the unlikely orange

last week we had the opportunity to visit the turkey hill experience near Lancaster, pa, and part of the fun of that experience is designing your own imaginary ice cream flavor, packaging, and commercial.  they boys and I worked together to come up with a  brand new flavor called "MILINO-NUT," and it is a coconut ice cream with coconut chips, pretzel bits, and fudge swirl.  I know, right?  you want some in your belly right now.  well, perhaps you could call or write to turkey hill and demand that they start production of MILINO-NUT right away.  look for it on the shelves of your local grocery store soon.  here is the commercial we made...we were trying to hypnotize you into buying our ice cream.  let us know if it worked....

after our great day of getting to the d.c. area (alexandria, va), and getting acquainted with our surroundings, we settled in for a night of sleep to be well rested for our first day in the city.  the only problem is that the air mattress that shannon and i brought for ourselves wasn't holding air, and i slept horribly.  i was up by 3am and didn't really sleep much after that.  even though i was tired, we had a fantastic first day of sightseeing. we got to hunterdon station, took the yellow line of the metro to l'enfant station, and walked to the smithsonian visitor center, and then walked across the mall to the museum of natural history.  what a great museum! we saw lots of bugs (and got to watch a tarantula attack a live cricket, which the boys loved), some pretty cool egyptian stuff, and a stunning exhibit of nature photography.  We also saw exhibits dealing with the ocean, with mammals, and with rocks and gems (in which we saw the hope...

after a particularly memorable children's sermon by Miss Kim on sunday morning, Quinton felt inspired to do one of his own.  at dinner on sunday night (scrambled eggs and scrapple - that's a whole 'nother story), he informed us that he would like to do the children's sermon at church.  we told him that he should practice, and show us how he would do it. so he got a microphone, and got started.  he said good morning to us, and when we responded in kind, he said, "i think we could say it a little louder than that! "  so we said good morning even louder. that seemed to satisfy him, so he jumped right into the message.  Miss Kim had used an apple as an object lesson, talking about where apples come from and how many different kinds there are, etc.  following suit, Quinton began by talking about his eggs.  he told us about how he liked to eat eggs, and how he likes ketchup with them and so forth.  finally, Shannon asked him what this had to do wit...

ummm......really? is anyone else ever embarrassed to be a part of this culture, or is it just me? i'm just imagining trying to explain this to Marley, our little girl we pray for and support in hondoras. i was in honduras.  i remember meeting Maria, who got up at 4 in the morning to start making little flour tortillas in her 2-room "house" so that she can sell them on the street for a cent or two a piece. what would Maria say if i showed her this advertisement? what is wrong with us? not that i'm beyond this, believe me.  i can binge with the best of them, and my excessive personality has put me in situations that i'm sure i would be quite ashamed of in my more "balanced" moments. but at a moment like this, when i see the whole world and think of all of God's children, i wonder about the injustice of my excessive comfort, and what i can do about it.  i'm not trying to be preachy here, or tell you not to enjoy your double extreme bacon...

in an article entitled " almighty God in the age of exaggeration ," which was written by Megan Hill and appeared in the november 2014 edition of 'christianity today,' this quote is expressed and defended: "if everything is awesome, then nothing is." the defense offered is that only God is truly awesome (eliciting terrible awe) and therefore the word (as well as other adjectives, punctuation marks and emoticons) ought to be reserved for the God who alone is holy. this, in my humble opinion, is bologna. old, slimy, slightly sour bologna. "say to God, 'how awesome are your             works !'" - psalm 66:3 the truth is, the poet recognizes that it is not merely the self or substance of God which may elicit a holy sense of awe (or even righteous fear, as isaiah could attest to), but also the works of God; that is, the things that God has done and is doing. like what?  what could the psalmist possibly be talking about?  well ...

--back in the spring, someone came to jackson's class and gave them all a small cabbage plant.  they were all to take them home and grow them and see who could grow the best cabbage.  jackson was pretty excited about this, and you can see that he grew a very nice cabbage this summer, as a result. it is currently being turned into sour kraut, which is a disgusting process.  i voted for egg rolls, but i was voted down.  oh well, it is really great for the kids to see the growing process and how the earth can bring forth sustenance for us if we take care of it and nurture it. --if you watched sunday's game, you will enjoy this: --and if you are a steelers fan in pennsylvania, you will enjoy this: --quinton's been cracking me up with his talking recently.      northumberland christian school has been "balella (which is umbrella) christian school," and then "banana" christian school.      lasagna is baskahnia.  ...

jackson, caedmon and i put this puzzle together in about 4 hours or so. it is 1,000 pieces. it's nice to see that they've inherited my obsessive/compulsive tendencies. let's just keep it real.  when i'm in the middle of a puzzle, finding the next piece trumps any other activity.  i will keep searching for pieces even if i'm sitting cross-legged and bouncing up and down with a bladder so full that it is likely to rupture at any second.  some things are just more important that bodily functions.  the same goes with meals.  finishing this puzzle is more important than meals.  i will simply eat whatever is easiest and quickest.  what's that first thing in the cupboard?  oh, it's a bag of flax seeds?  that'll work.  i'll eat that for dinner.  now hurry up, i'm trying to find this red piece with a little purple on the corner.  what, the district superintendent is on the phone?  tell him i'll call him back tomorrow. ...

some of you may remember from my post about our summer bucket list  that we were planning a root beer taste test this summer.  well, we couldn't wait, so the second official day of summer seemed about as good a time as any. so we collected 13 different types of root beer, got a bunch of dixie cups ready, and started pouring.  i randomized the test for shannon, jackson and caedmon (quinton didn't taste test...he just drank his weight in root beer, one dixie cup at a time), and then shannon re-randomized it for me. we had score sheets so that we could take notes on each one.  you can see some of those notes below.  some were too sweet (almost like  molasses), some were good, but left a peculiar aftertaste.  one was just downright awful.  some were spicier, while others were sweeter.  i particularly like cade's score sheet, which reads: sweet, good, sweet, good, sweet, good, sweet, root beer barrels.   hard to argue with any...

okay.  so here's the problem.  the longer i go without posting something worth writing and reading on this blog, the harder it gets to post at all.  i think its been nearly two weeks since i wrote, and when that happens, i feel more and more pressure (from myself) to write something that validates the lack of posts. but i got nothing. so, in an effort to just grit my teeth and forge ahead today, i am singularly rejecting the idea that all my absenteeism requires some epic post to compensate.  instead, i will simply jot down a few things rattling around in my head this morning. the other night at dinner quin told us that he likes to eat yodels at a wash-a-not.  and that he likes flushies and hot gogs from target.  (yodels = noodles; wash-a-not = restaurant; flushies = slushies).  he also calls that orange circle through which you toss a ball to earn two points by the following name: basketball poop.   i've been on a huge bruce springste...

when shannon asked jackson about what kind of birthday cake he wanted this year, he said he wanted a mustard cake.   seriously.   the kid just loves mustard.  he eats it plain.  he eats it on hot dogs, burgers, and even on his pizza.  heck, he even ate it on his breakfast waffles the other morning.   so, never one to disappoint, shannon found a way to make him a birthday cake that matched his current love affair with that crazy yellow condiment, and i think she did an amazing job:   a mustard birthday cake.  put that on pinterest.   now, just to be clear, the cake itself did not taste anything like mustard.  it was a delicious vanilla/chocolate marble, but it was a bit odd to be cutting into a giant mustard bottle.  one wonders what cake she will have to make next year! jack had a great birthday celebration.  we celebrated out in western pa at my parents house, where we got to meet our new niece/...

am i a bad person?  wait, don't answer that.  it was a question of the rhetorical sort.  here's the thing: my parents live about 3 and half hours away, and don't get to see our kids all that much, so each summer they graciously (and enthusiastically) volunteer to take our kids to their place for a week, a week in which they spoil them so thoroughly that they require several weeks of treatment at the milinovich detox center following the visit each year.  this last week was the week that mom and dad took the boys.  all three of them.  which means that shannon and i have had the house to ourselves since sunday afternoon.  during our anniversary week. now, some parents that we have told about this have gasped or stared at us wide-eyed, indicating that they would never be able to be apart from their kids for a whole week.  they raise their eyebrows and mentally make a note to call child protective services on us for being the most unsentimen...

just in case you've forgotten my profound love of that fashion underdog, the sweatervest, here is a picture of the one i wore yesterday, complete with half-windsored orange tie, oddly enough.  i know you were all dying to see it.  just like you are all so anxious to know what i've been reading and listening to.  well, who am i to make you beg?  this is what i've been reading.  it's called "divergent" by veronica roth.  it is the story of a dystopian world broken in which society has been organized into factions, based on dominant parts of each individual's personality.  i very much enjoyed it, both from the psychological/sociological viewpoint of imagining a world in which we are organized in such a way, and from the characters of the story, their agency and relationships.  it was a very easy read, and entertaining.  there are apparently two more to complete a trilogy, so i'll get right to those.  i'm sure it won't be long til t...

well, i'm another year older, if that's how you want to look at it.  i guess i often recognize that i'm getting older every day - every minute! - but these milestones don't seem to affect me too much, at least not in the "oh no, i'm getting so old" sense.  i turned 37, for crying out loud.  i'll have plenty of years to lament about getting old.  for now i'm too busy training for my 5k in two weeks.  old schmold.  in any case, i had an awesome weekend.  while i wasn't able to be with my family, i was able to facetime them, and they were almost all there together, so it was almost like being with them.  and then, in addition, we had friends come and visit us - 14 in all! - and spend various parts of the weekend with us.  while i had a do a funeral for a dear man on saturday (my actual birthday), it was actually pretty cool to participate in a well-attended worship service celebrating resurrection on the day marking my own birth into th...

-happy pancake tuesday, the final day before lent.  it seems a bit self-serving to indulge just for the sake of indulgence, even on the threshold of lent, but indulgence really isn't the point at all.  it was about ridding the home of things that you wouldn't be needing during the sacrificial season ahead.  so, if you're giving up chocolate, its time to finish off that bag of m&m's.  if you are giving up soda, might as well finish off those cans of pepsi.  if you're giving up swearing, well, you get the point.  -i haven't been feeling quite well the last few days, although i can't say that i've been properly sick, either.  i've just been generally exhausted, with a tickling sort of cough, and a tremendously heavy head, burning eyes, etc.  shannon said, "see, aren't you glad you got the flu shot?"  to which i replied, "no.  not at all.  if i had the flu, at least i would actually be sick, and could be lying on the couch watc...

not that anyone was really coming to this site looking for it, but i'm sorry that i haven't really been able to get into ravens week this week.  it is sort of hard to get excited about this twice-a-year game when you know your starting quarterback has a rib aimed right at his aorta, and will be spending those three hours just trying not to die.  so, yeah.  it's sort of like trying to look forward to thanksgiving day knowing that there won't be any turkey.  "sorry kids, but our starting turkey is significantly injured and listed as 'out' for this year's thanksgiving meal.  we'll be going with our backup turkey, also known as meatloaf.  we're confident that he'll be able to step in and do the job we need in order to have a fantastic meal.  as we always say around here, 'next entree up.'"  yeah right.  hey, speaking of ben's condition, if you are looking to find out exactly what is wrong with him (hint: it's not jus...

last week we did a family lego challenge.  we decided that our category would be "food" and then each member of the family (other than quin) had access to our full slate of legos to try and build something within that category.  let me say this: it is easy to think about different kinds of food; it's much harder to build them with rectangular squares!  i have all the respect in the world for those who make lifelike sculptures of people and other things out of legos....i can't imagine how they do it.    in any case, here are the results of our family challenge.    cade made a piece of watermelon:   i made a taco: shannon made a piece of pumpkin pie: and jackson made a wedding cake: he was determined that we should bring this cake to the family wedding we have this fall, but i finally convinced him that instead of bringing it, we could put it on facebook for nick and meg.  so i will do just that.  in the meant...