April 4, 2008 at 11:48 pm · Filed under Adventures, Family, Luke, Parenting
Today was Sara’s Birthday. (I’ve been forbidden to say which one!) So I took the day off and we celebrated the day my wife was born by first having a Micky Mouse breakfast (sorry, no pictures, it was before we were in any state to be blogged!) complete with pancakes, eggs, bacon, juice etc. served on Mickey plates and glasses and then it was time for Mickey Mouse gifts I picked up when I was at Walt’s Place* earlier this year. Then, after nap time the real adventure of the day began, it was off to:
(click on any images to view larger)
We purchased a membership to Brookfield Zoo this year since it’s just under $100 and pays for itself in just two visits. (Free admission and parking and some other benefits) We figured with a two year old it would be a good idea this year. Today would be Luke’s first visit to the Zoo in his entire life!
So, of course, we invited Grandma and Grandpa to come along, who were also free because members can always bring a free guest and they give you six free additional free guest passes in addition to all the free passes in all the mailings we’ve been getting trying to sell us the membership!
We decided to have WILD DAY at the zoo to celebrate Mommy’s birthay!
While this picture of a camel isn’t very exciting (remember, you can click it to see a larger version!), it is the first big animal Luke got to see at the zoo. He even said “Hi” when he saw it! Just be thankful I’m not posting all the pictures of animals we took!
I managed to get this giant kagaroo to stand still and let Luke pose for a picture in his pocket. This picture is worth clicking on to see the adorable look on his face.
Luke enjoyed the animals but he REALLY liked all the cork and sticks on the ground!
Probably the highlight of the day for me was the trip to the Lion’s lair. Not because of my childhood memory from this zoo, but because of what happened today. (Kids from my past ministries and camps have heard the TRUE story of how I was attacked by a lion at this zoo as a young boy, but I will blog that story sometime later this year after another visit to the zoo, until then, you’ll have to just ask a kid from my ministry to tell you.) As for TODAY – as we were talking toward the Lion’s area, Luke actually spotted the lion in the distance before I did and before I had a chance to tell him where we were going he pointed and said, “LION!” I was shocked! I guess those Baby Einstein videos do work after all! The lion even started roaring for us. I was going to toss up a flash video I captured, but it’s really not that exciting to watch, though he did roar for over thirty seconds as he settled down for a nap. It was kinda a “I’m here, I’m bored, I’m a lion, and You’re Not” kinda roar” rather than “I’m going to eat you for dinner” kind.
Which was a good thing, because he probably could have if he’d wanted to. He was pretty big. It was fun to see Luke taking the animals in since up to this point large animals like this were things he’d only seen in books or videos. (Though he has seen a lot of deer in our neighborhood!) He has seen cows on some vacations and that would explain why he called a few animals cows!
This was one of my favorite pictures that Sara captured as father and son walked around the zoo. MAN (or should I say ‘animal?’) did it STINK in that Pachyderms House! I couldn’t wait to get out of there! Whew!
Zoo Boy with Birthday Girl!
I’ve had the privilege of being in front of hundreds of kids entertaining, but I’m enjoying more just introducing one little boy to the wonders of this world. Just pointing and saying, “Look at that animal God made….” and “I wonder why God made that that way?” “Hey, Luke, check this out….” Being able to expand his world is the most incredible joy. Fatherhood is beyond anything I ever imagined it would be.
Mommy and Lukie stop for a much needed rest after so much walking. This mom is blossoming into the most wonderful mother. She is so patient and tender and caring and selfless. And for Luke too.
On the way out, Luke gave the Buffalo a kiss good-bye. (where’s the wet wipes?) We ended Mom’s special day at her favorite restaurant, TGI Friday’s before heading home with a very sleepy boy. It was a great day with the little family.
* AKA “Walt Disney World”, just called it “Walt’s Place” to see if Steve Tanner reads this post and goes ballistic in comments. 
April 3, 2008 at 2:53 pm · Filed under Blog World, Internet, Technology, Uncategorized, just cool
Well, the last time I blogged about Live News Cameras and got the moderator Kat to say hi to me seems that I made my director web operations Steve a little jealous. You see it was Steve who TOLD me about Live News Cameras, and he had been following it since it launched and even blogged about it so when I got his favorite moderator to say hi to ME he let me know that he had been following her longer than me and even knew more about her, where she lived, etc., but that he wasn’t stalking her or anything! (hmmmm)
Then today he tells me she is back from vacation! (not stalking, huh?) Well, to make up for it, I immediately logged on to Live News Cameras and e-mailed Kat again and this time asked how her vacation was and asked her to say hi to Steve for me, and she did! Hopefully this puts me back on good terms with Steve. It’s a good thing that me and Kat are obviously such good friends now and that she has twice responded to my e-mails live on a channel that is watched nation-wide by probably millions of online viewers.
Maybe someday Steve will get the courage to e-mail her himself and say “hi.”
April 3, 2008 at 12:00 am · Filed under Entertainment, juggling, just cool
OK, I can juggle three balls. Sometimes, even on my unicyle… and I’ve even been known to make a half court shot in less than three trys, but this guy is outta my league:
[flv]http://media.kidology.org/flash/kblog/juggler-timnolan.flv[/flv]
I wish I had the time to practice enough to get this good at anything!
April 2, 2008 at 9:36 am · Filed under Family, Luke
It was April 1st, 2006. But it wasn’t an April Fool’s Day joke. It was an answer to prayer. Only I didn’t know it at the time. But God was about to do a miracle. My wife and I had been unable to have children for thirteen years. Adoption was often brought up to us by caring friends and family members, and while we were never against it, we hadn’t yet come to the place where we felt ready to actively pursue it. We didn’t want adoption to be a “Plan B” in order to have children. If we were to adopt, we wanted it to be Plan A – something God clearly brought into our lives by divine appointment. As mentioned in the story about the Rases, God was beginning for form that desire.
In fact, God moved me in an amazing way the evening before April 1st. We had been remodeling our church children’s ministry during spring break that year (see This Old Church Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4) working for hour every day with the plan for me to work all day Saturday doing a week’s worth of job to prepare for Sunday. For some odd reason that makes NO sense, other than the Spirit of God (as it was not like me) I said to my wife at the end of the long tiring day, “I’d like to work late tonight and pretend it is Saturday so I can just be home all day tomorrow if you don’t mind.” She agreed be exhausted herself from painting all week and I ended up being at church until the wee hours getting ready for church on Sunday morning. I drove home early the following morning and collapsed into bed having no idea that my life was about to change forever.
Saturday morning I was sleeping in when the phone rang. It was a phone call that would forever change my life. A phone call that would make me a father in less than twenty-four hours. A phone call that would transform my wife into a mommy. A phone call that would open a whole new world to me… a wonderful world in which I carry the awesome title of “Daddy.”
After several weeks I finally was able to announce it here on my blog with a post: Most Useless Household Appliance
HUNDREDS of you signed up for a prayer updates e-mail list and prayed with us through the long legal process and celebrated with us when the adoption was finalized nine months later. Many of you even donated to Baby Luke’s legal expenses. We were so blessed and encouraged by your wonderful support and concern for our family. I am always amazed when I come to various conferences or come to speak at a church and people ask, “How is Luke doing?” He is such a blessed little boy to have so many people who have prayed for him and participated in his journey. He is so loved. Not only by his mother and father and all his relatives and church family and the many who were a part of his adoptive journey, but even by his birth mom who loved him so much she put his needs above her own to give him up to a home where he could have a mom and dad to love him and raise him in a home where he is the center of attention. She gave him such a wonderful life long gift. We know that he will be as grateful to her someday as we are.
Yesterday we celebrated our “Gotcha Day” – the day Luke entered our home. We took Luke to an indoor water park since water is his favorite thing.
and then out to eat. He sure loves his daddy. He’s grown up a lot in the last two years! But’s he’s still my little buck-a-roo!
