Getting Set

Here's a post card I got from my recent journey around Dublin, at least virtually.  We can see teh Dublin Mountains from here and a few other landmarks in Ireland.  Today's the last day of February, but it still feels like March a bit early.  I've been playing the Chieftain records and other Irish songs lately, and it's been a load of fun.

Maddie was over at Nate's today and she was having a great time there just hanging out pretty much all day.  Meanwhile, Mom and I were working on the basement some, and after that we were over at the KidPak stage, setting things up for our upcoming "Spring Training" series.  the set looks good!

We got home and we were pretty zonked, so we watched another baseball movie, this one a made-for-television sequel to "Angels in the Outfield."  

It's called "Angels in the Infield," and it's largely forgettable but fun.  In fact, we've seen this before, and the only reason I'm watching it now is to get in the baseball series frame of mind.  We start Spring Training tomorrow morning!  Anyway, this movie's not too bad, but certainly nowhere near as good as the first movie.  One thing interesting is that there are some pretty good parallels in story between this one and the much better movie "The Game Plan." 

Anyway, Maddie and Nate came back a little later, and it was fairly close to bed.  Mom and I were exhausted after doing the set for a few hours, so it was time for some sleep.  We read from our book a little while, meeting the character Lu-Tze, who of course appears in about five other Discworld books.  Though I've read all the books, I don't think we've read one of these with Maddie yet, so it's a new character to her.  Later on we'll meet him more in depth with "Thief of Time."

Okay, so we read tonight - and then we said our prayers and it was bedtime.  This is a dark season I think, one where we have the classic story of Purim and Persia celebrated as simultaneous, a tremendous war has erupted in that same land, and one involving Israel.  It's a spiritually heavy season, prophetic things lining up.  These are the seasons where we need to pay attention closely, and yes we are.

Hanging out with the Princesses

Tonight Olaf returned, or at least it was me inside that big costume, hanging out with these princesses - the very little ones.  It was the Daddy Daughter Dance, and that meant all kinds of dads and little princesses, but of course there were the more grown-up ones too.  We had Jasmine, Tiana, Elsa, Anna, and Cinderella with us in the crowd, and yep, there was Olaf stumbling along in one of those ginormous mascot costumes that's so hot inside and you can't see very well - but the kids loved it.  We had our Daddy and Daughter trivia that went with the winter wonderland theme, asking questions about princesses throwing snowballs or the coldest NFL games ever recorded.  It all went very well.

Maddie was with us at the start, as you can see above.  She's hanging out with the other princesses here.  But then she was simultaneously at taekwondo tonight.  Yes, I made that work with transportation somehow, as she was not only at Edge Martial Arts tonight but also over at Nate's place right after that.  It was a tiring night, but of course rewarding.

Earlier, Mom and I were scrambling down to Braselton to pick up costumes, props, and set ideas for our upcoming baseball series.  That'll mess up our plans for tomorrow, but the stage needs to get set so we'll need to attend to that first.

We didn't have time for much getting home, especially because I was so tired.  But we did start this television series I remember from a while ago, "Jack of All Trades."  Episode one has already had quite a few laughs and that sort of silly adventure that's over-the-top with bad puns along the way.  I'm not sure how many episodes there are, but they're short, and we'll be no doubt going through those the next few weeks.  

Tonight we read a little bit from "Night Watch" before it was time for prayers, and a good night's rest.  Everyone gets to sleep in tomorrow!

The Cups

So I finally caved and bought a couple cups.  These are the new Chick-Fil-A cups, and they're a good solid plastic, but the idea is that like a collector's card, these cups come in a bag that you can't see the insides of.  When you open the bag, you get a cup, of course, and these cups are all throw-backs to previous cup designs that Chick-Fil-A released over the years.  Our friend Camille got a cup that honors the very first cup designs many, many years ago.  Oh man.  I remember that cup now back at Lakeshore Mall where there was a Chick-Fil-A there in the food court.  Anyway, tonight Mom opened hers and you can see we got the little lemon chicks, and we also got the old-school cows with signs on one design too.  Supposedly, if you open up one of these bags you have a chance of getting a "golden" cup, which enables you to have free Chick-Fil-A for a year or something like that.  Obviously, you go into these things with low expectations there, but still in the back of your mind as you open the bag you're thinking of Charlie Bucket, and how he got Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket!  Yes, this could be my big chance!  

Or not.  Anyway, it was a quiet day.  Maddie had chapel this morning and it was super brief - Emma and three others were guest speakers that were tag-teaming message points for the students, and that was fun.  The day was rainy, and there were storms too.  Tonight we saw big flashes of lightning in the sky.  I think there were reports of heavy hail nearby too, all interesting stuff for February.

Maddie had her taekwondo tonight, and I was walking on the college track, moving along virtually in Dublin.  I'm a bit behind on that walk, so I've got some catching up to do there.  But it's super pleasant walking out there - we had a break in the rain that worked out perfectly.

Tonight's feature movie was "Angels in the Outfield."  We'll be watching a lot more baseball movies, now that our "Spring Training" series is about to start at KidPak.  I forgot how many people were in this movie,  and it was a lot of fun too.  Classic old-school Disney movie with warmth and fun.  I had my Angels hat on while watching.  I'll never forget Mom all dressed up for the kids at KidPak so many years ago, dressed up as an angel with that same Angels ball cap.  I wear it to this day, and I always think of that. She literally looked like an angel!

Of course we read tonight before bed, moving along with "Night Watch," a bit of a time travel story in the world of the Discworld.  Things are just getting set up here, as Vimes has fallen through the Unseen University Library, and through time.  We said our prayers after that, and now it's time for sleep!

Spring Training Coming Soon!

Spring Training is starting soon - okay, it's already here for the baseball teams, but it's coming soon to KidPak.  Returning after a huge break, and it's going to be fun to get that baseball theme going again.  You can see the design for our series up top.  We've got all kinds of graphics and skits and fun coming up.

The booklet is filled with characters and games and messages.  One of the more interesting things has been creating music for a baseball series, finding that balance of prompts that can get something that sounds like baseball.  Of course, there's the old organ that plays in a ball park.  But we've also been creating things that sound like "Centerfield" or anything from the soundtrack of "The Natural."  Pretty soon, we'll be watching some of these baseball movies to sort of get us into the spirit of the thing.

We had meetings at KidPak today, talking about our Daddy Daughter Dance coming up - and this new series too.  Maddie had classes this morning, but the rest of the day was somewhat chill.  It's a patriotic week, just celebrating all those gold medals and success.  The Olympics were just great - sure, there were some hard knocks and near misses at the podium.  But there was also unprecedented success, and just some wonderful stories.  The heart warming images of honor, good sportsmanship and joy - it's what we watch the games for.

Unfortunately, the media and social media are filled with dividers.  Especially this week, these folks just seem like bitter, cranky people that probably hate Christmas too, the type that would complain about an elementary school choir full of cute kids singing, just because they didn't like the song.  I don't ever remember much of the media actually complaining about Olympians before.  I learned a lot this week about our media, just when I thought my opinion of them couldn't sink further down.  The best strategy is to not read the stories, not click on the links, and certainly not engage in any online conversations.  I stopped that a long, long time ago - something like twenty five years ago right after 9-11.

Speaking of which, in other news, our nation is prepping for something big with Iran again.  I'm not sure what that entails, but anything in the Middle East is always worth paying attention to.  We certainly pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Okay, enough chatter.  Tonight we watched "Kung Fu Panda 2," which is a fantastic movie.  We revisit this one from time to time, and perhaps seeing the gold medal skater dressed as Kung Fu Panda the other night inspired our choice of movie tonight.  Regardless, it was great. 

Before bed, we were reading from "Night Watch," and moving along with this next story in the City Watch series.  We're off to a big start!

Pac Man Maze

Okay, so this is not AI created.  I wanted to make a maze that looked like a Pac-Man maze, and one that would actually be a solvable maze that had only one route through the labyrinth.  I had to do it myself, and I think it came out okay.  We'll be using this in the next booklet that we're working on, the one with a video game theme to it.  Leave it to me to be thinking of older video games.  Yes, this book will have to have some sort of Street Fighter reference in it, won't it?

Maddie had college this morning, and got out a little early - she was home today fairly quickly, although I had to get back to work.

Mom and I actually watched the State of the Union speech tonight, one big reason being that the US Ice Hockey team was there for a big moment.  It was pretty cool seeing those gold medal Olympians get honored in that place.  Great stuff.  

This afternoon we got something in the mail that Mom ordered:  this protein powder that can make a Shamrock Shake at home!  We tried some of that right away and it was really good, and unlike the other Shamrock Shake, this one is probably be better for us.

We read tonight from our book, and we said our prayers afterwards.  It was a good day today!

Singing Houseflies

Just to show you the abilities of AI, we asked it to create an image of a fly singing songs - completely unnoticed by the cast - alongside those performers of "The Greatest Showman."  We just thought it would be hilarious - we were singing "A Million Dreams," and then got to the bridge, and for some reason sang it in high pitched voices, imagining this little fly singing along at the top of its lungs.

Okay, anyway, today Maddie had college.  And we had a pretty big cold snap here, with temps in the twenties early on.  We were putting out Easter decor nonetheless, and returning furniture to its pre-Christmas state, and vacuuming up needles in all kinds of places.  It's amazing each year for how long you could find tree needles in the house.  

It was a quiet day today.  We had taekwondo tonight of course, and Maddie was there for a few classes while I was watching on.  Tonight we saw the movie "Miracle," inspired by the game yesterday, which took place on the 46th anniversary of the game in 1980.

We read tonight, said our prayers, and got to sleep.

USA! USA! USA!

We had another really great morning at KidPak, and in regards to the skit, we had a lot of fun with that with a song called "Jelly and Peanut Butter Together," or something like that.  I wrote this really simple song that went along with bottom line - we were talking about Jacob and Esau this morning, about their struggles and about their eventual reconciliation too.  Anyway, the skit was a song that had a similar thing going with it, goofy fun.  Here are a just a few of the pictures that Maddie took over the morning:

So the big question is "Where were you when the USA won the hockey match?"  The answer is at church, due to the time difference between here and Italy.  But right there at the first service and in the break, the game was going on and a few of our volunteers had it on their phones, anxiously peeking from time to time to see if the US Men's Hockey Team would have its first gold medal victory since 1980.  I can't believe it's been that long.  We would rewatch this game later on at home, but the gold medal winning shot came right there before the second service, and the entire KidPak office erupted into a massive patriotic wave of excitement, running out of there to spread the word:  USA wins!

I think this picture below is the most touching of all.  That jersey belongs to a player who tragically passed away last summer, and to honor him, the team hoisted that jersey up during the ceremonies and if you look at this picture, you'll also see his kids there for this incredible moment.  Not a dry eye in the house!  One of those kids, it was his birthday.  And speaking of coincidental timing, today is actually the 46th anniversary - to the day - of the last time the US Men's ice hockey team won in 1980 with the "Miracle Game."  And of course, it's the 250th anniversary of America itself - what a way to celebrate with both the men's and women's teams winning that gold medal! 

We got home and immediately watched the replay of this game, and what an epic contest.  Much will be said of our goalie, and rightly so, the salvation of the US team.  And that first goal was simply one of the greatest goals ever scored.  That third period was just a miracle that we survived.  I mean, USA was 100% on power play kills, and the best was saved for this game with a 3-5 power play kill.  Insane.  It's just such a great moment.

We didn't do much today except watch the Games.  This was the last day for the Olympics, and we basically vegged on this programming the last few weeks.  This afternoon we saw the figure skating gala, which was a lot of fun.  Maddie couldn't wait to see the gold medal winner striding out there, somehow skating in a Kung Fu Panda costume.

And yes, there was Jackie Chan to greet him when he came back.  This was pretty crazy.  The gala is a fun little thing that would be really amazing to attend some day.  So relaxed after such tension with competition, and all the talent and joy there.  It looked like a lot of fun.

That led us to the Closing Ceremonies, which we also watched tonight, after eating dinner together.  These games came to an end with a really nice Closing Ceremonies, honoring Italy's past and showing off a lot of really amazing technology.  Basically a merge of the past and new as a fantastic visual treat.  It was bittersweet of course.  It was all good.

So yeah, we did a lot of watching today.  It's cold out there, windy too.  The temperature is going to the twenties, and the wind is really strong, rattling trees and making all kinds of noise out there in the frigid darkness.  This is translating to something huge up north, a massive blizzard that's supposed to have a pretty strong impact to those folks.  Down here, we'll just be cold again, back to the twenties when we wake up.

Tonight we read from our Discworld book, "Night Watch," and after that it was time for a short prayer, and for a good night's rest.

Return to Hoppy Hollow

Maddie had Team Edge practice this morning, and that was good.  I was watching her training, but I also got a few things of work done too while I looked on.  I have a little office window there, plugging away at different assignments as I watch the team train.

Maddie went over to Nate's for the rest of the day, so I went home where Mom and I were putting a lot of things up from Christmas, believe it or not, and putting out some new decor for Easter and for St. Patrick's Day too.  One big thing for Easter:  Hoppy Hollow.  

 

 

Yes, that's right, it's the return of Hoppy Hollow Easter Village.  This Dollar Store Empire has been in the family for many years now, and even though it's ultimately not worth much more than it probably was back then (I think I paid $20 for the entire set), it's of great sentimental value to me now.  We got it for Ye-Ye as somewhat of a prank gift.  Imagine getting an entire village like that.  Anyway, Nana didn't like it that much and wanted to get rid of it.  So we wound up getting it back, and Mom and I are kind of attached to it!

As you might expect, we were watching some more Olympic events today, including the bobsled racing, both four-man and the two-woman sledding too.  We've pretty much seen all the events the last few weeks, entire sessions too.  I mean, we sat and watched bobsled for over an hour.  And yes, we were cheering when the Jamaican bobsled team showed up.  I was watching a little of all that while I was waling on the treadmill.  I'm still virtually walking around Dublin, Ireland, just in time for St. Patrick's Day.  

Maddie got home and we read, then said our prayers.  It was a good day, but I'm a little tired.  Time for some sleep!

Galentines

 

What a morning at Hebron again, this time wrapping up a completely epic week of ministry with a packed gymnasium full of kids all having a great service.  This little girl above wanted to pray for us all before we left, and it was a really sweet moment.

An odd thing on the way home:  I saw a UFO!  To be clear, that is defined as an unidentified flying object.  Meaning, that doesn't mean it's an alien spaceship.  Or... at least I don't think it is.  But somewhere crossing over I-85 on the way back home I saw something in the sky that looked like a drone of sorts.  It was longer, flat, and had three specific points on it, central and on the ends.  It looked like a glider, just making lazy turns in the sky, but the thing that caught my attention was that it was reflective like a mirror perhaps.  It would disappear in the sky, and then it would catch the sunlight and glimmer downward.  I actually pulled over to see if I could capture it on my cell phone camera, but sadly the footage is pretty embarrassing.  Now I know why most UFO footage is sub quality - because it's shot by people like me on their cell phones!

Anyway, I made the drive back and then picked up Maddie and Mom to head over to the chiropractor for a bit of an adjustment.  Always an enjoyable visit there, catching up and of course getting straightened up.  Afterwards we went over to Texas Roadhouse for a nice meal, eating steak at a restaurant for the first time this year.  Yummy!

We're still watching all these Olympic Games, and it's been just fantastic fun.  Check out this picture above of me from Hebron.  I've got the Captain America jacket, plus the Olympic hat and there's that big flag in the background.  'Merica! 

Tonight Maddie had taekwondo, but after that Maddie went over to Mrs. Hardin's place for a "Galentine's Day" event, just the girls celebrating together.  They hung out and made cookies, just a quick get-together that looked like a lot of fun.  Here's a few pictures Maddie took from tonight:

I love Maddie's cookies.

We got home, and we're reading "Night Watch" now, the next Discworld book.  It was late though, so we didn't read too much.  Still, it's a good start.  We said our prayers after that, and yep, it was time to get some sleep!

Warming Up

Back at Hebron Christian Academy this morning for another fun service with the kids - it takes me a little over an hour to get there, so that's been a lot of driving this week.  But the kids are having a great time with all the fun and games, and then after that the messages and music are just powerful.  It's almost like a Summer Xtreme, the anticipation, the explosion of fun, the moving services.  We're making quite the impact, I think.

Back at home, back at the church.  The crew is keeping up with the greenery, pruning trees and laying out mulch and pine straw.  It feels like spring out there, over seventy degrees.  Just to make us pay for the warmth, next week I hear it'll dive back down to the twenties.  But in the mean time, I'm enjoying this weather immensely.  Tonight I was with another large group of people enjoying the weather - we're on this outdoor track at the college, and even as it was getting dark, the temperature was just magical.  It's a neat little place, with a lot of people out there using the track for exercise. Of course, I entered my milage on the virtual path I'm taking through Dublin, virtually.  

While that was going on, Maddie was in taekwondo, back again and helping out with the kids, and then on to her own training with the leadership class.  She had a good day, going to get some coffee this morning with Emma and then off to chapel.

Today was a huge day for USA in the Olympics, just an amazing day.  Firstly, there was the long awaited women's ice hockey final.  We've been watching a good number of these games along the way.  I think one of the things that's been great this time around is that we have the option to watch the entire events, and that really gives a lot of context to things.  We've been watching the whole games, and we know the character, playing style and talent of each of these athletes on the team really well by this point, and we also know that Canada is a tough nation to beat on the ice, dominating this event since the beginning, although we've managed to squeeze in a few victories here or there.  We came in with an incredible record, only allowing one goal and just destroying all the competition, including Canada, who we beat 5-0.  But here at the Gold Medal Final, things got intense.  Canada scored early in the second period, and it stayed at 1-0 for a long, long, brutal time.  The second period ended and we had twenty minutes to score, and despite the onslaught of our offense, nothing was getting past their goalie.  It was getting desperate at the end, and you could sense the inevitable coming:  Canada was going to win again.  Even worse, they were going to win after we had done so well this time.  And we would have to wait another four years.  Time was not our friend, the clock winding down.  Only two minutes to go, and it would be all over... and then it happened.  What a shot!  Edwards slapped one from further back, right into the mix of defenders towards that goal, and Knight redirected that puck right past the goalie... and into the net.  Just like that, the score was tied.  The Canadian team and fans were stunned.  And as the clock wound down to the end the third period, it was now the moment for overtime, and sudden death:  the next goal ends the game.  This was an edge-of-your-seat contest, three-on-three with the goalies sitting there taking shot after shot.  And right when the Canadians were switching out players, right in that mix, Keller raced forward towards the goal, slid around a defender and shot this amazing score to seal the comeback.  USA won the gold!

We haven't seen something that thrilling since Shaun White's thrilling gold medal run at the half-pipe.  Really amazing stuff.  And on top of all that, we did really well at the figure skating rink too - all at the same time.  We're watching that entire competition tomorrow, because it's late.

Tonight we finished "The Fifth Elephant," and everything's all wrapped up there with another solid story from the Discworld.  We're moving right along to the next book in the Watch series, one called "Night Watch," which I read some time ago, pretty much when it first was published.  Wow, I remember stopping by a bookstore on the Georgia-Florida line and always looking for these Discworld novels to pick up.  We'd look around this book store for a while, just checking things out on our way home.  I forgot how much we used to do that, just staying there for almost an hour looking at books.  

Anyway, we said our prayers after all was done tonight.  One more day at Hebron tomorrow, so it's time to get some rest.

Exploremores

Our Girl Scout Cookies arrived, and of course we got the usual order of Thin Mints and Samoas, but this time we also got this new cookie called Exploremores, which were advertised as a sort of Rocky Road flavor.  In the interest of science, Mom and I carefully opened this new box of cookies... and our review is somewhat mixed.  Honestly, I can't really see it as a Rocky Road flavor so much as just a chocolate cookie.  And it's not a terribly exciting cookie at that.  We both sort of feel the same way here on this one.  It's okay, and sure, we tore through that box fairly quickly - over the course of two days, I think.  And yes, the other two boxes of cookies we got are pretty awesome.  Open up one of the bags of Thin Mints, and it'll be eaten very quickly.  

We started out the day at Hebron this morning again, down in Dacula where we had a great service with the kids.  The weather is warmer outside, and just wonderful - although winter is coming back to say hello at the start of next weekend.  Maddie was at college this morning, and she wasn't looking forward to this day so much - still, she did a fantastic job with her Marcom presentation.  She was showing her different advertisements, and the others were really impressed by the fact that she was using her own awesome photos.  

Tonight we were watching more Olympics for a little bit - particularly some skiing.  Won't be long before these Games are all wrapped up, but Mom and I have been fairly addicted to them.  We'll probably be hooked on the Paralympics too, whenever those start.  

Given that Mardi Gras was just yesterday, we popped in one of our new annual favorites, "The Princess and the Frog."  Gotta love that one.  We have the soundtrack on vinyl, so I was playing that earlier, and Mom wanted to watch the movie now.  So we did!

We read some before bedtime, and then said our prayers.  Good day today!

Lunar New Year

Happy New Year!  It's the Year of the Horse, the Lunar New Year celebration kicking off today, and we did our usual outing for some Chinese food tonight, spending some time talking with the employees there and wishing them a happy new year.  

Maddie and Nate had a table to themselves for a nice little date night, and I got some take-out and brought it home for Mom, so the two of us could eat together.  I plugged in a CD of some Chinese music I bought in Nanning, and Mom had some decorations out too!

 

Later on that night, we watched "Kung Fu Panda," the last movie we saw before heading out to China to get Maddie.  That was nice.  We saw some Olympics too, but tonight was all about celebrating Chinese New Year.  

This morning, we were at Hebron Christian Academy again - KidPak is doing a week of services there for Spiritual Emphasis Week.  It was lots of fun for the kids there!  Afterwards, we continued the tradition of going to Waffle House afterwards together as a team!

And here's my favorite part of that tradition:  Elvis' "American Trilogy." For more than thirty years, every time I stop at a Waffle House, I use the jukebox to play that song at least once.  Today... three times!  Here you can see Pastor Lance and I singing along with the King of Rock and Roll!

Here's my first post card I got for walking today, the virtual path to Dublin.  While Maddie and Nate were eating at Wang's, I was at the Gainesville College track getting in some walking.  

It was a good day today - also Mardi Gras, believe it or not.  We'll honor that tomorrow with a viewing of "The Princess and the Frog."  But today was all about the Lunar New Year, and speaking of lunar activity, we read some more from "The Fifth Elephant," which of course features some villainous werewolves... but don't worry.  Sam Vimes knows how to deal with those.  We read tonight, and then it was time for prayers... and a good night's rest!