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.

A Day At The Lake

Here's a few highlights of our day at the lake today.

Amanda and her friend Abigail swam for a good two hours!

Best friends forever (when they're not fighting)

Nothing is better after swimming than grilled hamburgers and hot dogs

And I got hang out with the love of my life...pictured here with me

Our House Guest

Here's a picture of Boo (our black Cocker Spaniel) with our house guest for the week, Rosie. Some friends have been on vacation and, being the dog lovers that we are, we volunteered to keep their dog while they were gone. Besides, Sully (our other dog) LOVES to play and since Rosie is a puppy, we thought he'd enjoy a little hyper-active company. Rosie has been a wonderful guest whining and scratching at the back door when she needs to go out. Our dogs, on the other hand, have been lousy hosts. I don't know why, but neither one of our dogs really like Rosie. They growl at her when she wants to play (which is all the time!). Boo sorta growls "leave me alone, I don't want to play", but Sully goes into attack mode (as much as he can being a little dog). Sully has played with dogs bigger than himself before, so I don't think Rosie intimidated him. I'm not sure what his problem was, but he was not much of a host. He did play chase two times, but only when he could chase Rosie...he snapped at her if she chased him. Poor Rosie...her tails wags non-stop and she just wants to play (also non-stop). Oh well, we're loving on her and she seems to be managing OK. She's been an excellent guest and is welcome back anytime as far as the non-dog members of the house are concerned.

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.