Camp

We've been back in town for 24 hours now, and I have a rare free moment to myself, so here's the update on our camp experience last week.

First off, it was SO nice to drive a car with fancy features like cruise control, a left turn signal that shuts off by itself, a windshield complete with NO huge stars caused by a big oaf stepping onto it so that he can load his bike onto the top, air conditioning that works everytime you ask it to, not to mention an engine that didn't make us worry about whether we would make it there and back or not.

I took the kids down to my mom's last Friday morning, she is a braver woman than me. She also had Casey's two kids (Casey was there to help, while Heidi enjoyed a week in Hawaii), and Chase and Maia, who are both 2 (well, Chase will be 2 in October), are a bit of a handful. Before I had left that afternoon, Maia had already discovered a red permanent marker and left her signature on some hardwood, a pillow and a blanket, and Chase had fallen down the steps for the first time.

Xander and his cousin Rylie (4) don't get along the best as a rule, but they seemed to make a noble go of it, and Xander says they had a lot of fun in the hot tub together (with supervision of course, and 'hot' is a very loose term). Xander's favorite part of the weekend was going tubing behind Grandma's new boat with Uncle Casey. He thought that was all right.

Mom handed the kids over to Matt's folks on Monday, and apparently told George (Matt's mom) to potty train Maia. Oh, and she also cut Maia's bangs before the weekend was over. Thanks Mom. Grandma Georgie got the potty chair out (she potty trained both of Matt's sister Rena's kids. Why not this one?), and bought her some Pull-Ups, but she's just not ready. We now have pretty princess diapers. I guess she sat on the potty several times and used it accidentally once. I haven't seen any huge progress in the potty training department, and I'm not going to push the issue. She'll let me know when she's ready. No matter what Grandma Marilyn says.

The ongoing gag that Maia seems to have right now is that she calls all grandparents "Grapa." The conversation goes something like this:
"Hi Grapa"
"I'm Grandma Georgie"
"I'm Maia"
"I'm GrandMA Georgie"
"I'm Maia"
"I'm GrandMA Georgie"
"....Oh GRAPA!"

She slipped and called Grandpa Bruce, "Grapa Boo" which seemed to tickle Matt's dad. She said it again as we were leaving. Very cute.

While the kids were arguing identity with their grandparents, Matt & I had a great time at camp. It's always good to be around people that help sharpen you. Fred, Rob, Sheila, Karla, Jamin, Kyle, Jon, and the rest are not only fun to be around, but there's just so much spiritual depth to our conversations. You can't help but go away changed.

I was so blessed this year because I got to co-counsel a cabin with Rachel Vetor. Rachel was a 5-year camper who graduated 2 years ago, and she was also my voice student for 6 years. She's my little superstar, a phenomenal talent, and my only high schooler to go on and major in music (though that only lasted one year, I still count it). But more than that, we have developed a deep friendship over the years, and it was so fun to be grown-ups together this week. I think we're each other's biggest fan!

We couldn't have asked for better weather. It was mid-80's at the highest, and cool most evenings. We had a couple of summer showers that made for some good clean fun (until it got really muddy!). We were very lucky, considering the 105 degree heat we hit almost immediately upon leaving.

I can't not mention that we almost lost Matt's front bike wheel while driving 80 mph (I mean 75) on the Minnesota interstate the morning that we left for IN. It popped right off the roof rack, onto the road behind us, somehow missed the cars behind us, and into the ditch. THEN it bounced out of the ditch, still rolling, and made its way across the road (again avoiding cars) and into the median before finally stopping. We tested the Bert's off-road capabilities and whipped through the median and parked for a few minutes on the other side of the interstate while we walked both sides of the road, looking and praying frantically. We finally found it, completely unharmed, then had to push out the adrenaline rush that accompanied that little adventure. The wheel made the rest of the journey on the inside of the car.

It was a different week at camp, as far as spiritual depth goes. One of the comments that I made to Matt was that in the past, and from the foundation of what used to be known as Bible Conference, these campers have been treated as spiritually mature and have risen to the occasion. This year, we had a professional camp speaker who does camps all over the country all summer long, and we didn't go as deep. He did a great job, and the kids really loved him, but we didn't dive to the depths that we've reached in past years.

Worship was fun, but it took a long time to hit our stride. Thursday night, we finally broke through. There was some progress on Wednesday that made it possible, but Thursday night was the night when we finally broke the chains and worshiped in freedom. Charlie spoke on worship, and we spent a lot of time with the music afterward, interspersed with some teaching on worship, why we lift our hands, giving kids permission to fall on their knees, or dance before the Lord. It was really beautiful. Then we brought things back up at the end with "I Am Free" and afterward, were supposed to take a break and get ready for the talent show. They wouldn't let us leave! They wanted to do more and more and more. I think we did 3 more songs after that. How 'bout that? 3 encores. Never expected that!

Our band was great. We brought Dave Brown along from Hanfield as our drummer. He was able to jump right back in as if we hadn't missed an entire year playing together. He was sensitive to to mood of the room and where the music was going, we felt things together and moved as a unit. He was also really a great addition to the staff. He was excellent at finding the kids on the fringe and talking to them, praying with them, and drawing them into the community of camp. (Rachel was really, really, really good at this too).

Keaton Whitehead was our lead guitar player. He's old enough to be a camper this year, which thrilled and delighted us, because we've been playing with him at Hanfield since he was in the 6th grade. That kid has an anointing on his life! I don't know how else to say it. I mentioned that to his mom (my good friend, Melissa), and she said, "I know. I've known it since the moment he was born." Can't wait to see what God's going to do with his life.

We roped another camper (non-Hanfiledite) in to play bass for us, Kyle Salazar. He looks the part of a rock star. He's got the piercings and long hair, and stickers all over his guitar, and the kids all think he's "Da Bomb" (do kids say that anymore?), but he bore it all pretty well, and learned the music fast considering he was a last-minute addition to the team.

We also got to play with one of the other youth pastors, Jamin Garoutte (sp?), who strangely enough was one of the finalists for Kyle Bixler's job at Hanfield, and wound up somewhere else so last year was a little weird. But Jamin's a great guy, really funny in an understated way, and a heck of a sax player. He improvises over the rest of the music, not flashy, just nice. Lots of fun to play with him. Solid musician.

As always, I come away worried about some kids. One graduate in particular, and a couple of my cabin girls. Life at home is just so rough for some of these kids. Our job as parents is so important. I'm also really impressed with the maturity of many others, and know that this camp experience is something that is making a difference in their lives the whole year through. I love to see kids like Chad and Raphi come back completely changed from the year before. It's not just a one-week experience. God gets ahold of them and doesn't let go.

On a side note, tonight as I was praying with Xander before bed, he did his usual litany of "Gobblesses" "and... gobblessnemomaiamommymeanddaddymajaandmorpheousgrandpasand
grandmasauntsandunclesallmyfriendsamen."
Only tonight he added "blah blah blah" before the amen.

I said, "do you think that that's a very respectful way to talk to God?"

He looked at me, mortified, and said, "I guess not."

I said, "Don't you think that maybe you should put a little more thought into the list of people that you would like God to bless?"

He buried his head in the couch and started to cry. "I need to think about it."

I said, "Oh buddy, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Can I have a hug?"

"I'm thinking about that too. That's 3 things I'm thinking about. Can I just do one at a time please?"

"Are you upset with me?"

"Yeah, a little."

"Can you forgive me?"

"Just give me a minute!"

So I did. When he finally came up for air, I asked him if he'd like to ask God's forgiveness. He said, "I think I already did, but I don't feel any better. I can't stop thinking about it." We talked a little about how God forgives and forgets, but that we have to remember our sins so that we can learn from them, and he thinks he'll be able to do better next time. We did the God bless portion of his prayers over and thought through them a little better (finally omiting the fish that died almost a year ago).

Then I prayed for him, and reminded him about how much God loves him and thanked God for his sense of humor, and asked God to to help Xander to use it in the right way. When we were done, I finally got my hug and Xander was just looking at me pretty intently. I said, "Do you have something else you'd like to say?"

He said, "I forgive you" and burst into tears again. "I'm not finished!" he wailed. I asked if he had more to say or wasn't finished crying. He just wasn't finished crying, so we cleared the air and read a book about a boa constrictor on a basketball team that was originally supposed to be a ballet class.

I am so thankful for a little boy who is so sensitive to the Holy Spirit, and who really wants to do what is right. We're really blessed.

Church Visit

OK, in case anyone is really dying to hear my opinion of the church that I visited Sunday morning, here's my take.

It's a small congregation (which you would expect since the church is merely 10 months old). Everyone seemed very friendly, and several people introduced themselves to me before the service started, and remembered Matt from his visit last weekend.

The pastor led the worship, which I understand he's been doing in the absence of a worship leader, and the band was really good. They have an excellent electric guitar player with a bunch of gadgets and pedals, a really good drummer (worth his weight in gold, I'm sure), a bass player that didn't stand out, and a couple of pretty good singers, one guy that led one of the songs (and whom I could help with just a few voice lessons) :) and a chick singer that sings harmonies well, but prefers not to lead songs. The pastor led from the piano. That sounds cheesier than it was. Their band was really good.

The presentation on the screen was worse than bad. It was obviously done in Power Point (we've become spoiled by using Media Shout for the last several years) and whomever was running it really had no idea where the songs were going or what was coming next in the service. It was very distracting, and we rarely had the right words on the screen for several songs that I was completely unfamiliar with.

The worship style was great. I enjoyed the flow of the service was really good, and the freedom in the worship was a nice change of pace. We had several sections of free worship (which meant we didn't have to worry about what was on the screen, just make up our own words), and the elements of the service mostly flowed very nicely from one to another.

The pastor had a really good message, basically challenging Christians to grow up, and it was the final sermon in a 6 week series based on a book that I didn't catch (but Matt did), dividing the spiritual growth process into 6 different levels:

Level 1: Recognition of God: Salvation
Level 2: Discipleship
Level 3: Productive worker in the church
Level 4: Journey Inward, which leads to THE WALL (when questions without answers rock your faith foundation)
Level 5: Journey Outward- healed from your wounds and use those life experiences to give to others.
Level 6: The Life of Love- the place where your priorities are Kingdom-centered. The main characteristics of this stage are

1. Total obedience to God,
2. Wisdom gained from life's struggles
3. Compassionate living for others
4. Detachment from things and stress (wonder when I'll experience this?) where sacrifices in the eyes of the world are no big deal because "stuff" doesn't matter
5. Life underneath or on top: a realization that prestige doesn't determine worth and
6. The Life of Abandon: our needs are secondary to God's Kingdom plans. People at level 6 are hard to understand because they don't do things the "normal" way.

He gave a clear vision for their church to be filled with people at all stages of spiritual growth, ever moving forward. He is clearly visionary, and has a passion for missions and for the lost in a way that I haven't seen in a long time. I appreciated his thoughts on the church not wanting to get stuck in producing a bunch of Level 3 and below Christians, without challenging them to go deeper. I appreciated that his vision was very outward focused and not about growing "our" church, but about growing the kingdom.

I'm not stating this all very well, but it was a very challenging message, and I appreciated it.

Even though this is a Pentecostal, charismatic denomination (Missionary Alliance), I didn't get a sense of any over the top weirdness. I felt like the pastor had a good grip on the balance of an abandoned spiritual life but with both feet firmly planted in the South Dakota soil.

I couldn't stick around very long to chat with anyone afterward, because Matt had to work after church and the kids were over at New Hope having lunch with some friends.

So do we belong there? I think we could fit really well, and it would be a good theological challenge for us, switching denominations. I wouldn't really have an outlet for the atmosphere setting or thematic planning that I've been enjoying being a part of at New Hope, but musically and spiritually it would be a refreshing fit.

So the bottom line is, I don't know. Matt's been really struggling with the idea of where we're supposed to be in ministry, but he's not as deeply involved at New Hope as I am. I am thankful that I don't have to leave my friends, because I've really developed some great relationships over the last year. No matter where we go to church, if we stay in SF, we'll stay in close contact.

New Family Member

Yes that's right. We adopted a new family member yesterday. We haven't decided on a name yet, though we've narrowed it down to Bert or Frank. He is 5 years old and a beautiful blue. Here's a picture:

That's right. We bought an Aztec. I guess I'm more like my mom than I'd like to admit sometimes. I like to think of it as being like mom, but cheaper and more colorful... (her Aztec is beige with all the bells and whistles)

Some big changes have been happening fast around here. I went for my interview at USF yesterday, and it went better than I expected. The music dept. there is very small, I think there's only 3 or 4 full-time facutly and a lot of adjuncts. I had a chance to finally meet Nancy Wilcoxon, who is the only full-time voice teacher there. She studied with my voice teacher from USD (the wonderful and amazing Dr. Frank Aiello), and I had heard great things about her from Dr. A for a long time.

I was thrilled to discover than she is a kindred spirit. She said at one point in the interview that she's a Christian first, and a musician second. Yeah! Me too! Her life is evidence to that conviction, and I'm reallly looking forward to having her as a friend and colleague.

I will be one of 5 voice teachers (3 other adjuncts besides myself), and the only one with a Master's Degree, so I get first pick of the music majors after Nancy fills up (I KNEW that degree would come in handy someday). I will probably be able to carry up to 22 students a week (one at a time for a half hour each), without having to pay for daycare because Matt got his schedule worked out so that he'll have predictable shifts each week. PLUS, I should still be able to have 12-15 students in my home studio after school 3 days a week.

That's a lot of work, but I figure it's about time I started pulling my weight around here.

Changes Afoot

Well, me having a job with an actual paycheck that is a regular deal every month (unlike my jewelry business which is very irregular and not going so great) means that we can look into a slightly larger place to live.

I called our landlord to see if they had any 3 bedroom rentals in the central part of Sioux Falls. We still have to rent, of course, because our stupid Indiana house won't sell, but that's another story. And not a very interesting one.

She said that she had one right now, gave me the address and said it would be available the first of September for us to move in if we wanted it. She'd easily let us out of the last month of our lease.

With only one choice, I figured I'd look at it and say, "hmmm. Well, it's the best we're going to do." You know, like buying a used car. You rarely get the car of your dreams. But I went over and checked it out and look at it:

It's so pretty! They might even let me take those shutters down and repaint them cranberry red. It's not a perfect house, and it's not new by any means, but I've always said I liked older homes and I've always wanted to live in a yellow house. We haven't seen the inside yet, and we might get inside and discover there's no room for the piano (kind of a big criteria), but I've been told it has 3 bedrooms, and a partially finished basement with a family room, so I'm very interested. Also Janele, my realtor is really honest and wouldn't put us in a junky place (she offhandedly said, "I've got a 3-bedroom apartment, but you wouldn't want it, it's s**tty".)

We've really enjoyed this company that we're renting from for the last year. They have been very responsive to repair issues that we've requested, they mow our lawn every Tuesday morning, they remove snow for us. Not a bad deal!

Ever the perceptive one, Xander said, "But if we keep on renting, we'll never be able to afford to buy a house!" (Yes folks, he's six years old). I explained that renting is our only choice right now because we haven't sold our house in Indiana yet, so it would be really hard to convince a bank to loan us the money to buy another one.

As far as I'm concerned, trying to sell the Indiana house has soured me on ever buying again. Apparently the kinds of houses that I like are too junky for anyone else to buy, so if I'm going to buy one, I guess I have to live there forever.

Oh, and I forgot to mention one of the best parts about the house is the location. It's only 4 blocks from the campus of USF, and just a short drive from the school we want to send Xander to.

All this is contingent upon me actually getting this job. I have my interview in about 2 hours, but I'm not too worried about it. It's like I'll be doing the same job I was doing at Indiana Wesleyan, just in a different location. My hope is that they'll let me take about 20 students. We think we have the scheduling thing worked out so that we don't have to incur the cost of daycare for Maia. Matt talked to his scheduler last night and aksed if he could have a regular schedule that is permanent for 3 days of the week, so it looks like I'll be able to do all day Wednesday, as well as Monday and Tuesday mornings. And with the short commute to work shouldn't even have to worry about getting home in time to get Matt off to work. (His commute will be cut shorter by about 1/2 mile as well).

So we decided that Monday morning, we're calling the NE church and telling them that we won't be coming for an interview. That's all in Matt's blog if you want to take a look at his perspective on all this (plus a lot of commentary on the Tour de France).

I suppose I'd better go get beautiful for this interview.

Job Offer

OK, so this isn't exactly the direction we were thinking, but I got a job offer yesterday. I submitted a letter and resume to the University of Sioux Falls music department as a potential adjunct voice teacher about a month ago, and got a call back yesterday. They must be pretty desperate because I'm going to a cursory interview tomorrow morning and the paperwork has to be turned in on Monday.

So what do we do about the job interview in Nebraska? It's scheduled for the first weekend of August. Good question. I've pretty much just committed us to Sioux Falls for a year.

I'm also in the process of getting Xander enrolled in school, and we're trying to figure out if it's going to be possible to get Matt a fixed weekly schedule at Scheels so that we could potentially do without the added expense of daycare.

Meanwhile, last Sunday, Matt visited a church in Sioux Falls where he applied for a part-time worship pastor job. He really liked the church, and it's my turn to visit this weekend (we are able to continue our commitments at our current church that way). I'll write an update about that after I go. Probably shouldn't form an opinion until I actually go myself.

AND camp is coming up soon! We're so excited to go back to Indiana and lead worship in a wonderful atmosphere with some great kids. Camp has always been the outlet for some more high-energy, rockin' songs as well as a place to really submerge ourselves in the Holy Spirit and get refreshed. Only 10 more days!

Body Art

Our daughter truly has a visionary artistic outlook.

When she begins a work of art, she will not quit until every part of it is complete:

Including her feet

Legs

and even her own back.

I just hope this does not carry on for her whole life. She'll probably want to be covered in tatoos by the time she's 40.

Fancy Cookin'

Unbelievable.

Everyone in my house loved supper last night.

I know, that shouldn't take much, but I have two little picky birds who more often than not choose not to eat the food I serve them.

I have really gotten into cooking over the last few years, and I just had a Pampered Chef party, so I have a bunch of new recipes and fun cooking gadgets to try out. It's not unusual for me to spend 2-3 hours on dinner when Matt's planning on eating with us, trying out new recipes, making fun things, etc. And they almost always turn out pretty good (if I do say so myself), but my children would prefer to eat cheese. And crackers. Strawberries are a big hit. But they rarely eat what I make for dinner.

Usually Xander is a pretty good sport about at least trying everything he's given. But that often means that he'll only eat about 2 tablespoons worth of dinner each evening. Then he complains of being hungry 20 minutes later. Maia just screams if she doesn't like it, or if it LOOKS like she won't like it. (Our little drama queetn) She actually got put to bed one night last week at 6:30 while we were eating supper because she just screamed and screamed when I set her dinner down in front of her. I came back out of her bedroom and said, "I'm really sick of people screaming about the food I serve." I was angry and there was tension in the air, which Matt broke by saying, "I only scream good things about the food you serve."

Well last night was different. I made baked potstickers (wontons), filled with chicken, onion, ginger, etc. They were really good, and because they were baked instead of deep fried, they even looked pretty good- but not like a typical macaroni & cheese meal that the kids would eat.

Get this... the kids loved them. Maia ate a whole wonton, and asked for more, Xander ate 5 of them!

I KNOW!!!

He wouldn't eat the fried rice that I made, though he tried it. When I asked him if he was done, he said, "I tried that rice, and I ate 5 pizza rolls, can I be done?"

OK, so he thought they were pizza rolls, but he still ate them.

I'm sure that life will go back to normal this evening, and the coconut shrimp cakes that I make for dinner will be a flop with the kids and a hit with Dad. But it was nice to have general consensus for one night.

Drummer Boy

This morning in church, Xander was really rockin' out to the worship music. He was standing on the chairs and drumming along with the beat. Afterward, our guest drummer, Steve, asked whose kid that was. I said he was mine, and he thought he was great. I think he had more fun watching Xander than playing the music! He asked if he could give Xander a pair of sticks. I went and got Xander and he was very polite, but really excited to get a real pair of drumsticks (that hadn't been used the point of breaking then taped back together, like the ones in my old office at Hanfield). Steve told Xander that he was 7 when he got his first drumset... I hope there's no expectation for a drumset to go in our apartment... Maybe the garage? Steve was impressed with Xander's rhythm, and encouraged us to get him started drumming soon. Real drummers are born, not made.

Here's a reenactment of Xander pretending to drum,


And here's Xander with his cool new sticks.

We've had a busy week. We went to Mom's in Yankton on Wednesday because she wanted me to help paint faces at the hospital's ice cream social. There were fun games for the kids and lots of food and entertainment (a couple of bands and a dance studio provided some acts as well).

Xander got to be Batman this year (he was Spiderman last year). It's fun to paint his face, then send him out to play the games and see how many other little boys want to be Batman. I think I did about 5 or so.


Grandpa Jim was our ticket taker, and we thought that a 3rd eye on his forehead would be a fun addition to his already sparkling personality. Actually, things were quite slow when we first opened because everyone was visiting the food booths, but right when I started painting the eye on his head, things really picked up, and it was left unfinished for much of the evening, prompting a lot of "What's that supposed to be?" type questions. He says he had to finish painting it himself, so I don't exactly take credit for the artistry shown here!

We went over to Yankton early and played in the hot tub at Mom's for a while. Maia's very comfortable in the water there- her favorite activity that day was to sneak up behind Xander & dump water on his head- but get her in the big wading pool at the park with all the other kids, and she just wants to sit on my lap. We wanted to go swimming yesterday, but both kids were suffering some gastrointestinal distress, so I decided we'd better hold off for a while.

I'm having a Pampered Chef party here at my house on Monday night, so I started cleaning the house yesterday. Probably a big mistake. I'm sure that everything will be completely messed up again by Monday, but it was a nice thought.

On the job front: Matt's got an interview with a church in Nebraska sometime in July. They actually haven't given us an exact date yet, but it looks like it will be either the 2nd or 3rd weekend. It was supposed to be the first weekend, but then they discovered that, it being a holiday weekend and all, not all the staff would be there.

He also found out about a couple of possibilities here in Sioux Falls, probably both part time, both at different churches than the one we currently attend (obviously), but at least he has something else he could do with the other part of his time.

I also have a job opportunity. I read in our newspaper last week, that the music department of one of our local universities is suddenly needing help for the fall, because one of the profs quit rather suddenly. He was the choir guy and did some voice as well. The band director submitted his resignation in a more civilized manner, and they've had time to do a nationwide search to fill his position. I sent a letter and resume to the remaining full-time faculty member and dropped as many names as I could. I asked if she wanted my help in teaching voice in the fall, and she got back to me yesterday and said she would be interested in the possibility. So I might be helping out there in the Fall.

Of course, that would most certainly mean that Xander would have to go to public school in the fall, and Maia would have to go to daycare some days. I think it will be good for both of them.

Xander's doing good in the library's Summer Reading program. They have to log every day that they read for 20 minutes or more. I don't count computer time as reading, even though he reads a lot while on the computer, he's really playing games. They started the first of June, and he's got 19 days so far. They get lots of cool prizes when they complete 30 days.

Discouragement settling in again

I woke up this morning to find Matt on the couch in a real funk. He's really discouraged again. Finding himself asking, "What am I even doing here?" He's frustrated because he doesn't feel a real connection to Sioux Falls at all, he goes to work, he comes home. That's about it. He doesn't feel like any of the friends that he has here really truly 'get' him (I'm afraid that includes me), and he doesn't have anywhere to really share his feelings on the post-modern worship that he's so passionate about. He misses his Indiana friends, Kyle, Luke, Erik and Jason, who seem to understand him better, and feel the same way.

I guess we both go through seasons of up and down, luckily, we don't usually hit the bottom at the same time, so we can try to help hold each other up, but I feel so helpless to pull him out of this pit right now. He's pretty stubborn, and if he wants to feel this way, I can't talk him out of it. Of course, ultimately, only God can lift him up and pull him out of dispair, so I leave it in His capable hands.

I've been learning a lot from the life of David this summer. For Mothers Day, Matt & the kids gave me a book called "A Heart Like His" by Beth Moore (sorry, I don't know how to do links. Look it up yourself). It's just the hardcover book, not the full-blown Bible study, but I've been taking a chapter a day and using it for individual study, and once again, Beth Moore is teaching me a lot about God's Word and applying it to my life.

So what I've been learning from the life of David is: sometimes God calls you to a ministry, but then doesn't give it to you right away. Maybe you will find yourself in a servant role, slowly building up your skills until you're put into a position of leadership, but even then, things might not go exactly as you thought they should, and you might end up living in a cave and leading a band of disgruntled followers, while God shapes you into the person He wants you to be. Meanwhile, it's OK to cry out to God in your distress, fear, discouragement and anger because you don't understand what He's doing with your life, but always remember that God is sovereign and faithful and well... God. And as such, He is worthy of our praise.

At least no one's trying to kill us. See? Could be worse! :)

So that's the update on the spiritual temperature in our house. Please pray for us.

Thanks!

Job Application

So I applied for a job today. That's normally Matt's department, but in the paper this morning, there was a story about one of the local universities who very suddenly lost 2 out of 3 of their music faculty. The only remaining faculty member should be a little panicked, don't you think? They said they might have to fill in some of the gaps for the fall with some local musicians. I threw my hat into the ring as an adjunct voice teacher. They have some need for a choir director too, but I'm not sure I'm up for the task. I'm not qualified to be a full-time professor, but I have enjoyed my stints as an adjunct prof. at IWU in the past.

Also, Matt has an interview at a church in Nebraska, probably on July 1&2. We'll be heading there for the weekend to test the waters and see if we're a good for them, and vice versa. Guess we'll have to see...

Our Trip to Aunt Fae's

On our way out to the Black Hills a couple of weeks ago, we had a chance to stop at my dad's sister Fae's. She lives on a ranch in the Badlands.

This is a picture from the Badlands National Park which we had to drive through to get to the ranch. It seems like there is no way anything could live off of the land out there, but as Jerry drove us over the barren fields, he pointed out that the grass that does grow out there is pretty healthy for the cattle, and every few miles there is a natural spring that just barely keeps things alive and watered. The cattle know how to find their way to those springs.

This is a yucca flower, a rare delicacy that the cows will go miles out of their way to nibble on. Mom says she rarely sees them on the yuccas in her yard because the deer always eat them. (I didn't eat mine...)

We drove over bumpy, barren ground (Xander got to ride with Aunt Fae on the back of the 4-wheeler), for a long time. Finally Jerry asked if we had our cameras ready and he came over a rise and we saw the bulk of their pastureland:

25,000 acres of this (between Fae & Jerry and Jerry's folks who live "next door"). I actually needed to take 4 pictures, panorama style to get it all, but it pretty much all looked like this. Amazing huh? They said they often loose track of cattle out there (there are actually cows in this picture, can you spot them?), and invariably, there will be a "handful" who don't make it in to be sold in the fall and show up on the first cold day wondering what the ranchers are going to do about the weather.

We also got to see the orphaned calves, and Xander got to give one a bottle (Grandma helped, since she knew it would be a tough job). They have horses, of course, and we even got to stay and watch the process of a branding at a neigbor's ranch.
This is the girl who was roping the calves that they dragged off and branded. It was fun to watch her work. She was probably only about 15 or 16, and was still honing her craft, but Xander really enjoyed that part. We didn't get too close to the actual branding activity, which also includes vaccinations, tagging and castration. Eeew! Stay away from that bucket...

My mom was in hog heaven. She really fancies herself a cowgirl, and much of her childhood and formative years were spent astride a horse. She is a rodeo gal from way back, and only since we moved to Iowa when I was 8, has she started (very slowly) to become domesticated. The fancy car, upscale jewelry (Premier Designs of course), huge house on the lake, and yoga classes all went out the window the minute she slapped on that hat and hopped on the 4-wheeler behind Fae. (Fae & Jerry use this vehicle every day to ride the fields and check on the cows. They put 10,000 miles on in a year.)


Just like the people who've moved "Up North" revert to a Southern accent when talkin' to mama on the phone, she was back in the saddle again. She probably needed a few days to reinsert herself to the culture she lives in now.
Needless to say, this was not my mileu (nice sign, huh?). Much to my mother's chagrin, I never wanted to be a cowgirl, and I cringe at all things Western. I have to say that the Eastern side of SD (or "East River" as they call it), is really more my cup of tea. I'm just too girly.

And I'm OK with that.

Happy Birthday, Maia!

We had a fun birthday party for Maia on Saturday morning. We were supposed to have it in the park, complete with grilling, playground equipment and swimming in the wading pool... But it was 57 degrees and rainy and windy at party time, so we moved it indoors to the cafe at our church.




There was some indoor play equipment from the daycare, and plenty of space for cooking and partying. We had a nice list of guests, all the grandpas and grammas, Aunt Rena & Uncle Troy with Cassie & Lexi, and Hal & Martha brought John. It was a nice thing to have at least one family there who isn't related to us!


The big kids decided the preschool toys weren't for them, so they pretended to play on their computers. What ever happened to imagination?

We had a "Hello Kitty" cake and decorations, and Maia got lots of cute clothes and toys for gifts. Thanks to all who attended! It was a fun day.

The Black Hills

Last weekend, Xander & I went with my mom, Aunt Jeanne & Uncle John and Grandma Leigh Anne to the Black Hills to climb Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse the monument -not the person. That would be weird. In the style of Mount Rushmore, the Native Americans are in the midst of a LONG process of carving a sculpture out of a mountain to honor one of their own in the Black Hills of South Dakota- which is only fitting since they were there first. The last time I visited Crazy Horse, it was mostly just a chalk outline on the mountain. That was probably about 17 years ago.

The park opens the monument one weekend a year to allow tourists to hike to the top and actually stand on the sculpture in progress. My grandma Leigh Anne has done this hike (it's not like we're rapelling or anything) 3 years now, but she says that this year was her last. She is 89, so we'll give her that. She's the one that organized this whole venture, and we had a lot of fun.

It was a beautiful day for the climb, and the first 3/4 of the way up we were really in the shady tree zone, going up and down the hills, following a path that changes each year, and enjoying the pseudo-community of the other hikers that were there as well. We wound up seeing mostly the same people the whole time, because there were several others who went as slow as us.

Xander had to take the road less traveled a few times because the hills offer some cool climbing places.

There were checkpoints along the way, and mercifully, a couple of them included port-a-potties, so we didn't have to deface the national monument. We could get water and snacks at those, and rest for a bit on the rocks.

Once we got into the serious part of the cimb, we used the service road that the dynamite blasters use to get up the hill, with big-rocked gravel and a few switchbacks. It was pretty steep and hard to walk on. The oldest and youngest of our crew had to take a lot of rest breaks, but we made it. Here we are way up by the face of the monument.

I suppose in decades to come, this will be cool, because someday they'll finish the monument and then you won't be able to climb on it anymore.


After we were done with the 6.4 mile hike, we determined that pie and ice cream were a just reward, so we went to the Purple Pie Place in Custer (where our hotel was) and celebrated.

That night we had dinner at The Cattleman's Steakhouse and Fish Market, where we were waited on by our not-so-authentic cowboy waiter, Miguel. I had prime rib and cowboy beer.
Actually, it was just Amber Bock served in a boot shaped glass. I shudder to think of what the definition of "Cowboy Beer" might be, since most other things that have the prefix of "Cowboy" are really disgusting, like Cowboy Toilet Paper (a fuzzy weed with a long spike- for use on the crusties), or Cowboy Kleenex (just shoot it out your nose onto the ground), etc.

While we were on our little trip, we did a lot of other touristy things, like visit Mount Rushmore (it only took 17 years to build that, and it has four faces!). We went to an educational movie while we were there (narrated by SD's own Tom Brokaw) and learned about the process of carving that monument. In the museum, we learned about the process they use for patching the cracks, that the original artist's concept included bodies for the 4 presidents, and some other interesting things. We didn't have the energy to visit the Crazy Horse visitor center after we were done with our hike, or I might have some similar interesting information for you.


We went to Historic Keystone, which is the closest town to Rushmore, and my Uncle John bought some motorcycle chaps (he's a retired Harley dude now, complete with leather chaps and a brand new tatoo), and the rest of us visited the tourist traps. Got to watch the taffy makers which was very interesting, and sample their wares, as well as the wares of various fudge shoppes.


We also hit the Black Hills Maze, which was a special treat for Xander. He'd been looking forward to that for weeks. It's a fun maze made of wooden walls-that they rearrange every 2 weeks, bridges and towers. He and Grandma Marilyn (mom) and I all did that together and we had a lot of fun while the others in our group went shopping.

One of the funnest things that we did was visit the Badlands and my Aunt Fae's ranch. I'll write about that in another post.

I'm New Here

I have finally entered the world of the Blogger. This blog will probably be pretty ugly for a while, until I learn the ropes and figure out how to make it pretty, put in pictures, etc. I have been reading the blogs of friends for a long time, and of course, my husband, Matt has been keeping our friends and family updated through his blog during the last year, so I guess I decided to jump on the band wagon. If you read both mine and Matt's you'll get both sides of the story. Always interesting!

Maia's 2nd birthday is this weekend, I thought it would be fun to have a pool party at the nearby park for her. The theme will be Hello Kitty, since she just loves kitties, and I thought it would be a fairly easy cake to make via the cut & paste method of shaped cake making. Hope it doesn't rain.

Today, we went to a puppet show at the library. It was based on the Aesop's fable about the mice putting a bell on the cat so that the cat wouldn't be able to sneak up on them. At one point, one of the mice got caught by the cat, and the other one cried and lamented on and on. Maia apparently felt so bad for the mouse that she started crying too! (By the way, the mouse was fine. Got away before the cat could eat him) I thought the Wisconsin accents on the mice was particularly funny. Don't know if it was intentional or not. Hard to tell around here!

After the puppet show, we went to get the kids' pictures taken. They were the best-dressed kids at the library today. They did pretty good with their pictures. Both were dressed in a light spring green- their Easter outfits. Maia actually sat on the platform by herself and smiled for a couple of pics. A big improvement over Christmas time, when I wound up being in her Christmas picture with her because she wouldn't sit up there alone.

Got to go over to Hal & Martha's and see their new house, new van and Martha's new haircut. Aren't they fancy? It's nice to have friends with new stuff. When we get tired of our cramped space, we can go hang out in their new house. I decided to run errands after Maia's nap yesterday, which didn't end until 5:00 or so. We went to the library to return some movies, stopped at the bank to make an after-hours deposit, and delivered some jewelry to some of my customers. While we were driving out in the SE edge of town, I decided to call Hal & Martha and see if we could stop by and see the new house. It was stupid of me not to feed the kids before we left, because Maia is not so cheerful when she's hungry, but we had a short visit and it was nice.