March 2008 - Posts
OK, so this isn't going to become a blog completely about what my daughter does, but today I really got a kick out of her.
At 4:15 she was trying to open her door to get up from her rest time, but her door was stuck. So I went and opened it for her and she is butt naked. I looked down at her and asked her why she was naked and her response was, "reindeers don't wear clothes." Well, she had me there, reindeer do not in fact wear clothes. I smiled and said, "why don't you be a reindeer that does wear clothes?" Stacy had the great idea of having her put on brown clothes and Emily went for that.
After she had clothes on again I decided to go whole hog and paint her nose and give her antlers. I took her in the bathroom and using a bathtub crayon gave her a little red nose. Then I made her a set of antlers out of pipe cleaners. Here are some pics of my little reindeer. She isn't smiling, cause reindeer don't smile. 
Of course at this point she looks at me with her bright blue eyes
and little red nose and says, "daddy reindeer" and I knew it was my
turn. So I made antlers for myself, and she went to get the black
crayon, because there is only one red nosed reindeer. Here we are
together all done up.
Emily is a blast and I love spending time with her.
Our daughter, Emily, is 3 1/2 and pretty much continuously keeps us laughing. She will say something in dead seriousness that is absolutely hilarious and have no idea. Other times she knows exactly what she is doing and knows it is funny. Here are a few of the things she has given us recently.
She and I were on our way to the gym one day when she, completely serious asks, "Daddy, how did the Dr. get me out of Mommy's tummy? There isn't a hole in her tummy." Wanting to be completely honest with her I told her "God makes special changes to Mommy so that you can come out, but look, there is the gym and we can ask Mommy to explain in more detail later. Will that be ok?"
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The other night I was drying her off after giving her a bath and she looks at me and says, "When I'm a grown-up can I have a patch like Mommy?" (Mommy has a patch for medicine). I said sure. (I didn't want to go into detail with her as to why Mommy has a patch at this time of day.) She then gets this crazy look and says, "I can have a patch and wear make-up and JEEEWELRYYYY?" I know it doesn't read nearly as funny as when she said it, but she got this really odd, crazy voice when she said jewelry.
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Just a few minutes after the the crazy voice above, she was putting on her PJs and was having trouble so started having a meltdown. I got her stopped and was in the process of trying to remind her that when she is having trouble with something she needs to stop, think and then respond to the situation. (Rather than kicking her PJs till she rips a hole in them. 
) As I'm trying to talk to her she just starts bouncing and completely not paying attention to me. Well, I'm sure you can imagine, but this didn't go over too well with me. We went from having a discussion about how to deal with clothing problems to the fact that she needs to show Daddy respect when I am speaking to her. She starts making faces and different gestures, pointing to me and then to the floor in front of her. (As we do sometimes when telling her to come here.) This results in a timeout.
As I'm speaking to her after the timeout she is still making faces (although she is standing still as I have told her to do). I tell her that she needs to stop making faces because that too is disrespectful while I am talking to her. I figure at this point that we have a test of will power here and I prepare for the long-haul. With her making faces I decide that I will try to just sit in front of her and not make eye contact. She proceeds to make ALL KINDS of CRAZY faces and bounce up and down, she gets under my face and pushes on my nose, yells "Wake up Daddy." I looked at her and asked her what she was doing and she replies, "I'm trying to make you smile Daddy." I just about cannot help but laugh, but somehow I kept it inside. To make a looooong story short, after about 3 separate timeouts for disrespect I finally ask her, "Do you do this when Mommy is speaking to you?" and she replies "No". My next question, "So why are you acting this way for Daddy?" and her honest childlike response, "Because your words are funny." ARG!!!! My words are funny?!?!?!?! What do I say to that. In the end I just sent her to bed, cause I realized that in the very beginning I should have understood that she was just exhausted and crazy. I read her a story, gave her kisses, tucked her in and said good night.
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I took E to the mall to play on the playground the other day because it was kinda cold outside. Beside the playground they have a person in an Easter Bunny costume setup for pictures. She walks over near the bunny and slowly looks him over. Then she looks at me and says, "Daddy, there is a person inside the bunny." I told her that yes, it was just a costume and she then wanted to know if the person inside was a boy or a girl. She has this thing right now about needing to know everyone's name and sex. I mean everyone's. At ANY checkout lane, "Mommy, Daddy what is her name? What is her middle name?"
After she played on the playground for a little bit and was done we headed out of the mall, but she said she wasn't ready to leave yet and would like to walk around the mall. Sure why not, nothing else to do right now. As we walked around she saw a game store. We went inside and there were a couple of boys playing checkers with the chess pieces on a waist high table. She wanted to play and waited her turn. She remembered that we have a chess board at home and asked if we could play when we got home. Me, "Sure that sound like fun." Then we left that store and walked around some more. Then the Disney Store, arg!!! Actually wasn't bad, she just wandered around and then went to the back of the store where they have the huge half circle of stuffed characters. She then starts moving animals and dolls around the circle putting any doll that is in the wrong place in its proper place. I swear we were there for 15 minutes while she did that. Everything has a place and must be in its place.
After we got home I broke out the chess set and we started playing. Now her idea of playing is to move all of the pieces anywhere on the board. I let her do that for a while, but then started to tell her the names of the different pieces. She quickly learned them, so I moved on to letting her know that the black pieces could move on the white or black squares and the same with the whites pieces. Then we started working on the initial placement of pieces on the board. She hasn't gotten that part yet, but I'll keep working on it with her.
She is just a blast. I can't imaging my life without her, she makes me laugh and smile every day. I love my little princess so very much.
If you are familiar with the bible then you have at least heard of the book entitled "Song of Solomon". It tells the story of King Solomon and one of his brides; their courtship, wedding, honeymoon, first fight and more. It is a wonderful story and describes how our marriages should look if we are to follow God's intent.
Tommy Nelson started a lesson series on the Song of Solomon (SOS) a few years ago that is just great. In addition to the lesson series there are also conferences held around the US. One of the men preaching the SOS conferences is Mark Driscoll and he has a couple of video devotionals that promote the conferences. In one he says some things that have gotten some people up in arms and other people are happy to see him saying what he is saying.
I'll keep how I feel about this quiet for the time being, but I am curious to know what other people think.
Check it out here.
Was the Song of Solomon written only about Solomon and his bride to show us how our marriages should look, or is it as some have said an example of the relationship that we are to have with Christ? Was it even written about Solomon?
Matthew Henry is direct in his opinion that the book is "a Divine allegory, which represents the love between Christ and his church of true believers".
Richard T. Ritenbaugh seems to agree with Henry, "(sic) Jewish rabbis allegorize God and Israel from its poetry, and Christians see Christ and His Bride, the church."
Ray Stedman finds that both interpretations are correct.
Spurgeon found that it was about Christ and his bride, "It is not all the saints who can enter here, for they
have not yet attained unto the holy confidence of faith, and that
exceeding familiarity of love which will permit them to commune in
conjugal love with the great Bridegroom."
Why two such separate views of the same book? Can both be correct? Is it perhaps a rendering of the times in which the opinions were written? Do Henry and Spurgeon believe it has to be allegorical because the time in which they lived was ultraconservative about sex and therefore there had to be another answer for this? Or has the prevelance of sex in today's culture twisted Driscoll's view to one that this can only be a story of love between Solomon and his bride?
Some things that I find as I spend time studying my bible, I will NEVER know everything, I will NEVER know as much as I'd like and every time I find an answer I also find at least one more question. But God is faithful to us and He actually wants us to seek Him, ask Him questions and learn more about Him.
Proverbs 9:10
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Please let me know what you think, I'd really like to know.
Tonight Emily earned a new toy and she picked a set of glow in the dark necklaces. They were each housed in a long plastic tube about 24 inches long and with a fairly large diameter opening. Once she went to bed I quickly rolled up a bit of paper towel and shot it at Stacy. (note, this was NOT a spitball, it was dry ) Stacy grabbed the other tube and quickly returned fire.
She then got this great idea to load a raisin and shoot me on the forehead. My wife had just tweaked me in the forehead with a dried up piece of fruit. This is also known as the start of war/ a food fight. For the next 30 minutes we exchanged volleys of raisins across the kitchen, through the dining room and into the living room. We chased and ducked, shot, hit and missed. Stacy must have thinner skin than me cause she nows has a few welts and red marks on her neck, side, and stomach.
We laughed almost the entire time (except when getting hit by one). Many shots were misfires due to bursting out laughing with the blowguns up to our mouths, the raisins flying out pitifully slow and falling harmlessly to the ground.
I love my wife and wouldn't trade her for anyone else in the world. She is the best.
Thank you God for blessing me with her.
Part 3 of a 3 part series.
In the last post I left off with a hint of our little family hike, now to give you the details.
We decided to take Emily out on her first real hike on a realitively mild 2.5 mile trail. We figured that it would be about the limit for her but only take about a couple of hours to do. We headed out about 10:30am and we followed the red/yellow trail for a bit. As usual with our child she was asking about snacks within a few minutes. At somewhere between .25 and .5 miles we had to make our first stop for snacks. We sat for a little while and enjoyed the beautiful weather. After our little break we hiked along until a little bit past mile marker 1 and we got to a split in the trail. Now we had to make a choice between red or yellow.
Let me just pause here for a second to say that I was in the Army and love land nav, but I've never been on hiking trails before this. I thought I had seen that the trails in this section were either 1.5 miles or 2.5 miles.
We opted for the red trail since Emily's favorite color is red. We hiked along for a bit and I mentioned to Stacy that the trail should be turning back pretty soon as it seemed to be paralleling the lake. It was a nice trail with lots of hills and beautiful views of the lake. Emily was doing great, and having a great time. At one point we found a vine hanging from a tree that would support each of us, so we all took turns sitting on it and bouncing. Emily really enjoyed that.
When we got to mile marker 2.5 we started scratching our heads. HMMM this trail should have ended by now. We decided to keep on, since the trail couldn't be too much further. Off we continued. Pretty soon we decided to start carrying Emily on our shoulders "in case the trail was too long". Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, our provisions for this little hike: 3 energy bars, 2 bags of dried fruit, one small bag of trail mix and 3 small bottles of water. By this time we had exhausted most of our water and the food was mostly gone during our previous break, the terrain had turned a bit uglier and was actually very hilly. Not mountains, but some good hills.
We saw mile marker 3 and then mile marker 3.5 and finally mile marker 4. At this point we decided to sit down for another break. We had been hiking since 10:30 and it was now 2pm. We were really starting to get a little concerned about this trail and Stacy had the WONDERFUL idea to call the park station and ask how long the trail was. Let me just say that I would never have thought of that. I would have just kept on plugging along until I either finished the trail or gotten to a point that I knew I could get back to camp from (without turning around ). Here is the conversation from when I called the lady at the park station, YAY we had a signal out here!!!,
Me: How long is the red trail?
Her: Oh it is about two and a half miles.
Me: Umm, are you sure cause we're on it and sitting at mile marker 4.
Her: OOOOH, THAT trail. That is the new one. It goes around the lake.
Me: Oh really, and how far is around the lake.
Her: About 15.5 miles.
Me: Oh, I think we'll turn around. Thanks.
Her: Yea, you might want to turn around now.
So there we were with a tired three year old and 4 miles to hike back to the beginning of the trail. WOOO HOOOO!!!! I had been contemplating this for a little bit while we had been walking and I knew that now was the time to give it a try. I took all of the things in my backpack, camera, long sleeve shirt, empty food wrappers and put them in Stacy's backpack then I unzipped the main compartment of the pack, undid two straps and had Emily sit in the backpack. I reclipped the two straps and tightened them around her. I had Stacy stand behind me to catch Emily if there was a problem then I stood up. Hey, this seemed like it would work!!!
So Stacy and I set a really good pace for two out of shape tired people carrying a 30 pound child in a backpack and made it back to the truck in 2 hours. During the hike back Emily absolutely loved being carried and eventually fell asleep.
Once we got back to the trailer it was dinner and shower time for everyone. That night Emily kept saying she wanted to go hiking again tomorrow, in Daddy's backpack. We told her not tomorrow but maybe the next day. Stacy and I were S-O-R-E sore.
The next day was a movie day. We sat around and let Emily watch movies, play games etc. At one point I asked Stacy if it was Thursday or Friday and she said Thursday. Ok, good, lots more time to relax. Later Emily and I went into town to get a couple things from the store and I realized that it was actually friday. That really got me and got Stacy even more. We were both sad for a little bit that we had all of a sudden lost a day of our vacation. 
On Saturday we got up and went for a little "hike" around the camp grounds with Emily in the backpack again and then happened upon a nature hike being run by a park guide. We joined on that and did another couple of miles at a slow relaxed pace. Then back to the trailer and more playing.
We cooked out a couple of times, made lots of fun breakfasts and just generally had a great time during the whole week.
Sunday we packed up and made the trek back home.
I would highly recommend this experience to anyone that likes a little bit of outdoors or even hard core campers that want to take it easy.
Part 2 of a 3 part series.
Yesterday I left off at the point where we had gotten to the camp site and gotten all of our things inside. While we were unpacking there was a loud BEEEEEP and then the electricity went off in the RV. HMMMM, my instincts told me this was not a natural occurance. I played with the lights but they didn't come back on. I turned on our lantern and about a minute later the lights came back on. I thought, "Well that was odd" and then left it at that. Then about 30 minutes later it happened again. This was gonna be a problem. Fortunately it was late and we were all ready to go to bed so we thought once we turned out the lights everything would be fine and we'd contact the park in the morning.
After we went to bed, we again heard the BEEEEEP, but it only lasted for a second or so and we had the lights out anyway so we figured no big deal. Then again 30 minutes later. And again 30 minutes later, but this time not just a BEEEEEP, but rather a sound similar to the smoke detector going off in the house, loud and continuous. This time we jumped up and stumbled into the kitchen as that seemed to be where the noise was coming from. By the way, it was now about 2:30am. Below the fridge was a propane gas detector and it seemed to be where the noise was coming from. But it wasn't the alarm, rather the "low power" indicator light was also on. It seems that something in the trailer was causing power issues and when the alarm wasn't getting enough juice it was screeching at us. Stacy looked at me wanting to know what we were going to do about this in the middle of the night. I scratched my head and got out my Gerber multitool, unscrewed the propane alarm, disconnected the wires and all was quiet. success!!! Well, it seemed that the power was only going out for about a minute at a time so the food in the fridge should be good and I wasn't overly concerned about the propane since we hadn't smelled any since we had been there so we called it a night and went back to sleep.
The next morning we went to the park office and paid for the rest of our nights there and told them about the beeping. They sent out Kenneth to take a look at it. Kenneth was a real nice guy and tried quite a few different things to resolve the problem. He replaced a breaker and for a long time that seemed like it solved the problem, but once the heater kicked on within a little bit, BEEEEEP and the power went off again. Kenneth ended up spending the entire day working in the trailer. We took advantage of the beautiful weather and walked to the play ground with Emily and played for about an hour. In the end it was determined that the power inverter was bad and had to be replaced. They had to go to a different town about 30 miles away to get the part. Kenneth did that, but wouldn't be back to install the inverter until the following morning. So again for that night we had the propane alarm disconnected.
The next morning we loaded into the truck and went to a bunch of old country stores. On our way out we stopped by the office to let them know that they could go into the trailer whenever they needed as we would be gone for the day. The stores were about what you expect with old country stores. There was a bar-b-que place that had good food and we ate there for lunch and then went back to the park. Kenneth had been and left and everything was fixed. YAY!!! For all of the trouble the park gave us one free night, so that was a nice little bonus.
Wednesday was a little rainy and dreary so we stayed inside. Stacy and Emily did lots of crafts, we played games and watched movies. So far the trip was going wonderfully. Our plan for Thursday was to take Emily on her first real hike. There were some trails and one specifically was only 2.5 miles so our plan was to take her on that one.
Next time, "Oh that is the new trail, it goes around the lake."
Part 1 of a 3 part series.
This past week my family and I went camping in Arkansas. The Arkansas State Parks System has four parks where you can rent an in-place RV. We decided to stay at Cane Creek State Park. It proved to be a great time for our whole family.
A couple strong influences in our lives had both recommended always making sure to take a family vacation when you have the chance. We saw this time as being the perfect opportunity to get away and do a family vacation. We love camping and camping tends to be a little more cost effective than other vacations so we jumped on the chance and off we went.
We left Dallas on Sunday after church and drove for about 7ish hours. Emily had Stacy's laptop in the backseat with headphones on and we had the opportunity to sit in the front listening to our own music and talk the whole way. WOW!!!! That part was really nice. In the past Emily has had a laptop to watch movies, but never headphones so we ended up all listening to whatever she was watching.
Stacy and I thought about the various roadtrips we had been on as kids and how we obviously never had DVDs to keep us occupied, but that somehow we still had fun on trips. The one big difference that occured to us between then and now is car seats. When we were kids we had the freedom to roam all over the car. Now our kids are straped down in one place for the entire trip. I'm not complaining about carseats, I wouldn't trade them for anything, but just the observation that there is a difference. So in light of that difference we decided that having a DVD playing while on long trips was an acceptable concession.
So back to the the trip.
The RV was actually a 30ft travel trailer that had four bunk beds, a sleeper sofa and a bedroom with a queen size bed. It was stocked with pots, pans, dishes, utensils, cleaning supplies, stove, oven, refridgerator and freezer. I really do think it had everything we needed except for food and linens. Outside there was a nice wooden deck with a propane gas grill. I wish I had know ahead of time that the grill was gas as I would have brought a tank from home. This was a great trial run for us, because we have been thinking about getting a travel trailer eventually for family vacations.
We got there around 9 or so at night and got all of our stuff inside. We unloaded the cold stuff into the fridge and freezer and then got Emily set up in her room. She did great. When we went into the back room with the four bunk beds she just loved it. We had her pick the bed she wanted to sleep on and then put all of her toys on the other bottom bunk. She really adjusted quickly and had a great time.
Throughout the week we got to go hiking, play games, play in the dirt, cook out, read and enjoy family time. To our surprise (wonderful surprise) when we got there our cell phones had no signal. 
We were so happy to not have phone, internet, tv, nothing!!! We occasionally asked Emily what she liked best during the week and every time she answered, "Spending time with mommy and daddy." Boy will that melt your heart.
I think that will do it for this post, but wait until next time when we hear about, "what was that noise? and why is it beeping every 1/2 hour?"