Brian and Cindy

Saturday night as I pulled into the parking lot at church, I saw my friends Brian and Cindy getting out of their car….a complete surprise given that they live in Kansas City! Cindy was one of my roommates in college and Brian lived in the basement apartment underneath us, and both have continued to be good friends of mine in the years since college (it helps that they are married to each other). I saw Cindy this summer, but had not seen Brian in several years. They were driving home to Kansas City from Oklahoma and decided to stop in Wichita for church Saturday night. Brian is a pastor of a church in Kansas City, and I guess pastors always like to visit other churches whenever they get the chance. I think they steal sermons or jokes or something. It’s a good thing I ran into them, because Cindy knows I get mad when she comes to Wichita and doesn’t see me. She claims that she tried calling my home phone, but I don’t have a home phone, so I have no way to test her story. I’ll just have to believe her this time. I made sure she left with my home phone, work phone, home email, and work email, so there are no excuses in the future!

Anyway, it was great to see Brian and Cindy and their daughters Hailey and Abby. We had a nice visit catching up at dinner after church. Brian and Cindy are especially dear to me because Brian baptized me several years ago. I was actually baptized when I was six (Brian didn’t do that one) at the First United Methodist Church in Salina, the year I consider the beginning to my journey as a Christian, when I first started understanding what it meant to love God and accept Jesus Christ as my saviour, as much as a six year old can. When I attended Bible College I was confronted by many people who informed that my baptism wasn’t valid because the Methodist church practices sprinkling and I need to be immersed to go to heaven. They never did convince me that I wasn’t a Christian, but after studying and learning more about biblical traditions, I did decide that I wanted to be baptized by immersion. I didn’t want to do this while I was in college, because my pride took over and I didn’t want all of my critics to think they were right. But about six months after graduation I decided it was time. I was living in Indiana and Brian and Cindy were living in Louisville, Kentucky where I would often go visit them for the weekend. On one of my weekend trips I asked Brian to baptize me, so we went up to Southeast Christian Church (the old building, which was still large, but not as big as the current arena!). It was a Friday night, after dark, and we were the only three people present in that huge sanctuary. Brian baptized me and Cindy was my witness. It was anticlimactic, but memorable. I was relieved to not feel any different, to understand that this was just another part of my journey, and not a determining factor of my eternal fate.

But back to the silliness….I did not have my camera with me at church, so I don’t have a recent picture of Brian and Cindy that I can post. But it’s okay, because it is much more fun for me to dig out old photos and post them instead. I couldn’t find any good ones of Brian and Cindy together, so here are two separate photos. This first one is from freshman year with Justin and Brian (and Matt in the background???) at Showbiz Pizza. I can’t remember why we went, but I think when we were 18 we still thought it was fun to go there and act stupid. It’s not really that fun anymore. Just loud and annoying.

This next picture is of Cindy, Lesa, Paula and I when we were all roommates in our beloved apartment. I think this is from my senior year (the first of my two senior years). We decorated for Christmas and here we are posing with the stockings that Lesa made for all of us. And some kind of weird matching earrings too. That was one of my favorite years in college. The four of us had a lot of good times together!

Kara

When I was posting pictures of my family yesterday, I didn't have any recent ones of Kara, my 17 year old niece. Here's one of Kara and my dad that I took earlier today. Konner tried to get some video of Kara, but she was uncooperative. I guess 17 year olds don't want their aunts posting video of them being silly on the internet. Whatever.....

My first assignment

Today Julie gave me an assignment for the blog. I was explaining that a lot of people I know use their blogs to talk about their kids, or their deep philosophical thoughts, but since I have neither, mine is mostly just silly. Then she asked if I had heard all this talk about the “end of civilization as we know it” coming in 2012. I said I had not heard this and that she should ignore it. Then she suggested I research this and write about it on my blog, so that 1) I could have some deep philosophical thoughts, and 2) she could come here when she needed to learn what was going on in the world.

Using my well honed research skills, I immediately went to google and typed in “end of civilization as we know it 2012”. Wikipedia (the source of all knowledge) says that in the Aztec calendar, 2012 represents the end of a 26,000 year planetary cycle. I don’t have any idea what that means, so I continued to search. Apparently, there are a lot of predictions including a giant comet impacting the earth in 2012, a major shift of political power due to dwindling oil reserves, even a prediction that 2012 wil be the year Arnold Swarzenegger will be elected president.

So here’s what I think Julie: your subconscious is telling you that 2012 is the end of life as you know because that is the year Bobby will graduate High School. Andy will be in college and very near the age when you got married, and Lizzie will be a high school sophomore, getting her drivers license and reaching the age when she can date. That’s a traumatic year for any mom if you ask me! So my advice to you is to play dumb and refuse to acknowledge that your kids may one day graduate high school. Pull out the old Michael Jackson stuff and put on those parachute pants and maybe 2012 will never come.

And since Julie didn't like the first picture I posted, here's another photo of us. If it's not already obvious, it's from the 80's, the decade of big hair and stonewashed jeans.

Konner

Tonight Konner discovered that my digital camera can also record videos (I did not know this), so while I have been working on my blog, she made a video, which she has titled "Dancin Fool". She may not take after me when it comes to dance moves, but definitely in her silliness! Hope you enjoy!

Make video montages at onetruemedia.com

Things I Am Thankful For: Part 4

It certainly seems appropriate on Thanksgiving Day that I would give thanks for my family. Here’s a photo of my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Eddie with my mom and dad after lunch today.

My brother Kevin and his family did not get to join us for a meal today, but I did go meet up with them later this afternoon so we could do a trade off. Kevin and I traded – I got his youngest daughter for the night and he got a child free home for the night so he could watch some stupid football game. We’re trading back tomorrow. Here’s a photo of Chari, Konner, and Kevin

I am very thankful for my two nieces, Kara and Konner. Kara is a senior in high school this year and she and I recently did a campus visit to Wichita State University. She is wanting to attend there next year and live with me, her favorite aunt Kelly (I have to remind her that I am her favorite aunt because sometimes she forgets).

Konner is in 6th grade and forgets nothing. The last time she stayed the weekend with me was in September, Labor Day I think, and we happened to stop at Quick Trip for a drink on the way home and she picked up some little pamphlet that gives recipes for mixing drinks. When I talked to Kevin yesterday to set up this weeks visit, he said Konner wants to make sure I take her to Quick Trip and he wanted to know why. I laughed when I realized she had been keeping the pamphlet for three months waiting for her next opportunity to mix drinks at Quick Trip. It’s the first thing on the agenda for tomorrow!

And last, but not least, when I give thanks for family, I must include my best friend Julie, who is like family to me. We’ve been friends since 1978 when I moved in across the street from her. Julie and I have a lot of shared memories from late night monopoly games to torture her brother, high school marching band, college, and so much more! Here’s a photo of us after a recent walk.

Things I Am Thankful For: Part 3

Today was a good day and brought even more reminders of the things I am thankful for. I started off the day thankful for the internet, because I got to have a nice online chat about honesty with my friend Ryan in China. That made me a little late to work, but I'm thankful that I have a job with flexibility, so I can be late to work. And I am thankful for my job. 2006 has been a rough year at my place of employment, lots of changes and uncertainty. Earlier in the year we closed down the program I had been supervising for the past three years and I had to say goodbye to three very wonderful employees. Fortunately things have worked out well for them, Audrey is home with her new baby, Kirsten is living in the beautiful Northwest, and Patrice has new job that she really likes. I've been trying to schedule lunch with Patrice, but she says she has no time because her new job works her "like a hebrew slave". This makes me laugh everytime I think about Patrice as a hebrew slave working away in Egypt, although I know she's just trying to tell me that she's really busy at her new job.

I don't have any photos of work that I can post on my blog, which is unfortunate, because I work with a lot of very funny people, which also makes me thankful for my job. They give me something to laugh about everyday. The year is ending on a very hopeful note and I'm anxious to see what 2007 brings.

I'm also thankful for silliness. This morning I got a call from Lesa asking if I wanted to go pull a silly prank on one of our old friends from college (she said I can't talk about it in my blog because then if we do follow through with the prank, they can track us down.....slim chance, but I'll keep the identity a secret anyway). I tried to remind her that we are in our thirties now, but she didn't seem think that really mattered.

And speaking of old college friends, I am very thankful that Paul and Calana started The Wheatland Mission, my new church. The church as been a blessing to me in many ways and I'm thankful for the many new friends I have made, particularly all the people in my Friday night house church. I don't have any photos of church either, but here is our church blog in case anyone is interested in learning more. http://www.wheatlandmission.com/ Sometimes there are pictures on the blog of church events, but currently it's just a bunch of turkeys.

And last of all (for today), I am thankful for Kansas and for my hometown. Here's a photo of the Keeper of the Plains statue in downtown Wichita. For those of you who have been away for awhile, they have a new home for the statue down by the river, just northwest of Exploration Place. They are doing construction around the area, but it looks like it will be nice when all is done. They are building two bridges, one from either side of the river, so you can walk over to the statue. Of course right now the river is so low you could pretty walk across without a bridge, but I'm assuming it will rain or snow again sometime in the future, so the bridge will actually be over water, and not just a muddy ditch.

Things I Am Thankful For: Part 2

I would be remiss to talk about my trip to Phoenix this summer without mentioning how I got there. I didn't just use my vast traveling wisdom to choose a trip to Arizona in the middle of summer. Smart people don't do that. It's actually all Lesa's fault. But back to the thankful theme, I am SO thankful that God has brought Lesa to Wichita for this season of life, and I'm glad to have her for as long as the air force decides to keep Andy in Wichita. When Lesa started talking about driving to Phoenix to stay with her parents for a month over the summer, I thought it would be fun if I rode along and then flew home after a few days. I had not been there in a few years and was overdue for a trip to see my friends. So next thing I knew, I was loading up in the van with Lesa, Chance, Bella and Rachael. Here's a photo of us getting ready to leave Wichita for our two day trek.

Suprisingly, the kids were really good on the 20 hour trip. I was anticipating having some great stories to tell about our travels, but they just watched DVDs and slept most of the time. I did get a little grossed out when Chance asked me to hold the water bottle he had just filled with pee, but Lesa assured me that this is normal for long car trips with preschoolers.

It's always good to get out of Kansas, so I took some photos along the way. This drive always reminds me of college spring break trips :)

And while I'm sharing pictures of Lesa's kids, here are few more of my favorites: Bella doing dress up when I was babysitting, Chance with his best Star Wars moves at Bradley Fair, and Rachael at the Hutchinson Zoo, on our recent "Super Fun Day" to Hutch. I've already lined up two babysitting nights in December with these kids, in hopes of some good stories for my blog, so here's hoping they deliver on the craziness. They've never let me down before!