Our Memorial Day was terrific!!! Our church had a Memorial Day picnic and they never do anything half way. They had the color guard and the singing of the Star Spangled Banner and patriotic Kiddie parade (the kids decorated bikes and wagons) in the spirit of the holiday. Then they had 5 bounce houses, a ferris wheel, tilt a whirl, ping pong, foosh ball, row boating, a magician, then all the tournaments of 3 on 3 basketball (Hubby took advantage of that), and softball. There was food and free candy. Everything was free. We were by Irvine Lake--an area just rented out for our church. It was so nice to walk around and meet and talk with people that you don't always get a chance to on Sun. morning. I have to say a cute thing the kids did on the way to the park. We were on the freeway and whenever we went down a "hill" the kids put up their hands in the van and went yeahhhhh!!!! like a roller coaster. We were thinking we didn't even have to go to an amusement park!

It is finished--our new lawn!!!!

Now we're praying it doesn't die.

Our backyard is in process.
Shane rented a rotatiller and rotatilled our whole backyard. Dirt. That is all that Josh says about it. He is in boy heaven. He then rented a roller to flatten it all out. Thursday the new St. Augustine sod is being delivered to our home. Hopefully it will be hardier than our previous grass.

The DaVinci Code.

This past Saturday I went to a conference at our church about the book and movie, The DaVinci Code. I have not read it, but what I've been told it is great fiction. The problem is that the author, Dan Brown, claims to have written historical fiction. He writes of early church history and unfortunately most Christians haven't had any instruction in that part of our heritage. We cannot recognize fact from fiction. He has a lot of inaccurate facts in his book.

To summarize some important points:
1) The council of Nicea took place in 325 AD and it confirmed the orthodoxy (beliefs) of Christianity, because of arising heresy. It was not to pick the 4 gospel books in the New Testament. These were established already by 180 AD. Matt., Mark, and Luke had been written in the 60s and John probably in the 90s AD. The council did not even discuss this. Brown claims there were 80 different gospels and they agreed on what should be the gospels and they did so to agree (by a close vote) that Jesus was divine. To refute the last point, divinity goes all the way back to Jesus. He claimed to be divine by accepting worship, by claiming to sit at the right hand of God (Mark 14:6-25). The high priests and religious leaders understood that he claimed to be God, because that is why they wanted to kill him--and why they did.

2) Jesus was not married to Mary Magdalene. There are only 2 very unclear passages from the Gnostic gospels. There are only 30 + 6 Gnostic gospels--not 80 as claimed. I have seen the 2 passages and one has blanks from the text, that perhaps people like Brown fill in to make it sound like a marriage and the other has a mention of her as a female apostle--which according to the definition of the word means messenger. Mary told the disciples about the resurrection of Jesus. So what. It is interesting to note that the Gnostic gospels mainly focus on Jesus after his resurrection and not before, like the 4 gospels do. Also they speak heresy about God and creation, the person of Jesus, heaven and the work of Jesus.

3) How we get the canon of scripture is not know to most Christians. The process continued all the way through the 3rd and 4th century as Brown says, but it wasn't the gospels being debated at that time, rather it was books like Hebrew, James, 1,2, 3rd John, and Revelation.

Overall it was a great seminar and very instructive in order to give an answer for the reason we believe.

I had a happy Mother's Day at Laguna Beach.

Krista' Big Day!!

Krista had a Bunny themed party for her fifth birthday. She must have some of my blood in her, because I collected rabbits when I was younger and even had a bunny in jr. high and high school.

We had the bounce house, the bunny hop, pin the tale on the bunny, a bunny puppet craft and even a live rabbit.

We also had the famous Kidwell treats of edible playdough and rainbow finger jello. Yummy!!

Preparation:

Last Saturday we were cleaning our house for the big birthday for Krista. She's FIVE. Five always seems like a big milestone year. She's not little anymore. Josh loves the vacuum cleaner. I mean if you think about it, it makes noise and has lights. That's what little boys love!! It'll be a great picture to pull out when he's not so excited about the vacuum.

Krista turned 5 on May 2. The years go by so fast. We bought her this beautiful new bike. She has been practicing so she can catch up with her sister. It is her new birthday gift. Her party is coming up on Sun.

The two of them were racing. Alisa is glad to have a riding partner, too!

Josh

Josh is repeating everything. It is a fun age. His favorite song is "Bob the builder, Yes he can!"

On Halloween, I wanted Josh to wear an M&M costume and he just screamed. He did finally get used to it. Now he still likes to wear it , just cause he likes it.

Testing is testing!!!

We are giving the standardized tests today and I teach Algebra 2. I come to school today and 222 Algebra 2 tests never showed up. They are coming Friday. Sooo, we had some more review--2 hours for period one. The good news is some needed it!!