Survivor....Babylon!

Do you know the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego? 3 guys who wouldn't worship an idol....thrown into a firey furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar....and came out unharmed, unburned....saved by our great God!

That was the biblical story line of this year's music camp at Appleton Alliance Church. Combine the story with a spin on the popular TV show "Survivor" and you have "Survivor....Babylon!"! As usual....it was magnificent. A wonderful week and super production!

Ellie was in the choir....and on Wednesday, came out and said "Mom, you know that long Bible passage? They are just going to have 1 person say it instead of all of us." My response was "Oh. That will probably be better..." and then she said "That one person is going to be ME!" Wow. Click HERE to hear her recite 4 verses of Psalm 19....what a passage to have hidden in her heart!

Of course, Andy did a great job with capturing photos and video--we decided to let Colin attend and that allowed Amy and Cindy (and Granny Marlene!) to attend as well! At the last minute, Ellie invited her swimming buddy Mackenzie--we had a rather large group to save seats for!

The video:
Beginning...click HERE.
King Nebuchadnezzar (very entertaining!)....click HERE.
Will you bow down?....click HERE.
God will take care of you.....click HERE.
Don't You Think?.....click HERE.
God is Good...click HERE.
Stand up!....click HERE.
We missed day 1 of a family reunion because of this.....and we can't wait until next year. Jayna will be old enough to participate as well!

Our Pet

Did that title shock some of you?!?!?!
We did have a pet--a temporary pet...which started as a caterpillar and just this morning, came out a beautiful monarch butterfly!

After the 4th of July, Andy was watching the girls at their tennis lesson when a friend of ours stopped by to give his wife this caterpillar he had found. Our friend figured he hit the jackpot with ANDY being at tennis--it was the "right" parent to ask! Sure enough, we came home with a "pet". But where to find milkweed? Did we really want to do this?!?!

The next morning, Andy said "I'm going to go get you a diet coke..." and he was gone for a very long time. When he returned, I said 'I was so worried where you were...." and he smiled as he held up a handful of milkweed....for our "pet".

Above, you will see the 4 stages of our little friend......and then below, our beautiful butterfly....

And, of course, we captured some video:
Butterfly's 1st moves: click HERE.
And the release of butterfly: click HERE. (this one is particularly funny as our friend hooked onto Andy!)

I have to admit....I am a changed person....we will do this again, we'll be digging in the ditches next July for more caterpillars! And the girls? The 1st question after it flew away was "Can we get another caterpillar?!?!?!" Colin, however, thought it was a "bee"! Next year, he'll be just as into it as the girls!

Memories in the making....and made.

Memories, memories....this week is a big week in my "memory bank", for many reasons.

14 years ago, Andy and I were married :)
July 19th was humid humid humid...ick. And then overnight, the humidity broke and July 20th brought us "cool" temps, no humidity, and beautiful sun! Absolutely beautiful!

Last year, July 20th was the day that KC let employees know if they were staying or being let go. We had no idea what that anniversary would bring....and are so thankful it was a happy day for Andy!

I realized that it's becoming "normal" for Andy to be traveling on July 20th (it's happened numerous times now)...but that just extends the celebrating in our house! The girls got up and sang me "Happy Anniversary" and they gave us some gifts: a punch card for cleaning up the whole house for 10 days, a certificate for "a happy heart for 10 days" and much love from the other 2 children. Happy love day, Andy!

We also made some memories this past weekend, with a fun beach trip.

On Friday, Andy said "Hey.....what do you think about going to the beach tomorrow? There is good diet coke right next to the state park..." (Haha...he felt he needed to convince me and used my weakness to do so....)

Surprising to him, I was all for it...after all, if we went to a pool, we'd have to hold Colin the entire time. Going to the beach, Colin would be in heaven (sand) and everyone would have relaxed fun.

Point Beach in Two Rivers, WI is amazing. We go yearly on Labor Day weekend to the kite festival there, but we often make it another time just for fun. The girls are doing a summer reading program that actually gave them free state park passes this year! We drove right into the state park and parked very close to our little section of beach and started having fun! The big girls did lots of swimming, Ava swam and played in the sand, and Colin played for hours straight in the sand.

Sand....I don't really care for it. Ick. However, we've discovered some ways around bringing the beach home with us! I braid all the girls' hair, we hose them off in the state park and have them shower in the campers' shower buildings, and if some sand remains, we sprinkle the kids with baby powder--the sand then wipes right off! We also bring a huge bag for all the sand toys to ride home in after they've been rinsed. Finally, we bring along a couple jugs of water--for rinsing any sand that remains on feet or on sippy cups after we've tried to rid ourselves of it.

Memories....lots of fun family memories....all stemming from July 20, 1996!

Ellie at the beach: (yes, she dug that huge hole!)

Jayna at the beach:

Ava at the beach:

And, Colin at the beach: (yes, he has turned into Comical Colin!)

The Bird Bath!

Is the above picture a great picture or what? To me it screams "perfect day"--big, beautiful pool with the hot sun blazing down--wonderfulness! And the best part is unseen--no humidity!

This weekend was the Bird Bath Open swim meet that the Fox Cities YMCA Swim Team puts on each year...I had heard a lot about it, seen lots of Bird Bath "stuff" floating around...and wondered "What is the big deal? It's a SWIM MEET!" Oh, were we pleasantly surprised! It was wonderful--all 6 of us had a blast, the weather was perfect and much fun was had by the swimmers.

The meet started Friday afternoon and ran through Sunday. I was told that on SATURDAY alone, there were 900 swimmers signed up to swim and they expected over 1000 spectators. When I heard that, my thoughts went to "Oh great....and we're bringing the 3 little Glynns...how is this going to work?" Well...Erb Park is phenomenal--lots of grassy space, great play equipment for the little siblings, and tons of mature trees providing shade. But still...1000 spectators IN the pool area? Well, my source was right when she said "But people are REALLY respectful--they watch their event and then they leave the pool area." Never had we experienced that at other meets...but sure enough, it was the case here.

Prior to the meet though, we took advantage of buying a clearanced out slip n slide...here is a photo of the 3 girls trying it for the first time Friday morning--they loved it. (I didn't have the camera handy this afternoon when Colin copied the girls--He also loved it and was quite cute falling on the slippery slide!)
Here is Ellie wearing her shirt from the swim meet--we HAD to buy a shirt....because...
1) Very cool shirts 2) You could get all your teammates' names on them and then a little star by your name and 3) Any 9 yr old who swims the 200 meter freestyle deserves a reward for her endurance, don't you think?!

Here is Ellie before her event, diving off the block and after her finish, looking back to check her time and placement. Her times are amazing, they are continuing to decrease with each meet....and she's doing great for being a 9 yr old in a large group of 9-10 yr old girls! Some of those 10 yr old girls are HUGE and STRONG!
This meet, she swam: Friday night the 200 meter freestyle. Saturday morning, she kicked off her events swimming 50 meters of backstroke in the 200 Medley Relay, the 50 meter backstroke and then finished the morning with a 100 meter freestyle event.

• To see her swim the backstroke, click HERE.
• To see her swim the freestyle, click HERE.
  

In between her events, we retreated to our grassy spot in the shade and Colin was comical Colin, as usual. If he wasn't Wiggle-dancing, he was tackling Ava or asking to be in his stroller (and buckled in!)....Andy caught these shots of Colin "chilling":
I think Colin ate the entire bag of iced animal crackers this weekend....YIKES!

We also had some help and visitors at the meet! Ellie's team "hosted" the meet and that meant that if she was to participate, WE had to fill in 3 volunteer slots. This is usually very hard for us since we have such little kiddos that also need care during the meets. However, this meet, Andy worked concessions Friday afternoon, I worked them late Friday afternoon-evening and then our beloved babysitter Miss Valerie really helped us out--she was a timer on Saturday afternoon for us! She even came early for her shift, just to see Ellie swim!


We also got to spend time with Amy and Cindy, more beloved babysitters! They had been at the Farmer's Market and then made their way to the park...only to arrive just as Ellie finished her last event! What a bummer! But Andy said "That's ok...you can watch her on our camera!"....and this is what it looked like when they were watching the race on our camera--all 4 Glynn kiddos were "on" Cindy and Amy watching the tiny camera screen!
Cindy, Amy and Valerie even blessed Ellie's little friend Mackenzie--we all stayed longer to see Mackenzie swim her last event and it was fun to cheer her on as spectators! The photo below is Ellie and Mackenzie--they met at the stroke clinic they attended before they even signed up for swim team! 2 peas in a pod, that's for sure!

Our first year is officially done! Amazing job, Ellie!!! She participated in 6 meets since last October and now knows the ins and outs of swimming meets! The best part of her swimming though, is to see her get out of the water just beaming. What fun it has been!

Happy 4th of July!

We love the 4th of July! I wish I had all of my old (really old!) photos on hand to scan in a photo of my siblings and I all dressed in flag attire. Quite cheesy to think about NOW, but I think we looked cool, back in the 80's! :)

Anyway...this past weekend found us back on the road again, back to IL for the annual 4th of July gathering. It's total tradition: Andy goes nuts blowing his birthday money on fireworks in WI and then we "sneak" them into IL where he and his brothers put on a show for all of us. It just started happening when we had kiddies that went to bed WAY before fireworks shows, yet we didn't want to miss the fun.
It's so great--private show and no traffic to battle once the show is over!

We also take in a parade about 20 minutes from Andy's parents' home. It is VERY fun and FULL of candy. All the kiddos that collected candy filled a gallon ziplock bag. Even Ellie, only putting in "safe" candy in her bag, nearly filled it full.

Here are some photos from the fun:
1) Jayna, Rebekah, Ellie. 2) Abby and Ava. 3) Jimmy, Andy, Ben & Colin.

1) Ellie & Colin (with a bow for the photo!). 2) Bed and Colin "two". 3) Ben wearing Wesley's bib....Ben was pretending he was born in the USA! :)

1) Jayna & Colin waiting for the parade. 2) Colin then moved to Uncle Jimmy--still waiting for the parade. 3) Colin and tall Uncle Ben....STILL waiting for the parade!

1) Colin eating. Yum! 2) Colin showing off his shovel. 3) Colin LOVING the sandbox!

We also celebrated Andy's birthday with is family--his mom had found cool sparkler candles...but by the time we celebrated, could only find the 3! The candle was VERY cool.

Upper left photo: the fireworks "team": Andy, Ben, Jimmy, Jimmy's girlfriend Brett. They did an amazing job....very neat, very loud, very colorful!

And not photographed this year: fun with far away friends on the 4th at Andy's parents'; the annual 4th of July BBQ Rib Feast, swimming as much as the little munchkins can handle, and a little reading about the first flag ever sewn and the reason behind it! It was a fast trip, but a fun and "full" trip! Happy Independence, America!!