Friday, June 22, 2007

Doing the Charleston

A week ago, we were in Charleston to celebrate Lisa & Stephen's wedding. Here are some pictorial highlights from the wedding.













This is the traditional pose of the four sisters that started at Sarah's wedding.











Here is Dad with his daughters. We got this shot because Father's Day was the Sunday after the wedding. Sarah got it developed, put it into a frame, and gave it to Dad as a gift.


Anna Ruth looked pretty cute in her Strausburg dress with her monogram on the collar. But keep in mind, looks can be deceiving...


My nephew, Robert, and niece, Virginia, were the ringbearer and flowergirl. They looked pretty adorable.


In the final hours before the wedding, things got pretty hectic and nervous. Lisa needed to take the edge off, and I caught it all on camera.

While we were there, we also visited the beach for the first time with Anna Ruth. She really loved the water, but not so much the sand. Whenever she would get sand on her hand, she would hold it out, and grunt as if to say "Get this stuff off my hand!" It was pretty funny that she had a problem with that, but she's perfectly fine with eating anything off of the floor. Anyway, she had lots of fun, especially playing with Gramps.


We also got the chance to enjoy more water in Lita and Pop-Pop's pool on Sunday afternoon. Memaw bought Anna Ruth a float that everyone called the "Princess Float". She loved just floating around and watching her cousins splash.

Calvin vs. Augustine?

I don't doubt that Calvin may contradict himself somewhere (he might not be perfect), but this is a dart thrown at at least one of the doctrinal stances of some of the FV followers. I know that this is not the exegesis of Galatians that FV guys would want to work with, and I'm not sure that this is even their position, but it is the position of many of their followers, who have either been led astray, or have been confused. The following is from Calvin's Institutes:
The Sophists, who make game and sport in their corrupting of Scripture and their empty caviling, think they have a subtle evasion. For they explain “works” as meaning those which men not yet reborn do only according to the letter by the effort of their own free will, apart from Christ’s grace. But they deny that these refer to spiritual works. For, according to them, man is justified by both faith and works provided they are not his own works but the gifts of Christ and the fruit of regeneration. For they say that Paul so spoke for no other reason than to convince the Jews, who were relying upon their own strength, that they were foolish to arrogate righteousness to themselves, since the Spirit of Christ alone bestows it upon us not through any effort arising from our own nature. Still they do not observe that in the contrast between the righteousness of the law and of the gospel, which Paul elsewhere introduces, all works are excluded, whatever title may grace them [Galatians 3:11-12].

Color Wonder

I recently received a Target gift card, and yesterday I ventured out to Target to browse and find something I might want to buy for myself. I spent about an hour or so, looking through the housewares, clothes, games, and scrapbooking supplies. All during this time I was constantly handing Anna Ruth crackers and juice, and offering encouraging words like "We're almost done" and "I'll let you down in just a minute". So naturally, I ended up buying Color Wonder paper and markers for Anna Ruth. I'm sure most of you have heard of this stuff, but it's really cool! The markers are clear, and they only mark on the special paper you buy. They don't mark on skin, clothes, carpet, walls, or whatever else little kids tend to draw on. When we tried them out, I was happy for that when Anna Ruth decided the markers were lipstick and proceeded to "color" her lips. I did eventually convince her to try them out on the paper, and she really ended up enjoying it. Here is her masterpiece: