Dinosaurs Are Funny!

One of the reasons why I love working with preschoolers at church is because I hear some of the funniest comments from them. Yesterday was especially full of good ones. Here are a few memories:

A girl in my small group is the epitome of precocious. She often sounds like a grown-up, but she is still clearly a preschooler (she loves to grab the boys' hands to dance during worship, much to their chagrin). Yesterday, she came up to me with one of the toy dinosaurs and asked, "What kind of dinosaur is this? Is it a plant eater?" Uh. I looked in its mouth, saw no teeth, and declared it a plant-eating dinosaur.

This same girl, in the middle of our small group time, decided to tell me that dinosaurs are funny. Nothing more, nothing less.

My favorite moment of the day came when I was playing supermarket with another girl. She stood in the playhouse, and I sat outside, asking her for various items, which she would then pretend to give me. At one point, she decided to give me what she wanted to give me, so I was the recipient of apple juice and cranberry juice. I politely drank each glass of juice, proclaiming it delicious. Imagine my surprise, then, when she handed me my next drink and said, "Here's your beer."

Words of Hope

Have you heard of the trend that involves claiming a word for your year? I hadn't heard about it until a few months ago, but as we approached the start of 2011, one word kept coming back to me: hope.

You see, there are quite a few people in my life who are in the middle of a waiting period. I have prayed and prayed and prayed for God to end this waiting, but it just hasn't happened yet. As I was thinking about this, I thought of how I didn't want to give up hope while we waited. Sometimes situations seem hopeless, but I wanted to remain hopeful despite the discouraging circumstances.

Since choosing this word, I have been challenged. (Of course I've been challenged. In the same way that people are often afraid to pray for patience, I was a bit nervous to focus on hope this year because I knew I'd have plenty of opportunities to work on it.) Prayers have not yet been answered the way we have wanted them to be. I've been keeping an eye out for hope-filled Bible verses, and God has brought me to a couple in just the last two days through the copyediting project I'm currently working on. If you're in need of hope, my prayer is that you find it through these promises from God.

"Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: the faithful love of the Lord never ends!" (Lamentations 3:21-22)

"Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God's will. Then you will receive all that he has promised." (Hebrews 10:36, emphasis mine)

Road Trip to Wisconsin

Dave's been on spring break all week, but because I can't afford to take time off at the moment, we waited until the weekend to have some fun. Our original plan was to take an overnight trip, but thanks to some fun trips we're saving up for later this year, we decided to go cheap and do a day trip. Aside from gas money, we only spent money on our lunch this afternoon. I'd say that was a great deal!

First, we started our journey with some good tunes, courtesy of this FREE CD I picked up a few years ago in a tiny town in Scotland named Tarbert. We learned the importance of pedestrian safety until we grew tired of the songs and story after 44 minutes. I did enjoy hearing those Scottish accents, though.


So, where were we headed this morning? The Jelly Belly warehouse in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, of course! We took a tour of the warehouse on the Jelly Belly train, and at the end we were rewarded with a bag of the sweet treats. Yum!

Our stop at the Jelly Belly warehouse didn't take as long as we expected, so we drove up to Kenosha and discovered the Kenosha Public Museum, which happened to have free admission. Dave was frightened by this giant beaver, but I managed to convince him to take a picture with this beast. Speaking of beasts, one of the exhibits in the museum was about the woolly mammoths discovered in Kenosha County, complete with a life-size woolly mammoth and woolly-mammoth skeleton. Those things were huge! I attempted to take a picture but failed. If you're ever in the Kenosha area, you'll have to stop by and see them for yourself.

After our tour of the museum, we headed for lunch at our favorite Kenosha eatery--Fazoli's. There was a period of time when Fazoli's could be found in Chicagoland, but alas, that time has ended. When we discovered this Fazoli's last year, I was thrilled, and Dave quickly became a fan of Italian food . . . fast. This was our third trip to Fazoli's in a year, which is quite impressive when you consider that we live 90 minutes away from it. The breadsticks alone are worth the drive, friends.

With all our Kenosha points of interests visited, we decided to venture farther north to Milwaukee. Dave had just visited the city for a field trip with his students a couple of weeks ago, but I had never been. We wound up at the lakefront and took advantage of the beautiful weather by walking along the lake. I love my hometown, but there is no way you could easily find free parking next to the lake in Chicago. For that reason alone, I became a fan of Milwaukee. In the middle of our stroll, we found a cute coffee shop (it's that building behind us). It must be a favorite of the locals, because it was packed! We found a bench outside and enjoyed the sunshine.

On our way back, we walked past the Milwaukee Yacht Club. Most of the boats are still in winter storage, but I captured this picture of them. Soon they'll be found on the lake!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love being near bodies of water? They make my heart so happy!
I'm so grateful for the beautiful weather we had for our road trip today. It was a bit chilly (note the winter jacket, mittens, and wind-blown hair above), but it was lovely. I thoroughly enjoy days like the one we had.