We Lost Liam

Not so much lost him as we just didn't know where he was for about a half hour after school yesterday. As it turns out he walked one of his friends home after school yesterday. He went with this other boy about a half mile in the opposite direction of our house. The reason... this boy wanted to ask Liam a question. What, you may ask, was this all too important question? Simply put it's this... "How do you get a girlfriend?" Keep in mind these are 3rd graders. In the back of my mind I'm wondering if my boy is a chick magnet. I mean why else would this kid ask Liam this question?

Liam's answer was simple and to the point. "You give her a ring and that's it!"

So there you have it. He did, however, go on to tell us that this same boy went over and talked to some girls and one of the girls hit him after he said whatever it was that he said. I told Liam that perhaps he should no longer give out advice about girls.

Every Rose Has It's Thorn

It's been a while since I last wrote anything here so I'll try to catch up as best as I can remember. When last I wrote the family and I were on our way to the Atlanta, GA area for some vacation. All went well, we had a good time, saw everyone that we wanted to see, did some shopping, and had a couple of good surprises along the way. The first surprise came from the city of Monroe, GA. A small town about half way between Conyers and Athens. There's not much in Monroe... typical small town Americana type stuff. They do have a 4th of July festival every year at a closed down high school football field. They have booths of different stuff, live music, some thing for the kids to do, and of course fireworks. But not just any fireworks... This year was our second time going to this festival. 2 years ago during the fireworks display this one particular, very large and very loud, firework was shot off and exploded. The only problem was where it exploded. If it got 30 feet off of the ground it was lucky. The explosion was wayyyyy toooooo close to the ground. The result was a very large brush fire in the field where said fireworks were being shot off from.

Fast forward to 2 years later... same thing! They did it again! The fire wasn't as big as 2 years ago but still... another brush fire in the same field. Maybe Monroe needs to screen the fireworks guy a little bit better for next year. As odd and as amusingly "hick" as that was, that was not the surprise I was referring to earlier in this post. Earlier in the week we had gone with Kelly, Wesly, and Wyatt to an organization called F.I.S.H. The acrostic stands for Families In Serving Humanity. The church that Brian and Kelly go to goes to F.I.S.H. every Thursday during the summer months when school is out and makes 2000 lunches. F.I.S.H. does this everyday, making 2k lunches, Brian and Kelly's church just happens to go on Thursdays. That works out to 10,000 lunches a week. The lunches are for children who are out of school, who's parents are at work. These kids normally eat a free or a reduced lunch during the school year. During the summer the F.I.S.H. lunch is the only food some of these kids get.

We made 2000 lunches in just under 2 hours. It was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a banana or an apple, a bag of chips, a bag of cookies, and a boxed drink. We then loaded up vans, trucks, cars, etc. and headed out on the routes. In some of the neighborhoods we went into it was like going into a third world country. Some of these kids were living in dwellings not fit for a dog. And there were, in a few cases, multiple families living there. It was a very sad and eye opening experience. It was good for my kids to see that not everyone has the things that they have. Not everyone has an air conditioned house to live in. Not everyone can just go to the pantry or the refrigerator any time they want for something to eat. From my point of view it was very cool for me to see and be apart of my family being the church. Not going to church... actually being what the Bible tells us is the job of the church. In this case it's feed the hungry.

We also got to, as a family, be the church to someone else. An old friend of Sylvia's from her single days. It had been about 8 years since we had last seen her and back in January or February Sylvia decided to give her a call. Sylvia did not expect what she got. Her friend told her that 2007 had been the worst year of her life. Her husband of 8 years (they got married not long after we had seen the last time) had been killed in an accident. She would not say what had happened. All she would say to Sylvia is that it was an accident and that she couldn't talk about it. Then right after that happened her mother passed away (from cancer I believe). A few months after all of that she gave birth to her second daughter. She was now a single mother of 2 girls and very little in the way of a support system.

God is good. And since all of this happened to her he has been showering her in his grace. He has been sending the right people to her as she has needed them. We got to be in on it. Sylvia called her up and we drove to Marietta to see her and her girls. My kids played with her kids, Sylvia took her shopping -- she said it was relaxing to just walk up and down the aisles of Target and not really think about too much. While they were out, the kids and I got her girls down to bed and cleaned up the house for her. We got to be the church this time by taking care of the widows and the orphans. We were as blessed as she was!

We got home from vacation and just chilled for a few weeks before school started. The week before school started I got vertigo real bad. Just so you know... vertigo SUCKS! Big time. It took me about 7 days to get over it. I really wouldn't recommend it. Although it is the kind of thing you could wish on your worst enemy. Vertigo won't kill them... just make them wish they could die so it would stop. For those who don't know what vertigo is... it's, in a nut shell, an interruption of the fluid surrounding the inner ear. The interruption causes severe dizziness. It was a rough 7 days. All is well now and the kids and Sylvia are back in school.

Tyler is in the 7th grade at Burnett Middle School, Rachel is in the 6th grade at Progress Village Middle Magnet School (more on this in a moment), and Liam is in the 3rd grade at Lopez Elementary School. I've got 3 kids in 3 different schools. For Tyler and Liam it's not a big deal. Liam's school is only a half mile away. Tyler's, only a mile. Rachel.... 13 miles. We are a 1 car family. One Toyota mini-van for the 7 of us to get around in. Granted my mom doesn't go everywhere with us...

I leave the house at 6:45 to drive the 13 miles, one way, to get Rachel to school in time to eat breakfast. Then drive another 13 miles back with Liam to get him to school in time to eat breakfast. Hillsborough County provides free breakfast to all of it's students which is a big help, especially this year. It takes me a good solid hour to get the 2 of them to school. Tyler is the easy one. I usually have about a 30 minute window of down time before we have to leave to get him the whole mile to school. It's going to be a long year. Not to mention gas prices.

The good thing about us sending Rachel to Progress Village is that it is a performing arts school. For those of you who might remember Fame, it's kind of like that only for middle school. Rachel gets to take a dance class every day. And we no longer have to pay a monthly fee for her old dance school. We are doing this for Rachel because this type of school is, hopefully, a good fit for her. She really struggles with school. Plus by sending her here she is being groomed for the Brandon High show choir. The choir director there has already told us she wants to audition her as an eighth grader when the time comes.

Now you can see why I haven't blogged in a while.