Gatlinburg Tennessee - post leaf color change

Liesl and I and the kids took a trip to Gatlinburg Tennessee last fall for a little mini-vacation. We stayed in a cabin in the mountains. For those of you who are not familiar with Gatlinburg, it is on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. One of our favorite places to go as a family. It is about a 3-1/2 hour drive from our house.

This is pizza from a small place in Gatlinburg called Best Italian Cafe. It is really good. But the pizza is not even the best thing there. They have the best ever garlic rolls. Yummm.

Here they are making taffy. This machine is really fascinating, but simple.

View from the deck of our cabin in the morning.

The Alpine Slide at Ober Gatlinburg. It's kinda like a bobsled, but not on ice, To get up to the start, you have to take a chair lift. That was extremely scary, Liesl had Keeley with her, and was afraid Keeley would wriggle out, but she loved the sliding down part.

We made it to the 1.7 mark and back. If we had more time, maybe we could have gone longer. Besides, Keeley doesn't like to be in the backpack.

The two most beautiful girls in the world.

This is at Cade's Cove. A valley surrounded by mountains. We've gotten the same picture of the boys at roughly the same age while they were on top of the car with the mountains in the background, so we had to get Keeley's too.

Bryce and Rece became Jr. Rangers at Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

Candy Craziness

Halloween Candy. Perhaps an even scarier thought than any other shenanigans that happens around this time of year. It's fine to actually acquire the candy, but the sugar overdoses and the constant, "I want some candy..." "Can I have some candy?" is now compounded with "treat?" "pweese?" from the newest sweets addict. So after doing some impromptu trick or treating at the local outdoor mall while shopping Saturday afternoon, we dressed the kids all the way up. Bryce as Darth Vader, Rece as Optimus Prime (Transformer) and Keeley as the Sparkly Angel.

Keeley is ready to go (looking off camera thinking "Momma, where is that candy bag. I'm ready to go dominate the neighborhood!)

Bryce ended up getting invited to a friend's Halloween Party. I took him there, while Liesl took Rece and Keeley to one of his friend's neighborhood. They all loaded up with candy, with Keeley turning out to be the most hard-core Trick-or-Treater. She would not let go of her bag and with freezing hands and feet wanted to continue to fill her bag with the precious candy.

It's Pumpkin Farm Season

Every year around this time, the kids have the opportunity to go to pumpkin farms all around the area. We have a pumpkin farm fairly close to us that has free admission. Of course they make their money in other ways... Anyway, Liesl has taken them and a few times and we've got some pictures from a few of the trips.

Without Momma

With Momma, everything is OK...

Review - Where The Wild Things Are

Last Saturday, I took the boys to see "Where The Wild Things Are". The movie based on the children's book. After my wife read multiple reviews and comments about how bad and how kids shouldn't see this movie, we still went ahead with our plans. The book, by Maurice Sendak, is for relatively young kids, and is really a very short story. The charm of it mostly being the illustration and the imagination in invokes. So I wondered how Spike Jonze was going to turn a this book, which can be read in about 5 minutes into a feature length film.

My first complaint to the folks that said this movie is too scary for kids, I'm just not sure what movie you were watching. I didn't find any suspense in this movie. There's some yelling and arguing that goes on between characters, but nothing I would consider frightful. Even though the monsters are imaginary, they represent real life in that people are fallible. Folks don't get along easily in life. Humans (and monsters) are dysfunctional. That's truly the beauty of this movie. Max has a hard life, lonely and afraid, things don't work the way he wants them too. He's on the outside. Some of the same things that lots of kids face. The movie portrays very well what kids go through in life and helps the viewer to really step into the story. When Max fights with his mom, and runs away (replacing being sent to his room, in the book) It's real life. It's not some fluffy interaction that might happen on the Brady Bunch. This may be considered something kids shouldn't see, but I beg to differ. In the context of the whole movie, this is exactly what they need to see. To be able to see that parents stink sometimes, families will let them down occasionally, people, in general, are broken and suffering too. When Max runs away, and comes upon the monsters he hopes that he has found his ideal place. It turns out that everywhere he goes, no matter in real life or his imagination, people are the same. Yes, this is a sad commentary on human existence, but in the end, he decides if life is like this everywhere, then he should go back to the people that truly, and realistically love him, his mother and sister. People who he can also love back in the same way. Realizing how important they are in his life, even if they let him down sometimes.

I am so glad this movie doesn't sugarcoat real life. Did my boys get the full meaning of the theme? I'm not sure. Do I think they at least got pieces of truth through it? Definitely. I believe it was very worthwhile to bring them. And I thought the movie was brilliant.

Chicago in July

I realized that I had posted a story here before we made our trip to Chicago in July, but I never posted a follow up with pictures from our trip. So here goes. I made my pilgrimage to the Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha Wisconsin to get the delectable cheese curds and other assorted goodies, like sausages and preserves.

Made sure I had some of the Italian perfection from Giordano's, left Keeley in good hands with Grandma Lou, and headed downtown to show the boys a few sites before heading out to US Cellular Field to watch my beloved White Sox put a beat down on the Indians. It was a great night with Liesl and the boys and glad they got to experience a great Major League Baseball game. Paul Konerko, the Whitesox first baseman, went off and had 3 homers, one of which was a grand slam, all of them prompting the score board at "The Cell" to explode with fireworks along with the deafening cheers of the crowd. The Whitesox won 10-6.

Overall it was a successful trip.

Fall Soccer Season

We are half-way through fall soccer season and both the boys are doing well. Bryce is playing a lot of offense and scoring in just about every game. He is still on the smaller side compared to a lot of the kids, but he is really starting to use his stride and speed as an advantage. He's made some fairly good friends on the team, which is always nice. Compared to last year, this year's coach is much better, we actually have practice and he calls us when games have been cancelled. You'd think that would be pretty standard, but apparently not with last year's coach.

Rece is with the same coach and most of the same teammates that he's been with for several seasons. Most of his team is now on the upper side of their age group so his team is pretty much taking care of every team by a lot. Rece has developed some really good ball handling skills and is passing better than ever. He scores a lot, but gets put on defense when he scores too much. He's also been playing goalie a lot. I love it when he plays goalie, so much that I told him if he plays voluntarily, I'd buy him some goalkeeper gloves. He's very proud of the gloves.

Next fall we have the opportunity to put both of them on the same team, which will be nice schedule-wise, but we'll see how the boys handle their own competitiveness.

Land of My Sojourn

It's fall. Makes me think of leaves falling, and dark mornings and getting cold. I also think of Rich Mullins, and how Autumn came early the year he died. So i had a great idea for a blog post. Pick my favorite Rich Mullins song and write based upon that and that will also be about things that counteract the dreariness of this season. The song is "Land Of My Sojourn" off the "A Liturgy, A Legacy And A Ragamuffin Band" album. It talks about how much he loves this earth and the story God has written here at the same time longing for heaven and all it's majesty. Here's the chorus:

Nobody tells you when you get born here

How much you'll come to love it

And how you'll never belong here

So I call you my country

And I'll be lonely for my home

And I wish that I could take you there with me

So here's a few things where I see God's unmistakable activity here in this Land of My Sojourn.

Great Smoky Mountain National Park is a place that Liesl and I have visited many times since moving here to Tennessee. It doesn't have the biggest mountains or the best views or deepest canyons. It's beauty is in it's subtlety. It's beautiful rolling hills and changing colors, no matter what the season, and abundant, visible life. It's also so accessible for us, and I so much want to experience and partake of it frequently.

The Color Green (stealing another song title) I love green. It means life and abundance and vitality to me. To see the leaves start to grow on trees, to see grass available to play soccer on, growth all around. It makes me feel alive and vibrant. Like this big world is all growing and thriving. maybe that's why I don't like Autumn very much, it means the death of all that green. Hopefully I can remember that that death always brings new life.

I often discuss with my wife why I like sports so much and maybe this is a longer discussion than I can pose here, but I've gotta say something about how awesome sports are. Between the redemption of a winning touchdown when someone fumbled early in the game to being part of something larger than myself and something people of totally opposite religious, political and financial stances can come together and cheer and celebrate and also agonize together in a way like no other... What an amazing experience.

When I hear stories about military service I marvel and feel slightly jealous of the brotherhood that is gained by these men. After going through sometimes traumatic event together and realizing they were a team and each person had something to contribute. What a great picture. Something I long to exist in my life.

I am so glad to know that this is not a complete list or even a complete experience of any of these examples. I do hope for more of these here on earth and know just a little that they will be fully available in heaven.