Preturbed with the New Peleton!

With Charity out of town and one of my biking buddies still hurting from running over a full grown pit-bull on our ride last week, I needed to find a new peleton to ride with today. I chose poorly, out of necessity.

I got a taste today of what those triathletes that I have ridden with a couple of times must have felt like riding with me. Seth has been asking to go for a bike ride, and talking trash about being able to ride for "a whole hour." So I thought, "It's Sunday and I need the exercise, let's go." Both boys promptly (I only say that because it is so incredibly unusual) got their "biking jerseys" on, filled up water bottles and they Seth asked if I was going to ride my red bike (I only have one bike) to which I instinctively replied, "No, I'm going to ride my purple bike." "You don't have a purple bike!" "Then what bike should I ride?" "Your red bike." I dropped it at that point, without having been able to make my point!

It was like trying to stay with the tortoise and the hare (who only has 3 feet) while in a F-16. I dropped to my lowest gear and still could hardly keep moving enough to stay up. About 3/4 of a mile through the neighborhood, Seth announced that we should ride to Mr. Anthony's house (about 5 miles away). It seemed unlikely, but actually do-able and we had no on-coming traffic when we got to the one major road we had to cross, so we headed that direction.

At this point I need to tell you that on the last bike ride I took with these two, they got 3 miles from the house and decided that they were tired and couldn't go any further--that only took an hour, assisted by 2-3 "pee-stops" and 14000 "water breaks."

Remembering that I had them unload bladders before setting off and we were moving at a "reasonable" pace. As I waited up for "turtle-boy" and tried to keep his enthusiastic younger brother in sight, I glanced at the odometer and noticed that we had made 3.5 miles in about 25 minutes (about 8 mph average). We were making good time ... until Toby asked, "What time is it?" Without thinking I told him that it was about 1:15....Sunday!

For those of you that may not understand what MAJOR mistake I made, let me try to explain. Sunday is sports TV day and one o'clock is the one time during the week that there is almost always something on that his mother is willing to allow him to watch!

Well, his response was, "I think we should turn around and go back now!" Surprisingly, his brother agreed. As is often the case with biking, when we turned around there was a mighty fine head wind, but Toby was not to be deterred and off he went as Seth decided that his legs were tired and he couldn't bike any more.

To make a long and painful story a little shorter, we made it home safely covering 7.75 miles in 1 hour 4 minutes (of actually biking--it was about 1.5 hours with all the water breaks!) and averaged 7.2 mph. Not quite the average I am used to, but about twice the workout!

ABC Sabbath School

With Charity and Ben out of town and two meetings with the house church/church plant scheduled for the afternoon we decided to skip traditional Sabbath School and take a nature hike at a nearby neighborhood "bird sanctuary" (we saw exactly one bird the whole time!). When we arrived, I informed the boys that for Sabbath School we were going to try and find 26 things on our walk that reminded us of God--one beginning with each letter of the alphabet. To be honest, I wasn't sure they would do it. However I was surprised at some of their answers ... even considering that about half of Toby's responses had some reference to Satan in them! Here are the ones I can remember ...

• A - Ants, "Black ones are like God, they don't bit. The red ones are like Satan because they are bad and bit you."
• B - Branch, "Broken branch is like Satan trying to seperate us from God."
• C - Canal
• D - Dark, "God called the darkness 'night'/Dark is Satan and God is light coming through"
• E - (I can't remember what this one was)
• F - Flock of Ferns, "Some parts look like they are pointy but they aren't and that is like Satan trying to trick us."
• G - God
• H - House/Hole, "God provides a safe house/home for us and for the animals to live and protects us."
• I - Ice, "The river looks like ice. Ice can be thin but look thick and that is like Satan trying to trick you so that you fall in."
• J - John or Jesus
• K - (Not Kevin) Camp Kulaqua, "It always seems to have something to do with God."
• L - Light, "God is light."
• M - Main Trail, "God is trying to get us to go on the main trail."
• N - Nature
• O - Oak Tree, "It is big and strong like God"
• P - Path, "We have to Pick the right Path. God is trying to get us to pick the right path."
• Q - Quick, "Get away from the swamp quick so they don't bit you."
• R - River, "Rivers can look safe, but sometimes there are dangerous animals in there."
• S - Swamp, "It's like Satan trying to pull you down and God is trying to pull you up."
• T - Tremendous Tree, "God is tall and they point up to God."
• U - Ugly, "Like Satan."
• V - Vine, "The vine of thorns that they made the crown and put on Jesus head before they killed Him."
• W - Waves. "Like Satan trying to crash over you and the current is like God trying to pull you away from Satan."
• X - (we may have skipped this one, Seth really wanted "eXit")
• Y - Yank (your guess is as good as mine!)
• Z - Zank, "God 'zanking' us away from Satan and Satan trying to 'zank' us away from God."

When they finally climbed into bed last night (@ 10 PM!) both of them thanked God for being able to have Sabbath School outside!

Chip Off the Old Freeze Burn Block

This is my one-year-old, in late March, after 10 PM! (notice the flavor on the container and the time on the clock)

Oh how proud Grampa must be!!!

"New" Couch

On my mother-n-law's last visit she left us two things; a "new" couch and the promise to pay for my wife to take upholstry classes!

Kitchen Help!