Party of Five

This has been making it's rounds within my Facebook world, but I decided to post my list here instead. 25 things about me that you didn't know, you did know but forgot you knew, or you didn't know and you probably wish you didn't know now! In no particular order: I love my Savior! When it gets to be a truly personal relationship is when it's a really wonderful thing! I've been on a missions trip to Honduras - which was also my first experience on an airplane, and giving my testimony in front of people. And it didn't kill me! (now, something I ate...that's a different story!) I love to turn up praise music and dance around my house - it's my "David danced" moment! I love to turn up the soundtrack from the musical " Wicked ", singing aloud at the top of my lungs and pretend that I can sing as well as Idina Menzel ! I have three children in heaven who I will one day see again. Favorite Food - Enchiladas Favorite Movie - Somewhere In ...

It's mid-January, and I was able to go for a walk today. For the first time in weeks, it was not snowing, sleeting, or below freezing temperatures. And actually it was my daughter's idea last night: "Mom, can we walk to school tomorrow?" You know, why not? So this morning, we hit the pavement for the first time in months. Myself, lil 'D, and the Princess hiked down the street and around the corner to her pre-K class, and then we turned around and did it again 2 1/2 hours later when her day was done. It was fun, it felt great to to be outside without the fear of frostbite kicking in, and it was my secret plan to get the monkey children wore out enough that they would practically beg me for a nap after lunch. When I had mentioned to my girlfriend that I had been out for a walk this morning, she proclaimed in a single word, "Yuck". Seriously?? Come on - when was the last time it was this nice outside? And let's be honest about our Buffalo weather, winte...

My third grader has been studying the solar system for the past several weeks, and this week is his "big" test. So all week I've been re-learning everything about the planets, sun, and moon that I had either forgotten, or failed to learn the first time. For instance, did you know that the moon reflects the sun's light? Simple little fact, but one that I didn't know, or didn't realize that I knew. Now I certainly didn't think that God was up there shining a great big spotlight on it getting it to light up the sky at night, but I just never realized that it's light source was from the sun. (Give me a little credit!) Okay, there are so many theological ideas in that - but I'm not going there. But it's amazing to realize that as the day is ending and the sun is still shining in the afternoon in say...Waco, Texas (hi mom!), and here in the deep freeze the night sky is already starting to settle in for the evening. But the same sun that warmed each o...

...I just recently reconnected with a dear old friend from my high school years. I was told that talking to me was like sitting and chatting on a picnic table with a good friend (or something to that effect...) whatever his exact words, it was an enjoyable thought. Shouldn't that be what good relationships are about? No matter how much time goes by, when you finally do get the chance to catch up with each other, shouldn't they be that easy - and it's almost like you can pick up right where you left off the last time you talked? (even if it was almost 20 years ago!) I treasure the friendships I have today, but those ones from high school are where my memories are fondly kept and stored away. Those years are the ones that I will one day tell my kids about. As I've been in Western New York for almost 12 years now, my children really have little knowledge about the time I lived in Ohio, and my dearest friends that were and still are there. I believe we go through our season...

The family and I have just returned from a brief trip "home" to NW Ohio...Bryan, Ohio specifically. It's not an extremely thrilling trip...in fact, once you hit that part of the state, it's so terribly flat, and nothing but farmlands for miles upon miles. But I often caught myself staring out the window as we drove by reminiscing of days gone by. I grew up in small town Ohio. Not small town suburb like where I live now, but small town - where there's miles of nothing-ness in between towns. It was when my kids got excited at seeing the farm animals that I realized how "suburbia" my life had become. (Mental note to take the kids on a field trip to a working farm this year.) On this past Sunday, we went to church with my dad...talk about reminiscing. Although it was not the same church that I had grown up in, it was the same denomination, and a definate departure from the church we are part of now. This was a friendly church - I think we were sincerely gree...