Child Brain Vs. Adult Brain Part II

Clint has been very concerned lately because there's about a dozen young men in our stake between the ages of 19 and 35 who are completely addicted to video games. They are under or unemployed, not going to school, not married, not socialized, living with their mothers playing video games all day. I told Clint no worries. We'll just talk it up and make sure the boys would never want to be like that.
So the other day I turned off the Wii after an hour of play and the boys threw their usual fit. I returned with my best wide-eyed voice, "Did you know that some people become addicted to video games? They play video games all day. They don't get jobs, or get married, or have children, or go to school and they live their mothers and just play video games all day."
Talmage: But Mom what happens next? What's the bad part?

Shark Attacks in Largest Hot Tub in Memphis

My brother Joey has the greatest ideas. For a long time he's been wanting to set up his digital movie projector beside our pool and watch Jaws while floating in the water! Last Friday we did it and it was so much fun!

It was the Hales, the Cresaps, our friend Beth Smith (pictured here drinking Joey's Red Chum Smoothies with Katie and I) and our friends Loren and Cindy Smith.

I only let out 3 blood-curdling screams. I couldn't help it.

And then there was the matter of the water temperature: 98 degrees! Too warm for me. Our pool has a dark blue automatic safety cover that is closed whenever we're not using the pool. It's been heating our pool up like crazy. I never imagined a pool could get too warm. We didn't even swim in it after this night, while we brain stormed how to cool it down. There was a pool cooling system for 3k we didn't even consider. Then we found a little PVC gadget on the internet for $38. The pipe plugs into the water return spout and sticks out of the water. It has about a thousand pinholes that water sprays out of. The first night we ran this, it cooled our pool down from 98 to 92. The second night it went down to 82! Yay! Our investment and summer is saved! We had such a refreshing swim today!

Flash Back on Jack

I had to share these pictures of Jack back in San Diego last summer. He can't seem to take a bad picture because he's always in an action figure pose. He IS an action figure!

I've got my sword and my boots and I'm ready to fight the bad guys!
Oh look, there's a bad guy right there!
Take that!
Oh the Bad guy has a sword too, and a chariot!
But no matter, I will intimidate him with my sheer fierceness and my complete disregard for the safety of myself and others!
Whack, Whack! WHACK!Tal: Game over. I'm outta here! (Click on this photo to see Tal's expression)

Cole the Great aka--He Who can be Bribed

Cole did it! Four seconds into his first solo ride Cole said, "I can't wait to go to Toy's R Us!" After his second lap he said,"Besides, I kind of like it."

Double Yipee!

Monday morning Talmage decided he was ready to ride by himself. His comments on the matter:
"Ayone would want to watch me do this!"
and
"Yay! Now I don't have to be bored anymore!'

Hurricanes, Typhoons and Wildfires and Tornados, Oh My!

It's seems like everywhere we've lived we've had excitement of the natural disaster variety. Hurricanes in Pensacola, Super typhoons in Guam, Wildfires in San Diego and now we've had our first Tennessee Tornadoes. Ten days ago on Friday the boys I were finishing up our last day at cub scout camp. That day a TV weatherman came and talked about tornadoes and hurricanes--how timely! When we got home the weather radio alarm started going off with Sever Thunderstorm Warnings and finally a Tornado Warning. By the time Clint got home from work, 10 minutes later, things were ramping up. The sky was turning purple and later it was orange and it was really raining and blowing around out there. Then the power went out. The boys started crying and getting scared so we told them ,"Don't worry this is just a practice." We put them in Clint's closet with floor pillows and the laptop to watch a movie. About 15 minutes later it was all over. We got off with no damage, but many in the area had trees go down and there were two tornadoes that touched down in our town. We didn't have power for 20 hours (100,000 homes were without power) and lost $200 worth of food in our fridge. That night we called Joey and Katie and invited ourselves over to their house for games as they still had power and AC. It was very easy to go as we already had the boys dressed in their PJs watching movies in the van and I already had Trace's crib in the trunk from cub scout camp. The next day we started getting antsy enough in the heat that Clint went to Lowes to look for a generator, not really expecting there to be any left, and there weren't. But luckily the power came back on 2 minutes before he got back.
Sunday morning was even more exciting for me as Clint went to church early for meetings and we had another crazy storm blow through. This time our weather radio wouldn't pick up a signal and the TV stations wouldn't tune in so I couldn't figure out how serious it was. I texted Clint and asked if church was canceled and he returned "Of course not! No big deal, just a thunderstorm." I still left 10 minutes earlier than usual expecting to have to drive more slowly in the driving rain. I had to drive through about 5 washed out places on the road and around two felled trees on the route to church and the whole time I was going about 20 miles under the speed limit watching for hazards, very nerve wracking. These country roads look like inspirational posters--tunnels of trees. Very pretty, but dangerous with zero shoulders, little visibility and drivers that are not good at driving in weather. I was almost to the church when a police car pulled in front of me and blocked the road because it was washed out ahead. So I had to circle back and come another way which added another 20 minutes to my trip. Most people arrived about the same time I did, 1/2 hour late! It was slim showings and a very exciting morning for sure! (sorry no pictures. Our camera was lost during this time.)

Summer, finally!

I've been so elated this week because, for me the summer just started. Talmage had a summer camp the first week and the second week he had cub scout camp. At last the schedule is all mine to control and manipulate with out any outside commitments or pressure from school! Yipee! Too bad my kids can't say the same. Bwa, ha ha! First it's bike time, then it's gym time, then reading time, then chore time, then swim time, and at meal time they are helping me cook and clean up. I'm restricting screen time to 1 hour a day. "Hey when I was a kid there were only kid shows for two hours on Saturday mornings. And no we aren't going to Toys-R-Us to spend your money until you know how to ride a bike. When I was a kid we only got new toys on birthdays or Christmas." They grumble as if to say, 'Just because your childhood sucked, it doesn't mean ours have to!" But they don't grumble too much. I think they secretly love the training they are getting. Today I gave Cole, Jack and Tal their own grocery cart and shopping list and they took care of the produce section. They had a blast. It was extra fun because it was at Aldi's and they got to put the quarter into the cart to "rent" it from the store.
Please stay tuned for the grand announcement when one of my offspring actually rides a bike without training wheels. Will it ever really happen?!? I'm pretty sure I'm going to cry or kiss the ground when it does. Or maybe I'll just drive them straight to Toy's-R-Us.

Pool Update

I love Memphis. It's June 1st and our pool is 92 degrees top to bottom! We are really enjoying it. Almost every time we open the cover 4-8 additional boys from the neighborhood appear. Some of the older boys have demonstrated lots of cool skills and games for our boys to imitate. On day 2 of swimming Cole and Talmage both jumped off the diving board and swam the length of the pool. I was holding that as a goal for them by the end of the summer. We have also enjoyed the couple of times we've had the pool all to ourselves. Tonight we swam just as a family. Over the course of the 2 1/2 hours, Cole over came his fear of the deep end and swam across it countless times. And Talmage mastered surface diving down to the drain cover at the bottom of the pool--9 feet down. We were so impressed. Then he began fetching Clint's soft dive weights from down there. He may be skinny but he's getting to be a strong swimmer and we're starting to see some muscles! Jack is the most daring jumper of all the boys. He's still wearing a floaty but I think he might discover soon he doesn't need it. Trace's job is to throw things into the pool and he takes it very seriously. At the end of the night Clint said, "Boys that was our family night." Cole said, "But we didn't do any church stuff." I said, "Here's the church stuff: Our family is forever, so we'd better like each other now." They agreed.