8 Years Ago Today

Eight years ago today the last installment of my "Million Dollar Family" arrived. He arrived at about 1:30 a.m. and weighed in at a hefty 11 pounds 2 ounces.

Happy Birthday Brant!

Golden Compass

I haven't been too good at keeping up with my monthly book reviews from my book club.

I just finished reading "The Golden Compass". I was glad this book was chosen since I had read a lot about it but hadn't read it yet. As a fantasy book, it was an okay read. It left me with little desire to read books 2 & 3. The way it ended left me believing that only two of the characters will move on to the next book. Following the characters you've come to love is what makes fantasy series so appealing. So, believing that I've got to leave most of them behind (especially the armored bears) made me not get excited to keep reading the next books.

All the controversy around the book is the anti-Christian content. It was hard until the very end to discern who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.
Even now that the bad guys are labelled "the Church", it is hard for me to make the direct tie to the Church as we know it now. I'm told the connection becomes more clear in the later books. It seems like book one may be a set up for the later books, but not having read them, I can't really say.

So, over all, I'm not all that excited about The Golden Compass.

Stay tuned for next month's book which I got to choose: The Year of Living Biblically.

What's so special about this sentence?

Here is your literary test for the day...

What is so special about this sentence?

"The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog."

My guess is Heidi gets it first.

Summer Vacation!

Well, our summer vacation plans have been made. We will be spending time in Birch Bay, WA with Stacey's family which will be a lot of fun!

But we decided to have a little bit of fun getting there as well. Instead of cramming onto the cattle car they call an airplane, we have purchased seats on the train. We will be on a 46 hour ride over the Empire Builder. I've put a map here for you to see the route we will take. We will have a family sleeper that holds 4 and will eat like kings and queens (or princes and princesses) all along the way.

We are really looking forward to not only being in WA, but getting there as well!

Man's Best Friend

Who says that a dog is a man's best friend? My brother Dan was "reunited" this Thanksgiving with his long lost rubber chicken. What a happy "reunion" it was! Dan, if you visit here, I'm sure the readers would love to hear the 20 year saga that you have lived through.

Rather than take his chicken to Singapore, he left it for Brant take loving care of. Bad idea. The picture below shows where this poor chicken rode all the way home that night (along with Jessie posing beautifully in the background). We enjoyed watching people start laughing as they pulled up next to us!

Cool Satelite Photo

For those of you who love the great lakes and find weather fascinating, Bill's Blog has a cool picture of the ice forming over Lake Michigan. You can click on the picture to enlarge it and then find various lakes and markers that are visible (including the 40 mile path a tornado took through Wisconsin last summer). Bill's Blog says...

"This is a picture from Weds. PM. Find the white line that marks the damage path of the June tornado that was on the ground for 40 miles NW of Green Bay Wisconsin. Note the open lakes: Lake Geneva and Green Lake (which is a very deep lake and slow to freeze-up) in Wisconsin, Muskegon Lake, Gun Lake, Gull Lake, - even Reeds Lake in East Grand Rapids shows up and Fremont Lake looks to still be open water. Ice is forming in Green Bay, and ice covers the big, but shallow Lake Winnebago. Also check out the shadows of the clouds."

Check it out at Bill's Blog!

Funny Chinese Signs (6)

And you thought shopping on Black Friday was hazardous to your health! Here at Wal*Mart in China they have posted a warning sign about customers. I just wonder how dangerous a woman with a shopping cart can be?! Would they rather not have any customers ahead?

Funny Chinese Signs (5)

Sorry for the delay between posts! This little thing called Advent has gotten in the way.

Anyway, one more sign that was catchy enough for me to take a picture while in China.

The first warning says "Caution Drop Down". The only drop was a crack in the sidewalk and a series of steps. After looking at the picture I glanced around for a 1,000 cliff somewhere, but just couldn't seem to locate it.

The second warning is my favorite. It says, "Don,t be a meadow stomper Stay on trails". Besides the very creative use of the comma, I love the word "meadow stomper". Ever since seeing this sign, if my kids wander off the sidewalk or the path I accuse them of being meadow stompers.

Stunningly, they got the third warning completely correct!

Funny Chinese Signs (Part 4)

Coming down the tram that took us up the Great Wall, this sign was there to welcome us back. I think I'll start using this greeting in my daily life.

(By the way, our friends rode in the tram that President Bill Clinton rode in when he visited China and the Great Wall.)

Funny Chinese Signs (Part 3)

While in Changchun we visited the Palace of the Manchurian State which was set up when Japan invaded China and took over Manchuria. (If you ever saw the movie "The Last Emperor" you know the story of Puyi who was the the last emperor of China and was set up as the puppet emperor of Manchuria.) In one room they displayed the pictures of many of the Japanese and traitors who ruled Manchuria during that time. This sign is the forward to that room.

I especially like the hyphenation that creates "Ted the Puppet Manchurian State". You can also see just a tiny bit of their bias at the end as they "display some officials of the puppet Manchurian regime and their ugly looks." I sense that all is not forgiven there!