Winner of the Family Strategies Series

And the winner is…

Alexa!

Congratulations, we’ve forwarded your information to Vision Forum for the free webinar ticket.

New Glasses!

  We picked up my new glasses today from Crown Optical today but I just had to post a picture that shows Noah’s ingenuity.  A few weeks ago my second pair of glasses had broken (my first pair had broken in December) and I had lost the nosepiece that had broken off.  My vision is so poor that even getting out of bed can be a challenge without glasses.  Noah had the great idea of using his hot glue gun to construct a new nosepiece for me and the result was fantastic.  It may have looked a little large, but no one ever noticed it unless it was pointed out to them and it was very comfortable and kept the glasses tight on my nose.

   When we picked up the glasses the optometrist dilated my eyes so he could examine the eye more carefully than he had during my last visit.  Because my prescription is so large and my retinas have been stretched  there is a larger change of a very small chance that my retina could someday become detached from my eye.  The examination went well and everything looked good.  Just in case light became too bright for me they gave me some neat “sunglasses” that also looked great if we wanted people to think you were a blind person. (Photo credit: Noah Wong)  We still had a few errands to run, if anyone looked at my eyes too closely (and I didn’t have the sunglasses on)they would’ve noticed my large, dilated pupils staring back at them!

Enter to Get a FREE Ticket to:

A 20-Week Energy Boost of Strategic Thinking and
Encouragement from Doug and Beall Phillips

Get your new Family Strategies message every Tuesday morning.
Beginning March 1, every Tuesday morning for twenty weeks you will receive a link to your new downloadable message from Doug or Beall, hosted at Vision Forum’s partner website BlueBehemoth.com. To access your first download, simply create a free BlueBehemoth.com account and then follow the easy instructions in your weekly emails to download your messages at no additional charge.

Listen to the messages at your convenience on your computer, iPod, or other portable MP3 player. And, don’t worry if you miss a week due to travel. The messages will be there waiting for you.

More information can be found at the Vision Forum website.

To enter in this giveaway just leave a comment on this or any other post!

(1 comment per day, per person) Each comment submitted from now until the closing of the giveaway will be entered for a change to win a free ticket to the Family Strategies webinar.

The winning comment will be announced at 9pm this Monday (Feb 28 2011)

If you are the winner we will ask you to email us your name, mailing address and email.

Similar Photo Shoot in 2008…

   We took photos at Bee Tree Park in October of ‘08 and so below are some photos from this year’s photo shoot next to photos from the photo shoot two years ago.

Hmm…I have grown in 2 1/2 years!

  The lighting and the foliage were a lot more colorful the first time in 2008

I wonder if Benjamin prefers standing on a wall so he can look down on everyone else

Same wall

Looks like our sister slipped in for a picture

  

   A few things about these two photo shoots can be similarr, but some photos can never be taken again.

Ken Wong

Red Light Camera Protest

This Monday (also St. Valentine’s Day) we joined a couple of other folks at an intersection to protest the red light cameras. We got a lot of support from the car’s horns and we even had a thumb ups from a police officer.

According to MODOT’s reports, at this intersection there has been a 370% increase in accidents since the cameras were installed…yeah, the cameras are in place to save lives and aren’t there for revenue…

Photo Shoot

   Mom had purchased some large canvases through Groupon that were expiring, so we spent today trying to get ready for a photo shoot.  Mom packed a few changes of clothes to get different styles of pictures, but we arrived at the park so late we didn’t have time for too many pictures before the sun went down.

You’ve heard that we’ve making a few changes at the house….

….actually these photos were taken at Bee Tree park where there are a lot of architectual elements that can be neat for a photo shoot.

 

I think that the reason why we call these photo shoots instead of a photography session, is to trick Benjamin into grabbing a gun and hopping in the car. If the word ‘shoot’ is in it he won’t second guess.

“Hey Benjamin, it’s time to leave so we  can shopping-shoot.”

 

I thought this was supposed to be a guys-only picture

None of the photos that we ended up with were fantastic, but we probably have at least one for a canvas.

Christian Archer’s Dinner

 

Benjamin was invited to a special Christian Archer’s Dinner by some friends and he and Mom attended it tonight. The room was packed with about 300 outdoorsman. Benjamin got to try the meat from some wild game: moose, goose, bear, bobcat and deer.

There were also some neat animals that were still alive-including alligators! (We found out later that somebody had been bitten, but not severely bitten.)

There was also an Elvis-style hunting song that I may be posting as a video before too long.

 

 

  However, the best part of the evening was listening to a great message by Chuck McAllister who shared some funny hunting stories and also shared some of God’s Word with the audience.

Bowling!

Tuesday is our new un-official bowl night at Quonset Lanes…it’s their family night with no smoking, $1/game and a $1/shoe rental. That works for us.

CHEF Paintball

We’ve been driving around quite a bit this week, in fact for the last 3 days we’ve driven over 100 miles.  Today we drove to St. Charles for the annual CHEF-MO’s paintball game!

  We played paintball for the first time at last year’s game while Dad was in the hospital.  It was fun, but our masks fogged up a lot so for about half of the games we couldn’t see a thing.

 

 

 

 

Benjamin and I strategizing with some fellow players.

 

Noah and the guy on the right is me.

 

   We didn’t have any problems with the masks and had even more fun this year!

  Noah and Benjamin were on the white team and I was on the orange team.  The white team won with a score of like 8-1.

Squirrel Sleeping on Deck Rail

His eyes are open….maybe he was just spying the on us to find the most opportune time to make a dash for the birdfeeder.

Believe it or not, this picture was taken by the great rodent-killer and defender of the birdfeeder, Benjamin.  Last year his presence was feared amongst the squirrels, but it seems Ben’s reputation has waned amongst our yard’s rodents.

Benjamin’s 15th Birthday

Today is Benjamin’s 15th birthday!  It’s hard to believe!

We drove up to Bass Pro Shops, so Benjamin could get a new compound bow for hunting.  The man in the Archery area was very helpful.  Benjamin would try shooting the bow in their archery range and the Bass Pro Rep. made adjustments, so that it would fit just right.

 

  That night we had a party with a few family and friends at the bowling alley.  Wow, how my Grandma can bowl!

More Snow?

   We got about 5” of snow that came as a surprise overnight.  The snow was easily cleared, but because no one was expecting it a lot of the parking lots weren’t clear.