Genetics

It's fun to look at my kids and try to find the things they may have inherited from Jeremy and I and from our extended families (the grandmas are usually the experts at pointing out the similarities). My kids must love to swim because my sister and I did......and the boys are great on their bikes like their dad. Someone said that Sam looks like me from the front and Jeremy in his profile, (though I can't get past how he looks a little bit like Mater with his big teeth growing in)...
...and an old friend of my sister's just commented on how much Annie looks like her Aunt Kendra. Evan talks like a Lundgren and all our kids sadly inherited moles from both sides of the family (a trait that my sister and I grew up wishing hadn't been so dominate, sorry mom and dad!).

I mean, you can't deny that there's some family resemblance here:

(the Georgia cousins)

(Evan and Camden)

And here Sam looks a lot like Jeremy and his cousin in the center, while Evan looks more like Jack and Stacey and Jeremy's grandma:

And in case you were wondering about where my family fits into the genetic heritage, how about this?
I took Sam snowboarding this past season, with high hopes of teaching him everything Jeremy has taught me over the years.

The conditions were bad, so I signed him up for a class, which he loved. He was the class encourager and even named the class "The Blue Panthers" or something like that.
I on the other hand, spent the time while he was in class feeling lonely and unmotivated on the slopes because I had no one to ride the lift with or laugh about falling with. Like mother, like son, I guess...the social aspect outweighs the sport for us (though I was happy he took after his father and didn't freak out about getting off of the lift and didn't cry when he fell down).
Evan loves to figure out how things work, which reminds me of the grandpas, and Annie, well, Annie is just Annie.
But then there are the things they do that seem to be completely original...the things that come from no one but "mine own self," as Evan likes to say. Like how they make "Deeble houses" out of Legos and make up songs I've never heard of and do naughty things that they never could have gotten the ideas for from their dad and I.

I mean, I say Evan is like his quiet, mechanically minded engineer grandpas, but then he loves to dance. That's definitely original!

And Annie seems so spunky in her own style that she goes out of the house in the strangest get-ups sometimes. And I let her because it's so...Annie.

(and Evan, too)
I think it's a sign of God's creation, that he could design individual human beings using the genetic code from their parents and grandparents, but put in them the ability to think and act on their own. Steve Jobs (Apple creator) was revered and mourned because of his genius--how he created computers and devices that no one knew they even wanted or "needed" but those devices, as far as I know, will never be able to have their own independent thoughts or actions, They are strictly limited by their "genetics", i.e. only what they were programmed to do. I love watching my kids grow and blossom as unique humans...and I love to watch them freely love each other which is something that a strictly programmed mind can't do.
Jeremy's mom says that Sam and Annie's sweet relationship reminds her of Jeremy and his sister, Stacey who is 6 years younger than him. I agree.

(But they also remind me of one of my favorite kids' shows, Charlie and Lola.)(Come to think of it, so do these two...when Samuel's not around)

Goodnight.

About LA and Other Nonsense

I've been having a hard time buckling down and getting anything done lately. It's because I've been feeling a little like this:


and this:
some of this:
and a lot of this:
oh, and a little more of this:
and definitely this:
but this seems to help:
Baking and eating desserts seems to be one of the few things I CAN get done. Also pacing and wasting time. And reading the Hunger Games Trilogy.

Okay, I am exaggerating a little but only a little.

Life's just a little up in the air right now.

And I'm saying little a lot.

But I did want to recap our Spring Break trip to L.A....it's just been hard to think of how to communicate the essence of what the trip meant to me without writing pages and pages...because I really would like to be more brief. And thinner. I'm just sayin'.

So, I'm not going to post a million pictures or give a play-by-play of the trip (but I'll post the link to the video/slideshow I made, which says everything I want to say in it anyway and it includes music from an old favorite band of mine called Skypark, so you should watch it). To summarize, we had fun, served people, listened to their stories, ate lots of yummy ethnic food, accidentally saw a red carpet event in Hollywood, and had our eyes opened to God's heart for cities and the people in cities...for humanity.

We served at missions that are doing so much to offer help and hope to the people on the streets, yet I was overwhelmed with compassion for some of the people that really had so many things stacked against them...homelessness, health problems, disabilities, no teeth, disfigurements. I would think, "Even if they committed to one of the programs at the missions and got cleaned up and fed, what could they do? What do they have to offer?" In a way, deep down inside, I was thinking What is their life really worth? It felt wonderful to touch them and look them in the eyes and even laugh as we sang karaoke together on Skid Row, but what could I really do for them?


I loved the people that we met. I loved Mohammad, who didn't have many teeth and was in a wheelchair on the streets and who said his father was the 3rd president of Somalia (which I believe, actually...long story there), and Warren who was down and out but clear and sober and really only wanted a Bible (but we got the man a Snickers and cold Coke, too) and I imagined him cleaned up and shaved and sitting at our dining room table as a friend. There were the fun ladies I danced with at karaoke who called me "Arizona" and the lady named Angel with the fake eyelashes, stiletto heels, and skin tight neon green shirt that took offering at the church on Skid Row. I mean, it doesn't get more real than that! But I was surprised by the compassion I also felt for the busy, important people in the financial district that walked and talked with so much power and confidence and yet were probably still lost in sin and despair, they just hid it better than the folks who live on the sidewalks outside their skyscrapers and loft apartments.

One of our days out on the streets, we passed by a woman who looked a little like the lady who cries "Bow to the queen of filth and slime" in the Princess Bride. She was yelling at invisible people and had a notebook that she was writing in. Later, Jeremy's team sat and talked with her for a while and found out that she believed she was preventing Armageddon through her good deeds--rows and rows of circles she had drawn on pages and pages of her notebooks. Good deeds in the form of circles written on a page were going to save the world, all on her shoulders.


The next afternoon, we served at the Midnight Mission which serves up to a thousand meals a day to the homeless and offers many rehabilitation programs for the men of Skid Row. While we were there, we met a group of women in their 50s that were volunteering as well...they were friends from a Jazzercize class in Pasadena (a MUCH nicer area of LA). Jeremy was working with some of the Jazzercize group (chopping cucumbers, go Jeremy) and I was working with another one of them. She ended up telling me that the reason they come to the Mission is that one of the women is dying of cancer (Jeremy was working and talking with her the most, unaware of her condition) and, according to the doctors, was already past the time they expected her to die. It was her dying wish to volunteer more, so her friends from exercise class said they would come with her. It was so noble and sweet and sad all at the same time. As she was telling me this, Jeremy was talking about oh you know, the casual topic of death and the meaning of life with the woman who was dying. She said that it was "good" that the homeless have "faith" because it "helps" them in their hard life, it's something that the poor can feel good about. He was challenging her and her friends that if it is good for the poor, shouldn't it be good for the rich, and shouldn't we all take death and the meaning of life seriously because we are all going to die. He later admitted he wouldn't have pushed so hard on those things if he had known she was dying, but we all agreed that something special had happened there in that kitchen and we prayed for her...that God could help her see that her good deeds were as effective as the homeless woman's circles in her notebook and that she could come to know the hope that anyone, rich or poor, has of life with no more tears after death if they trust in Jesus.

Our final night, we went up to Griffith Observatory on the hills above LA (near the HOLLYWOOD sign) to talk about our week.
Our leader, Emily, read to us the story of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, a city not unlike Los Angeles during Jesus' days on earth. I love the city because Jesus loves the city.

Jeremy talked about the story Jesus told of a man who had a banquet and all of his distinguished guests were too busy or too important to come, so the man sent out his servants to the streets to bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame to fill the table. My mind could easily picture who those people were...the people we had just interacted with all week.

We closed with the verses from the Bible where at the end of the age, Jesus separates those he knows from those he doesn't, saying to those he knows: "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me...as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." Those lives about which I wondered What are they worth? are precious because He gives them value...and calls them his brothers. I don't totally understand it, but I love it--that if I want to see Jesus, I should serve the poor, who have no way of giving anything in return (Luke 14:13-14). And I guess that's an even bigger picture I saw in our week in Inner City LA...a glimpse of how God sees us...naked, poor, helpless, with nothing to offer, dead really, and He turns around and gives us life, value, meaning, love, and beauty through His Son. It's enough to make me cry. Again.

The Big Reveal(s)

I am NOT pregnant.

(I just thought I would get that one out of the way so you wouldn't be wondering about it in the back of your mind as you read this post.)

But there have been some changes lately, so here is a report...and some other reasons why I've been too busy to write on my blog very much.

--We got a new car. It's not new, it's actually pretty old, but my husband assures me that it is running great and was a good deal even though he bought it in the dark without me and it didn't have head rests. Here it is:

--Jeremy and I have been working really hard on remodeling/redecorating the church's decrepit old former nursery house. We turned it into a beach-inspired youth room and we've been watching Gospel Journey Maui in there on Wednesday nights with the youth group. We've had a little help from friends but I have spent a lot of time obsessing over it and working way too hard on it late at night and on a lot of days, too. Here are the BEFORE pictures:

(I had to put this one in...the kid with the block in his mouth just makes me laugh)

It was in pretty bad shape. Here's my inspiration (youth group trip to Mexico):

Here's what happened when I went to Home Depot by myself:

And here's the Big Reveal (you can scroll through fast, I won't be offended):



The Second-to-Last Big Reveal is that I got my hair cut. I went in asking for this:

And came out feeling like I look like this:I would post a real picture, but I am struggling with vanity because in my mind, I wanted to look like her:But in reality, I'm feelin' a little more like her:
And the last Big Reveal is that we are moving to Southern California this summer. Yup. More on that later.

And I guess I'll reluctantly show the dorky picture of me with my new haircut...
There, I did it.