We are trying to make the most of this stretch of beautiful summer weather! When it’s sunny and warm in Bellingham, there’s no other place on earth we’d rather be. We live in the most beautiful town. We have awesome parks and there are lots of fun (and mostly free) activities to participate in if you do some research. We enjoyed a concert at Elizabeth Park last night and will hopefully make it to a few more of those throughout the summer. On Saturday night we will be heading over to the Fairhaven Green to watch We are Marshall on the outdoor screen there.
As a family we are trying to be much more intentional about how we spend our time together. Days, weeks and months go by so quickly. The boys are growing up and we don’t want to take our time with them for granted.
There probably won’t be much posted here throughout the summer (except pictures, occasionally) because I plan on being outside more, using my computer less and playing with my kids. Hope you enjoy your summer!
How can it be that there are Jars of Clay songs that I haven’t heard until today?? I was listening to the radio this afternoon and heard this song and was so puzzled– apparently I missed that there were a couple songs on Furthermore that I didn’t already own. Anyway, this song I heard today is beautiful and maybe I wasn’t supposed to discover it until now? It does seem to be the very thing God and I are working out right now. I thought I’d share the lyrics here:
It’s no big surprise to anyone who knows Sean and Caleb well that they are HUGE Bon Jovi fans. When they discovered that Rock Band had “Dead or Alive” on it they were stoked!
We don’t have Rock Band (hence the video below) but Uncle Cory generously shares his. The boys are missing him today so….this one’s for you Cory!
I am using a new version of wordpress and I forgot to enable comments when I posted this. Comments are now enabled– so feel free to leave us or the boys a message. I had a couple emailed to me so I am posting them here:
Sara & Scott well we just watched the boys rock out to dead or alive, and wanted to leave a comment, but it said the discussion was “closed” anyway, here is our comment, scott says bon jovi rocks, but not as hard as sean and caleb, and he thinks they did the song justice!
sara thinks we have future rock stars on our hands. I love all the expressions and feeling you get from them!! what handsome boys. very fun!
loves! Carmen Sonny and I were CRACKING up watching Sean and Caleb lip sing to Dead or Alive - WAY TOO FUNNY!!! LOL…
The boys are playing Star Wars Lego this afternoon and I overhear: The Emperor (Sean) says to Yoda (Caleb), “You sound like Fozzie The Bear”. This is really funny to me because it actually shows how closely Caleb was getting Yoda’s voice (Frank Oz was the voice for both characters).
The boys crack me up! I love to listen to them play and hear how creative they are.
Now they are moving on to Star Wars Trivial Pursuit and I bet I am going to get recruited to play too. I often surprise them (and myself) with my knowledge of Star Wars trivia, although I will never even come close to Cam’s level of knowledge on all things Star Wars. I just answered a “yellow pie question” for Caleb without even thinking about it! Oops!! Sean isn’t too happy with me.
Wow, we really sound like a bunch of geeks — but I think we are alright with that.
Christmas Songs releases on October 16th and in case you couldn’t tell from the fact that I am posting about it — I’m excited! I think we’ll start listening to Christmas music a little early this year. Why not? Jesus’ birth should be something we celebrate everyday anyway.
Last night Cam and I watched Good Will Hunting — for probably the 10th time. I love that movie! It really is a well written movie, I am surprised that Matt and Ben haven’t tried to write anything else together. I can’t help but cry every time Sean (Robin Williams) assures Will (Matt Damon) that “it’s not your fault”. My favorite line from the movie is when Morgan (Casey Affleck) says, “My boy is wicked smart” (you have to read that with a Boston accent). I think this movie is a favorite because of my personal experience with a “wicked smart” boy who is very guarded and kind of a mystery to figure out (he’s not so much anymore — with reference to guarded and a mystery, still smart, probably more so).
We have watched several new movies throughout the spring. We put lots of stuff that was nominated for one thing or another on our Netflix queue and frankly I wasn’t all that impressed with any of them. This week I updated our queue and added in a few of my old favorites. Today we will be receiving my all time favorite movie, Life is Beautiful. I can’t even describe how much I love this story.
Another favorite, Finding Neverland, will also be arriving today.
Cam bought me this CD for Christmas and I have loved it more each time I listen to it. I have been listening to Jars of Clay since their first album came out in 1995. I have appreciated the lyrical quality of their music– even though sometimes I am not smart/deep enough to totally get what they are saying. My faith and walk have been impacted by their music. I find it amusing that their music kind of reflects whatever season I am in with God. This album is what I’d call “melancholy rock”. It’s good– I highly recommend it.
We are so excited to go to Disneyland this May! This will be Sean and Caleb’s first trip to the “Magic Kingdom”. I have only been once before (I was 11 and Disneyland was celebrating it’s 35th anniversary), Cam has been twice (when he was 6 & 8). We are looking forward to experiencing everything at both Disneyland and California Adventure. We are excited about hanging out with Kelly and to see where she has been living for this last year.
Ack! It’s been a while since I last posted. Anyway, not much to tell. Watched a couple of movies — Friday Night Lights and Superman III. The football movie was good, though it seems to have turned Betsy off to the idea of our boys playing youth football even more. The Superman movie I could’ve done without. I’d seen it before, years ago, but didn’t remember just how lame it actually was. Sean & Caleb liked it, so I guess that’s good.
Watched Karate Kid II on Saturday. I absolutely loved the first two of the series when I was kid. I never bothered to see #3 or the “Next” one with Bellingham’s own Hillary Swank. Next up for me is Hero, which I imagine has it’s share of martial arts.
Betsy and I finally finished Troy. It could’ve been a lot better, but it wasn’t terrible.
Watched Ray on Friday night. What a great movie. Jamie Foxx should win the Oscar.
Began the reliving of my youth by watching Karate Kid (or most of it anyway). Where are all the good, semi-original underdog stories for kids these days? The Eighties definitely had it’s (their?) moments.
Superman II was adequate, but slow. A little campy, but worth watching.
The football game was pretty good. I wasn’t really rooting for anyone this year. The Eagles had a chance, and T.O. played a great game. A sluggish Philly offense cost them the game — learn to manage the clock better. We were literally yelling at the T.V. for the last 6 minutes of the game. Favorite commercials were “You’re Being Robbed” and the “Cat Sacrifice” followed by the frozen Mustang guy and the P. Diddy pimped-out Pepsi truck fad. Half-time show was a sleeper.
I’ve been rating movies at about 50 a day, so hopefully the recommendations will come up with some good ones that I haven’t already seen. Again, suggestions (I know, I know — nobody reads this.) are always welcome.
I signed up for a 14-day trial of Netflix today. They’ve lowered their price for 3-at-a-time to $17.99 per month, so it seemed like it was time to give it a whirl.
I didn’t tell the wife, so we’ll see what she says in a day or so when we start getting DVDs in the mail.
According to the artcile, placing farm animals under the care of French B-list celebs for a reality show resulted in the death of 15 chickens, a hen and a grey cock. Apparently, the company that provided the animals is suing the show’s producers.
Right. Because they thought it would be good for the animals.
Let’s start with Omarosa. She’s a liar, an increadibly brazen bitch, and worst of all, she’s disloyal. I don’t think she’s taken responsibility for anything she’s done wrong. After playing the race card to defend her obvious inability to be friendly to people not interested in licking her pumps, she’s lost any credibility she might have had.
Kwame should’ve fired her, no matter what it took. In the end, it probably cost him the job. Frankly, I can’t imagine why anyone would hire her ever again, but this world is full of all types.
As for the rest of the finale, I thought Bill clearly did the better job. Kwame definitely relied to heavily on people that had already demonstrated their lack of value earlier in the show.
For the record, I picked Bill at the outset before any episodes had aired simply based on my reading of his online bio. I actually picked one male and one female contestant that first week. I was pretty close with my pick of Katrina to be the last woman standing.
The boys are playing Star Wars Lego this afternoon and I overhear: The Emperor (Sean) says to Yoda (Caleb), “You sound like Fozzie The Bear”. This is really funny to me because it actually shows how closely Caleb was getting Yoda’s voice (Frank Oz was the voice for both characters).
We have watched several new movies throughout the spring. We put lots of stuff that was nominated for one thing or another on our Netflix queue and frankly I wasn’t all that impressed with any of them. This week I updated our queue and added in a few of my old favorites. Today we will be receiving my all time favorite movie, Life is Beautiful. I can’t even describe how much I love this story.
We are so excited to go to Disneyland this May! This will be Sean and Caleb’s first trip to the “Magic Kingdom”. I have only been once before (I was 11 and Disneyland was celebrating it’s 35th anniversary), Cam has been twice (when he was 6 & 8). We are looking forward to experiencing everything at both Disneyland and California Adventure. We are excited about hanging out with Kelly and to see where she has been living for this last year.
The Eleventh Hour
See the Morning
Roots
Furthermore: From the Studio, From the Stage
Vintage Jesus: Timeless Answers to Timely Questions (Relit Theology)
Jesus: 90 Days With the One and Only (Personal Reflections)
The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome
The Phantom Tollbooth