The Cardiac Kids

We finished up out 2026 "At the Movies" series with KidPak today, and it went well - we did a new movie this morning, the recent Mario movie, and the message turned out well.  We had enough time to do a few games in there too, so we pulled out some classic games from the past, an animated race from an "At the Movies" with stunt racers that was a classic some years ago.

We had Princess Peach, Mario and Luigi out there greeting the kids, and it was just a nice time this morning at KidPak.  Here's a frog on the outside door, ready for a quiet nap this afternoon:

Maddie was with Nate's family, celebrating a big moment for them, so Mom and I went home and the thought was to watch a quiet Braves game and take a nap before anything else.

Then this happened.  This was an epic baseball game, and eleven-inning stress factory that just kept you on the edge of your seat for much of the game.  And the thing is, the Braves have been in a lot of these one-run contests lately, so there's a lot of tension to these games.  Fortunately, they've been coming out on top of late, but wow, it's no wonder the announcer has started calling the Atlanta Braves the "Cardiac Kids."

So after the game, we gathered our things, and we did something fun - we went to Camp Meeting.  There's a Union Grove Camp Meeting once a year up very close to where I used to live, and in fact I went to it over thirty years ago now.  I can still remember the songs we sang there, "It's Beginning to Rain" and others.  I have a lot of good memories of Camp Meeting, and our friend CJ from KidPak has been telling us to come back each year.

We're glad we said yes!  It was a really great service, a great time of fellowship and catching up with some old familiar faces.   We had a great time with some old songs and following that a great message from a guy we haven't heard before - or at least not before yesterday.  Yesterday, it just so happened that Mom heard a message from this same guy while down at another conference.  So it was quite the coincidence that he was there tonight.  And it was quite the coincidence that we saw many other Free Chapel people involved in worship or just there to enjoy the service.  It was great, and it went late - we got home pretty late, so much so that there wasn't time to read.  But we had a great day, that much is certain.  We said our prayers, and then it was off to sleep!

Stripers Double Header!

Today was a lot of fun!  We went to Gwinnett Field today to see not one but two Gwinnett Stripers games, one of them postponed from yesterday's big rain deluge.  Because it was a double-header, each game was only about seven innings long.  But check out this line-up on the Stripers:

This was for the first game.  We literally had two NL MVPs playing on a minor league team at the same time, plus Murphy and Kim.  And ironically, the same exact starting pitcher here for the Stripers was pitching for the Atlanta Braves when we went to go see them last weekend.  

It was Christmas in July, so there was lots of Christmas music playing today, and Christmas trees set up throughout the stadium, plus plenty of decorations too.  Santa was there for pictures, and in fact Maddie did her official photo with Santa here tonight at the ballpark and it turned out really well.  

Mom and I posed with the Grinch, meeting him for a while, and there was Chipper too - all decked out in a Santa suit.  Here's Chipper chasing around a giant cockroach through the stands and up where I was standing by:  

How fun it was to see Santa throw out the first pitch.  The national anthem was sung by a church from Gainesville that did really well.  And as for the games themselves, we had a superteam in that first contest, so the Stripers had a nice first game there.

We saw just about everyone get a hit, including Acuna and Kim, who got a two-RBI double.  In the second game we got to see Rowdy Tellez get a few RBIs, and Andrew McCutcheon get a home run.

There was a lot of action today, and two solid victories.  The second game didn't feature as many of those all-stars from the first game, but it was good to see some of our Braves players there, and watch them do really well.

It was a nice time there at the game.  We got a Christmas ornament tonight, because that seemed pretty appropriate, right?  There were all kinds of characters, like the Pink Pig from the Festival of Trees.  And there were a lot of people all dressed up in the audience wearing Santa outfits or dressing up as elves or whatever!  It was a lot of fun.  We had our wings and our Cracker Jacks, of course, and just had a great time at the ol' ball game.

Nate was there too, and he and Maddie got on the Jumbotron for a good extended dance sequence to "Last Christmas," and earlier on, Nate actually caught one of the t-shirts that was thrown into the audience, so he got himself a Stripers shirt!  I have one too, I'm wearing it now - Mom got me a hat and t-shirt for the Stripers.  Tonight's big souvenir is that Christmas ornament, which will look great hanging from the tree this year.

We sat and talked with this elf for a good bit this afternoon...

Of course, you can't see the player's faces in these - but they're pictures of Atlanta Braves players doing their rehab assignments - a pretty huge amount of talent on there tonight.

We got home safely, and yeah, we're tired.  We read a bit from our book, did some of our online puzzles, and then it was time for some sleep!

Huge Rain

This blog eats up a lot of time spent writing, just erasing it from time to time.  I already wrote a lot here, and now I have to somehow do it again, but it's difficult enough to keep up with.  So I think bullet points might work.

*  Here's Maddie, hiding behind the chiropractic table.  She's been doing this all her life, jumping out and surprising Doc Williams when he starts asking us, "Where's Maddie?"  In these pictures, she's put here plush potato on her head inside the hoodie.

*  Here's Maddie eating rolls at Texas Roadhouse.  We had a nice meal after our pleasant visit to the chiropractor.  Maddie would be happy just eating these roll alone.

*  Afterwards we went to Hallmark Store and got some chocolates which are so rich in flavor that Mom and I shared one and that was more than enough.  We got a few ornaments on extreme sale (ones from last year), and looked at the ones for the upcoming year.  I think the Kermit the Frog one might be my favorite.

*  We dropped by the Aldi's and got some of those protein bars that Mom likes.

*  My blood pressure is back down, way down again.  I walked another 5K today at about 3.8 mph.  Touring around - virtually - South Dakota, and of course the goal is still that Mount Rushmore medal.

*  We got home and I worked on the skit for next month, and a few other things.

*  We saw the Braves defeat the Orioles in another nail-biter game that went to ten innings.  Really exciting stuff with a happy ending for us up in Baltimore.

*  The rain was huge today.  Over eight inches in Oakwood, with flooding and streets collapsing.  Glad we didn't go over in that direction!  At our house we got at least six inches of rain, which is huge.  Can't wait to see what this does with Lake Lanier.

*  The Stripers game was postponed today because of the rain, and that affects us tomorrow because tomorrow's game is now a double header.  We'll get there earlier tomorrow for two games, a full day of baseball, although each game is reduced to seven innings.  

*  We continued reading tonight - about fifty pages left, but the Unseen Academicals are about to play their big football game!

*  We closed the day with prayers and a good night's rest!

...

 ... work for the new series, Braves win again, Hunt for Red October, Wall Drug, Psalms... updates coming soon...

Hydroponics update

We finished the new KidPak series booklet today for the next series, and that was quick and really just great to get off our shoulders.  

Here's an update on our hydroponics garden, which has grown quite a bit once we realized the light was too close!  That's an adjustable thing, the light, and we lifted it up further high because these leaves are growing and growing.  They're very close to being harvested - we're waiting for some tomatoes to ripen, and then we'll be good to go to eat a few salads!

So this is a funny image.  It's been shared here on this blog before our appreciation of Lisa Frank imagery.   That being said, I snuck out and took a picture of the house and added all the usual Lisa Frank stuff, with all the trimmings, even replacing car with a beetle. 

It was a quiet day today.  We watched the Braves beat the Padres tonight.  It was a real nail biter in the ninth, as the Padres scored six and were looking like they were going to come from behind to win.  It's good to be winning again though.  

Quiet day today.  Glad of it, given that we had so much going on.  Glad to see the blood pressure down so much lately too.  We read tonight before bed, still working on "Unseen Academicals," which is building up to the big football match.  I've read this book a long time ago, and have no idea how it ends!  It'll be fun as we get there in the next week or so - moving right along.

We said our prayers after that, and then it was time to get the Plush Entourage tucked in and into bed.  Time for some sleep!

Book Work

Today was a race against time to get these new booklets done - here are a couple sample pages I was making up.  I'm still using that AI art tool to create these characters and artwork, and it's all coming out pretty well.  We're talking about the Beatitudes next series, and sort of expanding on that with other stories from the New Testament, such as the example of the Pharisee and the tax collector's prayers.  

Maddie's working on a new puzzle this week, one of those Thomas Kincaid style paintings of Mickey and Minnie on the beach in Hawaii.  While she was at work on that, I was doing the walking this morning, doing that virtual march towards Mount Rushmore again, and continuing with all kinds of fun and fascinating videos filmed of area attractions - today was Wind Cave National Park, which is another cool cave in South Dakota.  

I had picked up some groceries, and look at this peculiar item I spotted in the grocery store:  ice cubes.  No, not a bag of ice.  But instead, four cubes of frozen water.  It's "crystal clear" frozen water, which I guess is different than the frozen water cubes that you can make at home?  This box costs over four dollars, so I'm thinking these ice cubes had better be pretty special, right?  Seriously, does this item make sense at all?  I know we buy bottled water, so perhaps the thinking is that we need pure water in our ice cubes too.

Anyway, moving on!  I also got some soft pretzels that you can cook in the oven, and that's what Maddie and I have been heating up, nice pretzels you add the salt too.  We ate some of those watching the Braves game tonight - they didn't win tonight.  But we'll win tomorrow, right?

We closed out the day with reading, and then prayers after that.  It was a good day.

Frog

Look at our little friend here, just resting there on the column here - we're used to hearing tree frogs and certainly cicadas at night, but I haven't actually seen our frog friend before, so this was a nice little treat.

Today was a rest day, although I had to get over to the doctor pretty early for a scheduled appointment.  The blood pressure is a little wonky, the lower number running high, although the top number is slightly on the line.  Things are going down lately, a good trend.  It helped to be on the treadmill again, which has been a good steady virtual march to Mount Rushmore.  It's been fun watching related material, today's programming being a few POV videos shot of tours through Jewel Cave.  Never been there before, but it looks interesting - tomorrow will be the other cave park nearby Mount Rushmore, the one called Wind Cave.  

Today was a lot of work on this new book that we're racing against time to get done, the next book in our series.  Lots of work to be done, but we got the messages done.  Lots of other things need to happen too, so even though Summer Xtreme is over now, there's still a good bit of stress left. 

We saw the Braves defeat the Padres tonight, and that was good - and after that it was time for some reading, and then prayers.  And sleep!