"This tastes like bun water!"

Every time I think about this one liner I laugh. (I don't get out much, my kids are my only source of entertainment.)

Yesterday there was a bottle of Pedialyte on the counter. Ella was recovering from the flu, for about the 100th time this school year, and had been offered some Pedialyte to drink. After one taste she decided water was the only thing she wanted. So there sat the opened, undrunk bottle on the counter. Levi, thinking it was juice, or something else great that he was missing out on, decided he wanted a glass of it to drink. I warned him that it was for kids with the flu and didn't taste like juice. He was sure I was wrong and demanded I pour him a glass. All right! So I poured him a nice tall glass. He took one sip. Then looking puzzled he tried it again and announced "This tastes like bun water." I laughed so hard (and am still laughing now a day later as I type this) I almost fell to the kitchen floor. Ella and Noah got a good giggle out of it as well.

Just to clarify - when the kids are taking a bath Levi is always slurping up dirty, soapy, bath water. Jason has repeatedly warned him not to drink tub water since you sit in it. Thus dubbing it "bun water."

So, the advertising on the bottle of Pedialyte that says, "Tastes great" is a lie.

A baby, a wedgie, and a stinky pit...

Just some random photos from the weekend...

Last night, at who knows what hour, Levi came bolting out of his room at a full run, with blanket, teddy bear, and sippy in hand, like he was headed for a sleep-over. Paige was up and about, so I thought she was in their room and had sent him to ours. Turns out I fed her a bad piece of halibut for dinner and she was in the ladies room. She emerged from the bathroom a while later to find Levi and I snuggled up in the bed. So she wandered over to his bed and slept there. And apparently her revenge was to blast me awake this morning with the camera flash. She found Levi and I just like this. Possibly a very aromatic location for Levi to snuggle into, but he didn't seem to mind...


Luke, trying out his new cart. The kid is just dying to learn how to walk so he can keep up with his siblings... or outrun them. He's working on it, but isn't there yet.


While I was doing childcare at church tonight, Levi discovered the joy of a well executed wedgie. Performed with your brother's undies, or course. Noah really was asking for it though, prancing around in just a chef's apron and his undies.

Pancakes... the solution to world peace

I made pancakes for breakfast this morning. Levi was declaring his love of pancakes as he devoured his third one...

"I love pancakes Dad! I love you too Dad!"

"When I have pancakes, I love everybody!"

"I even love Mom!"

"And I don't want to get spankin's, so I will say nice things. Cause Mom and Dad give me spankin's to teach me to obey"

(Gee, think he has heard that a few times around here?)

So apparently, all the middle east needs is... more pancakes!

Does Satan exist?

If you don't already know the answer to that question, then I am sure that 30 minutes of a Nightline debate will clear it right up for you! ;)

Video preview here

Story here

But seriously, Mark Driscoll and Annie Lobert versus Deepak Chopra and Carlton Pearson. Should be interesting. They held the debate at Mars Hill Church last week. It is edited down to 30 minutes for Nightline, so I imagine it isn't going to be too in depth. But I believe the full version is supposed to be posted online. For some pre-feedback, take a look at this from one of the Mars Hill pastors.

Thursday March 26th at 10:30pm on ABC (Phoenix time anyways, yours might be different.)

Not to rub it in or anything...

And in Gilbert, the forecast = waterslides!






Feel free to return the favor in, ohhhhhh, June. When it is hotter than the surface of the sun here...

Tuckered 'em right out though...

Congratulations Mike and Angela!

I took all of about 8 pictures while we were there. Some anecdotes...

We all went out to lunch on Friday before the wedding. We first stopped a place called 3 Bar BBQ. It had a drivethru. The collective decided we wanted to go somewhere nicer, although this place may have had excellent BBQ. So we headed to downtown Bozeman, to Ted Turner's restaurant. The collective decided it was much too high class, and that our children would disrupt the businesslike atmosphere.

So we ended up here...

The "semi-classy" may have been just right. Unfortunately, their motto was absolutely true. We had the worst waiter ever. We probably should have gone with the BBQ place...

Mike apparently was distracted by all the planning of the wedding. He apparently did not consider that with all of his roommates in town, he just might want to lock up his house and hide the key, as it would not take much convincing for us to get into mischief...

I hope you didn't have too much trouble finding all the light bulbs Mike...

Finally, a totally random photo of my better half and youngest papoose (looking literally like a papoose...)

Off to Montana

We are off to Montana tomorrow for Mike's wedding. Just Paige, Luke, and me. The older kids all get a fun filled weekend at Grandmas.

Here is the crew, "back in the day." I kind of miss the old days, back at Dordt...

Me, Joel, Todd, Mike
Paige, Mel, Jez, Andra, Shanda, Melissa


The guys, minus Eric (since he graduated the next year.) We were roommates junior and senior year, and I lived with Mike freshman and sophomore year as well.


So far, all of the guys have made it to each of our weddings

Joel and Mel were first and we all made the trip to Washington (Summer '99)


Then me and Paige in Michigan (December '99)


Then Todd and Sarah in Phoenix (Hmmmmm, '02-ish?)

Now Mike and Angela, '09. I'll have to post the picture when we get back.

Eric is the last man standing. He is going to get so much crap this weekend... (all in good fun old goat)

And one last piece of blackmail... Mike dancing with about half the bridesmaids at our wedding. Classic Mike...


Lookin' forward to seeing all the old roomies this weekend. I'm sure we will all sit around and relive the good old days like the bunch of old farts that we are... ;)

Gag reflex alert...

I thought we would have some fun for lunch today, so we made colored eggs. So we stirred up some eggs, and each of the kids got to pick a cake decorating color to mix in with their eggs.

Ella chose a lovely shade of red...


Levi chose black...

Noah chose brown...


The black and brown ones looked disgusting. Paige's gag reflex was kicking in just watching them eat them.

Levi decided he no longer wanted black, but orange instead. So I scarfed down the rest of his black eggs. My gag reflex didn't even twitch. Yummy!!!

Cherryholmes!

Cherryholmes finally made it back into town! And by in town, I mean a 2 hour drive to Tucson. And by Tucson, I mean a housing development so far north of Tucson it barely counts as part of the city. And by housing development, I mean retirement community.

Seriously. People pulled up to the theater in golf carts. I counted 7 other people, out of a couple hundred, who were under the age of 40.

But all so worth it! Cherryholmes is the best bluegrass band ever!

I bailed from work early today, and hit the 2 lane back route down to Tucson. The weather was perfect, overcast and cool, just the right temperature for rolling down the windows and blasting the Ipod...

After a quick bite to eat once I got down there, I enjoyed the awesome views of the Catalinas...






and got to the top of the hill just in time to take in a spectacular sunset....





Then on to the old folks home for some great pickin'...

Cherryholmes put on an incredible show, as usual. So far I have seen them in Tucson, Yuma, Michigan, and Tucson again. So I've got my Cherryholmes fix for a while. At least... until Sunday.

That's right people... Cherryholmes... twice... in one weekend. And Paige is even going with me on Sunday!

I recorded almost the entire concert in Tucson today. The videos are all uploading now, and should be done by morning. They'll be posted at the link below, and I will update this post with some of the better ones:

http://www.youtube.com/user/addink1970

Update: OK, so it took waaaaay longer to upload than I thought. I had to resize all the videos today before uploading them. More videos at the link above, but here are a few...

I have no idea...

why Levi balanced a dime on his face as he fell asleep. This is how we just found him...

Did I ever tell you how lucky I am?

10 years ago today I asked my lovely wife to marry me. She already knew that I was probably closer to the Grinch who stole Christmas than Thidwick the big hearted moose... and she still said yes. And my heart grew two sizes that day. I always give her a hard time that she tricked me into it... but it didn't really take all that much tricking.

Happy engagement day anniversary wife!