Fine Arts Camp - Day 4 - FIELD TRIP!!!!

Day four of our Fine Arts Camp was incredible! We went to Nashville to the Frist Center for the Visual Arts The Frist Center for the Visual Arts

First, we met at the FLC. We wore our shirts that we made.

Then we got on the bus.

OH NO!!! There was a wreck on I-24 near exit 24. We sat and sat and sat. Look how distressed we are.

Here is the traffic in front of us.

Here is the traffic behind us.

There was a very interesting exibit in the galleries called "Color as Field ". YOu can click on the link to read about it. We weren't allowed to take pictures in there, so I can't show you how the kids were very interested and talked about all of the paintings.

Art Quest!!

Art Quest is a hands-on art experience where you learn a lot about art by DOING!

One of the art projects was printing. first you drew the design on paper, then you transfered it to a piece of foam, then you put ink on it and then you ran it through the press. (please forgive the run on sentence)

Since I make stained-glass windows I had to sneak out for a minute and see the Tiffany exibit. OH MY! Soooooo gorgeous! Tiffany by Design

Fine Arts Camp - Day 3

Day 3 was another great day at our Fine Arts Camp.

Follow Up on My New Adventure

Hahaha! A note from my Dr.

I sent my Dr. a note and told him that I had blogged about my new adventure
http://hilldaleworship.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-adventure.html
and he sent me an e-mail and told me that he had read it and that he liked it. Hahaha. I never thought he would actually go look at it.

Here's part of what he said,
"I believe the more people can get put at ease over this procedure the better chance we will have at beating this dreadful disease."

So, there you have it - straight from the Doctor. If you missed those posts, look over there - on the left - and find earlier posts. They may help save your life.

Fine Arts Camp - Day 2

Today was another great day at Fine Arts Camp.

The art students had several different projects going.

The Stomp guys played on 5 gallon paint buckets and bounced balls in rhythm in addition to banging on trash cans and buckets.

Bro. Tim took some of the pictures today, so he couldn't resist getting in a picture of himself.

We also started our t-shirts. They are made with stencils. There are two stencils. We did the first step today and will finish them tomorrow.

The kids were very creative in the paints they used for their shirts. Here's my shirt.

Fine Arts Camp - Day 1

We had a great start to our Fine Arts Camp. We had 16 kids and 4 teenage helpers and 2 lead teachers. Kristi tuaght Art and I taught Stomp. Next year we will add drama and puppets and dance.

We began the day all together in the art room. We talked about God and creation. Then we broke into our two groups - Stomp and Art. At 10:30 we had a nice break with lemonaide and cookies.

In Stomp we learned how to read some rythms and practiced first by drumming on the floor. Then we got our earplugs and trashcans and buckets and MADE SOME NOISE! It was a lot of fun. We also watched some clips from the Stomp DVD. Awesome stuff to see!

Then we went outside and practiced a short routine. It was hot and really bright in the sun so we are all probably squinting in these pictures. Then we went down by the art class windows and performed for them.

After our Stomp performance we went back to the art room and the art students told us about all of the things they studied.

The art class learned about a lot of great "art" things, like form and lines and color and value and well, just look here at the list.

They are working on several projects at once. They are also talking about the days of creation and making a group project/mural of the creation story.

Here are some of their projects.

It was a great day!

A New Blog

"My goodness!", you may be thinking, "How could that boy have any more to say. He has a worship blog, an art blog and a grandbaby blog. Now what?"

I'm glad you asked. I'm putting my house up for sale. As much as I love Bear Hollow, it's time to sell and move to Clarksville. So my new blog is to help me sell my house. If you know someone wanting to move closer to Nashville (just 20 minutes to downtown) but would like to live in a country setting, send them my way.

Since I have adopted grandchildren and since you can put all the pieces of who they are and where I live together, I've deleted the link to my house blog. If you want to keep up with new pictures on that blog and you didn't save the link, send me an e-mail and I'll send it to you.

Tennessee Quarter

As you probably know, I am leading a small group to Rio de Janiero, Brazil in just a couple of weeks. We will be doing follow up visits and evangelism visits from contacts made by a construction team that worked in Rio earlier this year. We will be working with a local church.

One of the things that is nice to do on a trip like this is to have gifts for the church pastor and for translators and other helpful people. I also like to have things for the kids. Something that is easy to carry with me and that the kids love to get is coins - and what better coin to carry than the Tennessee quarter?

I have some quarters that I would love to trade with you if you have a Tennessee quarter. I have several other states and I even have some old boring ones from the 90s.

Sunday's Music - July 27, 2008

We had a great rehearsal last night. Thanks to everyone who was able to join us. I'll be looking for all of you Sunday morning.

We'll be singing these songs with the congregation:

Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee

Days of Elijah

All Hail, King Jesus

Choir anthem - Everlasting

Rock of Ages (not your grandma's hymn)

Nothing But the Blood

Covers Me for Life

In Christ Alone

Keith and Kristyn Getty, the writers of In Christ Alone will be singing at PraiSing 08 on 8/8/08 at the Schermerhorn Symphony Hall in Nashville when LifeWay introduces their new hymnal. I'll be singing that night too with the Tennessee Baptist Men's Chorale. It will be a wonderful evening!!! I'll write more about it later.

It's Wednesday - Time for Choir!

I know everyone is going in and out of town for the summer, and there are only a couple of weeks left before school begins again, so if you are in town, I sure hope I'll see you in choir tonight.

Songs we'll be working on include: Everlasting, The Basics of Life, Been to the Water, Lord Have Mercy, and Hear Our Praises.

It is a great privilege to sing with you praises to the Everlasting God. Thank you for your work week by week to make His praise the best we have to offer. See you tonight.

Music City - Nashville!

I love Nashville! How could a music person not love Nashville - Music City? The home of Country music, great jazz, the heart of Contemporary Christian and Southern Gospel (and the Ryman!) and the home of the new world-class Schermerhorn Symphony Hall and the great Nashville Symphony. WOW!

My lovely wife, Cheryl, and I went to Nashville as tourists the other day. Cheryl is there 5 days a week at work, and I have been there countless times visiting hospitals, going to the downtown Y, going to the Frist Center for the Visual Arts http://www.fristcenter.org/site/default.aspx and the Estel Gallery http://www.estelgallery.com/exhibitions.html The really cool Bicentennial Mall and Farmer's Market. And of course LifeWay

And then of course there is the wonderful Children's Science Museum and the Zoo at Grassmere http://papalyndel.blogspot.com/2008/07/more-fun-at-zoo.html. I still need to get out to Cheekwood.

So why go to downtown as tourists? Well, for our mission trip to Rio, we wanted to take some gifts for our interpreters (presentes para nossos tradutores). So since Clarksville isn't exactly world renown (no offense) we wanted to take some Nashville souvenirs as gifts. It's hard to believe that I have lived in Tennessee for 20 years and in Nashville for 8 of those and we've never been in one of the tourist gift shops downtown. So, here I am.

We picked up some nice t-shirts that say Nashville and have a guitar (pronounced GITar) and a fiddle on them. We also picked up some little coffee cups that say Nashville and have guitars for handles. We thought those would be great since they love coffee (cafezinho) in Brazil.

On our trip as tourists, we of course saw a guy walking down the street with a guitar on his back.

We also saw several beauty pageant contestants. This one had died her poodle pink! Hahaha! (It was easier to tell from the front.)

So if you haven't been to Nashville as a tourist in a while - or ever - take off this weekend and see a great city.

Trio de Hoy

I'm sorry to say that Trio de Hoy had to cancel their concert this coming weekend, so that means they WON'T be at our church Sunday morning. I was really loooking forward to hearing them in person. What fun music!

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

We took a slight - OK, a really big - detour from our regular programming to bring you Lyndel's New Adventure. We now return to our regularly scheduled program.

Sunday's music for 7-20-08

Crown Him King of Kings

Crown Him with Many Crowns with Crown Him King

Choir Anthem - God of All

hmmmmm, now I don't remember what the second set is...

Let's see....... I think there's a hymn to start the set and a chorus in the middle and I'm pretty sure that Lord, I Lift Your Name on High is the last one and for the welcome song... Hmmmmmmmm. Well, I guess we'll all be pleasantly surprised in the morning. See you in worship.

An Adventure's Exciting Ending - Hahaha

Ha ha ha. No pun was intended.

So since the whole point of my blogging the last day was to encourage all of my older readers, I figure I need to finish the story. If you have missed the beginning of my adventure you'll want to read some earlier posts.

http://hilldaleworship.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-adventure.html
http://hilldaleworship.blogspot.com/2008/07/preparations-for-adventure.html
http://hilldaleworship.blogspot.com/2008/07/if-you-missed-yesterdays-posts-you.html

So Cheryl and I headed out to the Endoscopy Clinic this morning. (Dr. Carnes. I really liked him and his staff. Heritage Medical Center, Downtown Nashville)

When we enter the doctor's office there is a large waiting room filled with old, hungry people. (At least that's how they appeared to me) "Darn!" I thought, "I'm an old hungry person!"

Cheryl made me leave my camera in the car. But I did want to take a picture of the sign on the wall "In respect for our patients, please no food or drink" Ha! It's for your own safety. You could see that "I'd kill for a Big Mac" look in everyone's eyes.

After they called me back the first thing they wanted was my weight. "Well it's a whole lot less than yesterday" was my response.

After taking vital signs the next instructions were to take off everything but my socks and put on the gown - "open to the back and don't tie it." I figured that was part of the deal.

As they were wheeling me down to the exam room I told the ladies I was blogging about my whole experience. They seemed very excited and told me their names. (I wish I could remember them.) They did want to know for sure that I was going to say nice things. I said I was because I want to encourage others to follow suit. All of the people there were extra nice.

Next was an intravenous sedative. Well, some of my readers know this - and now I guess you all will. When I want to get a good 8 hours of sleep I take a half dose of Benydryl. A HALF DOSE = 8 good hours of sleep. I told the lady that I didn't like to wake up after I've had this kind of stuff. She said I would be alright. easy for her to say.

That's all I remember.

Cheryl said I told her - as I was waking up - that I had told her 4 times what my blood pressure was and how I was surprised at the numbers. I also - so she says - told her at least four times that I told the nurses I was blogging about the whole deal. She also says the Dr. came in and talked to us. Hmmmmm, I guess I should have videoed 'cause I sure don't remember seeing him afterwards. I don't remember the nurse coming in either. I just wanted to lie back down and sleep and Cheryl said they were making us leave. Mean!

I guess Cheryl dressed me since I had clothes on when I was in the car. I don't really remember walking to the car. (I only sort of remember being in the car.) Cheryl said we took the elevator down to the entrance and then she put me on a bench while she went to get the car. I suppose anyone could have picked me up - not that they would have wanted to take an old guy, mostly asleep, with a queasy stomach, who didn't even know he was outside. I told her I was sick at my stomach and she went back in for a wet paper towel. I guess it's good that I didn't realize I was sitting out - asleep - on a bench by myself. I might have started walking around looking for Cheryl ending up out in the street.

The end of a long story. (Hahaha, another pun.) Dr. Carnes said I had one polyp and it came off easily. I don't know how they do that. Don't really need or want to. (Polyps can turn into cancer, so you get rid of them while you're already in there.) And he said that it looked OK but that they have to send it off to be sure. And since I had a polyp I have to come back in 5 years instead of 10.

So - there you have it. Colon cancer is the second most common cancer in the West and kills over 250,000 people a year, but no one wants to talk about it since it is yucky getting ready for a colonoscopy. But it is easy to do and if you are over 50 you need one. So quit whining about it and call your Dr. and schedule one. You may have a polyp too.

The Adventure Continues

If you missed yesterday's posts, you might want to read them and catch up on my new adventure.
http://hilldaleworship.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-adventure.html
http://hilldaleworship.blogspot.com/2008/07/preparations-for-adventure.html
There are others too.

Now it's the big day. Woohoo!

So I was lying here (or is that laying here - I never get those right) anyway, this morning watching Fox and Friends and there was this loooooong grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrowrrrrrowowrrrr.
Cheryl snickered. It wasn't Steve or Brian - of course - it was my stomach saying "Hey! What's going on? What happened to supper? Wait! What happened to lunch??"

We have some scales next to the tub. Oooooo. I'm down 6 pounds. This is not good.

Of course the reason for this is 8 days worth of MiraLax taken in a mere hour and 20 minutes! Oh my! It is very difficult to do well on a video game when you have to keep making trips down the hall.

Cheryl's boss read the posts from yesterday. "He's got too much time on his hands," he said. Well, duh! It's not like you can go out and work in the yard when you are drinking 64 oz of MiraLax laced Gatorade. I would drink 8 oz every ten minues. I just new I wouldn't be able to get any more down, but then a trip down the hall... and how 'bout that, room for 8 more ounces.

"Are you scared?" nope - just hungry

Well, cheryl just said it's time to leave, so I'll let you know how it goes so you'll be prepared after you make your appointment.

A Funny Thought

So the next step was a 4:00 - take two Gas-x tablets. Hmmmm, I remember reading on the forms I filled out for the Dr.

Oh, by the way, if you've missed the last few posts you need to catch up.

So anyway, on the instructions it asks if you've had a hip replacement.

At 5:00 I get to drink 8 oz of MiraLax laced Gatorade every ten minutes for an hour and twenty minutes. So I'm thinking... "ooooo, if you miss your Gas-x and you have a bad hip will you swell up so much that your hip pops off?

Scary!

Worship

"What does any of that have to do with worship?" you might ask.

Read these to catch up

http://hilldaleworship.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-adventure.html
http://hilldaleworship.blogspot.com/2008/07/preparations-for-adventure.html

I think that is a valid question.

Well, here are some random thoughts. If I wasn't slowly starving to death (down two pounds so far) I perhaps could think more clearly and put them in a logical train of thought.



Worship is being a living sacrifice Ro 12:1 I think part of presenting our bodies to God is taking care of our bodies.

Caring for ourselves keeps us around where we can care for family and friends and so we can be a witness to the world. (Hard to do if you aren't here.)

As Christians we talk a lot about the sanctity of life. (Sanctity from the word "sanctus" meaning "holy" http://hilldaleworship.blogspot.com/2008/03/worship-center-or-sanctuary.html )
If my blogging about my little adventure will encourage others to follow suit and helps save someone's life I have followed the second great command and I have loved my neighbor as myself. Lu 10:27

I'm sure I could think of more, but I'm going to take a little nap now.

Preparations for the Adventure

If you've just tuned in, you might want to read this previous post http://hilldaleworship.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-adventure.html before you read this one.

I was never a Boy Scout, but I was a Cub Scout for a year or so. And I've heard the boy Scout motto all my life: Be Prepared!

For an ENTIRE day before a colonoscopy all you can drink is clear liquids. Fortunately colas (ie. Pepsi) are considered a "clear" liquid. So I gathered up a supply of drinks.

I know water would be good for me, (and I will drink some) but I need the calories. (You all may not have noticed this, but I have very little body fat to fall back on. In fact, that's my only concern about this little adventure. If I lose a few pounds it might take a while to get them back.) (Please don't hate me.)

At noon I got to drink an entire bottle of Magnesium something or the other. I'm smiling here because I hadn't drunk it yet.

Actually, it wasn't horrible. The only bad part was having to drink 10 oz. of something all at once. (Ask Bro. Tony how long it takes me to drink a shake from chick-fil-A.) I was pleasantly surprised when there was a fizzzzzzing noise when I unscrewed the lid. It has a bit of a lemon-lime taste. It took it about an hour before the first hit. Now I take breaks from my blogging...

Final preparations.

No explanation needed.

A New Adventure

This isn't something new to many, but it is new to me. And being "the glass is not only half full but someone is on his way to fill it back up" kind of person that I am, I've decided to take you on this adventure with me.

Once you start reading this you'll probably say, "Aaaaaahhh! Why would I want to know about that?" I don't really want to know about it either, but the recent death of Tony Snow helped me decide to blog about this. Then hopefully, with a little humor and a little "well, that ain't so bad" kind of writing, you may follow me and have a little adventure yourself.

If you didn't know, Tony Snow died of colon cancer - as did Elizabeth Montgomery and Charles Schultz. Tony was only 53. I don't know about these three and whether or not they had colonoscopies, but I do know that early detection is important and raises survival rates significantly. (If you don't know Tony Snow you haven't been paying attention. He was on Fox News and then he was President Bush's Press Secretary.)

I'm not afraid of dying. I know Jesus as my personal Savior and have no doubt that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord Read This Chapter But I'm also not in any rush to leave family and friends.

According to wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colon_cancer Colon cancer is the third most common form of cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related death in the Western world. Colorectal cancer causes 655,000 deaths worldwide per year.

Doctors recommend that you have a colonoscopy after you turn 50. So... I'm only a little late.

I was filling out the forms for the Dr. Here's what I put.

Question - What is the chief symptom or problem for which you have come to be evaluated?

Answer - I'm over 50.

Question - When did the problem begin?

Answer - June 21, 2007

I didn't answer this one: How severe are your symptoms?

I would have answered: Need reading glasses and wear knee support when I play racquetball.

But I figure they wouldn't enjoy my answers as much as I would enjoy writing them...

Soooooo... let the adventure begin!

It's Wednesday! Time for Choir!

What better way to make the middle of your week more joyful than to spend time singing God's praise with some of your good friends in choir? I'll be looking for you tonight!

If you've been out of the country for a month or so you may not realize that we are now meeting at our new Family Life Center on Old Farmers Road.

Hmmm, I wonder if it's called Old Farmers Rd because there is a new Farmers Road or if it is named after an old farmer (like the guy in the picture) and it is his road? But I guess that would require an apostrophe... oh dear, I'm starting to sound like Bro. Larry!

Racquetball with Kevin

I don't normally - well, I suppose I have never - blogged about a raquetball game. And I wouldn't today, except I got this phone call late last night. (We go to bed early on Bear Hollow.) and this somewhat ominous voice on the other end said, "10 hours and then you're goin' down." I of course just laughed, "ha!, that's what you think" but the voice on the other end kept up the trash talk. Then the whole family joined in. (What I didn't realize at the time was that the family was actually trash talking the son, but they will have to work that out themselves.)

So, he said, "7:00. The last time you slept in and missed the game." I thought about it and remembered that I had to drive my lovely wife to work (downtown Nashville) and the traffic was a bit heavy and so I was running a little bit behind and the third player that morning said, "then let's just play another day."

So I brought my camera this morning. (You should never mess with someone who has both a camera and a blog.)

Notice - 7:00 - no Kevin. (I did find out later that the clock is a little fast, but that takes the fun out of the story to admit that.)

Here he is coming in.

Here he is in the court.

I guess I should have had someone take a picture, because the time I served the ball and then tried to take a picture I got this.

We played some good games.

The racquetball league is going strong at the FLC. Stop by almost any evening and watch the play for a bit. It's fun.

In fact, there are many great activities going on there all the time. Check out the great schedule of activities and join right in.