As he calls it: ooo-ga

Here’s an interesting story on creationism Muslim-style.

And Ben enjoying some attention from Jon.

We enjoyed a wonderful weekend with Grandma Sharon here from Kansas for a visit. She helped us read books, make cookies, shop for fabric, and sing songs. The boys clearly missed her this morning when they woke up and she wasn’t here. But they enjoyed the thought of her spending the day in a big airplane.

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they’re okay, then it’s you.

–Rita Mae Brown

The academic job season is in full swing. So far I’ve applied to:

• a small liberal arts college in western Pennsylvania
• a big-city Catholic university in the East
• a private university in the South
• a small liberal arts college near Chicago
• a public university in the West
• a small liberal arts college in eastern Ohio
• a branch campus of a public university in Ohio
• a public university in Atlanta

Many, many more to come in the next weeks.

–David

And so we have apples. Lots and lots of apples. We’re eating them with about every meal. Fresh, in oatmeal, baked, apple crisp. . . But I’d love some new ideas. Anyone have a favorite apple recipe you’d like to share?

–Lisa

Football and dogfighting have a lot more in common than you’d ever expect. Read about brutality for the sake of money and leisure here.

We’re back from another busy weekend. We were glad to have a house rental again because we wanted to go to Ohio anyway for David’s cousin’s (also named David) wedding. It was a lovely wedding–the boys even behaved themselves for most of it–and we enjoyed worshiping at David’s home church and reconnecting with some friends there this morning. Now we’re glad to be back home with a little time to unpack before we head into another week.

This evening we enjoyed visiting some friends that we don’t get to see very often. David grew up with Ryan and Shaun, and all of us have kids who are similar in age now. It’s nice that our boys (A and J at least) are getting old enough that we can feed them and then let them run off and play with a minimum of supervision.

They were really distracted by all of the action and other kids. But Andrew did eventually eat his cookie.

The big boys had a chance to play with some toys too.

Thanks for a fun evening, guys!

We’re in Ohio for our third football rental weekend. Tonight we went to a nearby pumpkin festival. The prize-winning pumpkin was 1,635 lbs. We saw lots of pumpkins and squash and ate lots of pumpkin pancakes.