And here’s the other 2:

My sister was having a fit about me making my own birthday dinner, but I kept it simple by making one of my favorite meals: chicken curry. Yum! I’ll put the recipe at the end of this post.

The fun thing about eating this curry is the toppings that go with it. Everybody gets a dish of rice and curry, then we each add our own toppings according to what we like. Last night the options were tomato chutney, pineapple, coconut, and sunflower seeds.

After dinner came dessert: creme brulee. And not just any creme brulee. . .my sister’s creme brulee! I have had creme brulee at some pretty fancy pants restaurants, but none of them is as good as Kimmie’s. Heaven in a ramekin!

Here’s Jon torching the sugar:

And the final product:

After dinner, all I wanted to do was hold the new baby. I can’t get enough of that little munchkin!

I can’t think of a better way to spend my birthday!

Here’s the recipe for chicken curry:

Saute:
2 Tbsp. butter or oil
2 onions, finely chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, minced

Blend in small bowl:
2 Tbsp. lemon juice or vinegar
2-4 tsp. curry powder (I used a heaping tablespoon and I wish I would have added a little more)

Stir this mixture into the onions and fry for 1-2 minutes. Add 3-4 cups chicken, chopped, shredded, or whatever. Stir-fry briefly to coat meat with spices, then add:
1 cup tomato juice or sauce
1 tsp. salt
1-2 cups broth or water

I put this in the crock-pot on low for several hours and by the time we were ready to eat, the seasoning was perfect.

To serve, put rice in a bowl, top with curry and your choice of toppings. Some ideas:
tomato chutney (tomatoes and onions mixed in vinegar/lemon juice, sugar, and salt), peanuts, sunflower seeds, coconut, scallions, peppers, pineapple, apples, raisins, banana slices, chopped hard-boiled eggs.

This recipe is super forgiving and can easily be altered to fit your family’s taste. Hope you give it a try sometime!

But the excitement didn’t end there. . . look what else happened on the very same day:

My new nephew, Rylan Matthew arrived! He weighed in at 6 pounds 6 oz. The best part was the total surprise we got when he showed up 3 weeks early. Hooray for babies that don’t make us wait for them!

Rylan belongs to my little sister and this guy:

I love my brother-in-law and he’s a great dad. But I love his kids more.

Here I am getting my first glimpse at my new little buddy:

I really should have a picture of my sister to show you, but I arrived at the hospital only about an hour after she gave birth. She would not be so happy with me if I posted a picture of her on here. I’ll at least let her get a shower first.

So this first day of school will go down in history as one of the more chaotic first days, but the good kind of chaos. I’m a proud mom, aunt, and sister.

My grandparents have been gone for many years, but three of their four daughters still live in Mississippi. My Mom moved to the midwest nearly 40 years ago, but she hung on tight to her southern roots and raised me to appreciate all things southern (including cornbread and beans, pecans, magnolias and Ole Miss football).

Here are the 4 sisters (my mom is 2nd from the left):

And from those 4 sisters came this crew (we were missing a couple of cousins, so this isn’t the complete family):

Here’s a shot of my mom and my sibs and our families:

But here’s a more realistic look at us:

This is my cousin Laura. She looks just like my Mom. She hosted the reunion at her house. She is my hero:

The reunion was scheduled right before my mom’s 60th birthday, so we took the opportunity to celebrate while we were together:

Someday we’ll talk about the fact that my brother is 36 years old and wearing a Super Dog t-shirt, my sister is wearing a shirt that seriously makes her look prego (suck it in Kimmie, suck it in!) and that I got ripped off on the height genes.

We got my mom a beautiful diamond necklace for her birthday. I wanted to keep it for myself, but I couldn’t get that idea past my siblings:

See these guys? They’re my big cousins. I love them. I’m not sure I know anybody more funny than these two. And in their spare time, they hunt gators and snakes. You think I’m joking but I’m not.

Here’s a shot of Mike the hottie. He refuses to join facebook and I find that maddening:

Of course, no family reunion is complete without a little airtime:

Lots of picture taking:

A fight between loving spouses:

Plenty of time to visit with cousins:

And some chocolate cake to end the day:

It was a memorable weekend with just the right balance of laughter, story telling, good food, and relaxation. There’s so much more I could say about this reunion, like the fact that we all look alike (it’s crazy!), but I will end it on this note: I love this side of my family tree and I’m thankful to be part of such an amazing group of people. Can’t wait until the next time we’re together!

I actually had a post all ready to go entitled “Oh How I Hate the County Fair” but when I re-read it, I thought it made me sound like a grumpy old lady and I’m trying my best to avoid that. But the truth is, I hate the county fair. Something about the offensive t-shirts, the great immodesty, the unbelievable profanity, and the gross public displays of affection (or lust?), is enough to keep me away from the fairgrounds.

So instead of whining about all of that, I decided to give you bullet points of complete randomness. Here goes:

1. In honor of the county fair, we had a pie bake-off at church on Sunday. You’re not even going to believe this. . .I won first place!! WooHoo! I entered two pies: a shoofly pie (if you’re not familiar with it, you’re not alone. You kinda have to know a Mennonite to know anything about shoofly pie. It’s good, but an odd combination of ingredients that doesn’t appeal to the general population. . .). But the winning pie was my lemon blueberry pie. Oh the yum!

Here I am with my friend Selena, proudly holding my first place award:

Which shall we discuss first? My seriously deformed hand or that fact that the cameraman didn’t bother to tell Selena that her award is upside down (She won 2nd place with her super delicious blackberry pie)?

2. My sister is due to have her baby in only 4 weeks. She delivered her first baby 2 weeks early so I’m hoping for the same thing to happen this time. The waiting is killing me!

3. School starts in just over a week and we still haven’t fully decided how we are educating our children this year. We have had a number of things happen this summer that have caused us to rethink our original plan of sending them to the public school (where they have been all along). This whole deal about our children’s education has turned out to be a complicated decision! I didn’t know it would be this hard!

4. I just recently blocked off two weeks on my calendar to take a trip to a land far, far away. I’m dying to tell you more about it, but I’m waiting for a few more details to clear up before I write about it here.

5. I hate to see summer end. I think this has been the best summer we’ve ever had as a family. The kids are older and so much easier to travel with. And they can unwrap their own popsicles and wash their own sticky fingers, and get their own swimsuits on, and refill their own water bottles. . .all while I read in the sun. Ah, yes, it’s the simple things in life.

Ok. I think that’s the end of my randomness for now. Thanks for reading!

Anyhow, the reason I’m telling you all of this is because I’m about to pull out some theology and then I’m going to tell you how it applies to my life. My profs would be proud. So here goes nothing. Brace yourself, the pastor’s wife is gettin’ real.

Are you familiar with the term deism? Here’s what it is in a nutshell: Deism asserts that God created all things, but after they were created, he took a step back and let the natural world run according to the laws of nature. Kind of like a clockmaker. The clock is beautifully formed by the hands of its creator. Then when the clock is finished, the creator winds it up, steps back and lets it tick, never to intervene again.

Theism, on the other hand, says that God created all things and remains both interested and involved in his creation; God desires to know us and to be known.

Both deism and theism recognize the hand of a Creator and Supreme God, but whether or not he is concerned about his creation is the first place where they differ. There are other differences, of course, but for the sake of time and space and brainpower, I will not address those here.

So the discussion is whether or not God is interested in our lives. Now, you might think that since I’m a pastor’s wife, I have this all figured out (wrong!), or that I don’t have questions about whether or not God cares about us (wrong again!), or at the very least, I am disciplined enough to have an active, vibrant prayer life (hate to disappoint you, but wrong again).

Here’s where I’m at right now: I have questions about whether or not God is concerned about me and what’s happening in my life. I have had months (years, if I’m being honest) where it seems to me that my prayers have gone no further than the ceiling, settling somewhere amidst the dust on the ceiling fan blades. Can anybody relate to that?

Or worse, have you ever felt like God heard your prayers then did exactly the opposite of what you asked, just for the sheer fun of it? Yeah, I’ve been there too.

Somewhere along the line, I quit expecting God to answer me. I prayed out of a sense of duty and obligation, not because I really thought he cared about my life. When it all boiled down I realized, I was living like a Deist. Oh, I didn’t know I was. If you had asked, I would have told you I was a God-fearing, Bible-believing Christian. I’m a pastor’s wife, worship leader, ministry director, for heaven’s sake! Of course I believe in the power of prayer!

But I was a Deist. I was claiming Theism and God’s intimate involvement in my life. But I was acting like a Deist, afraid to approach the Great Clockmaker for fear of his passive glance, or worse, his smirk.

During our sabbatical, one of the things that kept coming back to me was a need to start trusting God again. It felt weird to admit that, because I really thought I was trusting God. But when I took a hard look at my life, I realized that trust had been lost and replaced by independence and apathy. When I came to grips with that I knew something needed to change.

I don’t have it all figured out yet. I don’t have a bunch of scripture to quote for you. I don’t claim to have God or theology all wrapped up in a pretty little package, nor will I ever. What I do know, is that God extended His hand to me in an invitation to walk with him and trust him on a deeper level. I reached my hand toward his and I’m holding on tight.

Where will this take me? I’m not sure yet. I’m just taking one day at a time, learning to trust God again, taking baby steps toward a more real relationship with Him.

And that’s my version of a lesson in practical theology. Would love to hear your feedback.

To be honest, the whole Sea World experience was a little eh for me. The shows were cool but the girls were much more excited about going on rides but the rides were limited because all 3 of the girls are short.

The older two really wanted to ride a big coaster but they couldn’t meet the height requirement. They begged us to be measured so they would know how close they were. It was so pitiful I had to take a picture. . .see that bar above Bryn’s head? If her head could make that bar move, she was allowed to go on. Not even close. Check Lydia out: standing there with her arms crossed completely frustrated with her vertical challenges. Ha!

So we were forced to hang out on the little kiddo rides all day. Here’s Conrad being a sport:

My favorite thing was admiring the sea creatures. Amazing! Conrad took this picture of me checking out the sharks swimming over my head:

We also enjoyed the shows, especially Shamu:

We had a lot of fun but by that night we were all done with being hot, sweaty, and sunscreeny. We were all happy to lay down our weary heads when we got back to the hotel.

On our last day in Florida, we hung out at the hotel pool and that evening we went mini-golfing. I was dreading it (I was so tired of the heat and the crowds, it just didn’t sound like fun to me at all), but it ended up being a really good time.

The next morning we packed up and headed north. Our plan was to stop for the night but the more we drove the more anxious we were to get home. We pushed hard and pulled into our driveway at 4:00 the next morning. Home.

I could tell you endless stories of fun conversations we had as a family, or how we had a family talent show one night in the condo, or about the fun people we met along the way. But I am feeling a need to move on to more current happenings. I may refer back to our trip now and then and I still hope to write a post about the family reunion, but other than that, I’m moving on to other things. . . stay tuned!

So, on to the final leg of our journey: Orlando. We flew into Orlando on Sunday afternoon, got settled into our hotel and headed to Downtown Disney. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll know that we’ve been to Disney a couple of times, including an extended family trip last summer. Call me what you will, but if I’m completely honest, I get a little Disney-ed out. I mean I love it because the girls love it, but the crowds, the heat, the lines, the expense, it just gets to be too much for this mama.

But Downtown Disney is different. I love it because a) There’s no admission fee, b) It has great restaurants and c) There’s a Ghirardelli Chocolate shop and they hand out free samples.

So Sunday night we hung out downtown. The problem was that it was July 4th and approximately half all of the southeastern U.S. had the same idea. Oh the crowds. I would enjoy Disney so much more if we could be there all by ourselves. We headed back to our hotel without seeing even a single firework (or is it single fireworks? I’m struggling with that grammar, I really am).

Monday morning we woke up to pouring rain and the weatherman said that this was not a typical Florida thunderstorm that passes quickly. He predicted that it would rain at a steady drizzle all day. We were really disappointed about that because we had planned to go to Sea World that day.

So to make a long story a little shorter, we decided to scrap Sea World and just hang out at Downtown Disney. There are plenty of indoor things to see and do, and we were determined to not let the rain ruin a perfectly good day.

The first thing we did was buy tickets to see Shrek 4. The movie didn’t start until 1:30 and it was only 12:00 so we decided to grab some lunch before the movie. We wandered from restaurant to restaurant trying to find something that sounded good and was within our budget (very tricky, Disney is not so budget friendly!). Finally we settled on a pizza place and I wish you could have seen us pouring over that menu. Nobody gets salad. Everybody drinks water. We were trying to trim costs everywhere. Finally we settled on our order. I hate to admit to you, but despite our trimmed down order, our bill was still about $50. For pizza! It was good pizza, but still, it’s pizza.

So at the end of the meal, we were waiting for our check and it seemed to be taking forever and I kept looking at my watch knowing that we had to get back to the theater in time for the movie. Finally, our waiter came to our table and said, “You guys must have a guardian angel looking out for you. . .your meal has been paid for.”

I’ll just wait here for a sec while you soak that in.

We both looked at our waiter and said, “Huh?”

He explained to us that someone had covered our meal for us, including tip. How awesome is that???

We have absolutely no idea who did that for us but it made us happy! and giddy! What a fun surprise!

The crazy thing is I started to get a little paranoid about being watched. Who was watching us in the restaurant? Were they still watching us to see our reaction? If I would have known I was being watched I would have been nicer to my kids. Ha! I distinctly remember nearly snapping B’s head off when she dropped her place mat for the 42nd time in about two minutes. I would have handled that with the patience of a saint if I’d have known someone was watching.

I was going to try and wrap these posts up today, but this one is getting long and we haven’t even talked about Sea World yet. So I’ll end here and bring you Sea World tomorrow. Over and out!

So she wrote this post today and I left her a comment (go read it, it’s in the first half of the comments, but the number keeps changing). Well, imagine my shock when she wrote me back! I didn’t know famous bloggers write emails to non-famous bloggers! I was so happy I just had to call my sister. Well, then, then, she wrote me again. And she told me my comment was EXACTLY RIGHT (emphasis hers!)! Oh it makes me happy. Two responses on the same day.

I don’t even know what else to say about it. Go read BooMama!

We spent a lot of time in the water riding the waves. One day the Gulf was so calm it looked like glass. Gorgeous. But a few of the days the waves were rough and the strong undertow made me nervous. We still really enjoyed the water, just a little closer to the shore:

On our last morning in Siesta Key we walked the beach and found this little guy:

And here’s a few more favorites taken on the beach:

Up next: We went to the deep south where we enjoyed a family reunion. Can’t wait to tell you about it!