LOOK! Spencer is smiling in a picture! Of course he was only three years old. Maybe that's why. He wasn't too cool for that kind of thing. :) 

This is for you, Davida

I know how much you love living in the Valley, Davida, and I thought about you the other day. Here's why. I like to look on craigslist.org at the sale section. In our area there are a lot of postings every day. I really like looking at the furniture people are getting rid of. There are some really great deals up there. Anyway, for fun, I decided to see if McAllen had any listings up there. Lo and behold, there is a listing for good old McAllen. When I looked to see what was available, there was only one listing for furniture compared to 75-100 for Raleigh. I'm assuming that this is because everyone still uses everything up until there is nothing left to it. The one listing really made me laugh too. It said, book shelf $75. This item is in Reynosa, Mexico, but I can go get it for you if you are interested. Yes, that is definitely the Valley!

We have quite a sizeable Mexican community up here do to so much agricultural work available up here. Zach wants to speak Spanish so badly it's pitiful,..... and sometimes embarrassing especially to Spencer. When Zach sees some Mexicans at Wal-Mart, he starts talking English to them in a Mexican accent. That was until tonight. Tonight, it was, "Uno, dos, tres, con permiso, bon jour!" Spencer was like, "Zach, BE QUIET!" Poor kid, he doesn't even know the difference between Spanish and French!



This is a picture of Zach and Spencer's dad (Papa).

God Still Works

Our pastor is on a missions board, and they are having candidate school this week. On Sunday, one of the candidates was at our church. It was absolutely amazing to hear how God works. The man is from Lebenon. He did not believe in any religion because "it makes a strong man weak." At the age of 14 he was enamored with Karl Marx and started a communistic group at his school. He was even responsible for burning down a truly Christian ministry's building and destroying the ministry. At the age of 17, a man came up to him and asked him if he would like to know about the kingdom of God. This man said, "Yes, but only if he were shown strictly from the Bible." For the next several years he then became a Jehovah's Witness. One day, he was studying a passage of Scripture for his Bible study group. It was Romans 1:16. In a nutshell, it says that salvation is through Christ. He came to the conclusion that Christ must then be God, and salvation is through Him. He had a 4 hour meeting with the elders of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and then left the religion. He then sought out a truly Christian ministry that he knew of and went to a meeting. At the meeting was the man who was in charge of the ministry that had been previously destroyed. He said that he knew that this man who was telling the story would get saved because he was so much like Saul. He had been praying for the man's salvation for ten years.
There is a lot more to this man's story, but I don't have a whole lot of time to write, so I will probably save it for a future posting.

Small Town Politics

In the background is a strip mall that is being built on some old farm land diagonal to our church. This where Target, Belk, Marshalls and I don't know what else are going in. The water is from flooding that occured on Wednesday due to remnants of Tropical Storm Alberto.

I mentioned a while ago that we are finally getting a Target in our town. However, I did not mention the fire storm that this has created in our town. Our city offered quite a few incintives to Target to get them to put a store here. The local, might I add pitiful, mall got mad because they said that the new shopping center would pull business away from the mall. (Let me mention that the mall is already losing business and stores.) I think one reason that they got mad was because one of the anchor stores decided to move to the new Target shopping center. Anyway, the mall sued AND decided to build a new movie theatre. The lawsuit did not work, but the theatre just has opened. Spencer calls it a monstrosity. It really is too. The theatre is RIGHT out front of the mall at an awkward angle. Not only that, but it is also taller than the whole rest of the mall. This of course is really accentuated because of how the theatre is butted up to the mall. Anyway, what I find so absolutely amusing is that we had flooding here due to the remnants of Tropical Storm Alberto only a few days after the grand opening of the theatre. Well, guess what happened? One of the retaining walls to the theatre fell down. I had to include a picture of it below.

Aggrivations and Irritations or Aggrivators and Irritators

Before I start this post, I have to explain that our children go to their grandparents' house every Wednesday night before church. Therefore, they were not home when this exchange went on. Spencer came home today while I was busy trying to put things on the table for supper. He had been home for a few minutes when I realized that he had not said a word. Why????? Just to get a rise out of me. When I mentioned it to him he just started laughing but still would not talk. As we sat down to supper, I got smart and bowed my head and prayed quietly by myself because I knew he was going to try to get me to pray so he would not have to talk. He would not ask me to pass any food, he would just point. I started keeping food out of his reach so he would have to talk. Seeing that he is very stubborn, the only good that did was to create a food fight and very bad table manners. :) We made it to the end of our meal, and lo and behold.........Spencer bit the side of his mouth. It really made me laugh. Served him right. He finally started talking too.
I'm glad that we have a good time together.
So, here's the question. Girls, what does your husband do to irritate you on purpose? Guys, what do you find particularly amusing to do just to get on your wife's nerves? Girls, what do you do to get a rise out of your husband; and guys, what does your girl do that really gets to you? Just wondering.

Anything Exciting Going On?

So, I'm sitting at the doctor's office the other day and a technician comes to one of the subwaiting rooms where I was and says, "A prisoner wanted for murder has escaped from a van taking him to the doctor, so be careful when going to your cars."
OKAYYYYY! Spencer looked things up on the internet and found that the guy had somehow come out of his leg cuffs and jumped out of the van at an intersection we frequently use.
When Spencer came home from work that night we had to go to a soccer party for Zach. Spencer told me about how there were about ten police cars with no police men in them parked in the center lane of the intersection of interest. Of course, we HAD to drive that way when we went to the party, and of course we HAD to drive back that way on the way home. While stopped at that intersection on the way home, Zach said, "Mom, look at those army men!" As I turned around, I saw a SWAT team crossing the street with some wicked looking guns in their hands. I felt kind of embarrassed because as I was staring at the SWAT team, I noticed a detective that we run into every once in a while at birthday parties in the SUV right behind us. I didn't want him to think I was nosy, but come on.........how often do you see a scene like that in real life?! Every single street in a 20 block section had some sort of law enforcement vehicle and person at the end of the street. They would check all the trunks of any vehicle coming from those blocks. (One lady in a class that my Mom is taking told the police man that he could check everything and even ride with her if he wanted. I think that was how a lot of people were beginning to feel.) Not too long after we got home, we found out that the detective who was behind us at the intersection found the escapee under a house that we drove by both times. I'm glad they caught him! The escapee said he learned how to escape from his cuffs from fellow prisoners. He told the sheriff that he would show them that he could do it again, but he would not show them how he did it. They locked him in hand and ankle cuff and a waist chain and left him in a cell. In four minutes he was out of everything. They have now sent him to a higher security prison in Raleigh.
Did I ever tell you that our little town is very interconnected? Well, I had to go back to the doctor the next morning, and I saw that the technician is the county sheriff's wife. No wonder she came out to tell everyone about the escapee so quickly after it happened!
Gotta love a small town!!!

To Homeschool or Not -That is the Question

The other day I drove Spencer's truck to Wal-Mart. While at a stop light this man in the next vehicle was trying to get my attention. I looked in the back of the truck to see if there was anything wrong, and the man said, "Roll your window down!" So, I did. He said, in the most polite voice (southern accent of course), "Ma'am, your right brake light is out." I thought, "Wow, all that trouble to tell me about my brake light." As I was rolling up the window, I heard him say on his cell phone, "I was just telling this lady next to me that her brake light was out." As he drove off, I noticed his SUV was really nice. Since we are in the market for a new vehicle, I decided to see what kind it was. It was a Lexus.....Not quite in our price range. Hearing him talk on the cell phone got me wondering what it would be like to carry on a real conversation with a person like that man. He was soooooo properly polite. Do people like him have real conversations?? Do they have any emotion?? Are they always politely distant??
A few days later, I took all the kids shopping--for food. While at a bulk food store we walked past this very well dressed man who was looking at boxes of chewing gum. I got what I needed and went to check out. For some reason the cash registers were down, and we had to wait in line for a while. As we were waiting, the well- dressed man had finally decided on what kind of gum he needed and got in line behind us and struck up a conversation.
Man: Wow, someone's been busy. There were seven children in my family. People always called us the Waltons. How old are they?
Me (pointing to each kid): 5, almost 4, 2, and 18 months; but I keep the two year old for a friend.
.........................Lot of small talk.........................
Man (looking at Zach): You're five? It's about time for you to go to school soon isn't it?
Zach: Well, I home school right now.
Me: We want to eventually put them in school, but right now we keep them at home and homeschool them.
Man: It's good to put kids in school. There's so much children need to know these days.
Me: I was a school teacher, so I'm comfortable teaching them at home.
Man: My wife and I are highly educated too, but children just need to know so much these days. It may be okay to homeschool for the first few years, but there's so much out there that children need to know.
.........................Silence for a few minutes.................
Me: So, what do you do?
Man: I'm the superintendent of schools.
Me: So, you stay really busy too. (Uh, gulp!)
At that time, the cash registers opened back up, and the lines started moving.
The man and I both left the store around the same time, and guess what vehicle he got in????
Yep. That same Lexus I was talking about earlier.
So, I got to have my real conversation with the super-polite, proper person; and found that he COULD carry on a normal conversation. On top of that, he had five brothers and one sister to boot.
That conversation got me to thinking though. Yes, there is a lot for children to learn these days. Yes, home schooling is difficult. No, it's not for everyone. However, for all that children need to know, can't it be more easily provided through home schooling? Kids get more one on one attention. They have a schedule that can be worked around so that a large variety of activities can be participated in. Kids can go at their own pace, so they thoroughly understand every aspect of their work. I think it's a win-win situation if the homeschool provider can keep up with all the extra responsibilities that go with homeschooling.
I know some people are just not equipped to home school. I've talked to a few on the phone when I worked in A Beka School Services. I feel sorry for their children because they are not getting a good education even though they have good resources. However, there are a whole lot of people who are able to give their children a great education through home schooling, and are still able to provide their children with friendships, competition, music, and sports and whatever else it is that children "need to know these days" at the same time.