Since Blue is in school now we have decided to initiate the “weekend” into our lives.  See, ever since we’ve been married Kristin and I have rarely had a real weekend.  With my job weirdness we just made whatever day I was home or “off” a weekend, but now that Blue has started school, we officially have a Friday night.  Since this whole new Friday night thing is new to us, we have decided to start having movie night.

Tonight we went over to Kristin’s dad’s house barbecued some hamburgers and watched ‘Nim’s Island’.  I was almost asleep during the previews but ended up making it through the whole movie.  And surprisingly enough, it wasn’t terrible.  I mean, yeah, it’s a kids movie, and yeah it’s unrealistic to think Jodie Foster could travel to the other side of the world in a day and a half to rescue an eleven year-old girl that’s living on an unknown island by herself with her friends a sea lion, a lizard and a pelican, but The Matrix wasn’t real either, so I can get past that.  Anyone seen it?

What was your favorite kids movie growing up? I’d have to go with “The Goonies”.

Today Blue turns six.

This little man holds a special place in my heart.  Like most parent-child relationships this kid can drive me nuts and melt my heart all within a matter of seconds.  

Today, we are having “family birthday” where Blue says he’s in charge.  We’re headed to Chuck E Cheese’s for lunch and games, then Blue and mom are going on a birthday date to see Wal-E and maybe shopping for a hat.  Tomorrow is the friends party.  It’s a pirate party with swords, treasure, and a monkey cake, because that’s what Blue wants.

Happy Birthday Blue!

I know I’m supposed to be a responsible parent but this is Awesome.

This is my mom.  She has a red shoe on her piano.  Today is her birthday.  It sucks that we aren’t in California to be able to celebrate, but we can do the next best thing.  We’ve all got the chance to go offer some birthday wishes.  Want to?  Go sign her birthday card.

So check this out.  Kristin really wanted to go camping for her birthday so I searched around on line and found a place about three hours from where we live.  The cool thing about this place is you can rent a teepee for the night.  

Now, when it comes down to it, inside I am about twelve, so the idea of sleeping in a teepee is about exciting to me as it is to the boys.  And what’s awesome about Kristin is she loves it too.  

We’re packing up and getting ready so I need to run and we will be here for the next two days.  Have a great day.  I will bring back some pictures.

So check this out.  I got a call a while back from my friend Daley asking me if I cared if someone used our family picture for a website.  He told me it was a church in Daveport, Iowa and they thought we looked like an awesome, hot, amazing, put together family.  Okay, they left off the “awesome, hot, amazing, put together” part and said we looked like a “real” family.  I’ll take it.

So last night I got this email from Daley saying “Check It”.  So I did.  Yep there’s us, right there on the front of the Rock Church Of The Quad Cities website.  Kinda cool huh?  

Anyone here live around there?

It’s the beginning of the month and that means that it’s time again for “Link Loved”.  The time where were celebrate those that are sending the most people to our blogs.  Now for all of you people out there that will inevitably say, “to me it’s not about traffic and I think this is a lame thing”, I say…. neat.  Then don’t play.  I think it’s cool to focus on something other than ourselves a few times a month and this is one of them.  So for those of you that know how, figure out who your top five referring blogs are, that is the five blogs that sent you the most traffic this month and write a post explaining their blog to people and sending people their way.  Make sense?  We’ve done this once before and it seemed to work well, so here goes.

1:  ThisIsKristin:  I think Kristin’s blog will always be somewhere on my list but I think it’s cool that she is number one this month.  We were just talking yesterday about how cool it is that blogging has become something else that we do “together”.  By that I mean, here in this world it is simply an extension of who we already are.  People know that we go together and it’s neat to be able to talk about geek stuff with my wife and have a fun connection that way.  I’m sure most of you have already, but if not, make sure to go to Kristin’s blog.  She’s always got something cool to say.

2:  The Bloggess:  This lady is funny.  Ever since Kristin showed me this blog a few months back, I have followed it.  It’s become something that we talk about probably more than any other blog in our real life.  Not to mention I am very aware of my sentence spacing now.  I think it’s funny that her blog keeps showing up in Christian circles and I’m sure deep down she really likes her new audience.  Okay maybe she doesn’t but I think it’s fun to pretend she does. If you haven’t go there and laugh at things you never thought you would.

3:  Visual Coma:  Randy just moved out there two weeks ago and hasn’t stopped working on different things since he’s been here.  Quite literally everything that I am able to do online is because of something Randy has figured out how to do.  It’s been really cool working with him more and hopefully later this month we will be able to focus on some things even more.  Randy’s blog is one of the most entertaining things I have seen if not for the spelling alone.  We have been friends since we were in second grade and very little has changed since then.  Check out Randy’s blog and hop in on some of the conversation there.  It’s a pretty cool place.

4:  Ragamuffin Soul:  Carlos was number one last month, but hasn’t talked about me at all this month so he’s slipped to number four.  See, that’s what you get Carlos.  Ragamuffin Soul is one of those blogs that leaves me scratching my head thinking, “how does he have time to do all of that?”.  Carlos has done some really cool things recently using time lapse video stuff, which I tried and screwed up and just got annoyed.  There’s always something new and cool on his blog and even if it’s something that you have seen before the seven hundred comments that he gets makes it worth reading through.  One of these days we’ll get Carlos to participate in some of the things going on here like Positive Post Tuesday or even Link Loved.  And one of these days he will realize that I specifically call him out on purpose.

5:  A Simple Journey:  I haven’t seen Brian for a while because it seems like he has been out of the country more than he has been home for the past year.  Brian is my next door neighbor and works for Compassion International helping artists communicate the mission behind Compassion to their audience.  Because Brian travels so much his blog is always full of cool photos, travel stories and hotel tips.  Brian and his wife are also in the process of adopting from Ethiopia, so it’s cool to watch that process unfold through his writing.  I don’t know if I have ever met someone so dedicated to their job as Brian is and it’s awesome to read about everything that he is passionate about.  Check out Brian’s blog and say hey.

So, that’ it.  These are the five blogs that have sent me the most traffic this month.  I think it’s amazing to see such a diverse group of people here in this community and I hope that you all go check their blogs out and get involved there.  Now it’s your turn.  What five blogs are creating your community?  

Ready?  Go.

He’s the baby and he knows it.  This is Cooper Trey.  He gets what he wants when he wants it from his big brothers, and can handle his own when it’s time to wrestle.  But he’ll also sit and play with your eyelashes as still as he can be.

Last night I went in to check on this little thing in his crib.  He had torn apart another book, and was sitting there in all the shredded paper piles.  He looked up at me with the sweetest face, which is how he gets away with things, and whispered, “down”, which means “up” to him.  I picked him up and told him that he needed to go to sleep, so he grabbed my face and smashed our noses together and started a low, fake laugh in an attempt to be cute.  It worked.

We didn’t plan on having three kids.  In fact, we never actually “planned” any of our kids, but Cooper was the biggest surprise.  The older he gets and the more his personality shapes, the more I realize that out family wouldn’t be the same without him.  He’s the entertainment.  He’s the “shake your head and smile” moments during rough days.  He’s the sweet hugs late at night, and the laugh that infects the house.  He’s a sweet guy and I’m glad we get to keep him.  We love this little thing. He’s a perfect addition to our crazy family.  Here’s a video Kristin put on her blog last Tuesday introducing you to our MiniCoop.

Welcome to Tuesday again. For those of you just showing up here’s how it works. It’s pretty simple. (1) Write something nice about someone, building them up, encouraging them, you know.. being nice. (2) Fill out the box below.

*Make sure that you put the URL of the “Positive Post” not just your blog. That way people can find that specific post if they come back to read them later in the week. It should look like this - “yourdomain.com/the-name-of-your-post”* 

Have Fun.

By now, most of you know the story.  My mind won’t even allow me to comprehend what the Chapman family is going through today.  Keep them all in your prayers.  I don’t think there is anything that could possibly be harder in life to go through.

Late last night, after I heard the news, I got up to check on the boys.  I stood there a little longer than I normally would have.  I realized how much I take for granted in my life and the lives of my boys.  Hug your kids a little longer today.

I’m not going to lie, I have been pretty negative the last few weeks, and I think a lot of it is with good reason.  Things have been going great in life and moving forward with work, but you know those times where things seem to be going great except for a few key elements that cast a negative light on the rest of the good things?  That’s been the last few months for me.  It’s not that everything has sucked, it’s just that there are a few major things that suck that overshadow everything good.  

That being said, I was over at Cool Mom and Dad’s place last night because every week they host a chat where we can all get on there and talk about bathing in burritos and drunken scooter riding.  Well, last night I “met” a guy named Adam who said that he has been reading my blog for a while, but never commented.  He used the creepy word “lurker” and mentioned that he is close to having a blog of his own, but hasn’t started yet.  We talked about the Christian music industry a bit, recommended some music, and that was about it.  I ended up asking Adam to email me so we could continue our conversation, and talk a little more in depth about music and whatever else came up.

The reason I mention “meeting” Adam is because through talking to him on the chat, he mentioned that he is currently in the Navy and on some military boat off of some African Island.  I don’t remember the name, but I remember him saying it was “seven degrees south of The Equator”.  I have no idea what that means, but sitting in my bed, late at night, with my wife asleep less than a foot away from me, I know that ”seven degrees south of The Equator” is a lot further that I would ever want to be from my family.  I thought about the isolated feelings that I would have, I thought about how weird that would be, and not to mention the whole “being at war” thing.

This is by no means an “anti-war” post, or a political post, or anything like that.  I just wanted to take the time to recognize the sacrifice and dedication it takes to willfully put yourself on a boat seven degrees south of The Equator, away from your family, to live for something you believe.  That’s pretty cool to me.  It’s a lot cooler that sitting around moping about how a few things in my life aren’t going so great.  

So anyway, thanks Adam for what you are doing to protect us, and thanks for taking the time to “lurk” here at this blog…. even if that’s a creepy way of saying it.  I know there are a few military wives on this blog, but are there any other military folks out there?  This post is for you guys too.  It’s not something I could ever do, and I appreciate that you are.

So, welcome to Tuesday.  This “Positive Post Tuesday” thing had gotten so cool with literally no plan to do so.  Thanks to all that are continuing to be involved in it. Let’s make this week the biggest yet.  Here’s how it works for those just showing up.  It’s pretty simple.  (1) Write something nice about someone, building them up, encouraging them, you know… junk like that. (2) Fill out the box below.  

*The only part that has been causing a little confusion is the “URL part”.  Make sure that you put the URL of the “Positive Post” not just your blog.  That way people can find that specific post if they come back to read them later in the week.  It should look like this - “yourdomain.com/the-name-of-your-post”*

Make sense? Have fun. Ready? Go.

 
 
(**Recent developments show that Adam has now started a blog called Lost At Sea, so make sure you go there and welcome him. ** Also, referencing the word “lurker” as creepy is a direct response to the actual word “lurker” being creepy and in no way suggests that Adam or anyone else “lurking” is in fact creepy**)