2 4 3

Yes, that's right. I was two for three tonight! Got together with some friends for Friday night Texas Hold Em (played for chips only, not for cash). To be honest, I have to let you know that games 1 & 3 (of which I won both) were only 4 player games, and the first game I won pretty much just because I had great hands. Game 2 had 3 or 4 more people and I placed second that time.

So that will probably never happen again, and I'll be doing good just to win another game this year, but it sure was fun tonight!

Our Special Child

Amanda found the dress up stuff while at church yesterday, so she came in and "modeled" for me. Thought I'd share a few outfits with you.

What Amanda would look like with surfer hair and a crown

I wasn't sure what to make of this

On the Home Front

What a great day! A couple months ago I was instant messaging with a friend of mine, Matt, who I had not since since high school. He mentioned his denomination was holding a conference in Ft. Worth and he was coming. He asked how close I was to Ft. Worth, and when I told him, we arranged for him to come a day early, meet my family and for us to catch up on all that's gone on over the past 19 years since we've seen each other. He got in Friday night, we stayed up talking until 3am, got up this morning, ate some WONDERFUL peach French Toast (Mrs. Debi's recipe, Brooke's cooking), ran a few errands, played about 2 1/2 hours of racquetball (thus totally exhausting ourselves) and grabbing a meal at Dave's BBQ before Matt headed to Ft. Worth for his conference. Matt is an associate pastor at his church and oversees small groups and leadership development. I was looking forward to his coming, but I had no idea what a great time I would have catching up with him, finding out what has gone on in his life, sharing what's happened in mine and swapping stories of what God has taught us and the things we've learned/experienced in ministry. Some things I didn't know, a number of "remember when's" and a lot of laughing. It was so much more than I expected and I am really thankful to have had the time to catch up with this friend from many years ago. I imagine we'll keep in touch a little more now.

See the picture of the nifty carpet cleaner on the box? This looks EXACTLY like the one I borrowed from my friend Stan. When I borrowed it last time, I had "issues" and thought I blew it up. I finally figured out I had just broken a belt, so I took the thing apart to replace the belt. Oops, half way through the reassembly, I saw the little hatch that I could have lifted to replace the belts without disassembling the thing. No worries, at least the belts were replaced. BIG OOPS! Got the thing together and discovered that the little vacuum bar turned again (thanks to the new belts), but now water no longer ran through the machine!. Three hours later I gave up and ended up buying him a brand new one. So here I am putting it together before using it to finish my carpet cleaning and giving Stan his brand-spanking-new carpet cleaner. I'm still gonna get one of my own some day...they work great!

Amanda really seems to have "gotten into" reading this summer. We fine she REALLY likes reading when she has a choice between going to bed or reading for a while at night! Here she is reading with Sully.

Blame Big Oil

The courts shut down (suspends) oil drilling in the Arctic. Actions like this halt the ability of oil companies to produce more oil. Less oil means demand is not met and prices go up. Blame big oil.

OK, I get it. Big oil companies (and their execs) make a LOT of money...so much that it seems "too much". But at least they are providing a product we need. Government, on the other hand, taxes us out the wazoo for our oil, does nothing to help us get the oil and now steps in to shut down drilling.

Next time you complain about the price of gasoline, why not write your Congressional representatives and ask why they are not doing more to make it possible for oil companies to be able to drill more reserves instead of interfering every time they try to drill?

And You Wonder Why?

I get a reply to my posts from time to time when I use the term "Environmental Waco". Some people say it's not "nice". How else do you describe "environmental vandalism"? It's a religion of kooks!

Hummer Gets Eco-Vandalized in Washington Neighborhood

Geocaching in Decatur

This picture is a little over a year old, but it was taken while geocaching with Amanda, my nephew David and my niece Hannah. Thought the picture would go well with this article about geocaching from the Decatur Daily.

We're Home

If you click on this picture and zoom in on the GPS, you will see we were in Arkansas when I took this picture. We were on our way home from Alabama and I thought I should take a picture of "Cindy" since she got us safely to North Carolina and back. Borrowing an idea from our Pastor's family, we named our GPS since "she" "talks" to us. We hit upon "Cindy" and the name stuck. Cindy is a Garmin iQue M3.


We were near Little Rock I think when I looked in the rear view mirror and saw this kid riding a wheelie down the highway going about 60 miles per hour. I saw him gaining on us, so I got the camera out. He got beside us and I saw he was going to do it again so I got ready and got this shot of him before he was gone. Pretty awesome power...pretty stupid kid! (Click on picture to see larger image)


We've been going pretty much non-stop since coming home. We were home 10 minutes when a friend showed up with our new furniture. The same family that gave us a washing machine when ours died (because they were moving and buying new stuff) gave us a new couch, recliner (Brooke has declared that is "hers alone"), a coffee table and two end tables. So 10 minutes after we got home, my friend helped me move our old furniture out to the garage and put the new furniture in the house. Here is a view coming into the living room from our kitchen. It gives us a whole new look..and we love it!

So we finished up moving the furniture around and unpacking around 9pm I guess. I went next door to church and got ready for my iGrow class today (I got to teach).

Got up this morning, got the computer set up for worship, got iGrow classroom ready, opened the service (my friend Brad preached a great message about Jesus going through life's storms with us), taught iGrow, went to second service, grabbed a bite for lunch, mowed a big field at church (sunburning my neck again in the process), cleaned up from working outside, put away all the junk I "unpacked" last night, unloaded 2 bookshelves, dusted and put everything back on them, cleaned desk, cleaned out big closet and did two loads of laundry this evening. Finished all of this around 9pm. Boy, I'm tired!

So tomorrow "real life" begins at work. Lots to catch up on and lots to do, but that's what you do so you can take a vacation. This time, it was worth it. I don't think I could put my finger on any one thing that made this vacation so great for me, but I had such a great time just being with my family. I love being a husband and a Daddy...and I loved the last 10 days we got to spend together getting away from our regular routine. It was a great time away, but it's good to be back (and see the puppies!). We're home.

Puppies in the car on the way home from "Boot Camp" at my Mom & Dad's while we were gone.

Two Thumbs Up for Evan Almighty

Just got back from seeing Evan Almighty. It took me a while to go see Bruce Almighty because I figured it would be sacrilegious. I'm not a big fan of Jim Carey in movies when he acts stupid, but Bruce Almighty was not as bad as I expected. It was an OK movie, but definitely not worth buying as far as I'm concerned.

Evan Almighty, on the other hand, will one day be in my video library. I'm not much a movie critic, but here's my review:

Thumbs down for:

• "God" (Morgan Freeman) spouts New Age theology and "waters down" the message of the Genesis flood (no pun intended)
• References to a certain species of duck and it's male anatomy

Thumbs up for:

• A number of good messages
• Good triumphs over evil
• Value of family
• Obeying God even when it is (MAJOR) difficult
• One scene where God laughs when Evan talks about being "too busy" and having too much to do to build the ark
• Having faith in God even when circumstances don't line up with what you heard God say
• No cussing
• I know I have NEVER laughed so hard during a movie
• Even a scene to make you cry if you are prone to that sort of thing as I am
  

I give it an 8 out of 10, losing a point for "God's" erroneous "theology" and the unnecessary (2) animal anatomy references. Great movie to see on a family vacation. When the movie comes out on DVD, you can borrow it from me.

Internet Radio Gets a Reprieve

You can read about it here. If you listen to Internet Radio (I am hooked on the smooth jazz stream of Sky.fm) you know that there has been a proposed change in royalty rates for music played on Internet Radio. These fees are not in line with what over-the-air broadcasters pay, and if put into effect as-is, it would take many Internet Radio stations (like my beloved Sky.fm) off the air.

I am one of those who called my congressional representatives and ask them to intervene, so I'm happy to see this reprieve. I hope something longer-term can be worked out soon.

Family Day in Gatlinburg

We are visiting Lake Junaluska Methodist camp for our Liberty Fellowship summer Family Conference. It is in the Smokey Mountains overlooking, appropriately enough, on Lake Junaluska. It is beautiful here...absolutely BEAUTIFUL.

Each year at the conference, Tuesday is family day. We have done "stuff" in the past, but this year, I decided we were actually going to do something fun as a family so I did some Internet research before we left. We drove this year and so we planned a trip to Gatlinburg. We went to Gatlinburg last year, but we went with a bunch of other people and did not get to stay long. We left at 8:15am and got back around 5pm this time. Below are a few pictures from our stop along the river on the way there, black light putt putt, Play Land, more Putt Putt, Amanda's new favorite activity ("gem" mining) , bumper cars and just a sampling of the scenery. For me, this was the highlight of our trip so far and one of the most fun days I have had with my family in a long time. This is vacation! (press the PLAY button to see photos from the beginning)

EVERYONE Has a Gift to Use

One thing I am passionate about is helping people discover and use their gifts for God and to serve others. There are things people do well, but too often, they don't see how they can use this talent, gift or ability for the Lord to serve somebody else. Here is one lady, Kaziah Hancock, who found a way to use her gift to serve others.

The Coney Express

While friends are feeding our turtles and house-sitting, we are in Alabama for a few days on the way to North Carolina to attend our annual Liberty Fellowship family conference. Amanda's Aunt Jill (Brooke's sister) and Jill's husband, Jeff, have started a side business...The Coney Express. They've just been open for a week, and of course we had to stop by and sample the goods yesterday. I guess the whole family (Brooke's brother, sister-in-law and their 5 kids) are going with us today. If nothing else, I guess the family will keep them in business this week.

Call 1-800-WE-LOVE-DOGS

OK, I guess that would be too many numbers for a phone number, but you can call on the Hurts if you need someone to watch your dog while you are out of town. We love dogs! The normal looking dog in this picture is Tido, a black Pomeranian who belongs to some friends of ours who were out of town for a few days. The dog laid out like she is ready for dissection is our Cocker Spaniel, Boo. As you can tell, our dogs and Tido got along well.

Girls' Day

Here are the results after Brooke and Amanda went for their Girls' Day out. Great, now Amanda thinks this needs to become a regular part of her routine as well.