He's my friend

From September 2009

The dashboard of our Toyota has had three different lights that come on and go off for no reason that I could see and we were overdue for an oil change. When we first moved here I took my car in to have the tires rotated and balanced and the kids and I waited for three hours. (I had no idea I would miss Les Schwab so much!) I was outraged and everyone seemed mystified by my frustration. Now I understand why. I am finally resigned to spending three hours waiting when I take my car in for an oil change. Today it took a little over four hours to have the car taken care of. We finished schoolwork way too fast. It often doesn't work out this way but all four of the children were so good for all of the hours that we were there stuck in such a cramped boring place. We tried to walk somewhere but were surrounded by freeways. It was a beautiful day so we sat on a bench outside and tried to be relatively quiet together. I had been dreading this day but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We had a good time together, wishing that we could go home.
On the way home we were listening to Patch the Pirate (again). I was thinking my own thoughts. Ohio has been a great place for us to be in many ways. It has also been a pretty lonely place. I expected fitting in and developing relationships to take time when I moved here. We are three and a half years into it now. I thought that this year would be easier in that respect. It has been the opposite. With less than two years to go here I am losing the heart to try anymore. In the background I heard Lightning the Mule singing:
"Jesus loves me, He's my friend,
Of His goodness, there's no end.
On His mercy I depend.
Jesus loves me, He's my friend."

I don't mean to trivialize Who He is, or be too familiar. I see Him as holy and unfathomable. But I was ministered to by that song as I meditated on God's love for me, how He has been and is the friend that I need.

From September 2009

Jan participated in the Akron Kids Triathlon last weekend. She did great. There are so many unknowns involved in being apart of something like that. As a seven year old I don't think there is any way that I would have been willing to get out of my comfort zone the way she did. I was proud of her. They swam 100 yards, biked 3.5 miles and ran 1/2 mile. She took it all in stride and figured it out and is looking forward to next year.

From September 2009

From September 2009

From September 2009

It nearly killed Alec to just watch it all. There were more female participants than male ones. The girls seemed much more intent on HOW to do it all than they were on doing anything very FAST. Alec is pretty competitive and likes physical exercise just for the joy of wearing himself out. He is counting the days until next year when he will be old enough to try the triathlon.

From September 2009

Alec has had two football games and made a touchdown in both of them. Until the middle of October he has one game and one practice a week. I think it is his favorite time of year. Whenever he has free time you can see him out in the yard sprinting around with a football like there is a crowd of flag pulling bullies hot on his heels.

Back to School

 

Suddenly it is in the 40's at night and we are shivering in our summer clothes. Time to get out the winter things. The cooler air feels wonderful but in the back of my mind I know that once we get out the fleeces and hats and mittens they will be here for the next 9 months. May is so far away! We have officially started the school year and are loving it. The children just love to learn and that is what is making it so much fun. I am sure that soon our excitement will wear down and it will seem more like work, but right now it is like playing. Instead of letting the year stretch out forever in front of us I realized that I need a shorter picture to work with. I am taking it month by month and setting small goals for each month. At the end of the school year I tried to remember the year and document all that we did and saw and learned. I was amazed at how much we had done. I started to see how much I needed the encouragement of documenting what we are doing month by month. Nothing fancy, just a file on the counter for the three oldest ones to put in special papers and projects as they finish them this month, along with any special trips or lessons or discoveries. I have a list so that I can write down every book they read themselves and another list of books that that they are read by an adult. So much that I am involved with has very little sense of accomplishment attatched to it. Laundry, dishes, meals, housecleaning, errands...they all have to be done again soon. Taking a tiny bit of time to make a note of what we are doing has been such an encouragement and given a sense of accomplishment.

The Clubhouse

 

This is the house that Grandpa Copper built. These are the people who live in the house. My parents were able to come and visit in July and in the last three days of their visit Grandpa and the children worked in the backyard on this clubhouse. They love having a place where they can keep and arrange their important things that aren't appreciated much in the house (baby snake skeletons, cicada bug shells, dead butterflies, pine cones, beautiful rocks, cowboy paraphenalia, pop guns, to name a few of them). This house is a dream come true for my two oldest children. It has renewed their relationship with some of the neighbor children who are several years older than the Carne kids and often have been too busy and important to play with them! Not any more.
We had to paint it after Grandpa and Grandma left since the finishing touches were put on before the trip to take them to the airport. It was hard to choose a color. We were afraid that it was going to be bright pink instead of red but with the second coat it relieved us all by drying dark and really being red. (The possibility of a pink clubhouse was just a little bit horrifying.) The children helped paint and it was fun, and not as messy as I thought it would be.
No one has camped out there yet, but they are working up their courage and maybe they will do it next year.
I need to post some pictures of 2 birthdays that we have had and the last pictures of swimming at the lake, but I will save that for another time.

Of Urine and Quarterbacks

From July 2009

As you may surmise from the title of this post, I have been fortunate to have had some contact, both direct and indirect, with my children. This summer has been much more like a Pacific Northwest summer for us here in Ohio, that is Dry and Pleasant. Only just recently have we had hot and humid make our acquaintance.
Jan has been reading like a nun, and we usually have to intervene physically between her eyes and whatever current page she is on to ask her anything that we might expect a reply of. She also has been training for a triathlon, which will be in a few weeks and is designed for kids (100M swim, 3 mile bike, 1 mile run). Kristi and the children have been frequenting a local lake, which is the ideal place to train for such an event, as it has a long swim lane, and a road around the lake which provides the opportunity for biking and running. She has also been afforded the luxury of royalty in the form of weekly riding lessons on various steeds at a local stables (the western variety, not the snooty equestrian variety). This week we are very excited as we anticipate our first episode of cantering. I believe our trot calluses are thick enough now.
Alec has enjoyed becoming a guy. He enjoys shooting hoops in the driveway with a basket "stolen" with the blessings of one our neighbors. He also finds great enjoyment in inciting a variety of somewhat predictable responses from his three sisters, and they rarely disappoint. He is quite coordinated still, and has played a bit of baseball with some local homeschoolers, and now has once again begun his most cherished sport of american football on the 5-6 yo flag team. He is very serious about it, and has earned the reputation along with Chance as one of the two fastest players, so they often share the ball-carrying and flag-pulling duties. This is where you all get to hear one of his many memorable quotes, relayed to me by my wife the other day in the form of an email while I was on call. "Mom, I know why quarterbacks make so much money.... It's because they have to touch bottoms." Once a follow-up question was addressed, we learned that quarterbacks have to feel bottoms so they know where the ball will be hiked, and because of this duty they perform, they are generously reimbursed.
Anne is still very much the loner. She does like to do her own thing, and seems to be quite aware of her surroundings as she has recently become a 4 year old. Much to her delight she received a new pair of authentic cowgirl boots from cowboy country from her grandfather in Central Oregon, and along with her new stick horse and sidearm very much enjoys her own rides and adventures on stickhorseback.
Pati is more and more the life of the party, the host of the party, and the pooper of the party. Very much the CEO if we would just get out of her way, she is in constant opposition to the encouragement of others to proceed in any specific way. I suppose that is what her somewhat unopinionated parents get, but there is nearly constant friction, and I suppose she will allow us to enjoy all sorts of events, companies, and trips and products, once she becomes of an age to afford her the benefit of our doubt. She is quite happy, in spite of us making her do what we want most of the time, and loves to have fun, and seems to find plenty of it. I am afraid she will need to procure gainful employment pretty soon, as she is already developing the most expensive tastes I have ever seen in a 2 year old. We are already praying for her life partner, and for their employment as well.

Kristi has been incredibly busy this year, and we were talking about this today on the way to or back from our new church in Cleveland called Parkside. She realized she has been unable to use the excuse of a nursing baby as the need to stay away from all sorts of activity, so we have been much more busy this summer travelling to all sorts of activities. These travels are balanced out by at least one or two bathroom visits each 20 min, so at least we don't have to get decubitus sores from inactivity at any point in our daily activity and travels.

Work at the hospital has been very busy for me this year, and it doesn't seem to slow down at all... in fact perhaps the opposite. At least I am over 3/5 done now, and am at the place where I perform much more of the operating duties, and am operating more. When on the service, I am chief of the service from now on, and am allowed to enjoy a bit more comradery with my attending physicians. I still don't get much time away from work, even when I am home, and feel more pressure to study and read and work on projects that I need to get done before my time is up. At the hospital there is very rarely down time, and we are still understaffed with more work than we have ever had, so balance and time management is always a challenge, and we never seem able to make anyone happy, but we still try to please everyone.

I hope you are well this summer, you enjoy time with family and closeness with God that you haven't experienced before. If you ever come this way, give us a visit. Call or write us as you are able, we would love to hear from you.

Servant in Training,
David