Ohio Road Trip

IT'S ALL ABOUT

AUBREY!!!

After many long years and hard work, she

completed

her

paramedic

school

Hooray!

Here we are on the campus of the college.

Cool stained glass

sculpture

thingie

L-R

Terry, Aubs, Steve, Sue, Grandma, DeeDee

Next day: Steve and I did a little touristy stuff

not wanting to wake the sleeping Aubs too

early. Here we are at the Scioto River park in Dublin OH

This is a sculpture of Chief Leatherlips. Ummm, there's a story about him, but I can't remember it right now.

Next we went to the Olentangy Indian Caverns.

It was a regular tourist spot with a climbing wall,

"gem mining" for kids, playground, souveniers, etc.

The museum part (which I'd have enjoyed) wasn't even open.

We saw this old church c.1810 on our way and

stopped to look through the cemetery.

This was on the tomb of a young many

who died in 1857 at the age of 23.

"Stop young friend as you pass by

As you are now so once was I

As I am now so you must be

Prepare for death and follow me"

The Scioto Mile - Riverfront park in

downtown Columbus OH

Steve and Aubrey

FRIDAY NIGHT CONCERT AT

THE LC

Here's a pic of the inside of the venue.

Band #2

The Scotty Bratcher Band.

Very, very good band!

http://www.scottybratcher.com/

Then, the act DeeDee came to see!

Here's his band....

And here is

Joe Bonamassa
ttp://www.jbonamassa.com/

This was pretty much one of the best

concerts I've been to.

The venue was small, choice.

The music was over-the-top excellent.

What a skilled musician

and an excellent showman too!

His band is superb. And to think we'd

never heard of the guy before this!

Ummmmm....

Don't think that

Steve is enjoying this.

Not for one minute.

*cough, cough*

L-R, Aubrey, Sue, Steve and DeeDee)

SEE OUR STAGE POSITION

FRONT ROW MOSH PIT

QUITE FABULOUS!

Little nature walk

Cool Sky picture by Jordan

Jordan took this stellar picture after we hung out at MLNS for awhile. Awesome!

Father's Day means sadness for some

Father's Day is getting closer and I have so many friends and co-workers who have lost fathers just since the first of the year. It will be hard for them. I can't imagine not having my dad here on Earth. I wish I could do something for all these friends, Jim, Joanne, Judy, Dana and others. I wish they knew how often I think of them. In honor of lost fathers and living fathers....

• Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes. ~Gloria Naylor

• The greatest gift I ever had came from God; I call him Dad!~Author Unknown

• When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. ~Mark Twain, "Old Times on the Mississippi" Atlantic Monthly, 1874

• Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope. ~Bill Cosby

• A father carries pictures where his money used to be. ~Author Unknown

Speaking of reason

Seems like a lot of protestants (and I grew up one) take issue with the Catholic Church because according to some, we just sit at church and take whatever we are told without reasoning and questioning. Obviously quite untrue for those who care enough to seek out what's real and what isn't. There's plenty of questioning going on!

Unfortunately it seems like the same group think I shouldn't question this friggin' war, or use my capability to reason and my human instinct, my women's intuition. I should just take everything that's dished my way because otherwise I'm anti-American or something. What a joke.

Just Faith

www.justfaith.org

I'm teaching it again next school year. A 30 week long process with two retreats. A huge time committment but one I feel so strongly about. I've been thinking ever since I went through two years ago as a first time student and co-facilitator about what I can do with myself, where I should focus. I guess now I finally recognize and am willing to admit and embrace that I do have a gift for organizing things, and "bossing" people around (haha). But it's true that not everyone has this skill. So, I think that by facilitating another year of Just Faith I will be able to put that skill to really good use. St. James is hosting the city-wide seminar on July 7th which is pretty exciting. I know we'll have a lot of folks from all around the diocese. As I go through it this year I will probably do a lot of blogging about the classes, reflections, etc. There were some really sad moments in the program. It happens when your eyes are opened to a different perspective. It's UNCOMFORTABLE to say the least. The first time you see that little kids in Peru live at a mountain of a DUMP and go digging through trash to find things to sell, well, you realize that if you don't have that new thing you want today, it just doesnt matter.

Lie to yourself

Look deep inside yourself and if you're an American like me you'll probably see the heart of greed and materialism that we all carry around secretly inside. We want to have it all, our cake, eating our cake, freezing the extra, then disposing of the excess because we didn't need all that cake after all. Cake being a metaphor for THINGS. That's the root cause of the war. We want our things, protected, guarded and hoarded up for ourselves.

Americans proved in the last election that they CAN make a difference, upsetting the balance. I hope and pray that the balance will be upset even more. This war is NOT RIGHT. I'm so sick, sick, sick of human beings dying for this horrible cause that's really just about money.





The fear campaign aimed at selling the Iraq war was timed precisely for the kickoff of the 2002 midterm election. The president's chief of staff explained the timing as a marketing decision. It was timed, Andrew Card said, for the post–Labor Day advertising period because that's when advertising campaigns for "new products," as he referred to it, are normally launched. The implication of his metaphor was that the old product—the war against Osama bin Laden—had lost some of its pizzazz. And in the immediate run-up to the election campaign of 2002, a new product—the war against Iraq—was being launched. For everything there is a season, particularly for the politics of fear.

Excerpted from The Assault on Reason Copyright 2007 by Al Gore.

What is Your Power Bird? Blog Thing.....Have Fun.

Your Power Bird is a Swan

You are a truly graceful and gorgeous creature. You easily see beauty in yourself and others. Intuitive and in touch, you can often guess what the future will bring. And you're flexible enough to accept the changes that life has in store for you.

What's Your Power Bird?

The Killers in concert at City Market May 11 2007

WHAT A NIGHT! We had such fun! Okay, the pictures of us aren't too good, since I had sunscreen slathered all over my face and not much makeup left. Oh well. Not too worry, most people were in no condition to notice. Jordan, Steven and I all got a concert T (see the picture from the Nelson below to view mine!). The opening band was "Red Romance...FROM NEW YORK". (they kept saying this after every two songs. "We're Red Romance...FROM NEW YORK". Ugh. Okay, okay, you're from New York, great... Thanks for sharing. Second act was Hot, Hot Heat. Very great! Then the main event! A dancing mass of people scrunched up together. We hit the road about 10:15 pm and headed home, before the end. But the kids and John had to go to St. Louis the next day for a TKD tourney. Here's some video and some pictures.

Sam's Town:


Here are some pictures from our cell phone cameras.

May 16 - Girl Scouts at the Nelson/Plaza

Our idea was to spend an hour at the Nelson, but little did we know they close at 4:00. We arrived about 3:55! Oh well. They let the girls use the restroom, thank goodness. We spent about half an hour in the sculpture garden, then headed over to Cold Stone Creamery. Mmmmm.

May 16 - A Northern Mockingbird

I took this picture on my way to a church meeting. These birds were very defensive, feeding their little babies, and did not like getting their picture taken!

May 13th Jakob the Grad

L-R, Jordan, Jakob, Steve

May 4th - Landon's picture

Landon was born today! He was 8 pounds 13 ounces, 21 inches long, born at 1:35 p.m. All the assorted Lunts are doing fine.

May 4th...17th anniversary

Friday May 4th was a fun day! I took the day off work. John and I exchanged presents in the morning (see below). Spent the better part of the day on the Cross Stitch hop with La Verne and Mary Jo. That was a lot of fun. I got some really good buys on the clearance racks. I guess none of us won the big prize since we didn't hear anything. Oh well. We had lunch in Lawrence again at the same place as before. I keep forgetting the name of the place. Oh..Milton's... That's it. Made it home by 4:30 which was a small miracle with all the driving we did!

John and I had dinner at the Texas Roadhouse and that was really great! They danced shortly after we arrived, very cool in a country sort of way. We did a little shopping at Vintage Stock, picked up Seven Samurai the old black and white movie.

April 30th, ROYALS game. We had a nice family evening attending the Royals versus the Angels. The picture below is the Royals only run of the game. After 3 innings the score was 3 to 1 Angels, and that's how it stayed for the remainder of the evening.

Wednesday I took the girls scouts to the new part of the Liberty Memorial. I hadn't been yet but can't wait to go back and spend more time. They closed at 5pm so we didn't have too much time. While there we got to sit in a listening booth and listen to early 19th century poetry about the war, songs of the period and more. It was very interesting. I think our tax dollars are well spent here.!

Weekend update

It was our usual Friday night at the dish. This time however I had a nice little $25 “reward” to use up! That’s always nice.

Saturday dawned bright and early! No sleeping in for any of us. John and the kids (after Cody arrived to ride along) spent the morning and early afternoon down at Municipal Auditorium for regional Tae Kwon Do qualifier / tournament. They even saw the Olympic coach there so that was pretty cool. Me? Well, I worked a few hours overtime, but only until noon, made some headway on a long-term project and completed two small projects. At noon I stopped by the house and grabbed a PB sandwich, then headed over to my favorite nature sanctuary and spent about 2 hours just walking the trails, taking pictures and enjoying the sun and fresh air. There’s one trail where the deer always seem to hang out during the day (off to the right of the trail). When you walk along all of the sudden they will scare the **** out of you, running across the path right in front of you and down the hill towards the creek. I got home just a little after the rest of the family. They had a great time! John and I drove over to Lowe’s to get some batteries and stopped at Sheridan’s for a little treat. We took a walk through the park too which was nice. I got a lot of exercise today!

Sunday was an early day again. This time I joined John and kids at Municipal. John and I ended up assisting the official photographer. He was an interesting fellow. He had a nice camera get-up which he enjoyed showing. Of course, I was very surprised that he left it sitting under the table with no guard after he said it was a $15,000 camera. Maybe he exaggerated a bit. In this job we were right next to one of the rings and got to see a lot of sparring matches. It was fun! I left around noon so I could get home and get the laundry going. I drove back downtown around 4 to pick up the family. On the way home in my rearview mirror I spotted some motorcycles (about 20) moving VERY quickly, darting in and out between cars, and prepared myself. As they WHIZZED by at top speed John and the kids really jumped. I said out loud, “those guys must have a death wish!” It was very scary thinking what would happen if just one little misstep happened. There was one lone biker that was trying to catch up with the group, but he got stopped by the cops. Sunday night ended with the last Planet Earth episode on Discovery channel. It was the filmmaker’s commentary, their favorite shots, how they did it, etc… Very cool show. I can’t wait for the DVD.

Jordan's confirmation

After they came into the church (Jordan and La Verne on the left).

Fr. Joe, Fr. Matt and Bishop Boland

Bishop Boland, La Verne and Jordan

Jordan's confirmation group and the leaders

Jordan and La Verne

A very great day.

Steve in "You Can't Take it With You"

The last night of the play! John took my place selling tickets since I had to drive 5 hours to Columbia and back (see previous post!). The play was just FABULOUS! Some of the kids were in Midsummer Night's Dream with Jordan last year. Anyway, here are some pictures.

Jordan at Reader's Theater STATE FINALS

Okay, so here's the story. Friday the school bus left LHS early and headed to Columbia for semi-finals. The team was one of FOUR to qualify for Finals on Saturday. Of course, Steve had a play that same night and Jordan really wanted to go. So, we decided that John would stay home and get Steve to his places Saturday, and I would drive to Columbia and pick up Jordan after their performance. Here's my funny story.

1st. The drive. MUCH longer than anticipated. I called Jordan's cell to let her know I didn't think I'd make the performance, but to call as soon as she got the message.

2nd. Found out later Jordan's cell phone was on vibrate. Ummm. She didn't get ANY of my calls or text messages.

3rd. Showed up at Hickman High School where I thought the performance was. Lots of cars in the parking lot, but oddly not a single school bus. Hmmm. Well, I parked and walked in. There was a table with a couple of students sitting there, a registration table of some sort. I said I was looking for my daughter. They told me to follow the green signs to the auditorium. I got to the auditorium and it was quite dark. A movie was showing. I sat in the back and tried to peer through the darkness and spot Jordan. The crowd seemed a little thin for a state competition. I walked out and flagged somebody down, and asked what was going on. They said, "they're watching a movie". Well, duh. I went back in and sat down. Sent a text message. Peered again. After about 5 minutes I thought to myself "this is just wrong". By the way, I didn't mention this, but the movie was about the horrors in Bosnia and quite graphic. Probably not what a bunch of Forensic finalists would be wanting to watch, right? I walked out again and saw an adult, but just as I started to ask her a question, several hysteric teen girls came out of the auditorium and she had to calm them down. FINALLY I went back to the registration table and said "I really think I'm in the wrong place" and mentioned the state finals. One WONDERFUL young lady knew JUST what I was talking about. The finals were at a different school, but she told me it was over by now and they'd be at MU for the awards ceremony. She drew me a wonderful map. I subsequently found MU (what a way to have a first time visit!) and immediately saw Jordan's group (distinctive in their red shirt and black pants)across the street from where I parked. Their bus had just arrived. So, we were reunited and able to head back home! Found out Monday that her team placed 2nd.