It's Difficult to be Good Looking

Yesterday Daddy, Jonathon, and Austin went to the barber shop in downtown Camas for a much needed haircut. It is a special little outing for the "guys" that Austin looks forward to every month.

This time, before he left, Leisel told Austin to ask Daddy if he could get a military cut; she was half teasing him. When Austin returned from the barber shop, his entrance was greeted by loud exclamations and girlish cries of admiration. Mommy, Leisel, and I were upstairs packing away winter clothes and getting out spring clothes from the attic when Austin walked in with a brand new military cut. The girls were still crowding around him, oohing and aahing over his fashionable hair do. Finally, Austin exclaimed, "I'm going to die with all of these women rejoicing over me."

A Visit to the Portland Zoo

Well...I have not posted for a month, but my very good and plausible excuse is that Papa and Nana have been here for nearly a month. After not seeing them for almost two years, I wanted to spend every spare moment with them, hence the neglect of my blog.

During their visit we did a number of fun things not the least of which was sitting around the breakfast table with steaming cups of coffee in our hands and our mouths running a mile a minute. Ok, so we did go on some outings: we ran to the produce store to get some fresh cilantro and apples, and then maybe a trip or two to the grocery store to pick up some necessary ingredients, but other than that we had very little turmoil in our normally calm schedule. :-)

Alright, so we did make one trip to the Portland Zoo, which you could consider quite an outing for a family with several "loose cannons " (as Daddy would call them) among the younger branch of the family tree.

If it's true that a picture is worth a thousand words, then this post should be very informative without my narration. So I decided to download several pictures and let them do the talking.

Plagiarism

About a week or so ago, Annalise told Mommy that when she grew up she was going to write a book called Reformation Heroes. Mommy informed her that she could not write the exact same book as that particular one had already been written. Later that evening, Annalise was telling me about a story she was going to write about a large family. Austin piped up, announcing that he was going to write a story also.

Annalise asked, "What are you going to write about?"

"I am going to write about Jesus dying on the cross," Austin answered.

With great condescension, Annalise rested her elbow on the table where Austin sat and explained, "That would be stealing an idea. You'd be stealing John's idea and Matthew, Mark's, and Luke's."

Church Historian in the Making

Annalise is a little scholar. She loves to learn anything she possibly can about everything from Science to History. Her favorite subject, however, is the Reformation. Her interest began with bedtime stories that I used to tell her about Martin Luther and the Reformation in Germany. From then on, her favorite bedtime stories have centered around Reformers and godly preachers of the past. This past year, for Christmas, Daddy and Mommy bought her a book called Reformation Heroes. It was written for more of a teenage audience, but Annalise's understanding is definitely equal to that of most teenagers. That book has become a special book that she and I read together at bedtime. She has shown an amazing comprehension and recall of each of the stories that I read to her.

One day Jonathon asked her about Martin Luther and she answered that she liked Zwingli better than Luther. That was a surprise, as Luther has been her hero for a long time. When Jonathon asked her about it, she replied that, "Luther believed something a little funny about the Lord's supper." I had previously tried to explain to her the various beliefs held about the Lord's supper; the concepts are difficult, but at least she seemed to understand to some extent. I am still trying to get her to learn all of the terms: transubstantiation and consubstantiation etc. :-)

A few days later Jonathon started to talk to her about Edward VI. In the course of the conversation, he mentioned that Edward became king when he was only ten years old. Annalise's eyes widened and she exclaimed, "That's the same age as King Richard." When Jonathon told me about her comment, I wasn't sure what she was talking about, but I looked it up in the book and found that sure enough, Richard II, husband of Anne of Bohemia (whom we had read about a while before) became king when he was 10.

Another night, not that long ago, I was reading to her about John Foxe. She turned to me and with a matter of fact air began to reel of the timeline, "So then it is Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe, Anne of Bohemia, John Huss, Martin Luther, and then John Foxe." I had to look at the timeline to check her out on her order and she was right.

I am thrilled that she is picking up so much of this information, but the real acievement is not in the attainment of vast knowledge just for knowledge sake. We are surrounded by "so great a cloud of witnesses" and my hope is that the study of the godly lives of those who have gone before will ever serve as an encouragement to her to "run the race" with perseverence. I want their lives to point her to the God who is "the same yesterday, today, and forever".

The Fire Station

Last Saturday, Daddy took the entire family down the road to the Camas Fire Station where they had a sort of "open house" for the fire department. They had fire trucks, an ambulance, and a helicopter all on display. It was a little boy's dream.

The first thing that we visited was the Life Flight helicopter. Austin has always wanted to ride in a helicopter so this was an opportunity for him to do the next best thing - sit in one.

Later in the afternoon, Life Flight was called away to an emergency so we all gathered to watch it take off. It stirred up quite a wind but was really fun to watch!

They also did a demonstration of an oil fire in a kitchen. One of the firemen held a torch into a pot of oil until it heated up to...I think it was 600 degrees. It was one of those "kids, don't try this at home" demonstrations. He showed how to put it out by sliding a lid on the pan and then he showed the consequences of trying to put it out with water. It was really amazing! The second picture, which doesn't do it justice, was taken after he poured a glass of water on it. Flames burst sky high while a billow of black smoke covered the entire area. There are some times when front row seats are less then ideal and a fire demonstration is one of them. I jumped backwards at the explosion of fire, hoped that the firemen knew what they were doing, and choked on the spray from the fire extinguisher that they used to put it out.

No, it's not a good idea to stick a blow torch into a pot of oil, that is...unless you are a highly trained professional.

Austin got to play fire chief for a brief moment. After all, aren't firemen just grown up little boys that always dreamed of riding in the big red truck with the siren blaring? Now he is really confused about what he wants to be when he grows up. Right now, he's not facing a lack of choices, but rather the sheer abundance of them.

The last demonstration that they gave was done by the K9 section of the police department. They brought two German Shepherd police dogs named Ackbar and Swift and went through the basic training moves with them. Then they showed their attack training. One of the policemen donned a special suit with a special pad for his arm while the other sent the dog after him. I sure would not want to get on the wrong side of that dog; when he bit down he didn't let go and he looked like he could make sore havoc of anything he chose to hold on to.

It was a very fun day for the entire family! The enthusiasm of the three younger ones was the best part. However, I think that there is a fascination in all of us for the heroic rescue jobs. I am so thankful that there are men who are willing to risk their lives to protect us.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

Have you ever tried to teach or explain anything to a two year old and wondered how much of it they actually understood? Well, I think the common phrase "they know more than you give them credit for" is very true.

In Sunday School we are studying the gospel of Mark and during the week Mommy has a Bible study in the same book with the three younger children so they are getting a double dose of that gospel. During the week, Ania normally plays around in the room while Mommy does the devotional and, of course, you just assume that she does not pick up on anything.

A little over a week ago, we were at the table preparing for the Sunday School lesson when somone mentioned John the Baptist. Immediately, Ania, who was sitting at the table, raised her head and asked, "Did John the Baptist get his head cut off?"

Amazed at her observation, Mommy answered, "Yes he did."

"And they put it on a platter?" she added confidently.

"Yes, they did," Mommy agreed gravely while all of us girls exchanged glances of surprise.

"Did it get blood on the platter?" was her next inquiry, demonstrating that she had thought through a little more of the gory details then were revealed in the text.

The other night when I was putting her to bed, I started to ask her if she knew any of the stories about Jesus. She promptly answered, "He talked to the water and He talked to the wind and He talked to the waves."

"Then what happened?" I inquired.

"The waves stopped splashing; the wind stopped blowing." All the while her chubby little hands were busily illustrating the fury of the tempest and the inflections in her voice added to the wonder of the story she told.

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." The instruction gains a new meaning when you see the capacity that young minds have to understand and retain instruction, whether good or bad. No wonder Jesus's warning was so severe against those that cause a little one to stumble (Mark 9:42).

The Big Five-OH!

Well, I've finally got around to posting the pictures of Daddy's 50th birthday party. We celebrated it on Saturday, the day before his birthday, which ended up working out really well.

After considerable deliberation on what would we could do to make his day special, we finally decided that what Daddy needed most was a day where he could sit back and relax. He is always busy doing something for someone so we wanted the day to center around him, but in such a way that he felt no pressure to do anything.

So we made a program for him on the computer and printed it off. He was to begin the morning by going out for breakfast with Lynnae (who had celebrated her birthday a few days earlier). Then he was to spend some time with the younger ones just playing.

He had a serious wrestling match with Austin. It was a tough bout but with determination and skill Austin finally wriggled out of Daddy's hold and pinned him to the floor.

Ania and Annalise even did a little acrobatics in honor of the day.

Later that afternoon we made Daddy take a nap and during that time we decorated the downstairs. We did put little reminders of his age all over the ceiling, but we did it in celebratory colors. We did not want to decorate with the gloomy blacks and purples that usually go with 50th birthdays, reminding you that you are already over the hill and starting down the other side. Everyone worked together to put the decorations up and they turned out very nicely.

During the afternoon, we watched a couple episodes of Dicken's Martin Chuzzlewit with Daddy. Overall, it was a very relaxing, layed back day.

The day ended with Daddy's favorite dinner of salmon and twice baked potatoes with a strawberry shortcake for dessert.