Miss Walker

 

So tonight was Miss Walker's last night instructing.  We had a big group there, although the group shot at the end here was just some of the students that were staying a little later to talk and hang around a bit.  We corralled them into taking one last group shot before heading out the door.  It was a normal class otherwise, with Maddie instructing and helping out, and then remembering her own class afterwards.  

The Atlanta Braves clinched the division tonight, again beating out the Phillies, Mets, Marlins and Nationals.  At the beginning of the season, they had a 6% chance of doing this, according to people who know more about baseball than I do.  And things seemed even worse along the season when we had three significant players - I mean really significant - drop out due to injuries and other issues.  And yet, here we are again.  Back in the playoffs!  By the way, the fourth year the Braves made the playoffs in the 90's... that was the year they won the World Series.  And... it was also one of the most challenging years of my life.

Tonight's feature was "Goosebumps 2," and yeah, I'm still reading this book by the same author just for fun.  It's been a good read, and of course seasonal.  October starts tomorrow, and nobody can believe it's here already.  Maddie wasn't watching the movie, but rather heading to bed early so she can get up earlier, shower and head for school.  School is something we know very little about, unless there's a payment that needs to be made!  

Anyway, it was a decent day.  We read tonight and prayed, and then I cracked open this book again...

National Coffee Day

It’s National Coffee Day, and I didn’t drink coffee today.  I don’t usually drink coffee, unless it’s something special.  Mom and I used to go on dates to small coffee shops in town, playing Scrabble or other games while we had some coffees or teas.  Starbucks came in and the small places went out of business not long after, and I just never got a hankering for Starbucks.  The atmosphere is nothing like the local small places we used to go to.  I miss those small coffee shops, and I miss the live performances.  One time we went to see a local band, One Tree Hill, which Mom and I really liked going to see.  Other times we’d see other bands or performers we didn’t really know.  It’s not so much about the coffee in all these cases, but the atmosphere, I guess.  

Small Group Night celebrated National Coffee Day with a trivia game that I made up last night for all the girls.  The last two questions were the ones that informed the kids all about Kopi Luwak, that super expensive coffee that is made from beans that have been through the entire digestive system of wild civets.  I remember hearing about this coffee many years ago, and a little later it was made famous in a movie called “The Bucket List.”  The girls found out about it tonight, much to their horror and/or delight.

 

I have such a sore back right now, but we got all kinds of pea gravel for the fire pit down there.  Mom and Nana will spread that out tomorrow, and we might be done with the surrounding area there, although we have plenty more to do with the project before we can start lighting fires in it.  It’s coming along nicely.

 

We have a new shift of hummingbirds coming in, different ones stopping by to get a drink.  The other ones have since migrated, moving on south of here.  It won’t be long before our season is over, but it’s been nice seeing the hummingbirds flit in.  

 

Tonight we had spaghetti for dinner, and it was just perfect as always.  I was on the treadmill afterwards, and we were watching a few things after that, like the latest “What If…?”  And “Turner and Hooch” as well, which appears to be wrapping up.  But we threw in an October-themed special, “Shrekless,” which is a great Halloween special.  We’ve seen so many of these, and it’s not even October yet.  We’ve got plenty more to go.

 

Speaking of themed stuff, I’ve been reading this “Night of the Living Dummy” book, and it’s been fun to read a RL Stine book for the first time.  I can see why the younger kids like this stuff – if I had picked one up as a kid, I probably would have read a lot of his books.  I might have found myself super scared too – I was scared of everything as a kid.  The idea of Slappy sitting there in the bedroom at night, staring across the room at you… that still gives me the creeps!

 

It was a good day today.  We closed things out with reading some more from the latest Kingdom Keepers adventure, and after that, of course we prayed, tucked Maddie in, and everyone fell asleep quickly, hoping that I won’t wake up in the night to see a ventriloquist dummy sitting in a chair there in the dark, glaring at me….

Autumn Beauty at the Botanical Gardens

 

So Autumn Beauty is now standing regally at the Botanical Gardens, and she looks like she belongs there. Mom's creation was set up there yesterday, and we don't have any control over where, and that's okay.  So it was a surprise to see it so close to the entrance to the gardens there, overlooking the pond and the visitors as they enter the garden area.  

This was something we always wanted to do, and you can check this off whatever list there is, because Mom accomplished something rather nice here.  The end result looks fantastic, and it looks wonderful standing there amongst the flowers and plants.  

 

It hasn't gone through a good rain storm yet, so we're not sure how it will handle that part.  This morning, I showed up at the gardens with my season pass, and I touched up a few things from the move, but they were very minor.  Mostly I just wanted to make sure it got moved okay, and it did.  Autumn Beauty's home will be at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens in Gainesville until the first part of November, and I'm sure she'll have more visitors from our house very soon.  I can't wait for Mom to see her in person, but until then, I took a lot of pictures to send home, and even a small video to show where Autumn Beauty is located.

The rest of the day was a work day, and a lot of work, in fact.  I was at a Christmas meeting, talking about our Christmas production.  And then there was all the other KidPak stuff going on, including our October 31st service.  We've got lots of plans going on.  I finished up Neverland at the other campuses, and I'm pretty excited to have those scripts done ahead of time to send to everyone.

Maddie was studying tonight, watching some television, and talking with friends online tonight.  The rest of us watched "Goosebumps," and I was reminded that we found a pretty great looking collection of RL Stine books earlier in the year, a hard cover collection that looks really great.  So before bed, just for fun, I started to read one his books, which I've never read before.  I'm starting with "Night of the Living Dummy," just because we're entering that season and it might be a fun and fairly easy read.

But Maddie is all about Kingdom Keepers right now, and even there in the story is a spooky element, as the Keepers are battling all kinds of supernatural villains.  We said our prayers tonight before bed, and she got to bed earlier.  I myself stayed up late working on an activity for Camille's small group night.

It was a decent day, highlighted by the beginning of Autumn Beauty's reign at the botanical gardens.

Good Dinosaurs and Ghostbusting

Tonight was the last night for Free Chapel Youth's "Friday Night Lights," a pretty good series that's been going on the last four Sunday nights.  Maddie wasn't going to miss this one, even though it was a pretty long day up until then.  We actually stayed there a little later too, just talking and hanging out with a few others until it was time to head back home.

This afternoon, we were doing some more ghostbusting, and now that's getting tougher for us.  But we still made it past a few levels, although we ran out of time.  Maddie got a shower, and got out the door.  I dropped her off at FCY, and then headed back to relax a bit with Mom and Nana, watching another adventure with Dexter Riley in "The Strongest Man in the World."  We skipped over the middle movie of that classic trilogy, "Now You See Him, Now You Don't," mainly because it's not on Disney+.  But no worries - we'll catch up with that one later because we have a copy of it in the basement on DVD.  These movies are old-school fun, and by the time we were done with that, I was out the door to get Maddie again.

One of the reasons I was chilling a bit was because the earlier part of the day was a lot more intense.  I was getting all these bags of sand for the fire pit area, and in fact we got the entire area filled with a layer of sand.  Next comes the pea gravel.  Up and down that hill with bags of sand really got me worn down a bit!  I'm still managing the treadmill too, staying on there 45 minutes to an hour, walking along and looking at all this scenery as I do.  Lately, I've been watching a guy walk through parts of Alaska, and it's been pleasant to do while listening to music on my own.

Tonight before bed, we watched another episode of "Star Wars Visions," these great new animations released recently by Disney.  We also watched "Toy Story of Terror" and "Mater and the Ghost Light," just a few short things before heading off to bed where we read from Kingdom Keepers again.  Tonight's chapter had characters fleeing from deadly dive bombing birds by jumping into the AquaDuck to escape.  It was a thrilling chapter before prayers and bedtime.

This morning we were at KidPak, of course, and I have to say how thrilled I am with this dinosaur-themed series.  Each week, the kids really get dinosaurs, with strong messages and bottom lines based on Biblical principles.  Today, I was the one bringing the message, and it was a movie message based on "The Good Dinosaur."  

The movie has has a great theme to it about courage, and I scripted out this outline below to go with the message.  It went really well for both services, and the kids got to see some dinosaurs on the screen without being too scary.  It was a good morning at church.  In fact, I think I'll close today's entry with the outline I typed up for the message as I close up here.  Goodnight!

KidPak Adventures: Lost World

The Good Dinosaur

 

CUE SLIDE:  “LOST WORLD”

 

HOST:  “Hello and welcome back to the Lost World!  A few years ago there was a dinosaur movie that came out, one called ‘The Good Dinosaur.’”

 

CUE SLIDE: “ THE GOOD DINOSAUR”

HOST: “ Did anyone else see this movie?  I was expecting the standard dinosaur movie.  Some crazy event happens and everyone has to flee and go some place new where they’re safe.  Until the next big disaster happens.”

 

HOST:  “But that didn’t happen here.  This movie is modeled after a western movie, of all things!  It even has cowboys and even farmers too.  And it’s on one farm that a special little dinosaur is born, as you’ll see here in our first clip.”

 

CUE CLIP 1:  ARLO

 

CUE SLIDE:  BABY ARLO

 

HOST: “As you can see, Arlo is loved by his parents.  But you can see something else right away.  Arlo is a little scared of new things.  And before you start laughing too hard at this little guy, I want you to think of something you’ve been frightened of before.  It’s a part of life, really.  And it’s something we all have to face.  Let’s see how little Arlo deals with it in this next clip.”

 

CUE CLIP 2: MAKING YOUR MARK

 

CUE SLIDE:  MAKING YOUR MARK

 

HOST:  “Somehow Arlo wants to make his mark.  And that’s where I want to stop for a moment.  You see, we are all here to make our mark in life.  In fact, that’s our first point.”

 

CUE SLIDE:  POINT ONE - IT’S TIME TO MAKE YOUR MARK

 

HOST:  “It’s time to make your mark.  God has us each marked for greatness, and we’re all designed by Him to do something big with our lives.  In every case, it’s something different.  But that doesn’t mean it isn’t going to change the world.”

 

HOST picks up an Arlo stuffed animal.

HOST:  “Here’s the problem.  Arlo is scared.  And we get scared of doing new things too.  Maybe it’s a new school.  A lot of people are scared right now of where our country could be heading to.  Whatever it is, we need to remember this:  fear is the opposite of faith.  When you fear anything but God, you’re saying you don’t trust in Him enough to handle it.  But let me share this scripture from the book of Psalms.”

 

CUE SLIDE:  “Psalm 56:3-4 NIV

 

HOST:  “It says, ‘When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.  In God, whose word I praise – in God I trust and am not afraid.  What can mere mortals do to me?’”

 

CUE SLIDE:  LOST WORLD

 

HOST: “Our Heavenly Father has a mark on us, a mark for something great.  And if God is on our side, what do we have to fear?  Fear just holds us back from all the promises of God.  It’s holding us back from so much good that’s waiting for us.  And as you’ll hear in this very next clip, sometimes you just have to get through your fear to see the beauty on the other side.”

 

CUE CLIP 3:  SEEING THE BEAUTY ON THE OTHER SIDE

 

CUE SLIDE:  FIREFLIES

 

HOST:  “Arlo would never get anywhere or see anything if he just spent his whole life afraid.  But that’s not what God wants for any of us, and I doubt it’s what you want either.  No, point two says what we all need to do.”

 

CUE SLIDE:  “POINT TWO – STAND UP, AND STAND OUT”

 

HOST:  “Stand up, and stand out.  Ours is not a spirit of fear!  We’re entering a season now where everyone celebrates fear and darkness.  But the Bible tells us that ours is not a spirit of fear.  And the Bible tells us that God made us to be a light of the world.  

 

HOST:  “In fact, the Bible says a whole lot of things about having courage.  Here are just a few places where the Bible tells us not to be afraid..”

 

CUE SLIDE:  “Psalm 31:24 NIV”

 

HOST:  “Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.”

 

CUE SLIDE:  “Timothy 1:7 NIV”

 

HOST:  “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.”

 

CUE SLIDE:  “John 14:27 NIV”

 

HOST:  “Jesus told us, ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.’”

 

CUE SLIDE:  “1 Corinthians 16:13 NIV”

 

HOST:  “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.”

 

CUE SLIDE:  “Psalm 27:1 NIV”

 

HOST:  “The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?”

 

CUE SLIDE:  “Psalm 112:7 NIV”

 

HOST:  “They aren’t afraid when bad news comes.  They stand firm because they trust in the Lord.”

 

CUE SLIDE:  “Romans 12:2 NIV

 

HOST:  “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

 

CUE SLIDE:  “Ephesians 6:10 NIV”

 

HOST:  “Finally, be strong in the Lord and His mighty power.”

 

CUE SLIDE:  LOST WORLD

 

HOST:  “I could go on and on, because the Bible is filled with encouragement when you’re afraid.  In fact, you can find the phrase “Do not be afraid” in the Bible time and again and again and again!  The point here is simple.  God doesn’t want you to be afraid.  So turn to your neighbor and say, ‘I ain’t skeered!”

 

Let audience respond.

 

HOST: “Now turn to your other neighbor and say, ‘I ain’t afraid of nothin’!’”

 

Let audience respond.

 

HOST:  “In our movie, little Arlo needs to get to that point too.  And I want you to pay close attention to this next clip, because he’s about to get a lesson in courage as he helps out some new friends he just made along the trail.”

 

CUE CLIP 4:  GETTING THE HERD BACK

 

CUE SLIDE:  ROARING BACK

 

HOST:  “I saw this again recently, and I saw myself in that little dinosaur standing out there.  And it’s you too.  I want you to picture yourself in that same situation.  Kind of scary, yes.  But you just knew that the little dinosaur was going to be okay – and why’s that?”

 

LET AUDIENCE ANSWER

 

HOST:  “Because there were three great big T-Rex there behind him, just out of sight!  And you know something?  You have a secret weapon too, hidden just behind you as well.  That’s point three.”

CUE SLIDE:  POINT THREE – YOU’VE GOT A SECRET WEAPON

 

HOST:  “You’ve got a secret weapon!  Just like Arlo had a strong force behind him to guide him and protect him, we’ve got something even better. God is not a T-Rex, of course.  He’s something even greater.  Much, much greater!  And when we stand up for Him, even if it appears we’re all on our own… we’re not.  He’s right there now with you, and He’s telling you the same exact words He told Joshua many years ago.  

 

CUE SLIDE:  “Joshua 1:9 NIV”

 

HOST:  “Have I not commanded you?  Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

 

CUE SLIDE:  LOST WORLD

 

HOST:  “Look at that last part.  He will be with you wherever you go.  When you’re feeling afraid?  Yes, He’s right there beside you.”

 

HOST:  “Now I want you to see something else in that clip.  That first time Arlo did something brave, he was kind of reluctant.  But when he saw Butch in trouble, what did he do?”

 

LET AUDIENCE ANSWER

 

HOST:  “That’s right, he ran to protect his friend.  Normally, he’d never do that.  But this time?  He charged right out there into danger, and came to the rescue.”

 

HOST:  “That’s how you make your mark:  by standing up and standing out to help others.  You see, there are many out there that are being dragged down by all kinds of problems.  That’s why you need to overcome your fear.  You can help.  You can charge in to save the day.  The big question is, will you do it?”

 

Let audience reply.

 

HOST: “Of course you will.  Don’t just sit back and let fear take over.  God has you marked for greatness, and if you feel a little scared sometimes, don’t worry.  You’re not alone.  Let’s watch this last clip together.”

 

CUE CLIP 5:  CAMPFIRE

 

CUE SLIDE:  CAMPFIRE

 

HOST: “If you ain’t scared, you ain’t alive, kid!  Everyone feels fear.  Everyone hears that voice that tells them things might not turn out so well for you.  But before you do anything, what you really need to do is listen to that other voice too, the one from God.”  

 

CUE SLIDE:  LOST WORLD

HOST:  “And when you do that, and when you break through that fear, just like Arlo’s dad said, you’re about to see the beauty on the other side.”

 

HOST: “Or as Butch said, ‘You’ll be alright, kid.’ Let us pray.”

 

Garden Work

This morning I dropped off Mom's scarecrow, "Autumn Beauty," at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens in Gainesville.  It went easily into the car and was easy to set up there in the parking lot area where some of the others were already being dropped off.  Most of these are from organizations like schools or local businesses, so it's just kind of fun to have one done by Mom there, just for the fun of it.  We've always wanted to add a scarecrow to the the group, and this year we finally were able to go through with it.  Mom worked quite a bit on it, and the end result, as you can see above, came out very nicely.

It wasn't too bad of a day today.  The weather was gorgeous.  The hummingbirds were dropping by, and our garden area is looking nice.  Here's a hibiscus we got earlier to attract some of those hummingbirds.

These blooms have been popping up on this plant for months, sporadically and in different locations, but always a bloom on this plant.  It won't be long before we have to bring this one in.  It's getting colder at night.

This beauty is just one of several we have along a path at the side of the house.  The hummingbirds really like these plants, as do the hummingbirds.  We'll have to keep these and maybe even get more!

And here you can see the beginnings of our backyard work.  We have a good ways to go on this, but the windmill is there along with a little scarecrow and some planted flowers.  We'll be moving things around a bit and enhancing it as the work goes along this month.  Because here's the focus:

The fire pit is set up, at least the foundational part.  We'll surround this with sand and pea gravel, and of course we have to fill the fire pit up a bit more as well.  And we'll need chairs too.  So we have some work to do on this still, which we'll be doing one small portion at a time.  The weather has been ideal for this sort of labor, just a beautiful day outside.

Maddie had her Team Edge practice today, and yes, the class is smaller here in this photo due to all kinds of conflicts.  There was a Free Chapel Youth event that Maddie missed this afternoon, a large scale sort of thing.  But as she said, "Team Edge was a commitment," and she was going to make sure she was at practice.  One reason she really wanted to be here was that it was Miss Walker's last day as an instructor for Team Edge.  She'll still be here as a student, but she'll be missed by Maddie, who has loved learning from her over the past three years.  There are several other instructors that she enjoys learning from here, and who knows?  Maybe she herself will be an instructor some day!

We got home and did some ghostbusting, returning to the Sedgewick Hotel and all the chaos within.  Maddie and I have been returning to the "Sanctum of Slime" once more, seeing if we can actually make it all the way through this time.  We started at the beginning just to get familiar with things.  We haven't had a problem yet, but we know it's going to get pretty insanely tough in a bit.  We'll see, but we've also made a promise not to get too worked up if it gets too challenging.  

Tonight's feature was "Wallace and Gromit:  Curse of the Were-Rabbit," which is again one of our favorites.  It is so brilliantly written in my opinion.  Just tonight we noticed a new line that we hadn't noticed before, "Run, rabbit run!"  Which may or may not be a reference to the song, but it still caught our attention.  It was just a little thing.  There are so many other lines and references that are so great though, from "harmless mind alteration" to "Queensbury rules" and "I rather like your hair pinned back!"  I could go on and on.  The transitions in this movie from scene to scene are just perfect, flowing the story from one sequence to the other.  We could watch this one over and over again, and to help celebrate, we actually had all kinds of cheese and crackers with us.  It's somewhat of a tradition, as Wallace loves cheese so much.  He's crackers about cheese!  Anyway, although we didn't have any Wensleydale, we did have some cheese with cranberry in it, and a new one from the Cheese Shop, some Norwegian Jarlsberg.  I cannot read that name without hearing John Cleese say it:  "Norwegian Jarlsberg."  I've been going steadily through the list of cheeses from the Cheese Shop skit, and this one we hadn't tried before, but we actually really like it.  The last time we tried a new cheese was that camembert cheese, and that was not our favorite.  Actually, I think I'd rather eat crayons.

It was a quiet day, closing up with a quiet night.  We went to bed earlier tonight, given that we have to get up early tomorrow for another big Sunday.  I'm speaking tomorrow morning and it should be a nice message.  Tonight we read from our Kingdom Keepers book, pushing along with that, and we also prayed of course.  And soon after, we were all asleep.  Got a big day tomorrow!

Burt's Pumpkin Farm 2021

Today we made the trip over to Burt's Pumpkin Farm, something we've been doing with Maddie since she was two years old.  Below you can see some of the pictures of our time together at the pumpkin farm.

Posing for at the hay bales photo area.  The weather today was ideal, and there wasn't too much of a crowd, given that it was a weekday and still in September.  Just wait until next month when things get super busy here.  This place gets packed!

We got some good shots of Maddie in the pumpkin patch.  She wore an outfit she picked out for today, and looked nice amongst the sea of pumpkins.

Nana was along, of course, and she actually enjoyed the nice trip out to see all the pumpkins.  

Here's a group shot of the four of us posing in one of those photo ops that Maddie used to be so addicted to.  She couldn't pass one of these up without sticking her head through to pose for a picture.  Today all four of us got behind one for a fun shot. 

Maddie and the sea of orange pumpkins.  These are the massive ones, and there were so many there, getting ready for the new season.  Soon, there will be so many coming up here from Atlanta and all over, and these pumpkins will all go to a new home.

As you can see here, we got a few pumpkins here, the first of the year.  I got the larger one there, and Maddie got a smaller one.  She's pushing around the wheelbarrow for a bit, and posed for this shot because it doesn't seem too long ago that we were posing Maddie herself in a wheelbarrow!

She was our little pumpkin!  I didn't think she's want to do that again this year, but she was happy to pose for several pictures around the pumpkins. 

You can see that there weren't that many crowds here today, the area behind Maddie largely empty.  It's good to get here early in the season for these sorts of shots.  Even Nana was posing for a picture or two.

Or at least sort of!  You have to be quick to get her picture some times!  We stayed here for about an hour or so - it was a nice little day trip, and we had to make it today because the weather was just right and because Maddie had off of school today.  We popped in the Dan Lundrum dulcimer music and the Steve Martin banjo music, and drove through the mountains a tiny bit to get there to the farm.

I'm glad we made the trip!  Maddie enjoyed it too, of course.  We've got some more pictures of her here below:

The tractor was there still.  How many times have we posed on this tractor?  Maddie had her "country girl" look all ready to go.

Meanwhile, Mom and Nana were marveling at all the pumpkins here, roaming through the smaller ones, the medium ones, and the super large ones too.  Here are several more pictures from today's trip:

Of course, I wasn't the only one taking pictures today.  Below you can see some of the snaps that Maddie took with her cellphone today at the farm.

It was a nice trip out.  We got back and rested for a small time, and then soon afterwards were off again, this time to taekwondo.  Maddie was practicing her form tonight extensively - a rather long segment that is as much mental as it is physical.  So much focus is required for that. But again, she loves it.

We got home and continued our October movie fest, in September of course.  But we've got so many of these movies, sort of like Christmas movies.  Anyway, tonight's feature was "The Addams Family," which is another classic.  I'm so glad we get to watch all these once a year, because this is another of my favorites.

After the movie, it was time to settle down for bed.  We were reading, and then after that, prayers.  It was a nice day today, the highlight of course being a great trip out to the pumpkin farm.