Tickling the Ivory

Last week was the drums, before that it was any guitar he could get his hand on, this week Sawyer introduced himself to the piano, and loved it! We're all thrilled that he's encapsulated by music. Or maybe it's noise. Or maybe just forcing everyone to pay attention to him. Whatever the reason, we enjoyed watching him enjoy the piano.

Faces

Look at these... and you'll start imitating it. Really. You can't help it.

A Floridian Christmas

For Christmas this year, we escaped the shivering cold of KY and went to Florida, where we spent a week with both of our families. We had a wonderful time, and came home with a small truckload of stuff for our little boy. Our week consisted of some visiting, some golf (complete with alligator encounters and laughing at a guy who fell backwards in the mud), some swimming and grilling, lots of parties, and lots of eating.

Sawyer definitely loved the gifting part of Christmas. He learned very quickly how to tear wrapping paper off of gifts, and was involved in the opening of every one of his. He seemed personally offended when someone else opened a gift without his help.
Sawyer's 11 months old now, but since we won't see our family next month, we decided to have a birthday party while we were all together. Since his aunt Jenni is a master baker, we had some of the coolest cakes around. Yes cakes, every 1 year-old needs multiple cakes, right?
Turns out he adopted some traits of his dad, at least one or two. One in particular came to light during his birthday celebration. Anyone who's ever eaten wings with me will understand this one...

His cakes were musically themed, a guitar, a drum, and a xylophone. We popped a candle in the drum cake and sang to him, then spit on it together to blow it out, then we pushed him toward the cake with instructions to dive in! He tentatively looked the cake over, then raised his hand in the proper attack position for a good drum strike, and then the hammer fell. When his hand hit the cake he was not rewarded with a hearty thump of musicality, but rather a hand full of icing. Like a hand that just found itself in the danger zone of a rattle snake, he recoiled it back and turned to high tail it away from that wretched thing. Straight to daddy he crawled, screaming the whole way until his hand was properly cleaned off. And he wasn't really a big fan of eating the icing either. Strike up another 'like father' moment :).


























Sawyer exploring his new tent:

An Early Christmas Present

Yesterday, a phone call notified us that our visas for France are completed and waiting for us in Lexington. Waaaay ahead of schedule (which means about 5 days ahead), we're now able to plan our departure with more than a 24 hour notice. A month ago we feared we wouldn't be able to make it to France in time for the start of language school on Jan 4, now there's a cushion! We don't have a leave date yet, but we're looking at flying out right around new years day. After enjoying some important and what will be cherished last family time, we'll pack furiously and prepare our hearts to go. We pray that you, too, will be able to cherish your time with whoever you have tomorrow.

Merry Christmas!!
Joyeux Noel!!

A proud moment for a drummer dad

Today was a good day. One of those that make you smile... if you're me anyways.




Sadly, I just missed the swiss army triplets, inverted flams, and diddle egg fives. You can clearly see drumming fatigue setting in.

Christmas in the Home

What a great Christmas picture! We've missed this the last couple years.

Lies, Lies, Lies

Do you ever have those times when a little voice that seems to have weaseled its way into your head tells you a bunch of junk that makes you feel guilty, insufficient, insignificant, or worse? I have. Do you know where that's coming from? Do you know that it's absolutely not true?!

We have a friend, his name is Tim. Tim's been a wonderful friend to us for many years. We love Tim for many reasons. One of those reasons is the occasional beautiful nugget of truth that comes from his lips. He shares lots of truth, but some are just absolutely beautiful. Tim loves to listen to people and to share insight. He loves quotes, he loves the Word of God, and he loves to really get to the bottom of issues. A lot of people call Tim "Doctor" (with good reason, he is a doctor). For the first few months that I knew Tim, I assumed he was a psychologist or some sort of psycho-head doc, because of his quirky ways of listening, prying, and speaking to the issues he discerns. But he's not a head doc.

A couple nights ago we were together with some friends, living out our faith and sharing our lives. One friend shared about struggles with feelings of inadequacy and guilt, but acknowledged that those thoughts were clearly lies from Satan. Truly, 1 Peter 5:8 says, "the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour". In a fabulous moment of clarity and wit, Tim responded "well do you expect the devil to say, 'attaboy _____!'" Ha. I loved it. Of course Satan's not going to encourage and pat us on the back. Attaboy Michael! I'm so proud of you! No no no, his technique is lies, lies, lies.

When you feel down, beat-up, self-conscious, inadequate, delinquent... that is not from the all-knowing, loving God the Father. That is purely a set of lies from Satan himself.

Though I'm pretty sure it's not written about Satan, I love the song Lies performed here by The Swell Season. It speaks to his tactics well:

You're moving too fast for me
And I can't keep up with you
Maybe if you'd slowed down for me
I could see you're only telling
Lies, lies, lies
Breaking us down with your
Lies, lies, lies
When will you learn

So plant the thought and watch it grow
Wind it up and let it go

Isn't that exactly what he does? Plants the thought and lets it grow? He keeps it going so fast and so constant, we often don't even realize what he's doing.

A New Flavor for Date Night

Last night we went out on a date, leaving Sawyer behind in the capable hands of some dear friends. We decided to be adventurous for our taste buds, and went out for Chinese! Not that exciting you say? Well it is/was for us. We're not Asian food eaters. At least we never have been. I can count the number of times we have each eaten at a Chinese restaurant on one hand. And my previous experiences have consisted of heading straight for the peel-n-eat shrimp at a buffet and loading up on iodine, or maybe venturing out so far as, gasp, chicken fried rice!

But something's changed in us. I think one of the best things you can do for your taste-buds is travel internationally. It's not even necessary to go lots of places. Just one, that's really different than anything you've experienced before, and stay there awhile, eating what the locals eat. Before moving to Africa, we loved the full-board of American fare - southern, seafood, pizza, creole, chowda, burgers, sandwiches, wings, etc - and even some basic international favorites like Mexican, Irish and Italian that any American eats. But the whole Asian continent was never a draw for us (though we did learn to like Japanese hibachi grills). Then we moved to East Africa, where standard face was rice and beans, with the occasional tough goat or scrawny chicken. We'd go out to eat, and for a break from the rice and beans go to Indian restaurants. Oh Indian food, how I love thee! Then we made friends with the international community and were introduced to Korean food, Yemeni, Iranian, Ethiopian, South African, German - all wonderful!

Since being back in the States we've branched out to everything we can find, and now know that we love Vietnamese, Thai, Russian, Mediterranean, and I'm ready to say it... even Chinese.

What's next? Any suggestions for our next cultural taste to seek out?
I hear the French don't know anything about food... (that's sarcasm France, please don't hate us)

Can I get fries with that criminal report?

Today we traveled to the capitol of Kentucky, good 'ole Frankfort, in order to get background checks. We called for directions and were directed to a drive-up window on the side of a government building. A drive-thru? For a background check? We found it surprising to say the least, and were curious indeed. When we arrived, sure enough, we saw the drive-thru. We pulled up, handed in our IDs and our $10 a piece, then waited about 5 minutes and were presented with our very own criminal histories! Sadly though, the State Government does not provide fries and shakes.

Getting my criminal report was a good reminder of the high-school and college days in which I was apparently a speedster, or so my list of traffic citations would suggest. Thankfully, 2 years in Africa has taught me that there's no good reason to hurry, so I'm a much more law-abiding driver these days.

As a part of our visa application to move to France, we had to get full background checks from the FBI. We ordered these in mid-October, and still have nothing. Because we're planning to leave in less than a month and haven't yet turned in our applications (short only the FBI background checks), we decided to get as many others as we can in a more local sense, hoping we'll be able to push our application for a visa through and at least get it started. So we've now obtained a letter from our local city police HQ in Lexington, a state-wide criminal history from the capitol of KY, and we're still waiting on the FBI background report. Sort of sad that the State of KY could do in 5 minutes at a drive-thru window what the FBI needs over 2 months to do. Here's a rundown of how our city, state, and nation rank in providing background checks:

Speed:
1. State of KY (5 mins)
2. City of Lexington (2 days)
3. FBI (almost 2 months and counting...)

Cost:
1. City of Lexington (free)
2. State of KY ($10)
3. FBI ($18)

Quality:
1. FBI (though still unknown, this is the actual form we're required to have, so in that sense it's the best quality)
2. City of Lexington (a formal typed and notarized letter)
3. State of KY (it was just a print-out, not at all official-looking)

Scope:
1. FBI (the whole nation obviously covers more than state or city)
2. State of KY (this one listed my traffic citations, I'm not a fan of it)
3. City of Lexington (we're clean, we're clean!)

Thank you city of Lexington for helping us out when we needed a letter. Thank you State of KY for your speedy, though simple, service. Please please hurry FBI! We need you!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Do you think Christmas was stuck at the end of December so that we would say things like "It's the most wonderful time of the year!" and convince ourselves of it, even though it's bitterly cold outside and miserable with rain/sleet/snow coming down and slush covering the ground? I just can't help but wonder.

It is Christmas time, and weather aside (woke up to a little bit of snow coming down this morning), it is a fabulous time of the year! The last two years were strange for us, as far as Christmas goes. December is one of the hottest months in Tanzania, certainly no snow or log fires. We did have each other to celebrate with, along with a couple of friends. Even though evergreen trees didn't really grow in Tanzania, the custom had traveled from the West there, and in typical African fashion had been adopted and changed. So on Christmas day across Tanzania, single branches of evergreen trees are the hottest selling item. What do people do with them? Hang them on a wall, over a door, set one on a table, stick one in the grill of your car or on the handlebars of your bicycle. It's Christmas, so that's what you do! A few whole (though scrawny) trees are also available for sale in the streets on Christmas day (but not before). One of my favorite Christmas memories was standing by the market one year on Christmas day and watching a woman covered head to toe in a full black burqa (traditional islamic dress) buy one of the few Christmas trees to take home. A Christmas tree! It made me smile :).

This year is an exciting one for us. It will be our first Christmas home with family in quite a while, but it will also be our first Christmas as a family with our son, Sawyer. That means this year we get to mix and create some of the traditions for Christmas that our kid(s) will grow up knowing and remembering. Any good suggestions? We've already decided one: we want to celebrate through the advent calendar as a family with daily and/or weekly devotions in the month leading up to Christmas. It's fun to make it a whole season and to get to the heart of why the holiday exists. We want to make it a special time for our family, as we will often be in different homes and countries than even the year before, and we will really have to cling to one another as a family. Other than that one, we're open to ideas to make Christmas a special one for our family unit. Some from our childhoods: M's family always started the day with a coffee cake, complete with candles and a "happy birthday" to Jesus song. Then presents, a day of relaxing, and a big ham dinner. JJ's family always celebrated with a huge hot breakfast, complete with country ham, biscuits, and much more. We also both remember hot chocolate as a staple of the day, and an assortment of home-baked cookies. What about you? How do you celebrate the day and the season and what do you love about it?

Glory in the Highest

Last night we went to see Shane and Shane, Phil Wickham, and Bethany Dillon in concert for their joint Christmas tour. We were a little bummed when we showed up late and missed about half of Phil Wickham's (way too short) set, but pleased that he later joined the rest of the crew, playing bass for some Christmas jams. We were surprised on a couple of accounts at the show: #1 - Shane Barnard and Bethany Dillon are married. Which seemed especially weird because when we first heard Bethany Dillon she was 17, and Shane B has always been our senior (she is 21 now, so it's ok after all). Didn't see that one coming, and the curveball meant that the first opening act we feared to miss a bit of was Phil, not Bethany. We love her music as well, but that was a let-down to those of us who are a bit over-obsessed with Phil Wickham's sweet tunes. Surprise #2 was the discovery that Phil was born in 1984. That means he's younger than us. You know that point where you start to realize that you're aging? We first noticed it when we graduated from college and all of our favorite sports stars were the same age or younger (though they seemed much more physically mature), now we've realized that a favorite musician we sit around listening to is our junior.

If you haven't listened to these artists, you should.
-Phil Wickham has a free album available for download on his website: singalong. (*note: download is currently unavailable until jan 1, 2010)
-Shane and Shane have a fan website, where you can hear some of their songs and get guitar chords and lyrics (they are a lot of fun to play on the guitar).
-Bethany Dillon's website can link you to her stuff, check it out. She's a great songwriter.
Also, if you like Christmas music, go buy Shane and Shane's Christmas Album, "Glory in the Highest", released last year. It's unique and good.

The other fun part of last night was my discovery of a new drum toy now on my wish list: The Remo Mondo Snare. It's basically like Remo took their standard djembe, cut it off just below the head, and then attached a snare bottom to it. This is a wonderful discovery for me, as I often swap the snare on my kit with my Remo Djembe to get a more percussive wordly feel. With the Remo Mondo Snare I hope to one day have the best of both worlds and less of equipment to cart around! And a snare mixed with the Mondo head just has a great and distinct sound to it.

My How You've Changed!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a hibernating bear, wake up after a long winter and have no idea what happened while you were asleep? Or like Han Solo, frozen in carbonite? There’s a great scene in the movie “Castaway” that depicts it... Hanks’ character returns from years on the island and has no idea what’s taken place since he left (though the scene really speaks more to the changes in him than the changes around him).

We had a chance to get about as close as we’ll ever come to a hibernating bear, castaway, or frozen hero. When we returned to the USA after two years in East Africa, a lot had changed. We weren’t completely cut off from our old American lives. We still received news in Africa (in fact, we think there was more election coverage there than there was here... our african friends cared more about the race than we did: said one neighbor, “it is the election of the president of the world”), we still saw some new products come in through the ports, we had friends in the States who wrote to keep us abreast of the relevant goings-on. But there’s a lot we missed, and a lot we never experienced. Take Twitter for instance. That whole thing happened while we were gone. We’re still behind on that one.

We’re often asked what we notice is different. I’ve realized in recent weeks one thing that’s drastically different now than over two years ago when we left: TV on the internet. I’ve just about decided that there’s not reason to own a TV in the US anymore, or at least not a cable subscription or dish. You can watch TV shows on websites like hulu.com or the actual network websites (nbc.com, cbs.com, etc). ESPN streams a ton of live sporting events at espn360.com, and other websites exist with similar offerings. None of this existed that I can remember 3 years ago! And while it all seems a pretty sweet deal for international transplants like ourselves (who still love our NCAA sports, NFL, and select other shows), sadly most of these websites work only within US borders.

Sweep x3

Steelers? Check.
Ravens? Check.
Browns? Check.

Entire AFC North? Check!

Go Bengals!

The Cutest Thing Ever

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Today, among other things, we are incredibly thankful for super cute moments like this:



and this:

Reunited with our Boy

Sorry, almost forgot who the star of this site is!

Breckenridge Photos

Snow! Real Snow! A blanket of it when we woke up our first morning there.

Don't let the smile fool you, this is where the incident happened.

This Dult did a great job skiing for her first time.

Not a bad place to stay for a few days!

A great Main Street to walk down has Breckenridge.

Ahh, this is the life!

To lose control

While skiing this week, we took a break from the mountain to sit and eat a little lunch (they say eating consistently is good for the whole altitude sickness thing). It shouldn't have been shocking, but we were surprised when a couple skiers sat down next to us, double-fisting beers they'd picked up at the concession stand. We're on a mountain covered in slick snow and ice with lots of steep descents, people, and trees. People are barreling down at literally break-neck speeds (we've seen quite a few in little sleds with first-aid crews around them). Why not toss in some booze?! Let's make this sport real fun!

Today on a chairlift, the guy sitting by me told me about a nearby ski base where you can get a $1 mystery beer (whatever's overstocked I guess?)... I can only think of one reason to buy $1 mystery beers. And then to hop on the mountain and shoot down it on slick glass-fiber kevlar and titanium planks while surrounded by hundreds of other people? Who comes up with these ideas? We're pretty harsh on doing the same on our streets, and I feel safer on roads than I do on the mountain anyways. Although, maybe there's a new way of thought on drinking and driving, at least in Ireland.

Then I rode a bus today, returning to the mountain for a few final runs. When I got on, there was an old fella who was plastered out of his mind. I could smell him from a few rows back, and he was singing , laughing, and talking for all to hear. And he was holding a snowboard. A few stops later, we picked up some more boarders, and one of them recognized the old guy. He was apparently a local legend who was known for pulling some impressive tricks on the mountain. Sure enough, he hopped out with his board and went straight to the lift. Does drunkenness make one a better snowboarder?

I never did get run over, or wreck into anyone who was acting irrationally, so maybe all is ok up there. Like I said, shouldn't have surprised us, but did seem odd at first glance.

Getting high = getting sick

Have you ever heard of altitude sickness? Maybe I had, maybe not. Probably did but sort of pushed it out of my mind as one of those things I'm immune to :). So this week we're in Breckenridge, Colorado, on a wonderful vacation that came together with some help of family and friends and divine providence. We're really having a great time, but didn't realize just how sick we'd get the first day! Breckenridge town sits at 9600ft, and then we're doing some skiing up higher in the mountains. Apparently that's pretty high, who knew?

Our first day out here, we hopped off the plane and took a bus out to our hotel in Breck. We picked up our skis, grabbed some dinner and hit the hay. Sleep came tough though, as breathing wasn't exactly easy... but that's to be expected, the air's thinner up here! So a night of fitful sleep led to a beautiful winter morning. Snow covered the ground and continued to come down, the air was crisp and fresh, and we took off to the mountain. After about 5 hours of skiing and some lunch, I picked up a massive headache and suddenly felt incredibly nauseous. Took a short nap in the locker room while JJ finished up some lessons. Then we hopped in the gondola to ride back down to town. If you're new to the whole skiing thing like us... this is a gondola:

About 7 minutes into our ride, it all came up, 4 times in a row. The pork tamales from the night before, the apples and cinnamon oatmeal from breakfast, and the tuna fish from lunch. Add in a lot of water and that other stuff, and we had a royal mess in our gondola on the way back down.

All this to say, if you're going somewhere high in altitude and not used to it, take it slowly! They recommend around here to spend a night in Denver before heading up higher. Next time, we'll do that. Drink a lot of water, and if you feel sick, stay home in bed and watch movies, don't go ride in swinging, swaying gondolas and ski down crazy mountains. We're glad we scheduled a few extra days in our trip so we could take a day to rest after hitting a wall on day 2!

According to webmd, the symptoms of Altitude Sickness are "Headache (chief symptom), poor appetite, nausea, fatigue, dizziness, difficulty sleeping". They don't mention crazy big vomiting, but I've always liked to take things to extremes. And I may have eaten a bad relleno at the mexican restaurant the night before (tasted real bitter, something must have been bad in that).

But we're all better now, time to get back to the fun!

Bon Voyage!

God has undoubtedly revealed to us the next step in life He has planned, and this week it became official. The pieces are falling into place, and we can now say that without a doubt we will be moving to France in short order. With a little luck, grace, and hard work, by this time next year we'll be fully integrated into the culture of France, speaking the language, and hanging with the locals while we enjoy some fresh bread and not so fresh cheese.

Please pray for us: incredibly exciting, but a move like this is tough on all of us as a family!

With or Without Him

I'm reading a book called "Society without God" by Phil Zuckerman. It's about how moral, ethical, and productive society can exist without God or religion. It's basically a case-study of Denmark and Sweden, the two most "godless" societies by Zuckerman's standard. Two countries where atheism is the norm and God has mostly been forgotten, Denmak and Sweden are filled with people who are interested in social justice, quiet lives, and a healthy environment.

I'm only barely into the book so far, but what I find interesting is not the stats and stories. I find it perfectly believable that countries without God (which are certainly not truly without God, He's there whether acknowledged or not!) can be peaceful and productive, not full of crime and debauchery. Some of the stats are interesting, some not so much. But I think the curious thing is his obvious reaction, a total knee-jerk... someone or some situation ticked him off. Enough to move away in search of utopian atheistic society. He constantly quotes Pat Roberston and other such talking heads as the voice of evangelicals who claim such things as destruction to godless places and self-implosion of societies who do not base themselves on Biblical rules, and claims that events like 9/11 were God's wrath on an American society that is falling away.

Why is it that the voices recognized by the non-christian world as christian are those that are a bit nutty and not so Jesus-like? I don't think we (Christ-followers who are willing to take 1 Thess 4:11 as a verse that at least slightly applies to us all!) should have louder voices of dissent, because no one should yell that loud, but perhaps there could just be enough other voices to disassociate that mess with Jesus. Maybe.

Everything's Bigger in Texas?

Keeping up with the Joneses?

Not sure the exact reason... but isn't $130 million a bit much for a church building?

Read what I'm talking about here.

And here.

Our little lion on Halloween night

Today was Sawyer's first Halloween, and lucky for us, we happened to be in the USA! So we had a fun and eventful day. There was never a debate in our mind about what Sawyer would be for his first Halloween: a lion. Born in East Africa, Sawyer is strong on courage and he does a great little growl/roar at totally random times (best recorded in Kara's midnight video... he woke up, crawled around the crib, and roared right into the camera).

To start the festivities, we took Sawyer to the first birthday party he's had the pleasure to attend, that of his friend Sophia Grace. He had a blast hanging out with all the other kids and playing with the many toys. Always a ham, he was happy to be in the middle of a circle with everyone looking in and cameras all around.

Back home, we took Sawyer down the street for his first shot at Trick-or-Treating! He did quite well and garnered many oohs and aahs, plus some candy for his family.




One neighbor even saw him coming and dropped a baby food jar in his basket. Then when we got home and checked out our haul, he managed to chew into a Kit-Kat bar wrapper and had chocolate all over his face before we knew what he'd done. it would appear our boy likes chocolate.

Why we love Autumn

What we love about fall:

-College Football
-NFL
-Crisp Air
-Apple Cider
-Chili
-Pumpkins and other decorations
-Smell of cinnamon
-Cornucopias
-Getting out sweaters and jackets
-Building fires
-Beautiful colors, changing leaves
-Thanksgiving
-Christmas is on the way!

We Love Autumn!

Fall is easily our favorite time of the year, and sadly one of the things we missed the most while in East Africa. But currently in America, we decided to make the most of our opportunity and enjoy all that autumn has to offer! Kentucky fall can be kind of crazy... like playing golf on Saturday in 40 degree (f) temperatures with gale force winds and then hanging out in an orchard on Sunday with sun shining and temps in the mid-60s. Here's some of our fall fun at Evan's Orchard:

Does it get any cuter?

Sawyer driving the bus, all passengers rightly frightened!

We were hopelessly lost in the corn maze...

So Uncle Ryan and Sawyer put together a plan to get us out.

Pointing the way, Sawyer checks behind to make sure we're all in tow.

Enjoying our day.

Winter Gold

The new Winter Olympics medals:


Interesting? Artsy? Post-modern? Or just plain silly?

I'm going to eread my ibook

I'm a few years removed from the elementary school scene, so I don't know what's current and I'm just wondering... are "e-" and "i-" now taught in school as standard prefixes? Along with re-, un-, intra-, and other normal prefixes, it seems that e- and i- are no longer simple vowels that fit into a word. Instead, they have become single letter single syllable prefixes that can be applied to just about any word in the English language. Take for instance emarketing, iphone, and ipet.

Do you think "i-" will be added to the dictionary as an accepted prefix before every noun imaginable is copyrighted by product-pushing companies? Or will every single verb have both an ancient meaning and an e-meaning by the time my son reaches school age? Are there any nouns that can't be i-erized or impossible e-verbs?

I think I will go ecook some ibrownies and hope they don't make me efat.

4 Generations

This is 4 generations of the men in our family:

My Grandpa, my Dad, me, and my son.

This is 4 generations, 2 generations prior:My Dad (the baby), my Grandpa, my Great-Grandpa (who always called me Skeeter), and my Great-Great-Grandpa.