Tired

Me: Ethan, come here and let me change your pump site.

Ethan: Dad! I don't want to get shot.

Me: And I don't want to stick you, son, but we have to do this.

Ethan: (petulant) I'm tired of having diabetes.

pause

Ethan: I want my diabetes to go away. Daddy, did you hear me?

Me: (sighing) Yes, buddy. I wish it were that easy. Now, hold still.

Ethan: (fidgeting as he prepares to get stuck) Daddy, if we pray to God, will he take away my diabetes?

Me: I don't know, bud. Do you want to pray for that?

Ethan: Yeah. Let's pray to God to take away my diabetes.

Me: Ok, just a second (inserting the canula).

Ethan: OW! Daddy!

Me: I'm sorry, brother, come here (picking him up into a bear hug).

Ethan: I don't like my diabetes.

Me: Me neither. Did you want to pray?

Ethan: Yeah.

Me: Dear God...

Ethan: Dear God...

Me: Thank you for Jesus.

Ethan: (repeating) thank you for Jesus.

Me: Thank you for Mommy and Daddy

Ethan: thank you for Mommy and Daddy

Me: And for all of our blessings.

Ethan: And for all of our blessings.

Me: Watch over all of our loved ones

Ethan: Watch over all of our loved ones

Me: God, please come and heal Ethan and take away his diabetes.

Ethan: Yeah, take away my diabetes.

Me: Help him to sleep hard tonight

Ethan: So I can play hard tomorrow.

Together: In Jesus' name, amen.

John 4:46-53
Come, Lord Jesus

Grace and peace to you.

4 year old soccer

Where else can you hear phrases such as, "Stewart! Get your head out of the net!" and "It is not time to sit down and pick yellow flowers! Get up and go kick the soccer ball!" ? That's right, it is time for 4 year old soccer!

It is important to stay hydrated. In fact, it is possible to consume your body weight in water and still be thirsty. Soccer is thirsty business. Oh, word to the wise... bring a cooler.

In practice, you get to kick the ball toward the goal without a crowd of other 4 year olds running along side. During the actual game, it is much the same, except you also have 20 sets of parents yelling at you while you do it.

The rules of the game are simple, kick the ball down the field and try to kick it into the net. The actual mechanics are somewhat more difficult to master when your shin guards are 5 sizes bigger than your shins. Another complicating factor that Ethan discovered: when you aren't in practice, if you kick the ball to someone else, they don't kick it back, they go off down the field to score a goal. Live and learn.
Team Name: Cobras
Team Spirit: Monkeys
The photographer actually managed to get them all looking the same direction and smiling. I was impressed.


Lining them up to shoot them


Haley only had a handful of smiles to hand out.


I took a few pics of Ethan at home before the game. This is a little game called: Why are we paying $20 bucks for a picture of our 4 year old in his soccer uniform when Daddy can take professional quality photos in the front yard for $0.12?

I call this one... "The look"

And we're all having a great time. At least those who know what to do.. namely dribble the ball down the field and score.

In Soccer, pile ups like this rarely happen, so I'm told. On the other hand, they've got a pretty good start of a rugby game. In Australia, in the middle of barfights, rugby games break out.



Um, this is to prove that I did operate with dual media that day, I just haven't gotten around to posting the 10 useable minutes of video footage. One of these days, I'll figure out iMovie. I miss Premiere Pro.


GOAL! (Did anyone keep track of the score?)
Good game, good game, good game... Now lets have snacks!

A walk across campus

This post will be mostly images. I have been so busy with classes in the past week or two, I haven't had much time to post blogs or to take pictures... so I carried my camera with me last week and just took pictures of things that caught my eye as I walked from the Bible Building to Amelia's office at Abilene Educational Supply, across the street from ACU and back. I did take a circuitous route rather than just walking as straight a line as possible between the two points. I hope you enjoy the pictures! Have a great week! (side note, for those of you importing this feed to a reader or from Facebook feeds, if you follow the link to the original story, you can click on the images for large sizes and *really* appreciate the beauty of these pictures.)

Bike rack on the east side of Campus Center

New Food Court from the Wildcat's perspective

Pretty flowers outside the Campus Center

This electrical mess surprised me. Surely there is a better way to wire this than the ugly configuration hanging on the wall here...

I'm for ACU, too! But I don't have a towncar.

Sunsets in West Texas are pretty, but sometimes sunny afternoons can be beautiful, too!

This is the first picture I shot in RAW format, the tree above. I was pleasantly surprised at the extensive manipulation possible with that much data. I didn't realize how much you lose when you shoot in .jpg format. Food for thought. Now, I just need to upgrade to a 4GB card so I can store the RAW data. That one shot was about 20MB. Click the small image above for a larger look.

BARK

I thought this shot was really funny because this person had not one, but TWO tickets for parking without a permit. You'd think he'd at least take the one off his windshield so the ticket writers would have a harder time spotting the violation... again!

Hi, Dionne! This overexposed shot also features the tree in the right hand side of the picture in good focus while the obvious subject of the picture is a bit blurry. *sigh*

I leave you with a neat shot of the Tower of Light against that beautiful blue sky.

Hope you enjoyed walking across campus and back with me!
-jeff

Back to School and Picture Day

Well, it finally happened... Summer ended and it is time to go back to school. My summer has lasted almost 10 years, but I am back in school, working on my Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy at ACU. For the next two years, I'll spend a large portion of my week in class or in the clinic.

But this post is actually to talk more about the experience of sending the kids back to school. For most of the summer, we had planned on MH attending public school this year (pre-k and kindergarten were at a local private school). As it turned out, a friend encouraged us to apply for a scholarship and before we knew it, we'd enrolled not only MH but E in school as well! So, they were very excited to be going to school. Ele was a little disappointed (read: threw a fit) when she learned that she only got to go to her 'school' one day a week, but I think she quickly realized that she could monopolize Nana while the others were gone. Anyhow, instead of embedding all the pictures individually, I've put in a gallery. Click on any of the pictures to view it individually or to go to the album and read the captions to see what is going on with them.

Also, I managed to survive my first week at school. I had a great week and I'm looking forward to the rest of the semester. It will be an exciting journey and I thank everyone who made it possible for me to be where I'm at. Here's a picture of me (and my classmates) from our first week of school.


Ok, before you click on any of the pictures in the slideshow gallery below, I need to explain what all is going on... the first few pictures are of the first day of school. The rest are of "picture day" which came just over a week into the new semester. I groused at Amelia about how we were going to be suckered into buying pictures (bad ones... or at least mediocre) just because the were "school" pictures. So I resolved to pull out the ol' camera and take a few shots before they left for school that morning. Well, it turns out that I managed to get a few good pictures in spite of my children. I don't know why they have suddenly turned into the biggest hams when I pull out the camera. All E wants to do is make 'dinosaur' or 'scary' faces. MH does these shy, coquettish poses that look ... well, weird... Ele will barely stand still for me to take her picture. It is enough to drive a shutterbug dad crazy.



So, anyhow, it has been a busy first week of school. Hope yours has been fun, too!

-jeff