My wife is a “flippin” Genious

So I was at work the other night late as usual.  Dawn and I have been doing track practice together in the afternoons and she left her cell phone in the car after practice.  Well, I was at church with the computer and her cell phone.  In our circumstances that meant no contact with the outside world for her.  Worse yet, Dawn has been using her cell phone as a way to take pictures of layouts for the scrapbooks we are working on (this is a great tip by the way for you scrapbookers). 

So there was a picture on the phone she needed to complete page layout she was working on.  Then she could remember how it went together exactly.  But I had the phone, and the only way to get a hold of me to get her phone.  So what do you do???

My wife is a flippin Genious.  She went downstairs to the Wii.  Logged on the internet page, and then posted a comment to our Joshua Page about bringing her phone home from the van in between my meetings.  WordPress instantly sent an e-mail to my account notifying me of my new comment.  I went to check it out, got the message, and within ten minutes or less I was standing in the Dining Room handing my wife her phone.  I thought to myself as I was reading the note…”That is quite possibly the most ingenuitive and resourcesful thing I have ever seen”.  I am quite certain that if you dropped my wife into the middle of the Iraq war, she would solve all the problems, organize the oil distribution fairly and quickly, and probably manage to bake delicious Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies all at the same time.

Therefore, yes, my wife is a flippin Genious.  (no explitives to be implied by the use of flippin for those senstive to the explitive substitutes)

Grandparents Day

So I went to my children’s grandparents day program at church today to film the festivities for my parents now in Gulfport, MS.  Also in attendance was Lauren, Grandma and Grandpa Heuker, and Aunt Kim (Nana’s Sister and honorary Nana stand-in for the morning).  It was a pretty good program complete with the really loud Over zealous Pre-schooler, and the mischievous boys.  The girls did a great job with the songs and the motions.

The only unusual experience was driving there.  One of the grandparents apparently really couldn’t wait to get there.  We were arriving early (we even beat my mother-in-law which means very early) and as we rounded the corner, another car swerved back and forth behind me as if to pass me.  Then when we got on the straight away he zipped around me and floored it the next .1 of a mile to the drive way and shot into the parking lot.  I was like 2 secs behind him.  Did he really need to zip around me.  I actually made it to my seat before he did.  I was a good dooby though and kept my mouth shut.  What a jerk!  Get a grip cause it’s only Grandparent’s day.  He ended up standing during the whole program and probably zipped right out before even seeing his grandkid, but I am being too judgmental.  But he did put me in an irritated mood for the whole program.

Here are some pictures:

Today is Dawn’s Birthday

Several years ago today a little girl was born who would grow up to be mu wife.  God had that in His plan from before either of us was born.  Over the years we both prayed for each other, even though we had never met.  We met at a youth convention, long before I ever dreamed I would one day be a youth pastor. 

God has given me a special gift.  A woman of faith, compassion, and love.  A wonderful mother to our children, and very nurturing.  I am so blessed. 

Happy Birthday, honey!  I love you!

Brandon

How you really “trim” your Christmas Tree

We had a branch fall down the other day in our yard.  Not just a little branch, a main mast of our 40 year old Maple.  It was about 14-16″ wide at the base.  It had fallen across onto the other tree.  With help from Chad from church, It came down in my yard and I spent the day last Saturday and Monday cutting it up.  Chad’s shirt said it all “Fell Tree.  Limb.  CrossCut.  “  I was at it most of the weekend and still have piles of brush in the yard.

During a “break” in the action, my wife asked me to cut up the old Christmas tree.  In the past we have enjoyed lighting it from the bottom in our fire pit and watching the 15′ flames as the tree went up.  This makes Dawn nervous, and is one of the main reasons our fire pit is now a little further from the rear garage.  I started the 455 Ranger Edition Husqvarna Saw (courtesy of Chad) and said to Dawn, “this is how you really trim a Christmas Tree”, and proceeded to chop it up into small fire starters.

I couldn’t seem to get one of these to straighten up??

Swing Set Fun

The girls have been having fun on the swings lately.  They call it gymnastics.  They like to try and step from one swing to the next.  After Samuel’s incident (our friend’s son who broke his arm and needed surgery), I am not so sure I should allow it to continue.

Back to School Backyard Bonanza

These are pictures of our backyard campout Labor Day Weekend.  We had s’mores at night and cooked out.  In the morning we cooked bisquits in the “camper”, and had sausage links over the fire with Orange Juice.  It was a cold morning, the girls all wanted to get jackets on.  We had a good time.  I slept out with the girls, Dawn stayed in the “camper”.

Back to School Fair – Not Fair

The girls rode the horses today at the back to school fair.  It was a great turn out but terribly overwhelming.  There were children everywhere, sugar at every table, dripping melty ice cream and all kinds of distractions.  This year they also had horses led by the Ottawa County Sherriff’s Department.  I feel terrible about one thing though.

One of the officers came to us and said he wanted us to be the last one’s in line.  Would we tell everyone that came there would be no more after us.  A mother and young girl approached.  They were very nice, and just wanted a ride on the ponies.  I was torn.  I didn’t feel like I had a choice to say something.  The officer that had spoken to us was not around.  I thought he might be coming back and I could let him do his own dirty work.  I should have.  I tried to communicate to the woman who I believe spoke mostly spanish, that the man had said no more. 

She asked me who, I said the officer.  Of course there was no officer to be seen except those leading the horses.  The woman and her little girl just quietly walked away.  I watched them go.  I felt terrible.  The little girl did not even cry, she just followed her mommy away.  I was furious with the officer for telling to do his dirty work.  I am mad at myself for complying.  What a terrible thing to do. 

What made it worse, was that as we got closer and I focused on getting the girls on a horse, more people came and I was now not going to say anything.  Both because I was so bothered by doing it the first time, and because I was too busy helping my girls.  So if the woman came by later, she probably thought I was racist or something because I did not let her in line, but allowed these other people.

Mostly, I would like to get a piece of the Ottawa County Sherriff Deputy who put me in that position.  I am so frustrated by that.

PS.  The pictures were taken into the setting sun, I didn’t notice when I snapped them.  Trust me, it’s my kids on the horses.

Grandma Sloterbeek

Some of you know my grandma has been in the hospital since Thursday morning.  Last night, she finally got on the schedule for surgery.  I thought I would sneak up there around 11:00 and see her come out and let her see a familiar face when she woke up.  Instead, I ended up hanging out at the hospital until 3:30AM.  I was glad I had done so, because grandma did come up awake and alert and was glad to see me, the surgery had gone well.  She had a complete replacement of her left shoulder.  We are grateful for the results so far.

Enjoying the Carnival

This is just another video of Lauren’s fun-filled ride on the trucks.  She had a ball.

Cheerleaders in our midst

I took my three daughters to a football game on Friday night.  It turned out to be a great game, lots of suspense and a surprise ending.  I was disappointed with the outcome, because I know most of the players on the team.  In fact, I was shocked knowing how much talent they had and still lost.  But anyway, this video is from my girls.  They are very competitive themselves, but when it comes to watching others compete, they are much more egalitarian.  They didn’t like the idea that we had to choose one team to root for.  In protest, Erica made up her own cheer.  The video comes in after she had been doing this a lot for much of the 3rd Quarter of the game.  When I finally get my camera phone on her, she knows she’s being filmed.  So does Lauren and Sam.  But I think you can get the idea.  She says:  Go Teams Go!