Three Days!
11 years ago
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
8/28 Restoring Honor Rally in Washington DC
Last Saturday morning we got up early and made our way to the 8/28 Restoring Honor rally on the national mall in Washington DC. We went to the rally expecting a move of God and expecting a miracle. When we arrived at our subway stop and made our way to the rally we were amazed at the number of people, and were a little surprised at the small number of protestor there were. As we made our way toward the Washington memorial the crowds seemed energized, and then we reached a point where we could see the Lincoln memorial and the size of the crowd that was there, it was amazing. The only way that CBS could report that 87,000 people were there is if they were counting the overflow that was sitting around the Washington monument and thought the other people were with a different group, or maybe there is another reason they would report something so blatantly absurd. We made our way into the crowd and moved along until we found a place where we could see a screen and hear the sound clearly, we stayed there for 10-15 minutes and then moved a to the next screen and repeated this a couple times until we were close enough to see the speakers on the stage (steps really). All the moving around we did required us to move amongst a lot of people and we covered a lot of ground and not once did I hear a person complain about anything, or say anything that was other than polite and helpful. There were plenty of opportunities to complain if people wanted to, it was hot with not much of a breeze, there were lines at the port-o-johns, the crowd was so thick at times you were packed in tight to get through some areas, lots of people could not see the stage or a video screen, but none of that seemed to matter. These people came to see a move of God, they came looking to witness Faith Hope and Charity, and I will say that I witnessed an overflowing of all three. The overwhelming message for each individual was that God is the only answer to all of your individual problems and to all of the problems that we face as a nation, I was reminded of the scripture “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land”. Over and over again the speakers cried out to Jesus and called on His name, they didn’t use a generic “god” to be politically correct, and every time they called on Jesus the crowd responded. This was another opportunity to hear someone grumble about being at a big “church service”, but if there were any around who did not approve of the message they kept it to themselves.
It was very moving to see the video clips of Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream speech’, and even more so to see the overwhelming reaction of the crowd when his niece, Alveda King, spoke. The most amazing part of Alveda King speaking is that she spoke with treats against her and her family from groups that did not want her to be there. Glenn Beck said on his radio show that she was visibly shaken, and that he told her he could get her a bullet proof vest if she wanted, but her response was, “No, I trust in the Lord”. What kind of courage does it take to go on a stage in front of more than 500,000 people when your life has been threatened and all the so called civil rights leaders have said that they expect people to boo her. To me that is amazing.
This day was also a day to honor the heroes that are more commonly known as members of the United States military, it was a time to thank the men and women that have served and are now serving. There was no better place to honor our military, we were surrounded by memorials to almost every war this nation has been involved in, and there were several times that the Vietnam war was mentioned in particular and the fact that those men were not welcomed home after the war, but I believe that there was healing for those veterans who were in attendance, I believe that they were ministered to by the moving of the Holy Spirit. One of the stated purpose of this event was to raise money for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, a foundation that takes care of the families of special forces personnel that make the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms, they received over 5 million dollars.
After the event was over we made our way to the Lincoln memorial, and then walked over to the White House. We ate lunch at the White House, it may have been out on the sidewalk but we still were at the White House. After lunch we started making our way back to the subway station and this is where we encountered the Al Sharpton’s protest march. This march could not have been more different from the Restoring Honor rally, my first impression was that the march was like a union strike line, with angry people yelling and chanting. To see this march was heart breaking, all of these people that claimed to be reclaiming Dr. Kings dream had just missed it, and they had just missed being part of it, all because someone told them that we were a bunch of racist. To me this was the perfect opportunity for the civil rights leaders to encourage people of all races and religions and nationalities to go be a part of the rally and make Glenn Beck prove what he had been saying. If they really wanted to prove that Glenn Beck and everyone at the rally were racist then what better way than to come and join, there was more than enough security if they feared for their safety. Instead, the ones who wanted to reclaim the dream missed seeing hundreds of thousands of people honor Dr. King and his niece, as well as others that marched with Dr. King that spoke at the rally. Glenn Beck told of a story on his radio show of a woman and her daughter that attended the rally and on the flight home sat next to a man wearing an Obama t-shirt, in talking with the man they found out that he had gone the Washington to attend Al Sharpton’s protest, but he said that he wanted to see what all the fuss was about and know what he would be protesting so he went to the Restoring Honor rally …. He never made it to the protest, that is the greatest endorsement I can think of, I only wish more could have gone to see what they were going to protest, I think that would have been a dream fulfilled.
It was very moving to see the video clips of Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream speech’, and even more so to see the overwhelming reaction of the crowd when his niece, Alveda King, spoke. The most amazing part of Alveda King speaking is that she spoke with treats against her and her family from groups that did not want her to be there. Glenn Beck said on his radio show that she was visibly shaken, and that he told her he could get her a bullet proof vest if she wanted, but her response was, “No, I trust in the Lord”. What kind of courage does it take to go on a stage in front of more than 500,000 people when your life has been threatened and all the so called civil rights leaders have said that they expect people to boo her. To me that is amazing.
This day was also a day to honor the heroes that are more commonly known as members of the United States military, it was a time to thank the men and women that have served and are now serving. There was no better place to honor our military, we were surrounded by memorials to almost every war this nation has been involved in, and there were several times that the Vietnam war was mentioned in particular and the fact that those men were not welcomed home after the war, but I believe that there was healing for those veterans who were in attendance, I believe that they were ministered to by the moving of the Holy Spirit. One of the stated purpose of this event was to raise money for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, a foundation that takes care of the families of special forces personnel that make the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms, they received over 5 million dollars.
After the event was over we made our way to the Lincoln memorial, and then walked over to the White House. We ate lunch at the White House, it may have been out on the sidewalk but we still were at the White House. After lunch we started making our way back to the subway station and this is where we encountered the Al Sharpton’s protest march. This march could not have been more different from the Restoring Honor rally, my first impression was that the march was like a union strike line, with angry people yelling and chanting. To see this march was heart breaking, all of these people that claimed to be reclaiming Dr. Kings dream had just missed it, and they had just missed being part of it, all because someone told them that we were a bunch of racist. To me this was the perfect opportunity for the civil rights leaders to encourage people of all races and religions and nationalities to go be a part of the rally and make Glenn Beck prove what he had been saying. If they really wanted to prove that Glenn Beck and everyone at the rally were racist then what better way than to come and join, there was more than enough security if they feared for their safety. Instead, the ones who wanted to reclaim the dream missed seeing hundreds of thousands of people honor Dr. King and his niece, as well as others that marched with Dr. King that spoke at the rally. Glenn Beck told of a story on his radio show of a woman and her daughter that attended the rally and on the flight home sat next to a man wearing an Obama t-shirt, in talking with the man they found out that he had gone the Washington to attend Al Sharpton’s protest, but he said that he wanted to see what all the fuss was about and know what he would be protesting so he went to the Restoring Honor rally …. He never made it to the protest, that is the greatest endorsement I can think of, I only wish more could have gone to see what they were going to protest, I think that would have been a dream fulfilled.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Going Batty
For a couple of weeks Lindsey has mentioned a noise coming from her ceiling. She said it sounded like an animal of some sort moving around perhaps in it's nest with it's young. Well, we decided to investigate the situation. Cameron got on his full-body poopy suit from his Navy days and ventured off into the attic. Laura was outside of the house armed with the camera pointed directly at the wooden louvers where the varmint might make his escape. A coat hanger was shoved through the wall and twisted around in hopes to stir up the nest. Cameron came back down from the attic and decided to pound on the wall to scare them out. When he returned back to the attic he said "Charlie, go get your momma and tell her to bring the camera!" Below is the picture of what he first saw..........
Here's Cameron tackling the situation....
We ended up getting all of them out and sealing up the space with wire mesh. It stunk so bad of bat guano and urine so we gutted that whole area of the insulation which they totally destroyed while burrowing in it. It has been pretty nasty to say the least but we are glad that we didn't wait any longer. My neighbor informed us that a house just down the street had to be completely gutted out because of a bat infestation! YUK! So if you hear something in your ceiling or walls you might want to check it out. It could be that you're going batty. :0)
Here's Cameron tackling the situation....
We ended up getting all of them out and sealing up the space with wire mesh. It stunk so bad of bat guano and urine so we gutted that whole area of the insulation which they totally destroyed while burrowing in it. It has been pretty nasty to say the least but we are glad that we didn't wait any longer. My neighbor informed us that a house just down the street had to be completely gutted out because of a bat infestation! YUK! So if you hear something in your ceiling or walls you might want to check it out. It could be that you're going batty. :0)
Monday, July 5, 2010
Katie the Mouse
The following blog entry was written by Lindsey.
Several months ago Charlie bought a pet mouse for his science project for the science fair. It turned out that this particular science fair project ended up living with us up until about two weeks ago, when I woke up to Charlie sadly declaring that he found Katie (that was the name of the mouse) stiff in her cage. We have had many adventures with Katie the mouse. The most hysterical time being when she escaped from her cage during the night and crawled into my parent’s room and up onto their bed. My mom awoke to my dad sitting straight up looking around, he said that something had just crawled up his stomach and that he slapped it off, my mom turned on the light and there was Katie on the dresser. My dad had slapped her across the room, and she was just sitting there grooming herself. Katie managed to escape several times and we had to chase her around the house several times, though none was quite as funny as when she crawled on dad during the night. As you can tell we had lots of fun with Katie and she will be missed. Here are some pictures of Katie.
This is one of our favorite of Katie.
Here is Charlie with Katie
Here she is at the end of the maze that Charlie made for the Science Fair project.
Several months ago Charlie bought a pet mouse for his science project for the science fair. It turned out that this particular science fair project ended up living with us up until about two weeks ago, when I woke up to Charlie sadly declaring that he found Katie (that was the name of the mouse) stiff in her cage. We have had many adventures with Katie the mouse. The most hysterical time being when she escaped from her cage during the night and crawled into my parent’s room and up onto their bed. My mom awoke to my dad sitting straight up looking around, he said that something had just crawled up his stomach and that he slapped it off, my mom turned on the light and there was Katie on the dresser. My dad had slapped her across the room, and she was just sitting there grooming herself. Katie managed to escape several times and we had to chase her around the house several times, though none was quite as funny as when she crawled on dad during the night. As you can tell we had lots of fun with Katie and she will be missed. Here are some pictures of Katie.
This is one of our favorite of Katie.
Here is Charlie with Katie
Here she is at the end of the maze that Charlie made for the Science Fair project.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Going the Distance
Sat. May 22, 2010
Today I completed my first triathlon….Whoo-Hoo! I didn’t do so hot in the overall ranking. I was second to last in the women's category. BUT AT LEAST I WASN’T LAST! I did, however, do my very best time at swimming. I shaved off 3 minutes compared to my training times. My bike run wasn’t as good as I’ve done but the course was a lot more hilly than I am used to. One hill in particular kicked my butt, it was grooling...I could see my average speed going down, down, down quickly. And the run, well, I totally bombed on that! I really need to work on my run.
On a brighter note, I AM happy that I...
1) finished in time to go to Levi’s soccer game
(well, I am glad I finished period.)
2)didn’t stop at all even though I was tempted to while poking along on my run and…
3)Gave it my all and had fun!
I am honestly surprised that I am not that tired after the race. I feel pretty good. I think I might want to do another one …hee heee heee
Maybe Cameron will do one with me next time....now there's an idea....
Battle at Buckhorn Lake
Laura Graham age 38 Wilson, NC
Placed 40th out of 41 women contestants My number was- 61
Swim Rank- 35th Swim Time-21:15.6 Pace1:58 T1 Rank-21 T1 Time-1:39
Bike Rank-38th Bike Time-1:08:56.4 Average MPH-14.8 T2 Rank-17 T2Time- 0:59
Run Rank-41st Run Time-38:57.0 Pace-12:34 -UUUGH! I was the last runner however…..did I say I need to work on my run??
Laura and Levi strikin' a tough pose
Parade wave before go time-Swim-1000 meters
Lindsey and Charlie on the dock
Transition 1-Going from Water to Bike
17 Mile Bike Ride
Transition 2-From Bike to Run
Final Leg-Run 5k/3.1 miles
We thought this was a cool pic-The oldest runner in the race (72 yrs old) and the youngest runner (12) they finished within seconds of eachother...very cool
Finishing Strong!
Today I completed my first triathlon….Whoo-Hoo! I didn’t do so hot in the overall ranking. I was second to last in the women's category. BUT AT LEAST I WASN’T LAST! I did, however, do my very best time at swimming. I shaved off 3 minutes compared to my training times. My bike run wasn’t as good as I’ve done but the course was a lot more hilly than I am used to. One hill in particular kicked my butt, it was grooling...I could see my average speed going down, down, down quickly. And the run, well, I totally bombed on that! I really need to work on my run.
On a brighter note, I AM happy that I...
1) finished in time to go to Levi’s soccer game
(well, I am glad I finished period.)
2)didn’t stop at all even though I was tempted to while poking along on my run and…
3)Gave it my all and had fun!
I am honestly surprised that I am not that tired after the race. I feel pretty good. I think I might want to do another one …hee heee heee
Maybe Cameron will do one with me next time....now there's an idea....
Battle at Buckhorn Lake
Laura Graham age 38 Wilson, NC
Placed 40th out of 41 women contestants My number was- 61
Swim Rank- 35th Swim Time-21:15.6 Pace1:58 T1 Rank-21 T1 Time-1:39
Bike Rank-38th Bike Time-1:08:56.4 Average MPH-14.8 T2 Rank-17 T2Time- 0:59
Run Rank-41st Run Time-38:57.0 Pace-12:34 -UUUGH! I was the last runner however…..did I say I need to work on my run??
Laura and Levi strikin' a tough pose
Parade wave before go time-Swim-1000 meters
Lindsey and Charlie on the dock
Transition 1-Going from Water to Bike
17 Mile Bike Ride
Transition 2-From Bike to Run
Final Leg-Run 5k/3.1 miles
We thought this was a cool pic-The oldest runner in the race (72 yrs old) and the youngest runner (12) they finished within seconds of eachother...very cool
Finishing Strong!
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Cat Scratch Fever
Well, we haven't updated in a while so I thought I'd just jot down our most recent adventures. Saturday night we decided to give our cat "Poody" a bath. Cameron and I always go into this with the knowledge that one or both of us will come out with many scratches and much bleeding. This time was no exception. We both had scratches and bites. We both bled. I, however, took a pretty deep bite on the wrist which ended up swelling and becoming extremely painful. After holding out until Monday I finally decided to get it looked at by the doc. Yep, sure enough, it was infected. He gave me some antibiotic and that was the end of that. I feel much better and have started back on my training.....
Oh yea, I haven't mentioned my training on our blog yet. Well, I am doing a triathlon next week. May 22nd to be exact. I am getting butterflies in my belly just thinking about it. This is my first triathlon. I have done a few 5k races but that's about the extent of it. Initially, my goal was to get in better shape and drop a few pounds. I have have been working out for about 2 months now. My schedule looks something like this:
M-swim for an hour in AM then run or bike PM
T-Strength training and bike AM-Run PM
W-swim for an hour AM then run or bike PM
Th-Strength training and bike AM-Run PM
F-Swim for an hour AM and run or bike PM
SAT-Go for long bike ride then run right after
SUN REST
The Rec pool that I have been using has been closed this week so I feel behind the curve with swimming this week. Needless to say my minor setback with Poody-Tat has got me a little nervous that I might not be up to snuff come race time. We'll update with more details after the race!
As I was browsing through our pictures I came across this one of Papa Chuck and it fit perfectly for the song that is now playing, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".
Monday, March 1, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
The Silver Ring Thing
SEX! SEX! SEX!
Now that I have your attention, I want to tell you about this great program called “The Silver Ring Thing”. Lindsey’s youth group at church has started this program that teaches the importance of saving yourself sexually until you get married. The mission of this curriculum is "to motivate, educate, support and transform generations of young people to embrace a lifestyle of Christ-centered sexual abstinence until marriage."
We as her parents, as you can imagine, are excited about this! It seems like everywhere you look especially on TV or the computer, there is some website, some sitcom, some joke, some sexual connotation or reference to sex in some way. Now don’t get me wrong, I love sex! I’m sure many of you reading this do too. What we want to express to our children is that sex is an awesome thing. It is exciting. It’s passionate. It’s an amazing gift that God has given us.
Can I get an AMEN, Hallelujah, and thank you Jesus?!!! LOL
However, all too often especially in our society it is made out to be perverted and dirty. That is NOT how God intended it to be. He made it to be a precious gift between a husband and a wife. The gift that keeps on giving ;) Anyways, that’s what this program is all about. Lindsey has made this commitment to God and we as her parents will wear a silver ring as well to show our support for her and to remember to pray for her in this area.
Now, if you are a parent and your thinking “How can I talk with my teen or young person about sexual purity when I haven’t lived it myself”. All I have to say to you is just be honest. I have shared many personal things with our children (within reason of course) and although they may not show it at the time, I believe they respect that honesty. Both Cameron and I have told them that we have made poor choices but that they don’t have to go down those same roads. We have also explained to them the importance of keeping the marriage relationship sacred and not behaving as though you are married when you have not made that commitment.
The website for this curriculum is: http://http://www.silverringthing.com/whatissrt.asp
A BIG thank you to our youth leader Pamela Letchworth for initiating this program. What a blessing you are!
Now that I have your attention, I want to tell you about this great program called “The Silver Ring Thing”. Lindsey’s youth group at church has started this program that teaches the importance of saving yourself sexually until you get married. The mission of this curriculum is "to motivate, educate, support and transform generations of young people to embrace a lifestyle of Christ-centered sexual abstinence until marriage."
We as her parents, as you can imagine, are excited about this! It seems like everywhere you look especially on TV or the computer, there is some website, some sitcom, some joke, some sexual connotation or reference to sex in some way. Now don’t get me wrong, I love sex! I’m sure many of you reading this do too. What we want to express to our children is that sex is an awesome thing. It is exciting. It’s passionate. It’s an amazing gift that God has given us.
Can I get an AMEN, Hallelujah, and thank you Jesus?!!! LOL
However, all too often especially in our society it is made out to be perverted and dirty. That is NOT how God intended it to be. He made it to be a precious gift between a husband and a wife. The gift that keeps on giving ;) Anyways, that’s what this program is all about. Lindsey has made this commitment to God and we as her parents will wear a silver ring as well to show our support for her and to remember to pray for her in this area.
Now, if you are a parent and your thinking “How can I talk with my teen or young person about sexual purity when I haven’t lived it myself”. All I have to say to you is just be honest. I have shared many personal things with our children (within reason of course) and although they may not show it at the time, I believe they respect that honesty. Both Cameron and I have told them that we have made poor choices but that they don’t have to go down those same roads. We have also explained to them the importance of keeping the marriage relationship sacred and not behaving as though you are married when you have not made that commitment.
The website for this curriculum is: http://http://www.silverringthing.com/whatissrt.asp
A BIG thank you to our youth leader Pamela Letchworth for initiating this program. What a blessing you are!
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