Round 'n Round and the Rise of a New Power

Hey everyone. We went out to see Spiderman 3 a few weeks ago (best Spiderman, although that really doesn't say much), and I was just thinking of all the superheroes out there. And none, not even Batman, compares to the Mighty K. Welcome to the rise of a new powerful superhero - Mighty K. As you can see from some of our pictures and videos, she has several superhuman strengths.

One is the ability to run the "round 'n round" with no sense of stopping. The round and round is Grandpa and Grandma Smith's house, which is built so you can run round and round in circles. Whoever designed that place originally should be given a Medal of Honor.

Mighty K's second ability is "bubble-blowing". We broke out some of the bubble blowing gear in the last few weeks, and Kaelyn and I sat on the couch blowing bubbles for a good hour. Some would pop in her eyes, and all over the place, but she didn't care. When momma got a hold of us, there was soap everywhere. Now that's a special ability.

The last ability is her fearsome roar when she says the word "muscles." "Mussssssosss!" I can see the fear in your eyes already.

So these last few weeks we've spent away from the house as much as possible. I left you with a bit of a cliffhanger that we were facing at the time, and because of the public nature of this blog, I didn't feel it was appropriate to share all that's going on. Now I can.

We've been working through one major issue in our lives - our senior pastor has resigned, effective June 17. As a result, my job description is vastly changing to more preaching and less student ministries. We're trying to keep that in balance, and I am certainly feeling the weight of many sermons at this point. Oh well, should be fun. I also have fully realized my total lack of desire to be anything senior pastorish. So that's a good confirmation. In fact, several people have asked me if I would step into a senior pastor role, to which I reply, "Yeah right. No."

So that's mostly what we've been dealing with. With that, we've managed to hole up for a bit because of the weight we've been carrying. We got away a few times to Michelle's parents, and a couple of times to my parents, so some of these pictures are from those visits. We've really enjoyed being able to hang with grandparents (and uncles and aunts too!), and it is really huge to my heart to be able to see Kaelyn play with kids her age (her buddy and cousin Tristan).

So we're still waiting on a few pieces of news - whether Michelle gets into school, what our summer will look like, and a bunch of other things that could help to dictate the outcome of our next couple of months of our lives. Good times.

The weather is finally warming up around here, which makes me pretty happy. We've been spending a lot of time on the swings at the park and listening to Kaelyn exercise her vocabulary (which is huge now).

All that to say, summer is finally here! Yay! We hope the weather is nice in your area, and we'd love to hear from you! I'm excited to share my growing backlog of pictures with you - I've been holding out - so here are some more of our Smith Scene. Have a great day!

Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Swings

I'm sitting here listening to our parrot-girl as she copies everything Michelle is putting on her grocery list.

"Cheese buns." "Cheeze baaaaas."

"Berries." "Beezeeeees."

"Meat." "Meat." (nailed that one)

"Juice." "Joooooooos." (nailed that one too)

"Pickles." "Pickohs."

"Sour Cream." "Sowah Keem."

Very cute.

We just got back from the "aaaihs" and "wheeees" (slides and swings) and a great park just a few blocks from us. I'll have to catch up on some of my pictures. I haven't wanted to post them all at once, so every post there are good pictures. So as I get the ones of Grandpa and Kaelyn playing in the yard, I'll post them up. Grandpa Smith has been visiting us for the last few days, which made for a fun week. Today Kaelyn has been asking, "Where's the boppa?" (Where's the grandpa?) Yesterday Grandpa, Daddy, and Kaelyn all made it to the park together and made sure to hit a lot of slides and swings then too.

So today we're laying low and just relaxing. My knee is pretty sore from a good day of football yesterday, so I've been icing and tensor bandaging all day. That and reading. And swinging. A very productive day.

The picture of the little one in the walker, for those of you who don't know, is my little nephew Tristan. He's testing out the best thing I have ever made with anything Lego-like. It's my small child walker. The best part is that he actually walked like an old guy when he used it. That picture was taken at Easter, when we were up at my parent's place.

We're all looking forward to the end of the week. It's been an exceptionally long week, and once tomorrow is done, we'll be very happy. Then we're going to blast out of Hinton and go visit Michelle's parents. That'll be very good.

Anyhow, I'll update you with some pics, and then get back to my very busy day. Video games are on the agenda, or perhaps something even more productive, like sleep. Or more reading. Or looking on Canadian Tire's website for a hammock stand. Let's hope for the last one, that would be great.

The first picture you see is from yesterday when we went swinging. The rest are from a few weeks ago when we were up visiting family in Meadow Lake. In the last few, Kaelyn is on her Easter Egg hunt, followed by her and Tristan playing with their new sidewalk chalk in Grandma and Grandpa Smith's basement. Oh what fun! Hope you all have a good week, and I'm hoping to post a whole lot more on here in the coming future!

A Special Treat this Week!

Well, we're here in the second best part of the week (Sunday afternoon usually being the best, because then I get both Sunday aft and Monday morning to look forward to). Mondays mornings are great - for us it means french toast and long coffees. Those are good things.

So this morning I figured out how to post things on YouTube. These are the videos that I've posted; hope you like them!

Nothing too incredibly new or exciting to report at this moment. Life is busy as usual, Michelle is still waiting to hear back from the U of A, and Kaelyn continues to amaze us with her vocab. My work has been kind of fun and challenging lately. On the fun note, I am in the process of creating a 47" x 95" poster for a board. It looks amazing so far. On Saturday, I raced out to a lake that has a view of two separate mountain ranges and took 30 pictures of them. They look great, and that's on the background of the huge poster. So hopefully it'll turn out!

Zoe is, as usual, sleeping behind my chair. I just realized that (too late) as I moved the shair backward to give me more room. Whoops.

Sorry for the short post this morn. Things are unfolding around here (at least we think) and over the next little while, we'll probably be able to fill you in. Mostly minor stuff, but as my brain wakes up, I'm remember what it is too.

As for us, we're going to spend the next week laying low and taking some time to relax. I say that now, and I actually hope it'll be reality. Hopefully over the next week, we'll let you know how things are going around here, but if you don't see it here, make sure to give us a ring!

The Da Vinci of Fingerpaint!

Well well well. Who have we here? You haven't checked this site in a while, have you? Tsk tsk. Such a pity.

What's that?

You're saying you haven't checked in in a while because it never gets updated?

Man, the way people shift blame around these days...

So, we're here with this computer again, and it's great. You never really realize how much you miss your computer until it's gone. Now we're back up and running and for the first time in years, it doesn't sound like an asthmatic dog. Long live technology!

Over the last month, Michelle and I have taken a good 21 days to decide our future. We've been praying somewhat consistently, and we've now begun to discuss our future again. I'll let you know details as they become more available to us. At this point, Michelle has applied to school at the University of Alberta. She's really hoping to get in to the teacher's end of things, but we'll see! She's now babysitting one day a week but it's more to help out fellow poor families rather than propel our financial situation into one of riches and wealth. Or middle-class.

These last two weeks have been constant dentist visits for the both of us. I've had three appointments, and Michelle and 1.5. Apparently, when you don't visit the dentist for four years, they have some catching up to do. So I sit here tonight with straight teeth, and the many basketballs I've taken to the head are no longer evident in my "piano keys." Michelle keeps bragging to me that she still has yet to get a cavity. It's really not a fair position though, because at her height, tooth decay is unheard of because of the denser air pressure.

That's what the dentist told me...

Speaking of dentist, he actually gave me a sticker today. He said I was a very good patient, but that was mostly because I was telling jokes with his staff, who now know me by name. That's fine. I got good teeth. And a sticker.

Kaelyn is now in full parrot mode. Everything is copied, even the word "copycat". She'll tell you about her day, sing you song, yell your name louder and louder until you listen...she's very fun. Oh, and we have a new nephew on the Smith side - Rylan Matthew Smith! Congrats to Doug and Megan, who are now the future recipients of two little boys scheming! Wonderful!

So with that, I've said much, but I really want to get to posting some pictures. So I'll get to that, and wish you all a great day! Peace!