We LOVE George

We love Curious George at our house - Most days, you can find all 5 of us snuggled up in front of the TV laughing at what George has gotten himself into this time! PBS runs it 3 times a day, first at 8am, so we can start our day with George, then again at noon so we can have lunch with George, and finally at 5:30, so we can end our day and begin our evening with George. (apparently we're not the only ones who love George if they're running it that often!) If you've had a stressful day and just need a laugh, I highly recommend a half hour of monkey fun! There is NOTHING like it! :-)

In the toughest times

I have a friend whose little boy has battled health problems all his life, is now in Minnesota at the hospital, and has just undergone his second brain surgery in a few days. Their faith in a powerful and loving God has gotten them through this in a way that is just amazing to me. They remind me of my friends in Loup City whose son lost a long battle with leukemia Watching their faith through the toughest of circumstances had a huge impact on my decision to give my life to Jesus 7 years ago. Life is way too hard and makes no sense otherwise. In Patty's update below, she asks us to tell of God's goodness...and right now I think she does it WAY better than just about anybody could.


Dear All,
Adam is out of surgery. The surgeon said everything went as planned. After he wakes up enough to breath on his own he will go to the intensive care unit overnite. The next few days will be rough recovering from the 6.5 hour procedure in addition to the surgery earlier in the week. He will probably be in the hospital for about a week depending on how he recovers.
Praise God that he has made it through the surgery safely. Pray for freedom from complications, minimal pain and quick recovery of motor function which is sometimes lost temporarily.
He is a tough little guy who continually amazes us. I read about angels today. The Bible tells us that they are strong, tough creatures capable of amazing feats. Adam speaks of his angels sometimes. I know those powerful creatures, which God created to do his will, were there with him today protecting him when his daddy and I couldn't. It is an awesome priveledge to witness the power of God as we have this week. Our lives are forever changed.
Tell someone about how God has worked in your life. There are so many people hoping someone cares about them. Tell them about a God who if faithful and whose love is endless, boundless, limitless, has no depth nor height.

Workin' Girl

Amanda has turned into a bit of a workin' girl lately and is pretty excited about it....and making some $$ doesn't hurt either! She spent most all of Saturday working for the Dad of a friend, and then yesterday she had her first real babysitting job. She had a great time doing both and is excited to have the money to buy the new Eragon book that comes out in September. :-)

Family, Friends, and FUN!

The kids and I took off for a few days and had a great time! We went to Pawnee to stay with my folks. The first picture is Amanda and Alex at the barn...playing with the kitties! Farm life seems pretty cool to my "big city kids" and they just love it out there. Uncle Jerry gave both of the boys a ride on his dirt bike and then let them even try it out themselves. And, they all got to ride on Pa's lawnmower. Amanda mowed the area where they always play croquet, Andrew got to cruise around on it, and Alex got to help Pa move this big branch that had fallen in the front yard. One day, we went into town to have lunch with Grandma, say hello to the people at her office, and to tour Pawnee.

On our way home, we stopped in Beatrice. We visited lots of friends and drove by the houses that we used to live in. That second picture is the big playground at the Y in Beatrice. Alex showed us the exact spot where he fell and broke his arm so many years ago....and he remembered a little more of the story. All this time, we'd always heard that he was just walkinig along and fell and broke it. He admits now that he was actually climbing over that fence and fell. Interesting! :-)

Good times never seemed so good!

Our "Summer with the Saltdogs" continues and we LOVE it! Sweet Caroline is the theme song this year and we are singing it around our house all the time..."Good times never seemed so good - So Good! So Good! So Good!" (I suppose you do have to hear it to appreciate it!)

This is the last game we were at - we came home with 4 balls, some autographs, and some fun stories!

Amanda Bond, DVM???

If you ask Amanda what she wants to be when she grows up, she will tell you that she thinks she'd like to be a veterinarians assistant. She wants to do all the "good stuff" with the animals, but doesn't ever want to have to put one to sleep, so she thinks that if she's just the "assistant", she won't have to do that part. I don't know if she's right or not, but I do know that she spent a good, long time playing vet at the Children's Museum. She took care of lots of sick and wounded critters and helped lots of them get adopted into good homes....and was just beaming the whole time!

Children's Museum Fun

Alex has been watching too many X Games and playing video games where guys do "cool" stunts!
My sabre-tooth tiger boy....doesn't really look TOO scary, does he?
Andrew spent most of his day at the ATM making withdrawls of large amounts of cash. Think that's something I should be worried about?
My "big girl" had a blast making creations out of tinker toys.

We spent 6 hours at the Children's Museum yesterday - and has SO much fun! We hadn't been there in quite awhile, and honestly, I thought the kids had maybe almost outgrown it. But, apparently I was WRONG! We played and played, then took a break for lunch at Noodles, then played some more....until they kicked us out and locked the doors!

Like Father, Like Son

I have NOTHING to say about these pictures.....will just let them speak for themselves!!

Self Portrait

Guess who got ahold of the camera and decided to do a self portrait?

Come play with us!

The excitement level is HIGH at our house today! We moved this beauty from Bruce's folks' house in Kearney to our house...no small feat. Thanks SO much to Crazy Uncle Keith for helping take it apart and getting it loaded up, to Mr. Incredible Geoff Eckert for hauling the slate down our stairs, and to Dan Thompson for helping get the slate on and leveled. We could NOT have done it without all of you! Come over and play anytime! Here's the table at it's old home in Kearney - thank you SO MUCH to Grandma and Grandpa Bond for passing it along - we will take good care of it and use it LOTS and LOTS! We were talking about buying a cover for it and decided that it will probably never need a cover because there will ALWAYS be someone playing it! :-)
Here's Bruce and Geoff moving a piece of slate through our recroom and down the stairs. We think that each piece weighs around 350#.
Got all of the pieces moved into the basement and now we're getting the legs attached.
Bruce melted beeswax into the space between each of the three slates. The kids thought that Daddy's blowtorch was the coolest thing ever! We used it at night to light sparklers, too!
Got the slate finished, all leveled out, felt stapled back on and just wrapping up the finishing touches!

Pioneer Park outing

The kids and I went to Pionners Park last week and had a GREAT time! We left wondering why we haven't been going there ALL the time. Fun, educational, and free - what could be better! Alex thought this turtle shell was cool, and we really had fun watching the live turtle trying to climb up a rock to escape! Poor little guy would struggle to the top, just get to the edge of freedom, and topple back down and land upside down...pretty cool watching him flip himself back over, too!
Lots of birds, critters, feathers, skins, shells, and cool stuff to check out.
Ouuuuuuch!!!
We got to touch a couple of different snakes - the kids all thought that was pretty cool...especially Alex.
The birds were swimming, and the bullfrogs were croaking. We went on an adventure to find where the croaking was coming from and one jumped and "scared the bejeebers" out of Amanda. We're still laughing about it!

Reunited - and it feels so good!

Yep, we're all reunited at home again....and MAN does it feel good! We (OK, well I) sure missed Amanda while she was gone to camp this year. And, I don't think I even really worried about her like I usually do, I just plain missed having her around. And, for the first time in 3 years of going, she really missed us too. But, she is home now, safe and sound and a little more grown-up. She took a long, hot shower, got all of the ticks off of her, has gotten 2 good nights of sleep and we're about back to normal....whatever that is!