Spiky, Spiky Pinecone

Reasons why Little E is the cutest kid on the planet:

1. He calls the fire department "fire bapointment".

2. When we passed Toys R Us I asked Elias if it was his favorite store. He said, "YES!! Well...actually that depends on payday."

3. He calls construction barrels on the side of the road "instruction barrels".

4. In support of his mom's bowling effort during a bowling trip last Saturday, he shouted, "Mom, that ball screamed like a flamin, flamin spaceship!"

5. He calls trucks with smiley faces on them "happy trucks".

6. He says his favorite animal is a moose! (No influence there. Really.)

7. According to him, the little thing that he's looking at in this picture is a "spiky, spiky pinecone".

Just try to say "spiky, spiky pinecone" without smiling.

8. When he put hand sanitizer on his hand, he had a cut on his finger and it stung. We told him that the stinging was the sanitizer killing the germs. He smiled and said, "Goodbye germs!"

9. At 9:30 at night when he still hasn't managed to fall asleep, he comes downstairs with a pitiful little face and says, "I'm trying to sleep but my body wants OJ and mac and cheese."

Bubbles Create Endless Fun

I think there's something magic about bubbles. It has the ability to catch the attention and fun of just about anyone... babies... preschoolers... high school kids... over-exhausted adults... Kathryn and Elias and I played with bubbles all night last night. Here is what Elias says about bubbles:

"It's fun to play with them. It's fun to play with bubbles. I like to play with them because I like to do it. They're so bubbly and they could float. You could blow through the bubble wands and I like to play bubble instruments. I like to pop the bubbles when it's so, so, so big. I blow the bubbles at Bethie and she went "plegh, plegh, plegh!" because the bubbles feel funny! And I laughed and laughed and laughed!"

Fishy Scientist and Ice Dogs

My sister is working on an experiment involving fish and whether their gills adapt to changing temperatures. Her fishies actually lived long enough to do the experiment but then she had to cut their gills out. I think it's a cool experiment because even in second grade we're going to be talking about adaptations and how animals respond to changing weather and seasons. I can use what she found out to explain to my kids at school. So anyway, when she looked at the gills under the microscope, there was definitely a difference in the way they look, showing that the little fishies adapt. See, some fishies were in room temperature water and some fishies were in the refrigerator in really cold water. Now she has to turn the gills into wax so they can cut them even thinner and then look at them with a high-powered microscope to see how significant the difference is.

Oh and this is a picture of a fish gill in case you were wondering what they look like:

Meanwhile we went to the pet store last night to buy 10 new koi fish to repeat the experiment. There were also three animal shelter dogs up for adoption so Kathryn bought them each a doggie cookie and gave it to them. The funny thing is that the treats are listed as "ice dog" three times on the receipt that she has to turn in to her advisor for buying the koi fish. Background info: Her advisor is not happy with basically anything that she does and his apparent purpose in life is to point out how inept Kathryn is at everything she does. So you know her advisor is going to be like, "Uh, Kathryn, what is an ice dog and why is it on this receipt three times?" To which Kathryn will reply, "Oh, I got dog treats for all of the shelter dogs at the pet store." The predictive response of her advisor, as he takes a deep calming breath, closes his eyes, and nods: "Of course you would. Of course." I wish I could be there for that moment.

Chocolate on River Street

Even in the middle of loads of schoolwork and heated debates with professors, Kathryn managed to take me to visit River Street in Savannah, GA last night. It's right along the Savannah River (I think that's the name of it...) and it's still used by lots of cargo boats, tour boats, and ferries. We saw some really cute tugboats pulling huge cargo ships down the river. When I was a kid, I never thought tugboats were real. I thought they were just a cute name given to little baby boats that were in stories. Before you think I'm crazy, you have to understand that the idea that a big massive ship needs a tiny little boat to pull it is sort of hard to grasp for a kid. Anyway here's a picture of an adorable little tugboat...although it kinda looks like it's about to sink... Are they supposed to look like that?

The streets are made out of original cobblestone and all the buildings are old stone and brick. They are really beautiful. Check out the stone surrounding this shutter on a window. I want a house built out of that someday!

There are tons of shops and restaurants along River Street and several of them are CANDY SHOPS! Okay so I don't like candy, but I love cookies and brownies and fudge and that's the kind of "candy" these shops make! They make it right in front of you too! And they even give you free samples of whatever they're making! I discovered that you can get a whole free cookie if you collect a free sample from every shop (your cookie will be much larger if your sister gets a free sample from every shop too and you make her give it to you to add to your cookie)! They had almost every kind of chocolate caramel covered apples you can imagine. Ones with sprinkles and pecans and white chocolate... I had to get one of those because 2 years ago this kid in my class at school gave me a chocolate chip covered apple and I resisted eating it because it looked weird. Then one day I decided to give it a one-bite try and if it met my expectations for disgust, then it would go in the trash. So I bit into it... and it was the most magically deliciousest thing I've ever eaten in my life! I couldn't stop eating it until it was gone! I haven't found any of those chocolate chip apples since then, but this place was the closest! Kathryn found her own "chocolate heaven" because she loves marshmallows and the shop makes chocolate covered marshmallows! So she bought one of those!

The last cool thing we did before we went to FUDDRUCKER'S for dinner was visit the "Echo Circle". It's this weird garden thing in the shape of a circle and if you stand in the middle of it, you can hear your echo - it sounds kind of like you're talking in a microphone in the shower or something and it's echoing all around you! It's so bizarre because it doesn't look like anything that would make an echo (not like a racquetball court or something). It just has these shrubs around you in a circle and it's not even closed off...weird. I mean look at the picture...sure you can't see all of it, but just the part you CAN see - does that look like anything that could make an echo???

Election vs. Free Will

Okay so I thought I was all straight on this election stuff until I started thinking about it... I almost think that going back to just blindly accepting it would be easier because now I'm thoroughly confused. In case you're unclear on what election is, it's the idea that God has chosen from before the foundation of the world who he will redeem and spend eternity with him in heaven and who he will banish to hell for eternity. It's not our decision, it's his. He's already predetermined where you will go, where your friends will go, and where your children, parents, sisters, etc. will go. Before you jump to thinking that's not in the bible anywhere, please be assured that it's in the bible EVERYWHERE. (Go look up Ephesians 1:4-5, Romans 9:11-13, Matthew 11:27, John 5:21, Romans 8:28-30, I could go on and on...) I'm not listing any of those verses right now though, because I'm sort of arguing the other side.

My "hold up" with election is that true love only exists when there is a choice. Sure there's a choice for God so on HIS end it's true love, but on our end it's not. If we're forced to love someone, we are under manipulation. God wants a relationship with us based on true love, so wouldn't he give us the freedom to decide to love him? God wouldn't feel any pleasure if the only love he received came from lifeless robots that never had a choice to do otherwise. On top of that, I can't imagine any loving parent looking at their children and saying "I'm sending you to heaven and you to hell." God works in mysterious ways, but how could that possibly be loving?

Anyway so then I started searching for verses that point to us having free will:

Matthew 18:14 - "In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost."

1 Timothy 2:3 - "This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth."

1 Timothy 2:6 - "who gave himself as a ransom for all men..."

2 Peter 3:9 - "He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."

Acts 10:34 - "Then Peter began to speak: 'I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.'"

1 John 2:2 - "He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world."

Hebrews 2:9 - "...he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone."

All of these verses seem to point to a longing for EVERYONE to be saved. We had a discussion about this at church before and said that God can WANT everyone to be saved when in reality not everyone will be saved. But if HE'S the one doing the decision-making, he must not really be wanting everyone to be saved. Why would he say so many times that he wants no one to perish, he died for everyone, he doesn't want any of his little sheep to be lost, etc?

But there are equally as many verses that point to "the elect" or "the chosen" as being real and being in existence. How can both things be true? Is it possible that we've been equating election with salvation, when possibly they are two different things? For example, in 2 Timothy 2:10, it says:

"Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the ELECT, that they too MAY OBTAIN THE SALVATION that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory." (emphasis added)

This seems to show that being in the elect doesn't guarantee salvation. Why would the elect need to obtain salvation if election means you were elected to be saved? This could explain how human responsibility fits in with election. Maybe the "elect" is a group of people that has the potential for salvation but they still have to choose to believe.

What do you guys think?

Rock Climbing, DDR, and Basketball!

So at GSU, where my sister goes to school, there is this SWEEEEEEET gym called the RAC. There is so much fun stuff to do there and it's all in one place! They have a rock climbing wall that is just amazing! It's 42 feet high at the highest side, 32 feet at the lowest. They also have a bouldering cave to practice rock climbing that is always open (since the huge rock climbing wall is only open during certain hours). Kathryn and I both climbed the big one last night! They also have like 30 bajillion basketball courts. We played basketball and racquetball yesterday too. Then to top it off, they have a tv and Playstation 2 set up so you can play DDR! We didn't get to go swimming yesterday...maybe we'll do it today (the gym has two pools). Kathryn has lacrosse practice tonight and we're going to watch an ultimate frisbee game after that.

This week is Graduate Student Appreciation Week so we got to eat free at the French Quarter Cafe last night. They even gave us free cake! Tomorrow Kathryn's classes are all canceled so we're going to the beach at Tybee Island and River St. in Savannah. And I've been studying a lot about election vs. free will...sort of wrestling with God on how it all works. I'll share some of my thoughts on it later this week.

This is the French Quarter Cafe where we ate magically delicious chicken and mashed potatoes and vegetables and cake, all for free!!!

Go Pirates!

I'm in Atlanta!!! YAY!! Well actually right this second I'm in Statesboro, GA at my sister's house, but I WAS in Atlanta! And now I'm in Statesboro! YAY!! And then on Friday I'll be back in Atlanta! YAY!! I flew in on Friday evening so that my sister and I could go see Little E's baseball game! It's the first time he's playing tee-ball and he was SO good! His team is the Pirates!

He was getting his glove down to catch grounders (like alligator style - perfect form!). And when he throws he turns his body sideways, pulls his arm back and launches it! Little E had two great hits and made it safe to first both times!

He is a classic tee-ball player complete with "playing in dirt" moments! He focused very well though for most of the game! He sang and danced while playing third base.

The funniest thing that happened was when he was on third about to run home and score. The batter hit the ball...everybody was screaming "RUN!!! RUN!!!"...and Little E...well he slowly, and I mean SLOWLY, strolled to home plate, taking his time and looking very confused about why everyone was screaming "RUN!! RUN!!" He carefully and SLOWLY stepped on home plate but not before a kid from the outfield had time to run all the way into home and tag him out. It was so funny!

Soccer Expert

At school I was reading little Brian's journal (checking homework) and I started laughing so hard. Here's what he wrote:


"When I was 5 I used to want to be a famous soccer player. But as it turns out, you have to be a soccer expert to be one of those."


Hahahahaha! I said to Brian in between laughs, "You know you could always BE a soccer expert and THEN be a famous soccer player."


Brian said, "Oh goody! Wanna hear me sing like a rock star?"


Well whatever Brian's gonna be...I sure hope he never loses his sense of humor. That boy will burst out laughing just looking at a wall. I watch him sometimes laughing hysterically at his own joke and I think how often kids laugh every day and how few times adults laugh. And we wonder why we get so tired and impatient and frustrated.... Lately I've been trying to find humor in what kids/people say and in what is happening around me. I have this desire to want to laugh like a kid again - to laugh where you can't stop laughing and just when you try to stop, it all comes back again. Just thinking about it makes me smile. Maybe we, as adults, should THINK about laughing more....then maybe we would laugh!


Check out the youtube video in the blog under this one called "Funny Man" and try not to smile.

Funny Man

Romans 8:31

On Sunday as I was worshiping (singing "From the Inside Out" by United Live), I found myself apologizing to God for my discouragement and apparent lack of faith over the past month. I was saying, "It just seems like everybody's against me right now." Immediately the next thought that pushed its way into my mind was, "If I'm for you, who can be against you?"

God is good.

New Farm!

My mom and Mike just bought a farm today! YAY! It's a really beautiful farm - 28 acres, lots of room for the 3 horses, 3 dogs, and 8 cats! They're really excited about it!



This is a view from the road of the farm. The land stretches way back behind the house and barn that you see at the top of the hill. We could make a baseball field with all that extra land!


CONGRATULATIONS MOM AND MIKE!!!

There are three ponds on the property too. One is very small and is an official pond. The other two are actually really big and you could probably consider them to be small lakes. This picture shows one of them. It has an island in the middle of it. Plenty of room for a kayak or canoe race!

Maybe I'm not invisible?

God gave me a huge blessing today through my runaway hamster, Hammy. I've sort of felt like invisible person lately everywhere - school, church, "friends", etc. Like people will say hi to me, but then when I try to start/join a conversation, they just walk away, "have to go", sign off, etc. I really thought maybe EVERYONE'S mad at me or something all at the same time. So anyway, when Hammy was missing on Friday, I wasn't even going to send an email out to everyone at school because I thought, "Why would anyone care?" Finally AFTER SCHOOL on Friday, I sent an email just saying that if anyone found Hammy to let me know. I found Hammy on Saturday and when I got to school today, pretty much everyone in the whole school kept coming to me to ask if Hammy was back. They were so excited when they found out he was and I got over a dozen emails from people saying how happy they were. Even the custodian stuck his head in our room when he first got to school and asked if we had found the little hamster. He then proceeded to tell me how he and some other teachers had stayed after school for a long time on Friday looking for Hammy. One teacher anonymously left a small bag of hamster treats with a bow on it that said "Welcome back, Hammy!" Another teacher gave me a moose book that she found at a book fair this weekend, since I was so sad about Hammy on Friday.

It was really a blessing because it made me realize that maybe I'm not invisible. Right when I've been asking God, "Why doesn't anyone around here care?" he showed me a whole bunch of people who I work with that care a lot. All by using a runaway hamster.

HAMMY'S BACK!!!!

GUESS WHAT EVERYBODY!!! HAMMY'S BACK!!! I found him tonight at school at 8:32 PM! I went in to my classroom to drop off some stuff and I noticed that the corner of a bag of hamster food that was laying on the floor had been chewed and a little food was spilling out. That meant Hammy was somewhere in my room! (I had envisioned him somewhere lost in our gigantic school by now, getting beat up by mean wild mouse bullies, struggling to survive.) So then I went on a massive hamster hunt and....I still couldn't find him. Finally I noticed that a cabinet was cracked open, which isn't unusual with all the kids opening cabinets, but still I thought "maybe...just maybe..."

So I opened the door - CREEEEEEAKKKKK - and I noticed a little stash of HAMSTER FOOD hamster food hamster food hamster food (echo voice). Then I took out each item one at a time. You wanna know what happened next? You really wanna know what happened next? Are you SURE you wanna know what happened next? I SAW HAMMY IN THE CORNER!!!!

YAY HAMMY'S BACK!!!! Oh now my weekend is so much better...I was so sad before. YAY FOR HAMMY!!! I just took these pictures of him to prove that he's back!

Small. Brown. and Furry.

Hammy's gone. He's missing. He escaped from his cage and has now been missing for about 36 hours. When I checked on the little guy yesterday morning, the lid to his "bedroom" was completely wide open...and no little hamster was inside. Poor lost Hammy.

Who's driving out the demons?

Tonight at Baja Bean, Portico had Theology on Tap - a discussion of theology held in local restaurants for anyone who wants to come and listen, discuss, hang out, etc. The conversation was based around the belief that only some people will be saved, chosen by God. This led to statements in the bible that say that some will call out, "Lord, Lord," but they will not be saved. In Matthew 7:22-23, it says, "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"

So then somebody asked, "If God doesn't accept those people, since clearly he's not saving them, who gave them the power to drive out demons? God or Satan?"

I am not professing to know the answer to this. But I do know these things:

1. In Matthew 12:25-28, Jesus had been accused of driving out demons by the power of "Beelzebub, the prince of demons." Jesus answers them by saying, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself...."

2. That seems to indicate that the people in Matthew 7:22 were not given power by Satan, so we can rule that one out.

3. If the only two sources of power are God and Satan, AND the people were TRULY USING POWER TO DO THIS, the only other obvious choice leaves us with God giving them power. Why he would not accept them yet give them power to do this, I have no idea. Maybe God gave them the power to do it, but they misused it, used it for their own glory, etc....

4. There are two very big assumptions in statement 3: that God and Satan are the only sources of power. I'm not disputing that they are... I'm just saying that we would have to be in agreement that they are the only two. Are there any other sources of power besides God and Satan that the people could be misinterpreting as God's power?

5. The other big assumption in statement 3 is that the people were truly using power to cast out demons and prophesy. WHAT IF THEY WEREN'T? People can claim anything they want. I can joke about prophesying the future all I want, but that doesn't mean that God has truly given me the power to do it. I could lay my hands on someone and attempt to cast out a demon or heal somebody or do some other crazy sick miracle. My attempt may even appear to be somewhat successful as people can sort of find truth in fiction if they look hard enough. Again, I'm not saying that that's really what was happening here...I have no idea.

So my questions to you are:

- If the power was from God, why would he give them the power yet not accept them?

- Is there another source of power besides God and Satan?

- Is it possible that the people were CLAIMING or MAKING A CASE FOR THEMSELVES about something that didn't truly happen by the power of anything?

Oceans in Motion

At school today Oceans in Motion came to visit and allow the kids to touch and learn about aquatic creatures. The Oceans in Motion people bring a whole truck that's a giant aquarium. The kids can go inside and see four different habitats - open ocean where sharks live, shipwrecks, pier pilings, and the Chesapeake Bay. Then they go to a touch tank and learn about the animals that they are about to touch, like sea stars (DON'T CALL THEM STARFISH!!! The people are a little obsessive about that!), sea urchins, sea snails, crabs, and other little animals.

Here's a real puffer fish that is fully puffed out. It was cool to see because I've never seen a puffer fish that was actually puffed out all the way!

This is a sea urchin that we could touch. It's related to the sea star because both creatures have a mouth on the bottom, a nose on the top, and a star-like shape. You can't really tell that a sea urchin has a star shape until it dies. Then the thing that it leaves behind, called a test, has a star shape.

Did you know that a sea star has an eye on the end of each arm? That means it has 5 eyes, but it can't see out of any of them. It can only tell where shadows are and the difference between dark and light. The bottom of the sea star has tons of little suction cup things and they're really sensitive. They're ticklish so you don't want to touch a sea star on the bottom...only the top where it's bumpy.

The really cool thing too is that my sister said that she might be able to do a dissection with my class at the end of the year like she did 3 years ago. She helped the kids dissect a shark then and they LOVED it. This year she might be able to do a shark AND a sea star with them! I can't wait!

Blame it on DST

Okay wow. WOW. You would not believe the day I had. And it's all Daylight Savings Time's fault! Allow me to make a long story short by summing it up this way: Mouse King AND Hammy both escaped from their respective cages. Okay actually Hammy didn't escape. He was "freed" by my fifth grade tutoring group in an attempt to get out of reading. When asked what they knew about the mysterious opening of his ball that miraculously let Hammy escape, they responded, "What ball, Miss Tice? What are you talking about? GASP! You mean Hammy's loose????" 20 minutes later, Hammy was back in his cage safe and sound. Mouse King escaped because he was asleep when I got to school (seeing as how his internal clock still said that it was BLOODY SIX O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING) and I opened his cage so he would wake up. Then because I was so tired, I started doing something else and forgot that his cage was open. so then the kids come in saying, "Miss Tice!!! There goes Mouse King!"

Oh right, I was supposed to be summarizing. One child was caught snatching paper clips out of my desk and another was found guilty of stealing six legos (including a rare yellow bridge piece).

During our research of extreme storms, the group learning about tornadoes picked up a book titled, "TORNADOES!" and looked at it for about 3 seconds. Maybe more. Then they raised their hands. I came over and said, "Yes, Tornado Group? What seems to be troubling you?" They said, "Well, Miss Tice, we're trying to find out information about tornadoes and we looked in this book and there's NOTHING about tornadoes in the WHOLE book!"

What can you say to that one, really?

I could go on and on, entertaining you with delightful stories from the day but I need to go to bed. I have learned a lesson however and tomorrow I have an action plan to prevent a day like today from ever happening again.

ACTION PLAN: Write a letter to the school board requesting that the week immediately following Daylight Savings Time consist of one-hour delays for the period of five school days.

This will be an anonymous letter.

Baxter and K K at Walnut Creek

My sister is back! It's her spring break and she's visiting for the week! She came on Friday and on Saturday we went to Walnut Creek with her friend Caitlin to hike. We took Chaos and Baxter the Basset Hound. The weather was beautiful - 60 degrees and sunny! We also went to Petsmart before hiking and took the hoond heads. Chaos was really interested in the fish. Baxter was most concerned with the meaty bones. Baxter's bright red harness that he's wearing in the pictures was what we finally purchased at the store.

Baxter likes to sniff EVERYTHING on the trail. Then he runs as fast as possible to catch up. You wouldn't think those short little legs could actually move that fast...

I found a really great tennis ball that was left in the river. It took me quite a long time to fish it out of the water but I finally got it. Then of course I dropped it when I was trying to take a picture of the dogs and I lost it. Wonderful.

The Happy Tail-Waggin Chaos Boy jumped in to every bit of water he could find. He was just having the time of his life, prancing around, leading us on the trail, stopping to play with Baxter and sniff...

There's this beautiful old chimney that's just standing in the middle of the woods. Weird. We wanted to take a picture of Baxter standing in it but we had to prop him up on a rock since he's such a short lil guy.

If you look really carefully you'll notice that the dog Kathryn is walking is neither K K nor Baxter. That's a dog named Cooper. Cooper was crazy. Cooper escaped from his owner and we used K K to help lure Cooper to us. Then we returned the Runaway Hoond Head to his owner. Good Lil K K! He's a HERO!!!

The World is My Kingdom

I'm sick again. I get sick like once a month. It stinks. But I've been feeling fine for about 2 and a half weeks, so I guess it was time for me to get sick again. I took a little guy in my class to taekwondo tonight and on the way home we were talking about taekwondo. Completely off the subject, he says, "I wish the world was my kingdom." I said, "Huh?" He repeated it. I laughed and said, "You wish the world was your kingdom? What would you do if it was?" Then he proceeded to name off a list of rules that were completely unrelated to eachother (you know how most kids would say things like "kids won't have a bedtime, kids can eat whatever they want, kids don't have to go to school...." and you can see where their thoughts were leading?). Yeah this was his list of rules:

1. Kids can sleep for 1 minute and that counts.
2. Everyone gets 2 dogs.
3. Soccer players can cancel the game if they want.
etc. etc.

It was hilarious because none of the rules had anything to do with the rule before it and they were completely unexpected! I can't wait until I have kids and I get to listen to my kids say awesome things like that all the time!

Lego Weather

I was in a Lego mood yesterday and when I got home from school, I surrounded myself with containers of the little blocks. Since Christmas, I've been sorting all of my pieces out by color and shape so that I can find the exact brick I need quickly when I'm building. It's taken a long time, but I'm so glad I did because I was able to build a lightning bolt, 2 raindrops, a wave of water, a thermometer, an ice cube, and a hot air balloon in about an hour and a half. (We're studying weather at school, which is why I made those particular things. I have a display case at school and I fill it with Lego creations that match the unit that we're studying in science and social studies.)




Now I just need to figure out how to make this creature - the most beautiful of all of God's creations in the animal kingdom:

Stop Without Stopping

So tell me how you would handle this intersection?

Sharp Edges

Okay I'm off to teach our second graders so they will be more intelligent than whoever touched this sign and apparently lost their finger or something. Oh, the brilliance of America.

PRAYER ANSWERED!!!

To all my friends and family who were praying for my grandmother's protection:

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR PRAYING! God came through in a HUGE way! My grandmother is still leaving for Texas this morning, but the terms and arrangements have been completely revised to allow for the most freedom for her! She no longer feels completely helpless, although she is understandably sad and scared at the prospect of being in Texas for a while. So again, thank you so much for taking the time to pray - our most powerful weapon against darkness!

HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD!!!