Thank you!

Thank you for the prayers for little Ian and his family.  He was able to go home on Saturday!!!

They now believe it's an issue with his kidneys and he is being closely monitored.

Prayer request for a friend

The newborn son of a friend of mine is in the hospital.  They're working hard to figure out the cause; it it appears to be a blood clot in his heart.  Any prayers you can spare for little Ian and his parents Elisa and Steven would be much appreciated.

Thank you!

The hairdryer and the gerbil - a "tail" of misguided youth

God, I love my sister.  She's rocks.  She's kind, she is hilarious, and she is my best friend.  She is also the reason that I can never truly use a hair dryer without giggling.  Why you ask?  Let me tell you a story...

The year is 198(something) and I'm probably a 3rd grader, which means my sis is probably in the 6th grade.  She was learning about human development and had learned that when a gentleman gets "hot", something happens.  What the "something" was remained vague to our sheltered small-town minds.

Around the time of human development lessons, I acquired two gerbils - first, Mr. Pipster (Pippy to his friends) and then Randy (named after the radio commercial character Randolph the Fibar Snack Bar Beaver.  Don't ask, I won't be able to explain).  We all lived a happy little existence in my messy room full of books and other nerd stuff.

After Randy had been introduced to the cage, we were constantly worried that one them might get pregnant.  Gerbils don't exactly come with identifying gender tags.  Being the budding human growth and development whiz that she was, my sister decided that she would investigate this situation and report back.

I watched with mild amusement while my sister held my poor defenseless gerbil by his/her tail and trained a hair dryer on to his/her nether-regions.  After about 30 seconds of a steady stream of hot hair on his/her gerbil junk, my sister put him/her back in to the cage and declared that Randy was a girl.  Her thoughtful hypothesis came about when she got the gerbil good and hot and NOTHING happened, ergo, Randy was a lady rodent.

I'm not the best story-teller in the world, so perhaps you may not be able to appreciate how hilarious this story became once we actually learned a bit more about human development and realized how misguided her experiment was.

A few other reasons I love my sister:
1) she saw the title to this post and knew immediately what it was about
2) she saw the title to this post and called me a few four-letter words for sharing it
3) she is actively trying to figure out how to keep this from my brother-in-law Brian

Love you sis!

No words needed - my kid is SUPER!

Cute Jack stories and a reminder TO VOTE!

Regardless of your position, make sure your voice is heard by voting tomorrow! 

And now, for a few cute Jack stories:
On Saturday I took Jack shopping at Fred Meyer (PNW grocery store).  He knows when I say "let's go grocery shopping" it means he gets a free cookie from the bakery.  The whole way over he was practicing getting his cookie.  From the backseat, I heard the following on repeat for about 3 miles:

"Cookies"
"Ohhhhhh"
"Tank YOU" (cause he knows he has to say that when someone gives him something)

Once we got to the store, we were attempting to get down an aisle that was blocked by 3 people chatting.  I said "excuse me", but they didn't budge.  Jack yelled "HEY, BEEP, BEEP" and they quickly scooted out of the way.

As I passed by, I realized they weren't native English speakers which is why my polite "excuse me" didn't register.  Apparently, "BEEP BEEP" transcends nations, languages, and dialects.  My little Goodwill ambassador!