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Archive for October, 2008

Anybody willing?

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

So, at youth group this coming Sunday we are going to have an advice night. We’ve got a list of advice for students… some of it specifically Biblical, some of it just common sense, and some of it funny (if you are impaled with something large, leave it in there until a medical professional shows up). So here’s your chance people – what’s the best (or funniest) piece of advice you’ve ever received? You know, maybe something along the lines of “Make all your decisions as if you were playing a video game.”

So, folks young and old, fess up. I know you all are smart people and you didn’t get that way without a little help. Give up some of your good advice! Leave a comment.

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A wonderful autumn weekend – Part C

Monday, October 27th, 2008

We capped off an excellent Fall weekend with a very Fall thing to do. We took the youth group to a corn maze. It was a great afternoon.

It started with Emmy taking dozens of useless photos of things like this. Huh?

But I suppose she made up for it by taking some photos like this:

I love the difference between Da Kaff and Magoo’s techniques for going down the slide. He’s all guy and she’s all girl.

We did actually eventually make it into the corn:

It was a windy night, and it did weird things to the atmosphere, but it ended up being really pretty. I was kind of dreading going out in the weather but was really glad I did.

The afternoon nearly ended on a bad note. A couple of the the more troublesome youth group girls got completely out of control. I was fairly certain they were going to be the victims of a horrific high speed crash. Tragedy was narrowly averted:

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A wonderful autumn weekend – Part II

Sunday, October 26th, 2008

Saturday was all about the U of I band competition.

The band looked AWESOME. Look at EL, our 100% very favorite all time drum major.

Here’s Da Kaff and Magoo. Magoo, straighten your hat out. Just don’t let the judges see you do it…

SweetGuy and I watched the amazing band. They were SO good!

Then we walked a ways (SweetGuy — “It’s about 10 minutes” — actual walk time = 25 minutes one way) for lunch, walked back to the stadium, met Da Kaff and Magoo and got a chance to walk around the campus (SweetGuy — “It’s about 20 minutes” — actual walk time = 40 minutes one way).

TOTAL best part of the day = Da Kaff and Magoo holding hands as they were walking behind SweetGuy and I. Ornery Magoo accuses SweetGuy and I of not loving each other because we weren’t holding hands. Without missing a beat SweetGuy grabs me and plants a kiss. Magoo erupted into a blubbering screaming mess of embarrassment. That’ll teach her.

It was a wonderful day.

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A wonderful autumn weekend Part I

Saturday, October 25th, 2008

It’s only Saturday evening and it’s already been an awesome fall weekend. So awesome, I think it’s going to need more than one post to describe. So here’s Part I – Friday night – bonfire and senior night.

Last night we had our annual fall bonfire with our gang of high school buddies. We’ve been doing this thing at K&M’s house forever. One of the unique parts of the evening is our annual burning of stuff. Everyone brings something to destroy (and pollute the atmosphere) in the bonfire. Every once in a while someone burns an item of deep personal significance. More often than not, the burning is just for effect and a laugh. Examples of a few things that have been burned in the past:

My personal all time favorite was the giant KISS stand-up cutout. Even more hilarious than burning the thing, was attempting to start it on fire by shooting bottle rockets at it. Makes me laugh just thinking about it. Bud and Dustmeister would love the pyromania of it all.

SweetGuy and I left in the middle of the bonfire to head up to the high school for senior night under the Friday night lights at the stadium. Tradition has football players, cheerleaders, and bando’s honored on this night by walking out onto the football field with their parents. The rain didn’t cooperate. I’m thrilled it didn’t. The halftime celebration was cancelled, and the band ended up having a fun spontaneous ceremony in the school auditorium. Each of the dozen seniors were cheered on by their sections complete with handmade signs. The seniors took turns at the microphone telling hilarious band memories. Best of all for SweetGuy and I was watching Magoo sit up on the risers before the ceremony. The group was so incredibly comfortable with each other. It was really obvious these folks had spent a LOT of time together and really cared about each other. There were smiles and laughs and inside jokes amongst every single one of them. The special bond was crystal clear.

This is a completely sucky picture below. The stage was dark, but nevertheless I want to post it. This is an EXTAORDINARY group of kids who are on the cusp of adulthood and Magoo is a part of a special team.

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The rampant misuse of the word literally

Friday, October 24th, 2008

So here is my own little public service announcement on the proper use of the word literally. I am not a word snob. I am not particularly adept at the English language. And, I’m not all that prone to rants, but listen WORLD, you keep misusing the word literally. It’s everywhere. I hear it from public speakers, I read it in books that have presumably been edited by English majors. It’s in the newspaper and it’s misspoken by you and me. Well, not me. Here’s a headline from Yahoo news just today where it is misused. I can assure you that this dude did not literally walk on water.

Let me explain. The word literally means EXACTLY or WORD FOR WORD or ABSOLUTELY TRUE. It is the opposite of the word figuratively which is a METAPHOR or an artistic representation of something. It’s easier to explain this by using an example.

Magoo is literally going to kill me if I post this lovely picture of her subtly telling Da Kaff to get off the laptop:

So, you see for the statement above to be the proper use of the word literally, Magoo would have to actually kill me over this picture. I am a bit worried about her reaction, but murder me in cold blood over it? I doubt it.

What are people’s thought process when they misuse literally? I think they believe it is an intensifier of whatever they are about to say. To them “Magoo is literally going to kill me” is the equivalent of them saying Magoo is going to be really REALLY mad at me. Which, ah, she just might literally be… nah, I doubt it. I buy her chocolate and find her black socks.

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Um, yeah, so here you go

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

We are sort of missing Bud. So, I figured a good way to reverse the effects of missing him would be to remind myself of something I don’t like about Bud. I think I might write a parenting book, and this could be a chapter: How to not be homesick for your kid. Take pictures of him doing unpleasant things and post them online. Don’t you think it’s a smashing idea? I’d have to expand on it a bit and repeat myself over and over but I believe I’m onto something. So here’s an offering for you, just in case you’ve been missing Bud too…

Posted in Bud's Body Tricks | 3 Comments »

Smokin’ Youth Group

Monday, October 20th, 2008

We had a bonfire with youth group last night. Aren’t fall bonfires awesome? Last night was a great evening for a fire except the smoke kept swirling and it was impossible to escape. Oh well, I think everyone still had a good time. Our friend, and fellow youth group leader Josh took these pictures. He’s a professional photographer. I started out the night asking him how I could get some good pictures on my own. He was being really nice and started talking about lenses and aperture, and I was like appe-what? And he said “You know…. I’ve got my equipment, how about I take some pictures?” I high fived him, kissed his feet, and said “Yeah, sure, I guess if you insist.”

Here’s SweetGuy – the A.D.D. smoke’s latest victim:

Can’t have a bonfire without singing. Emmy, the reluctant singer, was coaxed into joining these two a few moments later because Steve was sick and his voice wasn’t holding up. I had just told someone a few minutes before this that Emmy was an awesome singer but she’d never let on to the fact. She’s been outed now. Take that Em!

This is Daniel, a cool freshman, who is probably 5′8″ or so and weighs all of 120 lbs. He must have eaten 5 hot dogs and umpteen smores. Oh, to have that metabolism…

So, we’ve been making an effort to provide slightly healthier food to youth group this year. What can I say, Little Debbie snacks may not be healthy, but they are cheap! So please ignore this particular evidence contradicting our healthy initiative – Da Kaff consuming chocolate WHILE roasting a dog.

Things I like about this next picture: The green light that isn’t really green in the real world. Grace, just because she’s Grace. And SweetGuy looks downright depressed. I’m pretty sure it’s because the evil smoke and sparks are stalking him.

Things I like about this picture. Teenagers are random, but well, helpful I guess? And I love that you can see the stars in the sky. I’m sure I could have taken a similar picture myself, but I didn’t want to show up Josh. He’s a pro after all and I might have made him feel inferior.

If you are interested in additional awesomeness by Josh (and his loverly wife Amy) check this out: http://photoblog98.com/

Posted in Photography, Youth Group | 3 Comments »

Another last

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

It is my youngest child’s senior year. And while I watch her make the most out of it by participating in so many activities that she appears to be boycotting sleep, I take a moment here and there to click a mental snapshot of another of the “lasts” in my own life. Last weekend was the hometown Parade & Field Invitational marching band competition. This competition started when I was in high school and it is going stronger than ever. As a matter of fact, I’m sure it was my performances as Xylophonist extraordinaire that were the catalyst for this competition becoming so big.

As parents, SweetGuy and I have helped out with this, and been a spectator to the event for the last seven years. Truth is, I complain to SweetGuy every year about assisting with this event. And every year I go and I have a great time. I love seeing all the kids from all the bands. Bando’s are a delightfully quirky bunch of kids. I am ever impressed by the hard work of so many volunteers. And, it’s just fun watching kids march. They don’t just march, they put on a production and it’s a blast.

Dare I say it? I think I might miss marching band on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in October. And even though Magoo is completely spent because of the massive number of hours she’s put into on band of late, I hope she enjoys these last few shows. I’m sure she’ll miss it too…

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Nanni the teletexter

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

My Mom is amazing. We went and got her a new cell phone today before she heads back to Florida. She told the sales lady she wants to “learn how to teletext”. I gave her a very quick texting demonstration and expected she’d need a number of lessons… that is if she would even have the patience to try to pick it up. Well, that was three hours ago. Just moments ago I got the coolest text I have ever received. It showed up as 1 New Text from ‘mom dad cell’ and it read exactly this: Myfirsttxtnospace.willlearn

Seriously. The best text ever. She is awesome.

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Marathon Maniac

Monday, October 13th, 2008

AUBS! ran the Chicago Marathon this weekend. Running a marathon is a feat in and of itself but add onto it the following amazing facts:

She’s just 19.
She finished the race.
She finished 2870 overall out of 40000ish total runners.
She finished 501 out of all women.
She finished with a 3:37 time… good enough to qualify her for the Boston Marathon.
She finished 1st in her division of 16-19 year old females. FIRST! Here’s a picture of SweetGuy informing her of her 1st place finish. Take a look at her friend’s face in the background:

I am VERY impressed by AUBS! And SweetGuy reports that after the marathon, among the 10 or so people that had made the very early morning trek to watch her run, AUBS! was the one with the most energy. I’m fairly certain she is not actually my blood relative. In truth, she may not be human.

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