I love getting to take Emily to school. You just never know where the conversation will go. We have just about covered every topic imaginable. Today is the day she normally gets to check out a book from the library. So I was asking her which book she was going to check out and then I asked her what book has been her favorite that she has checked out this past year. I quickly interjected, 'I bet it was the dog book that came with the cd of all the dog songs, huh?' She quickly replied, 'No, my favorite book was the Jesus book.' I said "really, what was your favorite part?'. She said, 'all of it.' This kind of spring boarded our conversation into a spiritual one pretty quickly. I asked her if she wanted to be an online missionary with me this summer with global media outreach where we could together share Jesus with people all over the world. She seemed excited about that and then asked me if there were more people in the world who knew Jesus or more people who didn't know Jesus. I told her there were more people in the world who didn't know Jesus and that Jesus Himself said that the it was a wide road full of lots of people who didn't know and walk with God and it was a narrow road full of few people who did know God. Next she said, 'so if people don't know God they go to Hayden?' And I said, 'you mean Hades?' We talked about how Hades was a place where you spent forever apart from God in darkness, loneliness and pain and that God sent His Son Jesus to come die on the cross for us so we would be 'saved' from that place and be able to spend forever with Him. As we approached the school she concluded with asking me if she could watch the movie where Jesus dies on the cross. I figured out that she was talking about the 'Passion of the Christ' and I told her it was a very difficult movie to see that is bloody and shows exactly what happened to Jesus. She said that she could handle it as long as it didn't have any loud noises. Gotta love those drives to school, never know what might happen. This doesn't happen every morning but I've found if you spend the time with your kids even a 20 minute drive with them every day, the chances of this conversation happening increase greatly.

Well, we made it back from our Disney adventure yesterday (Sunday) afternoon. Disney is such an overwhelming experience for all the senses that 6 days in the different parks (3 - Magic Kingdom, 1 - Animal Kingdom, 1 - Epcot, and 1 - Hollywood studios) feels like a month. We took almost 1000 pictures I think but I thought I would list out a few highlights and memories from our experience:

Emily's night as a princess - On Tuesday Emily and her cousin Allison got to go to Bippity Boppity Boutique and have an extreme makeover (hair, makeup, extensions, cinderella dress, etc) in Downtown Disney. They then went and had some appetizers at Rainforest Cafe. Then they took a boat ride across the lake and boarded a bus for the magic kingdom. Upon arrival the dads got to come and see their little princesses. The girls were sure that when the dads got there we would 'pass out because of they were so beautiful' so I played along acting very woozy and faintish when we first saw them. Then the girls enjoyed an amazing dinner in the castle and to their surprise got to meet four of the disney princesses (Snow White, Aurora, Cinderella and Aerial). During their main course (fancy chicken nuggets) they could see the fireworks show through the stained glass windows in the castle. It was truly a magical night for the girls.

Joshua, the doggy paddling pirate - For Joshua one of the highlights occurred at the pool in the house where we stayed. He learned how to doggy paddle with floaties or 'doggy paddles' as he called them. on Sunday night Whitney and I had to rush Emily to the ER as she slipped and fell and busted her chin on the concrete and Joshua stayed at the house and was taught how to swim with floaties on. Then on Tuesday afternoon we Joshua and I had some great Father/Son time in the pool for about an hour and a half where we just played together and I gave him 'challenges' to overcome in the pool and with every successful challenge he was so excited and giddy. He swam across the pool, he jumped off the side into my arms, he got to play whack-a-dad with a pool noodle as I popped up and down in the water. It was some great time with my son as I learned how to just play again and have fun. It was a good reminder to me to not get so immersed in bills, cleaning and to-do-lists that I don't take time to really enjoy the best gifts that God has given me, the relationships in my life.

On Friday Joshua had his own extreme makeover as they transformed him into a pirate. He was a little in shock during the whole process and didn't know quite what to think but I think he thought it was pretty cool. He also thought it was cool to have a 'moostache' (as he calls it) like Daddy. Right after his transformation was complete we rode 'Pirates of the Carribean' and they told him whenever he got scared to simply yell 'ARRRRR' and he would feel better. So sure enough several times through the ride I heard him yell 'ARRRR' at the scary animatronic pirates and creatures and he seemed to gain courage more and more.