Friday, February 29, 2008

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Reading Guide

It's about time for Collin to tackle the next book in the Harry Potter series — Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. That means that I needed to read it ahead of time and work up some discussion questions. There are some very good lessons to be learned from this next installment and I didn't want him to miss any of them including racism, decision making, problem solving, initiative, courage, and more.

Download the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Reading Guide in Word/Google Docs or you can download the Chamber of Secrets Reading Guide in PDF. If you have questions or comments, please feel free to leave me a comment here or e-mail me.

2007 (not a Space) Odyssey

I just realized that I haven't written about out latest major purchase -- a new 2007 Honda Odyssey! We originally were not real excited about going into debt again (the only debt that we've had for awhile is our house) but we have already paid it off (thanks to some help from the family).

Our old van was a 2000 Plymouth Grand Voyager and it had over 125,000 miles on it. We put it in the shop and when our mechanic said "it'll be around $800" my response was "no, it won't!" Since Heather broke down by herself with all of the kids driving to New Orleans to visit some of the friends that we made from the Katrina diaspora, our confidence in that van was in major decline. We got $2,000 for that van and were thankful for it. It's a good thing we sold it too! A friend of ours bought the van for his dealership and a week after he sold it the new owner called and told him the engine blew on it — thank you Lord!

We had been saving money for a new van but the cash on hand would only buy us another run down van. After weighing our options and praying over it, we decided that we should go into debt and get a little better van and focus on paying it off as quickly as possible. Our family then stepped in and offered to pay the difference between what we were willing to spend and the cost of a new van. So, we got our dream and went shopping for a new Toyota Sienna or Honda Odyssey. The Sienna's didn't impress us near as much as the Odyssey's.

The only thing that the kids cared about was a built in DVD player. When we started looking for used vehicles, we told the kids to pray specifically that we would find the right van with a DVD player since I wasn't willing to pay much extra for it. The model of Odyssey that comes with the DVD player also happens to come equipped with a 6 disc CD changer, sun roof, leather interior, and other awesome trimmings that we wouldn't ordinarily care about. Since the dealer just got a big shipment of 2008 models, we negotiated a great deal on a 2007 model!

Thank you family and thank you Lord for providing us everything we could have asked for or imagined!

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Happy Madri Gras in New Orleans

Well it's Mardi Gras time again and I just realized that I never wrote about it last year -- shame on me! Every time I say this, my Christian friends can't believe it, but man Mardi Gras was fun and I want to take my wife and kids to experience it some time!

Mardi Gras was nothing like I expected and everything that I expected all at the same time. Mardi Gras is NOT just a bunch of drunk people flashing everyone (unless you're on Bourbon Street of course). It is like a street carnival, jazz festival, and great parades all wrapped up in one big event.

We stayed in a big hotel off of St. Charles between Canal and Poydras and we had tickets to about three big parades. The tickets were to stay on a set of scafolding to watch the parades and catch "throw" from the floats. The key to catching "throw" in the form of beads, stuffed animals, toys, coconuts (from the Zulus), and other cool stuff is NOT flashing but being nice, looking the floats riders in the eye and yelling "Throw me somethin' mistah!" The parades were really cool with fun floats and wild costumes. During the day, between the big parades, neighborhood crewes would "march" and some of them were hilarious. I saw a whole family dressed like the incredibles including the baby.

Since I was with my Mom (yes, I'm the conservative one of the family) we went down Bourbon street enough to grab a bit to eat and go to Charlie O'Briens piano bar one night. Charlie O'Briens was a blast. The stage was two pianos opposite each other with a guy playing the thimbles in between. Man did those pianists know how to play and sing, I bet they know every song ever written (they play requests from the crowd). The guy in the middle had thimbles on each finger and a metal dish like a plate that he would tap on. People would throw him change and that would help the percussion sound. Everyone would sing all of the songs that they knew and it was a lot of fun.

A highlight for me was getting to meet up with my friend Chip. Chip is a true hero of Katrina who stayed behind to look after his grandfather while the rest of his family evacuated. He got stuck in his attic, got out, and helped rescue others in his neighborhood before going to the Superdome. He testified that the Superdome was a horrible, unspeakable place and they couldn't wait to get out of there. Chip is in the Crewe of Zulu and got us beads the night before they marched, and got us great stuff including the coveted Zulu painted coconuts also.

However, you can't take a trip to New Orleans without the food! We ate fried shrimp po-boys, gumbo, and ham at Mothers by day and beignets at Cafe Du Monde by night. I can't wait to go back and our experiences with the people of New Orleans after Katrina only made my time there sweeter.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Decisions, decisions . . .

My wife and I have a lot to think about right now as we are considering some changes in our family, including moving out of our starter home (that we've had for 10 years).

The scripture that we have clung to thus far is Acts 17:26, I determine the times set for you and the exact places where you should live. Regardless of what we think, we want to be right in the center of God's Will for our family so we are desparately seeking Him and His wisdom.

As I did my Proverbs reading today, the following verse jumped out at me. For the Lord gives wisdom . . . for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones . . . . then you will understand what is right and just and fair — every good path (Proverbs 2:6-9).