I'm Engaged!

John asked me to marry him on Saturday at Fort Toulouse! (And I said YES!). More details will come, but I didn't have time to finish my story. I may post what I've written so far, but I haven't gotten to the exciting details yet. So, stay tuned . . . I'm so excited, but really have to try to work today in between telling my story again and again!

Fort Toulouse

Fort Toulouse has always been a special place to me. From camping trips, to walks to the point, to sibling pictures and more. It is indeed a great place that as of two days ago became way more special!

Those of you who have already heard the news are probably reading along saying "get to the point" while the rest of you are in for a big surprise! I have been telling people about this special event all day today, yesterday and the day before and am just now sure how to begin.

First of all, some of you need to meet a very special guy in my life - John. I met John in March of last year through the internet. We eventually begin to talk and then met in person. There are innumerable details I could share about this past year as I passed from knowing things about John, to knowing John, to loving John. I was amazed to find John to be someone I can trust and respect as well as someone I love. John is fun to be with, interesting to talk to and most importantly someone who loves his savior Jesus Christ. John's priorities in life are his God and his family (and now me!). But I would like to fast forward through those special weekends that we were able to spend in the same towns in Ohio, Illinois, South Carolina, Alabama, Kansas, and Arkansas to the most amazing weekend we just had here in Alabama.

I'm not really good at leaving out a lot of details, so here it is. I'll start with Saturday morning and then back up to some other details that make more sense in retrospect. Saturday morning started like any other day. I got up a little early for a weekend in order to go to the church workday. At the workday, I was able to be a part of the clean up crew with Pastor Phil. We pulled trash out of the addition and put it in Jame's truck and then unloaded the truck (in the rain) to the dumpster. Eventually, they were out of work that I could do so I went home.

After an hour of messing with pictures, I decided to call John. We had talked the night before and planned to spend some time talking between my two events of the day - the church workday and babysitting for the Paces. John didn't answer his phone. This was a little unusual, but I thought he was probably on another call or maybe at the YMCA so I left him a message saying that I hoped to talk soon and that I might go to the nursing home to visit Mrs. Langston or I might just stick around my house for a while. After a half hour or so I decided that John must really be busy so I would just go ahead and visit Mrs. Langston. I loaded up her cat and picked up the mail and drove to the nursing home. We sat and talked for 20 minutes or so in the hall. Then I looked up and saw John walking towards us with my mom and dad.

Here's what I was thinking. First I thought, oh, there's John and mom and dad. Then it hit me "There's John! What is he doing here - he's supposed to be in Ohio!" I said something inane like "What are you doing here?" and told him that I was so glad to see him. Dad then told me that he would take my car back to the house and bring Mrs. Langston's cat home too. I would go with John and Dad told us to have a good time. I immediately realized that today was special. John wouldn't just come down here without a big reason. I knew he bought a ring last weekend and that he just talked with my parents. . . so the dots began to connect in my brain. I knew that today must be the day that I would get to answer a very important question.

. . . My lunch hour is gone so I'm going to have to leave you hanging. More of the story will come this evening!

AWANA Science Experiment - A Superabsorber

(This experiment was taken from Science and the Bible - an awesome set of books!)

Theme: Creation is filled with useful gifts

Bible Verses: [God] who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited (Isaiah 45:18)

Materials Used: disposable diapers, clear glasses, water

Lesson: Our Bible verse states that the earth is a unique place in the entire universe. It was here that God focused his special attention for our welfare. He supplied the earth with just the right balance of oxygen, water, and useful elements. We are surrounded with examples of obvious design and planning. It is very common today to “put down” any special significance for the earth. After all is only one of the planets circling the sun. We are in a distant corner of the milky way, just one of billions of galaxies. Isaiah 45:18 however gives an entirely different perspective. After all, it was the earth that Christ came and walked among men. In this light, the earth is truly a spiritual center of the universe.

Lesson:When God created the earth, he placed in it many potential benefits for mankind. The job of scientists and engineers is to discover these things in nature and to develop usefully applications. We will experiment with one cool product called water absorber. It can be bought from a chemical supplier or landscaper, and it’s also found inside the fluffy fabric of larger disposable absorbent diapers. Take about one tablespoon of the white absorber grains out of the diaper and place it in a clear glass. Place water in the other glass. Pour the water back and forth between the glasses. The water should mix with the powder and turn into a thick Jell-O like substance that will not pour. This is only one of many uses for this amazing material that God gave us when he created the world. (To do this with a small class so that everyone has a turn, have each child pour the liquid into the cup one time and pass it to the next child).

Note - when we did this experiment a couple weeks ago, I got the diapers to use from my neighbor. She said those diapers were ones that her baby didn't like (they gave him a rash) so she was glad that I would be able to use them for my experiment. When I cut open the diapers to get the powder out, there was only a dusting of powder. We cut open three diapers and the powder from those diapers made almost no change to the water. When I realized that this experiment looked like a failure, I finally got another type of diaper out of the nursery. The diapers from the nursery were great! I opened up one diaper and found several tablespoons of the superabsorbing powder. We used just part of the powder and after pouring the water from one cup to the other just a few times, the water changed into the jell-o like stuff.

So this experiment showed a good reason why the first diaper brand we tried gave my neighbor's baby a rash. It contained little or no superabsorbing powder! So if you're wondering if a certain diaper brand is better than another, do this experiment with both types of diapers!

Birthday Chocolate

Chocolate is an amazing gift of God to mankind! I don't suppose there's a scripture saying that, but it is one of the awesome things he has given to us. My family knows of my love of chocolate so my birthday cake has always been a variation of chocolate of some kind. Usually a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and some sort of chocolate ice cream as well. This year, they made a brownie instead of a cake which was even better (see the recipe on Anna's site here). Somehow the richer the chocolate the better! Topping it with chocolate ice cream, chocolate syrup and dark chocolate chips was perfect - Thanks again! :)

Knowing my weakness for and great desire for chocolate, some may wonder why I don't weigh 300+ pounds. If given the choice, I would always prefer to eat chocolate. I have always had a desire for candy that seems to be stronger that the desire others have for something sweet. Somehow, I have always had a hard time not eating more candy than was healthy. Moderation is good, but somehow the few pieces of candy always had a tendency to turn into more and more until most of the bag was gone. I think it's gotten a little easier for me in the last few years, but it's still a struggle. I've found that for me it's good to put some artificial boundaries in place. Last year, one of my new years resolutions was to buy no candy in town that I would consume in town (unless it was to be shared with someone else). Candy for a car trip was fine, but not candy just to eat here. One other exception was for candy from the snack machine at work. I decided I would only buy that if I was working overtime and only if I had extra change.

Those simple rules were easy for me to remember. I no longer had to battle in my mind about whether or not I should buy a candy bar when shopping. I had already decided that I would not do so. Somehow an external legalistic rule helps me in cases like this. I also chose to never make cookies or other deserts unless most of it was to be shared with friends, neighbors or church potlucks. Making deserts for those potlucks becomes more fun when that's the only time you "get" to eat deserts.

In some ways I think my external rule is a lot like some of the rules the pharisees made. The problems with legalistic rules like mine (and those of the pharisees) is when the rules get confused with the reason for the rules.

My rules were made for me so that I don't have to decide each time I shop if I should buy some candy. I know my weakness to eat what I purchase so I know that for me personally, to buy it usually means I will eat it way too fast. I suppose I could have made my rule a little different and decided to work on self-restraint at home by making certain I bought chocolate and then had the willpower not to eat it! But anyways, I decided that the battle would remain at the store.

Now my rule doesn't make me better. It's not even a rule that I always follow (in fact it's not one I am following this year). It's also not a rule that everyone should follow. For many people, the "rule" is completely unnecessary since not everyone struggles with a pull toward candy. I guess it's somewhat odd to write about a rule you don't even always follow, but it just seemed to go along with my love of Chocolate. Do you ever make rules for yourselves?

Birthday Dutch Blitz!

On Monday (my birthday), my family had me over for pasties and birthday cake. Actually I should say birthday brownies with chocolate ice cream, chocolate sauce and chocolate chips! I do have a picture that I should upload at some point.

Well, after all the wonderful food, we played a couple games: take 2 and Dutch Blitz. While playing dutch blitz, we thought it would be fun to take video clips of the games to see how fast we were playing. If you like fast card games and have never tried Dutch Blitz, you should definitely try it. It's much like nerts, but uses special cards. I learned the game at a summer music camp 12 years ago, and it has been a family favorite since then.

It's a bit long, but fun (to me) to watch. Thanks Anna for putting the video together!

Camping Pictures

3/25/08 Update - The rest of Elijah's pictures are here!

2008-03 Camping Elijah Camera - Part 2

3/20/08
At last - I've uploaded many of the camping pictures taken last weekend. For those of you who were not there, looking through 300 or so pictures will probably not appeal to you. But for the rest of you, take your time and enjoy!

2008-03 Camping - Miriam's Camera

2008-03 Camping Elijah Camera - part 1

2008-03 Camping-Lydia's camera

Camping Statistics!

I don't have the camping pictures uploaded yet, but keep checking back since I hope to load them tomorrow afternoon. It's been a long time since I've posted on here. My main reasons have been the business of work (we're almost done with a physical plant move from one location 8 miles away to another plant), and the lack of internet at home (I use my neighbor's wireless connection and he doesn't know what's going on with his internet right now).

Camping was a lot of fun. I had a great time with the people who came and we had great weather as well. I took a lot of pictures which turned out really nice thanks to the new camera that John gave me for my birthday - thanks again! It has an awesome zoom which I greatly enjoyed while taking pictures of ultimate frisbee.

As goes with my nature and my genes if you consider how my grandma Lofgren used to count the number of socks she washed each week (so I've been told), I do like statistics. So, this morning over sibling breakfast, Anna, Jubilee, Lydia and I calculated the number of people who were a part of the camping trip. Here are the numbers:

66 - Campers who camped both Friday and Saturday night
19 - Campers who camped either Friday or Saturday night
85 - Total Campers

33 - People who came out for the day on Saturday or Sunday

118 - Total people associated with our camping trip this weekend!

28 - Different families represented with the 118 people!

Well, lunch time is over, so more camping info and other posts will just have to wait. I was pleased to see on my blog statistics today that not everyone has given up on this blog!