Texas State Aquarium 6-22-11

(summer catch up!)

After playing on the beach for a few days we went into Corpus Christie and went to the Aquarium (which I had not gone to while we lived there). They are such fun places for the girls who love seeing the fishes, touching things and a first seeing dolphins perform (Lydia now pretends that the swimming pool wall is a glass and we are dolphins swimming and people are watching us)

above baby alligators

pool of rays, one splashed Lydia
Running and dancing with the dolphins
It sprinkled on us (which now sounds heavenly) and we didn't get the greatest seats for the dolphins but other than that it was a wonderful trip, I am glad we took the time.

Stitches

We went to visit Aunt Kathy in Belton and took a trip to the Splash Park. Had a great time, until Lydia slipped and busted her chin open. Took a trip to the Urgent Care for five stitches (so glad we got to drop Kathy & Gloria off at Granddady's house, I know it would not have been fun with a two year there too).
She was pretty upset during the sewing.
But was okay afterwards and even said on the way away that she had a fun adventure and that she wanted to be a book maker and a doctor when she grew up. The doctor was afraid that it was a traumatic experience so she walked away with a sucker, stickers and a teddy bear now named Stitchy!

Desiring God by Piper

1. You should read Desiring God, Meditations of a Christian Hedonist by John Piper

2. I am a big fan of Piper (seen him live, often listen to his sermons and read Don't Waste Your Life) so I should have read this sooner.

3. Honestly, this book is like a textbook and some of it is hard going, you have to use your brain and most of the time I like my reading to be mindless but I threw off the lesser joy of picking up a Shopaholic and obtained a greater joy by completing this.

4. The book explains why “the chief end of man is to glorify God BY enjoying Him forever” and that God commands and is the ultimate fulfillment of our joy.

5. It was interesting that Caleb was listening to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged while I was reading this, as she is a Hedonist (in the pursuit of pleasure sense) they often used the same vocabulary but it was amazing the vastly different ending points when one put the term Christian before Hedonist. We as believers pursue joy only in the sense that the joy is obtained in Christ, we seek joy in Him not just in his gifts.

6. The book goes through these topics explaining how to be a CH in life: Worship, Love, Scripture, Prayer, Money, Marriage, Missions (awesome as always), Suffering. Each section was life changing and inspired lots of underlining.

7. I don't think I will start calling myself a CH (it took him over 300 pages to unpack it so I'd rather not go there) but I have already started changing my mindset of throwing off lesser things to seek the greater joy, even if doing so will require some sacrifice and at the same time knowing that a pity party is not allowed because I am doing it all for JOY!

8. Practically it also helped me understand pursuing joy in God versus self. When people say something good, for example, when I returned from being a sponsor on a youth mission trip and then came with my family to church the next morning, people said, “Wow I can't believe you came instead of resting.” I used to shrug it off and then feel guilty about feeling pride. Now I realize I wasn't feeling pride but joy in seeking the greater good of attending church with my family instead of desiring the lesser joy of trying to get a little more rest. Not sure if that makes sense but all to say that this book has freed me from false guilt.

9. You should read Desiring God, and if you read it long ago you should read it again!

   I got this book free from Blogging for Books from Multnomah Publishing.

Hamilton Pool

We are not the most spontaneous family. This weekend we are going to Aunt Jan's house, we started the planning in May. For India day in Aug, we set the date in midJune.

Caleb was going back to school on Wed and we had no plans for Mon or Tues. Monday night Lydia was looking through her baby book and said, let's go back to Hamilton Pool. So we did the next day.

We woke up, packed a lunch, ate breakfast in the car and headed out. When we got there is was pretty empty and peaceful and COLD, seriously I shivered in and out of the water until about 11:30. Gloria turned purple because most of the pool is shaded in the morning. As the day went on it got more crowded and warmer. We swam, ate an early lunch with a running monologue by a grandma sitting by us who shared her family's Cheetos, walked around the pool-up the rocks, through the narrow part and swam some more. Lydia was slow to start but then used her goggles and swam underwater. Gloria was happy as always to bob around in her floatie. After a nice day, we headed out, Gloria was pretty tired by then, we changed and headed home with a stop at a convenient store for treats, then home to bed! When asked what was their favorite part, I said floating on my back by the waterfall drips, Lydia said seeing the big fish in the water, Gloria responded THE CHEETOS!

Lydia and Caleb walking around again while Gloria and I swam, I have my arm in the air and Gloria is in her floatie.

Dinner

Guess who showed up at our dinner table?

Snow White Rapunzel!

Our Swimming Pool

We love it when friends come to play with us at our pool. Like Abby and her mom Sherri and sister Harper. We often have a snack or meal there too, those are raspberries on Gloria's fingers.

We go to the pool A LOT! And the end of July Lydia learned how to swim. This is even a bigger deal that her learning how to swing herself. She actually went underwater and went three strokes the week Caleb was in a conference and she was so excited to show him because he had been doing 'swimming lessons' with her. Since then she has been practicing more and more and got some goggles and now can open her eyes. The whole time we go to the pool now, she loves to swim and swim and swim; she even jumps in. She mostly stays where she can touch. But yesterday she swam to me across the deep end. One day just the four of us went and I got to float in the little pool with Gloria while Caleb and Lydia had a blast diving, swimming, having a tea party underwater, and jumping off the edge. It is awesome!

India!

We started India day by looking at some books while listening to Indian music on youtube. Then we headed to our friends' home (he had gone to India and they enjoy Bollywood movies). We ate cookies from India, watched a few songs from movies (Bride & Prejudice-see the funny shoot from the tv below & Veer-Zara), looked at some pics of their trips and did henna! The girls were really good (except Gloria got some on their carpet) while we did it and it dried, they didn't want to leave it on very long so it didn't get very dark. Jennifer is a great drawer, my flowers weren't that great but once I got started on my feet, it was hard to stop! After taking pictures we went to Indian Palace (uhhhhh I hate it but I don't like the food, its all too spicy for me, but I still got super full) we chatted some with the waiter. Lydia pointed out all the pictures on the wall she didn't like and they were the ones of the Hindu gods.
We got Lydia new skirt at the consignment sale and said it looked Indian, she is also wearing an authentic Indian pashmina shawl.
guess who works and who's at the pool a lot?

Taj Mahal outside the Indian Palace, my feet as still drying
The girls didn't eat much either but they liked the bread and mango pudding. Notice Lydia's bindi (red dot on her forehead but we couldn't find a red marker and she didn't want a sticker so she did a purple one!) Another funny thing is in a book we saw a picture of a chiawalla (think SlumDog Millionaire) and the girls love that word. At the restaurant out of the blue Gloria said it and now they are wanting to see his pic again!

They are watching the Jungle Book right now and we have a couple of more books to read.

Another fun trip around the world! But I still hope to get there for real some day but this trip fit our timeline and budget just nicely right now :)

PS I have no idea why a strange date printed on our pictures....