Happy Fathers Day in Three Words

Well, our church had this great idea to do shout outs to our fathers for Fathers day today in the fashion of ABC News' Three words videos (click to see one). If you haven't seen one of these, they are quite fun and usually a tear or two comes along while you are watching the three word messages go across the screen. So the media department at our church has been soliciting pictures for the last 3 weeks and I submitted my picture 2 weeks ago, but for some reason, my photo did not get into the video. I don't know why, but since Lance and I have a meeting with the head media guy tomorrow, I plan on asking him. :-) Anyway, here is our "3 Words for Dad" photo. And if you would like to watch the video, it is on the top of the You Tube feed on our sidebar.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Here are some other important things that happened this day in history (I've Highlighted some of my favorites):

510 B C	Rome becomes a republic (one suggested date)
1594:	Orlando di Lasso died in Munich. He was 62. Orlando was one of the first composers to routinely compose polyphonic music, multiple melodies going at one time. Without Orlando, Bach might not have been possible
1642:	1st compulsory education law in America passed, by Massachusetts
1775:	United States Army founded
1777:	Continental Congress in Philadelphia adopts Stars and Stripes as U.S. flag, replacing Grand Union flag
1841:	The first Canadian parliament opened in Kingston
1847:	Bunson invents a gas burner
1900:	Hawaiian Territorial Government begins
1909:	Actor and folk singer Burl Ives born
1917:	Gen. Pershing and his HQ staff arrived in Paris during World War I
1919:	First direct airplane crossing of the Atlantic
1922:	Baltimore radio station WEAR first to put on a President (Harding)
1940:	German forces occupied Paris during World War II
1944:	First B-29 raid against mainland Japan
1946:	Real estate developer Donald Trump born
1948:	TV Guide is first published
1951:	Univac 1, the world's first commercial computer was unveiled and demonstrated in Philadephia PA. It was designed for use by the U.S. Bureau of the Census
1954:	President Eisenhower signs order adding words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance
1961:	Androgynous rock musician George "Boy George" Dowd, (Culture Club) born
1968:	Actress Jasmine Bleeth born
1969:	Tennis player Steffi Graf (in West Germany) born
1971:	Actress Traylor Howard ("Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place") born
1976:	The Gong Show premiers
1977:	M. L. King killer James Earl Ray recaptured after prison break
1983:	Health Secretary Margaret Heckler said her department would give top priority to finding the cause and a cure for AIDS
1989:	Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was arrested for slapping a Beverly Hills motorcycle patrolman
1989:	Smoking in closed areas and smoke commercials were forbidden
1990:	The Supreme Court, 6-3, upheld police checkpoints that examine drivers for signs of intoxication
1992:	The Chicago Bulls won the NBA championship, beating the Portland Trailblazers in game six, 97-to-93
1997:	Hong Kong's future legislature rammed through two laws Saturday to curb political freedoms and civil rights when China takes back the 156-year-old British colony in little more than two weeks' time
1998:	The Chicago Bulls clinched their sixth NBA championship, defeating the Utah Jazz in game six played in Salt Lake City, 87-to-86

Deep Thoughts From a 4 (almost 5) Year Old

Lindsay says we need to look like Bobby because she thinks that spiders think that spiders think that our hair is a spiderweb. Then we should tell the whole world to look like Bobby so that they know.


- For those who do not know Uncle Bobby is quite fashionably bald. :-)

A recent conversation in our house

The girls were looking through Pottery Barn magazine.

Leslie:what dis?
Lindsay:a table
Leslie: what dis?
Lindsay: a table
Leslie: what dis?
Lindsay: AARRGGG.....I TOLD YOU!!! A TABLE!!!!!

Katie: Lindsay...if you get mad, count to 10

a couple minutes later....

Leslie: what dis
Lindsay: 1,2,3,4,5,6.......

What does a TX Bauslaugh do on weekend with $4 gas?

GO TO THE POOL!!!! 92 degrees with 102 after the heat index!

NEW CHAPTER!

Two weeks ago I started a new job. I was not looking to leave Sterling Athletics, but I believe God had a bigger plan in store for us! I began a new chapter in my career/life/you name it two weeks ago!

I now work for a company called the Pursuant Group. The Pursuant Group began in 2001 and they specialize in online fundraising. Their client list ranges from Universities, non-profits, and parachurch organizations. However, I am coming on board to sell a brand new product to churches and non-profits nation wide. I am really excited about this product. It is called Unifyer. You can watch a two minute video at Unifyer but clicking the logo below.Unifyer is a web-base communication tool that, LORD willing, is going to revolutionize the way Churches "DO COMMUNITY"! Or more importantly the way a church communicates.

Unifyer allows the church to communicate in real-time at all levels of the church. We do this through empowering the church members to collaborate, join ministry feeds and start & join affinity groups they are most interested in. This might sound like a lot, but just think of a social network (like Facebook) for your church.....under your church's name. You are able to communicate with other church members in real time. While the social network is a neat part of Unifyer, the real importance is on this new wave of communication.

We have begun to ask ourselves, "what comes after email?"

If you are reading this, there is a good chance you also have a blog. Blogging is a nice way to communicate because I can post a picture or video and you can check it out when you want. You come back to our blog because you know us, or because you think our girls are cute and want to see the latest picture or video(sorry for not updating lately). Can you imagine a church or organization communicating through a series of blogs where you just click on the a blog of the next person and so on..... Unifyer allows all those blogs and content to be "umbrellaed" if you will, under the organization/church's name. Anytime someone updates a ministry with new information. Everyone who belongs to the ministry will get an email notification telling them there is new info for them to check out.

I am just rambling now, but the point is. We are no longer just using static websites and emails. WEB 2.0 has been here for a while! Check out this video!



We are the web! The church needs to realize that before it gets passed up. There is so much technology available to us and we need to use it! I am fired up.

I would be curious to hear what you think once you have watched the demo video from the Unifyer link above. We will have new content on the Unifyer website shortly (6/7 I hope). Content geared more to the Church.

Anyway, that is whats new here! Thanks for reading.

Lance

It's Summer in Texas!!

Summer has arrived full force in Texas. We have spent many days this week and last working on our tans at the pool. (Gotta get ready for Hawaii) Today, Lindsay tried out some new swim wings. She has never been really excited about swimming but today, with the swim wings she discovered a new freedom. Her favorite thing to do is just float there on the water. Now she wants to swim all the time and she thinks she can cross the pool no problem. Something mom is not ready for her to do without me being an arm away. I guess she is going to have some funny tan lines this year.

Today we had some friends join us.
Leslie doesn't understand why she doesn't get wings but for now she will have to be happy with the lily pad floaty.

Relay for Life

I wanted to post these pics a long time ago but better late than never!

We had fun at Relay again this year. Personally, I was able to raise $200.00 for the American Cancer Society. The entire event raised more than 2 million!!

The theme for our tent was Du Wop Bop out Cancer and we wore poodle skirts! If you've never been to a Relay for Life event you need to check one out in your area. They are fun, inspirational, reflective and therapeutic. Every year there is a moment that just gets you. This year, it was when I was walking with my friends during the luminaries part of the relay, talking about nothing important, when we came across two people in purple survivor shirts sobbing and holding each other over a particular luminary. It's hard to even think about without getting tears in my eyes.

Anyway, here is some of the fun we had:

It's been a while.

The last two months are a blur. We've had visitors from South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington and a new roommate from Chicago (Lance's sister Debra is living with us for a short time). So here are some pictures from March and April. We didn't get pictures of all of our visitors but there are a few represented. Also, notice that Lindsay beat both Grammie and Grandpa in Wii bowling. :-)

Maple Shade HS Dancing Principal

Is this guy cool, or what?

Relay for Life!

I will be participating in Relay for Life again this year. I am excited to be raising money for such an important cause. I don't know anyone who's life is not affected by cancer in some way. I have almost reached my goal for fundraising but would love to blow it out of the water! If you would like to join me in this effort please check out my fundraising website.
I am participating in memory of my Grammie and Auntie Sharon. And in honor of my mother, a survivor of more than 25 years.

Click HERE to see the site.

The Door

The Door!

Snow!

A very small slide show of the last couple of months.

No, we haven't fallen off the face of the earth. We're just in Texas!

I know it has been forever. We have had a busy couple of months since Christmas but not much to blog about. Just work and some play. Tonight we had some excitement because it is snowing in Texas!!! Real snow, not the pittance we usually get. It started shortly before bedtime and is really coming down right now. What is truly unbelievable is that it was in the 70s yesterday and today, it is clearly in the 30s. Gotta love it!!?? Lance is missing it all for a show in Indiana but I thought I would put a picture up for you all and Lance to see what he is missing. I only wish that the girls could play in it, but I think that it is going to be gone by the time they wake up. I have actually considered getting them up and bundling them up to go play in it, but I don't think the neighbors would like to hear us frolicking at ten o'clock on a school night.

Happy Birthday Lance!

Today, Lance enters the last year of his 20's. :-)
29 years ago today, my best friend was born. I thank God every day for the man he is.

We Love you Lance!

Kissing the Ground

We arrived back in Texas this afternoon. The plane touched down at 5pm central time. I had enough time to listen to the Seahawks loose the lead and get it back just as quick as they lost it.

Anyway, at about 3:30pm central time our plane was dead center over the Rockies. We were flying very smoothly. We were enjoying the flight as it was not very full and we were able to claim a whole row of seats. Katie had Lindsay in a set of three seats and I had Leslie in the other three seats. ALL OF A SUDDEN....BAM!!!!! The plane shook violently. Now, I have experienced turbulence before and this was was crazy! Picture the TV show LOST when stuff goes flying everywhere. We were in the back of the plane and the flight attendants were in the galley with all of their serving items loose. Lets just say it went everywhere. One flight attendant ended up laying in the middle of the aisle and she did not voluntarily lay down there! A guy two seats in front of me lost his coffee only instead of it falling to floor, it was all over the ceiling of the plane.

The plane shook and dropped and moved for only about 30 seconds we figure, and then it was fine again. Needless to say it was not a happy 30 seconds. The girls handled it like Champs. While both girls were frightened, Lindsay did have a comment when it was over, "WEEEEEE!" We believe she has flown too many times for a four year old! :-)

When we were getting off of the plane, we saw a guy in a suit with an FAA badge requesting a special inspection of the plane! We decided that it is really amazing that something made by man can be 30,000 feet in the air traveling a break-neck speeds and handle that kind of pressure/violence.

Another side note......we got home and the house was a cool 62 degrees. We lowered the temp in the house while we were gone. Guess how we warmed the house up????? We opened the windows. It was 75 degrees outside with a slight breeze! Got to love Texas!

Merry Christmas

Christmas Caroling by Lindsay and Leslie

The girls wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Below is three Christmas songs for everyones enjoyment. Consider this our Christmas card! :-) You will see how Leslie is Lindsay's biggest fan... uh... biggest copycat. She is able to add her own flair to the ending of the song however! Enjoy!!

JINGLE BELLS


AWAY IN THE MANGER!


FELIZ NAVIDAD

First Baptist McKinney Christmas Eve Service

This is our Lead Pastor. He is also an art major and brings artwork as a way to glorify God with the ability he has been given. Truly a great form of Worship. This is pretty neat piece too. You can thank God for sending his Son as you are watching. This was sent out as a preview for our Christmas Eve services coming on Monday.

Funny

A dear friend in Washington sent me this email about living in Texas. And it is so true!! I just want to add one thing. I knew we lived in Texas when we were driving behind a truck with four deer legs sticking out of the back! Oh and when you see a Texas orange Peterbuilt pickup truck (not a semi) with huge set of longhorns on the front grill driving to Walmart.

I can probably list a million other things that make Texas "special."

:-)

If you don't like the Weather, wait 20 min.

That is what they say in Texas. If you don't like the weather in Texas, just wait 20 minutes. Well that is exactly what it has been like. On Friday and Saturday of last week we had 85 degrees. The Christmas Journey was nice. On Sunday we were cleaning the different scenes from the Christmas Journey and it was 32 degrees outside. CRAZY! Well, on Tuesday we woke up to 75 degrees again. The picture below is of a cold front that moved through at 3pm CST yesterday. You can see the 20 degree change once the storm pasted through. Today it is in the high 30's again, and they say we should not have to use the air conditioning again until March....at the earliest! :-)

Christmas Journey

Some of you have heard that I was involved in our church's program called Christmas Journey. I did not have any speaking to do. Just sit and pretend to take the Lord's Supper for four hours a night. This is a drive through Nativity Scene. We have 15 different scenes from Jesus' life beginning with His birth and ending with His ascension. As you enter in your car, you are given a CD that plays while you drive from scene to scene. It is a narration of the different things you are looking at and in turn presents a clear gospel message.

It takes many weeks to get ready for and we have over 600 cast members from the church taking part. It ran Wednesday - Saturday nights. 6pm - 9pm on Wed. & Thur. & 6pm - 10pm Fri. & Sat. However, it really ended about 30min after the cut off because it takes approximately 40-45 min. to drive through the whole thing and we were one of the last scenes. We had about 10,000 people come through over all four days. I did a little asking tonight and found out that there will be many calls over the next week to individuals who either made a decision or are looking for a church home.....or just had questions. There are contact cards that are filled out as you drive through.

Below are a few pictures taken from the first night as Katie and the girls drove through and then from tonight as I snapped a few before we got started.



This picture was of the line of cars Katie was behind waiting for the gates to open on Wednesday.


The Girls eating it up!
Wide shot of Bethlehem .
Closer view of Bethlehem.
Jesus and the thieves on the Cross. These are real people. They subbed out every 20 min.
Us at the Last supper. I am on the far right. We were ask to not wear head coverings for the rest of the week even though we were told to have head coverings. It made sense to not have the coverings as we were supposed to be indoors.
A shot of the Last Supper tonight before we got started. The camera bag and cell phone were removed before the first car came through. I am the second from the right.

Me!
Me and three others. Bryan Faus is our Minister of Discipleship. He is the first one the left and yes, his beard is painted on. Dont ask me what the guy on my left is doing!
This is the trial scene where Barabbas is freed in stead of Jesus. Bet you did not know that golf carts were used in Jesus time???


The Open Tomb!

Christmas Tree "Farm" and Turkey Day

We made turkeys on Thanksgiving Eve. We used chocolate muffins with a nutter butter cookie with fruit roll ups for tail feathers. The girls loved it! They were tasty too, as Lindsay says.



This picture is of the girls at the tree farm. The Wal-mart tree farm, that is. We decided that since the trees were shipped in from Michigan and were cut for more than a month by the time you purchase them, we would get a fake tree. Also, Lindsay dressed herself. Do you like the black dress shoes with her tank and shorts??? It has been in the mid 70's all week until yesterday. The temp dropped to the high 30's. We have a great video of the girls and the tree, but we can't seem to load it right now.

A little catching up to do.

Well, It's been a while since we've posted, so we've got some catching up to do. We've had a busy couple of weeks!

We made caramel apples

We got to eat caramel apples!

We were visited by dancing princesses on Halloween ( I couldn't convince them to be anything else)

We decorated for fall, some of which got a little out of hand.

We had a visit from Grammie Donna and Papa Jim and showered them with gifts as they entered the door.

Lindsay taught Papa how to put elbow pads on.

Lindsay and Papa read the hardest book in the whole wide world (a title given to the book by Papa Jim).

And finally, we celebrated Thanksgiving a little early!

We had a great visit with mom and dad but it was very sad to see them go. I don't know if anyone had a dry eye as they left. It was really heartbreaking for Lance and I to try to console an inconsolable 4 year old.

Lindsay's Bike

What an exciting night!!! Lindsay did not suck her thumb for a whole week and was rewarded with her first bike. We are proud of you Lindsay!!! :-)

Marbles Game

Show Time!

Lindsay and Leslie put on a show for us tonight. This first video is of Lindsay's
"Gallop Dance." Looks kind of like an Irish Jig. The second is of the Girls looking for Praise!

This date in our history.

Two years ago, October 20th was the day that Lance left for Texas. It was a pretty sad day for us because he left without us and we didn't know when our family would be together again. Thanks to our friends and family, that couple of months apart was survivable. John and Nichole were there as he left and Kathy met with me for coffee that morning as I just needed to be away from the house. (I remember asking her if she wanted to go to the park, instead of pointing out the idiocy of that since it was cold and wet that day, she kindly said, "how about coffee?" instead of "are you crazy?!") Looking back at where we are today, some might think that the move to Texas was a crazy mistake. But, despite the intense desire to move back and "freedom" to do so, we find that we have been on the Anvil and are better for it. What do I mean by that? Christian author Max Lucado refers to being on the Anvil as God's shaping us into who we are meant to be. Being on the anvil is tough, not easy, but very necessary. Maybe what we are going through today is going to shape us to help us go through something even more significant in the future. And we are thankful that we are worth reshaping. All that said, we really want our house to sell or rent now!!!! :-)

Welcome Fall....Well, sort of.

Fall hasn't come to our corner of the world. Which is unusual, even for Texas. My brain doesn't quite get it. I look at the calendar and it says it's the middle of October. But it has be in the 80's or 90's since the actual first day of fall. So we were quite delighted Monday night when the temperature dropped and we had storms all night long. The next day we woke up to a perfectly dreary, though slightly warm, Autumn day. In Seattle, we might be wearing shorts in this temperature, but since it is Texas, somehow 65 is cold. So I excitedly broke out the jeans (yes, for the first time since being in Washington this summer) and the girls insisted on wearing their jackets, at least until they got sweaty. Even if it wasn't a real Fall day, at least the girls got to do some puddle jumping!!


This is a video of the girls playing in the play room. This is for the grandparents more than anyone!!

Guess Who??

I am cleaning up our computer before it crashes and we lose all our pictures. I came across these two pics. NO, they are not pictures of the same girl. Can you guess who is who??

1

2

A few pictures.

We have been a little behind on pictures lately. Maybe it is because of the nearly 10000 pictures in iPhoto, but the whole photo thing is a little slow, making it a bit of a task to upload photos. So enjoy these, please!

Lindsay recently made a self portrait on the whiteboard. Some of the "extras" are courtesy of her sister.This past weekend we joined Lance on his business trip to Birmingham, Alabama. A friend who is from Birmingham gave us a neat place to visit before we left for home: The Vulcan. It is a giant statue on Red Mountain that overlooks the city. The Vulcan is a god of Iron Work. Anyway it was a beautiful day and a great little stop on our trip. Alabama was a new state for all of us so that was exciting. So was the 10 hour drive back and forth through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Driving through Birmingham was a lesson in History, as well as through the other deep south states. We crossed the Mississippi at Vicksburg, where one of the most significant battles of the Civil war took place. We also saw cotton fields being harvested and a bayou or two along the way.

Leslie, all ready to fall asleep.