How well do you know me?

Four jobs I have had in my life
1. Grade 4 teacher
2. Cashier at Big D supermarket
3. Grounds Crew at Messiah College
4. Resident Assistant at Messiah College

Movies I would watch over and over.
1. A&E's Pride and Prejudice
2. You've Got Mail (Don't you think daisies are the friendliest flower?)
3. Emma
4. Sense and Sensibility...anyone see a theme here?

Four Places I have lived:
1. Sterling, MA
2. Grantham, PA
3. Camarillo, CA
4. Fremont, CA

Four TV shows I love to watch
1. Friends (Reruns)
2. I watched this past season of American Idol (it was my first time watching the whole thing)
3. Frontier House (reality TV for nerds)
4. Mad About You(Reruns)

Four websites I visit daily:
1. Hotmail
2. Charlottemommies.com
3. MSN homepage
4. my blog

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Grand Cayman Island
2. Newport Beach, California
3. Bar Harbor, Maine
4. Washington DC

Four of my favorite foods:
1. General Tsao's Chicken
2. Steamed Lobster with lots of butter
3. Avocado in any shape or form (except overripe)
4. Chocolate in any shape or form

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Fenway Park, Boston
2. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
3. SoHo, NYC
4. Anywhere in the British Isles

Jonathan Swimming

Here's our little guy kicking up a storm in the pool today!

Swim! Swim!!

Our neighborhood pool opened up on Saturday, and we finally made it over there today. There is a toddler pool that is only a foot deep, and that's where we stayed most of the time. Jonathan could even reach the bottom when he was in his baby float, and he had fun pushing himself around!

Finding his voice

Here's a fun one...

Another helpful site

David is going to San Diego as we speak for a work-related conference. Whenever he is on the "road,"-- that is, flying -- I go to this online flight tracker. You can search by city or by flight number and find the flight you'd like to watch. Then it shows you where the plane is! It helps the boys understand where Daddy is going a little bit better, particularly why it takes so long to get somewhere!

Speed Street Part II

Here are some more pics of our day on Saturday. I used this as an opportunity to capture some of "our" city, too. The four statues at Center City (Trade and Tryon) are shown below. They were dedicated in 1995.

Statue, Center City Charlotte "Future"

Statues, Center City Charlotte, "Industry" (background), "Commerce" (foreground)

Statue, Center City Charlotte, "Transportation"


Ben pretending to be a pit crew member

Cameron pretending to be a pit crew member

Building a Home Depot racecar

Jonathan is unmoved

More building

Ben enjoyed the day!

The whole gang

Speed Street

This past Saturday, we took the kids to "Speed Street," which is a part of the racing festivities here in Charlotte. We had a great time! I took a lot of pictures, so hang on to your hats.
Charlotte skyline

A reminder that we are indeed in the South (this is at Tryon and 4th, for you locals).

The Bank of America tower

Ben driving

Cameron driving

OK, there are more pictures but I can't get them to post. I'll try again later.

The Dead Sea Scrolls

Yesterday afternoon, David and I went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit here in Charlotte. It was AMAZING! I loved seeing the ten scrolls they had on exhibit. These predated any existing manuscripts at the time by over 1000 years. The Scrolls were so tiny, with such precise writing on them...it was incredible to see the care and precision with which the Qumran community treated God's Word.

Also interesting to think about is the fact that John the Baptist is widely thought to have been an Assene, which is what the Qumran community was. Assenes were another religious sect, like the Pharisees. Both Qumran and John the Baptist associated themselves with the verse in Isaiah, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness...."

It was also so encouraging that even though these scrolls had been tucked away for 2000 years, they reflected almost exactly the contents of the existing Old Testament. Even though the scribes had copied the words for generations, the integrity of the Bible had been preserved, and was confirmed when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.

Praise the Lord! It just made my heart rejoice to think of the grandeur of the Bible.

I'm a Totalitarian

Anybody else brave enough to take this test and post your results in the comments?

For the record, this put me in the same quadrant as Osama Bin Laden, Hitler, and Darth Vader. Yippee.

It was thought-provoking, though...there were a lot of questions that I answered in an economically "liberal" way, but at the end of the day I think the church should be light years ahead of the state in helping the poor, etc.

You are a Social Conservative (23% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (36% permissive) You are best described as a: Totalitarian Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

A helpful site

If you receive a great deal of forwarded emails, please bookmark the site Snopes. It contains a huge amount of information on urban legends, email hoaxes, and even those (few) things that are true. You can go to their site and search for the contents of the email you received, and it will tell you whether it is true, false, or undetermined.

Please don't forward on misinformation!

Saturday afternoon fuel

Hey, I don't usually post on Sundays but everybody's asleep so here I go.

True confessions... on Saturdays, I listen to NPR ALL DAY LONG. With few breaks. I love it! I listen to "Weekend Edition Saturday", then "Car Talk", then "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me"...then I usually turn it off for a little while, and then tune back in for "This American Life" at 3, and "The Splendid Table" at 4. We used to have a Saturday evening ritual when we were first married of listening to "A Prairie Home Companion," too, and we still listen to that from time to time, but two hours is a little long for the kids to pay attention to a radio show, and we like that early evening time to be family time.

So here are some random thoughts concerning Saturday NPR...in no particular order...

-Lynne Rossetto Kasper (the host of "The Splendid Table") is hilarious. She knows EVERYTHING about food. The first time I listened to the show, she told a woman about fourteen different uses for a huge amount of raw chicken fat. BLECH! But she made it sound appealing...like she wished she had several quart jars full of chicken fat at her house! Such is the power of Lynne.

- Sometimes, I also listen to "The People's Pharmacy" at 7 AM, but the house is usually still quiet then so I try to control myself.

- Tom and Ray (the "Car Talk" guys) have got to be -- secretly, of course -- MIT's favorite children.

- In Boston, "A Prairie Home Companion" is followed by this fantastic word quiz show called "Says You." It's on in other markets as well, but not in Charlotte. I miss it terribly!

- My favorite panelist on "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" has always been Roy Blount, Jr.

...and if you don't listen to NPR, you probably didn't understand most of this post. Sorry. Maybe you'll have better luck tomorrow.

Two Sports Tragedies Today

One deserving athlete was injured.















One undeserving athlete was lauded.














Apparently, cheaters do prosper.

It has begun...

"Speed week" hasn't officially started yet (not until tomorrow), but the traffic has picked up considerably around here. For those of you not from Charlotte, Speed Week is the week (ten days?) of the year that NASCAR shows its love to Charlotte. There is an All-star race this coming Saturday, and then next Saturday is the Coca-Cola 600. The time surrounding those two events is filled with general frivolity, NASCAR style...pole nights, truck races, and this year, the premiere of the movie "Cars" will happen at the Speedway. Train, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Carrie Underwood will also all be here performing at various events. I know, I know....Red Hot Chili Peppers and NASCAR?!

(side note....have you all heard the story of how David sat next to Flea once at a baseball game?...but I digress...)

Many people stay here all week in their RVs or at hotels. Last year we avoided the whole area until it was all over and then we drove through that Sunday evening...and the trash....oh, the humanity!!!!

So far I've seen three "Buy/Sell" tents set up by the side of the road, where guys buy and sell tickets all day and night, and sleep in their lawn chairs in between transactions. No doubt there will be more by tomorrow!

If any of you have any notion to come to the race some year, please consider our home your Lowes Motor Speedway Bed and Breakfast.

Real proof for the "T" in "TULIP"

(that's "Total Depravity.")

We learn to say "no" LONG before we say "yes."

(but it looks so cute on him, doesn't it?)

Cameron's story

The following is a story that Cameron composed this morning after drawing some pictures of rockets and helicopters. We made it into a book.

Once upon a time a rocket was beginning to take off. The rocket's engine rubbed. Then the rocket started to take off with a loud roar. The rocket had gone all the way off so that it could take off all the way to Saturn. A helicopter was working at the sea. But then suddenly the pilot heard that rockets were coming to battle against them. But the helicopter zipped off and he said through his phone, "I can beat you." The pilot went right to the battle, and the rocket pilots said, "If you beat us and make us die, then we will write down a sign which says, 'You won.'" Then suddenly the helicopter pilot, when he got to the rocket pilots, he turned on his tornado motor and out came a large and powerful tornado at the rocket bad guy drivers. THE END

he muzrz dea grama (that's "Happy mother's day, gramma" typed by Cam)

Yesterday was a good mother's day. We went to lunch at Macaroni Grill (one of my favorite places!) and then I received my gift...a giftcard to a local salon/spa! Yippee! I think the highlight of the day was hearing Andrew trying to wish me a happy mother's day...it came out more like "Happy Mudders, Mom."

I would type more now but I have sick kids on my hands...Andrew and Jonathan both have pretty bad colds right now. Andrew wants to sleep all the time, and Jonathan is having a hard time sleeping. It makes my life pretty exciting right now. Ha ha ha

Busy, busy

Last night, our small group went to help a church family who has a preemie in the NICU. Camden is just 2 and a half pounds and Mom and Dad are eager to see him anytime they can. So they went to the hospital while we all stayed with their other five children and did some cleanup around the house. We hope that Camden will come home to his family sometime in June or July.

Today we met the boys' friend Caleb and his mom at our local children's museum, Discovery Place. Here are some photos of the day. Everyone was exhausted when we got home!





Andrew "making" a thunderstorm.













Ben and Caleb enjoying the tornado.






















Cameron's drawing, made with a swinging table (hard to explain, but take my word for it).






















Watching the patterns made by the pendulum.











Andrew enjoying the water table.

Home Improvement 101

David and I have been busy this week on different projects around the house. David and our friend Jonathan built this raised garden bed on the side of our house on Saturday. They built one at Jonathan and Nicole's house, too. We are all looking forward to enjoying the "fruits" of our labor later in the summer!














Also, I redid the hall bathroom last week, and though I was afraid I'd picked the wrong color, it turned out just fine. Check it out! These pictures make it look a tad more yellow than it really is.



The PB Kids towels and shower curtain were bought off of my Mommies chat board for $20 total. Can't beat that!

RUUUDee RUUDee

In my head this morning (because the boys watched part of Rudy this morning):

Rally sons of Notre Dame,
Sing her glory, and sound her fame
Raise her Gold and Blue,
And cheer with voices true,
Rah! Rah! For Notre Dame.

We will fight in every game
Strong of heart and true to her name.
We will ne'er forget her
And we'll cheer her ever,
Loyal to Notre Dame.

Cheer, cheer for Old Notre Dame
Wake up the echoes cheering her name,
Send the volley cheer on high,
Shake down the thunder from the sky,
What though the odds be great or small
Old Notre Dame will win over all,
While her loyal sons are marching
Onward to Victory.

A peek into my brain lately...

This is an excerpt from an email I composed to a friend this evening. She was sharing her thoughts about how frequently we as Christian parents can look down upon others who do things differently. I shared her feelings, to my shame. It's something I've been working through with the Lord a great deal since I have become a mother. I think I have made some (very little) progress, and I pray that I can continue to grow in grace in this area. The woman that I paraphrase is Nancy Wilson, and the book is entitled, The Fruit of Her Hands: Respect and the Christian Woman.

Your thoughts about child-rearing are right on, and I've been thinking about those things lately, too. I really struggle to maintain that mindset that not everyone has to do things my way. For example, I can't stand to hear my friend complain about getting up at night with her 6-month-old, when I gave her "Babywise" four years ago when she had her first baby. I have a really bad attitude about it...on one hand, I am really (sinfully) proud that my kids slept through the night so early, and on the other hand, I am frustrated at her for not listening to me or taking my advice. But when the shoe is on the other foot, I get upset. A good example of this is the whole natural childbirth issue. When I was pregnant with Cameron, I got a pretty aggressive sales pitch for the Bradlee method that completely turned me off of the whole natural movement. I don't even want to hear about it, and I feel looked down upon when women who went natural start sharing war stories and all I want to do is say, "boy, I sure did love that epidural."
The truth is, none of these things are stated in the Bible...and they are good opportunities for us ALL to grow in grace towards one another. As one wise woman points out in her book, (I'll paraphrase) if you are a better Christian for extrabiblical things that you do "the right way," then (A) you are expressing that you believe in works for better standing before God, or (B) you are attaching those methods you use to the Gospel (i.e., they are essential to be saved). WOW! When you put it like that, I think, "that's rediculous! I don't really think that!" But by my thoughts, I am convicted of doing just that!
That is really the spirit of the article, Principles and Methods, that I passed out before the "school choice" roundtable, because I wanted to be careful that we don't put ourselves in the category of a "homeschooling church." Homeschooling is one good option, but it's not the only Godly option for Christian parents.

Try this one!

Another trip to Atlanta

We went down to Atlanta last weekend to help Jimmy (David's youngest brother) move into his apartment. Sadly enough, this is the only picture I have of the whole weekend.

Ben carrying a couch cushion.

We also got to pay a visit to my favorite store, IKEA!!!!!

The Wachovia Pro-Am

Geez, reading our blog is like reading the sports page sometimes.

On Wednesday David took Cam and Ben and a friend from church to the Wachovia Championship Pro-Am. They left the house at five 'til seven and returned around 3:30. It was a long day in the sun but they had a great time! The boys learned to be quiet when the marshals held up their hands (oh, except for that time that Ben spilled his drink and started crying), and they saw a lot of famous golfers.

Here are the highlights...


Cal Ripken, Jr. approaching the tee. The boys got an autograph from him.

Cameron's favorite part was seeing Phil Mickelson play.


Jim Furyk. He gave the boys an autograph, too.