Cabin Vacation 2008

We spent the last 10 days on our annual vacation to the cabin in northern Minnesota. All in all we had a good vacation, but there were some memorable moments. One of the kids had an upset stomach on the way up which meant making several stops (I don't think I have to go into detail). It was Nathanael's first trip to the cabin. That meant it was his first time to experience the cabin traditions: the candy store, pizza place, Turtle Races, the boat ride, etc. There were some new experiences too: tearing down an old outhouse, trying to level out a tree stump and a team building exercise that involved a wood splitter. The weather was great, but it could have been a little warmer to make swimming more enjoyable. Here is a link to the pictures of our vacation. http://picasaweb.google.com/cmpayne2/Cabin2008 There are a lot of pictures and a few videos in this album.

Chris

Ranger Camp 2008

We had a great time at Ranger Camp. I'll be the first to admit that I was not very excited to take the boys since I had never really camped before. We had beautiful weather and we were able to meet some great kids and parents.
Throught the weekend all of the kids participated in different competitions. Levi and Samuel placed in a few of the competitions. We had great assemblies in the evening and saw many kids come the the altar for salvation, healing and other needs. Here is a link to the pictures that we took this weekend http://picasaweb.google.com/cmpayne2/RangerCamp2008?authkey=T-_1ATOGex
You may have to copy and paste the link into your web browser.

Chris

Summer Vacation

Summer vacation has officially started. We look forward to a fun, and busy summer filled with baseball, softball, cabin vacation, cookouts and enjoying the warm weather. After the very cold and snowy winter we are looking forward to enjoying some time outdoors. Now that the boys are getting older they seem to keep themselves more occupied. We’ll keep you posted on the events of our summer.

Chris

Over 1,000 minutes read!

In early May we set a reading goal for Levi for the entire month of May. In school he is supposed to read 15 minutes per day, which adds up to about 450 minutes by the end of the month. The last two months he had read about 650-700 minutes per month. Because of this we decided to set a goal of 1,000 minutes for the month of May. If he met the goal we would take the entire family to Dairy Queen.
After a lot of reading, Levi surpassed his goal. By the end of the month he had read 1,043 minutes. That is a combination of independent reading and us reading to him. For the month of June his goal is 1,250 minutes. Does anyone have thoughts on his reward if he meets his new goal?
Way to go Levi! We are very proud of you.

Boys Day

Today was “Boys Day” at the Payne’s. Cari spent the day painting at the school and I stayed at home with the boys. With me in charge of lunch we had an excellent meal with chicken nuggets, tater tots and grapes. Of course no real cooking was required. It was a beautiful day (but quite windy), which made for great painting weather and a great day to take the kids outside to play. Just give the kids a ball, some dirt and a swingset to climb on and they can entertain themselves for a long time. Nathaniel is getting big enough where he can sit on a blanket and keep himself entertained. While he is doing that, I can type up this blog on my AlphaSmart.

Faith

I was talking to someone today and they mentioned that they were glad that during hard times they had their faith to “fall back on”. Is faith something that we “fall back on”, or is it something that should be part of our every day lives? Of course we rely on our faith during times of need, but shouldn’t faith be so integrated into our lives that it is with us through the good times and the bad times? Falling back on our faith only during the hard times seems to disrespect what God has done for us. I see faith as an every day event and not just an ER trip that we take every now and then.

Playing Outside

Now that the weather has warmed up the kids are able to use some of their energy outside. They are able to use their swingset, ride their bikes, use their new scooters and just run around. We recently set up their huge inflatable soccer ball and goal. They think it is a lot of fun. We just have to make sure that we stake the goal down on windy days.
With Levi starting baseball in a few weeks and me starting softball, we will be spending quite a bit of time outside. We need to take advantage of it while we can, since the snow will start to fly again in 6 months.