Quick Pit Stop

Our good friend CPQ took her boys on a trip to Philadelphia this week.  On their way back, they stopped in for one night, which means only one evening of eating poorly.

K shows off her new baby by having a videoconference with CPQ. While sitting next to each other.

We were slightly shocked when CPQ first pulled up, since she had obviously forgotten to bring the boys, and instead had picked up three large men on the road.

Oh wait, those are the boys.

Just to show you how much the boys had grown since the last time we saw them, here’s some comparison shots of K and Tommy.

Here's Tommy and K in Nov. 2009

And here they are today. K is 5' 7"

Tommy's size 12 shoe up against my size 9. Did I mention these boys are 11 years old?

J and A always have a ball with the CPQ boys.

Tommy reading a goodnight story to J and A

One of the boys even lost a tooth while at our house. We feel so honored.

Unfortunately, since CPQ and her boys are always on the move, they had to leave first thing this morning.

As quickly as she arrived, CPQ (and her new van) rode off to parts unknown.

 

Firing Up Mr. Peabody’s WABAC Machine

I was surfing around the cable channels last night when I ran across a show about a Space Shuttle mission from back in 1993.  This shuttle mission was particularly important since it was the when NASA fixed the the focus issues on the Hubble Space Telescope.  Whenever I happen across anything about this particular mission, I tend to pause and watch it, since I happened to work this shuttle mission from NASA’s Mission Control in Houston.

I wish I had held onto one of those paper Hubble Telescope models.

I also wish I had held onto my hair.

Not only was this mission memorable because I got to work it in Mission Control, but I ended up meeting K within a couple of weeks after returning from Houston.  Looking for the pictures of me in Houston, I ran across the picture of K at the beach several months after we met:

Now that's what I call memorable.

 

Another “you know you work at a church” moment

The kids had just gone to bed Monday night.  I had settled down for the evening.  The time was 8:30pm.

And the phone rang.

Not my cell phone, but the home phone.

It was a church member.

Did they need help?  Did somebody in their family die?  Was the church on fire?

None of the above.

No, they needed to know, at exactly that moment, what paint color we had used on the walls of our Welcome Center.

Okaaaaaaaay.

When I explained that I really didn’t have that type of minutia in my brain, they asked me what time I got to work in the morning so they would know when to expect my call.

Then they asked if it was better to call me first thing in the morning to, you know, remind me that she needed this vital information.

I guess this is one of those “duties as assigned.”

Our newest baby

K finally did it.  She decided to have another baby.

And before the frantic phone calls start, by “baby” I mean “iPad.”

The proud new parent

She’s never had a computer that wasn’t work-based, so we figured an iPad would be a good fit for her web-browsing and emailing needs. So I purchased one online last Friday (I’m a little old for the whole “wait in line on release day” thing).  It showed up on Wednesday.

Of course, J started playing Angry Birds about 2.3 seconds later.

Not having used an Apple product before, there was a little bit of a learning curve for K.

Luckily, J and A were around to teach K how to use her new toy.

 

All he needs is a mullet and some parachute pants

A couple of weeks ago, Nana purchased some new CDs for the kids to listen to in the car.  One of these was a “Veggie Tales Sing the 80s.”

So without further adieu, I present the 80s greatest hits, as sung by Bob and Larry, as interpreted by J.

 

Adorable picture update

No funny, witty, or poignant story today.  Just a nice picture of the kids at a playground.

This is now my background image on my iPhone.

 

Paging Social Services

Probably our single biggest child-rearing issue has been, and continues to be, centered around food.

As in, when it comes to eating, the inmates are running the asylum.

Before we had kids, we used to mock other families who brought chicken nuggets to dinners so their kids had something to eat.  We would never do that.  Our kids would eat whatever was put in front of them.  Our kids would eat whatever the family was eating for dinner.  We would not make special meals for our kids.

So, Mr. Smartypants, six years in, how’s that working out for ya?

Unfortunately, the kids obviously didn’t get the memo, since we do the opposite of that at almost every meal.  We’ve tried all the recommended strategies for getting them to eat different foods.  Obviously these strategies have worked out really well.

For example, as she does every week, K brought the kids up to church for Wednesday night dinner last night.  The menu usually has something that they’re willing to eat.

But last night, it did not.

And so, even with their friend there to provide moral support and prove that the food wasn’t poison, J and A ate nothing for dinner.  On the way home, they started hitting up K for a snack.  She held her ground and informed them that they weren’t going to get any snack since they didn’t try any of their dinners.

But A would have her psychological revenge.

At prayer time before bed, they both prayed for family, school, etc.  Then A pulled out the big guns.

“Lord, thank you for our food, but I’d really like some food, because I’m very hungry.”