Please Pray

It's been a strange evening... after going for a run to get out my frustrations over my Clemson Tigers losing the Music City bowl game to Kentucky I came home to hopefully watch the Gamecocks lose their bowl game. No such luck. So, while keeping the tv on ESPN I dove back into the 5th Harry Potter book that I am reading for the third or fourth time.

Somewhere in the midst of that I decide to check CNN.com to see what's going on in the world. Immediately I was reminded that Saddam Hussein was hanged tonight. That was around 10pm, which was about the time it actually happened (6am in Iraq). Needless to say, my mood and mindset changed as soon as I saw the news. Not too long after, a friend texted to remind me to pray for our troops, including her brother and sister-in-law as there will be celebrating AND riots in Iraq today.

The thing that gets me is that it seems that people like Saddam and Castro should only be people I read about in history books... not people that are on today's news. Go figure that with all of our "progress" and technology and everything we have "learned from history" that we still have people like them out there today.

PLEASE say a prayer for all the troops (regardless of what country they are serving), for the Iraqi civilians and all news crews. Most importantly pray that God will make Himself known during all of this and that He will be glorified... regardless of whether we understand what He is doing or not.

205 Olympics

Well, it was more of a track meet than the Olympics, but that is beside the point. You are probably wondering how we began the track meet this evening at 205, but I am also wondering the same thing. All I know is that one minute I was sitting on the couch watching ESPN and the next minute Robert and Lindsay are home from the Clemson basketball game and I'm on the floor trying to determine who can jump the highest. We are pretty sure Lindsay won that event.
Next came the long jump. Yes, we had the long jump in our hallway! Since only 1/3 of us even participated in track back in the day, Lindsay was the one who jumped the furthest. Although, I came pretty close! The funniest part was when Robert took his turn in the standing long jump... when he landed, he fell into the wall and we all laughed because it would have been really funny had his elbow gone through the wall! But, it didn't. So, there will be no trips to Home Depot this weekend.
There was talk of finding soft things to jump onto from the upstairs in the foyer... but we determined that we didn't have anything adequate enough. So we thought about jumping from the railing on the deck onto the grass to practice since there is a little less distance and the ground is softer than the laminated floor in the foyer.

The closing ceremonies will probably take place tomorrow evening. Please let me know if you would like to attend and I will email a (free) ticket to you!

There was no alcohol involved in this evening's activites...
believe it or not.

Yay!!

Not only did I get to see my nephew last night, but I got some one-on-one time with him while his mom went to get pizza for dinner. Every time I see him I am amazed at what a great kid he is. He's definitely my favorite 7 year old on the planet! We played his little pool game he got, watched a little tv and played some video games (ok, so I watched him play video games). With this pool game that he got, he could play pool, soccer, basketball or target shooting. We set up the target shooting and he had to fire the small ball off and towards the targets, which was some card stock folded and sitting there with 9 holes in it. He got various points for getting the ball through the different holes. The thing that blew my mind away was that he added all of his points up in his head! He's 7!! Granted it was like 100+20+50+30+... but still. His mom told me that he's at the top of his class, that his report card is always good and that she and his teacher were really impressed with his standardized test scores. Wow!

He told me at one point that his dad (step-dad actually) told him he was stupid. Um... negative. I told him he was the furthest thing from stupid and that I personally considered him a genious. Not that I'm biased at all... :)

As I was leaving, his mom told me to give me a hug and it was such a great hug that I made him give me another one :) I told him I loved him, he said he loved me too and I left. The first place I stopped was at Walgreens to get the Star Wars Gen. Grevious that he said he wanted for Christmas. I told him that if I didn't see him before Christmas then I would definitely get his gift to him before 2007.

There are many times I leave there extrememly frustrated or times that I don't get to see him for months at a time. But, last night was all I needed for Christmas from him. He told me about The Hangar at church (they go to First Baptist from time to time) and was telling me a little about God when we were looking at the globe I gave him last year. I know that he isn't being completely shut off from the Gospel but I don't know how much of it he's hearing. But, I have hope. God is far from done with him and his family!

Weekend at the Cabin

You know the weekend was fun when...

...there is an incriminating picture of John in the hot tub

...Jill almost caught a diaper on fire in the microwave

...Wes was really excited about figuring out just what was in those diapers during the shower

...we were sad when the Hillbilly putt-putt golf was closed

...we almost got a picture of 13.5 of us at Old Timey Pho-tos

...all of the noise in the house stopped when the steaks were ready

...all the noise started back once Nurts was in full swing!

...we got Josh on video doing a running man impression during a round of Cranium

...Allen survived not only meeting all of us at once but survived the entire weekend!

...we're already planning to go back next year for a 3 day weekend!

I love my girls!!

(but we really missed Leslie (&Philip) and Brooke!)