Exciting Stuff

This morning was the annual See You at the Pole event for schools. Brian was out and about early just to support the students. The first flagpole had nearly 100 students gathered around. Pretty cool. The second pole had.....5 students. He knew them all. They looked lonely and uncertain, but they were there. He prayed with them. I could just burst with joy at the thought of 5 students standing pretty much alone saying, "I belong to Jesus." Really, REALLY exciting. Jesus was pretty clear about whoever acknowledged him before men would be acknowledged before the Father in heaven by Jesus himself.

The second most exciting thing of my day is knowing what we are getting Elijah for his birthday next week. Normally, our budget is small and our kids have no idea what they want. Tough combination. I actually think the lack of TV commercials combined with a mom who hates to shop and is virtually never in a store (except for food or household goods) has made my kids kind of weird. Good weird, but weird nonetheless. It's just hard to come up with a birthday list. Their list usually is something like: Disneyland. That's pretty much it. They had Lake Powell on the list for a long time and now we're just down to Disneyland. (Elijah did recently suggest we purchase a houseboat so we can go back to Lake Powell, but I think we'll probably just stick with Disneyland on the list for now.)

This year, thanks to a cashback award from our insurance company, we were able to do something we did not expect we would be able to do--maybe ever. Not Disneyland, by any means, but something we are excited about. I can't tell you what it is until after it's here. Joseph already knows because it will be for him too, and the three of us are about to explode.

Back to my anti-shopping life for a moment....Brian and I were in the car with Elijah last week and he said, "Hey, Dad. You know the mall? Have you ever been there?" Super funny moment for us. Our own kids aren't sure if we know where the mall is. On the plus side, however, Elijah was able to perfectly guide his grandma around our local grocery store and show her exactly where everything on her list was.