The boys room and a potty training update

No, it's not LAX or the Emporia airport. But the boys do take off on many an adventure. And yes, Matthew does have a bed too. It's pretty much a mirror image on the other side.

And to protect the modesty of my little girl, I have not included a success picture of Emery. The potty training is going well. Many successes, just a few accidents, and no crying...by me - I think a first!

Potty training or a day on the town?

It was a day of contrasts today.While Emery and mommy worked on potty training...
Daddy and the boys saw a buffalo, deer, emus, llamas, a mountain lion, a bobcat, ducks, turtles, bald eagles, lemurs, prairie dogs at the very nice little Emporia zoo.
Not to mention we played on a tank...
And watched poor Luca Brasi as he slept with the fishes...

Lightning, thunder and tornadoes

The other day, we had a real strong set of thunderstorms and even a tornado warning. It made me really appreciate the following passage - "At this also my heart trembles, And leaps from its place. 2 "Listen closely to the thunder of His voice, And the rumbling that goes out from His mouth. 3 "Under the whole heaven He lets it loose, And His lightning to the ends of the earth. 4 "After it, a voice roars; He thunders with His majestic voice; And He does not restrain the lightnings when His voice is heard. 5 "God thunders with His voice wondrously, Doing great things which we cannot comprehend. 6 "For to the snow He says, 'Fall on the earth,' And to the downpour and the rain, 'Be strong.'" Job 37:1-6Now I didn't go storm chasing so this wasn't actual lightning from this storm but it's an old picture of a previous storm in Kansas that I found on line.

As the storm was just beginning, we talked about the above passage and how God's voice is like thunder to which Andrew replied, "Then lightning must be God's fingers and a tornado must be God's body spinning round and round!" Classic.

What do you boast about?

It is tempting for me as the husband of a beautiful wife, 2 funny boys, and a cutie pie baby girl to boast about my family. They are all precious to me.
But Gal 6:14 says, "But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." How easy it is to boast about God's wonderful blessings in this life, making more of the blessings than the Giver of those blessings.

It is easy for a proud man like myself to find something other than God to boast about. But Jeremiah 9:23-24 says, "Thus says the LORD, 'Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; 24 but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things.'" How much more incredible is it that the wrath of God was poured out on Christ for a proud and wretched sinner like me so that I might understand and know the Almighty God of the universe for eternity. Isn't that amazing and humbling? God is so good and worthy of boasting about.

Random observations

It has been 1 month to the day since I came to Emporia. For those of you who don't live here, I thought I'd describe some of the unique things I've noticed.

• No gun signs posted in many government buildings and banks. Though I noticed that the gun store didn't have this sign posted.
• So far, it has rained 1-2 times a week since I've been here, and they have been significant rains sometimes 2-3 inches. I think it has rained more in this month here than all of this past year in LA.
• Tornado siren testing goes off every Wed at 10am. They went off for an actual tornado once too. Sandy thought there were a lot of fire engines going by.
• How many times can we go to Wal Mart in 1 month? I think we're setting the record as we had been going there every day though now we've tapered down to every other day.
• But the strange thing is how empty Wal Mart is and it's the most crowded place in town I think. I never have to wait in line with more than 1 person ahead of me. And when I go to other stores in town, there is rarely more than 1-2 other customers. I feel like there's something going on somewhere else and no one told me about it.
• This is the friendliest place I've ever lived. Who hasn't said hi to me?
  
• When will the wind stop blowing? There is a constant breeze.

And one funny story from Andrew. After taking a shower before bed, he says, "An iceball melted in my ear!" It turns out that he had some water stuck in his ear.

Not Batman

One of Matthew's God given gifts in his short little life is seeing how he can make even the simplest things in life messy. However, I'll give him a break this time because staying clean while eating Korean rice is not an easy job for a 3 year-old.He said he was "Bop man" - not Bat Man. To our non-Korean speaking friends, Bop is rice in Korean.

The new living room

My wife has many talents. And one of them is interior design on a modest budget. Now keep in mind that the living room is not complete yet as we are waiting on window treatments for the window and a few other final touches (after all, it hasn't even been 3 weeks yet). But I think Sandy has done a fabulous job so far. So first the old room before we bought it... Now we must acknowledge that we had help as our generous and kind church family painted the walls and ceiling.
And this is the new room living room. Again, the new room from a slightly different angle - it's our grown ups only retreat...