How To Make The Hospital Fun

So hopefully there'll be many more pics from our England trip, but something that happened before our trip was just too good not to share. It was just a couple of days before we boarded the plane, and Buxton had his second ear tube surgery.

Buxton loved the gown.

Anna loved holding Buxton, even if it now takes anesthesia to to recreate that "baby boy feeling."

But the best part had to be the before and after video. Try and tell at what point he received the good stuff:

Our Visit to England

We had a great time visiting family and friends in England a few weeks ago. We took almost 4,000 pictures. Here are some of my favorites from the trip that I have access to right now.

Buxton had tons of fun running around and playing in the fields at Auntie Joan's house on our first day there.

The first few days of our trip we stayed in Chester.  Here we are outside Chester Cathedral.  Buxton is sitting on an elephant statue (not sure why it was there). 

And here are Buxton and I at Chester Zoo on our last day where we found another elephant statue for him to sit on.

We then went up to the Northeast of England.  Here are my parents with my brother and his daughter Brooke, along with Buxton and I.

We went to Crimdon Dene and Seaton Carew beaches (the temperature was a lot cooler than at the beach over here in the summer).

The last week of our trip, we stayed in Buxton (the town I was born in and named Buxton after).  The house that we stayed in was on the same road as the building where I was born.  Here are Buxton and I outside of Corbar Hall.

Buxton enjoyed drinking out of a natural water well.

We had a great trip!  There were lots of people we saw and other things that we did.  I promise we'll post again as soon as we can.

The Children Shall Lead Them

So I'm a sports nut, and to make the World Cup more fun I got some family involved in a pick 'em style game I thought would be fun. Basically you pick every game in the group stage win, lose or draw for one point each, with one game as your Golden Goal Game of the Day (worth two points for a win, minus two for a loss). Then the top eight scores will advance to the knock out stage, where based on points each person will take turns picking who they think will win the whole shebang. Whoever picks the winning team wins.

Yes, I made it up entirely.

In any case, the reason I share this information here is an interesting peculiarity I noticed in tallying the scores yesterday. Through the first weekend of play (8 of 48 group play contests), the editorialized standings are as follows:

+4 Eve (at less than three years old, 2-for-2 in Golden Goal games)
+3 Buxton (less than two years old, picked his games by pointing)
+3 Carol (I won't say how old my mom is)
+1 Kayne (flip flopped with me in points every day)
0 Anna (only cares about England; wasn't happy)
0 John (the only person who truly cares)
0 Harrison (rebounded nicely with +3 Sunday)
0 Lindley (+3 on Sunday)
0 Dewayne (+4 Sunday, only he and Eve did so)
-1 David (on a +2 streak)
-1 Steve (also a +2 streak)
-2 Connie (tied for first before the Sunday games)
-3 Matt (picked all ties)
-4 Baba (golden goal games hurting the cause)
-5 Holden (tough start)

So as you can see, the clearest path to victory appears to be pointing and saying the second name in a series. Good luck to all. A special, international soccer prize awaits the winner.

A Day At Work With Daddy

Way too many pictures for words. Enjoy.

Strawberry Kisses

A lesson on strawberry picking:

First, find a huge field full of strawberry plants.



Next, hunker down beside one with some bright red strawberries attached.



They should look like this:



It helps to taste a strawberry here and there to make sure you're on the right track.



If they taste the way they should, just keep on pulling the plants.



Don't forget to clean your mouth every once in a while.



Did I mention you need to taste a strawberry every now and then?



You can't be too careful when it comes to taste.



Then you'll want to fill up the carton, calculating of course for the sample berries from the field.



Make sure never to leave a fat red one behind.



Last of all, show off all the fruits of your labor.



That's about it when it comes to strawberry picking. Stay tuned for how to spend a day at the local amusement park, with pictures.

Shamed By A 1-Year-Old

One of Buxton's newest interests seems to be causing some moral questioning in our household. The boy flat out loves his Bible--loves it. Won't go to bed without at least two Bible stories, then a perusal of basically every other page in the book. He runs into his room and picks this picture Bible up off the shelf, returns to the living room and lets go only when the Spirit leads.



Which brings up a peculiar problem. Do I take his Bible away from him? How do I tell him, bedtime or no bedtime, to stop reading the Word of God? That feels about as wrong as anything can, yet he'll stay up into morning flipping through his Bible pages if we let him, looking for and pointing to "Gigi," the blessed Son of God. We've been through Noah, Ester, Job, Nicodemus--the whole lot of them.



Then this morning, just when I thought I knew the worst (best?) of it, the boy shamed his daddy. Buxton decided to wake up at 5 a.m., Anna decided she would sleep and so I got baby duty. I coaxed him into the guest bed with me for a few minutes sleep, only to find me wake a minute or two later to him sitting up in bed reading a book called, I jest you not, Six Secrets to a Powerful Quiet Time: Discovering Radical Intimacy with God. Didn't know we had that book. You couldn't pay me any amount of money to tell you where he got it. Suffice it to say I slept no longer this morning.



In all seriousness, I couldn't be happier for my son. Anything else, at least on this topic, is a me problem.

Ball Ball?

So this past Friday we had the opportunity to mesh together two of Buxton's favorite pastimes. For one, the boy absolutely loves basketball.



See?

Anyway, a family that we've known for a while now through church (the wife of said family also keeps Buxton most days) offered us tickets to go see the Bobcats play the Clippers. Not a couple of days later, dad and Kayne scored some tickets through work. That left myself, Anna, Buxton, dad and Kayne all set to see our first ever Bobcats game.

Before the game we went out to dinner at a Charlotte eatery dad frequents for lunch.





We were pretty pumped to score the tickets, as evidenced by our free time out in front of the arena and the ample seating when we arrived more than a half hour before tip-off.





Buxton had a blast. That other interest of his? If you've ever seen the boy when music plays, let alone the crowd-pumping rhythms of a pro basketball game, you know what else he enjoyed.







Ok, so maybe you noticed I got Buxton's new jersey (day of) on sale. I went through every reasonable store in an entire Charlotte mall to find him that outfit. You'd have thought I was in outer Botswana looking for Bobcats gear. Anyway, he didn't seem to mind. And nobody tried to draw a mustache on him.



All told we all had a blast, and the Bobcats won. Buxton got a new ball ball, and he got to flirt with a few of the team dancers (he's not too big into all that, much like his daddy). The seats were great, and we definitely owe the folks in this next picture. Thanks Gales!