Year / 2007

by Greg

July 4th Adventure Week

When we were on the last leg of our return trip home last night, Jen & I were recalling the several consecutive late nights (and/or full days) we had strung together for our children. We counted three… then four… then… a WEEK. I think it goes back to our big FOOD FEST on July 1st. So far, this July has been packed full of goodness.

You know of the Food Fest, as well as the National Ice Cream Month celebrations. Perhaps you also know of how we celebrated July 4th on July 3rd with Jen’s family down by Canandaigua Lake? And perhaps you also know that we drove nearly FIFTY MILES to see fireworks on the real July 4th down in Lima, NY? Good times.

How about how we drove to Springfield, OH – the place of my birth! – on Thursday July 5th, and met up with my Grandma, my Grandma & Grandpa, my Mom & Dad, their friend Paul, my Uncle Jim & Aunt Becky, and my Uncle Jim & Aunt Sara for dinner at Cici’s Pizza? And then we went out to see a restoration project my second Uncle Jim (from above) is working on for the Clark County parks… did I mention that? AND THEN we headed down to Grammy & Grandpa’s for baths and night time routines… completely exhausted. Once again, good times. 🙂

Oh! I know I mentioned the Creation Museum on Friday July 6th… it’s created quite a firestorm in the comment section (at least as far as commenting generally goes at GregsHead.net. And, you also know that we went to one of the Esther Price chocolate stores that day, along with Graeter’s Ice Cream. But, did I mention that was following some fantastic BBQ ribs, pulled pork, and other such goodies? How about that after that long day, and following baths and bedtime routine (which took longer than it should’ve thanks to Julia) that Jen & I went out on the town at about 11:15pm or so??? Went to Applebee’s for half-price appetizers. 🙂 Again… good times.

On Seven Seven oh-Seven we once again started out first thing in the morning, just doing a little drive around the countryside. We’ve heard that Indiana has some fantastic home school regulations (like… they have NONE!) so we have always considered moving down there to be near my family, and free from the more “looking over your shoulder” type of regulations that NY currently has. So, we just wanted to see what those little towns were like. We had a nice lunch at a little diner in a small town of about 5000 people. It was a nice lunch, but not a place we’d want to live. Plus, it was hot. 🙂 (Big black mark against in my book…) 🙂 We drove around a bit more, just taking in the scenery, and then headed over to Springfield area for the evening’s fun.

We met up with my cousin Jimmie and his wife (didn’t get to see their daughter though! she was sleeping!!) 🙁 We spent 15-20 minutes with them and then headed over to meet our friends at Young’s Jersey Dairy. They’re headed to Ecuador on Wednesday I believe, so we were glad to get to see them before they head overseas. Spent more time than we expected to with them, after they locked their keys in their car. 🙁 Not what you want to do on a hot day… but we had a good time, and of course, had some great ice cream!!! Got to feed goats, too.

As July has gone… 07/07/07 was also… good times.

Sunday began early as Julia decided to mostly NOT sleep the night before, and since we were planning to leave early Sunday morning anyway (early for us…) I got up at about 7:30 or so and started getting stuff ready. Thankfully, the kids really were exhausted and I think the younger three took at least two naps each on the trip home! That was really nice. For everyone. We also stopped along the way for Skyline Chili (At 11am! That was funny!) and Dairy Queen! Also found a nice McDonald’s playplace up in NY for dinner. It was a nice trip. Even got to stop by Willowbrook and drop off some goodies for our friend Leah. Good times.

That brings us to this morning. Have you noticed that sometimes when kids are tired, they don’t actually sleep as much as when life is more “normal”? EVERYONE was up early this morning, which is not the best way to start a morning (for me, I guess) but, that’s how it started. I walked to the post office to get a check that I needed to deposit in the bank. Man, it was steaming hot even before 9am today! Then I got home and noticed we didn’t have milk yet… so, off to our grocery store I went. 🙂 I was a nice dad and brought home donuts for the kids for breakfast, too. 🙂

So, it has been an adventure everyday since the start of July. I’m hoping that 07/09/07 will be a bit back to normal. I think it just might be.

by Greg

Pilgrimage to a Chocolate Mecca

Esther Price ChocolateI would not be doing the day justice if I somehow failed to mention our visit to Esther Price Chocolates in Centreville, OH! Talk about a chocolate lover’s paradise 🙂 There were FREE SAMPLES of this fantastic chocolate! And boxes and BOXES of it EVERYWHERE. I said to Jen at one point, “I have no will power in this place.” 🙂 (And I was not exaggerating!!!)

It was WAY too fun! I loved it!

I’ll post some photos from the event a bit later. For now… it’s time to sleep!

by Greg

A Visit To The Creation Museum

Creation Museum
My Dad told us a while back that he’d really like to take us to that there new Creation Museum in Kentucky, put together by the folks at Answers in Genesis. We agreed, wanting to see it ourselves, and picked today as the day we would all go check it out.

First, it was a hot day, and there were LOTS of people with the same idea as us. 🙂 It was packed! Far more than I thought it would be on a Friday morning. But perhaps this is still a holiday weekend?

We did get to see Ken Ham wandering through the lines as we were waiting to pay to get in. Didn’t get to chat, but it was kinda cool/funny seeing him around there.

The place was just really well done. It was like Disney, but for the Bible. We even watched a fun “interactive” movie where the seats vibrated and we were sprayed by water and stuff. Very cool.

Overall, I think it might have been a good thing that I didn’t get to read too many of their displays, or watch/hear too many of their video presentations at each station. I mean, I really enjoy this stuff – even enjoy the Creation science stuff… but… I’m not really a big supporter of AIG. I don’t hate them, like some people (or at least, totally eschew anything they might say just because it is they who say it) but I am definitely not an AIG fan boy. 🙂

We were thinking on the way home that Ken Ham and AIG’s stance on the “young earth only” creation model is rather like the guy (who also has a society of “guys”) who really thinks the Bible says the earth is at the center of the universe, and all else revolves around it. (Our sun included.) This dude thinks the Bible says just that, and that if we accept anything different, we’ll be throwing out everything else in the Bible too. To him geocentricity is foundational, and to AIG, 6000 years is foundational. To me, both of those ideas are putting too much emphasis on one thing, that doesn’t really affect the veracity of the whole Bible.

I might actually lean more toward a “young earth” idea, but it would not crush me to think that God created the Earth first (perhaps even “Billions of years” ago?) and then brought animals and people into the picture in the much more recent past. Or, really, any scenario that has God creating us is plausible to me. I just think the way he did it is a non-issue.

One interesting thing that I noticed – and I might make some folks mad here – is that I might now instinctively not trust Christians. There were a couple times today that I noticed that, but the first was the greeter lady. She was overly happy and friendly, which is to be expected in her position. She’s a greeter. That’s her job. But I guess I either know the behind-the-scenes, or could just hear it in her tone/voice – there is an agenda. Christians just have an agenda. They are friendly for a reason. They help for a reason. They want something from you.

It’s too bad I feel that way, but as I said, I had that impression/feeling a couple times today in Christian-land.

Overall, it was fantastic. I would go again. I would like to go again. Very impressive collection of stuff they have there. I might want to NOT go with at least our three and one year olds… 🙂 That might be a bit more conducive to actually experiencing the whole thing… 🙂

So, a big thanks to Grandpa Tom for footing the bill and taking us out to see the Creation Museum. Fun way to spend a Friday! 🙂

by Greg

07.07.07

It’s just fun to put that in print! 07.07.07. We are planning to meet with some friends at Young’s Jersey Dairy in Yellow Springs, OH today – an awesome ice cream (but so much more!) place in the land of my birth – and originally, thought it would be fun to meet at 7:07pm on 07.07.07. BUT, alas… they are not able to. We’ll be getting together earlier.

Will have to figure out something else to do on that fun date. We’ll have to wait a year and a month till the next such date. 🙂 What will you be doing on this “special occasion”?

Perhaps something involving sevens?

Let me know in the comments if you have any good ideas. 🙂

by Greg

Ice Cream Update

As you know from previous entries, July is national ice cream month, and we’ve been doing our part to celebrate that! Here’s a quick run-down on the month so far.

  • July 1 – We made home made ice cream with friends (Philadelphia-style Vanilla, and Strawberry Sherbet)
  • 7/2 – Made some more home made ice cream, and ate some of the previous day’s ice cream!
  • 7/3 – Finished the home made ice cream off! Mmmmmm!!!
  • 7/4 – Went out with friends for some home made ice cream at Sharks Custard & Candy in Bloomfield, NY! (Then I had a tad more Breyer’s when I got home…) 🙂
  • 7/5 – Travel day… had a Frosty at Wendy’s (Does that count?) and then stopped at my Dad’s favorite ice cream spot, The Frosty Eagle in Bellbrook, OH!
  • 7/6 – Got some more home made ice cream at Graeter’s Ice Cream in Centreville, OH! Great “inclusions”! (Big chunks of chocolate!) AND… we even got to eat some Astronaut Ice Cream at the Creation Museum today!
  • 7/7 – Meeting some friends at Young’s Jersey Dairy for some great home made ice cream! And Young’s is not just an ice cream place, it’s an experience! You can feed/pet the animals, play on the farm toys, even play a round of mini-golf if you want! It’s a childhood, nostalgic stop during National Ice Cream month, in Springfield, OH (really, Yellow Springs, OH.)

More to come…

by Greg

A Long Time Ago… In a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Talk about fireworks… Wired News today posted this article about some 4th of July fireworks from what is now known as the Crab Nebula. But this was not a recent 4th of July… it was in the year 1054!!! Ha! Awesome.

We’re hoping to catch some more modern fireworks tonight… if the rain lets up. Then off to visit family in Ohio for the weekend tomorrow!

Enjoy the article, and happy 4th of July!

by Greg

From The Earth To The Moon

Earthrise
We just finished watching “From the Earth to the Moon”, an HBO mini-series, and it was fantastic. The language was too much for our tiny kids (and, well, I didn’t like it much either…) but the story form of this incredible time in history was very well done. It’s 12 parts on 4 discs. And, it’s great! 🙂 We highly recommend.

The one very cool thing I noticed was just how many people it took to make that happen. They did a great job of conveying that. From the 3 astronauts per mission each having vital, essential roles, to their fourth astronaut (Mission Control in Houston, which was a couple dozen MORE people who were each vital to the mission) … it was all about team work. It could not have happened without all of those people.

And of course you can go beyond that… lots more people involved, including the companies who made the stuff that got us to the moon, and all of the people that worked together to make that happen.

It was just very obvious that even though only 24 men made the trip to the moon (so far), it was hundreds, maybe thousands? who made it possible. Life is not meant to be lived alone, and you certainly can’t do super cool things like go hang out on the moon by yourself! It was a cool, vivid example of team work in action.

So, if foul language is offensive, perhaps you can borrow someone’s TV Guardian… but it’s an amazing reenactment of history. Incredible history. Add it to your Netflix queue today!

(A little side note. As you are probably aware, I am a big fan of space exploration. I really believe that NASA is getting ready to do this again. We don’t have a “Cold War” to fuel public interest as much as in the 60s, but we are going to do some pretty amazing things in the next decade or two. In the coming decade, NASA plans to go back to the moon… and set up camp there. In the 2010s (and into the 20s) NASA is planning to send people to MARS. It could be much the same as July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong first put his boot on the moon. Stay tuned…)

by Greg

No Other Gods…

My neighbor has a blog (that I shant link, since I believe it is not a public blog…) and she was sharing some stuff about her (successful) endeavor to quit smoking. One line caught my eye. She likened her smoking to idolatry. Now, I don’t think that smoking by itself is a sin, or idolatrous. My neighbor says it is for her, and so, she is right. It’s something that gets in between her and God.

When she said that, I thought, “You know, that’s a cool way of thinking about idolatry.” God tells us to have no other gods before him. And “ta not to” worship idols. That is mostly meaningless to us today, because no one (not many?) actually build big ugly stone “idols” and offer sacrifices or bow and/or pray to them. Do they? So, it’s hard to connect with what God is saying there. But if you think of God’s ultimate goal for us is to reconcile us to him, in full relationship with him… he doesn’t want anything getting in the way of that full connection with him. (For our sake, not his.)

I remember hearing that nowadays an idol can be pretty much anything… a relationship, a favorite hobby, even just drinking Coke. And I think probably Sunday school teachers can take that a bit too far. But what my neighbor said helped me see that idea from a slightly different perspective. The badness is not that God is not getting all of us, and we’re somehow not measuring up… the badness is that whatever is distracting us from the fullness of the relationship he intends us to be in with him is limiting the Life we’re supposed to be living. That can be smoking, drinking, gossiping, even just the internet and checking e-mail? 🙂

You’ve heard it said that God wants all of us, and I believe that’s true… but I am not sure that I have completely understood that over the years. I think I understand that God’s motivation is not to be the cosmic Rule Enforcer, but rather, the friend and Father who only wants the best for us. I know I want that for my kids, and I am so flawed in my fatherhood it’s ridiculous. So if I can even know that love that wants my kids to have the fullest life possible… flawed as I am… how much greater is that desire in our perfect Father?

Anyhoo… thanks neighbor for some good thoughts on why God wants to get the stuff out of our life that gets between us and him. And congrats on six months. 🙂