FUNNY

 

The boys and I had a little afternoon excitement recently on a belated birthday date together at a local fun park.  You know – one of those places where you ride go carts and step into the batting cages and play gigantic video games.

I don’t mind admitting that I’m a sucker for photo booths.  There was a giant one there and the boys were kind enough to oblige me since I had just treated them to lunch and batting cages and go carts and super intense air hockey games and some kind of gigantic fruit ninja video ridiculousness.

The photo booth was sort of weird and the directions were long and on some video and I guess the idea was to create a scene as if they were the paparazzi and you were the star, but instead the video with the instructions was set on the lowest imaginable volume and the camera was angled up so high you’d have to be Andre the Giant for your face to be level with it.

At any rate, what happened was hilarious and ludicrous.  

We couldn’t control our background and got that all wrong.  We couldn’t get up high enough to really see the camera and got that all wrong.  We couldn’t figure out which flash actually was taking our picture and got that all wrong.

It’s all perfectly wrong.

And now the photo greets us on our refrigerator in all its perfectly wrong glory.

FASHIONABLE

 

Babies are more fashionable than grown ups these days.

Also, babies don’t have opinions about their clothes really.  So, as a parent, you get this glorious tiny window of time where you can dress your prodigy in peter pan collars and sailor suits and embroidered dresses and all the pin tucks your heart can handle and suspenders and bow ties and onesies with witty slogans and absolutely nothing if you feel like it.

You’re in control of their attire.  (For a millisecond you guys.  Just for a millisecond.  Then they only want to wear a pink tutu for two years, a blue buff for six months, that one t-shirt with a hole in the back.)

While you’re living up that tiny baby dressing control fest you can put them in many cute things.

Like these super cute baby bibs that look like bandanas.  (Which Riley calls “bibdanas”.  What?  There’s a word for this?)

 

FLAVORFUL

 

This July Fourth we got all fancy with some of our dinners.

Well.  Emma got all fancy with some of our dinners.

She created lumpia and pancit – two Filipino dishes.

Oh my word.

They were both fantastic.

You’re on your own for the recipe, unless Emma has a random day when she reads this post and shares her recipe with us.

 

FAITHFUL

 

We’ve been traveling a bit this summer and so we have missed a handful of Sundays at church.  Being off that routine sometimes messes with your brain and your heart a little.  Or – at least – it messes with mine.  On trips I am much less likely to begin my days with a focus and an intention, with prayer and with purpose.

Jo mentioned what a timely and meaningful sermon I had missed and encouraged me to listen to the podcast sometime soon.

I finally did that after the kids fell asleep.

You can listen to it too – right here.  (Or go the the North Hills website if your prefer.)

The title of the sermon is “Freedom From Despair”.

There’s lots of good inside that little podcast up there and I hope you take the time to listen to it.

I was encouraged specifically by a few ideas.

1. Suffering is real.  Some things/situations/stories are just really bad.  They really truly are awful.  They are not good things wrapped up and disguised as bad things.  They are just for real bad things.

2.  Some bad things/situations/stories will not ever be mended or healed or fixed in our lifetimes.

3.  Even with the bad things/situations/stories NEVER being made right, we can have hope.  Not hope in the good outcome of the bad thing/situation/story but hope in God Himself.  Hope that does not disappoint.

 

FEELS

 

The farm in Virginia always always always provides welcome and respite, comfort and fun.

It’s a gloriously beautiful place all of its own accord.

But what makes it something so lovely beyond the mountain views and the green grass, better than the flowing river and the fish-filled pond, are the two people who keep the whole place spinning.  Who get the grass mowed and keep the gravel on the long driveway from washing down into the gulleys with every rain.  Who host a big old generous party every Fourth of July for the past twenty-six years.  Who greet you at the car when you pull in after a long haul and who stand on the porch and wave goodbye to you when it’s time to return from whence you came.

The people who keep saying, “Yes.  Come back.  Bring your friends.  You’re always welcome here.”

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