benett.net

Really, really Tor? I cannot believe you have roped me into this ridiculous ‘tagging’ phenom. 10 deep dark secrets about me? I’m not exactly a vault when it comes to my own life. I’ll give it a shot.

1. I once stole a mint from the Lion’s club box on a counter in a store in Cambridge, MN (I was about 4. They cost 3 cents.) My mom caught me with the empty wrapper outside, made go back and apologize, paid the 3 cents–over the cashier’s protests as I recall–and then made me sit in the car at the next errand. This was back in the days when a 4 year old could sit in a car outside a store and the police would not be called and you would not be in any danger–unless you got out of the car and your mom caught you at it.

2. One night when I was maybe 8 it was very hot so I slept naked. Somehow my brother found out and told the entire Latchkey(aka before school care, which our Mom was ran at the time) program about it the next day. I have rarely been so embarassed.

3. I was a 3 sports a year jock in middle school; tennis, basketball and track.

4. In high school I decided sports were too big a commitment and so joined French club, SADD, Odyssey of the Mind, Drama club, became the track team manager and did backstage work for musicals thus using all the time plus a good bit more that would have been used on sports. Odd how that worked out.

5. I always complained about hating school, but secretly loved it.

6. I abhor spelling mistakes; can’t seem to get over that no matter how hard I try.

7. I’m beginning to dislike coke–it gives me a stomachache sometimes.

8. I love country music and the tv show One Tree Hill.

9. I think Americans(myself included) are generally greedy, selfish, and gluttonous. I am disturbed by this because I still believe the USA is a wonderful country and cannot seem to resolve the two issues in my mind.

10. I want to learn to play the cello and speak Spanish fluently.

With that timeless cliche as a caveat, we will now post pictures from Ben’s 1st Birthday. Yes it was in January, and yes it is now April; babies stuffing their face with cake is never out of style right? Plus Ross and I are in the doghouse with all the grandparents for not sending them sooner. haha. So, here are some of our little monkey turning 1, and a couple of some ‘small fires’ we’ve had in our fire pit this spring. Also Evrett sitting on his very own ‘big boy bike with only 2 wheels!’ which he is really, really excited to have.

Not sure exactly what he’s chewing here, but it didn’t do him an lasting damage so I guess it’s fine.

Evrett is playing a song here–a drumming, kazoo type song.

Ben was none too sure about this giant white thing with flames on it at first. . .

But the whipped cream frosting and chocolate-y goodness overcame that quickly enough!

This has nothing to do with birthdays; its just Evrett being ‘Super Evrett’ in his underwear.

Ross tried to get some cute ‘art-y’ shots to mark turning one. These turned out rather well I think. But I’m biased.

Just for Tante Rebs and Uncle Wilson, the favored ‘lookaway’ 🙂

And one more just because he’s cute and making a cute face to boot!

Now the random, difficult to categorize extras:

There will be more posted soon also. We have Easter and Ross’ birthday and such to add on.

Evrett, being his usual exuberant self, often cracks us up in the course of a day. Some of my top favorites of late:

When asked by a church friend about the meaning of Easter, Evrett(with a bit of prompting) could accurately describe both the egg hunting and resurrection of Jesus portions of the day. But when asked “Isn’t it great that we can all go to heaven to be with Jesus someday?” Evrett promptly and emphatically answered “Nope!”

So I asked him “Don’t you want to be in heaven with Jesus someday?”

Evrett: “Nope!”

Me: “Why not? What do you want to do instead?”

Evrett: “I want Jesus to come here so I can show him how I DANCE!!!” Then he spun and danced around in circles for several minutes. “That’s my super-Evrett dance.” Just in case the Son of God was lacking for entertainment I guess. Obviously he’s not ready to graduate from Sunday school quite yet.

“Are we going to drive on Colorado Voulebard?” Apparently BouleVard is somehow impossible to pronounce–despite Evrett’s ridiculous verbal skills.

“Mommy, we’re having a FIRE Party. We’re taking over the world!” (while he and Daddy and uncle Adam burn sticks in our fire ring)

“I’m not so fond of naps Mommy” Too bad, so sad; naps are non-negotiable.

“Don’t drive too fast Daddy, or the police will give you a ticket.”

Ben, being a baby, cannot quite keep up with big brother in this department. However he has expanded his vocabulary with: ‘Balla’, which means balloon, and just today began saying ‘meh’. I think ‘meh’ is his pondering word, as he uses it almost exclusively while playing with things and attempting to discover how they work. He’s working on spontaneous use of ‘A-da-da’ in reference to his uncle Adam. Currently it is often confused with regular ‘Da-da’.

We’re not all that interesting other than this right now, although there will be some new Easter/Ross birthday pics sometime this week.

Our friends whose friend is missing have a new link for information to help find him.

http://www.findnicholasfrancisco.com

Anyone with any tips, info or assistance can find contact data there.

Ross quit his job today!! And as a family we are incredibly happy with that decision. He has a great new job lined up with a large church in the Denver area; he starts March 10th, after his 2 weeks notice and a long weekend to change gears mentally are over. We are still hoping to find him a job out east near his family at some point,(we haven’t given up on that plan Odegaard family:) but for right now it was better to take this opportunity when it presented itself.

So HUZZAH for new jobs and new beginnings and no more working until after midnight and then having to be back at the office by 8. No more being on call 24/7 for a week at a time with no extra pay no matter how many extra hours he works.

Generally speaking I am not a big fan of change but in this case I have decided to make an exception.

So that’s the scoop for today folks, have a lovely evening.

http://mailpen.net

Please look at this website, especially if you or anyone you know is in the Seattle, WA area. Some friends of ours are close friends with the missing man and they’re asking everyone to post this link in the hopes of finding him. Nick Francisco has been missing from the Seattle Metro area since Wednesday Feb. 13. He is a husband and father to 2 children with another on the way. Pray they find him, and for his family during the search.

This is another link to some of the news coverage from the local stations with some additional info:

http://www.komotv.com/news/15739362.html

This is lots of pictures of the past few days, since Evrett turned 3 on Monday and we dedicated Ben at church on Sunday.

I know this is half the reason most people even read our blog–so here you go folks, the promised pics of my Mom’s visit. Soon to follow are Ben’s dedication service at our church and Evrett’s birthday. The aspect ratio or something is messed up for this first one, so Ben’s head isn’t really this narrow. 🙂

This (and the other one below) is Ben concentrating on licking all the cheesy mashed potatoes off the beater. Just like his Mommy, Ben loves mashed potatoes.

This next is Evrett being a rock star, and making a ‘rock star face’ when I tried to take his picture.

Evrett’s expression is not one of irritation, but of concentration, since in this shot he is giving his Grandma Irene a haircut. And yes he’s using a toy ax. If you look carefully at her left shoulder you’ll even see his favorite haircutting tool–his toy chainsaw. He’s very serious when he plays this game and does NOT appreciate his clients suggesting he use other implements. Good thing Benett doesn’t have any hair to speak of, or I fear we’d have to add some pictures of him screaming while Evrett pulled his hair with the ax.

Not to be confused with the Return of the King or the Return of Swamp Thing. So aside from various more important events in the life of Ka-Oss and the boys, our internet host somehow managed to crash our blog and lose all the attached files. So everything prior to this post that you have ever read on benett.net is gone. All the pictures, the goofy events we narrated, the stories Evrett told us. Gone, forever. Well, let me amend that to say the pictures all still exist somewhere in Ross’ or my computer; but it was so much easier to look back through old posts to find the ones I like, and then copy them whenever it came up that I needed them. Now alas, I cannot. Life goes on and it isn’t like we haven’t had other things on our mind. But it still makes me a trifle irate. What sort of second rate hosting company can’t switch their servers around–or whatever they were trying to do–without destroying data. Some of those tidbits ands stories were things I should have had the foresight to save on my own I guess.

So lesson learned on that front–always back things up, especially when you’re told its impossible to completely and irretrievably erase the information.

On the up side I’ll be putting up some great new photos of the boys from my Mom’s recent visit. And I’ll add Christmas picks when I get my copies from whence they are supposed to arrive. Tante Beeba, this means YOU!! lol.

Lately I have been pondering many weighty issues and I think I’m beginning to be tired of it. My soul is disquieted somehow(not mourning or moping, just unsettled) so I’ll keep pondering, but the sheer size of the concepts I’m wrestling with seems exhausting today. I can only spend so much energy thinking about life, death, God’s intent for the universe, my place within that intent and what to teach my children about the above. Last night I stayed up until after 2am reading a book. I didn’t spend one second of that time doing anything but sinking into the world the author created for me and I have to say it was glorious. As a form of restful entertainment I love letting someone else(as long as they have some actual creative talent and the characters are interesting) do all my thinking for me.

I wonder if that just means that in my daily life I think too much? hmmmm, yet another idea to ponder. ugh.

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Oh, and by the way, if anyone reading this did(perhaps to print and show someone without internet access? Or to forward in an email or something?) save any portion of the old posts can you send them to me? I’m trying to be optimistic.