Fun Stuff

You haven't heard from me in a while and for good reason. I have been like a cat in a rocking chair convention recently moving from thing to thing. A lot of good stuff happened recently including 1)Debbi's garden is bearing fruit...big fruit. Everyday we pick tomatoes, cucumbers, jalapenos and zucchini squash and CORN which is some of the sweetest I have ever tasted. 2) Sam and I went tent camping at Guntersville Lake State Park. True to tradition it rained on us and we had to leave early and also true to tradition we ate at McDonald's to get out of the rain. Davis and Logan joined us for our adventure and we caught a nice bunch of bream off the dock. I taught them to fillet the fish and we cooked and ate them Sunday night at youth group. Our youth group kids were amazed and kept walking over to the stove while I was cooking and saying, "You are really gonna eat that?" 3) Maddi and I are walking 2 miles every morning. It is good to get out there and tear up the asphalt with her. She keeps an Ipod in so as not to have to listen to me spinning yarns about the good ole days. She likes it even though she acts like she is dying. 4) Maddi turns 14 tomorrow. I cannot express in words how unbelievable that is. It just doesn't seem possible. 5) We finished our last big youth event for the summer yesterday with our Middle school trip to Point Mallard Water park. We had 25 kids most of which were new 6th graders. It has been a good summer of ministry and our interns Davis Sweatt and Amanda Leggett did an outstanding job. They deserve a lot more than the money they make each week. Kids start school next week and then we will enter another exciting season. God has blessed us this summer more than we or especially I deserve. I hope the same can be said for you and yours. Praying that that is the case.

Relax

I have been thinking recently about unwinding. You know, the kind of unwinding that others would call rest. "Unwinding" assumes that you are wound and I feel "wound" a lot lately. With three kids with various age-related needs and a demanding schedule at work, the time I find best to unwind is late at night...which in turn makes me sleepy the next day only to become more "wound". My wife was working late on the computer last night and came in the bedroom to find me playing James Bond "Goldeneye" on an old Nintendo 64. She is not a fan of the game since it portrays realistic views of death, mayhem and destruction. She grumbled her disapproval (too violent) and I told her she cannot understand since she is a chick. To me the game represents mastery, not murder. In the game you are given a mission and you are to complete the mission while others (cold war Russians who happen to be well-armed) are trying to keep you from completing it. Against overwhelming odds you work though different scenarios, strive to meet your objectives and complete a mission. If a brain surgeon was tracking the pleasure center in my brain while I play this game he would see those little cells doing a riverdance. In a very real sense I think I unwind like this because it is truly not real...and thus an escape from my ministry life where the mission is ongoing, rarely completed, and the odds are overwhelming.

Now, If I could just use timed mines...

Have a Safe 4th!

Sam and I love the 4th. We have been shooting bottle rockets every evening this week. When I get home Sam is waiting with a a new idea about what to do or what to blow up. Not to worry...It is all really harmless stuff. Our favorite thing to do is tape bottle rockets to hot wheels cars and send them down the street. Sam really needed to slake his thirst for fire works this year since we were in a drought last year and I wouldn't let him shoot any. Our highlight this year has been blowing up a too large zucchini from our garden.

We follow all the safety precautions prescribed in this helpful video from the consumer product safety commission. We promise not to stand over mortar shells, hold m80's in our hands or light a quarter stick of dynamite at our kitchen table. Thanks goodness our bodies are not make of Styrofoam either!