Somewhere over the rainbow...

We're headed out dark and early in the morning to drive up to Kansas for the long weekend!


It's our annual Labor Day Weekend trip - the whole Marshall side of the family gets together for good food, fun on the farm, a skeet shoot (cowpatty shootout as we call it), and silly awards. You can be sure pictures will be posted next week! For now, here's one (or three) from last year...

Have a great long weekend! See y'all next week!

Two thoughts...

1. I just got onto Blogger to see if anyone had a new post to read, and I realized that the picture of my dad and I (see the post below, first picture) was taken when I was approximately the same age as Logan is right now. Cool.

2. Anyone else having Olympic Withdrawls? Seriously. Prime time TV just doesn't live up to the standards of the last two weeks - which is probably a very good thing. I need to spend some more time on a few projects around here anyhow!

Pop...

Happy (belated) Birthday, Pop!

Hope your actual birthday was great last Saturday, while you were in Mississippi getting a little wet from TS Fay! We're glad you and Mom are back safely, and that you had a good time.

Some other little guys wanted to wish you a happy birthday, also!

Happy Birthday, Old Man! Love ya!

A wonderful evening...

Ryan and I went on a fun 'double date' to The Melting Pot this evening! We went with our good friends, David and Shanna Marhofer. All four of us enjoyed our long, 3+ hour leisurely dinner without our kiddos at a restaurant that specializes in fondue.
We received at least two fondue pots for our wedding over 6 years ago...one we exchanged for something else, and the other one we gave away - we're just not into making fondue for ourselves! BUT, we really like going to The Melting Pot! Since it's not exactly cheap, it's a date that doesn't happen often...but we have a great time whenever it does!

(above) Ryan and I about to dive into the pot of Yummy Chocolatey Goodness (known as the Yin & Yang at this restaurant)! This was our dessert course. Can you see the mess we made from the previous two courses, just to the right of the pot? hehe

Here's Shanna and David. David was the best man in our wedding, and he and Ryan are childhood best friends/college roommates. Actually, Ryan, Shanna, and David all grew up within three blocks of each other!
The Yummy Chocolatey Goodness. Make it into a cross or ichthus, and it would be absolute perfection.
Ryan showing appreciation of the Yummy Chocolatey Goodness.
All four of us attacking the Yummy Chocolatey Goodness. It was gone - GONE - in about four minutes. (Considering that it took us over an hour to eat our main course...and we were stuffed to the gills going into dessert...didn't think we could eat much more...kind of like Dara Torres coming off the medal podium receiving her silver and swimming the anchor leg of a silver-medal relay just minutes later...I guess we still had something to give, or in this case, take!)

After our wonderful dinner, we made it home in time to watch Michael Phelps and Company do the amazing, which I'm sure all of you reading know exactly what I'm talking about (because you watched it too!). I can only imagine the stories his mama will be telling when she gets back to the states, back to the junior high where she is a principal. She's nearly as big of a celebrity as he is right now! Nearly.

Oh, the memories made in the past week. So wonderful.

Absolutely wonderful times eight.

Sleepy...

Anyone else staying up way past their bedtimes to watch the Olympics? (I know you are, Robin - I'm right there with ya!)

My rationale is this: It's OK to miss out on several hours of sleep right now, because the summer Olympics only come along once every four years. Plus, look at all the world records (ahem, Michael Phelps) and "history-in-the-making" moments you'd be missing out on seeing firsthand. I guess it would more appropriately be called secondhand, since you're not there in person but watching it live on TV.

That last part is true for the remaining few of us who still don't have DVR. But that's for another day.

Did I mention all the "history-in-the-making" moments? Does anyone else get chills when they know one is happening?

Sleep can wait for another week and a half. Watching these athletic giants (even if they range from 4 feet to 6+ feet tall) can't.

Summer Olympics - and a request...

I love the Olympics!

Really, I LURVE the Olympics!! Winter, summer, it doesn't matter - they're so awesome to watch. Don't they fill you with a new sense of hope for our world? Especially to be located in Beijing right now... what an opportunity to see and learn of a country that has been so closed off for so long.

It made me wonder this week what it's like to be a missionary living in China right now. Do they have more freedom to share openly about Christ's love to nationals?

It's been a week of big thoughts, I tell ya. Not only about the Olympics (which, by the way, Caleb was born during the last Winter games, and I have never watched so much of the sport of 'curling' than I did while I was in the hospital with him. They showed it at 2am every night. It's really fascinating - I'm hooked!) but also about God-given passions.

Ryan and I have just finished up a two-day leadership conference put on by the Willow Creek Association, and it was so full with amazing thoughts and ideas that I'll be re-hashing so much of what I saw and heard for a while. I hope to compile it to a post, so maybe that will come in the future.

But for now, as you and I enjoy watching our world's best young athletes and learn about China, will you please pray for a girl in our church's youth ministry?

I'll call her "T" just for her privacy, but to give you some background, T has a rare disease that severely affects her kidneys. She has been in and out of the hospital all summer, and was rushed back in early this week. Her kidneys are in complete failure, and yesterday she was in surgery to have a permanent catheter put in to enable her to start dialysis three times a week. The hope is that through dialysis, she can re-gain some strength in order to undergo a kidney transplant next year.

Here's a totally cool, God-ordained thing: her big brother (who is my age) has her same blood type and he was born with three kidneys. No kidding. One of those things that we might say is a mutation, but really it's God's provision.

At any rate, T is feeling very depressed, beaten down, and hopeless. Please pray that her hope and strength (physical, mental, and spiritual) would be renewed; that doctors would continue to have wisdom in her treatments; that her bro's extra kidney would indeed be a perfect match when the time comes; that she will have complete healing!

Thanks! Now, back to the opening ceremonies...

Logan on the loose...

The title of this post brings back high school drill team/cheerleading memories... There was a chant that we did over, and over, and over that went something like this:

Tigers on the loose, on-on the loose... (repeat way too many times) Now it's Logan on the loose!This past Monday, Logan figured out how to crawl. As you can see, the object of his desire was a purple squeaky ball that belongs to our dog, Logan's number-one-best-friend, the one creature who can make him smile faster than anyone else in our household! I think that since it was Hershey's toy he wanted, she should now be in charge of keeping him out of all cabinets, drawers, electrical cords and outlets...

Of course, what I really think is just too cute for words is the WAY he crawls. Can you tell from the pictures?

Both hands (standard), right knee (standard), and left foot (funky). Way to be unique, son!

Yet another change...

Sorry, y'all. I'm a picky one.

I just wasn't settled about the last blog makeover (if you could even call it that). I think I like this header better, but from the brief previews I was able to see, it doesn't seem to sit centered on the page.

Anyone know their way around HTML, that could help me figure out how to center the silly thing?

Maybe by the time you read this, blogger will have ironed out their issues and won't abort our pages, whereby giving me just a glimpse of what it looks like now. They're having some problems tonight, they are.

Have a great weekend - and let me know if you have the know-how to center my header!