English/Grant Wedding Announcement

Megan Kathleen Brooke English & Timothy David Grant

will be united in holy matrimony on

Friday, November 7th, 2008 at 6:00 pm.

The marriage will take place at the Happy Valley

Church of Jesus Christ in Elizabethton, TN.

To send the couple a "Congratulatory Wish", you can e-mail them at: MeganKBE@embarqmail.com

My Religous/Political Confusion...

Mark and I went with the kids (along with Mack & Dorothy) to Mark's Aunt Jean's church this morning to participate in their "Old Timey Day". The preacher was a young man who really was giving it his all about Hell and how we need to do everything that we can to make sure that we're not on the path to go there. He talked about the End Times and about how things in this world and country are getting worse and worse and how we need to make sure that we keep God in mind when making all of our decisions.

During his sermon, he made a comment that we as Christians needed to make sure that during this presidental election, that we don't elect the man who "wants to kill the babies". He then made a connection to the fact that if the wrong man gets elected, that it would be a pretty sure thing that the Mark of the Beast wouldn't be too far off in our futures to help "correct" the current financial mess that our nation is in.

This makes my brain so tired.....I am a registered Democrat. I am a free-thinking 31-year-old female who has the sense to realize that in the 8 years that our Republican President has been in office, abortions have yet to be banned or deemed illegal. I also know that our financial mess is due to some of the decisions that have been made during the overseeing of our Republican President. Many will claim that "The Democrats keep the president from making Abortions illegal and the Democrats are who have created the bills that have led to our financial ruin", but isn't it true that if the president WANTED to make an issue out of something like Abortion and Finances, couldn't he do it in such a way as to force the country to take a stand and make the Politicians listen to the people and have them vote the way that the people wanted? I'm not good at politics, but isn't that the way it is supposed to go? I mean, if it's so important to elect a REPUBLICAN this next go-round to "fix" all the moral downfalls that we're in right now, then why didn't the current Republican fix those things while he was in office? Either way, whatever wrongs befall the country after the election, the Republicans will blame the Democrats and the Democrats will blame the Republicans. No one ever has anything nice to say about the other. Neither really ever offer to try to work together for the better good of the country. It's always about blaming someone else. That goes for BOTH sides.

Now...like I said, I'm not so great at politics, but I do know that there are many people in this world who will choose to greatly dislike me purely because I am a registered Democrat. What is even sadder is that there are many who claim to be Christians who will verbally abuse me because of my party affiliation.

You say Democrat, and people have visions of Poor, Atheist, Abortion loving, Gay Rights Upholding people. When you hear the word Republican, you think RICH, Christian, Pro-Choice, Anti-Gay people.

Now...I don't know about the rest of you, but I know plenty of poor Rebublicans and RICH Democrats. I know many Democrats who are as anti-abortion as you can get and on the flip-side, I know many Republicans who are pro-choice. I also know people on the republican side who are pro-gay rights and on the Democratic side who are against gay-rights.

Then you get to the Christian thing........as Christians, we are bound to love others as God loves us. We are bound first and foremost to uphold God's teachings about how to treat others with love and respect and to not judge others for what they have done or for what they believe, but to make sure that WE ourselves are right with God. We are supposed to pray for each other. Not in judgement, but in support that we and everyone around us will make good decisions on a daily basis. We don't have to agree with the choices that others make, but God does want us to love each other unconditionally as he loves us. As Christians, those are our orders. Plain and Simple!

Being a Republican or a Democrat should not evoke feelings of hatred amongst the Christian people. (In all honesty, I wish the parties would be done away with because there are so many left or right "winged" people on all political levels that it's all just a blur anymore (to me at least)).

The fact is, is that in this political race, I'm not going to vote for my Democratic candidate just because I'm a democrat. I'm still extreemly undecided...........That may not make sense to many of you, but to me, I am going to vote for the person I feel will be the best person to take our country out of all of the mess that it is in. If that is Obama or McCain, I have no clue as of yet. They say and do things daily that affect how I feel about them. It will be that way until election day. BUT...............please know......that I will NOT make my decision lightly.

I want to leave you with this thought...If you are a Christian (or not), keep in mind that your actions and words are your best tools to win someone over to your way of thinking, or to push someone away. I would much rather listen to someone who is willing to ask my opinion and offer theirs in a non-threatening way rather than to listen to someone who is verbally bashing my thoughts and beliefs before they know anything about how I feel. (this relates to salvation AND politics!!)

Hope you've all enjoyed my little rant.......I'm sure there will be more to come in the future!!

Megan & Tim

I would like to announce that my niece Megan was officially engaged to her boyfriend Tim this past Friday night. The two are planning to get married this November 7, 2008. More details will follow soon! (I've requested a beautiful picture!) When I get the information, I will post it here for all to see!

This picture was taken back in February of this year. From left to right is Melissa & Megan's brother Joey, Tim, Megan, Creston, and (my) Mark.

CONGRATULATIONS you two!!!

New Lyrics for an old standard...

My dear little Creston was just singing "She'll be coming 'round the mountain...". He was doing really well with it and was getting into it moving and a groovin' to the tune......I thought..."How cute! I didn't teach him this song. Wonder where he got it from?".

THEN.....he started the second verse and started singing "She'll be riding big fat horses when she comes...toot toot!"

:o)

That's my kid...........oh me.......

A day in the life of two boys...

I just wanted to share this little interaction with all of you.....just so those of you with no kids, or 1 kid, or older kids can see or reminisce about how it is/was with 2... :o) Enjoy!


First of all...this all revolves around this sippy cup. As you see here, Mackie has the sippy cup. It is Creston's cup and will soon be back in its owners possession...(please note how HAPPY Mackie is to have this cup! So proud! So excited!!)

Ok.....at some point, the cup made its way back to Creston...Below you see Mackie trying to snatch it away from evil older brother yet again...

It almost works, but Creston intercepts the cup and proceeds to "shoot" Mackie with an accompanying "Bang Bang BANG!!!". (the shooting occurs when he is mad at one of us...we have all died multiple times over the last many months...I think we're looking pretty good to be dead!)

Now......(wish I had a full-on shot of Mackie), this is Mackie SCREAMING at the top of his lungs at Creston. Note the extended arms and squatting position...Now imagine the loudest possible squeal that you can and multiply it by 100 and you've got the picture! (Also note that Creston doesn't seemed fazed by this outcry of emotion from his baby brother).

Just for kicks, Mackie attempts it again...No good this time either, little fella...

Thus...the heartbreak...

Please note the tiny person behind the rocking chair....this is Mackie leaving the room because I said "Do you want your bath now?". He stopped crying, and RAN towards the hallway. I said "Mackie? Where are you going?" and took this shot.

He wants what Creston has and Creston wants what he has.......never ends!!!! :o)

Mackie drinks a little...on the side...

Milk, that is...

This isn't the best picture of him drinking "crooked", but I thought that it was funny! He has his front 4 teeth on the top and bottom, so no matter what he is drinking out of, bottle or cup, he does it off to the side!!!!!

Celebrating Mark's B-Day on Sunday!

Since Mark worked on his actual Birthday - Day, SUNDAY

was our day to celebrate Mark's 33rd birthday!

Creston was so proud of making Daddy's wrapping paper!

Creston, Mark, & Mackie! (My three fella's)

I got a bit exited and baked a German Chocolate Cake AND made a Butterscotch pie (from scratch!!! ~ the pie, that is!!) Well.....I didn't make the crust.......but I thought that the filling AND the meringue turned out pretty well!I didn't have 33 candles, so I just did what you see above!!!

Somebody call the Fire Department!! There's SMOKE EVERYWHERE!!!!!

Nana & Pa-Paw came up to eat cake and pizza with us!

After the eating and presents, Nana and Pa-paw watched the boys for us while we went to eat at OUTBACK!! (our FAVORITE) and then we went to see a movie!!! We hadn't been out like that together alone in a VERY long time! It was nice! It was a good day.

Birthdays!

Today is a special day for two very important people in my life! My husband, Mark, and my niece, Melissa! As luck (and fate) would have it, they share the same birthday!!!

Since I can't ever remember to get a current picture with Melissa, I will

post the last one of us (girls and Creston & Mack) from this past Christmas!!!Creston, Melissa, Mom, Megan, Grandma, Me & Mackie-Moo!

Melissa is 20 today! Boy!!!!! That really doesn't seem possible. When she was little-bitty she always knew when her birthday was and she would volunteer the information to anyone who came near........she had a little bit of a lisp...so it sounded something like this....."MY BIRFSDAY IS SEPTEMBR TWENTYIFSH!!!!!" She would proclaim this like it was the most important news in the whole world! It was really cute!!

Melissa, sweetie, you've come a long way so far........and you've got so MANY more years to go! Live each day to the fullest and never let anyone tell you that you can't do something! There are always doors that will open.....have faith and you can accomplish ANYTHING!!! I believe in you and so does the rest of our family!!! We're so very proud of you and the young woman that you have become! HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now.......for the other birthday person.............

Markie-Poo!!!! HAPPY 33rd BIRTHDAY TO YOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday Dear Ma-ark (Daa-dy),

Happy Birthday to you!!!!

Now.......just so everyone knows, I'm all about Birthdays......love them!!! Big Birthday person!

Now....just so everyone knows, Mark is NOT all about Birthdays! He's not all "Look at me!! I'm 33!" He's more like......."let's just forget it this year...."

Now.....last year, for Mark's 32nd birthday, he had to work at the Fire Department. He hadn't been working there long, so I thought that the boys and I would take him some brownies and balloons to brighten his day!!!!!!!!!! Heeee Heeeee Heeee! Thought that he would fall over dead when we showed up with the balloons! He said "Don't get those out of the car, Martha!" They came out of the car and went inside the building where he was promptly made fun of. He HATES to be picked on!!!! :o)

So................this year, my dear sweetie, we were going to surprise you again and come to be with you this evening, but because we love you dearly, (and because you've been running calls left and right all day), the boys and I won't be coming to see you at work today.....

We won't bring you this cake...

or let you wear this cute little party fire hat...

You won't have to drink from this CUTE little cup....
or squirt all your friends with this extinguisher.

I won't bring this Pinata filled with yummy candy for you to bust open.

I won't even bring these favors for everyone to take home after all the fun is over.

It would have been lots of fun! You could have had the BEST birthday ever!!!!!!!! Now.....you'll just have to sit there in your Birthday-Deprived Fire Department and merely think about what might have been.............so sad.........no cake....no balloons.....no party fire hat.......sniff...sniff....

Your co-workers would have liked it! Now they have been deprived of the fun of making horrible fun of you! Oh well......maybe next year I'll send you a dancing Smokey-the-Bear Birthday Gram!

All fun aside...I love you, Mark, and I hope that this Birthday is the best one yet!

We'll eat cake and ice cream on Sunday!!!!!!!!!!! Stay safe, o.k.?

Mom, this isn't really THAT funny...

Just remember.....I REALLY do love my children!!!!! Really,.....I do!!! This was just toooooooo cute to pass up!!! Can you see the cynical look he's giving me??? He's gonna have a dry sense of humor like his father.......and my sister Kim had this same dry humor.......oh me!!!!! Look at that cocked eyebrow! We're going to be in for it, huh?

The Banner Family Renunion

Today, we went with Nana and Pa-Paw to the Banner Family Renunion. Nana's friend (and distant relative) Billie Church gets this together every year. Nana's maiden name was Banner before she got hitched to that old Parlier man!!! Anyway......we've tried to go for the last few years and it's always a nice day! We went to church at Billie & Ross's Church next door to their outdoor Fellowship area. The boys acted like they've never been in Church before!!!!! Oh me....After several threats against their very lives, they settled down for us.
Below is a picture of Dorothy and Jack Banner....I believe she told me he was the oldest Banner in atendance that day....

Below are three people who are VERY interested in what is being said!!!

Here is our Mackie trying his best to get a hold of Eli Church!

Here, Creston is aggravating a little girl and apprarently,....loving every minute of it!

I do see a resemblence here between the two Macks...

Here, Creston & Ethan Church are attacking each other with their balloons...

The End...

Iris is here!!!

We're very happy to have Mark's Aunt (she is Mack's late brother Wayne's wife) Iris here visiting with all of her Parlier family this week! She and her sister came down all the way from Lockport(e)?, New York. Iris is staying with Mack & Dorothy's sister-in-law Mary Alice on down the road from us. We always love to see Iris come to visit! She is really a very sweet, and special person to us!

Now...........Johnny.....you get to feeling better and load up the family and get down here soon too, o.k.????? :o)

September 11, 2008

Today is the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on our Country. Since this is the first year that 9/11 has come since I’ve had my blog, I thought that I would write down some of my thoughts from that day. (Not that my thoughts are anything necessarily important for anyone else to read ~ since we all went through it together as a nation, but for my own benefit). I found the website for the National 9/11 Memorial. http://www.national911memorial.org/site/PageServer?pagename=homepage2 It shows the proposed new building information and info. about the Memorial and the Museum. It also has pictures and stories from that day.

I was at work that day and someone came by my office door and mentioned that they had heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center in NYC. It could have been an accident….I immediately e-mailed Mark and told him what I had heard. (I think he still has this e-mail from me). There was a TV in the break room on the lower level of our building. I think we all wound up in that room watching everything unfold before our eyes. We actually saw the second plane hit, saw both towers fall, and watched in silent horror as it dawned on us that all of those people in those buildings and anywhere nearby had to have died. I remember saying “All of those people……they’re dead…”.

Nothing like that had ever happened in such a massive way on our own soil. We weren’t prepared to deal with it emotionally. I’m sure, like Mark & I did, everyone went home that day and sat glued in front of your televisions and watched and re-watched it all play out over and over before our very eyes. Technology is amazing with the fact that the entire attack was captured on cameras all over that city, but then to have the ability to sit and watch it all repeatedly did something to us as a nation. There used to be a time when the News wouldn’t show death, but that evening and many days and months afterwards, we were shown clips of those planes filled with all those innocent people slamming into those buildings and then we watched as more innocent people jumped to their deaths because they feared the type of death that they knew awaited them if they stayed in those burning buildings. Those are the images burned in my mind. I can’t watch anything about 9/11 without crying for all the lives that were affected on that day ~ those Mothers, Fathers, Children, Sisters, Brothers, & Friends who started that eerily perfect beautiful day without ever once thinking that their lives would change forever.

I’ve heard it said that each generation has a horrible event occur that they remember forever. I wish that it wasn’t so. I wish that this world and all of its inhabitants could get along and live in such a way that wars and killing wouldn’t be necessary. I wish that I could promise my beautiful sons that they would NEVER have to worry about anything like this happening in their lifetime. I wish that these horrible events would just stop happening, but I know that will never happen. All we can do is make sure that we tell each other as often as we can that we love each other and let each other know the differences that we have all made in each other’s lives. Life is a precious gift and we only have a certain number of days to live it to the fullest. All of those people who died that day thought that they had more time…

To all of my friends and family, each and every one of you have helped to mold me and make me the person that I am today. Each smile, tear, hug, heartache, kind thought, and all that “other stuff” has had such an effect on my life. I hope that I have been able to be a good friend and daughter, grand-daughter, niece, aunt, cousin, mom, and all that “other stuff” to all of you. I often find myself spread very thin while juggling parenting, working, being a wife and all that “other stuff”. Life doesn’t make any more sense to me today than it did a few years ago, but I’m working on figuring it all out and will let you all in on my big AhHah! moment when I find it!

Thank you all for letting me be in your lives. Thank you for accepting me and my family and our quirky ways. Keep us in your prayers and you will all remain to be in ours.

The weirdest thing that I've heard of in a While!!

O.k......I'm all about Science Fiction. I'm all about advancement of our species. I'm all about knowledge...but...this thing?

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/first-beam-circ.html

The above picture reminds me of the movie Contact (with Jodie Foster). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kht_rJs38Y4 In that movie, we(earthlings) get blueprints from aliens to build a gadget that kinda looks like the thing above. Well...looky here! I found a picture of the Contact Contraption!!! See!! Kinda similar, huh?


Anyway, with the above gadget, us earth people can hope to travel to meet the aliens! Hey.....why in the world not??????? I mean,......sign me up to get into a big weird scary-looking contraption that will take me to only the Good Lord above knows where!!! :o)

O.k......back to REALITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The reason for my post is the following...The first set of pictures on this particular blog entry shows The Large Hadron Collider. It has been built somewhere near the Switzerland/France border, and it is supposed to change our fundamental understanding of the universe. How? Well....click on this link and you'll see!

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/the-bosons-that.html#previouspost

It's really kinda interesting, considering it's supposed to be the most expensive scientific "instrument" built as of yet. I'm still a bit unsure as to what it's supposed to do. Some have been a bit upset saying that it would create a Big Black Hole in the center of the earth and suck everything into it...ending life as we know it!!!! I actually didn't hear about this thing till yesterday when a News broadcast reported that "Life as we know it may end tomorrow!". Boy...talk about an opening line!
Well, the testing started today. We're still here, but they're supposed to be running the thing for a long while, so I suppose anything could happen.

If we all get sucked into the center of the Earth by a big man-made black hole, I just want you all to know that I've enjoyed knowing every last one of you!

The Republican National Convention

I just watched Sarah Palin accept the VP Nomination and her speech was really something to see. I also watched the Democratic speeches last week. All of our choices are great speech givers. This election is going to definately be one to keep up with!

I found a really great site for checking up on the candidates and their stance on certain issues:

http://www.ontheissues.org/default.htm

You can click on any nominee and you will find out how they voted & where they currently stand on many issues that we all worry about.

Check it out!

Goodnight everyone!

The Green Daewoo!

We finally got the Green Daewoo Tagged and taxed and titled and all that good stuff! This was my mom's car, and since they have been driving a truck all over the great green earth for the past 7 years, it has been sitting in their garage just waiting for someone to drive it! It's a 2000 and only has 34,000+ miles on it! As I mentioned before, MY Daewoo has over 125,000 on it!

This is it!!! (Here you go Crystal!)

I like it! It's got 4 doors and AIR CONDITIONING!!!! I know that I won't need it too much longer, but until the snow starts to fall, I'll be cool as a cucumber!! Weeeee Doggies!!!!!

Our weekend went well. Sunday we went to church, then ate at Arbys' (or Harbey's as Creston likes to go to Arby's AND Hardee's), then took the boys to Tweetsie! We had a good time and ran into a couple of our friends and two of their kids, Greg, Michelle, Jacob, and Tanner Hollars. We had a good time walking around and letting the kids ride the rides. The Train terrified Creston due to the over-eager Indians that like to whoop and Holler all over the place. He's scared to death of Indians!! Gonna have to work on that.

We were going to "Camp-Out" Sunday night in the back yard with the boys, but we were too pooped to party and decided to "Camp-In" in our own beds. Maybe in another week or two, we'll try it again for a day that doesn't involve anything else going on.

Hope that you all are having a good week so far! Take care!