PreVacation

We are going on vacation next week. It took us forever to make a decision where we were going to go and what we were going to do. This is something that takes some careful analysis when you are going on vacation with kids aged 6 and 2. You know, the trip to Vegas will have to wait. DC? They are too young to appreciate….Disneyworld?…not yet! So we decided to keep it simple and just head up north of Chicago so we could go to the Lake Michigan Beach and hit Six Flags Great America. We also are planning to make a stop downtown to see the Shed Aquarium and maybe Navy Pier. We are also taking advantage of the opportunity being “up north” to see our friends the Hochstetlers up in Nappanee. We have not gotten our families together for 3 years this summer! We will visit with them and then head to Chicago.

So we are ready. Not so much physically ready, but mentally ready. I still feel like we have a lot to do to ready ourselves for the trip. We are heading to Wal-Mart tonight with our list.

Before we go…some thoughts.

Jackson got stung by at least one wasp a couple of night ago and his left hand swoll up like an inflated oven mitt. At first we were worried that he might be having an allergic reaction, but the swelling stayed localized.

You know, I absolutely hate dealing with doctors and insurance. It is easily one of my least favorite things to do or even think about. I did this reasearch and discovered this fact: Three of five (62%) of all adults with medical bills or debt problems said they or their family member were insured at the time the debt was incurred. Our lousy insurance, Humana, refuses to pay any money whatsoever for “diagnostic tests”. Doesn’t matter if your doctor (within the network, mind you) declares the tests medically necessary. Humana just says, “we ain’t paying nothing”….because it is “diagnostic”. I am sorry but that is totally asinine and there is no way that insurance companies should be permitted to get away with crap like that. THE DOCTOR DECLARES THAT IT IS MEDICALLY NECESSARY AND EVERYONE INVOLVED IS “IN THE NETWORK”. Doesn’t matter….insurance companies can do what they want and they do. We also will have to switch Kim’s allergy doctor because the doctor refuses to fill out a simple form so that they will join the Humana network. All they have to do is complete some simple paperwork but they are too lazy and now Kim has to find a new allergy doctor even though they have treated her for 10 years. I emphasized how unfortunate that this is to the doctor’s office but they couldn’t care less.

I like how our president can just overrule the legal system and allow convicted criminals who are buddies of his and Dick (Mr. Excitement) Chaney to just skip their prison time and go home without serving a single day in the joint. Yeah, that’s great.

Colts training camp starts in 17 days.

My next digital camera will probably be this one.

I heard on the radio today that you should not buy gas when it is real hot outside because the gas expands when it is hot, so you actually do not get as much for your money as you do when it is more mild.

One more thing...Carse has not demonstrated his ability to take a leak in the potty chair since his one successful event 5 days ago.

TINKLE

Guess who pottied in the potty chair for the first time ever last night after bath? I guess that is a dumb thing to say given the picture above...It might be awhile before he does it again, as so far today he has shown no interest in it whatsoever and proclaims "NO!" every time we ask him if he wants to sit on it. But we just want to celebrate the small victories since it seems we see very few victories at all!

4 Sport Weekend 2007

The week in review

I've had several items that I have wanted to mention in TWN this week and rather than having multiple small posts, I think I'll just out them all together.

• Tuesday was an ordinary day, but turned out to be a meaningful day in terms of perspective. I had been at work for about 10 minutes before I discovered that Terry Hoeppner had passed away at the hospital that morning less than a mile from my office. Just the week prior IU had announced that there would be an interm head coach for the 2007 season, due to Coach Hep's continued cancer issues. But nobody expected this. Nobody knew that he was in that bad of shape. But how it hit me was just another example of how we need to live in the moment, because tomorrow is never guaranteed. Live with vigor, enthusiasm, passion, and intense hope like Coach Hep did. I later discovered that Coach Hep and his family have a strong faith (no surprise there) and so I was relieved to know that this is a man who is no longer in pain, but is now with Jesus in His glorious kingdom, and I'm sure that Jesus has told coach: "Job well done". I had learned that a former player had taken communion with him at the hospital just a couple of days before his passing - and a feeling of peace came over me. My prayers are with the family and I know Coach's incredible spirit will live on.

• That night I came home and watched Joel Osteen deliver a message of...what else...living in the moment. Joel discussed the fact that only God knows how long we will be here on earth. Most people know that they could be gone and not live to see next weekend, yet they live their lives like it is a certainty that they will live to be 70 or 80 years old. I do not believe that it was a coincidence that I heard this after thinking so much about Coach Hoeppner that morning.

• It makes me think of people I know who I pray will someday begin to get this. There is someone I work with - no need to mention names - but this person is grumpy every single day. Never says hello to people. At least this person never says hello to me - ever. Always responds to my question of ""Good morning! How are you?" with a variation of the following: "not good", "um....I don't know", "lousy", or my favorite - dead silence. Smiles about once every three or four weeks. Never inquires about others....you get the picture. And this is someone who is supposed to be a positive role model for the teens in the youth shelter....kinda scary. Anyhow, I pray that people like this will realize that they are choosing to live their lives this way. They do not have to. I'm not saying I understand what their life is like, because I don't. Maybe they could give several good reasons for their negative state. But it is all relative. I am aware of people with terminal illness and other catastrophic things going on in their lives and they are actually happy people. It's amazing. Those people simply have a different outlook on life and choose to live happy and in the moment. I really, really want to do this...and I have some work to do, for those of you who know me well.

• Last week I have made every effort to use up the 11 hours of comp time that remained for me. Basically, I needed to use it or lose it since next week (actually starting today) I cannot use it anymore due to my position change at work. For those wondering, my position is the same, but I have moved to 40 hours/week and I am unable to earn comp time. So I took Thursday off and the family went to Leiber SRA for an afternoon of picnicking and swimming. Had a real nice time. It was the first time we had been there, and the pool was alot nicer that we expected. There is a big ol' water slide, diving board, nice sloping shallow area for the younger ones like Carse. Kim didn't utilize the sunscreen and ended up with some red shoulders and back. But we had a great time - here is a picture of the boys.
• I shaved off the goatee that I had on my face since December.

• Last thing I want to mention is a great message at church today. Fit right in with what I have been thinking all week about Coach Hep and living life to the fullest. Pastor Brice gave a message today that was the first in an eight part series titles "The First Step to Freedom". It is actually a message written by Rick Warren, the Purpose Driven Life guy. Anyhow, a significant part of the message was about recognizing that all people have sinful nature. We all screw up. And there are people who look at other people who mess up and then hold grudges about these people. And judge these people. Take everything personal as if whatever happened was intended to hurt them. It hit home for me because the real issue was about control. And this is a big problem I have is trying to control everything. When I accepted Christ into my life last Fall, I was going through all kinds of stressors and I realized that I cannot continue to try to control everything. I cannot do everything and I should not try to. That was when the real change happened for me. And it is easy to forget it. But I have been gently reminded. We need to let God be God and not try to take care of everything ourselves. He wants to help us and He wants us to ask for His help. But we have to let some things go....relax....follow him....and be at peace knowing that He is in control, not us. He is the only one who is qualified to judge people, because He is all-knowing. We are not all-knowing, even though we often act like it, and we do not have the right to judge others. Wherever we go, whatever we do...there will always be people who have the potential to hurt our feelings and there will be people who will disappoint us....there will always be problems. If we expect to get to a point or a place where this is not the case, we are only setting ourselves up for major frustration in life. And that is a guarantee.

Romans 8:5
Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.

Terrible Two's: The Peak (I hope it's the peak)

Today has made it clear to me that we are currently near the peak of those terrible two's with our young little Carson. I think it would be healthy for Kim and I to accept the fact that during this stage we will absolutely not have a tidy house. Not that it usually is tidy, but right now it is just not really possible. Our time at home basically consists of alternating between three things: cleaning up a mess of his, scolding him for hitting someone, or redirecting him from doing something that places him in immediate danger. That's pretty much it. We are having some recent difficulty with him getting objects from something and then hiding them elsewhere. For example, I am in the beginning stages of growing a Grisly Adams beard because he seems to have hidden the charging cord for my shaver somewhere. I have looked all over this house and driven myself nutso looking for it. Hope he didn't throw it in the trash. Oh yeah, the TV remote....it's missing too. You know it's hard telling what he might have put in our trash and we have thrown out without even knowing it. He also has developed a big-time fascination with all light switches. He will make flat-out certain that all lights and fans are on in our house at all times. And the refrigerator....absolutely will not keep it closed or stay out of it.

We got back from the drive-in last night around 2am - went to see Shrek: the Third and Spiderman 3. We had not been to the drive-in forever and neither of the boys had ever been. We were skeptical about it, primarily not knowing how Carse would do, but overall it worked out pretty good. Anyway, even though we got him in bed about 2am, he still was up climbing in our bed and laughing at 7am as if he had been asleep for twelve hours. You all know that once your toddler wakes up - you are up. Don't matter how tired you are or how glad you are that it is finally the weekend and there was a 5% chance that you could sleep in until maybe 8. You are up. A few days ago while he was still i his crib, Saturday mornings meant he would lay in his crib after he woke up and sing us a few songs and stuff while we dozed a while longer, but now he is jumping up and down on us like we are human trampolines and kicking us in the face.

Maybe in a year or two we can start living in a house that does not look like a tornado went through it.

Carse says bye-bye to the crib

During the middle of the night Sunday night, Carson wakes up and decides to climb out of his crib. Typically when he wakes up during the night, he immediately starts whimpering...and he has never tried to get out of his crib. Well, all of a sudden we hear a load crash through the monitor and then crying, and then he comes trotting into our bedroom just as we are beginning to realize what has happened. He seemed fine and fell asleep in our bed moments later. We put him back in bed after a little while and then in the morning when I go to wake him up I see the huge black eye. He looked like Rocky Balboa after a fight with Apollo Creed.

So needless to say after I got home from work last night I converted his bed into a toddler bed. He actually did fine with it last night and only got up once and Kim used the SuperNanny technique and he went to sleep after just a few minutes. So in a span of about 5 weeks, he has reached a couple of real nice milestones in saying farewell to his pacifiers and his crib.

Also, I wanted to mention that I have been playing with this new photoediting software....check the previous post of Jackson's graduation and see what I did with the picture of him in from of the garden at school. Here is a picture of Carson from October, 2005. I always thought his eyes were a brilliant blue color in that particular shot, so I decided to play with it and here is what I came up with.

I think the thing that is really cool about this is that those shades of blue are not edited in any way. Those are the actual colors from the original photograph.