Texas again

Here we are in Houston. We've only been gone two-and-a-half years, but we're still completely shocked at how warm it is down here. My kids are walking around in jeans and long sleeves while most people are wearing shorts and tank tops.

We had a lovely Christmas. Here's Julia opening the big Santa present. She looks surprised because she thought Wiis were only for "rich kids." (Turns out Wiis are for rich kids AND poor kids who have generous grandparents.) The Wii has been great fun. Well, it was until Jenna grabbed the Wii Sports disc (which is only available with the purchase of a Wii) and bit down on it. That disc lasted us a grand total of three hours on Christmas day. I don't know what got into that child. We have a ton of CDs and DVDs that she's never felt compelled to chew on. Anyway, just let me sing the praises of the Nintendo company because when I called and explained what happened, the customer service rep (after laughing rather heartily) said they'd send us another one free of charge. Thank you, Nintendo! Jenna will NOT be handling any more of our Wii discs until we are certain she is capable of keeping her teeth off of them.

Here's Jenna with her big Santa present, the seven-doll set of Disney Princesses. Yes, the same set I kept rolling my eyes at whenever I saw it at Target. The same set I thought was ridiculously priced. The same set I returned to Target for five days before Christmas because I knew deep down the whole time that Jenna would love it. Which she does.

Another surprise under the tree this year was a package from WorldVision containing information about Vandana, the 7-year-old girl from India we are sponsoring. Chad and I decided to sponsor a WorldVision child at the Third Day concert last month, and we surprised the girls with the news on Christmas morning. Vandana lives in a society in which men and boys are the first to get food when it's available, so many women and girls are malnourished. (How MESSED UP is that?) Our monthly sponsorship will help feed Vandana as well as pay for her education and other needs. We look forward to sending her letters and hearing back from her and including her in our family's daily prayers. For more info on sponsoring a child through WorldVision, go here and click on "sponsor a child."

After looking at photos from last year's Christmas and this year's, I discovered Julia and I have committed a holiday fashion faux pas. Look carefully:

Christmas 2008

Christmas 2007

Christmas 2008


Christmas 2007

That's right. Julia and I wore the same pajamas two years in a row. We'll have to plan better next year.

For something we DIDN'T plan on this year, we managed to work in Jenna's first ER trip over the holidays. A cart holding a folding wall partition rolled over her finger in our church gym last week and basically peeled the end of her finger off. It looks much better now, but at the time, what with all the blood and skin hanging off, it was pretty icky. The staff at Arkansas Children's Hospital was wonderful and got her all bandaged up before sending her home with some nice pain meds. The whole experience gave me an idea though. Why not equip children's hospitals with wet bars? I think parents who are rattled from carrying their blood-dripping children into the ER might appreciate it.

Great Storm

A photo of Galveston's seawall this morning. The statue commemorates the 1900 Storm, which killed 6,000-8,000 people and remains the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

We are praying for friends and family in Baytown, Houston, Beaumont, Galveston and other areas within Ike's reach.

Revolve!

We had a whirlwind trip to Houston this past weekend with a group of junior high/high school girls and four other adults from our church. We went to Revolve, which is the Women of Faith conference for teen girls. We had GREAT seats -- fourth and fifth rows from the stage on the floor -- so we got to see Hawk Nelson, KJ-52, Natalie Grant, Max & Jenna Lucado and others SUPER UP CLOSE. I had only vaguely heard of Hawk Nelson before. Turns out they are a high-energy band that is extremely popular with teenage girls. (And I really mean high-energy -- the lead singer acts like he gives himself regular caffeine injections.) KJ-52 was completely new to me. He's a skinny little white rapper dude who completely ROCKED THE HOUSE. Then there were all the other singers and speakers who all had powerful messages. It was an amazing event and the girls are already asking about going back next year.

Chad, Julia and Jenna also made the trip and hung out with my parents. The girls even got new Build-a-Bears. (In our house, Build-a-Bear is reserved for very special occasions, such as graduating from diapers into panties. At my parents' house, all you apparently have to do to get a Build-a-Bear is just show up.)

For some reason, I always forget how horrendous Houston's traffic is until I make a return visit. I did get a kick out of hearing my friend Julie, who grew up in England, comment on Houston's traffic in her lovely British accent. ("It's OH-ful! Just OH-ful!")

Two books I'm reading right now:

I mentioned A.J. Jacobs, the author of "The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible" back in September at the very end of this post. Now I've got the book he wrote about his experience. Jew by birth and agnostic by personal philosophy, Jacobs spent a year attempting to follow every single law in the Bible. I'm only a couple of chapters into it, but I have to say I really admire the guy for taking this on. So far, he has had his wardrobe checked for mixed fibers (outlawed in Deuteronomy 22:11) and refused to discuss the U.S. Open with his wife for fear she may mention Venus Williams (Exodus 23:13 forbids even mentioning the names of other gods.) The book is funny, but it's also interesting to see how an outsider interprets and attempts to live by the Bible. This is the kind of book I could finish in a day, but I've had to hold it at bay since I've got a heavy workload this week.

Last week at the library, I scored Eric Clapton's auto-bio. He's had an interesting life (beyond the music, he survived a monstrous drug addiction, as well as the tragic death of his young son) and I look forward to reading it.

Rainy Reunion

Aside from the deluge of rain we've had since we got down here, we've been having fun seeing old friends and visiting our old hang-outs. Oh -- and playing with new toys from Granny and PaPa. Here's Jenna in her new tent.

We've been fans of The Children's Museum of Houston since we first took Julia there in 1999 when she was barely walking. Tuesday we went back and the girls had a great time. True to tradition, we hit the face-painting table as soon as we got there.


I think the pretend grocery store is the coolest thing in the museum. Julia has as much fun in there as she did in her toddler days.


Milking a fake cow is always fun, too.

The veins in the cow's udder have always kind of creeped me out.

On Wednesday, we drove over to Baytown and met my best Baytown girlfriend Lois and her husband Bill at El Toro for lunch. We were glad to finally get some good Tex-Mex (which, like Dairy Queen, is hard to come by in Arkansas.)


Then we took Julia to her BFF Meagan's house, where the two had a fun-filled sleepover. That afternoon, Lois and I had a Target date, and we ran into more friends from our old church there. Then we went to church and saw more friends and met even more friends for breakfast on Thursday. After visiting with yet more friends, we came back to my parents' house. Today we are meeting Chad's dad in Houston for a short visit and my brother Brian is coming in tonight. Tomorrow is back to the Natural State!

Deep in the heart of...

Here we are in Houston. We only stopped three times between Little Rock and here on Sunday, which isn't too bad considering we had a 2-year-old in the car.

We're staying at my parents' house, which is really in Richmond. Yesterday we had a big time at First Colony Mall. Today we are doing the Children's Museum in Houston, tomorrow we are going to Baytown to hang out with my best Baytown girlfriend Lois and other dear friends from our old church there, Thursday we are driving from Baytown to Galveston -- where we hope to meet up with Chad's dad somewhere along the way -- and Friday my brother Brian is coming and we are all going to Buca di Beppo.

It will be good to get home Saturday night. We have plans to abduct my mom and bring her back with us.

One note from the road: Once we got into Texas, we stopped at the first Dairy Queen we saw and got Kit Kat blizzards. Yum. DQ is a little hard to come by in Arkansas.