Iced Tea Forever

Glenn Beck for President!

Mandy and Allison are very happy little girls most of the time.

Mandy has big feet.  Jewel couldn’t find any dress shoes for her, she had to travel many miles to the big city to get them.

Allison has little feet!  So far anyway.

A week or two ago I looked out across the back yard and saw an orange vest walking around in the field.  I got the camera and zoomed way in.

Well, now we will fit in at church!

How cool is this! Joel T. Rutherford, bass for the Acoustix, stepping in and singing “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go” with the Gaither Vocal Band!

Here’s what Joel had to say about it.
Barbershoppers sing with each other all the time, but it’s not so common in gospel circles.

Disclaimer:  Contains mature themes and graphic language.

It isn’t always great, there are certainly the downsides.  Here are a few.

My wife works nights, so sometimes I end up taking both girls to church by myself.  One time this summer I was at a church business meeting, and things weren’t going too well.   Allison screamed and screamed as soon as I sat down, and someone came over and took Mandy to help me out.   Allison kept being difficult, and soon I was in the bathroom changing her diaper.

As soon as I pulled off her diaper, she peed on my hand.

I didn’t handle that too well.  And being on one of those plastic fold-down changing stations, it ran all over and soaked her dress.  Of course, I had no other clothes for her either.

So I wrapped her in a blanket and that’s the way she went home.

Cappuccino Mom thought I should tell you that story.

Just a few weeks ago we were together with some other families from church at one of their houses, and we were sitting innocently at the table after dinner.  Cappuccino Mom’s young son walked up to her holding up his hand, and in alarm she asked “What is on your hand!”

That’s when the sinking feeling began for me.   Some quick checking found that Mandy had pooped her diaper, and in fact pooped it right off.   THEN she stepped in it and started tracking it over the living room carpet.  The little boy evidently started playing in it before going to show his mom.

Something like that would be bad enough happening at your own house, but doing it in someone else’s brings it to a whole new level.

A proud evening for us all.

Allison is getting bigger and more active all the time.

And Mandy loves to “help” with the dishwasher.   Hopefully her enthusiasm for it will continue many years.

Here are the girls with their Mommy and Great-Great-Aunt Naomi.

One night I was working on the computer and suddenly I realized I heard a lot of paper rustling.  I looked to my left, and this is what I saw:

My old buddy Daryl Petersheim from Garment of Praise won a Singing News songwriting contest this last summer for his song “The Empty Tomb Says it All.”

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As part of the prize package, they put together a professional demo of the song (player above).  And check out who the quartet vocalists were!

Baritone Vocals: Johnny Minick
Tenor Vocals: Jimmy Fortune
Lead Vocals: Paul Lancaster
Bass Vocals: Mike Allen

Pretty cool.

Here’s Garment of Praise singing it:

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Nice job Daryl.

GOP has a couple of brand new recordings out, available on Gladsongs.com.

Moving in to northern Hoosierville these long 5 years ago was a bit of a culture shock.  At least when it came to Amishness.  It’s without a doubt genuine Amish country around here.   Everybody is either Amish, just left the Amish, or their Grandpa was Amish, and the rest of us immigrated in from the “English” world out there.

Don’t call me English.  I’m American.

Anyway, the whole Amish thing had my eyes open wide in wonder for awhile, but I’ve learned quite a lot about Amishness since then.   I’ve come to enjoy the incongruities.

Like seeing a horse and buggy pulling a boat and trailer.   Or exchanging emails with an Amishman.  Or even finding a “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” dvd on an Amishman’s desk!

And today I had an Amishman tell me “You da man!”