New Orleans

What can I say? The spring was really busy, and so far, the summer has been, too. I have no other excuse for my neglect. If you are still with me, thanks, and if not, well, I'm sorry.

Andy spent two weeks in Orlando in June to finish out his MDiv. That's right, I said FINISH OUT. He's sitting at the other table working on his last assignment as I write this, and then he'll be done. This spring/summer felt like quite a pile of classes! He came home late one Friday evening, and early the next morning, our whole family, plus my dad, were in our church parking lot and getting ready to drive to New Orleans with 30+ high school students. My first work trip in years.

My work this year was different, though--I was going along as the photographer, not just for our group, but for the whole camp. I feel like I could say a lot about the trip in general but for now I'll just (hopefully) share a slideshow that I put together for the last night of the trip.

Actually, if you have ten minutes instead of five, watch this video first:



Ellison (from Son Servants) showed us this one night so we could get a reminder of what the city looked like in the days following the storm. The music is Bruce Springsteen's "My City of Ruins" and I personally got chills watching it. Katey and Abbie, from the Son Servants summer staff, suggested the Chris Tomlin song "God of this City" for our video, and I really love the juxtaposition.

completely random

Many apologies for neglecting this poor blog for so long. There's really just no excuse for it! The spring around here has just been kind of nonstop busy and I think all I will do here is just share a really random, stream of consciousness kind of list of what's been happening around here:

• Andy is almost done with his master's degree. I feel like he's the Little Engine That Could. "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can." He had a class in January, is currently flying to Houston for four Friday/Saturday classes, and will be in Orlando at RTS for his last class. Which is apparently two classes. It's added just a bit of chaos to the spring.
• I've been taking a lot of pictures. It's been fun.
• I've also been a featured photographer for the company which produced my blog theme. Really really fun, although it has resulted in some extra email.
  
• My dad is in Ireland right now. With my uncle.
• Andy planned and executed a major drama/presentation/something with his students in April. It was kind of an exploration of who Jesus is, called The Jesus Journey. Michael had a migraine, so the kids and I left early, but it was well received.
• I dropped my camera last week as I was climbing out of the car after an evening at the beach. The camera was fine, the expensive lens which was attached to it was not. Shipped it off to Canon the next day for repairs. About half of the cost will be covered by my insurance, which is awesome. State Farm has been fabulous and fast.
• I replaced my desktop a month ago and have given my "old" computer to the kids to learn on. The graphics card on it went bad just two days ago. If it had been my primary computer right now I would be freaking out. Thankfully it is even still under warranty and a new card is on its way.
• The line to our icemaker/water dispenser is apparently leaking somewhere under the fridge. And has been for a while. Oh snap.
• The kids and I are all just about ready for school to be done this year.
• We adopted a new puppy from the local humane society just over a month ago. His name is Judah. Oddly enough, it took us about two weeks to realize how closely he resembles Emma. For now. Supposedly he will be rather a large dog. Larger than Emma. So far, he is mostly very sweet, and he loves to be wherever we are, especially if we are in the kitchen (not just for cooking; he also loves to be underfoot when I'm unloading the dishwasher, making an already challenging task slightly dangerous). The only issues we've been having are related to the differences between puppy play (wrestling, jumping, nipping) and children play (squealing, running, squealing). Mostly, though, he is a darling, more or less.
• The kids, my dad, and I are all going with Andy on the high school work trip to New Orleans at the end of June. We are really looking forward to it. (I am going as a photographer/pseudo adult leader; my dad is going because between the two of us, one can be working and one can be with the kids, and therefore we equal one "real" adult.)
• I bought a really cute sundress at Target last week (told you this would be random).
• The kids have been watching Star Wars and Star Wars related shows for way too long. We are about ready to burn it all. And if it's not Star Wars, it's Bionicles. I at least have a frame of reference for Star Wars, but Bionicles? Seriously? Some of us are quite tired of Star Wars and long for the good old days when they were just trying to decide between VeggieTales and "Mommy's video".
• Andy and I are finally watching the last season of Battlestar Galactica. I was avoiding picking it back up for a while, and unfortunately know some of what happened thanks to a spoiler article about something else (but NO I do NOT know yet who the final Cylon is, so please do NOT tell me).

Time to take Judah for a walk and let the kids begin the bedtime/unwinding process. Again, many apologies for the prolonged absence.

memorials

The kids and I flew up to Ohio last week to visit with my dad. Why January? Good question. I can only answer that apparently we are slightly insane. Thankfully, a friend down here provided a wonderful coat for Michael and scarves and hats galore. Whew! When we got there, Dayton was covered in old snow, which melted after a day or so, but not before the kids got to play in it. Sunday morning, it was snowing like crazy, so they were able to play outside in the snow as it was falling. Since this trip was about their second experience ever with snow, I was pretty pleased with that.

We went to church with my dad on Saturday night. Although this is the church in which I grew up, this building is still quite unfamiliar to me because it was built after I graduated from high school. My brother had a small farm plot on the land one summer (pending building) as part of a fundraiser for a youth trip. I have to confess, my mind wandered a bit during the service as I looked around and thought about the roots of this church, and the history to get there.

What I was mainly thinking about was that my parents were on the leadership team for the Sow What? campaign--the fund drive for the building which now holds this church. I remember my mother working (chemo and all) to make this property and building a reality. This is a very contemporary church, with no pews, no stained glass, and no gold plaques. My mother's name isn't inscribed anywhere in the building, or in the youth building next to it (in lieu of flowers, my father requested that donations in her name be made to that), but for all that, in a very real way, and maybe only to me, that building is a memorial to my mother. She invested herself in it because she believed in our church and its mission.

Don't worry, I have no delusions that she single-handedly built the church or anything like that--it's a big church and a lot of people poured themselves into it. But just knowing my mother, and how practical she was, and what was important to her, I was thankful to look around at all the unfamiliar faces that night and know that their presence in that building was a small part of her legacy. I think she would like that better than a fancy granite monument, which she doesn't have anyway. I am very thankful for my mother's drive, dedication, and passion, and for the ways in which she chose to invest herself.

a piece of my mind

I just have to share with you this passage from a textbook for my class next week:

"We have seen that postcoloninal criticism is often impaled on the horns of the following dilemma: whether to align itself with humanist notions of an autonomous, sovereign subject and so run the risk of subsuming heterogeneous identities and histories in to an abstract essentialism, or of embracing a post-structuralist antihumanism and so denying any universal moral platform from which to contest the material and epistemic violence of the colonial encounter. Gayatri Spivak has suggested a ‘strategic essentialism’ as a way of resolving this dilemma: that while theory recognizes only the dispersal of ‘subject-effects,’ emancipatory practice requires us to adopt and essentialist stance toward the colonized self. "

It is just me, or the lateness of the hour, or my punchiness due to caffeine and late-night study – but is this not just hilarious? Have a look at those words, and say them with a straight face and serious tone … do I hear you giggle?

The strange fact is that if you read enough of this, you actually begin to understand it. The book is called Subverting Global Myths and it is actually quite remarkable. But this paragraph left me grinning and just begged to be shared.

Merry Christmas 2008

I just realized that since I mailed a big batch of Christmas cards yesterday, I'd better get my act together and put some kind of Christmas letter up on here right now. See, we've been putting just the blog address on our Christmas cards for a few years now, kind of figuring that if you want to know how our year was, well, you might be willing to take that extra step to find out. And then, if we're really lucky, you'll come back and visit periodically throughout the year and hear my ramblings, see some pictures, and kind of see what's going on with us. So, here's a lightning review of our year.

We are still in Fort Myers and loving it. Going on eight years now, minus the one in Pasadena. We have to say that we like it more than we thought we would.

Andy is three--count 'em--three classes away from finishing his MDiv. I'm excited about that! He has a class coming up in just under a month and then has to figure out how to snag the last two. It may make for another whirlwind summer schedule, but he has promised me that he will finish on time (it will be 10 years from start to finish!)

The kids are being... kids. Caroline has "officially" joined our homeschool this year and is doing really well. She has finally started reading and is doing really well. It's still quite a bit of work for her, but she's taking the time to make sure she understands everything she's reading (she is at the stage where it's sometimes easier to just figure out the words and miss the forest for the trees altogether). She has an incredible memory and diction, and continues to just steamroll her way through math. Michael does well in everything and tries to spend as little time as possible on his school. Elanor is our little pistol--full of personality and sass, and boy, does she know it. She does some school with us, but is mainly along for the ride. Michael played on a recreational soccer team this fall and loved it, although please don't ask about his team's record. The girls are doing ballet for their second year now (Caroline has moved up to a higher level class but "helps" with the little girls' class) and really have enjoyed that as well.

I have been working on homeschooling and building my little photography business, which has been really fun. [Hi! Andy breaking in here - trust me, Robin is absolutely awesome at this. I am so proud of her! normal programming resumes now ...] I love being able to observe families and document a little bit of their lives. It's also spilled over a little bit into doing some web design--my own site, and then the girls' ballet studio's site, and our church's site. I have really enjoyed that side of it, which was not something I ever expected to do!

I guess one of the big events of 2008, which I don't want to go into for this post, was that our congregation voted to leave the PC(USA) denomination this spring. Although our vote passed, the local presbytery voted to keep the property as a PC(USA) church (as was their right), so many of those who voted to leave the denomination did so and formed a new church in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) on Easter Sunday. This included our family, so our church home is now New Hope. The winter/spring were both kind of a wild ride at our house, as we (well, I) worried a little bit about whether Andy would have a job when all was said and done, but God has provided for both churches. If you would, join us in praying for New Hope, that it would become one of those shining places where people are growing in a love for God and for others, and are known for their love.

Our other big event of 2008, which is closer right now, is that we had to make the hard decision to have Emma, our dog of ten years, put to sleep just last week (the kids are doing all right with it, but it was much harder for Andy and me. We adopted her before Michael was even thought of and she was a great dog for a family of kids (see here). I was just remembering how Michael would crawl over to her and sit and play with her... she'd start licking his face and he'd start giggling like crazy, so his mouth would open and yes, she would lick inside his mouth. I suppose it's gross, but it was always so funny to watch. Emma apparently had cancer all through her abdomen and it was really starting to hurt her, so we took her in, which was really hard. We do plan to get another dog, but not until March or so (we have family trips in January and March and that doesn't fit with a puppy somehow).

I'm sure there is much more to tell (as is true for everyone's stories), but we'll leave it here for now. May God grant you grace and peace this coming year.

in memorarium

I'm going to be merciless today and make you look at many pictures, just because this is my blog and I feel like it. Today, Andy and I took our faithful dog Emma to the vet to be put to sleep. It was really hard. We got her from the Humane Society as an older puppy ten years ago this month (I blame her lack of training on her age, certainly not any deficit on our part--ha!). She was with us through two moves (one temporary, in between homes), three babies, and was only not with us when we went to Pasadena (thank you again and again and again to the Elliotts for taking her in while we were gone). Last week, we got confirmation from the vet that Emma was dying of cancer and we brought her home on hospice. Yesterday we decided that we needed to let her go, and this morning we did. We wept. Emma was very calm; she trusted us to the end. For all her issues, she has always been just about the nicest dog on the planet. And here are pictures.

OK, seriously, I do not know why Blogger puts my pictures up backwards from how I actually uploaded them. So I apologize for them being completely mixed up.

Emma felt she had a moral obligation to attack this strange orange monster which was eating our children. She always went for the wheels:
Oh yeah, same issue with their toy lawnmowers:
See, this is back in Lumberton. She loved to sit at the front door and watch the street through the glass. She also loved to climb up on the couch and sleep right here in the sunbeam:
Remember those Johnny Jump-Up bouncy seat/swings? We'd put Michael in his and Emma would intentionally come and lie down underneath him. And he would jump on her. And let me tell you, this boy was no pixie:
She looks so long-suffering, but she put herself there. Seriously.
I took this last week when we came home from the ultrasound. She wasn't too interested.
Did I mention long-suffering? She just let him do this. I think the Aunt Jenny blanket in the back had just arrived.
Never liked her bath.
This is Elanor aiding and abetting in the bath. It should have been before the wringing out picture above, Blogger, just like I uploaded it.
Emma and Michael have always had kind of a special bond. She liked to nap with him.

That's all I've got for today. Well, just should shout out an additional big thank you to my father for being here and taking the kids to the library while Andy and I went to the vet.

quotes for the day

I rediscovered this one:

“When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

Martin Luther King (cited on Eugene Cho’s blog - http://eugenecho.wordpress.com/)

and here:

Jesus exploded into the life of ancient Israel - the life of the world world, in fact - not as a teacher of timeless truths, nor as a great moral example, but as the one through whose life, death, and resurrection God's rescue operation was put into effect, and the cosmos turned its great corner at last. All worldviews are challenged to the core by this claim ... It is all because of Jesus that we speak of God the way we do. And it is all because of Jesus that we find ourselves called to live the way we do."

N.T. Wright, Simply Christian (one of my favorite books)