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 ...new chia pets, bpm, Braves win with a wink... updates coming soon...

Another Gotcha Day

 

It goes by so quickly, doesn't it?  If you don't realize that now, you'll see.  Here's Maddie and Nate at PF Chang's, and the reason for the celebration down here is that it is Gotcha Day again, a celebration of the adoption of Maddie eighteen years ago now.  Nana and Ye-Ye came along, and in fact they treated us to the evening's meal.  Maddie, Nate and I started out with a sparkling boba juice mix, and were surprised when the waitress told us it was unlimited refills with whatever other flavor we wanted.  So yeah, we kinda went crazy - getting seven different boba drinks after that.  Yummy!

This is the last one - they asked what flavor this time, and we thought it would be fun to have a "boba suicide," which is to say, a little bit of every flavor, all mixed into one glass.  It actually wasn't bad!

It was a pleasant evening.  Mom was a little overheated tonight, the temperature really increasing lately.  Our air conditioner is going into overdrive, and in fact it was freezing up a little earlier.  I think we may have figured it out.  Meanwhile, I'm watering the plants at dark and not during the harsh daylight.  And we're keeping that water filled with the bird bath.  The birds have been taking advantage of that, although it's getting a little heated up out there.  Look at this robin, just frozen in this position for a few moments, letting the wings soak in the sun I guess?

I couldn't imagine being at a baseball game, but we watched tonight and the Braves closed out the month of June appropriately enough with another loss.  It's been a tough month, but we turn over a new leaf tomorrow with a new month and a new chance to keep ahead of the other teams.  

It was a quiet day today, although there's a lot of work going on towards Summer Xtreme and our newest series, "At the Movies."  We're getting things lined up there.

Tonight we read of course, and we said our prayers.  And after that, it was time for sleep.  Tonight I was able to sleep some more, but it's been difficult lately, as I think I've been having some internal issue that I have yet to figure out.  We'll keep an eye on that, of course!

Rex

This afternoon we went to a funeral for a friend, who left us all too early.  It was a hard thing, but I was glad to be there and show support.  It was also somewhat of a reunion of old friends from KidPak!

Afterwards, we went over to Talpa Supermercado and got some street tacos that were delicious, but it was really about the company.  We spent a good long time just sitting there and talking with one another.  It was very nice.

I already wrote a few words about Rex on an earlier entry here, but he was a force of positivity and light, and will be greatly, greatly missed.  He was a legend.

Here's a quick update about the lettuce in the hydroponic garden we have set up.  It's doing well, although the arugula never really took off.  We had to add some water to the levels there in the container, but these leaves keep growing, and I think we'll have ourselves a salad soon enough, one with tomatoes from outside, and maybe some peppers too.  

Yikes, check this out.  It's a massive hornet's nest on the very highest part of our house.  It's huge.  We know someone with the church that has a business taking care of these, so he'll be over here soon enough.  It's so high up that it's not a threat to us at the moment, but it's still quite menacing up there.

Tonight we watched "National Treasure," because it's that season around here.  What a great movie!  No Braves game, but we saw Benjamin Gates and company find the ultimate treasure beneath Wall Street.  Or somewhere around there.  Anyway, it's a fun movie and we'll be off to Mount Rushmore with the sequel shortly.

Speaking of which, I'm still marching along towards Mount Rushmore, at least virtually.  Got to keep the exercise up at least.  I'm struggling with the blood pressure, but that helps out tremendously.

Before bed, we read a bit more from our soccer-themed Discworld novel, and that's been fun to read.  After that, prayers - and an attempt at some sleep.  

Hollywood Domino

 

We tried a new domino game tonight, and oddly enough this one has been sitting around quite some time in the basement because when it comes to dominoes, there's just this one set we keep going back to with the little trains and the depot and all that.  It's a great set, but tonight we saw this Hollywood Domino game that I picked up at a thrift store some time ago, and it's never even been opened!  So yeah, we gave it a try!

Maddie's got that "put the camera down" smile on here, but regardless, we had a pretty good time with this one.  There are some variations, and certain plays are relabeled to fit a movie-making theme.  There are stunt double dominoes, a blockbuster one, sequels and trilogies, and instead of trains, there are different movie themed statuettes representing a genre of the movie you're making.  My favorite part is that instead of a "junk train," there's now an actual red carpet path as well.  None of this makes any sense if you don't play dominoes, so I'll just leave it at this:  we had fun!

Aw, poor hedgehog isn't having fun!  That's okay, as he keeps getting his water and there's some small sprouting going on - it won't be long before we have a green little hedgehog here.  Speaking of green, we've got a pepper starting to grow in the garden.

Not only do we have a pepper down there, but we also have small tomatoes growing too.  Add that to our lettuce, and we're talking about an actual salad that we can make one night.  That will be so exciting!

Today was a quiet Sunday, as far as Sundays go.  We were in service this morning, of course, and focused on Hebrews 11.  Our trivia game was big, the Monumental Trivia.  It was a good Sunday morning service for the kids!  We had all kinds of visitors from out of town, given that Forward was this weekend, so it was good to see so many familiar faces.  

Maddie didn't get to see those familiar faces, as she was over at another church this morning with Nate.  They were helping to celebrate the birthday of one of his grandparents, and that was sweet to be there.  She enjoyed her time there, and rejoined us later on in the afternoon.

I'm still walking along virtually, trying to keep that blood pressure in check.  I think I may have stumbled upon the source of the difficulty, and I'm continuing to self-diagnose, but presently the word "gluten" is in my vocabulary and it suddenly applies to me.  This may be bringing all kinds of complications, but again, I'm still figuring it all out.  Meanwhile, I walk because that does help.  I'm watching all kinds of programming as I march along, all of it about the Black Hills and Mount Rushmore, and a lot of it is interesting.  The one program I watched about the history of Mount Rushmore itself was fascinating, a look at just what it took - and how long - to create this iconic sculpture.  Other videos have been POV videos walking around the park and so on, but I intend to branch out and re-visit Custer State Park, one of my favorite destinations because of Needles Highway and all those bison.  And there's Jewel Cave and Wind Cave too, as well as a spot that for some reason I love so much:  the Badlands.  It'll be a fun little virtual walk in South Dakota, and sure enough I might throw in Wall Drug and the Corn Palace just for fun.  I'm about 15% through this one, so I've got plenty of time to squeeze all this in, plus maybe even "North by Northwest," which features Mount Rushmore of course.  And of course the National Treasure movies.

Okay, moving on.  We did have the Braves game on, and they lost another frustrating game today, the offense in a magnificent slump.  It's magnificent to the other teams who have been catching up with us.  Hopefully we can turn this around, but even in losses like these there are highlights and moments that brighten things up.  We're still watching, win or lose, although the latter seems to be more prominent lately.

Tonight we read, of course, and after that it was time for prayers - and time for sleep, hopefully.  This condition has left me with about two hours of sleep per night the last few nights.  That's another trend I hope will stop - we'll see!

Visit to the Sorta White House?

This afternoon Mom and I made a visit to say goodbye to an old friend from KidPak.  Our friend Rex passed away last week, one of the pillars of our KidPak ministry.  Here's what I wrote about him in a text to the group at KidPak, many of who hadn't met Rex yet:

*********

For those in this group that do not know, Rex is a pillar of KidPak.  To me he’s sort of one of the “founding fathers” of this children’s ministry.

For background, KidPak started with karaoke worship: no musicians, but instead one lead singer that sang along with a pre-recorded track of music on a CD player.

Rex was part of a team that brought our worship to the next level.  I will always see him on our KidPak stage on one side, Chris Smith on the other, permanently establishing a live worship band that we could only dream of previously.  Ben Wood and his family brought us the ability to have a live worship band, but then Rex and Chris were there to make it what we have today.  

But he was more than just a musician.  He was a presence on stage and off stage.  He was a force of joy, hanging out with the kids in the classrooms or in the halls, because he was just a big kid himself.  Students knew he was the real deal.  I remember Summer Xtreme as his playground - he wasn’t afraid to get soaking wet, or even covered in pie.  He would do anything for this ministry - even as a part of the acting team for skits.

I’ll forever remember him with that huge sombrero on his head during one series of skits, a massive smile on his face as he yells out, “Whazzup!”  The kids screamed back and absolutely ate it up.  He was a rockstar, even without the guitar.

And then there was the weekend when my wife Zena had emergency surgery to remove a cancerous tumor.  Rex and others actually came to the hospital, all dressed as pirates, and made a raid on that hospital room, bringing so much joy to Zena and the rest of the staff.  It was such a hit with the staff that Rex and the pirates were immediately invited over to the children’s area to bring bright smiles to those young faces too.

Rex was a light unto the world.  I never remember a time where he walked into a room and darkened the atmosphere.  He was a servant to all, a shining example and challenge to all of what we should be.  He was a gift.  He made everyone’s lives better just by being here.  Someday I hope we can all sit down together in heaven, and just be a part of the crowd that’s listening to him play that incredible guitar with a worship band there.  He may already be jamming with them now.  

We don’t mourn like those who have no hope, but nevertheless, I can’t believe he’s not with us here.  It’s so tough.

I can’t wait to see him again.  I know the first words he’ll yell out to me when he sees me:  “Whazzup!”

*********

The funeral is Monday - the viewing was today.  We were there for the family, just as many, many others were.

On our way home from Lawrenceville, I had to stop by this one place I saw on Roadside America, a replica of the White House built several years ago as a bank.  Since then, the building has been purchased by a law firm, but it's right here along the road, this copy of the White House!

It was closed, so you couldn't go in, and honestly I probably wouldn't go in anyway, given that I don't need a lawyer for anything at the moment.  But the building looks really good, and around the Fourth of July is a great time to drop by.  Oh, and it's also a good time to break out the new bar of soap Mom got for me!

Liberty Lather!  Time to smell nice and patriotic!  Mom got me a few items recently, one of them a LEGO Moses to add to the LEGO Wilderness Temple!

Pretty cool, huh?  I'll have to open that package up and put him in the outer court somewhere!

So today Maddie was with Nate - after Team Edge practice - and the two of them were on a double date, and then just a nice afternoon at the house.  Meanwhile Mom and I were out on a date ourselves at a familiar location:

Mom and I were at Aurelio's!  That was nice, and Mom brought home some leftovers.  The rest of the evening was quiet, with Mom and I checking out the movie "The Sheep Detectives," and after that the Braves game on BravesVision.  It's been tough to watch this team the last few weeks - I think it would have been okay if we were this bad to begin with, but the fact that we all had such hope?  We're still in the lead of the National League East, but only because some of those other teams lost ten in a row to start out with and we had a really great head start.  Well, to sum up, we lost today.  Not entirely because of our pitching, but because we can't score runs.  We got shut out again tonight.  

Okay, enough of that.  My blood pressure goes up as these games goes along!  Time to get some rest.  We read tonight from our book, and then it was time for prayers, and some sleep.

License Plate Puzzle

Maddie started this little patriotic puzzle yesterday - yesterday.  It's a 1,000-piece puzzle, one we've had for some time that's a collection of all the license plates in the United States.  She started again this morning, and would she finish it?

Yep.  Looks great too!  I actually have all of those license plates, one from every state in the Union, all of them hanging up in the garage.  

There was another virtual walk today - continuing up the virtual path to Mount Rushmore.  I got this post card, and while I was walking the television was showing a revisit to the Fourth of July fireworks there from six years ago.  

Today's date is 6-26, which of course makes it Stitch Day!  I was prepared, so I got Mom this fun gift this morning:

It's a set of plastic Stitch hands, their purpose to hold a cell phone up.  Mom was using it right away as you can see here.  Pretty fun!  Tonight we actually watched the movie, the animated one.  We hadn't see it in a while, but we watched it on Disney Plus, and we caught that one thing they changed early on where Lilo used to crawl into a dryer.  It's reanimated now so that she hides in a cabinet or something, I think to prevent kids from wanting to actually climb into a dryer.   

Maddie had taekwondo tonight, and that was fun for her.  A quiet night, but she enjoyed training with the team.  And after that, it was time to go visit Nate.  Nate and his family have been at Hilton Head all week on vacation, and so these two were happy to visit.

Mom and I were watching a Stripers game tonight, as the Braves game started later.  What a thrilling game it was against the Nashville Sounds.  The Gwinnett Stripers came back from 10-2, and wound up winning the game 13-10.  Each inning they'd score a few runs, and it came down to the ninth inning of course.  And that's when the Stripers scored another five runs to pull ahead - pretty exciting ending there!

The Braves won tonight too, which was encouraging.  It was good to see the offense actually hitting again, but we'll see if things can keep going.  It was a nice day today, although one thing I did today involved a visit to the doctor concerning an increase in blood pressure.  Trying to diagnose that.  My assignment is to do a log of the blood pressure the next few weeks or so, which should be interesting of course because Summer Xtreme is in there somewhere.

Anyway, we did our reading tonight, and then we said our prayers.  And then... it was time for the Plush Entourage to head down the hall and get tucked in for some sleep.

Walk to Mount Rushmore

This is a fun little image I had made.  I've signed up for the next virtual march here, and picked a bit of a patriotic theme.  The image above I had made for my account for this journey because I'm walking the 69 miles to Mount Rushmore.  Here's the racing bib:

I was watching a POV walk around Mount Rushmore, and here we go on another journey!  I've actually been to Mount Rushmore several times.  Famously when I was a kid, I dropped a pair of expensive binoculars immediately after my dad told me not to drop them because they were expensive binoculars.  They still worked, but they just got a little scuffed, and the story lives on.

Tonight Maddie and Mom loaded up the next two chia pets, one of them a Statue of Liberty and the other a hedgehog.  The hedgehog is a new one, a gift for Mom.  She and Maddie covered the areas with seed, and now we wait a few days to see the growth.  The Statue of Liberty will be growing all kinds of greenery just in time for the Semiquincentennial!

And speaking of which, you can see the puzzle that Maddie's been working on today.  She got a lot done on this one.  Like, wow!  This one will be a map of the United States, completely made up from license plates from the various states.  

Here's something else we did that's a little patriotic!  We made some ornaments for the tree using the "I Voted" stickers we recently collected from the last two visits.  We got some wooden disc ornaments that were just the right size, and then Mom got some ribbon for the top.  We have four of these on the tree now, a nice little patriotic decoration to add.  I remember coming out of the library after we voted and talking about how we could make these into ornaments, and here we are!

Maddie's classes upcoming are going to be English, Calculus, Science, and this other intro to Gainesville college class - things are lining up for her and she feels pretty confident about the workload upcoming.  It'll be here before you know it!

Tonight we were watching the Super Mario Galaxy movie, research for work.  It wasn't as good as the first Mario movie, but we still enjoyed it. There might be a message in there - we'll be working on that soon enough.  In the meantime, the other three messages for our "At the Movies" series in July are lined up.  I was working on that today, and a fun semiquincentennial trivia game.  Got a lot done today!

We did our reading tonight, and we're learning more about this mysterious Mr. Nutt.  What kind of creature is he?  And could he be a great football player?  I don't remember what happens next, but it's been fun reading this.  We said our prayers after this, and yes, it was definitely time for bed.