A is for Awana, Allen, and Ample.

                                                                

Good morning and welcome to another year of the A to Z Challenge.  This year I chose 3 themes for the challenge: Limericks, MLB Sluggers in my life time, and A to Z Wordles.  For more information about these themes click here.  

I did not grow up attending the kind of churches that participate in the children's program Awana.  So, it was not until Amy and I started our own family that we participated as parents and volunteers.. Awana is a program that among other things promotes the memorization  of bible verses from children 2 -18.  They are in many ways similar to a youth scouting program and one of their biggest events is the Awana Grand Prix which is very similar to the Pine Box Derbiesthat  I participated in as a Cub Scout.    Awana is something that worked for out family for many years which I 0ne reason why I penned this limerick 8+ years ago.

                                                         Tell folks, tell friends, tell an iguana.

There's plenty of fun at Awana

                                                         We learn that God is King

                                                         We play games and we sing

                                                         But never Hakuna Matata

                                                         From My Facebook page 3/5/2014

Dick Allen (1942-2020) was my hero when I was a young White Sox fan. His 3 year tenure on the White Sox (1972-1974) is a big reason I became a White Sox fan. When you look at the list of the 10 best homerun hitters from 1964-1975, 7 of them are in the Hall of Fame. Only Dick Allen , Boog Powell and Frank Howard are not. Powell was a MVP winner and Frank Howard won the Rookie of the Year award. Allen had more homers than either of those men and won both awards. Allen hit 331 homers from 1964 -1975. 189 with the Phillies, 85 with the White Sox, 34 with the Cardinals and 23 with the Dodgers. Allen averaged 33 homers per every 162 games played.

Note: Correct letters in the correct places will be shown in bold. Correct letters in incorrect places will be shown in italics.

My starting word on March 1st for Wordle was ample.

A M P L E

With the P and the E in the correct place. I tried to think of words that would fit. The first thing that came to my mind was Rupee.

R U P E E

Much to my delight and surprise it was correct, I found out a week or so later that Rupee caused a little bit of an sensation on wordle with many people breaking their win streaks on this word for Indian currency. For me it was a rare 2 time solve, but a good way to start my a to z wordle openers.

Thus begins another April A to Z to see what other prople are posting click here.

Turtle Cake is Best a HSD Rewind (Sort of)

This post was originally aired in 2010 in November.  It has been one of my most popular posts over the past 2 years.  Somehow, it has been in draft status for a while.  This is probaly from  back when I was trying to clear out all the kid's real names and put in their blog names. 

Since the post was in draft it did not count in my post count.  So this old post is actually # 600.  600 posts and I even brought a cake!



Spider Droid's Cub Scout Pack had a cake walk Friday Tonight. Each Cub Scout was to design and help make a cake according to a theme. I did not tell Spider Droid all the themes. There was an "other" theme which meant decorate the cake any way you want. I neglected to mention that one to Him. Otherwise it would have been A Star Wars Cake all the way. There is a limit to how much Star Wars stuff a guy can take, so I said nothing.


One of the themes was wildlife and SD decided to make a cake based on his favorite animal, the turtle. Here is how it turned out.

While Amy and I helped with some of the baking and decorating, SD was involved in every part of the process.

For each The scoutmaster announced 3 scouts in and asked them to come to the front. At that point, you knew they were in the top 3 but not what place.

When we entered the cake I heard many positive comments about the turtle cake and since some of those same people were judges I was not surprised that his name was called for the top 3.

But this did surprise me . . .

First Prize!!! Congratulations, SD! When it comes to having good ideas and implementing them, I guess you take the cake!

Meanwhile back in 2012 - Spider Droid is no longer doing scouts but he still likes turtles. 

I promised that I would wrap up the HSBA today.  If you check out my pages you will see a HSBA 2011 page. In it I have revealed all my voting for the awards and also highlighted all the winning blogs and shared a sample post from each. 

Misbehavior and Consequences

Rod Blagojevich was sentenced today.  Rod is the 4th former Illinois governor, in my lifetime,  to be convicted of a crime.  His crimes were many.  He, essentially, abused his power in order to make life easier for him and his family.  During the 3 year ordeal between arrest and sentencing, he maintained his innocence and offered no type of apology until today.  The apology appeared to be too little and too late, as he was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

When Bunny heard the sentence, she wondered, if what he did was so bad as to earn 14 years.  I explained to her that yes, I thought the punishment did fit the crimes.  Here was a man, who had promised to change the culture of corruption in Illinois when he ran for governor.  (He sure kept that promise.  However, we thought he would change the culture for the better, not the worse.)  Instead, He sullied the  already tarnished reputation of Illinois politics.

He betrayed the trust of the people he was supposed to govern, and engaged in criminal acts without any sign of remorse, until today's grab to earn a reduced sentence.  I thought the firm sentence was a very good strong message that business as usual, look the other way, what's in it for me politics will no be tolerated. 

I was not only an observer of the justice system today, I was also a participant.  One of my daughters, I wont mention names, but the one with the birthday yesterday, did something she knew was wrong today.  She then lied about it several times before admitting her guilt.  It was very Blago-like.  Except we didn't have to go to trial.

Like Bunny with Blago, I also had to question whether the consequence (which I chose and administered) fit the crime.  The consequence for the misdeed was actually quite light.  The consequence for the cover-up was very strict.  Like the Blagojevich sentence it effected more than her it effected the whole family.  The Awana Grand Prix  was tonight. She had been planning on going and was working hard to prepare for it. 

Puppymobile Grounded

I had been assisting her and not only was it a fun event but it was also a competition that we thought she had a pretty good chance of winning a prize at.  Because she missed the event, Amy also had to miss it as well.  Meaning she could not watch Spider Droid and Bunny compete.  I will write another post tomorrow about how the event went.

I was tempted to make her nonattendance the only consequence.  The cars had been entered last night, so it was logistically possible for her car to race and be judged without her there.  I decided against that because:

A) That would not be fair to a kid who had not misbehaved to lose out to someone who did.
B) It would treat her misbehavior like it was an illness or a scheduling conflict.
C) Regardless of whether she won or not. allowing the car to race would be less of a deterrent for her not lying the next time.

My opinion on Blago's and my daughters sentencing are very similar:  The punishment fits the crime and acts as a deterrent for future misdeeds.  Whether it be politics or parenting justice can be served by following that pattern. 

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In totally unrelated blogging business, I am going to feature 1 HSBA winner in each of my next 20 posts.  Today's featured blog is  the winner of Best Home School Dad Blog, Families Again.  This fantastic blog is very deserving.  Here is a sample of  his fine work
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Next Time: Race Night Roundup

15 minutes to spare

The main reason why I have stopped blogging for the next few months is time, specifically my lack of it. I still get 168 hours a week, like everyone else. I just don't have any extra time for non-essentials. I may have time to do a 1/2 way job on my posts, but not enough time to make the posts as good as I want them. So taking a hiatus seemed the best choice.

Well today due to a schedule glitch, I see that I have an extra 15 minutes at the library and time to produce a post. As you see how little I write in 15 minutes you will see why blogging takes up so much of my time: I do it slowly.

School started 2 weeks ago and has been going pretty well. The past few days I have been in excruciating pain with a recurring neck injury. So, we haven't got as much accomplished as I would hope. Puppy is in kindergarten and I am trying to keep her active while working with Spider Droid and Bunny.

We are in the midst of what we call birthday season. Bunny turned 12 over the weekend. Amy and I have birthdays this month as well. Our co-op begins next week and the kids new classes seem really cool. Awana started today. And Spider Droid's soccer games start Saturday. I am working a full time temp job 2nd shift for the next 13 weeks. Add homeschool and church and you have a busy life with no time for blogging.

And that's 15 minutes!

Thank you Blago, for the home school civics lessons.

It was a Tuesday, that's all I remember for sure. That's the day the kids had their enrichment course. (It's a co-op, but they don't call it a co-op. They call it enrichment courses.) Puppy and I played in a kid's area while Bunny took an art class and then Spider Droid took a chess class. I was driving to enrichment classes, (that's how I knew it was a Tuesday) when I heard on the radio that our state's governor Rod Blagojevich had been arrested on federal corruption charges. The most egregious of which was trying to sell the then President-elect Obama's vacated senate seat to the highest bidder.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a photo by captainleadbottom on Flickr.

It was there in the car on the way to enrichment classes, that our 2 1/2 year civics lessons began. Theses include lessons in filling vacant seats, abuse of power, impeachment, trials, hung juries and retrials. Then today as I went to run errands with the bigs, I turned on the radio and they announced a verdict had been reached in the Blago retrial and would be announced in the early afternoon. As quickly as that, our civics classroom started all over again.

Here are a few educational and pseudo educational moments from the last 30 months of Blagomania:

• When Spider Droid first heard about the Blagojevich arrest he assumed that the governor had been framed since a governor would never do anything wrong. What I wanted to say to him was "live in Illinois much?" But I went the AWANA route and reminded him of his memory verse, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."










• Many of Blagojevich's public appearances gave us quite a lot to discuss. I tried to find a video of him quoting Rudyard Kipling shortly after his initial arrest. The only one I could find was merged with Simpson's clips. So instead here is the beginning of an interview he did with Dave Letterman shortly after the impeachment.

• The kids' impression of him was aided by the media. At one point between the arrest and the impeachment, the kids got to calling him "Governor Deadmeat" because he had been referred to that way in a local paper.






• We even did a Lego workshop about him. . .

Just kidding! Here's the real credit.

rod blagojevich, a photo by robayre on Flickr.

Blagojevich's downfall seemed to be that he felt that his years of service to the public entitle him to some sort of payback. During the past 2.5 years, even in his trial, he talked about all the great things he did for the state of Illinois. His defense seems to be (a) This is what politics is(everybody's doing it)and (b) I deserve something out of this. I am sure that in his mind, which must be an amazing place to visit, he did nothing wrong.








Interestingly enough, these are my kids' two biggest excuses for not admitting when they were wrong. "They started it"and "But I wanted it." Blagoevich serves as a warning to my kids and hopefully everyone who tries to cover up their misdeeds with excuses.








So thanks Blago, for all the civics lessons. I guess we'll just have to wait until your sentencing date to learn more.






Thanks to As for my House for hosting this weeks carnival of homeschooling and puting in this post. To go visit the carnival click here.

Dole - Now in 100% Juice Aloha Sweepstakes and other fragments

It is Friday Fragment time again. I have had a strange and wonderful week. Drove to Springfield with the Family on Tuesday to protest a bill that would take away some of the freedoms we have here in Illinois to Home School, The bill was tabled and I blogged about it here. ************************************************************************************ My next Fragment reminds me of the book and movie The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio. This is a contest to win a Hawaiian vacation. There are several ways to win. Any time Amy and I see a contest we know for sure that we are "slated" to win. It doesn't matter that, we often forget to enter and that we never win. We just know we are going to win. So enter if you want, but Amy and I have got the vacation in the bag. Dole - Now in 100% Juice Aloha Sweepstakes ************************************************************************************ We saw this add on Hulu this week. I know I've been sharing lots of commercials lately but this one is hilarious. Bunny Girl especially liked it. Even though one of her favorite creatures was threatened. ************************************************************************************ This commercial by the same airlines does a very good job of explaining why companies don't say Super Bowl in their radio and t.v. spots. It's also very funny. ************************************************************************************

Final Fragment. The pictures that started this post were taken last Saturday at our Church for Awana Bible Quizzing. Both Spider Droid and Bunny Girl were just a small # of the kids participating to get 8 of 8 correct in their multiple choice round. It is rewarding to put God's word in your heart!

Off to the races!

It seems like the beginning of January seems to be a rude awakening of activity that we somehow forgot about in all the holiday flurry.

First, we forgot to sign Spider Droid up for spring soccer, which we took care of in the nick of time!

While at the park district signing him up, we remembered to sign up Puppy for ballet...which started yesterday. Got that in just under the wire. Whew!

On top of that, the Lego Robotics state finals is next Friday and Saturday.

And then the homeschool co-op starts up again. Not to mention Awana on Monday nights, in which the two older are working on Bible Quizzing as well. Then after that is over, I am sure that Spider Droid will want to be in the Awana games again. There's always something, you know. Homeschooling doesn't always involve being at home! Homeschool, it's not a place, it's a state of mind. In fact don't think of it as homeschooling, it's more like life.

Not Much. what's a woodchuck with you?

On the way home from Awana today, my son asked me why a woodchuck is called a woodchuck. I told him, I did not know but would find out.

And the thing is I did . . .




groundhog day! Originally uploaded by NapaneeGal


I originally thought that woodchuck was just an informal version of Wood Charles. It turns out, a woodchuck is just another name for a groundhog. It comes from the Indian name for groundhogs and other similar animals, wujak. The name evolved into woodchuck. I don't believe the animal evolved, but I can believe the name did.

I also found out that woodchuck isn't the only alternate name for groundhog. There is also Land Beaver and Whistle Pig. It reminds me of that old tongue twister (I just made up):

How many names would a ground hog have if a ground hog could ground names?

Keith Time: Memories From the Funeral Part I

My son the action hero: the slide show

Talking about my children is one of my favorite things to do on this blog. In terms of labels the # 9 through the first 300 blog posts has been posts about my son and his action hero ways. Here is an interview conducted by his sister this past winter . . .

He has many facets ...

Teammate

Fashion Plate

Athlete















School Project assistant


















School Project Model
















































Day Laborer



















Goofball




















Big Brother





















Goofball





















Military Archivist

















Did I mention

goofball?

Next Time: A Lucyism by any other name.

2009 - 2010 home school co-op recap

Earlier this spring our co-op had it's Spring Closing program. Our family was unable to attend as we also had an AWANA closing program on the same evening.

I found out recently that the student who prepared the closing program slide show posted it on you tube. Although most of you wont recognize anyone in the pictures except our family. I thought I would post it here, so you could get an idea through pictures of what a wonderful experience a home school co-op can be.



Next Time: Conventional Wisdom

Hitting 300

Blog Insider - A look at the widgets, gadgets, and what-nots of Home School Dad.


Tonight's Episode: I'll Take Labels for 300.


I started this blog back in January of 2009. It took me less than 6 months to hit 100 posts. Click here or on my 100th post page to harken back to that time. 4 and a half months later I came in with post #200. Now, I have hit my 300th post.


I have labeled those posts with 71 distinctive labels. A label is a way of indexing the blog, so that it is easier to look up older posts by topics. A post can have many different labels at the same time. Today's post has 3: Blah Blah Blogging (Which is how I describe when I post incessantly about inane blogging practices), Blog Insider (where I talk about different gadgets, apps and tools I utilize) for this blog, and Posting in the Hundreds (Where I commemorate my posts that have multiples of one hundred). In a sense, all of these labels are very similar and there is a degree of overlapping in my labels.

If I could direct you to the label section of my blog you will see that instead of all 71, I have only 26 listed. This is because in celebrating my blogging longevity I plan to post about my 25 most popular labels in the weeks and months to come. There are 26 because there was a 7-way tie for 20th place. Instead of making a label for these labels, which would seem superfluous, I will be creating a page that will link to these homage posts. Until I have completed all of these I will have the label list show only the top 26.

Not listed in the top 25 are some of my favorite labels like: Hockey Lessons, An Open Letter, A Poem and FAQs of Life. But the 25 labels listed do give a pretty good insight to the kind of blog this has been the past year and a half. I hope you will enjoy the closer look behind the blog in the posts to come.

I plan to finish my D.C. trip remembrances before unpacking these labels, but as usual, prepare yourself for the randomness which is me.

As I bring this post to a close, I just want to give you links to my favorite posts of 4 labels that just missed the top 25:

Amy Roller Guest Blogger with Trudi's Garden.

Awana Scouts featuring Turtle Cake is Best.

The Labels Lincoln and Our Kid's Write are both featured in the post: In praise of Home School Kid's Write.

Next Time: Washington D.C. Day 8

Washington Day 6 and Beyond

It's been almost 3 weeks since our trip to Washington.

It is now time for Things Fortnightly. Thing #1 will have to be my journal entry from day 6:

Charlie and I were slugs today. We drove in to DC with the friend of my sisters that we are staying with. With 3 in her car and 3 in ours we could both ride in the HOV (High Occupancy Vehicles) lane. In DC commuters meet up to be able to make enough passengers to get in those lanes. This practice is called slugging. Once we got into the DC area we took the metro to the zoo. At first,, neither of the pandas were very active or photogenic. While we were resting one panda started climbing a tree and spinning around.

Amy got footage.


I showed it to my sister and she said she doesn't know anyone who's been there and seen them be anywhere near that active.

We also saw many other cool animals like Orangutans climbing through towers outside of their usual habitat. After a number of hours at the zoo we went to the library of congress and visited two amazing exhibits featuring children's literature. One for authors and researchers and the other for young children to read with their parents.

Thing # 2. You can't believe everything you read.

Before the aforementioned trip to DC we read and read and read about how to prepare for said trip. One thing that we read and read and read over and over and over (I think you may be beginning to see the point here) was don't drive your car in DC.

This is why in past journal entries you have read about trains and slugs. It turns out that driving in D.C. is no worse than driving into Chicago. For us it was our preferred form of travel and was part of the adventure. Again we stayed outside of the city proper, and I could see the benefits of parking your car somewhere for a week if you were going to be holed up in some downtown hotel.

Thing # 3 In-flight Movie

Thing # 4 Endings

Charlie and his cousin Bobby finished cub scouts last week.
The kids finish Awana and another semester of our home school co-op Monday.

It's a good thing they all have at least one more activity they are still involved with. Otherwise people might start asking "What about socialization?" again!



Those are my things for this edition. Can I count on you to share some things by clicking on Mr. Linky below?


Next Time: Washington Trip Day 7: Saving the best for seventh.

Children and Cousins and Nephews oh my!

I just noticed that I haven't posted in about a week. Things have been kind of busy lately and I thought it would be nice to tell you a little about what I've been up to.

Yesterday Charlie was in what is called Sparksorama. It is a competition between different Churches AWANA clubs in the same kind of games they play at AWANA. Charlie and his team of other K-2nd graders had been practicing for over a month for the games. We drove over to a community college near our church in the snow to get to the games.

3 0r 4 teams (called a circle) squared off against each other at a time in different events like this one.



Charlie's team came in first place in their circle. We all had a fantastic time cheering him on.



After the games we went home for a few hours and then we drove to Oak Park to seem Amy's cousins who are near Emma and Charlie's age in a play. The play was Seusical the Musical. One of the cousins had a really good role as a trouble making Ape. The other played a who and a seusslike circus animal. The play was put on by Christian Youth Theatre (CYT) and it was very enjoyable. Amy's aunt caught me crying at the end of the play. But hey I'm a sensitive guy!



Today we were going to just relax and enjoy Sunday after church at home relaxing. However when Amy's sister invited us to visit her new baby Connor, we jumped at the chance.


I got to hold Connor for quite a while. I gave him up for a little while so the kids could get a photo op with him . . .












Amy's mom made some fantastic Chicken and everybody had a good visit. This week is going to be another busy one but I promise I'll post again before next Sunday!

Next Time: Looking for Calvin and Hobbes

Six Word Saturday

Haven't been posting for a while. As my lovely wife shared in her recent guest post, I have been busy living. Today was no different. We had a Cub scout meeting tonight. Charlie is in the same cub scout den as his cousin who is 9 months older and 1 grade ahead of him. Charlie should really be a wolf bus since Bobby is a Bear, they are both Bears. We drive about an hour each meeting to get into Bobby's town and then an hour back. It makes for a long day and Charlie has not been too keen on all the travel.

But tonight was a little different. Tonight's pack meeting was the meeting where the Webelos kids become boy scouts. It was a 3 hour dinner/ceremony with entertainment afterwards. During the celebration all the Webelos's kids crossing over to Boy Scouts got to shoot an arrow into a target. Charlie loves archery and took some videos of it with my camera. Here is one of them . . .

After the shooting is over, the kids get to keep the arrow.

So I know that is a lot of talking before I get to my six words. SO here they are.

Charlie wants to get an arrow.

This means that Charlie doesn't want to quit Cub Scouts at the end of the year like he's been talking about for a while. I am not sure exactly what that will mean because the travel is exhausting. Perhaps we will switch him to a local pack next year. I will keep you all posted.

For more Six Word Saturday, head over to show my face dot com

Next Time: the Z double O

Things This Thursday

Thing 1. Carnival sightings

This weeks Carnival of Home Schooling is at Corn and Oil. I haven't read it all yet, but what I have read is first rate. I especially appreciated Tag your Truant at Home is Where you Start from.


My blog is still the site of the most recent carnival of book review blogs. You can check it out by clicking here.

Thing 2. Sew what?

Emma is taking a machine sewing class at our home school co-op this semester. It is the only course I chose for her. She would have rather taken a drama class offered at the same time. I chose for her because she has shown interest in sewing before, and it is a class that at this point neither Amy and I could teach her. We have supplemented her yen for drama with a park district class on improvisation that takes place in the spring.















It turns out she LOVES the sewing class! She had a little trouble the first week with the sewing machine we borrowed, but we borrowed another one which is working fine.

She sewed this pocket in class. She has been working on a few more at home.















I always try to teach at least one co-op class to one of my kid's grade level and assist in one of the other kids classes. I hit the trifecta this year. I am the assistant in Charlie's gym class, Emma's is taking the second part of my Narnia class, and I am teaching a pre-K class called, "Let's go to the store." This week Lucy and her classmates made a shopping bag. Here is a picture of Emma and Lucy with their projects.
















Thing 3. Two Race Charlie

It seems that no matter how full or empty your schedule is that there usually are two "can't miss" events scheduled for the same day or time. Recently, we have been experiencing that phenomena in spades. For example, the sewing class and drama class Emma wanted were two of the classes Emma wanted to take most this semester and they were offered at the exact same time. This is the second year in a row that the Awana closing ceremony and our home school closing ceremony are scheduled on the same day.

We are hyper vigilant when it comes to avoiding scheduling conflicts. I should say that Amy is hyper vigilant when it comes to avoiding scheduling conflicts. Last Fall when we received our schedules for cub scouts and Awana Amy entered them all in our calendar to make sure there were no conflicts. We were glad to see that the Pinewood Derby and the Awana Grand Prix, two similar model car events were scheduled on different weeks in January.

That was until, the Cub Scouts moved their race back a week and then they were both on the same day! Charlie was able to build two different cars and bring his Awana car in early so he could enter both races.

Thing 4: An extra special glimpse at my life.

The first time I was on an airplane was in 1973. I was 9 and we went to visit Washington D.C. I did not get on a plane again until Spring of 1992. I spent the next decade as a fairly frequent flyer. I flew domestically and internationally landing in 8 countries outside of the U.S. The last of which was in July of 2001 to attend my brother's wedding. I have not been on a plane since. It has nothing to do with the events of September 11th of that year. It is just that I have had no occasion to fly since then. Everyone else in the family has flown since then , although only 2 of them remember it. Charlie flies to Florida this year to go to DW with my parents.




















Thing 5: Television by the book.

My sister stopped by today and gave me my Christmas present. 2009 not 2010. She gave me the ninth edition of "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows. I already had the 8th edition which carried a description and cast list for every prime time show from 1946 to the 2002/2003 television season. It also includes the prime time schedule, Nielsen ratings, and Emmy winners for each year. In short a TV geeks dream come true. The 8th edition is 1,591 pages long. The new 9th edition checks in at 1,831 pages and goes up to the 2006/2007 season. Chuck is not included in this tome as it premiered in the fall of 2007. If the 10th edition publishes with a 4 year lapse between editions as the 9th did. It should be available sometime in 2011. I'll be making room on my shelf.

Those are my things this Thursday! What things are up with you? Due to a glitch with mr. linky I am not able to accept links today. If you have some things to share just post a link on the comments.

Next Time: Book Review

Getting The Run Around

I went to Parents day at Awana last week. I got this footage of Lucy in a footrace.

When we are her age, run-a-round is a good thing. It means getting exercise and having fun with friends and family.

Getting the run-a-round for adults is another matter entirely. It means being led around in circles and never actually getting to your destination. When I was in college the administration building was called Sherman Hall. Trying to procure permission to change majors or graduate early or build a better bird house usually meant going through a routine called the Sherman Shuffle. You would start in one office and be routed to another and another until you finally achieved your goal or until the offices closed for the day. I am sure every college campus and many other bureaucracies have an imaginative title for the run-a-round.

Lucy loves to run-a-round she also loves to cut tape although she has never had to cut through red tape.

Perhaps it is the childish adventuring spirit that can handle running around in circles and the World weary adult who seems beleaguered by it. So the next time you're getting the run-a-round try to make it an adventure rather than a drudgery.

Happy Birthday Charlie! I Miss You Keith!

Today my son turns 8. It's an exciting day for me and also a difficult one. This is the first day of my Brother's birth month. He would have turned 39 this year. He died in April. I have blogged extensively about it here.



I have decided to celebrate my brother's life in a small way by separating all my posts this month by 39 hours. I will not be blogging about Him each time but He will definitely be on my mind. I will interrupt that cadence on Midnight November 11th (his birthday) to share little remembrances every 39 minutes. It is the kind of mathematical pattern that I think Keith would enjoy. To my facebook friends and family who remember Keith I encourage you to send remembrances to me and I will include them in my salute. I'll edit the montage afterward and make it available to you in a more accessible format.



Now back to my birthday boy. Let me give you a couple connections he has to Keith. Like Keith he is very logical and loves strategy games like Chess and Risk. Charlie was the last of my children to see my brother alive. I brought him to visit Keith and Keith helped him with his Chess Homework.



Charlie is in the same Cub scout pack as his cousin Bobby. I am taking them both together so Bobby has a male influence there. I hope to have a good picture of the both of them soon in scout uniform but here is one of Charlie for the time being.


Happy Birthday Charlie! I miss you, Keith! I Salute you both!

Awana

I stare at a blank page. What to write? What to tell you. What to share? Jimminy Christmas, it's cold out there. No, that's not what I want to write. Jinky's it's tough to write.

That's the last time I leave the computer unattended!! I mean I leave ONE minute to tuck in my daughter, and when I come back: gibberish. (Aka, my wife got ahold of the keyboard!)

No matter, I'll get back on track. AWANA! Awana is what works for me. If you are not familiar with AWANA click here.

Awana is like scouting, except instead of cookies and merit badges, you memorize bible verses. Who would want to memorize a cookie anyway? Emma is in Truth in Training which is for 3rd through 6th graders. Charlie is in Sparks which is for K-2nd graders. Next year Lucy will be in Cubbies. Each week the kids have a theme night such as sports night, or crazy hair night. I have so far been unsuccesful in my bid for Paint Your Neighbor's Spaniel Purple Night. But I understand that in these hard economic times, not everyone can afford purple paint.

Crazy Hair Night!

Last weekend was the Awana Grand Prix. The Grand Prix is very similar to the pinewood derbies I ran in as a cub scout. Charlie and Emma both entered and we took some school time to design and paint the cars. As a family we did not fare very well in the races, but we still enjoyed ourselves. After the races the children's pastor preached a message of how important it is to finish the race of life in the winners circle by becoming a follower of Jesus. It was so reminiscent of the scene in "Chariots of Fire" where Eric Liddel preaches after a race he just won about running the race of life.

Awana, works for me because it meshes the spiritual with the other experiential components of growing up. It also works for me as a home school dad: we start school each day memorizing God's word. To see what works for other folks please click here to go to the Works for me Wednesday page at Rocks in my Dryer.

Next Time: Random Postings: The Guy Who Makes the Donuts