We are Very Thankful

...for a perfect trip from Portland to our new home in Colorado.
...for friends who helped us load and new friends who helped us unload.
...for the send-off from our evergreen community.
...for snow and sun and snow and sun.
...for four wonderful meals and the new friends who brought them.
...for Home Depot.
...for the sewage overflow in our new basement that wasn't as bad as it could have been.
...for Spring Break over Holy Week.
...for the anticipation of meeting everyone at our new TNL community.
...for Chip's first day doing the thing he was designed to do.

The Prayer I've Prayed...

...since about September.

"Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble. May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children. May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us -- yes, establish the work of our hands."

I can't fully express how the elements of this prayer have been answered, but it's pretty amazing.

• We feel like the "afflicted" days have been redeemed.
• We love telling this "splendorous" new story of God to our kids.
• We take off on Sunday to begin the new "work of our hands."
• And the days of love and joy and gladness... are nice.

School is out at our house for three weeks. I'm sneaking some work in so they don't totally atrophy on me but it's just a touch and we're looking forward to our field trips as we drive out to Colorado. J's friend's fourth-grade class sent us a "Flat Stanley" that we need to take pictures of with us on our adventure. So, Stanley is coming with us! Should be fun.

I'll see you again after we get there.

On HOTM: Stopping Midstream

The lessons of life typically apply across the board. For instance, I learned this lesson in my creative writing classes in college: When you’re writing, don’t take a break at the end of a thought. Stop in the middle. Stop when you get your groove and you have a clue about where you’re headed. Then when you get back to it again you can slip right into the process and move ahead. ...

Read the rest of my post here.

Helping People

To go along with our study of the Presidents (this week it is Coolidge, Hoover and FDR) we are thinking about how to help others. Hoover dove into war relief efforts and FDR did a bazillion thing for the downtrodden through his New Deal policies. Some ideas succeeded and some didn't. The point was that they cared and they did something rather sitting on their bum. This is the character trait I want to instill in my kids.

So, their project idea was to build a facility that would help people in some way. They call it the Lobby. It has a health agency, a supply cabinet, a travel agency, beds and a pool table. The downtrodden can come here to get some pretty specific needs met. We all agreed it would be great have something like this in real life where they can go and feel loved and human during the day.

J turned the project into a media presentation using his mp3 player to do narration. I wish I could post it. It had creative titles and even a dedication to FDR in the credits. Here are some other features though:

The people outside can't wait to get in. (See the guy banging on the window?)

They are orderly, however, and line up at the door.


They check out their pool cues from the front desk.

And they can lay down for a nap

after they take off their hat.

There's a bunch of really funny pictures that are too fuzzy to post. But the whole project just has J written all over it. He loves to do these things.

On top of that we thought hard about what things we can do to help the poor. So, we found some things to give to the Community Warehouse, some other things to give to another family who is starting over and we even called Dad at work to ask him to buy some things on clearance that we can simply give away. Saturday we'll spend time with friends who are leaving to help the people of Bangladesh. I love it when life and learning totally intersect. These are things we would have done ANYWAY.