I asked Tony to point out the bass notes when Katherine played this morning… so we can see that I am not the  best expert on Katherine’s performance. HOWEVER, she was sensational, and that according to more than just me. Tony had told me, “watch Katherine’s fingers” and place my hand on my abdomen, and I would feel her playing… wow that man is some kind of smart. I did feel her playing… right along with the rest of the music.

When the worship band was finished… Tony said to me that she was quite good, and that she played the melody also. SO when she sat down and I told her Tony said she was good, she says,

“oh my audience of one… Keith (worship leader) said not to worry no one could tell my mistakes… I told him Tony would be able to tell.”

So she was pleased. And then at lunch,  Pastor told her that she was very good also. To end the day, Keith said he planned to use her once a month… she is good, and most of all, she takes serving the Lord and his people seriously. TO think it all started with the Corvette ministry at Calvary Homestead.

A side note… Katherine is filling in for Darryl, father of John, who was injured last Wednesday in a car accident on Chippewa Road. Five people in that car, that flipped over, and John was thrown from the car… the other four walked away, John is in the hospital with a crushed vertebrae.. but praise God in His mercy that while John does face a long convalescence, but he is alive and is not paralyzed. Pray please for John and thank God for His mercies.

Onto a hockey game where Amanda played her heart out once again. Her team was losing, and the opposing team scored yet another goal in the final minutes, but she is still skating up and down the ice as if a gold medal hung in the balance… it just makes you proud, you know?

And Bethany at lunch brings up her project on genocide that is due on Tuesday… I said, “Bethany, lunch?” I thought this would end the topic, no… she is persistent, and you know I was so blessed. We sat before the hockey game started and brainstormed the presentation. I love doing that with the kids, helping them flesh out their great ideas and thoughts.

Otherwise, uh duh…. it’s Christmas soon, so I have bunches to do, but it is all good.

The real title of this blog post is “pretty and popular.” Emily was sitting over my shoulder and said… “NO NO NO NO” She knew what it referred to but shoot how am I going to tell this adorable story otherwise???

Emily comes home and says regularly,”You know I am not Katherine right?” yada yada yada, mom is bored… because she has heard from Mary for years (spoken and un) “I am not Melinda.” And Katherine says, “I am not as smart as Mary.” When Melinda was smaller she used to say to me, “I cant be as good as Jenni.”

Anywayyyyyyys… Emily’s teacher called me to tell me Emily was cut from IB cloth, and had a gift for science, inquisitive, driven to find scientific answers….hmm, but she was not particularly keen on turning in assignments… seems that is something the teachers like… they give assignments (check), students complete assignments (check), students turn in assignments (hmmm we are still working on this one.) Emily’s teacher (formerly Katherine’s teacher) goes on to say… Emily is pretty and popular and everyone wants to be her lab partner… “Emily needs to be more judicious in who she allows to be her partner”… last two boys were not liking to do the work…  now my EmmyG does not cotton to this behaviour… and informed them that as lab partners they were history… Science Teacher knew it as all Emmy’s work and marked accordingly.

At the Fall IB Retreat, I got to hear how she is fitting into the IB groove… at the drama improv station, two teachers told me that “Emily is having way too much fun with the fox pelts, and perhaps an intervention should be staged.”

and at the Balderdash station, she owned… almost effortlessly she got more than half the answers herself..

the glasses were worn by Emily for the fun of it…

and then another pretty and popular little girl who owns my heart…

credits: gina miller template, essential white papers and jen wilson l’amour rouge papers and miss caroline

praying for the Buddy Walk tomorrow, Angie…

a favorite book of mine for all time.. and i woke thinking today was JOel’s birthday, and that title popped into my brain right alongside the picture of Joel. LAtely, I have been struggling with all the things i want to do for people who hold my love, and the reality of what i am able to do.

Joel’s birthday and what can i give him today ? … usually as our kids approach these later teen years, I am immersed in elaborate scrapbooking projects for them, but i cant this year. I lay still and prayed and realized he had my prayers, he still had a heart full of prayers just for him, a heart full of blessing just for him. A couple years back, we had a gorgeous summer Joel and I … full of laughter, tears, new adventures, things we had never done before…

I have a book on the shelves that i have read to the kids… Owly.

Owly, a baby owl, has so many questions of the universe… so much like Joel even today, full of questions… how many stars are in the sky, and his mama sent him off to count them, and he returned… there were too many stars to count. Owly wanted to know how many waves were in the ocean, and his mama didnt know so Owly set off to count them…. and what did he discover? … he could not count them.

And one day, Owly wants to know how much does his mama love him? Oh you see she loves more him

than there are stars in the sky and waves in the ocean.

Joel walked through that summer asking me questions, exploring the world with fresh questions, and he was here at the house a few weeks ago, and he came and sought me out, and he was asking questions… about the cancer, about how i was coping, what was next… asking what i thought about being done with radiation.. always Joel is finding his place.

So we sit here, getting ready to have lunch of gumbo and crusty bread… and Joel has this huge future in front of him… he will go with love and blessings and prayers.. as Dr Seuss wrote:

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
Oh the places you will go

but if the brains and the feet are not enough than you still have my love, Joel, which is more than there are stars in the sky and more than there are waves in the ocean.

Melinda’s iPhone: We all got very familiar with this by the end of the weekend… Melinda looked up teppanyaki and found a variety of restaurants … which she called for location and prices. We needed gas on Saturday night before dinner and she located a gas station, and then it gave her directions… which we followed relentlessly until we arrived at the gas pump (for a city as large as it is… very few gas stations,) we found Perkins with it, got to the airport… Melinda drove with it in one hand, tapping and scrolling…

Priceline and the Hyatt… we did get an amazing deal with priceline which is why we stayed at the hyatt… but this fancy hotel nickel and dimed us charging extra for everything, and the layout/ distance from parking garage to room elevators made it not so luxurious ( the carts could only be used by bellboys awaiting tips,) The lobby was fabulous and I made the kids go hang out in it on Saturday night because it seemed to be the what made the hotel stand out.

Melinda’s donuts and her love: on Sunday morning we were rushing to get to church and check out and pack, wrong order I know… we woke late, it was chaotic.. we carted out belongings to the elevator, and through the lobby to the parking garage elevators to the cars and then had to idle in the “valet only” zone while we checked out… Melinda dashed in and came out with donuts for everyone since we had not eaten breakfast yet. I joked if they were whole grain fibrous donuts (since Melinda is so healthy these days.) She laughed and said no she by-passed those for us… instead we ate fritters that left a firm coating of lard on the roofs of our mouths, but i remember them fondly because of her thoughtfulness.

Things I rediscovered that I have missed:

Long John Silvers (fish and chip fast food and oh so good)

USA network and TNT network: unlimited    

Psych

Monk

Law and Order

and the USA Network commercials…

Perkins  (especially breakfast there)

Target Zellers with attitude and a much larger assortment…

Taco Bell….  a meal deal that seriously cant be beat… Thunder Bay has Taco Time and it is mucho expensive to feed us, but the taco pack at Taco Bell, a yummy steal.

Other Loose Ends

Teppanyaki for birthdays… check out the photos in our gallery

… and this little video clip

I was super proud of Emily and Hannah who were initially very skeptical about this place… Hannah was “no fries????” and Emily was not understanding that there was no ordering to do… but they tried everything put before them… We had a choice of soups, miso soup or clear soup… my mom nurses us back to health with miso soup so I am emotionally fond of it… but it seemed too risky for some of the kids… we asked Katherine how her soup was, she said, “you mean my hot water and mushrooms?” actually the clear soup was good and rich tasting.

Katherine and Emily: Katherine mentioned Emily’s text messages yesterday. Katherine read some of them to me today and they were so sweet and witty…and very Emily… anytime I see my kiddos loving on each other I get happy.

Emily set the table for our dinner yesterday… she has been watching her older sisters for sure..

Wearing the jacket she bought with Christmas money, which I think is quite lovely on her. And she dreamt of receiving pens as a gift, she is a stationary/ school supply junkie.

Katherine and her Idol game face.. she sits transfixed, even here while talking to Mary…

more loose end tying tomorrow….

it is slightly amusing that Katherine felt I could use "right terminology and lingo" describing anything musical… I believe that is Tony she is thinking of, who talked at length about Jay Calder's guitar
tuning, and all I was thinking was Earl would probably understand what Tony just said.

It is nearly the end of today and I want to tell you about the hugeness of yesterday. I asked for prayer for the car and for Emily's shorts. The car did not work all day (Hannah stayed home from school due to the cold battery)… I read on the Internet why cars don't start in cold weather (some people wrap their batteries in blankets at night.)… we tore apart and put back together Emily's room (and the rest of the house)  looking for the shorts, which we did not find… we decorated for Valentine's.  Tomorrow, I will take pictures of some of them, I am so pleased… the living room is so restful and peaceful… but back to yesterday… we had truly delicious pancakes, Jenni plowed through more photos and took us on a memory journey.

I received a truly amazing God Story from one of the ladies at the Blue Bracelet Forum, and I thank her for her trust.

And we have a new member over there…. I cannot get over all this echnology that lets us share, pray, grow together…

and then about 5PM, Wil came over after work with Mitchell and  Rose. (Tony was still at work.)  And so began the car boosting part of the day (jump starting for the Americans in the reading public.) Cold, wind, slippery driveway… some more wind, I cannot stress the cold part of this story enough, and it is about all I remember. Wil could not find his cables, I could not find ours… I sent Katherine, Rose and Mitchell to Pastor Al's because I knew he would know where his were, and sure enough the kids return with perfectly looped cables. Rose and Mitchell went inside to play with Hannah (Emily was at cheerleading.) Katherine and I helped Wil.
Did I mention it was really cold? Our battery was very tired, and after many minutes, the car was humming and purring, and we needed to drive a bit to charge the car… after grocery shopping, a DVD run and picking up Tony's kids…(with someone waiting in car so we did not turn it off,) finally it was time for Emily's cheerleading competition at Churchill and there was a concert atour church. We do not skip something big of the kids' easily… but Emily was okay with it, and something seemed to push us to the concert… We went to Churchill to tell Emily the final decision and make sure she gets a ride home with someone as opposed to trying to walk home.

Katherine and I pushed through insane cheerleaders  
and parents, to discover Emily was behind ropes and on other side of gym… hmmm, hmmm, think think… I spy Mary-Ellen who I originally think can get me on the other side of the cheerleaders and their guards (cheerleader judges and officials are of themselves quite full and a teensy bit anal,) BUT Mary-Ellen offers to get Emily home afterwards, not as satisfying as giving cheerleader guards a piece of my mind, but faster and nicer…

And when we got home, we found out that Emily's team won!!!!!

And onto the concert.. a small gathering … music that kept you transfixed, listening intently… like a symphony… huge sweeping sound, and yet still nuances, and echoes of what came before, rich, layers of music…. and then  Jay Calder himself… Jay shared some of his testimony, some of his journey, and he presented on behalf of World Vision. Tony said later Jay was a gentle speaker who spoke of important
matters …. I thought of Jesus… he was gentle, but you had to make choices…. you were drawn to either agreeing or disagreeing with him. Poverty occupies much of Jay's and his family's hearts these days.  Years of serving in rural South Florida left the poor etched  on my brain. The World Vision clip touched me. Touched everybody there. Jay left me with some wise words regarding living in a region with such bounty…. a paraphrase

What is the biblical response to blessing??? there are many valid responses, but one is not guilt.

And then Jay suggested perhaps gratitude was a biblical response. The end and the beginning of the story is that Bethany chose to sponsor a child and I am proud as punch of her… and we chose as a family to sponsor another child.

Jay said something else that in light of all the Blue Bracelet happenings has got me thinking? instead of praying for Jesus to bless this or that ministry, why don?t we instead pray that he us take on some of his ministry trips. I am privileged to be in this position of witnessing so many of the back stories and I am thinking of something Beth Moore said in the last session that we should ask God to be big. He is being so big in so many lives around me and I want to see His Glory. I want to see more and more God. I am watching seas part, and a people set apart touch their feet to water, people falling in love with a Savior, mountains move.

to conclude, we had a brief moment when we thought the car had died, but it was loose battery connections, and this gave the kids and me some extra minutes to visit with Jay and James (from
Hope Christian Reformed Church.) James took this photo of us with Jay.

click to enlarge
Shabby Princess- Carousel, l. deacetis frame & two sisters PAD

I don't want to over use the word gentle in describing Jay, so lets think compelling. He brings you to consider Christ, and to answer the question, "who do you think Jesus is?" Even after you settle the question of Savior, who is it we claim to serve and to love? I kept thinking of

Andrew Peterson. Jay's words echo Andrew's lyrics, both in theology and in manner. Talking to Jay later, I learned he knew the Rich Mullins that mattered, the man who gave up his own path to follow Christ.

The car did not work until the end of the day, but it took us where we needed to go, when we needed to go, we never found the shorts, but Emily was part of the team that won… and I saw alot of God yesterday…

Well it is late, and tomorrow is coming quickly… I look forward to seeing you then… and I am still believing God.