JT's Summer Activities

With JT being on Summer break, I've been trying to keep him busy so he doesn't get too bored and doesn't spend too much time watching TV.

So, for the week of June 9 - 13th, he spent the mornings at Karate Camp learning about pressure points and self defense. Since he spent 15 hours training during the week, he earned an extra belt advancement, which brought him up to a Purple belt. Below is a video of him showing some of his new self defense moves on the 13th during testing.

The following week, June 16 - 20th, JT went to "Power Lab" Vacation Bible School at our church. (He also decided this week that he wanted to get a buzz cut. So, that's him with no hair in the bottom left corner of the following photo. He quickly decided he really didn't like it so I don't think he'll be asking for a buzz cut again anytime soon!) He had a great time at VBS as usual.

The following Friday, June 20th, was normal graduation time for Karate and he had earned moving up a belt. Since he received his Purple belt already, he tested for his Blue belt. Needless to say, he's pretty excited about being a Blue belt already. Below is a photo of him during testing just before he broke the board. You can tell from his face he is very serious!

The following week, June 23 - 27th, JT went to "Rainforest Adventure" Vacation Bible School at the Presbyterian church where his friends Joseph, James & Jacob go to church. This is his 3rd year going to VBS there and he loves it there too. Plus, I get 15 hours of childcare for $18!

Today, the Cub Scouts went to the IMAX theater at World Golf Village to watch the documentary on Antarctica. Then afterward, they went to a nearby park and cooked out and had some fun. I wasn't able to go because I had an Emmaus team meeting all day getting ready for the July walk.

Now that June is over, it's time to start looking at what's happening in July. So far he has Music Camp at church for one week and sleep away camp in Leesburg, Florida for one week. Stay tuned for more!

Madyson's Motorcycle Run

Tim went on his first charity ride today after hearing about it from some friends from church.

(That's Tim in the foreground)

The ride was held to benefit Madyson Darner, a 9 year old little girl who on March 5, 2008 was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Her tumor is inoperable and an 18 month course of chemotherapy is the only option.

You can view a slideshow video her father put together of the ride activities here.

Madyson and her family could use your prayers.

JT's 10th Birthday

JT was given the choice to go to any restaurant he wanted to celebrate his 10th birthday. I expected him to choose Sakura's Japanese Steakhouse or Red Lobster since those are his 2 favorites. To my surprise he said, "I want to have breakfast at Aunt KD's house on my birthday, it's a tradition Mom!" Of course, I was thrilled because I could easily afford feeding everyone that way, plus, Aunt KD and Uncle Bobby would be the one's cooking and cleaning up!

So, per his request, we had eggs, bacon, sausage, cheese grits and waffles for his birthday "breakfast" dinner. It was the 3 of us, plus his Aunt KD, Uncle Bobby, Nana & Jenny.

I bought an ice cream cake at the grocery store. I was gone all day to a meeting and Nana had said she was going to bake a cake... but I guess she forgot, so I bought one instead. The icing was all messed up, but it still tasted good and he enjoyed it... which is all that mattered to me.

One of the presents he received for his birthday was the karate uniform he has on in the photo below. He's been wanting it for a long time, but since it wasn't cheap, we wanted to make sure he got to a point in his Karate that he would make use of it. It's called the XMA uniform.... which stands for eXtreme Martial Arts. He wants to start performing with the "Demo Team" and in order to do so, he needed to have this special uniform. He made all A's & B's on his report card, so part of his reward was earning half of the uniform... then we just surprised him and paid for the other half. We couldn't have bought him anything that would have made him any happier. He also got a new XMA bo staff that he's been wanting. All in all he had a great birthday. Money from his MiMi and Papa, and from his Great Grams, and his Great Aunt Bette (all in Michigan). He got a Walart gift card from his Aunt KD, Nintendo DS & shorts outfit from Nana, Dangerous Book for Boys from Jenny and a few Nintendo DS games from us.
Following is a video taken during class the day before his birthday where he got their traditional birthday spanking from the rest of the class.

The night before his birthday there was a huge Black Belt testing in the Jacksonville Veteran's Memorial Arena downtown that he wanted to go to. There were hundreds of black belts testing so we went down to see what goes on and to support the black belts from our academy. JT had a choice of wearing his white karate uniform or dressing nicely. He chose to dress in slacks, shirt and tie and was looking rather dapper! He carried his purple belt around with him and got it signed by Chief Master William Clark (8th degree black belt ... pictured below) and about 14 other people.

Here's a photo of JT and a proud looking Daddy! (In case you can't tell, JT fixed his hair himself... and used about a half tube of gel I think!)

As usual, no photos of me. Since I'm the one who takes the photos, I rarely get my photo taken.... but I was there. I have to work on doing better at getting Tim to take photos of me. I don't want JT to look back at photos one day and see that Dad was always there but Mom wasn't!

See More Photos at: http://picasaweb.google.com/rtungett

Florida United Methodist Annual Conference

This past week I went to Lakeland, Florida for a few days. I left on Wednesday and came home Saturday afternoon.

As one of 3 Lay Delegates for our church, I have to go to Annual Conference as a representative of our church to take part and vote on any issues that are being voted on. There is also bible study each morning, but I would consider it more preaching than bible study. The guest speakers were great though and I really enjoyed hearing Bishop Hee-Soo Jung from Chicago and wish I had not missed one of his early morning sessions.

There was plenty of singing and from a few different groups as well as a production of singing and dancing from the kids from the Florida United Methodist Children's Home. There were presentations, retirements, ordinations, calls to service and voting. Fortunately, there wasn't too much bickering about any of the issues.

There was an Expo there as well, so I made my rounds every day and picked up lots of freebies. Water bottles, thumb drives, pedometers, pens, pads, T-shirts, etc. I brought back most of the stuff JT and the ladies in the church office. They were holding a health fair as well so I had my blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and a couple of other things checked. I was very pleased with the results. All within normal ranges. My cholesterol was under 200 and I don't think it's ever been that when I had it checked before. I tried to give blood though and I was too anemic so they wouldn't take it.

Even though all three of our Pastors went for the weekend and also Howard, one of the other Lay Delegates, it was a pretty lonely 3 days for me and I tried to enjoy the time alone relaxing in my room as much as I could. I stayed at the LaQuinta Inn and was lucky enough to have a microwave and refrigerator in my room. That allowed me to eat in at night and not only save money, but also stay on my diet and eat the low calorie microwavable meals I've become accustomed to.

I discovered while I was at the conference that I still have alot to learn about the church, how it's run, the issues, etc.

I did check out the area to see how many geocaches were hidden nearby and there were actually quite a lot of them. I didn't want to go hunting for them by myself though, it's more fun with JT and Tim or at least someone. There was one close by my hotel though, right behind a 7-Eleven so I was tempted to stop one morning and I saw it almost right away. So at least I got to get at least one find while I was there!