Moving

No, we aren't planning to move to another house any time soon, the title refers to our baby. I am now over 18 weeks pregnant (it's hard to keep up with) and I have experienced the "quickening." It is a really neat feeling to experience a little life moving around in my body. I am looking forward to finding out if we will be having another girl or boy on September 8th. Hopefully seeing the ultrasound will be memorable event for Daniel and Maggie to. They have been so sweet around Ren and Angela's newest addition. Hopefully they will enjoy holding their sibling as much as Abigail. Time will certainly tell.

Action

I was reading through Acts 3 the other morning, and something struck me in a way that I've never noticed before. In the beginning of that chapter, Peter and John are going to the temple for a prayer meeting, and at the temple gate, there's a crippled beggar who, as beggars will, asks them for money. Rather than giving money, in verses 6 and 7, Peter tells the guy, "In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!” Then, Peter reaches out a hand to him, and as he helps him up, the man is healed. Now that's cool, and since we've been talking lately about faith in action being the way God works, I thought it was a great confirmation of that... but that's not what struck me.

What struck me was the end of verse 12, where Peter says, "why stare at us as though we had made this man walk by our own power or godliness?" This floored me, even though I'm sure I've read it before, and I think if someone asked me, "Do you have to be perfect for God to use you?" I'd have said, "No, of course not. It's not about me; it's about Jesus." But that day, it really struck me.

Several years ago, when we were living in Athens, I was in church, and there was a man up front in a wheelchair. I had the overwhelming sense that God wanted to heal this man, and that I should go to him and pray with him. I was nervous, as I'd never had anything like that kind of feeling before, but I decided to just embarrass myself if it came to that and go offer to pray with him. We prayed together for a long time, and it seems like I may have even had the idea to offer to help him up, but I know I didn't act on that, or if I did, I didn't make it clear enough that I was trying to do that. The man didn't get up, and after a while, we stopped praying and went back to our seats. In short, we gave up. I have occasionally wondered since then if I just didn't have the spiritual gift of healing, or if I had some hidden, unconfessed sin in my life at the time that prevented God from healing this man through me. After I read Acts 3, it struck me that;

a) God does the work of healing; I'm not healing, I'm praying, I'm lifting, I'm just the assistant,
b) perhaps, the spiritual gift of healing isn't a power that I can feel in my life; maybe it is simply the confidence that God will do the healing if I obey what he's telling me, and
c) also, maybe I don't have to be perfect, I just have to obey God. If he hasn't already revealed and convicted me of "hidden" sin, he's probably not going to let that get in the way of someone being healed. My feeling is that he'd teach me that lesson another time.

The main point that I got out of this passage was that it's Jesus doing the work; it's not just that something cool happens, it's that Jesus is at work. That just completely rocked my world, and I hope it means something to anyone else who reads this. Still, if it's just for me, that's pretty cool too.

Belly buttons, teeth and babies

"Belly Button (Round)"
by Sandra Boynton

So round. So profound. So great to contemplate ...
Belly Belly Button,
you're oh so fine.
I'm so happy you're mine.
A tummy without you
just wouldn't be right.
Little Belly Button,
you're a beautiful sight.
Belly! Belly button!

Since our sweet girl was a wee lass she has had a fondness for her belly button. Instead of owning a lovey or sucking her thumb, she rubs her belly button. I had never seen such a thing, but our pediatrician has a daughter who did it (she has probably since grown out of it) but it has never bothered me so I have never discouraged it. In fact, it's kind of nice because she can't lose her belly button, and she never complains when we wash it so why not have an attachment with your belly button. Now, as she has gotten older we have had to lay down some rules about the belly button rubbing. She is not to rub it when she has a dress on (i.e. no lifting up your dress to get to it). When we are in public she must "discreetly" rub it, which means that she must leave her shirt down, but she may rub it underneath her shirt. Nonetheless, her love for her belly button has persisted. Either she will grow out of it at some point or she will find a husband that loves her belly button as much as she does.

Our boy, Daniel, has lost his second tooth. It's right next to where he lost his very first tooth. He pushed it out himself during rest time and I can't tell you how excited he was when I went in to the room to let him get up a few minutes early. He held the tiny white tooth up to me and said, "See!" I said, "What is it?" and then he pulled his bottom lip down so that I could see the empty space. Two down eighteen more to go!

In baby news, I had a doctor's appointment this morning. It was just a routine check-up and everything looks and sounds good. We have our next ultrasound scheduled on September 8th. We plan to find out the sex of the baby. We already know what we will name the baby if it is a girl, but we have no boy names picked out at this point. We are also planning to take along Daniel and Maggie to the ultrasound. I'm looking forward to it.

Beach Vacation, Day Nouement

As promised, here's that sunrise. We did get up in time to see it, but there turned out to be an extremely large condo building directly between our east-facing balcony and the sun. Still, the sky was pretty, and it was a fitting way to end the week. The beach vacation was awesome. I think I can say without hyperbole that I loved every minute of it. The living room was by far my favorite room in the house because it had such an awesome view, a cool, mirrored wall to make it seem more open, and some really soft, deep, comfortable couches. It was the perfect place for relaxing with a book or taking an afternoon siesta.

I'm definitely going to miss that place for a good little while. Still, the vacation has to end sometime, and that time, unfortunately, has come. All the pictures that we took and posted on the web are available here, including shots of the other rooms and, obviously, some extremely cute pictures of the kids. Thanks for reading!

Beach Vacation, Day Six

Our last full day at the beach began with the sighting from our living room window of just absolute schools of dolphins swimming fairly close into shore. Efforts to photograph them were met with mixed results, but I did manage to get a few successful shots out of about 117 tries. Here's one now:

We were able to go back into the ocean again today, and the water has calmed so much that it is really clear near the shore, so we could see all kinds of fish and seaweed as we waded in. Also, it turns out that there's a sandbar really close to shore to which even Daniel could wade without the water going past his shoulders. I did have to carry Maggie out there, but it was really cool to stand up in the middle of the water on what felt like a second beach! Here's a shot of the kids and me out there.

We had all gone out originally, but then we saw a jellyfish, the kids got scared, and we went back to the first / main beach. It turned out, as we headed back to the beach, that there were a lot of jellyfish in the water, and there were even some public-service-oriented folks who were catching them and taking them to a well-marked place on the beach to die. Once the good people had cleared out three or four of them, the kids felt safe enough to wade back out with me to take the above picture. Here's a progression of the passing of one jellyfish:

After the picture on the sandbar was taken, the kids had enjoyed their fill of the ocean, and it was back to the condo pool, where Maggie and Daniel continued to improve their swimming to the point that I'm pretty sure they're taking part in the opening ceremonies in Beijing sometime tomorrow. Check your local listings for exact times.

The plan for the evening was to take a walk along the beach (a quick one, for the kids' sake), followed by one last round in the pool, where we could hopefully shoot some video of these two young gold medal hopefuls.

Sadly (read: devastatingly) for our dear kiddos, a storm began to roll in as we were making our way back from the walk and towards the pool, and lightning was spotted in the relative vicinity. They were forced to console themselves over ice cream, cake, cookies, baths, and books. After they'd been put to bed (but hours before they actually went to sleep), we played through another round of Phase Ten, which of course Angie won again, this time on points and phase completions.

If we can manage it, we're going to try to get up to see the sunrise, and if so, I'll try to post a picture. If that doesn't work out, here's what it might look like, based on this evening's sunset:

Finally, I'd like to close this week of vacation by saying, "Thank you" to Bennett and Lynley for inviting us to their family's condo on the beach, to Mom and Dad for helping to make this vacation possible, and, of course, to the sweet, considerate neighbors who left their wireless settings on the defaults so that we could enjoy free Internet service for the week. Without your help, this might never have been possible.

Beach Vacation, Day Five

It's safe to go back in the water! Everyone slept in really late for day 5, except the kids, of course. Since the red flags had been replaced with American flags, Angie took the kids down to the beach for the customary 3 and a half minutes of time in the surf before Daniel completely freaks out over the possibility of being stung by a jellyfish and requests to go home, or at least the pool, while everyone else stayed in the condo. I actually went down and joined them after they'd been in the pool for a while. Maggie's swimming is really improving, and Daniel never fails to have a creative new way to jump in and splash everyone. He's invented several new splashing techniques, with varying degrees of success.

In other news, Bennett and Lynley (my heretofore unnamed brother and sister-in-law, respectively) had to head back today in order to go to work on Thursday, so our afternoon was tainted with a slight sadness at the diminution of our party. Fortunately, we were able to forget our sorrows with a brief rest, followed by a trip about half a mile down the road to The Crab Trap for dinner,

and a sojourn into town to visit Souvenir City,

where Daniel and Maggie were able to buy some souvenirs of their beach trip with their own money thanks to Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace, Jr.

After that, all that was left was to put the kids down, get ready for bed, and stay up until midnight watching Becoming Jane. Not exactly beach-y, but hey, it's what the ladies wanted to see.

Beach Vacation, Day Four

Today was, again, a red-flag day, but we did manage to get some sand castle-building done at the beach. The day was mostly spent lounging, reading, and swimming with the children in the condo pool. We had all our meals at the condo, and after the kids went to bed, we played a vigorous game of Phase Ten (25th Anniversary Edition), a kind of very complex Uno. Angie won on points, although my sister-in-law was first to complete all phases. We stayed up WAY too late playing, eating cookies, and making jokes which were funnier than they might have been due to the delirium which comes from sleep deprivation. I personally felt it was one of the better days, but then my favorite way to spend time on vacation is to waste it. All in all, it was a very relaxing day. Highlights included Maggie's first sand castle, Uncle Bennett teaching Daniel new and better ways to splash the people sitting around the pool, and Maggie and Daniel making great strides in improving their swimming. There are, as always, even a few pictures here taken throughout the day.

Beach Vacation, Day Three

This morning when we looked outside, there were red flags all along the beach, meaning that it was too dangerous to go for a swim. So, after a leisurely breakfast / get-the-muscles-working-again time, we loaded up and headed to the Pirate's Island Adventure Golf putt-putt place near Lulu's, where we'd eaten the night before. This was a great mini-golf place with historical information about either of two pirates, Jean Lafitte or Blackbeard, depending on which course you took. We went on the Lafitte course, and I'm sure we were the better for it, both in terms of play and education. Everyone had a blast, and Maggie got a hole in one!

After putt-putt, we were getting hungry again. Breakfast may have been leisurely, but it was not particularly large. Also, with eight of us playing miniature golf, two of whom tended to drag things out a bit, 18 holes took over two and a half hours in the full mid-day sun. So, we loaded up again and headed this time to Lambert's Cafe, "Home of the Throwed Rolls." There are only 3 of them in existence: two in Missouri and the one in Foley, Alabama. Lambert's has special significance for Angie and me because we went to the one near Branson, Missouri on our first anniversary, when we were up that way visiting friends, and we remember the experience fondly. So it was great to get to share that with the kids. They loved it, especially when the waiters would bring around the bucket of fried okra and scoop as much as you wanted right onto whatever surface you presented to them (plate, paper towel, upside-down hat, etc.). The picture below is of a waiter throwing a roll to me. The roll is just above the lamp and kind of blends in with the red-and-white flag. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I actually snapped the photo with my right hand and caught the roll with my left, although by that point I was so stuffed I didn't want to eat the roll; I just wanted the shot.

The rest of the day consisted of almost everyone napping, followed by the four of us going swimming in the pool while my parents hung out in the condo and my brother and his wife played tennis at the condo across the street. We had a VERY late dinner (mostly leftovers from our enormous lunch) followed by a wonderful little post-birthday birthday party for me, complete with caramel cake, vanilla ice cream, and Simpsons-themed birthday cards with Homer re-capping some of his most witty remarks. If I'd thought about it, I'd have asked someone to take pictures of that, but we were having too much fun and I forgot to mention it. More pictures from the Pirate Golf and from Lambert's are available here, however.

Beach Vacation, Day Two

This is where the fun starts. We woke up at precisely whenever we felt like it and had a leisurely pancake breakfast in our living and dining room area overlooking the ocean.

After breakfast, we got our first real shot at the beach. It went pretty well, considering that it was the first time the children had seen the ocean in the light of day. I think Maggie enjoyed playing in it more than Daniel; he got some salt water in his nose a couple of times and announced that he was ready to head back to our real house. He settled down a bit and played a little more, but didn't seem really happy until he got to go to the pool. I suspect he'll warm up to the ocean as the week goes on. Maggie liked me to hold her arms as the waves were crashing in and letting them lift her up and try to carry her to the shore. We played in the pool for a bit after that, followed by a light lunch, and then EVERYONE took a nap.

Nap time was somewhat interrupted by the arrival of the firetruck, ambulance, and, on the beach right outside our windows, the Life Flight helicopter. We didn't get the full story, but it appeared that someone probably had gotten severely dehydrated and needed to have fluids pumped into them.

Anyway, after that excitement, the naps began in earnest, followed by the arrival of the grandparents at last! (Did I mention we're down here with my brother, his wife, and my folks? We are. Day 1 included my brother and his wife.) Once they'd gotten settled in, we packed up the vehicles and headed to Lulu's Sunset Grill (about 20-30 minutes away), which is a really great open-air beach-style restaurant owned by Jimmy Buffett's sister, Lucy. They have a volleyball net, a souvenir hut, 2 refreshment huts, and a massive sandy play area with beach toys for the kids. This was a good thing, as our wait time was an hour and a half. Yes, really. Fortunately, the food was excellent, and a good time was had by all, although after playing volleyball with a bunch of kids half my age and younger, I thought I might need that helicopter, too.

So, overall, we're off to a great start! I can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring. More pictures than you probably care to see are and will be available here.

Beach Vacation, Day One

Okay, we'll see how this goes, but I thought I'd try to keep a record of our vacation. There's not a lot to tell about Day One, as we spent most of it driving here. We're in a town that is as far west on the coast of Florida as you can go; the Flora-Bama bar (they apparently opted for a state bar instead of a state line) is not quite 2 miles down the road. We did get to let the kids put their feet in the ocean before their bath, but it was already pretty dark out, and they won't really get the experience of it until tomorrow, although they're already VERY excited, as evidenced by the picture below:

Self cleaning house

As part of getting ready for going out of town at the end of the week, I need to clean our house. We keep our house picked up/mostly clutter free, but it still becomes necessary to dust and mop and scrub down surfaces that develop pink rings around them. Although I have now entered my second semester of pregnancy, I have not experienced a resurgence of energy. I still desire a daily nap and get tired with what feels like menial amounts of work. The problem is my son and husband have allergies and it begins to be a sneeze fest around here if I wait two or three months between dusting sessions. I am finding that I could really use a self cleaning house. Since we don't have one of those, I guess I am just going to have to break my tasks down into smaller more manageable parts and take a few days to get the house sparkling and fresh.

Returnin' From a Jet Plane

A quick post-trip update: I've been back for a few days now, but I wanted to make sure I said to everyone, "thanks for the support." To answer Mr. Rex10's question in the comments to the original post, I went to Memphis, which was a very short little jaunt. In fact, the trip over was more like riding in a flying bus than a bike - I'm pretty sure there were a total of 53 seats on the plane, including the pilot and co-pilot's seats and the bathroom. I did mention to the flight staff on the first one that I hadn't flown since 1988, and they tried their best to be accommodating. I also had some "less-drowsy" formula Dramamine, which I took about an hour before each flight, and I guess it worked like a charm. I sat by the window on both flights. What an amazing experience! I loved watching the clouds and landscape from above, and coming back over the big city at night was just beautiful! I will definitely not be anxious about flying in the future, should the situation arise again. It was a very good experience, except for when I forgot to take my laptop out of my bag before running it through the scanner on the way back, and the shocked security lady yelled out, "Who has a laptop in a BAG?" as if this was the most ridiculous place to keep a laptop she'd ever heard of, and only a colossal moron would leave one there at a security checkpoint. Oh, and while that was going on, security on the other end was running the cable tester through a full-scale bomb detection process (according to the inspector: "the machine can be setup to check for drugs as well, but we don't care about drugs; you can keep your drugs"). Those were embarrassing, but the rest of the trip I wouldn't mind going through again.


P.S. to Mr. Rex10: You need to know about this.

Beach preview

In preparation for our upcoming beach trip we decided to take the kids to our local man-made lake beach. Despite the greenish-brown water and little fish that swim in the water we had a great time. Maggie loves that she can touch the bottom and practiced swimming a lot. Daniel likes to dive under the water with his mask on and try to catch the fish or pick up rocks. One unfortunate thing that happened while we were at the beach was that I stepped on a bee. Boy was that uncomfortable. The last time I got stung by a bee I was in kindergarten living in Ft. Campbell, KY. I was playing bare foot at the park and stepped on a bee that was on a flower. Thankfully I am not allergic to bees, but I forgot just how uncomfortable a bee sting can be. I am just glad that it was me instead of one of the kids that got stung. Let's hope the bee sting is not a preview of our time at the real beach. We are getting really excited. Less than a week before we leave!

Leavin' On a Jet Plane

Tomorrow morning, I head out on a big ol' jet airliner for the first time in over 20 years. I believe this is the only experience in my life about which I can say, "I've done that before, but not in over 20 years." This is a big deal for me, although I have friends who seem to be on planes as much as they are in cars. The last time I was on a plane was, I think, June of '88. I was coming back from a trip to Ireland, the last leg of which was from New York to Atlanta. For the trip overseas, I had some sort of Dramamine patch to install behind my ear, and I used the last one on the trip back from Dublin to New York. On the NY to ATL leg, I was sick almost from the moment of takeoff to landing and even in the car on the ride back to Columbus. I was also exhausted, so I'd fall asleep on the plane being sick, and I'd wake up to be sick again. Not pleasant.
All this to say, if you're a Christian, and you're awake between 7:30 AM and 8:45 AM EDT this Tuesday, please say a little prayer for me, and for the passengers seated near me. I know we'd appreciate it. Thank you.

We're going to the beach!

In less than two weeks we will be taking off for our first family vacation (with all four of us - five counting the one in utero). We have been on approximately three vacations, our first being our honeymoon to Savannah when we got married. A year later on our first anniversary we went to Missouri to visit a friend of mine in which we stayed at their home. We did stay in a hotel in Branson , MO for one night and spent the day taking in the tourist attractions. Then when Daniel was a year old, and I was pregnant with Maggie, we went to Ohio to visit my mom's side of the family. That is the last "vacation" we have had. Davis and I have had two weekend get aways since having our precious children. One of the main reasons that we have not had more vacations is that we have been trying to get out of debt most of our married years together, albeit not in any way that was focused (until we came across Dave Ramsey's The Total Money Makeover and went through Financial Peace University), but we knew we couldn't afford vacations. The only reason we get to enjoy this upcoming family vacation is because we have a wonderful connection (our sister-in-law) to a condo in Florida. Because it is a condo, we have the ability to cook food and store and reheat leftovers therefore keeping the cost of food down. And because we are on a budget we know exactly how much money we may take with us to spend. I know that we are going to have a ball. Maggie absolutely loves playing in the sand so she will be in heaven. Daniel and Maggie love to swim so we plan to wear them out. Maybe we will even come back with a little color in our normally transparent skin.

The Hunter

How greedily the predator eyes his prey, anxiously awaiting his chance to strike. Cautiously, he raises his head and, without warning, he pounces, easily devouring his unsuspecting quarry in mere seconds. The biscuit never even saw him coming.

Flight of the Narrator

Angie: "Maggie, please get your stuffed animals out of Mommy and Daddy's room."
Maggie (standing up and moving towards our bedroom): "And she got up and ran from the room, through the kitchen, and into the bedroom."

Our Maggie has taken to providing narration for her own life, and man, it is by far the best entertainment I get in my week. We still have the baby monitor in the children's room, and in the mornings we'll hear something like, "she dressed herself all by herself and headed to the kitchen for some breakfast." She doesn't do it all the time, and she often talks to herself while she's playing, so I'm worried that I might be missing some of the best lines. I think I might get a bunch of micro-cassette recorders and sew them into Maggie's clothes. Or maybe I should just head over to the local FBI office and ask for copies of the tapes from our house. At any rate, I hope this phase doesn't end anytime soon. As I alluded to earlier on Twitter, with as much attitude as she's been giving lately, sometime it feels like this powerful degree of cuteness is all that's keeping her with us.

A Blast!

For the past few years now our family has been privileged to spend the 4th of July with several of our dear friends. For reasons which will soon become apparent, I can only say that the event takes place at a private, undisclosed location that is probably not even IN Georgia on the multi-acre, privately-owned, family land of someone I'll refer to as Mickle Cowfman. The buffet is always abundant and incredibly delicious; there are always lots of things for the kids to do; and the finale of the event is an increasingly impressive fireworks display which would be of increasingly questionable legality, were it to take place in Georgia, but, as I mentioned before, it most likely does not. ;-) This year's event featured some of the world's most AWESOME barbecued pork cooked and served in the eastern North Carolina style provided by Mickle's father-in-law. There was a bouncy castle with slide, a toddler bouncy area, a trampoline, a swimming pool, and an industrial-strength snow cone machine. There was also some excellent live music, and Maggie made it through the whole fireworks display, which was a first for us! All in all, it was an outstanding celebration of our great nation's birthday!

Speaking of Exciting Developments

For those who may not know, the Hipps family is expecting a new addition on or around January 30, 2009! We've known for a couple of weeks now, but we wanted to make sure that all of our various pregnant friends that were due got their bundles unpacked before we made any official announcements. Angie is about 9 weeks along, and has already been through more nausea and exhaustion than she had with the first two combined! Here's a picture of the little peanut, as he or she looked in the photographer's studio this past Monday, June 23rd. It may go without saying, but just in case it doesn't, we're very excited about this! Woohoo! Ok, here' the picture. Sorry to keep you waiting. Here it is.

A Couple of Firsts

As we first mentioned here, Daniel has had a loose tooth for a couple of weeks now. On Saturday, in the middle of the afternoon with no prompting, he decided that he'd just bite down really hard on it to see what would happen, and sure enough, out it came. He didn't get the least bit upset by this - he was uncharacteristically calm, in fact - but he was clearly thrilled and very proud of himself.










Exhilarating stuff, to be sure, but there was also some excitement involved with the first that we had on Sunday when we went to a playground near our house. Towards the end of our time there, Maggie made the announcement, "Look, there's a Black Widow Spider just like in my Bug's Life game!" And, sure enough, there was the thing in the flesh, crawling along the sand, looking for children to poison, no doubt. Unfortunately, we didn't have the good camera with us, and the pictures that I took from my phone didn't do the thing justice, so I'll just have to do my best to describe it for you here.

It was really black. Also, it had a huge abdomen with a bright red hourglass on it. I've read that the red hourglass should be on the underside for the Black Widow, and that the hourglass on the top may actually be indicative of a False Widow, but as it didn't live long enough to bother correcting us for what was, perhaps, a case of mistaken identity, the truth must be forever buried with it. Whether true or false, the kids were sufficiently convinced of its black widow-ness that they ran screaming from the playground equipment, although I will say they didn't seem particularly scared. I think they may have just wanted to run around screaming. Which, come to think of it, is why we took them to the park in the first place.