Mama On The Move

We were eating lunch at a new restaurant today and there was a television near our table which caught our attention. It was a show about the daredevils who do motorcycle stunt jumping. We couldn't hear any sound, but we watched some amazing scenes of men going off of ramps, doing flips with the motorcycle in mid-air, standing on their seats while going of a ramp and doing a flip in mid air, etc. Katie looked at Kerry (who does not own a motorcycle) and said in horror, "Daddy! Don't you ever do that! Even during your mid-life crisis!"

If you haven't heard of "The Onion" it's an on-line satirical news source. They make up stories - sort of like the National Enquirer, except The Onion doesn't pretend their stories are real. You are supposed to know when you read something from The Onion, that it's fake. Anyway, they did a great article about parents choosing to "school-home" their children. You can read the full article here . But for just an excerpt, here is my favorite part: "Parents who have decided to school-home their children have echoed many of Miller's concerns. Most said that an alarming number of legal guardians such as themselves lack the most basic common sense required to give children the type of instruction they need during crucial developmental years. "It's really a matter of who has more experience in dealing with my child," Cincinnati- resident Kevin Dufrense said of his decision to have his 10-year-old son Jake, who suffers from ADHD a

Okay, so........they are getting ready to film a fourth "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie. And they are filming parts of it on Oahu. And they brought the ship "The Black Pearl" to Oahu to get ready for filming. And of course every news channel and newspaper had a story showing "The Black Pearl" arriving in Oahu. And they all mentioned that it's a secret . They don't want people to know it's here. Because then, people would be swarming down there to take pictures of it. So, of course we went down to see it and take pictures of it. They tried to disguise it by putting it behind a chain link fence and setting up a small tent in front of it. But we recognized it anyway. We're smart like that. Yes, that's a friend of ours behind us. Clearly we were unaware of her immediate presence. My friend Kathleen tried to go see "The Black Pearl" today but they had moved it farther away and posted a guard to keep people from taking pictures

Hawaii's public school system is very low on the scale nationally. Unfortunately, with the economy in such sad shape, the state also had to cut the school year by 17 days this year meaning even less time in the classroom. Even more unfortunately, violence and drug use are prevalent in both the high schools and middle schools. Here are some of the (many) stories I have heard involving the school systems since we moved here: My friend Susan had her kids in public school before she moved here. When she went to withdraw her kids from school, she told the teachers they were moving to Hawaii and both of her children's teachers told her, "Homeschool if you can. Don't put your children in the schools there." Both of these public school teachers said that they cringe when they hear they have a student transferring in from Hawaii because they are lucky if the student is "only" a year behind. A neighbor down the street pulled her child out and started homeschool

Ben saw a message board on Facebook which had posts from people arguing about where our oxygen comes from. There was one guy saying, "We need to stop worrying about deforestation and start worrying about human lives." This college-age girl replied, "What the %#@ is wrong with you???? That's where we get all our %$&@ air, you @&%#$ !! We're all going to die because of idiots like you who don't care about %&$#@ nature!!!" (I added the symbols myself, her original use of words was quite colorful.) Ben replied to her, "Actually, we get 70% to 80% of our air from the algae in the ocean and even if every single tree on the planet were chopped down we would have plenty of air to go around. Next time you cuss someone out for being stupid, make sure it isn't you."

This is the story of the Swamp Romp from Ben's point of view: A few weeks ago, we went on the Swamp Romp, which was a 5-mile run through a....here it comes....a swamp!!!! We were organized into groups of six, with three guys, and three girls in each group. We had a teen team, and adult team. I was (obviously) on the teen team, which consisted of me, Nate, Christoffer, Megan, Jenna, and Karese. The adult team had some of our parents, one of our youth leaders, and a marine named BJ (P.S. if you play against BJ in ultimate frisbee, you WILL lose!). Chris and I got to the starting area at about 4:00 to sign up our team, Nate, Megan, and Jenna came about an hour later, and Karese came at 7:30. We made Karese spell out "Late" on her shirt with duct tape as punishment. This is a "before" photo. This is "after". We did all kinds of things on the run, like running across the beach. Trotting past a creek (or "crick" as I prefer to call them). R

Emily had to go see the allergist today. Her eczema has flared and we've been trying to find out if she has a food allergy which might be at the root of it. They had to write all over her back with a marker and prick her skin by each number. Her skin welted up by the marks of things she was allergic to. The final result: mold, mites, milk, cats and dogs.

We were at a friend's house when Katie came running in from their back yard. "Come look! Come look!" She had found three butterfly chrysalis' dangling on their swing set. We actually got to take two of them home with us. We used string to tie them to a pencil and then let them dangle down inside a plastic jar. I could have stared at those things all day - and darn near did. They were fascinating to look at. They were so green and shiny they looked as if they were made out of plastic. And near the top it looked like it had been neatly sewn shut with metallic gold thread. Near the bottom were five evenly spaced dots of the same metallic gold. Both chrysalises' looked exactly alike so it was no accident. It's amazing to know that ordinary caterpillars can create such perfect cocoons. I would love to have been there when God was creating this creature. The concept of a slinky little worm, who forms a shiny green home (and where did the metallic gold stitches come

I received a message from Jesus yesterday at church. Here's how it came to me: I was working with the two and three year old children during Sunday School. Some of them have a really hard time sharing. It's a hard concept for kids that age. They don't like to share and they don't like to wait. One little girl in particular kept taking toys from other kids. Each time I would make her return what she had taken and I would have a little talk with her. "Jesus likes for us to be kind. He wants us to share and take turns." (Had this been one of my kids, I wouldn't have been nearly so nice. I probably would have smacked someone and possibly snarled at them.) But these are not my kids, and we are at church, so I have to be nice. Then, while we were all playing with Play-doh, this same little girl actually took a toy out of my hands. I had another little talk with her about how if she had asked me for the toy, I would gladly have shared it with her - "Jesus l