Here They Are!

Alright Everybody, here are the promised D.C. pictures. Once again, they are from the trip that our Generation Joshua club took to Washington. We had meetings with the offices of several congressmen related to the Parental Rights Amendment. These are from afterwords when we toured around the capitol. I hope you all enjoy them![This is Library of Congress from across the street].This is the Capitol

This is the Grace and Mrs. Gunther at the Supreme Court Building.

This was from in between the columns up on the "porch" there.

This is most of our club on the steps.

Here's Matt and Andrew.

Here we are in Arlington National Cemetery.

Here are just a few of the many headstones at Arlington.

This is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers

We got to ride the Metro!

Alright guys, that's it for now. Thanks for looking at 'em! Feel free to leave any comments.[Just don't say that I never should have been trusted with the camera:)

O.K. - I'm Back.

Hellooo. My last post was Thurs. night and I've been pretty busy for the weekend and everything. But hey, now we're kind of back to normal schedule for the week and I'll get back to business. Alright, updates: I got some great news through my informers the other day. After our trip to D.C. that I keep talking about, we recently got the encouraging news that every single Republican Congressman in the state of Virginia became a co-sponsor of the Parental Rights Amendment. This isn't just that they said they agreed with us or liked what we were doing; but that they actually put their names on the bill. This is a lot more meaningful than just verbal support because this is the equivalent of a line in the sand that they have crossed to say," Yes, I believe that the rights of parents to lead and direct their children are valid, important, and worth protecting from the real threats that we see on the horizon". I commend each one of our congressmen who believes that and is not ashamed to let their standpoint be known. [Now just to make it clear, I know that God is the one who works in the hearts of our leaders but I'm so thankful that He wants to use us as His tools!] Next on the list, our youth gathering was as Mom put it, "a smashing success". Thanks to everyone who came out and joined us! To those who couldn't make it, we missed you all and hope we can do it again soon. We played some volley-ball, Mrs. T jammed her finger and I tried to tape it up right. [thankfully a Dad that was dropping off his kids was a paramedic-type in the military and he showed me how to really do it.] [So now I'm secretly hoping that I play one of you guys in a volley-ball match soon and you jam your finger and I swoop in and save the day by astounding everyone with my super-amazing sports medicine knowledge on how to tape up fingers:) Well, not really, but if I ever am in that situation again, maybe I'll do something better than a duck tape bandage with a splint made of pencils. We also played kickball, some acting games, had ice cream, etc. The last people left at 10:46pm and we stayed up 'til about 12:00 watching the video we had taken. In the morning we went to church and I had been asked to bring something to share during the teaching time. I was thankful for the opportunity and the Lord allowed it to go pretty well [I didn't pass out or anything:) Mr. Scott and Aaron also spoke and the whole time was a blessing. It was all wet and squishy in the yard, so we mainly played some Catchphrase after lunch. All in all, we had a really good weekend. Today we started our yearly aerating and seeding for our lawn customers. The Wilsons let us borrow their Yanmar tractor to pull the tow-behind aerator since our ATV has a serious transmission issue. The tractor is working great though. Thanks guys! I think tomorrow we'll continue all that kind of work so that all the customers get their seed down and growing. Hey! Here's a shout-out to some new followers: Thanks to "Pckldr7" and "Shawn-tisha" for followin' along on this 'umble little blog:) Okay, pictures are in the works [and probably more than just D.C.] Okay, I hope you all have a good night and I'm gonna sign out here!

Heads up

One more thing- Rachel and Sarah posted a blog today with a really great world-view statement about history. You can check it out by going to http://ourfamilyviewfromustwo.blogspot.com It's a really well written thought about a subject that should be very dear to us as Christians. See ya' there!

Thurs. Night

Good evening to all my readers. Hey- do you want to hear my cheesy joke of the day? Well, seeing as you can't really answer me on that one, here it goes: What do I feel like after listening to Klove's version of " Lord I Lift Your Name on High"? PETRA-fied :) ;) [hey I know it's cheesy, but you can't say I didn't warn you.] Matthew's probably groaning big-time right about now:) Okay, moving right along. If any of you have any favorite jokes or the like, feel free to post them as comments. If a lot of people do, maybe I'll post some of the funniest ones on the actual blog. Hey, some of you may have heard that Rachel, Sarah, and I, worked on some commercials for the Parental Rights Amendment video contest with the Tates and their friends. [some of you all were in them yourselves.] This week is the week that we're supposed to hear about the results from the judges. The biggest prize is $250. Whatever the turn out is, they were a ton of fun to work on and it was my first chance to work from a script. [By the way, we were just helpers, the script, score, and shot layout, etc. were done by Grace and her friends]. Anyway, it was still a great experience. Oh by the way, after the GenJ meeting the other night, we reconvened for about 2 minutes and I got elected to be the media relations kind of guy. [It was neat for me at least:) Speaking of that, I know I said I'd get some D.C. pictures on here. The deal is, I have to get them from video I took up there. I've loaded the video onto my computer, and now I have to grab frames and turn them into Jpegs. Then I can put them on a flash drive and bring to the office computer and load them onto here. But I'll get to work on it. Alright, I'm gonna get going. Looking forward to seeing some of you at least on Sat. for the youth night. Bye!

A Differing World-View

Hey everybody, how's it going? It's Wed. morning and I thought I'd take a minute to post some thoughts I've had recently. I'd been thinking about our trip to D.C. last week [that you can read about in a previous blog], and about some of the meetings we'd had with the different staffers of different congressmen. One guy in particular really did not seem too excited about the idea of the Parental Rights Amendment and what ParentalRights.org is trying to do. After we'd explained to him why we were there and told him all about the PRA and the CRC, he looked kind of confused and slightly irritated and basically said, "So why do you need a constitutional amendment? I mean, this is America, we wouldn't let anything happen that would really be detrimental to our society. And even if we did ratify the CRC; laws and decisions would still have to come past the Senate and we could just stop them then." We did our best to explain to him that for one thing, the CRC is already being cited by some of our judges as international common law and is already affecting our judicial decisions. As well as the fact that the reason we want a constitutional amendment is that we see very real and practical threats to the safety and well-being of parental rights and thus the rights of the family.[uh, sorry about the run-on sentences. Don't tell my teacher:) He heard what we had to say and finished up by telling us that the congressman he represented would probably have a philosophical difference with us on the subject. What I realized afterwords was that he was coming from a completely different world-view than we were. Take, for example, his argument about us not letting something like this happen in America. 50 years ago, you would have been laughed down the street if you had voiced a concern about the definition of marriage. Now, however, we know that sadly it's a real issue. We can see that "stuff like this" does happen in America. Left to our own fallible devices, human nature will never get better, but worse. The opposite world-view is that human nature is basically good. When we come from that standpoint, there is no real concern to be watchmen in our country for things that would be destructive to families. This world-view leaves God out of the equation and leads us to put our trust in the fallen state of humanity. As Christians we must not embrace these lies that would water us down to complacency and render us ineffective as ambassadors of Christ to our nation. Let us put our trust in our Lord and Savior and follow Him to final Victory. I pray that each one of us would be emboldened and encouraged to be lights in every arena of our culture and not shy away from this honor and privilage. Thanks for reading and I hope that you all have a great day:)

Good Morning!

Good morning to the various and sundry readers! How many of you all have heard of Generation Joshua? It's an organization started by Michael Ferris [as in HSLDA, Patrick Henry College, etc]. Our friends the Tates started one of two clubs in our entire state about one and 1/2 years ago. I got involved back in Februaryish and I have really loved it and learned a lot from it. God has been working in my heart for quite awhile about our role as Christians in the country that God has placed us in. May we not shy away from or avoid carrying His Crown Rights into what are really raging spiritual battles for our nation's heart. For any of you who have felt similar stirrings or really don't know what you think about "Christians in politics", I would strongly recommend a c.d. set by Doug Phillips called, " Biblical Principles of the Ballot Box". It's kind of a wordy title, but an excellent message. Hey, if you see me soon and want to borrow it, feel free. [It's actually being borrowed out right now, but I expect it back real soon] p.s. I won't make you fill out a tape report:) Anyways, GenJ has been a wonderful tool in shaping my worldview related to this topic and giving me practical avenues to live it out. Big thanks to the Tates for all of the energy, rides, scheduling, emails, phone calls, etc. A GenJ club is only as good as you make it, and ours is great! Any questions or anything, feel free to leave a comment or give me a call. [I think most of you have my number so I won't leave it for the creeps that are probably swarming all over this blog;) Oh, the reason I've expounded on the virtues of GenJ this particular morning, is that our next monthly meeting is tomorrow night. I guess I'm excited. If anybody knows anything about the Warne Fellowship by the way, I'd love some more info on that. Hey! We just got word that our Uncle and Aunt in New York want us to come up and see them again this winter! They've been extremely generous in flying us older kids up to spend a vacation week for the past two years. We're really looking forward to it! I also hope to go to the San Antonio Independant Christian Film Festival next October. [I was supposed to go in Feb., but they moved it to Oct. 2010] Oh well, maybe the extra time will give me a chance to enter something in it. Well hey, hope you all have a great first day of the week and say hi to your families for me!

Fall

Hey everybody, hope you all had a good Sunday and/or church gathering this morning! We went over to the Wilson's and had a good time of worship and teaching and Ultimate Frisbee [afterwords]. Mr. Tracy got back safe and sound from his deployment, and it was great to see the whole family all together for the first time in a while. We stopped by the Slurpee place on the way back home, and got some nice cold drinks for our ride home. Later on, I took the girls and Benjaming over to the final hours of the fair to pick up the chickens and pack away the 4H setup. We also got some great deals from the vendors who needed to clear out their stock. Anyway, so ends the fair. It was a fun time. Oh, by the way, today is the week anniversary of this blog! You can send all your cards and felicitations to my mailing address, it's fine if they get there a little late;) Hey here's an announcement for any of our church family that didn't make it out to the Wilson's today: In October we're going to start up a Bible Drill class for a bit of time after lunch on Sundays. Back at our v.b. homechurch, I led the kids in a similar thing that we had a ton of fun with and learned alot from. It's a really great tool for learning about some practical Bible navigation skills as well as memorizing some part's of God's word to have in our hearts. I don't have all of the final details, but will advise through email, etc. as things are firmed up. By the way, the reason that I called this post "Fall", is that I don't know about the rest of you, but I can just feel the change of seasons in the air. I have always loved the Fall and Winter and I look forward to this time with excitement all the year. Hope you all are enjoying it too. Alright, I'm gonna' sign out now. I'm thankful for each and every one of you guys, and hope you're doing well.

Our County Fair

Howdy ya'll! Ah jest got back from th' rodeo! Ah dun took ma' cuzin Matthew over there seein' as he didn't git ta come any of the other days. Them cowboys was a'ridin and a'fallin and a'gittin trampled all up! Hey guys, there's my country/western accent for you. So here's the deal, our fair started on Thursday night, and is going to run through tomorrow [Sunday] night. I've been there every night so far, and pretty much all day today. The younger kids have chickens in the 4H and if I didn't already mention it, Benjy got a blue ribbon and the rest of the kids combined got 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th. That was pretty surprising to us as it was kind of a last minute thing. There is a pretty good midway that Rachel, Sarah, and I used our wrist bands on. [The business had bought us each a wrist band for unlimited rides:) I actually got Grandma June to go on the Ferris Wheel with me! Mom and Leah and Benjamin did too. We checked out the craft tent at the girls request, and I had a beef tenderloin sandwich from the Ruritan club booth. That was really good for my inner carnivore. The Walkers came over this evening with some friends from out of town, and as I said before, the girls and I took Matthew over to see the bull riding. We hadn't really ever seen it before, and it was kind of nerve wracking. I was like, "If the bull already broke your ankle before you even got out of the gate, what makes you think it's going to get better from there? Why don't you go work at Dairy Queen or something?". Needless to say, I don't want to be a bull rider. Maybe sheep or something. Or Alpacas. Have you ever seen alpaca riding? If you have, leave me a comment and I'll come with my chapsticks or whatever you call them;) Hey! I got some Cuccinelli yard signs and his new bumper sticker! I didn't stay 'til closing time tonight because Matthew had to get back and I had to get ready for church tomorrow. [ It's at the Wilson's] Tomorrow I'll probably take the kids to pick up their chickens and I really want to see if the karaoke guy has some Veggie Tales song on his computer! If he does, I'll try to get Sarah and maybe Rachel to join me on the stage for the cheeseburger song or something else by Mr. Lunt. [I love Mr. Lunt's songs:) For the record though, I couldn't bring myself to stay very close to the karaoke the other night. [picture hip-hoppers trying to remember the words to "We Will, We Will Rock You". I mean, there's like six words to the song! How hard is that to remember? But nevertheless, they still were trying to get it out. Run far away. Okay, that's about it. Hope you all are having a good weekend and I hope to see you all soon! Feel free to leave comments by the way. [I love comments and free lunches]

Fair

Hey everyone! Just got back from the fair and I'm about to go upstairs so I'll be quick. I took Rachel and Sarah over there around 8:30 and we stayed 'til closing time[11:00] I had my fried food for the summer and enjoyed it pretty well. [But not those funnel cakes]. The Tates hunted us up and Daniel and I had some fun with the Ferris Wheel! But he wouldn't let me touch the bolts!:) [if you're there Daniel, it was really fun] Anyways, we're supposed to go back tomorrow and I'll post some more about it then. Good night :)

Washington

Hey Guys [and girls for the politically correct], it's 11:13 pm and I just got back from the County Fair a little while ago. Some of the kids are doing 4-H and I went to scout out the mid-way and tents and helped move the chickens around a little. Sorry I didn't get a chance to update this thing any sooner, but I didn't get back from D.C. 'til 12:45 am last night. Needless to say, I wasn't in the mood for blogging. Okay, here's the run down.[I should have some pretty cool D.C. pictures on here soon enough but not just yet]. I drove to the Tate's house on Wed. morning and got there around 7:15. We picked up Andrew and Caleb and then picked up the Matt, Evan, and Ms. Denise. We drove nice and swiftly to the capitol and only stopped once at WaWa. I had no need to worry about the Metro after all because we were running a little behind for our train. [Actually guys, I've always loved the Metro. It gives you that National Treasure feeling.] So we just drove right in and Mr. Larry let us off at the Longworth House Office Building. The House Offices are where every congressman from every state has an office. This takes up about 3 BIG buildings. Anyway, we had to go to Congressman Peter Hoekstra's office for the PRA briefing. There was a really good show of people who were volunteers for this event and the briefing did include the Free Lunch :) It was catered by Subway:) After the congressman spoke, a professor from Patrick Henry College spoke about some of the legal aspects of the CRC and PRA. To finish up, the director of Parentalrights.org spoke to us as well. After that, our group was teamed up with 3 PHC students and we received our list of meetings for the day. Our specific group didn't actually get to meet face to face with a congressman, [though we were supposed to, the thing was that there are all sorts of bells and buzzers in every room and hallway that call Congress to vote. This guy left to vote right before we got to his office.] However, we met with the staff of three or four congressmen [including Bobby Scott's and Glen Nye's] and dropped off literature at about 19 other offices. I think that with every team added up, we got at least literature to every single office. [But don't quote me too closely :)] After that, we bid our PHC friends farewell and did the quick walking tour of D.C. We walked past and took pictures in front of the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court, we saw the Capitol, the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials, and finished up by taking the metro [yay!] from Union Station to Arlington Cemetery while Mr. Larry drove the van around to meet us. We got there just in time to walk to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and see the changing of the gaurd finish up. That was a really quiet and neat place. There were signs all around telling the visitors to remember that this was hallowed ground. From there we loaded back up and started the trip back home. We left D.C. around 7:30, stopped in Fredricksburg to eat at Chipotle's, and got home at 12:45 like I said before. It was a really excellant trip and I want to thank each and every one of you for your prayers and support. It was so neat to be going to the capitol of the nation founded on the Lord, and paid for with the blood of countless soldiers, to defend and stand up for the rights of the families of this country. And also to walk boldly and joyfully into the awesome privilage and responsibility that God has given us as citizens of the United States of America, to encourage our leaders as well as hold them acountable to God's Truth. Thanks for your time and God Bless America!

Agent 1- here's your briefing

Good evening. I'm posting this at around ten o'clock even though the silly little clock thing will say I did it a few hours earlier. Now that that's settled, we just got back from work about 1/2 an hour ago. Big pruning job. Two story hollies that had to be brought down a ton. Tall ladder. Sharp hollies. Good job. Tired boy. Anyway, we were safe thankfully, despite some arial gymnastics on my part. All in all they look pretty good. Please though, if you're going to plant them, do it in a very deep, very dark place in some woods that I've never been to:) But hey, now they're good til next time. I would like to specially thank Mr. Elliot for being the very first follower of this blog! And Mrs. M for leaving the very first comment! I will cherish this moment for evah! :) On the way home from work today[tonight], we stopped by Wal-Mart to get a white shirt for D.C. By the way, I heard through my grapevine of top secret informers that the Parental Rights people are giving us Free Lunch. [I have always loved free lunch!] All this to say, I'm getting pretty excited about tomorrow's trip. My last experience with the metro however, involved a few hours of waiting on an underground platform and Rachel leading Sarah and Mom off at the wrong stop from the other end of the train. Maybe I'll get some reconciliation and healing tomorrow;) By the way, my two previously mentioned sisters have very sweetly volunteered to fill in my place at work tomorrow. It's bush-hogging and weed-whacking 2 big lots that have gotten really out of hand. I should bring them something back. These same two sisters are antsy to post on their wonderful little blog called ourfamilyviewfromustwo.blogspot.com it's worth looking at [and they'd love a comment while you're there.] Oh, the reason I called this post a spyish thing is that my informants also told me that during Free Lunch, we'll be getting briefed on our assignments and tactics for the day. Spyish:) Please pray for the trip and that the Lord would ready the hearts of the leaders for this message. [While you're at it you could throw me in a good word related to the .....metro.]

Quickly

Hey guys! I just wanted to welcome anyone who came here after reading the e-mail update I sent out. I promise my next post will be more interesting than this but hey. Thank you!

How's it goin?

Hey guys! I got some good news. I've been cleared by the owner of the company I work for to go to D.C. on Wed. with my Generation Joshua group. This guy has been just like a father to me as I've been with this company:) I had quite a time figuring out how to see other people's blogs on Blogspot without knowing them and having them give you the address. [I was thinking like a search engine or something here.] Anyways, I finally got it straight with some help from my sister Sarah. Every interest in your profile is like a link to other bloggers with those same interests posted! [at least it was a big deal for me:)] Today I stayed home and worked around the house because Dad was just doing business errands and stuff. What I mostly did was worked on chipping up the big brush pile that has accumulated in the past months. We borrowed a 3-point chipper from some friends and put it on our Kubota. This thing works really well and can take stuff up to 6" in diameter. However, it has a little trouble with loose leaves and the like. I had to unjam it quite a few times. I finished up after I fixed the biggest jam ever. Dad and I spent probably an hour+ freeing it up. The girls and Mom had some friends over to bake cookies for a prison ministry and I got to sample their work.[Nice day to stay home] One thing I'm working on is a documentary about the whole process that the Lord used to bring us out to our new house in the country. Our family of 9 were living in a small townhouse in the city and over about 3 years He led us to sell it, move to a rental, and build a homestead house on 24 acres in rural Virginia. It was a very growing and big and exciting process and it deserves to have it's story told. In the middle of everything else though, it's kind of been back burner. I need to shoot interviews and decide who I want to interview and what I want to ask them before that.[for one thing] I want to get back to work on it and get it wrapped up while it's still relatively fresh. My last film project was working on some commercials for the Parental Rights Ammendment with some friends from church. Well I better go, so thanks for reading!

Ahem

Hey Everybody! Thanks for taking the time to look at my lil' ol' blog! I'm excited to start this thing up and see what happens. I hope that over time we'll be able to cover a variety of subjects and musings with this thing and maybe you'll get to know me a little better along the way. I'm thankful for the opportunity to have a soap box to stand on; and I hope you all find this enjoyable and not too, too, boring. Okay, Let's get down to business. As this is new for me I'm not going to start with anything too drastic; so I'll just practice by telling what I did today. I kinda' slept in [after staying up late again], and then I ate 1/2 a bagel and some leftover hot dogs.[I know it sounds a little weird but hey]. After I got ready for church, I took the little kids to the Tate's in my car [that's where church was today.] We had a typical good morning of worship and Bible teaching and stayed around for lunch and playtime. Dad took everybody but me, Rachel, and Sarah back home. We lingered for a while longer and played music and I shot some targets with Mr. Matt's bow. [It's really nice and he got it from a thrift store! I guess I never go at the right times]. We also went inside and talked about how they really should have put "the scourging of the Shire" in the LOTR movies. We eventually left and went to 7-11 for some you-know-whats :) After arriving back at the house, Mom and Dad left for their date night and I barely got the grass cut before dark. [ We had to do our customers' lawns yesterday 'cause we got a ton of rain this week]. Well that's about the whole day more or less. Tomorrow the Thompsons and Alaina are going to come over to make cookies with Mom and the girls for a prison ministry. I hope to be able to go to Washington D.C. on Wednesday to go to the meetings ParentalRights.org has set up with our local congressmen regarding the parental rights amendment. This is a really key issue that is facing our country right now. We are talking about the question of "who do the children of this nation belong to?". There are those in other countries as well as in our own who believe in essence, that children belong to the State and their parents should at best be "partners" with the government to raise these kids. This may seem on the surface to be just a confused group of people with the goal of protecting children- and I hope that that might be the deal for the majority of the supporters of the UNCRC. Having said that however, I must say that I believe that the root of this issue is alot more diabolical. What the heart of this "children's rights" movement is, is the complete socialization and breakdown of the family unit- the building block of every Godly society. It is a dark day when America wishes to strip parents -fathers and mothers-of their God-given and God-designed roles and claim the Inheritance from the Lord for her own plans and devices. But take heart. The Lord has raised up a large army of His families and people who will stand in the gap to say to this CRC bill "You Shall Not Pass!" These people are you and me. Please pray for God's protection for our families and thank Him for the opportunity that this situation provides for us, as Christians, to carry His standard boldy and proclaim His Truth. That is why I want to go to D.C. and ask our leaders to support a constitutional ammendment to protect parental rights. Well hey, I'm gonna' sign off here and I hope you've enjoyed this. See ya soon!