Post #1

I just wanted to say that yesterday it really hit me that we live in Washington and how great it is to be here again. After Alisa's 105 posts started off this blog, I (Kevin) have decided to make my first contribution. Plus Alisa's relatively short-lived history with the state of Washington and the lack of pictures taken yesterday made me a prime candidate to write this post (I never remember to take pictures). So, here goes.

Yesterday we had a little family outing to visit some folks from the church. An older couple in our church lives about half an hour north of town on a big ranch (over 4000 acres, we learned) and they love to pick huckleberries. It is prime season for huckleberries right now, which usually only lasts a couple weeks, and the berries are particularly thick this year. So, we drove up to the ranch, hopped in a pickup and drove another half an hour (or more) on dirt roads up towards the mountains. We saw lots of logging and cattle grazing country, and the homestead where the husband grew up (he has even written a book about it), fire-burnt land, creeks, birds, and bear dung. The weather was gorgeous, partly cloudy with some sun and about 80 degrees.

After driving about half an hour, we stopped in the middle of this dirt road, hopped out and started picking huckleberries off bushes on the sides of the road. Everyone had their own bucket, and Abby came along with me in the front pack. Hannah loved the berries, eating more than she got in her bowl (and then eating some out of her bowl when we took breaks). Abby even managed to snatch a few off the bush and stick them into her mouth before I knew what happened (not to mention the time she got hold of Hannah's bowl and downed a whole handful). We trounced through the woods along the road, finding berries as we went. Hannah heard that bears like huckleberries, so she kept asking where the bears lived (we have been reading Goldilocks too much lately).

After a couple hours of visiting and picking, we headed back down the mountain to the ranch and got to look around awhile. Hannah loved the garden (much bigger than hers at home!), where she got to help pick some corn, carrots, potatoes, beets and raspberries. She had a wonderful time, until the husband of the couple joked about keeping her around there to help out. For some reason she thought he was serious, and wanted to get in the car and leave quickly. At this point, we have finally convinced her (I think) that we wouldn't leave her there and it would be fun to go back.

Anyway, it was a wonderful day with the family in a beautiful place and a great time getting to know some foundational members of the church and community. And it truly felt like we have moved to Washington, and aren't just visiting this time. Here is a picture from along the drive home, just so there's one.

And the huckleberry pancakes today were amazing!!!

New Olympic Sport

Like many of you, these past two weeks has found the Lind family spending way too much time watching the Olympics. We've cheered for Micheal Phelps, been transfixed by the power of the American volleyball duo, May and Walsh, hoped desperately that Shawn Johnson would finally win gold and secretly hoped that the diving event might result in just one belly flop from the Chinese team.

We've also excitedly watched a brand new Olympic sport, crawling, and the world debut of it's newest champion, Abigail Lind. In a sport littered with younger athlete's, some sports commentators doubted that she would even ever compete in this event and instead go to the next division, walking.

Cris Collinsworth, with NBC, spent some time with Abby to get the inside scoop. Here is his report: "Although big things were expected from Abby from birth, due to her superb head control and leg strength, Abby got people doubting when she reluctantly rolled over at 5 months. And while many young crawling athletes have ample of practice time, Abby spent her peak months confined to a car seat or picked up, due to the massive move and remodeling her family did. However, now that she has entered this sport, big things are once again expected from her, mostly due to the star athlete her sister is -- Hannah Lind has excelled in numerous events: crawling, walking, running, climbing, bike riding, and, most spectacularly, crashing. With her genes, once Abby gets going, there really is no reason she won't get to the top of the division in short order. It has also been rumored that what was holding Abby back in the first place wasn't lack of practice -- it was a ruse on her part to continue what she calls the 'princess treatment' that she had been receiving from the family by not crawling. At any rate, although Abby is a late-comer to this event, don't count her out of the medal contention or doubt her future success in other events."

Bob Costas, for his part, had this to say about the emergency of Abby in the sport of crawling: "Abby's debut in the crawling event is possible the most significant moment of this Olympics. Although Micheal Phelps blew everyone away with his 8 gold medals, his career has maybe 10 years left -- 20 if he pulls a Dara Torres. Abby, however, is at the very start of her Olympic career and who knows just how much she will accomplish."

For her part, Abby had this to say to reporters: "yah!"

The People's Republic of China has formally lodged a protest with the IOC because, at 10 months, Abby is clearly at least 13 years younger than their women's gymnastic team and, weighing in at 19 lbs., most likely heavier than their women's diving team.

You know you're in a small town when... #246

...while getting ready to check out at the local (read: one of two) grocery store, your 3 year old daughter scans the available checkers, squeals "Sarah!" and makes a beeline to her favorite checkout girl.

Raising Girls

Awhile ago I made slight mention to a book I was reading, Raising Girls. I thought I would do a mini-review here just because it was such a valuable book to read.

First of all, the technical title is All You Need To Know About Raising Girls, by Melissa Trevathan and Sissy Goff. I must take exception to the title -- this is a good book, but I wouldn't say it was all I needed to know to raise my girls. I think there are still many, many unknowns. If there was a book that had it all, I would spend whatever necessary to buy it (really, $1000 for a book that would relieve all of you parenting concerns? who would hesitate?!).

Okay, that little thing aside, I really enjoyed this book. The authors are Christian counselors in Nashville, TN. Their approach to this book is helping parents understand their daughters by looking at their development and the needs that go along with that, all the while keeping an eye on their spiritual development and how to encourage that. I would say that the goal of the book is growing your daughter into the woman God created her to be, which is a great focus for any parent to have.

The whole first section of the book described girls' development. Having taken some child psychology courses (as any good Ed major would), I would say that some of what they described would be true for both girls and boys, although they slanted it to look specifically at girls (so, how a girl strives to be autonomous is different from how a boy does). As I read this section, I thought of my girls only for the first chapter (that is only as far as they are). The rest, I thought of myself and how I tortured my mother. It explained some of myself, which is always enlightening. Again, I just felt so bad for my mom. Luckily, she's forgiven me (I think...). :) What I liked is how each stage of development had a section that focused on what their spiritual development was and what a parent could do about it. I also found myself saying "I need to remember to read this again when Hannah/Abby is ___ old." It is a book that I hope I go back to over the years.

The next section was more on what is going on in a girl's life. This looks at her family relationships, her friendships and the (dreaded) boyfriends. How a girl's longing to belong and be connected effect what they do, from babies on upward. I think this is more of a section that will be valuable later on.

The last section I really enjoyed. One of the chapters was titled: "Catching the Vision" and it focused on really looking and seeing who your daughter can be. Looking at her gifts and encouraging her to develop them. It mentioned that this is sometimes hard when she is being difficult, something that has spoken to me lately -- Hannah has been a pain in the rear end and I have struggled to see her positive side. However, this book helped me take a second look, something that I really needed to do. Another chapter was called "Enjoying Each Other." This is something I think is essential in parenting. My mom did many things right, but one I really enjoyed was how she would enjoy us as an individual and strove to have that one on one relationship. It talked about how you need to find things to do together (while not sacrificing who either of you are). Inspired by this, the other night Hannah stayed up past her bedtime and shared smoothies and Olympic watching with us. It was a special time together--which resulted with her repeated requests for more smoothies!

I wouldn't say that this book has the answers to all the questions you could have. But I would say that it gets you thinking in the right way about your daughter, something I sometimes need help with.

God tells us to?

This morning, Hannah got in trouble. Big trouble. As any parent with two kids (one of which is a baby) can tell you, nap time is sacred. You DO NOT wake a sleeping baby. Especially a baby that was up at the awful hour of 5:45 (!!! I KNOW! What was she thinking? Didn't she know that Mommy and Daddy stayed up to midnight watching Micheal Phelps break Olympic records?).

I had managed to lay Abby back down before I got Hannah up for the morning, had Hannah eat breakfast and then quickly ushered her downstairs, away from Abby's room, where she would be free to be loud (and watch the TV time she knows she gets every Sunday morning -- what can I say, Sundays are tough when Kevin takes off super early). Well, my mistake was a common parent mistake -- I had to go to the bathroom. I should have known better. I told Hannah what I was doing, told her I'd be right back, told her to be quiet, but still, a minute after I left, she is at the bottom of the stairs, hollering as loud as she could: "Mommy?! Where are you?! MOMMY!?!". That was quickly followed by a little squeal from behind the closed door of what should have been a sleeping baby. I yelled at her to be quiet and told her that time out was in her future.

At this point, Hannah showed some smarts. When I came back downstairs, I couldn't find her. No, smart girl was wisely hiding in the office, hoping to elude capture. Let's just say, at this point, I am ticked. She woke up Abby and now is hiding?! For the both us, I catch her, speak sternly and put her in her room. This is one of those times where she won't sit for time out, so I close the door (benefit? Mad mommy gets some cool down time). She cries for awhile, then things go suspiciously quiet. I should have known... Never trust a quiet kid.

When I went back in her room to relieve her of time out, she seemed quiet happy. Never what you want after a time out. We had a long talk about why you don't wake a sleeping baby (she can tell you, without prompting, that if you wake up a sleeping baby, baby will be grumpy and baby will cry-so she's got the head knowledge...) and I frankly told her I was angry about her behavior. I then noticed something suspicious.

When I got Hannah up this morning, I opened her windows. Today is going to be in 100 degree range and I wanted to take advantage of the cool morning air. Now, however, one window was closed. These windows are not low, they start at about my chest. Nor are they close to her bed, there is about a two foot gap between her bed and the window/wall. Nor does she have anything to step on to reach up -- she got her step stool taken away this past week for using it to open and shut the blinds (I know, what a clever girl! Thinking of things to keep her busy during nap time!). I asked her how she did it (I know better than to ask if she did it) and she promptly hopped up on her bed and showed me how she leaned forward to reach the window.

Our talk about not waking a sleeping baby morphed into a talk about not playing with your windows (I envisioned her attempting this again and crashing face first onto the floor and baseboard heater). Her response: "God tells us to?" I try not to turn discipline into theological discussion. I figure she is a little young for that. But since VBS, when I tell her something that is an absolute (don't play with your window; don't hit your sister; sit quietly in church) she comes back and wants to know if it is a command from God. After racking my head for any verse that might be interpreted to say "the Lord commandeth not to play with thy window" I respond back with a good ol' "God wants you to listen to your parents." I really try not to whip this one out on her (again, not sure when you start drawing the parallel of faith and actions), but when she asks what God's opinion is, I do try to answer her question. Would love to say that in her deep love of Jesus, she now listens to me, but she, like many of us, stills struggles to put into motion what Jesus wants.

That about ended our time out talk. She was then freed to finish her show (as long as she promised to be quiet). As we walked to the TV, sensing that I was still upset (when tired, it takes me awhile...), she sweetly said, "I love you, Mommy. Do you love me?" Which just about made me feel terrible. I answered back that yes, I loved her and then tried harder to get over the loss of nap time (and the thoughts of having an extremely tired baby for the next 3 hours at church and how unpleasant my morning will shape up to be).

Hannah's bedroom having survived time out (don't worry, if you see that a "N" is missing from her name wall hanging, she did that awhile ago....)

The gap between the bed and the window

Poor Bentley, he never makes it into the blog. Here he is "breaking in" our new couch. The couch had been delivered about 2 hours earlier -- he wasts no time!

*My posting has been lagging because of my preoccupation with the Olympics. I'll try better. I've got pictures from our vacation in the Puget Sound, along with more pictures from our beach trip the other day.

Just an idea...

For those of you who now find yourself not living in CRW and are either a) a pastor or b) a pastor's spouse, here is an idea.

At Kevin's installation service a professor from Whitworth came and assisted in the service. Both the prof and his wife took each of us aside and talked up Whitworth Institute on Ministry (WIM), which is a annual program the college, excuse me, university does in the summer as a minister's study/retreat/conference. What is cool about their program is how they include the pastor's family. There are groups for spouses (and also just mom's groups), speaker times that include spouses, VBS type activities for the kids and a just a lot of fun stuff. One of the speakers this coming summer will be PTS's own Ross Wagner. Janie was telling us how there are groups from different seminaries that kind of have their reunion every year at WIM, as a way for the families to get together (while not burning up a week of vacation--hey, it is study leave!).

Now, it is kinda pricey. But, something to consider, at least one person can go for free (well, the pastor could deduct their cost from their study leave fund).

Anyways. Think about it. The Lees in Maple Valley (who we just had a great, quick visit with last week) and the Linds in Coulee Dam are both hoping that we can meet up there this coming summer.

The Lee and Lind girls (Averi, baby Carys, Hannah, Cambria, Abby)

And for all you PTS people who wondered what the big deal was about Whitworth -- come find out! :)

The writings on the wall and "Who? What? When? Where? Why?"

Hannah has recently become obsessed with "writing". She does it whenever she can get the chance. Her favorite thing to write -- her name. I say this with some conditions: we tell her what letters to write (she doesn't know how to spell her first name, although she can spell, not write, her last name) and the letters are mostly just discernible by us. Her "A" is pretty awesome -- most of the time it is upside down, although perfectly done. So, if you were ever to do a headstand, you could easily read Hannah's "A". Her "N" is frequently backwards and almost impossible to tell. Her "H" is pretty solid. Her favorite place to practice is the bathtub. She has some tub crayons that we probably wouldn't let her use on a nice bath wall, but our tub's walls are gross and soon to be replaced, so it is her blank canvas screen.

Besides H, A and N (lucky girl! only has to learn to write 3 letters for her name!), she likes to write "E". Her "E" usually looks like a vertical stick with numerous horizontal lines going all the way through it (definitely more than 3 lines). She will tell me that "E" is for Evan, our old neighbor boy. Why she associates just Evan with "E" I don't know - we've tried to tell her "E" is also for Edith (an old school friend) or Uncle Eddie or elephants, but to Hannah, "E" is just for Evan.

Also, other mother's of 3 year old, does your child ask questions non-stop? I know this is a pretty common trait but I had no idea just how much she would ask. Here is a sample for a five minute window during Hannah's breakfast:

H: Mommy, where is your yogurt?

A: I already ate.

H: What is that sound?

A: The garbage disposal.

H: What is the garbage disposal?

A: It takes the yucky stuff in the sink away.

H: How do you do it?

A: I flip this switch. But it is only something Mommy or Daddy can do. [Envision Hannah "helping" me with the garbage disposal.]

H: Where are you going? [As I leave the room briefly, which she follows.]

A: To make the bed. [Just did it because people are coming today to deliver furniture-otherwise, why bother?]

H: Who sleeps on that side? [Like she doesn't know?!]

A: Me.

H: So where did Bentley sleep? [Already told her once this morning.]

A: In the middle. [Leave bedroom, enter dining room.]

H: What is that sound?

A: The dishwasher.

H: Why is it going?

A: Because we have dirty dishes.

I could go on, but our morning isn't really exciting. This was just to illustrate that fact that the questions are coming non-stop. Some of the times I think she knows the answer but just feels the need to double check. Some questions are easy, so not so much. Either way, they keep coming!

She speaks (in church...)!

Abby decided to let her voice be heard, loud and clear, in true PK* fashion. Yes, Abby had her first official word today -- in the middle of church. And yes, it was "Dada" in the middle of the children's sermon (which she was not part of). She had been saying "Dada" previously, but never in a manner than made us go "oh, she is being very deliberate-she knows what she is saying." Today, however, it was deliberate. Kevin was up front, she saw him up there (she hadn't been paying attention prior to that because she was too busy trying to get my bulletin) and she loudly squealed "Dada!" She repeated this performance when she saw Kevin in fellowship hall during coffee hour, lurching from my arms to him. As the new Abby "quote of the moment" shows, Abby has a new word/sound combination. "Ha Nah" has not been said to Hannah or even in reference to her, but she says it clearly and loudly (heck, she hollers it!). I can't wait till she yells it at Hannah!

In crawling -- still frustration. She is great backwards, in circles but forward has not happened yet. However, she does rock while up on all fours and seems poised (at last!) to move forward. But, she is also working on standing and occasionally moving feet forward (while holding on to stuff) so who knows, maybe this girl will walk first. *PK is a slang term for Preacher's Kid. A way to show that these kids aren't your average Sunday School pupil....

Also, for comparison, Hannah's first word was Mama, followed by Dada, ball and boo (she had a vocabulary of 4 by 12 months).

Old, ugly and broken.... New and beautiful.

After months (0kay 2 months and we weren't focused continually on the window) of hard work, we have beautiful new windows. Finally, the girls have real curtains and not garbage bags (must admit, black garbage bags are great black out curtains--if you don't mind the smell of baked bags). Also, these are not pictures of the same window -- the first window is still in the process of being fixed up (guess we bought out the local lumber store's molding supply...) and the second window is in our bedroom. We still have 4 windows to finish off (the top one being one) and 4 windows to do completely, but 8 windows (9 counting the garage) are completely done.

Who knew this was such a big undertaking?!

Our Dam Trip

I'm here to inform you of a date you probably missed. I'm sure you are shocked to know that your calendar neglected to tell you, but, the Grand Coulee Dam just celebrated it's 75th anniversary (of starting the project). I know -- how did you miss it?

Well, let me tell you, around here, you can't. To help mark the momentous occasion, the Bureau that runs the dam (it is under the Department of the Interior, in the Bureau of Reclamation--in case you ever wanted to know) opened up the top of the dam to the public for a few short hours. Although in the good ol' days you could freely drive across the dam, since 9/11 that has been a no-no. Which is fine by me. I have a healthy fear of heights and massive bodies of waters, so my desire to travel across the dam is zippo.

However... Kevin (darn him!) was determined to take part in such a special event and was taking Hannah, with or without me. Worried that he wouldn't properly supervise (what if she came within 5 feet of the edge without a firm grip on her hand?! Okay, so there there is a high fence, but still!), I had no choice but to come along.

This is what I saw.

a lloonnngg ways down to the Columbia River!

Lake Roosevelt (the other side of the dam)

I now know how thick the dam is -- two lanes with room to spare!

Um, there is s sniper hiding in this tower. Freaky!

Coulee Dam's massive sand pile (it's only been there for about 75 years....)

I'm proud of myself for conquering the dam. It brought to mind another instance where I was pressured into doing something that I didn't want to do -- one summer at camp I had to do a ropes course event with my leadership group. Would have backed out but I was too chicken to make myself look foolish (hmm... too bad I don't have the same fear on this blog...). This time, I did it due to irrational fear of Hannah going over. Either way, pretty stupid. Of course, my fear of going across the dam was pretty stupid too.

Picture doesn't really show my death grip on Abby...

Hannah, of course, was fearless on the dam and had a great time.

I did loosen up. Here Kevin has both girls as we head towards safety and dry land. (Maybe it was the extreme pain in my back that made me loosen up...)

Olympic Prayer

I'm going to use this post as a mini-platform. I do so with great hesitancy. First of all, many of you are probably aware of what I am posting on. Secondly, I am very gun shy of band wagon religious movements (never was a huge fan of WWJD although I think it is an essential premise to base your life on). So, those of my two disclaimers.

Still.

As we enjoyed worship this morning, we were reminded of the fact that in China 100 million (at least, that is the estimate) fellow believers had to meet in secret for fear of persecution, imprisonment and possible death. That is an awful lot of our brothers and sisters in Christ who are denied the ability to freely express their faith. As the Olympics draw near, and as we all eagerly give up many free hours watching the games, matches and races, an organization, China Aid, is distributing wrist bands (much like the Live Strong bands) to remind us viewers to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ. You can go online to get your free band (or, if you are a larger organization, you can order some in bulk) and use these next few weeks of sports overload to remember to pray for those who desperately need it.

Funny Girl

In the last few weeks, there have been two separate instances that I thought were "blog worthy" but just haven't gotten around to posting. So, this lucky post will get to contain them both.

The first one took place the day of Kevin's installation. I haven't posted really anything about that, mostly because Abby's baptism the next day overshadowed it but also partly because I am waiting to see if I get any good pictures to post. The ones I have right now are all fuzzy, but I know that Kevin's cousin Amy got some but is having technical difficulties. So, maybe I'll post pictures on the installation. I'll do a super fast (for me) summary: it was a joyful celebration of the church. His ordination (seemed to me) was about his hard work and the long journey to completion. His installation was the church celebrating that their long, faithful wait was over and was welcoming us into the body. Highlights -- our pastor from NJ came out to preach, which I always think it is a treat to listen to Tim so I greatly enjoyed it and one of Kevin's former professor (from our Whitworth days) came and gave the charge to Kevin. Pretty cool since 6 years ago he helped Kevin start on this path while Kevin was an undergrad. Plus, family again gathered to celebrate with us, which means we've seen more family in these last 2 months that we did for the 12 months before.

Okay, back to Hannah. On the Saturday Kevin was installed, Hannah took a nap. She has been pretty spotty nap-wise (missing most days, but then making up with a marathon 3 1/2 hour nap). This day she napped, but in an unusual place.

That is her closet. She gathered all of her special sleep things (dolls, blankets, pillow, cow), brought them all into the closet with her, set them up (on a paper box which she cushioned with her pillow), closed the closet door, and went to sleep. Best nap she had all week. However, don't think she liked being woken up with a camera flash...

The second thing is what she did during nap time (you know, instead of sleeping). This second thing is slightly embarrassing to me. Mostly because it seems to highlight a part of my personality that I was hoping Hannah would avoid. However, if this one event (and some others that we won't list here) is to be believed, my daughter got some of my own anal-ness.

Hannah had a good time organizing her shoes (and even categorizing them). She was irked for quite awhile that the slipper was lonely on the end, but that is because it was hiding under our bed (why? who knows!). Hannah has maintained this system faithfully. When she takes off her shoes for nap time, she has to make sure that they go in their spot in the line. No more flinging shoes any which way.

However, one day during nap she did decide to switch it up and do a pattern. It is not an A-B pattern, or even an A-B-B pattern, but it is a start, so this former kindergarten/first grade teacher will take it. (If you are unsure what an A-B pattern is, don't worry--you only need to know that sort of thing if you teach primary.) Here, Hannah and Sally pose beside the pattern.

The tie in of this behavior with myself. As some will attest to, my closet is rather particularly organized. Only white coat hangers will do (no miss-match freebies from Old Navy for me!) and shirts are categorized by season, color and type. More than once I have been made fun of for this (Jennifer!). Little scary to see the same behavior mimicked in Hannah, but I've got to admit -- this is not the first time I've been scared to see part of myself peering back at me through her.