Thankful Thursdays 06/27/2013 A Very Abbreviated Version...

My dear Bots, I'm so so soooo sorry I've neglected you! I wish that I could say that I'll be making it up to you this week, but sadly I will not be. Life has been a bit crazy the past couple weeks. I will give you one thankful item, though, to hopefully tide you over until next week.

1. VBS (for those of you not into church lingo that stands for Vacation Bible School). This is the cause of my busyness this week. It's a good busy, though. I get the opportunity to direct (and perform a bit part) a series of skits for the kids that attend VBS.  Besides being given the opportunity to, hopefully, speak into these kiddos lives through some silly dramas, I have the chance to work alongside with some pretty awesome adult and teen volunteers. These wonderful people are the spotlights of this post! (Side note: the age span of between these volunteers is 13-83 years old, which is pretty awesome in my opinion.) We have a lady creating adorable craft projects for the kids to put together. We have ladies making tasty snacks. We have teens performing dance moves to go along with our songs. We have men putting up/ tearing down/ monitoring kids on four huge inflatable "big toys" (see pic below for explanation). There's a real life park ranger giving a series of nature lessons to the kids (complete with real fur pelts and skulls.). We have men and women leading kids from event to event, making sure no one wanders off along the way. We have a couple of sweet ladies who's sole job it is is to work with 3 and 4 year old's the entire time. (Ladies, I did that job two years in a row so I know what it entails. Those squirt berts are so sweet and fun, but I know it takes a ton of energy and work to keep them occupied and having fun. You're amazing in my book.). We have a lady who's job it is to be a grown up cheerleader, and get the kids all pumped up for the evening's activities. (Where she gets all that energy, I don't know. I just know that I would love a tenth of it.) There was lovely lady who came in and decorated the church to look a cozy lodge.

Now, I'm sure I'm forgetting some people, but this is everyone that I could think of right now. To any volunteers I've forgotten, you're all a blessing none the less. Basically, this week has been a crazy/crazy fun, exhausting, huge blessing all wrapped up into one nutty National Park themed shell, and I've love it! A huge thank you to everyone who's given up their precious time and evenings to make this VBS work. Even if you never get a single thank you from the kids you're working with, you have my thanks and gratitude. You're all rockstars and I know that the Lord will bless you abundantly through all this. Now for some pics.

 (It's going to be a cool, cool summer...)

 My awesome actors!

THE BIG TOYS!!! 

A couple of our sweet snack ladies   

More big toys!

Thankful Thursdays 06/13/2013: Father's Day Edition

Music: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot



It's all about the Papa today, Thankful-bots! You may be saying to yourself "But Father's Day is on Sunday, this is Thursday!". To that I repeat what I said in my Mother's Day post, it's my blog. I do what I want. Anyways, as mentioned above, this post is all about my Dad, or as I like to call him, Dad, Daddy, Pops, Papa, Popsicle, The Big D, Daddio... And of course, I'll be doing this in list form. What else do you expect by now? Here we go!

1. Shadrach, Meshach, and To-Bed-We-Go! (To anyone who is scratching their heads right now, that would be everyone, but my family. This was my Dad's bedtime ritual with us three kids. He would pick us by our bed, start swinging us in his arms, and say "Shadrach, Meshach, and To-Bed-We-GO! On the word "Go" he would gently toss us into our beds. Of course, the entire time each of us were giggling and hollering up a storm!)

2. Family devotions every evening after dinner.

3. The monstrously, epic fort that you built us complete with swinging bridge, slide, rope climb, escape hatch,  movable stairs, swings, and rope ladder. It sounds awesome, and it WAS.

4. The Bestest, Most Tightest hugs.

5. You were/are still my Splinter-Getter-Outer. Somehow you could always get those buggers out without making it hurt, even when we couldn't find the tweezers and had to use your pocket knife.

6. You were the best Curl-Untangler (Mom always went too fast, and made my head smart, while you took your time and made sure you didn't hurt my head.)

7. Never being too busy to make snowmen with your kids.

8. Or have a snowball fight, or build a snow fort, or go sledding, or hooking up the garden hoses in the dead of winter to make a slolum run out of our slide.

9. Being the best example of what a Godly father and husband should look like.

10. Your famous chili recipe.

11. Putting up with me during my teenage years during which I'm sure you asked yourself many, many times "Who are you, and where did you take my daughter?".

12. Teaching me how to garden (though, I'm sure you would love it if I came over and brushed up on my weeding skills).

13. Passing on the gift of being able to make a song out of any situation.

14. When you call me "Manny". You're the only one who does, and I love it!

15. Your thirst for God's Word.

16. Always trying my cooking experiments no matter how bad they were/are.

17. Being a listening ear when I need it, but also giving me advice when I need it.

18. Always laughing at my corny stories and jokes.

19. Being Papa Nerd to your Three Nerd Kids...after all you're the one who introduced us to Stars Wars and Star Trek (also installing in us the love of a good Western...thanks, pilgrim ;D).

20. Always and forever being my hero, champion and one of my biggest fans.

Dad, I know I've said in a million Father's Day cards, but I'll say it again. I am completely and utterly blessed to call you my Dad. Especially when I know so many people that don't have the greatest relationship with their dads. I'm blessed to not only call you Dad, but I also get to call you my friend. That's pretty awesome if you ask me. I love you, Daddy, and hope this little post makes you smile.

Manny

(D'aaawwww)

Snarky, and Not Thankful At All Thursday 06/06/2013

There's an old saying (I don't know who said it first) about writing that goes "A good writer writes what they know." Today I'm re-writing that to say "Write what you feel.", and I, my Bots, am feeling rather snark-tastic. Why? Not really sure. It's been a rather strange week at work because of some...interesting... people walking through the doors. Maybe that's what's setting me off. Any who here's a list of some snarky observations. Sorry in advance for any offense I may cause...

1. One of my little guilty pleasures is looking at wedding blogs, and I've been noticing a certain trend where the bride and groom have GINORMOUS wedding parties. Why do you need 6, 8, 10, sometimes 12 bridesmaids/groomsmen on EACH side? Why? Are we so afraid of maybe, possibly offending a friend that you had in college that you haven't seen in ten years, really haven't talked to them since college, but oh man, we're friends on Facebook, and they commented on my relationship status update from "in a relationship" to "engaged". I know I really don't know anything about them anymore, but we did have some good times back in our old college days, and I don't want to hurt their feelings so I better ask them to be a bridesmaid/groomsman. What, the what?? Heck, I don't think I would even invite them to the wedding much less ask them to be in my bridal party. Plus, having that many people hovering around me on a day where I would be an emotional, nervous wreck stresses me out just thinking about it. Trying to wrangle everybody, and making sure they're all where they're supposed be gives me the phantom shivers. Personally, I think 3-4 people tops on each side is about right. You could go even less, and be even more stress free. My folks had two attendants total. One maid of honor, and one best man. That's it. Honestly, that sounds even better.

2. Tweens/teens that cannot or will not talk to adults. I deal with this fairly frequently in my workplace. A teenager walks into the office, and as they're waiting to see the doctor, I try to make them feel welcome and more comfortable by chatting with them about school, their activities, or hobbies. (I figure this is better then sitting in silence, correct me if I'm wrong.) All too often, the responses I get are one syllable, one word answers. Really? Listen up, Hoss, I'm not asking you to engage in a philosophical discussion here, but it would be greeeaatt if you could answer me with a full sentence. Thanks. Of course, all the while, the teen has their eyes surgically glued to their smart phone texting away to 50 of their friends. Eye contact during a conversation...weird. (I imagine they're texting their friends "O.M.G. the chubby, old lady at my doctor's office keeps trying to talk to me. Like I would even want to talk to an adult. She's totes annoying. When can I get out of here?! Shoot me now.") Seriously, it makes me want snatch their phones out of their hot little paws, flick them on their nose, and shout "Eyes up here, buckeroo!" Grrrr. Parents, please teach your children to be able to carry on a decent conversation with an adult. I don't think it's too crazy to expect by the age of 12 ** that a kid should be able to do this. Kids, it's really okay to talk to an adult. Just try it. You might find out that we can actually be kinda fun.

**I do realize that children with certain disabilities may not be able to do this. That being said, I've had better, funnier, more heart warming chats with kids that have severe physical/mental disabilities then I've had with some so called "functioning" teenagers.

3. Precious couples on social media. Look, I get it. You're in love. (Or if you're 15 years old what you think is love, but in all reality you're just in "like". You don't know what love is yet. Trust me. I thought I was in love at 15. Yeah, no. I really wasn't.) Your special someone gives you the butterflies, they make you feel wonderful, and you WANT TO SHOUT YOUR LOVE FROM THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN. Good for you, but please refrain from posting every cutesy love quote, or love song lyric ("This is just so us, baby! It's like they know us!"...gross.) you find on your Facebook wall. Honestly, I don't mind a little lovey dovey-ness. It can be cute, but remember, everything in moderation. How about you try telling your special someone all this in person not via the inter-webs? Huh? What a thought?! This way you'll keep snarky, bitter old maids from going postal about you on their blog. It's a win-win for everyone.

Phew. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest, Bots. Next week I'll try to get us back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Manda