Monthly Archives: April 2015

Daniel, Holidays, Project 365

Excellent Eighteen

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Today, we celebrated Daniel’s birthday. It is hard to believe that my middle boy is legally an adult. I suppose it is about time I made my peace with it, since he has towered over me these last several years.

We bought Daniel an older black VW Jetta Wagon (2003) to celebrate this momentous occasion. He was rather surprised, as you can imagine. After the little Honda was rear-ended and totaled (not Daniel’s fault), I had promised Daniel a share of the insurance money toward a replacement car, with the understanding that he would save a matching amount. But as his birthday approached, Kathy and I determined to surprise him with a car of his own.

Daniel was quick to embrace his surprise birthday gift.

Daniel was quick to embrace his surprise birthday gift.

We’ve had the car for more than a week, craftily parked at our friends’ house. I ran around replacing one of the tires and getting the radio antenna fixed. Then this morning we wrote a birthday message on the car and parked it in the driveway.

Kathy sent Daniel out with some recycling — his reaction was priceless.

We are so proud of Daniel. He is making good choices, being faithful in attendance to his classes at Clover Park Technical College, pursuing his relationship with the Lord and cheerfully helping around the house.

And now he has his own wheels. No more waking up at the crack of dawn to drop me off at the train station. No more sharing a van with Kathy.

Happy Birthday, Daniel!

Project 365, Day 105
Tim

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Project 365, Silliness

Restraint and Aggravation

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Kathy is off at a bored board meeting for the homeschool co-op, and so she asked me if I could guest-blog for her.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are two of my latest artistic compositions, with faux-artsy titles, worth two-thousand:

Restraint

Restraint

Aggravation

Aggravation

Enough said.

Project 365, Day 104
Tim

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Daniel, Project 365

Eat Mor Chikin

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On Thursday, the Tacoma branch of Chick-Fil-A opens, and our son, Daniel, will be part of the restaurant team. He interviewed a few weeks ago, and was hired on the spot.

Eat Mor Chikin!

Eat Mor Chikin!

I’m quite pleased that he will be working for a company that strives to honor God in the way they do business. In spite of the way that the owners of Chick-Fil-A have been unjustly demonized by the homosexual community, I deeply admire their corporate purpose: “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come into contact with Chick-Fil-A.”

Dan and Kathy head off to the Dedication Dinner.

Dan and Kathy head off to the Dedication Dinner.

Tonight Kathy and Daniel attended the Dedication Dinner for the store where Daniel will work. They discovered that out of 1600 who applied, only 100 were hired — quite an honor for Daniel to be one of the crew. At the end of the evening, they passed each new employee a baton to symbolize their inclusion in the Chick-Fil-A family.

Dan proudly holds his metal baton -- we expect he will thrive in this new job.

Dan proudly holds his metal baton — we are very thankful for this new opportunity for him!

Please join with us in praying for Daniel and for his employer as they begin the adventure of opening a new restaurant in Tacoma.

Project 365, Day 103
Tim

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Daily Life, Project 365, Sarah

100 Things to Do this Summer

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After a wonderful week of spring break, all of our eyes are turning toward summer. Our last co-op class meets this week with a celebration party next week. Daniel turns 18 on Wednesday (WOW!) AWANA and our online TPS classes end in May. Rachel and Joshua will have finals the first and second week of May. We’ve already enjoyed a day at the beach with friends.

If we can just finish strong, there is a great summer ahead of us.

Peace!

Peace!

After lunch today the boys went off to play frisbee while Sarah stayed home with Tim. I snuck off to Starbucks for a wonderful mentor visit. Good sharing time, encouraging words from God’s Word and a friend who treated me to coffee. That’s what I call a delightful Sunday afternoon.

While I was gone, Sarah spent most of her time working on a project. She’s been thoroughly bitten by the Pinterest bug and has been known to get lost in the myriad of pages and creative posts. This is what she created this afternoon. I LOVE it!!! What a great idea. 100+ Things to Do this Summer

Which one is your favorite?

Which one is your favorite?

Dear Sarah,
I like you. You are beautiful and fun and thoughtful. Your creativity is contagious. You are diligent and patient when you set your mind to a task, and you encourage me. You are helpful in so many ways – laughing, bringing music into our home, helping with the never ending chores, creating beautiful art projects, coming up with unique ideas for gifts and ways to love others, serving the family, and loving us when we’re not always loveable. Thank you for sharing your heart with me and telling me stories and not keeping secrets. Thank you for reading the blog and (almost) always leaving comments. Thank you for pointing me to Jesus and being an example of how to love Him. I LOVE your poster. Let’s do ALL of these 100+ things this summer (and more).

I love you – Mom

Project 365 – Day 102
Kathy

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Project 365

Bargain Hero

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Most normal husbands don’t like to shop, especially for groceries. But I am not a normal husband.

(Some of you are rolling your eyes. You know who you are. Please stop — I’d hate for you to injure yourself, or cause you to lose a contact.)

For some reason, I get a fair amount of joy out of being the provider for our family; being the one who (quite literally, sometimes) ‘brings home the bacon’. As a salaried employee with direct deposit of my pay, I sometimes feel there isn’t much of a connection between my work and meeting the needs of my family. Grocery shopping is my chance to be an active part of meeting those needs.

I especially like getting bargains on meat. So when the local WinCo reduces the price on meat with a sell-by date of tomorrow, I’m standing near the cart, ready to snap it up. Tonight I found five such bargains.

The price-reducing man (he probably has a fancy title, like ‘butcher’) loves to help people find bargains. He will ask what you are looking for, and he’ll prioritize his price-reducing to give you what you’re wanting. Last year, they used to allow him to reduce it to 50% of the original price, but now the management keeps him to a strict 30% reduction.

Stew meat, a little roast, and some steaks for Daniel's upcoming birthday ...

Stew meat, a little roast, and some steaks for Daniel’s upcoming birthday …

Of course, another reason I like grocery shopping is that I can add all kinds of contraband items to the cart. Little Debbie snack cakes, pop tarts, even the occasional carton of full-fat ice cream finds its way home when I help do the shopping.

“How could that have gotten into my cart?” I exclaim, in surprise.

I think I have them all fooled.

Project 365, Day 101
Tim

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