A Quiet Vacation

This past week was Spring Break for Robertson County Schools.We had decided long ago not to go anywhere for this break so the kids and I stayed around here enjoying the time off and getting some chores done around the place. What was really strange was seeing Vicki go to work! She usually puts in 2-3 days at the church office now.

EASTER ACTIVITIES. Easter came about as early as it possibly could this year. It seemed like we’d hardly gotten out of the Christmas Season and here Easter was. This past week had several activities on our church calendar. Our Easter musical was on Palm Sunday and I helped with the A/V part of the production. The choir did a really good job.

Later in the week we had a joint Maundy Thursday service with Cross Plains Methodist, Friendship Baptist and Milldale Presbyterian. The main part of the service was a dramatization of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. Several men played the various parts of the disciples staying frozen in place while they each took turns breaking from their posed to say what might have been on their character’s mind as Jesus announced that one of them would betray Him. After the sketch was over they all served Communion to the congregation. It was a very memorable event. We also had a Good Friday service at Cross Plains Methodist in addition to our Easter service on Sunday.

As special as Thursday's service was the one thing I think I will remember about this Easter was our egg hunts. They were originally scheduled for the 15th but were rained out and rescheduled for last Saturday. It was one cold day. I don’t think the temperature got above 45° and there was a steady wind. The afternoon hunt for the little kids was cold and the evening flashlight hunt for the older kids was downright frigid. Isn’t Easter supposed to be warm?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Aunt Mar celebrated her 93rd birthday Friday. We had a dinner for her over at Pauline’s with all the Ashland City part of the family coming to celebrate. Judy brought a large cake decorated with a family tree in icing.

I must say that Aunt Mar is doing really well in recovering from her fall. She has been going to church and we even went out to eat at the Catfish House earlier in the week.

Jumping back to Friday night, another big part of the evening was Tanner Brooke who made her debut with us. She sure is cute. You can tell she is related to her sisters but still has a look all her own.

If you’re wondering about pictures, I’ve uploaded a ton to Shutterfly but haven’t had time to select the good ones to share yet. They’ll be available soon.

BLUE AND GOLD BANQUET. The Cub Scouts had their annual banquet last night. It was part fundraiser and all the scouts and dads were to bake a cake to be auctioned off. Vicki, knowing the cooking skills between us, got a mix and a can of icing. Poor Ben and I had little to no imagination when it came to decorating. Our cake was a chocolate cake with white icing. We stirred up the icing but when we tried to spread it the top of the cake peeled up. Things went downhill from there. Our white icing looked like we had sprinkled it with pepper. Vicki had also gotten a tube of blue icing which we used to write “Cub Scouts” on the top. I should have written “Ugly but Edible.” We finished it off with sprinkles.

All three grandmothers took pity on Ben’s cake and started a bidding war. Ben stood up front, proudly holding the cake as the bidding commenced, his smile getting bigger and bigger each time the price went up. Aunt Mar wound up buying the cake for $35 and you should have seen that boy present his cake to her. It was a moment to remember.

SERIOUS SHRINKAGE. If you are like us you have your towels stacked in the bathroom closet, you grab one on top, use it, it gets washed and returned to the top of the stack. On a whim one day I grabbed one of the rarely used hand towels from the bottom of the stack. This towel matches a larger bath towel. A while later a bewildered Jenna comes out of the bathroom holding up the hand towel. She asked, “Did this shrink?”

PENCIL MAINTENANCE. So Vicki is working at the computer when Nate comes up to her with big eyes and a bigger smile. He has an unsharpened pencil in his hand. Tapping the end he asks, “Can you sharpen it so the draw-er can come out?”

Joe

Life in the Fast Lane

I titled the last newsletter “Strange Weather” and I could have made this edition “Part 2.” Since I last wrote it got even colder and we had a little snow. Now things are starting to warm back up again.

WINTER’S LAST GASP. For those who don’t like snow what we had last weekend was ideal. It had been raining all last Friday afternoon and began to change to snow at sunset. It was getting messy enough that Vicki and I debated whether or not we should go to the end of season Upward Basketball party. We decided to go and after it was over we found ourselves driving home on slushy roads. We woke up the next morning to our first significant snowfall of the winter. We had 2-3 inches (which fell short of the 4-6 inch prediction).

The kids had a lot of fun playing in the snow last Saturday morning. We pulled them around the yard on their sleds. The snow was dry and powdery so the snowball fight we tried to start didn’t last too long. It stayed cold all day but the sun came out. Between the sun and the warm ground the roads cleared off pretty quickly. No one around here had any trouble getting about last Sunday. There were only a few hints of the white stuff by Monday.

REMEMBERING BRO. DORRIS. I should mention here the passing of our former pastor, Donald Dorris, as Mom and I went to his funeral last Saturday. He was Bro. Bill’s predecessor and served at Mt. Carmel from 1970 until 1981. I probably got a lot of my love for working with video and other forms of multi-media from him. Bro. Dorris had a large collection of Westerns, cartoons and comedy shorts (the Three Stooges and the Little Rascals) on 16 mm film. This was back in the days before VCRs were available on the consumer market. He had even set up a home theater, complete with theater seating, in the basement of the parsonage--probably the first home theater in Robertson County. Some of my favorite memories of Vacation Bible School are the films he would show during snack time.

Bro. Dorris was a very talented man. Aside from being a good speaker he was a poet, an artist, and a ventriloquist. Sometimes on Sunday night he would set up his easel and tell a Bible story as he drew it on the canvas with colored chalk. He would also plan trips to Fair Park and later Opryland. But more than all that, he demonstrated loving God and loving people before that became a popular catch phrase in Christian circles.

ENTERING THE 21ST CENTURY--FINALLY. We have traveled on the sidewalk of the Information Super Highway long enough. This week we bit the bullet and got satellite broadband. It is so nice to see web pages load in seconds as opposed to minutes! YouTube (which is blocked by our filter at work) has an amazing number of videos on B-29s and steam engines. I can click them and they will actually play--right then! I feel like we’ve left the dark ages.

Ben has discovered Google Earth (well, I showed it to him) and he’s having a blast. We logged into his account (each of the kids have their own account on the computer which will be good for controlling Internet access) and I found our house for him and showed him how to create a place marker. Then he wanted me to find the church and I said, “You find it.” Now he’s finding everything. If he knows the route to get there he can navigate there on Google Earth and put in a place marker. I know this because he keeps yelling for someone to come and type names in for him. It’s amazing because he’s finding things I would never have expected, like Mrs. Ann Morris’ house where Jenna takes piano lessons.

ON THE AIR. Yesterday morning the Tiger Cub Scouts took a field trip to WSGI, our local radio station. This activity was one of the field trip options and since I know Brad Carneal, one of the deejays, I was able to line it up for them. Brad hosts a sports show on Saturday mornings and was happy to have us. He gave the boys a tour of the studio and let them have a chance to be on the air. I was really proud of Ben as he was the only one of the three boys who was brave enough to speak, and he did it like it was the most normal thing in the world to him. Brad asked Ben several questions in his interview. I was especially proud when Brad asked Ben what his favorite thing about being a Cub Scout was and Ben said, “Being together with my friends.”

Joe

Strange Weather

March eased in like a lamb this year. It had been pretty cold (the schools were even closed due to icy roads Wednesday) but started warming up by last weekend. Yesterday afternoon the temperature even reached 70°, but by this afternoon a cold front had moved through and the skies were spitting snow.

WELCOME TO THE FAMILY! I’ve mentioned before that Derek and Amanda Dee were expecting their third child. Well, Tanner Brooke made her appearance last Monday (February 25). I think I was told she tipped the scales at 8.5 lbs. We haven’t visited yet but her pictures sure are cute. I know Riley and Harper are thrilled to finally meet their new sister. Derek, I know you are a proud papa, but if you ever need a respite from your gaggle of girls just give me a call.

LETTING GO. Vicki’s new job has been a major topic for the last few weeks so I am going to look at the other end of it now. Vicki called me up during the day Thursday. She was pretty choked up because she had clocked out from the Y for the last time. Six months after Jenna was born Vicki spotted an ad in the paper where the YMCA was looking for part time nursery workers. She has been doing that at least morning a week for the last nine and a half years. As we all know, opening a new chapter in life means closing an old one which can be happy and sad at the same time.

STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE, YUM! Last Friday was designated as Reading Day at East Robertson Elementary. Ben’s class got to visit Leigh Ann Wright’s classroom during the day. Leigh Ann, who teaches fourth grade, is a local girl. Her family are neighbors and we all know each other well.

Back on Friday. Leigh Ann served all the kids visiting her room strawberry shortcake and passed out a recipe as part of her activities. (I think the story she read had something to do with cooking strawberry shortcake.) That day Jenna and Ben got off the bus at Aunt Mar’s. Ben was so excited about the dessert he’d eaten that he wanted Mom to take the recipe and make some more for him right then. They didn’t have any strawberries, but like a good grandmother Mom promised Ben she’d have everything they’d need for the job when he came back Tuesday.

True to her word Mom had everything ready to go when Ben got off the bus today and he and Jenna helped make the dessert. Ben inhaled two servings (so much for supper), but he was a little puzzled. He thought it was good but it didn’t taste like the shortcake he’d had at school. Mom herself had questions because the recipe did not call for as much sugar as she thought it should (and from what I understand sometimes older recipes don’t use much sugar). Mom called Leigh Ann to see if she had done something wrong when she learned the truth of the matter. Leigh Ann, having over 100 kids to serve, had not made the recipe, but had bought Little Debbie cakes to make her preparations easier. Lynn, you may need to get Ben a box of strawberry cakes the next time you are at the Little Debbie bakery.

As a parallel story Aunt Mar decided to make her mother’s strawberry shortcake recipe for Jenna and Ben as well. When it was done they noticed it didn’t taste quite right either. That’s when they noticed their baking powder had expired in 2001!

Joe