Happiest Place On Earth - 'Specially With Grandkids!

Thursday was a terrific day.  Lyn and I took Haley and Lexi to Disneyland and we all had a picture-perfect morning together.  The weather was great--warm and sunny and "fresh."  The park was crowded, but manageable. We ran into Pluto and Chip by the Alice in Wonderland ride.  Haley got to ride the Matterhorn and LOVED the "scary bear that roared." Lexi rode her first roller coaster ever. AND we got by spending under $5. Unheard of!  Oh yeah--we got free parking even!  I was going to park at Downtown Disney like we always do, but we thought it would be good to drop off Lyn and the girls at the Timon parking lot at the front of the park.  We got our little yellow drop-off slip for the windshield, but all the attendants disregarded it and directed us to a parking space. I wasn't about to slow down the whole process by making a scene, so we parked where we were told!

I can't wait until miss Emily is old enough to join her cousins for a day with Mickey, Donald, and the grandfolks!

Haley wanted to push the stroller.  So we made

our way to the gate area.  Mamaw Lyn led the way!

We went straight to the Matterhorn.  Haley had been talking about it all morning.  She and Lyn stayed in line there and Lexi and I went to Alice in Wonderland.  Lyn and Haley got through the Matterhorn in time to join Lexi and me in the Alice line (which moves mega-slow)!  

After Alice we ran into Pluto.  Haley never knew a "character" she didn't love.  Lexi, is more skeptical.  

This was as close as Lexi would get!

Chip was just a short distance away from Pluto.  We had to visit him too.

Lexi moved in closer to Chip than with Pluto, but when his hand

touched her shoulder, she wanted him to remove it a.s.a.p.

Next stop ToonTown and the little play area there.

This is the girls in the crawl-in pumpkin.

This was so fun.  Lexi never really knew what hit her.  

This was her first-ever roller coaster.  She really enjoyed

it--was ready to ride again, but we didn't have time.  :(

These two pictures are from Goofy's house.  Both the girls

really loved Goofy's piano.

Haley looks like she practiced one too many scales!

Actually, they were arguing about who should drive.  But 

it LOOKS like Haley's carsick!

Time to leave . . . This hitch-hiker was hard 

for Papa-Don to take!  :)

Adam Back In The Day . . .

Many of you HB readers met our nephew, Adam Reid (from Las Vegas) a couple of weeks ago when he was here to lead worship for OverDrive.

Well, when I was digging around for video clips of Lyn's grandma the other day, I came across this great vintage video of Adam from Christmas morning, Tampa, Florida, 1990 (I think).  I wouldn't normally do this to an innocent, unsuspecting relative, but since it's so cute (great freckles!) I couldn't resist.  I'm sure his "kinfolk" will appreciate it!  It's only 17 seconds long, so look fast!  :)

Here's to youth!  

P.S.  It's early Saturday morning.  Lyn and I are off to help Brian and Jennifer (and Emily!) move in their cool new condo!  It's really pretty!  We're so happy for them.  

________

8:04 pm - I couldn't get this to upload this morning.  The move went great.  Jen and Brian's new home is beautiful.  They're going to be so happy there!  Wish I had pics to show, but I forgot to take the camera this morning.  :(

[Note: That little "click" Adam gave wasn't typical.  He was a bit shy at the time.  A few seconds later he "performed" one that nearly peeled the paint off the wall!  Talented kid!  :)    ALSO, Adam's little sister, seen on her mother's lap, got married in October to the son of one of my JBC students!  Talk about feeling old!!!]

Nearly Had A Heart Attack!!!

I was checking out some alternative templates for my blog.  Suddenly I lost ALL my links, pictures, etc.  Scared me silly.  Fortunately, I stumbled on a way to get it all back.

Phew!  Close call!

Pearl Holmes - 1908-2008

Yesterday afternoon Lyn and I got word that her 99 year-old grandmother, Pearl Daymond Holmes, went home to be with her Lord. Interestingly, Kristi and Haley were with us at the time the call came. (We were on the way to see the new Dr. Seuss movie, Horton Hears the Who.) In our car rolling down Harbor Boulevard was Pearl's granddaughter, her great-granddaughter, and her great-great-granddaughter.

Grandma Holmes was a wonderful, vibrant woman.  I always enjoyed hearing the stories Lyn told about the times she'd spent with her on vacations when she was a girl: the walks they took together; the games they played; the shopping they did; the snacks they ate. 

Pearl was a hard-working woman who knew and respected the value of a dollar.  She had a great sense of thrift as well as a great sense of humor.  She loved books.  She loved her cat Dinah.  She loved walking around the lakes of Lakeland.  She loved shopping.  She loved her family.  She loved her Lord.

One thing I always appreciated about Grandma Holmes was the way she welcomed me to the family.  I never felt the least bit like an outsider with her. I always felt a connection to her--partly because she and my mother shared the name Pearl.  (It was Mom's middle name.) She and I seemed to hit it off from the beginning, and it was such a sad thing for me to see her health begin to fail about 12 years ago.  

She had a love-hate relationship with the camera--especially the video camera.  I have attached some very grainy video clips of Grandma Holmes to this post.  (I sat in our family room at 3:30 this morning, aiming our digital camera at the TV while an 18 year old video tape played on the screen. THEN, I loaded the clips to my computer and compressed the dickens out of them in order to put them on the web. So please forgive the 3rd generation "ickiness" of the video/audio quality.) Anyway, Pearl gave the impression that she NEVER wanted to be photographed or filmed, but when a camera was pointed her direction, her antennae were always up and she'd slip into a subtle pose mode.  She'd feign annoyance, but I know she really enjoyed it.

The first video is even WORSE in quality, because it was the family sitting around WATCHING a video of Grandma "performing" in her kitchen. I couldn't find the original version. (Wamp wamp) I call the clip "A Star Is Born!" She was lecturing me about the positives of bananas--the one fruit I truly hate.  She was also giving me tips on finding good deals on bananas at the local Publix grocery store.  You probably won't understand a word she says, but you can get a sense of her pre-Food Network savvy.

The second video was taken at Christmas around 1990.  You can get a feeling for what Grandma was like when she was in her prime.

Even though we've known the day of her departure was quickly approaching, it's still sad to think that she's no longer among us.

Haley was so sweet today as she tried to comfort Lyn in the car.  She told her that one of these days she'd get to be in heaven with her Grandma and she could hug her and kiss her and spend lots of time with her again.  Bright little girl!  (In the words of Horton, "A person's a person, no matter how small!")

And she's absolutely right.

Great Memories - Easter 2008

Easter weekend was jam-packed with fun and work.  Since Kristi, Curtis, Brian and I had to be at church early Saturday afternoon to prepare for rehearsal and the Saturday night services, we all gathered at our house around noon.

When everyone's there, our place is quite "cozy" but that makes things interesting!

Haley and Emily having some quality "Cuz Time"

From the time Kristi and Jennifer were very young, we've had the tradition of making an "Easter Bunny Cake." Lyn found this great recipe over 30 years ago--only involves a regular cake mix (2 9" round pans--ears and bow tie cut out of one), coconut, jelly beans, and red licorice strings.

Of course, the tradition is being passed on to the grandchildren. As you can see here, Haley LOVES the idea!  In the video below, the girls help Lyn decorate.  By the way, when we had the cake after Easter Dinner, Haley did the honors of cutting it--basically major surgery on the poor bunny--and single-handedly devoured 95% of the jelly beans!

Happiest Cook On The Planet

Jennifer and Emily enjoyed some fun time

 with Lexi admiring her cousin.

We had 5 services over the weekend--1 Saturday and 4 on Sunday. Because Sunday was such a long morning (call time was 7 am  and we finished about 1:20 pm), we spent a lot of time in our greenroom/office area.  Our totals for the weekend were over 5000!

The Green Room

Lexi spent Saturday night with us.  (Haley spent it with Grandma  and Granddad Templeton). This is the first time Kristi and Lexi saw each other on Easter morning.

Lexi and Mommy

A tired moment for Curtis.  Putting the "green" in the Green Room

This is Simone, our sweet cellist who plays in our string quartet.  Wish we could afford these women every week!

Simone

The girls help Mamaw-Lyn decorate the traditional Easter Bunny Cake

Emily Playing On Her Easter Bunny Quilt

Some Thoughts On THE PASSION

Yesterday was a day I sorta dreaded.

One doesn't really "look forward" to a screening of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. On the other hand, I knew that seeing it again would be a great blessing to me.

There were many little things about the film I had forgotten.  In fact, there was one HUGE thing I'd forgotten:  the subtitles!  Just before the showing, my friends Sammy and Paula Gallo were telling me they'd decided not to bring their grandson because of all the sub-titles.  I actually "remembered" the film being in English!  Duh.  How does one forget something that significant? Especially when he's a drama team leader and a movie buff?  I guess I had been so caught up in the storytelling of the film that I'd released my mind from the technicalities or something.  

Anyway, it was an amazing reprise experience for me.  I think in many respects the film is a telling of TWO passions:  Jesus' and Mary's. The depiction of her suffering as a mother presented the Story in a way that was all the more heartbreaking.  The superimposing of the flashback of her running to her fallen son (as a boy) to her fallen Son (the Lamb of God) almost undid me.  As did the scene where she instinctively made her way to the exact spot over the temple dungeon where Jesus was imprisoned overnight.  And her carefully cleaning up His blood from the floor of Pilate's courtyard.  Gruesome but somehow beautiful.

In seeing it again, I also decided that Gibson chose a feminine Satan (who looked in many ways like a distorted version of Mary) very intentionally.  Perhaps to a Man who was struggling with the reality of an imminent and brutal death, the Garden temptation to give up on His Mission might have more success if the tempter reminded Him of His mother.  

One final take-away.  We "Protestants" are often critical of the Catholic "obsession" with the crucified Christ.  We have harsh things to say about all those crucifixes hanging on walls and around necks.  We prefer to glorify the empty cross and the empty grave--and have good reason to do so.  However, I can't help think that contemplating only empty crosses--especially smooth ones, or gold ones, or jewel-encrusted ones--allows us to mentally censor all the worse-than-nightmarish realities of Jesus' suffering. Perhaps we need to occasionally forgo the neat-and-tidy for the grim-and-brutal, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us.  Crucifixion was certainly no picnic.  But it makes picnics possible.

I'm probably not going to watch this movie again any time soon.  But, the next time I do, I hope that I will once again be made more grateful for the amazing Gift that I--all of us--have been given.

Amazing Discovery I Made Today

Tonight while I was browsing through the Drudge Report online, I came across an amazing link he calls "World Front Pages."  It's sooooo cool!  There are front pages from most of the daily newspapers across the country and around the world.  You can read the entire newspapers (or at least their websites) with the click of an HTML button.

For instance, I found todays front page of the Orlando Sentinel the newspaper I grew up with in Florida. 

Then I found the Knoxville News Sentinel  that we read when I studied and taught at Johnson Bible College in Knoxville.  It was the paper we read when Kristi and Jennifer were born.

As I said in an earlier post, I'm reading the Bruce Catton books on the Civil War.  I first read these books back in 1980/81.  That year, on a weekend trip with one of our singing groups from Johnson, we traveled to the Atlanta area.  I stayed in a home with people who were serious students of the Civil War.  (Atlanta, of course, had a major role to play in the war.)  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution had put together a collection of every front-page from every Sunday edition of the Constitution from 1860-1865.  (The collection had been released in 1961 for the centennial of the beginning of the War.) ANYWAY, they gave me a copy which is one of my most treasured positions.  

Here's today's front page of that major paper!  (The political position has changed a smidge in the last century.)

Of course, if you read Russian, you can find Moscow's daily.  (I could have shown Paris, Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, and any other major city's newspaper, but you get the idea.)  I really think this is cool!

On a much more mundane level, I made another discovery today as well.  I decided to wash the NASTY floor mats from my car.  I sprayed the stains with Spray-N-Wash, set the washer for delay and pre-soak. When I came home from the gym this afternoon, I had beautifully clean car mats. I was stoked!