Having a Blast in Bethany Beach, DE

Just a quick little update for you all since I promised more blogging while on our Noetheastern adventure and so far I haven't found time to deliver. We flew up to Philly on Friday in what was by far the most enjoyable, relaxing trip with kids ever. It helps that Mike sat with the boys and I was across the aisle but they were quiet and pretty much entertaining themselves for the three hour flight, even with no DVD player. Security was great too because they let families go in an express line and sent the kids and I through the regular scanner while everyone else had to go through the big naked scanner. They even had cute little animal chairs for kids to wait and put their shoes back on.

My sister and her family arrived at my mom's shortly after we did and all the kids just have a ball playing together. We had a little birthday party for Alex with a pinata and they played in an inflatable pool in the back yard. We didn't need to go anywhere, even the playground, because it was much to hot to be out in the sun. We all just enjoyed being together.

Sunday my sister headed home and we drove to my mom's beach house in Bethany. It's really a little slice of heaven there.


This is the view from the house there. The little lake is pretty and perfect for fishing, so that's what we did Sunday night after a brief rainshower. Each kid caught several small fish and my mom's husband caught a nice sized bass. Alex is now totally obsessed with fishing!




Then Monday morning we hit the beach, which was absolutely delightful. Both kids now LOVE the hard crashing waves and digging in the sand. Not needing diapers or a ton of food is an added bonus. Oh! And no need to rush back to the house for naps makes for a good long day staring at the ocean for me. In fact, I'm writing this post on my phone while chilling under an umbrella enjoying the breeze and surf.


Last night we took the kids to Funland on the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach. Nathan went on his first really big ride, the swinging pirate ship. Mike road it with him while I took video and photos. Lots and lots more photos are coming to my Flickr once I get them edited.

Mike and I left the kids with my parents and went to dinner at Dogfish Head Brewpub which was A-MAZ-ING. I feel like that deserves it's own whole blogpost so I'll hold off on posting photos from that.

More fun tonight and then tomorrow we head for the mountains of central Pennsylvania where my inlaws live.

Stay tuned! Watch my Flickr badge over there on the right for tons more pics, not to mention my twitter feed for Instagram photos in real time.

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Looking Forward to Some Time Off

In the past couple of weeks I have not posted here quite as frequently because my workload has definitely picked up and my family's schedule has also been more full than usual. These are good things and I put effort into making sure I enjoy them and give the important things their due focus and attention so that my stress level stays low as usual. For me, managing stress during busy times simply means accepting the fact that something won't get done and right now that is writing blog posts.

I really ought to write more about time management in the future because I do believe I'm pretty good at it. A big part of it is just saying "No" to certain things. I decided I had to say "No" to joining the Katy Fit half marathon training program that started last week. I do enjoy running and will continue to push myself but the time commitment even for the four times a week homework runs is too much right now with Mike starting his class. I had to turn down some fun social events and even a free movie premier because my evenings have been spent crunching on the wastewater design manual I'm co-authoring. 

Now I've finished the manuscript for the research paper I'm presenting at our national conference in October and I'm 90% finished my work on the design text and my mind is shifting into looking forward to some time off. I actually hope that I will be able to post here a bit more while I'm away and relaxed. I know I will have a whole lot more photography to work on...that's one of the highlights of vacation for me. 

So I'm looking forward to a bit of this:

And I can't wait for some of this:



Plus we'll get to celebrate Alex's birthday again with all his cousins.



I'm even looking forward to waking up to this view at Mike's parents' house.



Relaxation all around.

Combining Music and Photography: Derek Webb

Two big passions of mine, music and photography, are occasionally combined when I get to see a live artist close enough to photograph them. I don't usually bother requesting a photo pass for bigger shows I just stick to smaller concerts where the musicians and venues don't have strict rules on  photos and video. Frankly I don't yet have the much more expensive lenses I need to take live music photography seriously and I don't really intend to because going to a ton of concerts just doesn't fit my family's schedule. Besides, I love photographing kids and families and it tends to be more profitable anyway.

However there are few things in life more enjoyable to me than live music. I go as often as possible. So recently when I heard Derek Webb was headed to Katy to do a little free show, I jumped on it. The church where he played had a cool new building and I had heard good things about the worship leader whose band was opening the show. I've long (like, decades long) been a fan of Caedmon's Call and Derek's songwriting with them and that has only progressed with his solo work. His lyrics are seriously good, yo.

So here are a few shots from the concert and even a video I took with my phone. I'm not always so bright, so I should have turned the phone sideways. In truth, I probably should have just recorded the video with my Nikon D90 SLR which was obviously in my hand as well, and does take great video. But the sound quality of this video is actually quite good, and I think you'll like the song. If you want more, there are more videos over on my YouTube channel.  Overall it was a fantastic concert. Can't wait to hear him again live soon.

I'm Adopted

I'm adopted. My husband, Mike, is adopted too. See in God's word to us He tells us that we were orphans and if we believe and put our trust in Him through Jesus, we are no less of a son or daughter of God than Jesus himself. It's not just one verse either, it's all over the place in the Bible.

Ephesians 1 says "In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved."


It's crystal clear to me that all over the Bible, Old Testament and New, the Lord commands us to care for the fatherless. One way (not the only way) to do that is adoption, which then becomes a living, breathing picture of the gospel. I'm a big fan of that.

A family in court on National Adoption Day

So last night in my life group meeting we heard more incredible stories of the amazing way that God is moving through the church and through people who love Him to rescue some of the fatherless. I learned how one couple I know decided to take a deaf child from China and how they and their children are learning to sign. Their biological boys want to go with them to China to get their brother and have worked amazingly hard and brought friends and teachers together to raise $2500 so far. I heard about how non-believers have been moved to help.

I also heard stories about leaps of faith my friends are taking, first steps to answer God's call without being able to see much of the road ahead at all. Obeying despite major doubts and resistance. Of course there was also the "no news is bad news" part of the adoption process, because for most couples the wait is painfully long. Longer than a pregnancy. Patience and perseverance are essential and cultivated through the process. God may be using these people to rescue the orphaned children on His heart but He also uses the process to nurture and grow the would-be parents.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who was inspired by all these stories last night because today I found out another couple called today to get started on the process of becoming foster parents. My heart is just full of joy over this news.

So naturally I'm all about finding ways to support these people, my personal friends, as they tackle the hard road ahead God has called them too. But I'm also about supporting people I don't really know that well when it comes to adoption and orphan care. So here's something I've already done that you could do too.

Musician and advocate for Compassion International, Shaun Groves, decided recently to pursue adoption from Ethiopia. Through unusual circumstances his family welcomed a little boy last week, earlier than expected. He's having to cancel some appearances to ensure this boy gets a good start in their home, so he's asking people to pre-order his fantastic new CD, Third World Symphony, which releases at the end of August. Read his story, give the album a listen, and buy it...it's really great.

Pretty please go buy the album. And pray...for every would-be adoptive family and orphaned child in the world.

Houston Capture the Cruze Recap

You know that awesome TV show, The Amazing Race? My husband Mike has long said he would love to do that, but I am not up for eating super weird foods. The travel part I dig because I am great with directions and love seeing new places.

Well a few weeks ago Mike and I got to have one of the most fun experiences we've had in quite a long time doing something a little bit like the Amazing Race, but locally here in Houston. I learned about the Capture the Cruze contest through my participation with Houston Chevy Dealers as a brand ambassador (check out the vacation contest they are hosting now!). Capture the Cruze was a contest held downtown on June 11 and the winning team would get a brand new Chevy Cruze!

The contest involved using texting or the SCVNGR smartphone app to find locations all over the city and answer clues for points. Whoever ended up with the most points after two hours won the car! I figured the odds for winning a new car were higher than any other contest I'd ever entered and even if we didn't win it would be a fun bonding experience for my husband and I.

We showed up at Jones Plaza in the theatre district at 10 am that Saturday morning armed with our iPhones, sunscreen and water to deal with the 97 degree temperatures. After chatting with my friend and fellow ChevyGirl, Greis Perez, we scoped out the Cruzes parked there, got our team t-shirts and got ready to race. There were about 150 teams of two, young and old. I did a bit of preliminary research online to see how the event had gone down in other cities and I knew that if we wanted to seriously have a chance to win, we would have to be strategic and really hustle. Thank goodness for all the running I've been doing recently!

When they started the clock, the SCVNGR app on my phone suddenly showed Trek for the event with about 40 different locations. The game map was a much bigger area than I had anticipated, stretching for a couple dozen city blocks between the theatre district and the courthouses, over to City Hall, the library and way up to the Houston Pavilions area. It may not seem like a big area when you're driving, but we had to cover it entirely on foot.

At each location on our phone map we had to answer a question that required us to be in that exact spot. For example we had to read certain signs on buildings and add numbers together, figure out dates in Roman numerals, and a few other logic puzzles. Each question gave you three chances to answer it correctly and if you missed all three you lost those points and had to move on. Well we totally blew the first question, twice because we answered in numbers and the third time because of my phone's auto spell correct that didn't like Roman numerals. Three points...gone!

After that we never missed another question. It took me a little bit of time to get oriented via the map before I knew exactly which way to head between locations, but once we got the hang of that we were really on a roll and sprinted between spots. Our strategy was to head to areas where there were lots of challenges close to each other and avoid the far reaching spots on the map.

I was just about to enter the answer for a challenge when the app suddenly went dark, signalling the game was over. By the end of two hours we had about 74 points, and I figured we were serious contenders for the grand prize. Totally soaked with sweat we headed back to Jones Plaza and each guzzled three bottles of water while we waited to hear who won.

It turned out that the third and fourth place finishers won tickets to an Astros baseball game and second place won a new iPad2! We didn't win but we ended up placing seventh out of 150 teams! Two more correct challenges would have put us at least winning the iPad, if not the car. The girl who won looked super excited and didn't even have a car, but I think her team may have cheated because she was clearly in top physical condition while her partner looked like he hadn't even broken a sweat. Teams were supposed to do every challenge together. Doesn't matter to me though, she clearly needed the car and even said she had the money to cover the taxes, gotta LOVE that, smart girl! I think everyone who finished ahead of us was about a decade younger than us, which made me feel pretty good.

Mike and I worked together very well and we really did have a blast exploring a part of the city we hadn't spent much time in before at all. Chevy's Capture the Cruze was a fantastic experience and I highly recommend taking part if it comes to a city near you.

Inspiring Me This Week

You know who has been really inspiring me this week? This guy.

In the past few weeks my husband has made some big decisions about how he spends his time. Some I can't really talk about yet, but one is that he decided to take the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, an 8 hour long test that is the first step towards professional engineering licensure. It's not such a big deal when you're just out of college and all that math and science is fresh in your mind, but now he will have to go back and prepare really hard for it. That means a prep course that will eat up three full nights and one whole day a week for a couple months. I did the same thing years ago and it sucked, but that was before I had kids. I'm really proud of him for this. 

I'm also excited for him that the third annual preview magazine for Penn State football he authored and edited was just released. (If you're a fan, GO BUY ONE!) He finally gets to see the fruit of months of stress and hard work and finally gets the accolades from the devoted football fans that read it and love it. He got his box of copies from the publisher in the mail last week and loves to show it off to friends who stop over, but there's nothing quite like walking into a store when we're in Pennsylvania on vacation and seeing it for sale on the bookshelf. 

Also he has recently picked up not one but two new hobbies. He started homebrewing beer a year or so ago when I bought him a kit but lately he has been really getting into it, learning and socializing with other craft beer lovers. I think it just took someone other than me trying one of his beers and raving about how good it was to get his attention. I love his raspberry wheat beer and the Witty Monk brew is pretty good too. Now he says he has a ten year scale up plan. 

He also has really gotten into making BBQ. He bought himself a smoker for his birthday in February and spent a ton of time researching everything he could find about cuts of meat, rubs, sauces and smoking techniques. Now I'm not a big fan of smoked meat, but the brisket he made for Memorial Day was delectable. He stayed up all night smoking that hunk of beef. The ribs he made for July 4th were also divine. The thing I like most about all this bbq is that it means inviting lots of people over to share in the eating. My normally antisocial husband has finally found a reason for socializing and that is awesome for my extroverted self with a major hospitality bent. 

This is all beside the fact that he's an awesome dad. My kids fight over who gets to sit next to dad at dinner, and who gets dad to put him to bed that night. Mom is chopped liver in our house, and really that's ok with me. I still get plenty of random cuddles. 

You'd have to know Mike to know how unusual all this new stuff is, but trying new things and challenging yourself is something I relish so I find myself very inspired by this guy I've been with for 15 years now. 

Is there someone in your life who has inspired you lately?

Parents Fight at the Katy Mills Mall Playground

The mall play area on a calmer day, 3 years ago.

What started as a quick trip to the mall yesterday ended up in a surge of adrenaline through me I hadn't felt in a very long time. I learned a thing or two about "mama bear" instincts too, both mine and those of other crazy people. 

It all started when Nathan was invited to a friend's for a playdate so I decided to take Alex to the play area inside the Katy Mills Mall. It had been awhile since he'd played there because his brother was well over the allowed height to play so I didn't even bother with it on our regular mall visits. I needed to exchange a couple things at Old Navy so I figured this would kill two birds with one stone. 

I forgot how insanely crowded the mall gets on weekends. I'm used to hopping over there on weekday mornings since it's only a couple miles away, but as an outlet mall it's a huge draw from the entire city. Alex and I did a quick exchange at Old Navy and then I found a pile of bargains at the Children's Place before we walked the length of the mall to the playground. He was tired but kept up well as we hurried, dodging slow moving shoppers, weaving in and around strollers and big families. I knew the play area would be packed, but I had promised him so even if we only stayed five minutes I was keeping my promise. 

There were so many people and children than I had to wait a couple minutes to find a seat on a bench in the back. I took Alex's shoes off, warned him it wouldn't be long and pulled out my phone to check Twitter. There were plenty of kids there who I knew were much to old to be playing, but it didn't bother me really. I noticed one tween girl inside a square structure right in front of me but she didn't seem to be bothering anybody. 

Well she must've done something...pushed another smaller child maybe? I didn't see that but all of the sudden a mom and a dad jumped up and ran over to her with voices raised and scolding. I think I heard one of them say "Don't do that! I saw what you did!" and I assumed they where her parents. Keep in mind there was a foam play wall between them and the tween girl, but they were leaning over it towards her. 

Boy was I wrong because in a flash I saw a man who had to be 6'3" and 300 lbs stand up, take two steps up behind them and grab each of them at the same time by the shoulders with his massive hands. He flung each of them back away from the wall and proceeded to scream at them in a booming voice, "Hey! Don't you dare talk to my daughter like that!" at which point the other two parents in furious voices said something about what the girl had done. The gigantic man yelled, "I don't care what she did you NEVER approach a child like that! Do you understand English? Do you speak English? Approach! Approach! You never approach another child, you go to the parents!" 

All this happened literally two feet in front of where I was sitting, and my heart started racing. I thought two seconds about staying but I was afraid for my safety and didn't want my kid to witness a fist-fight so I stood up, grabbed my shopping bag and Alex's shoes and walked briskly away, looking everywhere in the crowd for my child. I saw other parents start to stand up and stare and even move towards the continued shouting behind me, but I scooped up Alex and pushed my way through the bodies crowding the playground entrance. I looked everywhere but security was, of course, nowhere to be found. I got far enough away that Alex couldn't see or hear the fight before I sat down to put his shoes back on and explain to my tearful child why we couldn't stay and play. At this point I was just shaking like a leaf as I told him "the grown ups aren't behaving...they are acting badly so we have to go." 

Understatement of the century. 

I walked as quickly as I could with a tired three year old in tow towards down the very long mall till I finally saw two security guards laughing and chatting with a girl manning a candy cart. I stopped and explained that there had just been a big fight at the playground, between parents, and that they should go check it out. The one guy who looked about 70 years old did not register what I was saying, so I repeated myself, frantically pointing back where I'd come from. I didn't stick around to see what happened next, I went home and let the adrenaline drain from my tense body. 

I get that all three parents were simply being protective of their children, but all three of them did exactly the wrong thing. Especially the dad who chose to get physical and shove the other parents...one of which was a woman...both of which were half his size. 

Can you imagine? Have you ever seen something like that? 

Brisket and Fireworks Mean Independence in Texas

 I  I just want to take this opportunity to wish all of my friends, family and my totally awesome readers a very happy fourth of July! I hope we never take for granted the amazing freedoms we have here in the U.S. thanks to our founding fathers who established them and the many men and women who have fought to preserve them over two plus centuries.

Here in Texas we are in a massively severe drought, the likes of which apparently hasn't been seen in decades. Because the ground is so dry the city officials have banned the sale and use of personal fireworks, which is usually a big thing around here. Fortunately they have not canceled the big professional displays, so hopefully we will be able to enjoy those tomorrow, even if it means fighting some traffic and having to park and walk pretty far. Truthfully here in Katy, even "traffic" and "far" are totally relative terms compared to Houston city events or where I'm from in Philadelphia.

I do love taking photos of fireworks! It takes a bit of effort and definitely a tripod, but it's fun and a worthwhile challenge. I'm always game for a good photography challenge. The best fireworks shots I've ever gotten were using a tiny little camera stand propped on the hood of my car in rural Pennsylvania. If you're gonna try that, don't forget to bring a flashlight so you can see your camera while you're making adjustments in the dark.

Mike is firing up the smoker again to cook up some delicious brisket and ribs. We'll have some friends over to partake in the carnivorous feast. Nothing says summer holiday in Texas like smoked meat!

You should also check out this hilariously adorable video I made of last year's fourth celebration.



What are your plans for the holiday?