Long Days and Wild Things at Rest

It has been a long day it seems like. I had a camp curriculum meeting with Virgil in Canton starting at 9:00 this morning. It went well and we were able to get a few things done (or at least get started on the road toward the direction we are going for me). Got home about 2:45 and then had to do more camp stuff. Looks like we are going to have at least 7 campers this year so that's awesome really. Only problem is that to get the early bird rate I have to have things postmarked by tomorrow...or it's an extra $25...and there was no one around that could write a check for me today, and they were both supposed to be gone tomorrow. Tried to call two of the other directors and the registrar to find out what to do and couldn't get anyone. Thankfully our financial guy said he would come cut me a check in the morning. Now I just need to to be sure everyone gets their forms actually in so they can be mailed tomorrow.

Boo had her first scrimmage tonight as well...from 7:30-9:20(ish)...bedtime for the Wild Things is usually between 8:00 and 8:30. Very full day for the Wild Things...but they went down without too much of a fight. Puck maintained her routine and was up and down about 3 times, but what would a night be without that right?

Now it's quiet in the kingdom and there is peace, at least for a few more hours, and then we will begin again with school and Dora in the morning and practice in the evening and a trip to Gra'maw's and Dinosaur Valley Park. And the Wild Things will run wild and will (hopefully) tire themselves out and then there will once again be rest and peace and quiet. Peace and Love y'all.

Jesus Showers

Driving home tonight from making a bunny delivery, Puck informed us of something that we were very unaware of. She was sitting in her seat behind Moma when suddenly she tells us that she knows what happens to the water we drink. When we asked her what happened she told us that was when Jesus took a shower.

Gotta say I was unaware of this tidbit of information. I guess that since he lives in our hearts, this is his chance to get cleaned up. I will say that it is this kind of thing that brings me such great joy living with The Wild Things. Peace and Love y'all.

Full Weekend

Man what a crazy weekend this was. I know that it wasn't as crazy as some peoples probably, but still for us it was pretty full. We had something every day that had to do with either the youth or the church in general, and really for the most part it all had to do with the youth. Three straight evenings of doing "extra" things with the youth can really start to take it out of you I tell you.

Friday night started us off with going to Winnsboro for the Relay for Life. We took 7 young men with us to go and walk and do the various things to help raise awareness about cancer as well as to honor victims and survivors both. The youth did pretty good, but to be honest it was hard for them (and us too) because it ended up being different than we thought it would be. It was supposed to be outside at the track, but due to the threat of rain it was moved to the City Park Auditorium. That made it a bit more crowded and harder to walk, but we did the best we could with it. Roni and the Wild Things were fantastic and seemed to have a good time.

It got a little crazy that night. It seems that sometime between 2:30 and 3:00am there was a tornado warning for our area. The main thing that I can remember about that was the phone ringing about 2:45 and me staggering into the hall to answer and there being no one on the other end. Then again about 3:00 the phone rang and when I answered it announced the warning and urged us to take cover...so I went back to bed after a few minutes. But there was a lot of wind and high wind, and there were several tree limbs on the ground as well as a few trees themselves.

Saturday was rather full with the vet clinic hosting a "Pet Fair" from 12:00-2:00 that we went to. The Wild Things all enjoyed getting to see the many dogs and horses and people that were there, as well as getting to eat free hamburgers, hot dogs and snow cones. Roni took all of their picture on a tree that we believe was taken down by the storm the night before:

After spending the morning there, Dad and I headed to Tyler to pick up comedian Bob Smiley who came and did a show for us in Quitman Saturday night. We had a great time with Bob and the show was fantastic. We had about 142 people there, and we all laughed for most of the night (all except one couple from what I heard. Why you go to see a comedian and not laugh or crack a smile I'm not sure, but oh well.). Bob was instantly taken in by my family and the girls in particular seemed to take to him. It was a cool thing to be a part of.

Then finally for Sunday night we had a dodgeball tournament in Lindale at First United Methodist Church.We took 19 youth and we had a blast. I will admit that neither of our teams finished in the top 3, and they did get a little bit of the shaft in the championship bracket. The kids all seemed to have a great time with this, and honestly the Wild Things did awesome. It was not in the plan for Roni and The Wild Things to go, but that is how it turned out. All three Wild Things spent the evening hanging out with other kids and watching the games. They are all such great kids, my Wild Things. To top it all off, and this is simply the icing on the cake, the cherry on the Sundae, but after Sunday night the Spurs are up 3-1 in their series against the Mavs. Like I said that is simply the icing on the cake.

I hope that you all had as good of a weekend as we did, even if you weren't going 57 different ways at one time. And now here's to a good week. Peace and Love y'all.

61*

Yesterday (Monday that is, since it is officially Tuesday now as I write this) was Pops' birthday. It was the celebration of number 61. It blows my mind to think that my dad is 61 now. He doesn't seem that old to me, but you know, I'm 34 so he has to be older than that.

Anyway, he was staying in Sulphur Springs tonight after working in Mt. Pleasant all day, so I went over and we got to hang out and go eat some Chinese food and Brock and Jamie came from Frisco and hung out with us too. It was a good night.

(Just so you know, the picture is NOT from Pops' birthday dinner, but instead from mine back in October, but I wanted to put a picture up here that had Pops and I both in it)

Birthdays are amazing things, you know? We both love them and hate them it seems. We want to get to celebrate with friends and family and various loved ones, and yet we don't want to acknowledge the fact that time marches on. Tonight I was happy to get to celebrate with Pops even though we didn't really do much more than to visit and eat too many pieces of chicken in various sauces. Mainly I'm just glad that we got to be with him on this day. Peace and Love y'all.

On the Run

First let me say that we are really far from being "wild", but I liked the title and when I think of my kids, especially Puck and Baby Bull (still in the "trying out" phase of nicknames for the boy on that one), the title seems to fit. As it would with any other set of children I'm sure. I just wanted to clear that up.

Got up this morning and went and ran on the treadmill at Power Quest. It felt good to get back into the groove of doing that. I've been off since last Wednesday, so I wasn't sure what was going to happen today when I get in there. Turns out that everything was just fine. I was able to run my farthest distance yet which was 3 3/4 miles. It surprised me really, but to be honest I felt like I could have pushed out one more to make an even 4, but I was starting to tire by that point. Oh well, eventually I will get there.

It's been nice to get back into the whole running thing though. I have lost 20 pounds since I get started with this, so that's nice. On top of that, it feels good to work up a sweat like that. I'm starting to feel like I can actually see a difference in the shape of my body, as the gut is starting to recede finally. I'm not sure what I want to do to commemorate all of this once I get into the shape that I actually want, but I will think of something. I always like to think that ink is a good way of commemorating things, so we will see on that.

Roni has done a great job with her weight loss as well. She has gotten up to the 3 mile mark in her running too so that's pretty awesome. She looks good, like the day I first met her, only with less hair and more kids.

It's been good for us to be doing this kind of thing together. It gives us some motivation and a reason to keep doing it. Who knew that a little high blood pressure scare could really bring about so much good stuff? Peace and Love y'all.

Getting Started

So I have decided that it would be a good idea (or an idea at least) to have a "family" blog. I guess the thinking is that this way I (we) can keep whoever wants to know updated about what it going on with the Durham family. Mainly, I want to use it to tell stories and let you know what and how we are doing as a family. We will see how this goes.