Aug

30

Melanie’s Birthday

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My parents and brothers came up last weekend to celebrate my birthday. This was the first time the boys have come and the longest my family stayed (Friday night through Sunday afternoon). We had a full house. My parents slept in our bedroom, Andrew and I slept on an air mattress in the extra bedroom, and the boys slept on air mattresses in the living room.

On Saturday we kept busy. In the morning we went over to school and looked around. My family kept wanting to go inside buildings, and I was surprised at how many of them were unlocked. We even went in several that I had never been in before! We were able to look inside one of the dorm rooms. All I have to say is that students at BJU have no right to complain. BJU’s dorm rooms are SO much nicer than this one that we saw. After lunch we took a long walk down to the river and went to some stores. I think most of us ended up taking a nap later in the day.

We celebrated my birthday Saturday night with ribs, salad, baked potatoes, green beans, and sourdough bread. I opened my presents and then we had cake that my mom made. It was yummy.

My family left soon after lunch on Sunday. I think we were all tired out, but we had a nice time together. I’m so thankful they were able to come visit.

Aug

21

“Do you know where your son is?”

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Here’s one more vacation story.

I was helping Sharon and Nathan with Friday lunch when Michael came into the kitchen. He asked Sharon, “Do you know where your son is?” She paused and said, “No.” Michael suggested she go check on him and told her he was in their room. I followed her up. Luke (almost 4 years old) had first gotten into Sharon’s roll of trashbags. He had unrolled them through their bathroom, in the bedroom, down the hall, and into Michael’s room where the roll was pretty much finished.

Luke was only wearing a shirt. He said something about, “I was a little wet,” and launched into a long explanation of what he had done. Since he was a little wet he knew he needed to clean his clothes. This is what he used: all the baby shampoo, all of Sharon’s lotion (I’m guessing these were both small bottles), a Tide pen or Tide wipes (something like that), and all of Sharon’s chapstick (there may have been something else, but I can’t remember). I guess he wanted to make sure they were extra clean.

She commented that the situation wasn’t too bad, and she’s seen much worse from him. I suppose even though he didn’t clean his clothes properly he should be commended for knowing that they needed to be cleaned and giving it his best shot.

Aug

20

Hurray for VT Grad School!

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Big answer to prayer for the day:

VT is going to give me in-state tuition rates! My school bill well be about half as much as before–still plenty for only one class.

Aug

15

The Missing Hotdogs

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Michael reminded me of this story from vacation.

Sharon and Nathan were grilling hot dogs and brats for lunch on Friday. Before lunch Sharon went around to each person asking what they wanted and how many. She even double checked to make sure she asked everyone.

Halfway through lunch Aunt Debbie went to get her second hot dog. She came back to the table saying there were no hot dogs left. We asked if she ordered two. She had. Then Andrew said he hadn’t gotten his second one either. Sharon was at our table and was a little confused, “I even put three or four extra on.” Accusations were made to the people at the other table. “How many did you eat?” “Did you eat more than you ordered?” Everyone denied eating more than they ordered. Then several people at the other table said, “I didn’t get my second one either.” There were plenty of extra in the fridge, so Nathan went to put more on the grill. He came back in with the answer to the missing hot dogs. Nathan would put the hot dogs on the warming rack. Then they would roll off the rack into the hood. When he would open the hood the hot dogs would fall out onto the ground.

Moral of the story: when your hot dogs are missing, look behind the grill before blaming other people for eating them.

Aug

14

The Mouse in the Night

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Here is a story from the family vacation that happened to my parents.

My parent’s bedroom was off the kitchen. It was the only bedroom in this area, although the hallway had a bathroom that Aunt Susan and Uncle John used since they didn’t have one in their bedroom. My mom woke up at 4 or 5 am hearing a strange noise. Eventually (either because of my mom or the noise) my dad woke up. They laid there trying to figure out what the noise was. It stopped for a little bit and then started up again. Eventually one of them got up and turned on the lights. They explored the room and discovered a mouse caught on a sticky trap behind a piece of furniture. Only the back legs of the mouse were stuck, and the mouse was making a lot of noise running around a small space dragging the sticky trap with it. I can’t remember why (or if anything else happened before this), but my dad ended up getting a broom and whacking the mouse to death.

Meanwhile, Uncle John got up to use the bathroom. As he walked through the kitchen he heard a lot of noise coming from my parent’s room and decided that maybe he will wait to use the bathroom. Aunt Susan was awake too. She knows Uncle John got up, and she could hear all the noise coming from the direction of the kitchen. She got annoyed with her husband thinking he was making the noise and wondering what he was doing (maybe starting breakfast too early?).

Aug

13

Boone Family Vacation

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We had a wonderful time with my dad’s side of the family this past week in Green Mountain, NC, which is just north of Burnsville. We have a wonderful family. There are no fights; everyone willingly pitches in; and we can have fun without alcohol.

I’ll give the highlights of each day below, but there were some regular activites each day. A different crew cooked or cleaned up for every meal. Andrew and I cooked two meals and cleaned up three. It was great to not be in the kitchen for every meal. I know everyone else felt the same way. Another regular event was family devotions in the evening, just as we have done on every family vacation. This summer we sang some songs, had testimonies, and the “young” guys (Michael, Andrew, Nathan, and Brandon) gave a challenge. Each night was such a blessing.

Saturday
Uncle Dave and family took I-81 down from New Jersey, so we invited them to our apartment for lunch. After lunch Stephanie rode with us. We ended up taking NC-197 instead of the interstate. The road still got us there, but it took MUCH longer. We went up and down a mountain and ended up in a valley with several houses and a church or two. Then went up and down another mountain past some more houses and a church or two. This continued for several hours. We finally made it to the house. The driveway was almost worse than the road we had been on. It was steep and narrow, and the last section was all gravel. Brandon got his family’s van stuck on the first attempt. They had to unload some people to shift the weight to the front wheels. We were the last ones to arrive. One of the first things said to us was, “Don’t drink the water. It smells like sulfur!” Sure enough, the water had a strong stench of sulfur.

Sunday
My dad spoke for family devotions in the morning. He spoke longer than the rest of the guys (more like a church service). There was nothing planned for the rest of the day, but in the afternoon some people were going to the town of Green Mountain. I wanted to go along. Green Mountain was not very big. It consisted of a general store (which was closed), a post office, and a Presbyterian church. A few people drove by, but no one was around. My car then went into Burnsville to get more bottled water.

We celebrated Grandpa and Grandma’s 60th wedding anniversary after supper (the reason we all got together in the first place). Grandpa and Grandma, Sharon and Nathan, and Andrew and I played the newlywed game. Uncle Dave had collected questions from everyone to ask Grandpa and Grandma about their marriage. Then we watched a picture slide show and ate pound cake with mashed strawberries.

Monday Read more

Aug

9

Olympic NBC

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It is just me, or is NBC’s Olympic TV coverage bizarre?

I think the TV offerings made the rounds in the blogosphere four years ago, and again two years ago. They claim to offer “every event.” We hardly expect it to be live, but they end up putting half of the events on the cable channels and limiting the network offerings to a few popular medal events, generously peppered with “human interest” stories and heavily marinated in commercials.

To make things a little worse, their online coverage appears to be extremely sketchy. In order to view any of the popular events (things they’d show in prime time), you have to have a subscription to an appropriate cable/satellite provider. Sure, they’ll let you watch some of the minor1 events online. They probably don’t want to bother with those events on the TV.

In our case, we don’t have a TV and certainly don’t have cable. We do have high speed Internet access, but again, very few events are available online. We apparently won’t even be able to watch them after the fact. I’m sure there’s some intelligent explanation for that, but one occasionally gets the impression that NBC is paying a lot of money to keep American viewers glued to the appropriate channel (with it’s commercials).

Ok. I’ll stop whining. But allow me a comment about the nature of TV coverage.

China is getting a lot of flak for its various human rights2 abuses. The amount of coverage regarding the Chinese government’s Internet filtering and other media controls has been comical. However, Americans watching the Olympics are subjected to countless advertisements pitching all of the wares of Vanity Fair. Advertisers spend millions for the opportunity to make viewers covet their product, thereby commercializing an event which strives to be above commercializing influences. I don’t necessarily condone China’s censorious practices, and there is certainly plenty of commercialization there too, but Americans–especially Christian Americans–might consider the abuses of “free” commerce and the influence of incessant advertising on our minds.


  1. Extremely minor. Fascinating as it may be, badminton doesn’t really make the cut for thrilling sporting events. back↩
  2. I use the term judiciously. Most “human rights” are in fact merely invented by western Europeans in the 18th century and later. back↩