Here & Now...

I've always believed God put me right here, right now...for a purpose. Basically, Here and Now is a good thing. Here and now is what we should be living in a little more sometimes. We really wanted a Hill Country Vacation this week, but here and now dictated a high river and forcast thunderstorms which actuallly came to pass. So instead here and now brought us a fantastico trip to Tyler's Discovery Place with Grace, Ella & Sterling.

These characters are shining examples of why here and now can be so sweet. We found that these guys are galactically talented in all higher thinking realms, including, but not limited to; Space matters, earthquakes, news broadcasting, golfball inertia and velocity studies, shopping at Brookshires, riding in ambulances and driving fire trucks, climbing in bat caves and even navigating ships. These intrepid explorers even weathered a power outage without ever breaking a stride. No step for a stepper I guess.

However, even the most seasoned adventurers and intellectuals need to crash sometime.

Thank God for the Here & Now.

Isn't Summer the Best...

Birthday Parties, Playing in the Yard, Hanging out with Cousins, Eating Watermelon, Committing to the Ministry....All in a days work during the dog days of summer.

Flo & I were co-conspirators for a surprise 32nd birthday party for my favorite sister-n-law on saturday and ate at a very recommendable italian joint in Waco by the name of Gratziano's. Good italian food, Good fun and Great conversation went well with the Chocolate Sack (indescribable!).

Grace & Ella showed off some pretty admirable play-set moves and gave us a laugh and the squirls and nice view of their good sides.


Grace, Ella & Sterling showed that there are some skills that are of utmost importance for summer survival that just can't be taught in school,

And all my East Texas nieces showed that living close to home is good for fun and tans. (I'm a pretty lucky guy to be surrounded by so many pretty girls)

And finally, over the humorous "I'm not ready" pleadings of my wonderful wife, Flo & I made my committment to a life of ministry a public confession tonight at church. **She claimed the main reason she wasn't ready was because she had on flip flops**

Hopefully before the week is over we'll have some six flags pics...we'll see. Wishing everyone a very merry summer!

It's a New day...

It's been a New kind of day.

Flo & Grace set up a new spa & retreat at our home...

Team Taylor brought by their new team van...

& I started reading a new book: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship". I'm barely into it and its already blowing me away. Bonhoeffer said (during WWII) " When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die" and he coined the phrase "cheap grace".

It was a Happy Father's Day...

Well, today was Fathers Day and we had an excellent one. Most notable for me was that our preacher related a story of how on a few occassions as a child, he had been told how his father was "the best man I know". I'm glad to be able to say that about my dad. He really is the best man I've ever known...he's my hero. I'm also happy to know some other great dads. It's very obvious, the guys who are proud to be a dad. Its evident in all they do and there is stark contrast between them, and the guys that just aren't.

Flo Has Been at GA Camp This Week...

With my Lovely Wife being gone with a bunch of girls to church camp this week Grace & I got to hang out a lot! It was a blast & here are some highlights:

I had the distinct privilege of taking Grace, Sterling (3 year old cousin) & Ella (4 yr niece) to the Zoo with my fantastic sister Molly this week. Although the Alligator viewing was rather anti-climactic, the otters really saved the day (after 2 full hours of "What do you want to see next?...Alligator!!!" There was only one small gator too far away for these guys to notice).

The trip was a blast and we were very fortunate that they let us leave with the 3 monkies that came with us.

Another thing Grace & I did a lot of was playing cowgirl & cowboy. Grace did a great job of "whoo"ing the cows, finding baby calves, waving a stick to keep 'em in line and shaking the gate so they might pass through while sitting on her papa's big 4x4 mule and helping me spray the cattle for flies. (Couldn't get any of the cows to take our picture doing those things)

The ritual of the week was swimming, swimming and more swimming. Through out the week Grace further increased her chance for getting into medical school by perfecting her back-floating technique and big-splashing cannonball jump.

Warily entering...

I'm warily entering the unfamiliar techno-savvy mysterious world bloggerhood. I must say, I am a bit more tenative than tenacious at this attempt.