New link for pics

Heard from Aunt Lynn that the new Smugmug link I tried did not work afterall. Bummer. So here's an old-style link...

http://spando.smugmug.com/gallery/5637735_Esifa/1/346662548_qvtpL

Have a great day!

Great 8th Birthday

Having a summer birthday is really a lot of fun!! This year, O's big 8th birthday coinsided with some McFamily coming into town (Nana & Grand-dad, Auntie E, Uncle Ry and Sophie). So we invited a few good friends and Baba & Gumpa to join the McCrowd to celebrate on Saturday afternoon. We had a few of O's favorite foods for lunch-- pizza, watermelon, DQ cake--and then headed outside for a big giant water battle and some slip'n'sliding. As you see in the pics, kids of ALL ages had a ball!

On the actual birthday day, Baba & I took the b-day boy to the Science Center. We got to explore the exhibits, watch an IMAX movie, learn about Einstein, and explore the Mather. We topped the afternoon off with a humongous sundae at the Honey Hut. In the evening we had dinner at Applebee's, ate some more ice cream, and opened presents with Daddy. We even managed to squeeze in a little Playstation Indiana Jones between birthday greeting phone calls. It was really a great day. We'll continue the celebration in a few weeks when we go to see the new Star Wars "Clone Wars" movie with some buddies (the movie doesn't open til the 15th).

There are, of course, more pics to see on Smugmug. Both grandma's are having trouble viewing pics, so I'm trying a new way to link... leave us a comment to let us know if this works!

http://spando.smugmug.com/photos/346662548_qvtpL-Th.jpg

So far, O thinks 8 is pretty great! I'm still a little awed by the fact that he's eight years old!! And a third grader!! Frankly, it's a little much for mom at this point. This of course is confounded by the fact that summer flew by entirely too fast and school starts two weeks from today. We are so not ready for that...

Scientific Proof!

Here it is: scientific proof that my mom's hands really are as cold as ice. That's her big icy blue hand behind O's warmer green & yellow hand, as seen on the thermal imaging cam at the Science Center. We spent O's big 8th birthday there yesterday exploring the exhibits, watching an IMAX on the Mysteries of the Great Lakes, learning about Einstein and touring the Mather. Also had the requisite day-with-Baba ice cream treat, and since it was also a birthday treat, he got a bigger-than-his-stomach sundae at the Honey Hut. Yum! More birthday pics to come tomorrow...

Tribe ROCKS!

Last night we got to do the coolest thing... we got to walk the warning track at Progressive Field before the Tribe game!! I bet you're wondering how we got to do this. Well, we bought tickets through my friend Jeff's baseball league. Anyone who bought tickets through them got to walk the warning track. We had to get there really early, but it was worth it!! We even got to wave to my dad in the stands. Me & Jeff split blue cotton candy. Yum! They sold over 40,000 hot dogs that night because it was $1 hot dogs. That's crazy! --O

Hello/Goodbye

We got to spend a little time with some of our favorite people in the whole wide world this weekend, people we hardly ever get to see. First, Jessica & Jackson came for the day on Friday. For a brief moment, it was as though they had never left.... O & Jack picked up right where they'd left off last summer, playing happily all day, and Jess & I got to do what we do best, which is to talk. It was such a treat! Then P & I got to see them (and Deacon) again on Saturday night, when Jess & her brother Tim appeared in concert as "You're Not My Mom" at Prelude Coffeehouse. They are both fabulous singers but realized recently that they had never performed together. So Tim assembled an awesome band, they collaborated on a set list, and a truly beautiful night of music was created! When they get it on YouTube, I'll post a link so you can see/hear for yourselves. Saying goodbye after the show was, I think, harder than saying goodbye when they left for Texas last year. Having them here made me profoundly aware of the hole it left in our lives when they moved. We miss them. A LOT.

Then on Sunday, we got to reconnect with the Silliman/Pickerill family. This is my BFF from high school, Julia. She and her family are leaving this week on a great adventure to Amsterdam to do a church plant for Vineyard, where Eric has been on staff for more than a decade. We had not seen each other since O was a baby, although we'd communicated in bits & spurts over the years. But when we walked into the clubhouse where her folks were having a little going-away party for them, it was just like old times. We had a wonderful afternoon, catching up, swapping stories, watching the kids play, and saying goodbye. Hello, goodbye.... just like that. I was left wondering how it happens that these beautiful friends who you love so intensely come & go from your life without you really recognizing that it's happening until you've moved on to the next stage. Suddenly, they're "old friends." When did that happen?!? What a blessing that we get to have them in our lives at all, I suppose. Although the awareness I had this weekend of them coming & going brought lots of tears. These two friends in particular--Jessica & Julia--have been two of the most obvious examples of God's hand in my life. There's a quote I love from Anne Lamott's book Traveling Mercies that sums up quite well who they are for me...

"My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt & fear. When I look back at some of these early resting places… I can see how flimsy and indirect a path they made. Yet each step brought me closer to the verdant pad of faith on which I somehow stay afloat today. "

They are two of the biggest, strongest lilypads on the pond of my life. How great is our God for growing them there.

All-Time Greats

Last night was one of those all-time great nights... we wrapped up a fabulous rainless week of VBS with a church-family campout in God's Big Backyard. About 55 people spent the night in our little FCC tent city. Some others stuck around for a special showing of "Good Boy" on the home-made Jumbotron (which I forgot to take a picture of, but boy was that a contraption to behold!!) and then went home to their own beds. The kids ran amok, full of hotdogs & s'mores, the grown-ups hung out 'round the fire, and a great time was had by all. It was one of those nights full of moments when you just know you're right where you're supposed to be.



There's our cozy little tent, which had serious tent envy of the big, giant multi-room tents that the serious campers brought, but for now we fit in it quite fine. Believe it or not, it was P's first-ever night in a tent. The verdict is that there will be more tent nights to come! In fact, this morning over donuts a plan was hatched for a church-family weekend camping trip in the fall. Can't wait for that!

VBS Day 2

Here we are... ketchup & mustard!

You may be wondering, "Why???" Best answer is that we're freaks for VBS. But I'll try to explain... The day's overall theme was "Serve Friends." We extrapolated that to "Friends, like condiments, spice up your life. Serve them often!" Yes, it's a stretch, but it's FUN!!!

Oh, and we may be in the local paper in our ketchup & mustard costumes!!! A reporter was out taking pictures of the kids painting our Tent of Hope, and the tent happened to be set up next to our games area. The reporter decided that the games looked like so much fun that he took some pics of kids playing Squirt Tag and chatted with us awhile, too.

FYI, Tents of Hope is a very cool program that our Missions Coordiator is heading up with a few other local churches. Check it out: http://www.tentsofhope.org/index.html