bed by 9:00pm and had a fitful night of sleep (Brooke and I slept fitfully...Amanda was fine). Sometime during the night, my stomach finally settled down and my fever broke. I still slept fitfully, but I felt better when I got up this morning. Brooke is still trying to recover fully.

TODAY, MONDAY
I got up this morning at 7:30am since my back was hurting from being in bed so much. I took the dogs for a walk to do their morning potty break. Sully is so afraid of everything that he won't go potty until we literally walk it out of him! So my day began with a 20 minute walk in the rain. When I came back, I was soaked along with both dogs.

Amanda wanted to go swimming today, so after the rain stopped, I took her down to the lake for an hour and a half. Brooke stayed with the dogs trying to get better. My parents were supposed to come this afternoon for dinner, but we decided to go to their house instead. We don't know if it will be raining when it is time to grill out, and we'd like to take a break from all the mud.

So yesterday was just a blur...lots of rain and feeling cruddy. Today is a little better, but it's still gonna rain again. We can't go geocaching because the trails are closed due to all the rain. I'm trying to remember if we've had this many consecutive days of rain all year. It's good to be away, but all the rain and being sick put a real damper on our day yesterday.

A Day Without My Watch

I've been trying something on my (Friday) day off and on Saturday if we do not have someplace we have to be...I don't wear my watch. It's not like I don't see a clock all day, but it is an effort to relax and not be so driven by the work things I have to get done.

So today, being vacation and all, I did not wear my watch. I don't think it is because of not wearing a watch, but today was the first day I really relaxed. We slept in to about 8am, had cereal for breakfast, got another COLD! shower, and did some reading (Rob & Brooke) and some movie watching (Amanda) before lunch while it was continuing to rain on and off.

I'm eating breakfast while Amanda finishes up a painting from her vacation workbook

Amanda watching DVDs in her "luxury hotel" (her words)

After lunch, Brooke relaxed by taking a nap while Amanda and I biked down to lake, played in the lake (Amanda did), biked to Penn Farm and took a tour of what farm life was like in the late 1800-early 1900's. We both found that very interesting.

The original house on the Penn Farm property...well, sorta. They kept telling us how "authentic" the house was, but the more questions that were asked, the more our guide kept saying, "That may have changed during some of the renovations."

A lizard we saw on our Penn Farm tour. We are relatively certain he was not one of the "original" animals on the farm in the late 1800s.

A not-so-exciting "original" watering trough...with a pretty model posing for us!

If you look closely, you can see a windmill in this picture.

This tractor was not actually used on the Penn Farm, but it was from that era which was sometime between the late 1800s to mid-1900's.

We biked back home in time for Brooke and Amanda to take a HOT! shower and then rest a little before my parents came to visit. They arrived in Dad's new Dodge pickup which we quickly unloaded (they brought food) and we fired up the grill. Dinner consisted of grilled chicken (between Brooke's marinade and my humble-yet-expert grilling, it was delicious!!), green bean salad, fruit salad and Smores cooked over the campfire for dessert. Sully growled and barked the whole time we were outside and I smushed my Smore together too hard squshing some hot marshmallow onto my foot, but other than that, sitting outside enjoying the lack of rain (and abudance of mud!) was very nice.

So my folks have left, Amadna is in bed, Brooke is reading and I am blogging. The clock on my computer says it is now 9:35pm. I'm going to shut down the computer, read until I want to go to bed and sleep until I want to get up. That is what a day without my watch is supposed to be like.

Thank the Lord We Were Not Trying to Tent Camp

Rain...that's what most of the day consisted of. Actually, I'm not sure it was raining when we first woke up this morning. But then again, I don't usually remember much when I wake up at 2:30am! Amanda came into our room telling us her stomach was hurting. No gassy tummy and nothing Tums was helping. We have no thermomether, but it felt like she had a fever, too. We were up for an hour, then she went to lay down with Brooke in our bed while I laid on the couch (more like a couchette...it is short!). Come 5:30am I was awakened to a shaking camper and Brooke rushing Amanda to the restroom. After that, her stomach felt fine (you figured out she puked, right?) and she was ready to get in her own bed. We all slept until 8:30am or so. When we got up, Amanda took the dogs out to go potty and got sick once more. After that, she has been fine all day. She feels a little warm tonight, so we'll see what happens.

So I cooked some bacon and eggs for breakfast, Brooke and I read, Amanda watched some TV shows of DVD, we took cold showers in the bath house and the we went to Wal-Mart to buy the rest of the groceries we need for the week. We drove around for a bit and then came home for lunch. Amanda had Jello and one piece of turkey to make sure her tummy would be OK. After lunch, I took a nap while Brooke, Amanda and the dogs went for a walk in between rain showers. They came back and told me about the dead rattlesnake they found on the way to the playground!

We were going to go watch a movie tonight, but since we've already seen Shrek the Third and Spiderman 3, we went to Joe's Crab Shack to eat dinner instead. And since the reptile show here at the park got rained out (Amanda was very disappointed), we came back to the camper, played some Sorry and Domino's, wresteled on the bed (shaking the whole camper) and got Amanda to be for the evening. She feels a little warm, but we prayed she'd make it through the night and her tummy would be OK. I'm about to join Brooke reading then we may watch a movie before heading to bed.

Lots of rain today...pretty much all day. Thank the Lord we were not trying to tent camp!

Playing Sorry in the rain...or actually, in the camper while it was raining outside

A Great Start on Vacation

Our day began 12 hours ago when we rolled over and hit the snooze alarm for the first time. Tomorrow is technically the last day of school for Amanda, but we started our vacation today. My good friend Stan owns a nice 5th wheel camper and has been kind enough to let us borrow it, so we are spending our Memorial Day weekend (Thursday night-Tuesday lunch) at Cedar Hill State Park. School got out at 1:45pm today, so we picked up Amanda, finished packing up the camper and headed out.

I have pulled trailers before, but never a 5th wheel and never something quite this big (approx. 30 feet). I have a CDL to drive the church bus and I have driven school busses before, so I was a bit surprised how different it was driving with the camper. Stan took me out before we left today and gave me some driving instructions and let me practice backing up and parking.

As we left, it started sprinkling but then it quit by the time we got to the State Park (about 25 minutes from our house). I'm glad we camp to the Park today because there was only one other person checking in when we got here. We checked in, drove to our spot, I backed in (that is I backed in, pulled up, backed in, pulled up, backed in, pulled up and finally got it right), got the camper leveled and had just hooked up the water and electricity when it began to rain. I finished up just in the nick of time. It is wonderful to "camp" with AC and no worries about rain!

Brooke cooked us macaroni and cheese and BBQ hotdogs for dinner (sounds like a good camping meal, doesn't it!). We then made a quick run down the road to Racetrac to get some ice and a large Diet Coke. Amanda is coloring, Brooke is reading, I'm blogging (well, keeping a record to post to my blog when I get back), the dogs are resting peacefully and the rain is pitter-pattering on the camper. Nothing to do but read and chill out (and maybe watch a DVD movie later). A great start on vacation!

I'm (getting to be) A Little Bit Country

This post has more to do with my wife than it does Marie Osmond. You see, Brooke listens to country music and so I hear it every time I get in the car if she is driving or if I get in after she has been driving ('cause she leaves the country radio station on when she turns off the car). There are still a lot of country songs I do not like because of the "country" content (chasing women, leaving your wife, getting drunk, etc). However, I found found a number of songs that have GREAT messages and I'm starting to get a little hooked. The one that got me listening more closely was Rodney Atkins' Watching You.

The other day I went online to buy this song to give to my Pastor to listen because I thought it would be a great song to play/have someone sing on Father's Day. I ended up finding some other good songs on the CD and bought the whole thing. Here's the lyrics to another song on the CD that I'm really liking right now, Cleaning This Gun (Come on In Boy):

The Declaration of Independence
Think I could tell you that first sentence
But then I’m lost

I can't begin to count the theories
I've had pounded in my head
That I forgot

I don't remember all that Spanish
Or the Gettysburg address
But there is one speech from high school
I'll never forget

(Chorus)
Come on in boy sit on down
And tell me about yourself
So you like my daughter do you now?
Yeah we think she's something else
She's her daddy's girl
Her momma's world
She deserves respect
That’s what she'll get
Ain’t it son?
Hey y'all run along and have some fun
I'll see you when you get back
Bet I’ll be up all night
Still cleanin' this gun

Well now that I’m a father
I’m scared to death one day my daughter
Is gonna find
That teenage boy I used to be
That seems to have just one thing on his mind

She’s growin' up so fast
It won't be long before
I’ll have to put the fear of god into
Some kid at the door

(Chorus)
Come on in boy sit on down
And tell me about yourself
So you like my daughter do you now?
Yeah we think she's something else
She's her daddy's girl
Her momma's world
She deserves respect
That’s what she'll get
Now ain't it son?
Y’all go out and have some fun
I'll see you when you get back
Probably be up all night
Still cleanin' this gun

Now it's all for show
Ain’t nobody gonna get hurt
It’s just a daddy thing
And hey, believe me, it works

(Chorus)
Come on in boy sit on down
And tell me about yourself
So you like my daughter do you now?
Yeah we think she's something else
She's her daddy's girl
Her momma's world
She deserves respect
That’s what she'll get
Now ain't it son?
Y’all run along and have a little fun
I'll see you when you get back
Probably be up all night
Still cleanin' this gun

Son, now y'all buckle up and have her back by te- let's say about nine...thirty.
Drive safe.

Amazingly Simple Home Remedies

A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives, then you will be afraid to cough.

Clumsy? Avoid cutting yourself while slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop away.

Avoid arguments with the Mrs. about lifting the toilet seat by simply using the sink.

For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. Remember to use a timer.

Sometimes, we just need to remember what the rules of life really are: You only need two tools: WD-40 and Duct Tape.

• If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40.
• If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape

Thanks to my friend Stan for forwarding these to me

I Find Myself Dependent and Unhappy

Let me clarify for those of you who love me and are now concerned...I find myself dependent upon and unhappy with Microsoft! I have been having a number of issues recently, and as I look for alternatives, I find that Microsoft has me right where they want me...DEPENDENT.

It started with Microsoft Office. I have been using Microsoft Office for as long as I have been computing. I never had the money to buy Microsoft Office, I just had friends who gave me a copy, that they got from somebody else, and so on. I can't say that my conscience was really bothering me, but I knew I "should" use something that was legal, so I started looking for alternatives. That's when I found Open Office. I can't say enough about this free, open-source office suite. The most recent thing I found that I LOVE about it is that I can keep it and run it from my USB thumb drive...I don't even have to have it on my computer. I was ready to jump the ship and switch to Open Office, but then I found out that the mail merge feature was not nearly as developed as Microsoft Office, and so I found myself DEPENDENT. I use a lot of fairly complicated mail merge stuff at church, and so I needed it. The church ended up buying a Microsoft Office business license, so we all have legal copies now. But my newest pet peeve with MS Office is their refusing to adopt the same open source document format as almost every other office suite or word processor out there. Of course, Microsoft had to create their own "open source" format which is not compatible with anybody else. Even older versions of Microsoft Word cannot open the new format of Word 2007. They keep coming out with "better" software, but purposely write it to make what you have obsolete. Oh yeah, I spent 2 hours this week trying to figure out how to convert a Word 2000 mail merge to Word 2003. Never got it figured out, just had to redo it. Seems the learning curve between versions of some Office products is greater than that of learning the software from scratch!

And then there was my recent issues with Microsoft Outlook (while we're talking about Office). I have been using Outlook since Outlook 97 and I am heavily DEPENDENT on it, even more so since I switched from a Palm PDA to a Pocket PC. I'm now running Outlook 2003 and ever since the Daylight Savings patch came out, Outlook has not worked right for me. This post would be too long to detail all of my issues, but I ain't happy. I spent a good part of last week searching for an alternative. I found one that would work well (EssentialPIM), but it just would not sync closely enough with my PocketPC.

And now I'm having issues with Windows Media Player. I let Windows XP automatically update me to version 11 of Media Player when it first came out, but I had issues, so I rolled back to version 10. For however many months that has been, I've been saying "no" when asked by WMP if I wanted to upgrade. Finally I bought a song a WalMart.com, and it would not play without upgrading WMP. Tonight I tried to let it scan my computer for media. It took more than 2 hours and finally locked up my computer. I'm going to check out some alternatives, but again I am DEPENDENT because I've ripped all of my music into .wma format and I sync my music with my Dell DJ, so I have to look for an alternative program that can do all that. I'm downloading WinAmp right now. I may not have to be DEPENDENT here.

If it were not for my DEPENDENCE on Outlook, my PocketPC and the Windows-only software I use to maintain three church-related web sites, I would be giving very serious consideration to making the switch to an Ubuntu, Linux system.

To my Mac friends (you know who you are Jason, Brad and others!), the three items mentioned in the previous paragraph would also hinder a wholesale switch to Mac. Dual boot? OK, that might work. If you pay for the laptop, I'll use it!

A Rollercoaster of Emotions

Well, as you may have noticed, it's been a while since I've blogged. I've been busy! My best friend and roommate from college, Craig, came to visit week before last (picture above). I took 3 days off while he was here and I'm still trying to catch up. We had a GREAT time playing ping pong, racquetball, consuming more-than-healthy amounts of Krispy Kreme donuts, making our own Coach marathons recorded from USA Network and visiting the Stockyards in Ft. Worth. I really hope it is not another 4 years before we can get together again.

When Craig left, I had a number of projects to work on at church. And now I am preaching Sunday (the 20th). Somewhere along the way, I got into a "funk". I've been tired, not sleeping well, no racquetball, no blogging, stressed and grumpy a lot. No, it has not been a good thing. I think part of it is from getting behind from time off combined with being tired. I have also noticed when I am preparing to teach/preach, there is a spiritual attack. And like this past week, I don't always handle it like I should. So today, I've been asking the Lord to help me correct my poor/wrong attitudes and to persevere through Sunday. I am thankful to have the opportunity to teach and I LOVE it. There is something about creating an "Aha!" moment for people when they see something they did not see before. I love the process of the Lord dropping something in my heart, of studying the passage and sharing what I've found with people, but there is always a price to be paid. It often amazes me that God would use me in this process when I mishandle the opportunity so often, but I guess God would be hard-pressed if He had to find perfect people to do everything! That was a joke. I am thankful for God's more-than-abundant grace in my life. I am trying to learn from these experiences and learn how to pass along this grace to others. Again, it's a good thing God is patient and loving!

So please pray for me as I prepare for this Sunday. I'll post a link to the teaching after Sunday. The depth of wisdom in God's Word never ceases to amaze me.

One more hodgepodge item: I had finished a couple good books and was contemplating what to read next last month. Well, I ended up reading Three by Ted Dekker. Ok, I'm hooked! It was a great suspense novel. I will be taking Black with me on vacation to read after I finish my current book, The Azusa Street Revival, by Roberts Liardon.

Here's a few more pictures to catch you up from my blogging absence.

Brooke and Amanda all dressed up for the Mother/Daughter banquet at church.

My Mom, Brooke and Amanda

Amanda and friend Kodee

Amanda on the runway with friend Abigail