gearing up for the olympics....

It's official! The house is definitely getting ready for the 2008 Olympics. Yesterday, Andrea pulled out her autographed 8"x10" of Dominique Dawes (Awesome Dawesome). She received it after she sent a letter to Dominique expressing her greatest admiration for her--actually Andrea wrote all of the gymnasts. (she refrained from answering my questions about who else responded, but I'm pretty sure she told me previously that Amanda Borden and Kerri Strug also responded, although not with an 8"x10").

Stephanie also asked me to tape the swimming since she will be out of the country. (Ironically she'll be much closer to the events than I will be!)

On a different note--please be in prayer for three members of the house as they will be leaving on missions trips within the next two weeks. Katie leaves on Saturday for the Dominican Republic (she will be gone 10 days). Andrea and Stephanie leave on the 29th for an unnamed location (they will be gone 17 days). Pray for safe travels and bold, Christ-like love for the people they come in contact with!

night time intruders...

Two nights ago I was closing up the main floor windows and shutting the blinds before I went to bed. As I was closing the last one (the kitchen window, which is facing our backyard) I heard some movement that was definitely coming from our yard. Thinking it was someone from next door (the blue house) I switched on the light on the outside of our garage and flung open the blind covering our back door window. This is what I saw:


That would have been bad enough, but then I realized that I had more of a problem on my hands than I realized!



We had caught a squirrel in our newly acquired live trap and had put it out of it's misery (thanks Mike!), but hadn't disposed of it yet (it was 10:30pm by the time we got around to "putting it down"). Well, this family of raccoons were more than happy to help me with the problem of disposing of the squirrel's remains--the only problem for them was the trap! When I went out to scare them away and assure them that I would take care of the squirrel myself, they didn't seem to believe me and challenged me! (what nerve!) There were 6 raccoons in all--I'm guessing it was a mother and 5 babies. The mother got a bit protective when I came out there and she tried to scare me. I, however, was armed with a broom and plastic garbage can lid (they weren't too impressed!). They soon found out just how serious (and stubborn) I was and decided it wasn't worth the fight. They did, however, all watch me from the top of the fence nearby while I rescued my squirrel remains (and trap) and then "hurried" back inside. It was quite exciting!

hip-hop and Na

When I was at the New Attitude Conference last month I bought a couple CD's. One of them is called 'The Atonement,' by Shai Linne. He came and sang a song at church a few months ago and he sang at the conference as well. I don't normally listen to much rap/hip-hop but I have really enjoyed this CD. The words of his song's are excellent. And he even has a few songs with some John Piper and CJ Mahaney sermon clips. At the conference, Shai Linne sang a short version of one of his songs. Sorry it's so dark. It was real dark in the room.

Another CD I bought was the 'Looked Upon' CD by the Na Band. The leader of the band, Devon Kauflin led the worship songs with his dad, Bob Kauflin at the conference and it was some of the greatest singing time I've ever experienced. The CD does not compare to the live singing but I still really like it and would recommend both of these CDs...