Anniversary Weekend

This picture of my nephew Sullivan doesn’t have much to do with this post, but it was so cute, I wanted to post it anyway.




















This past weekend we traveled to Greenville to visit Sarah & Scott, as well as my newly-married sister and brother-in-law, Lisa & Stephen. (See Doing the Charleston post below.) We had loads of fun on Friday night eating steak and shrimp, accompanied by Casillero del Diablo Merlot. After dinner we played a French card game, Mille Bornes, which was really fun to learn and play. For lunch on Saturday we headed over to Lisa & Stephen’s, got the tour of their new apartment, ate some homemade fried rice (compliments of Stephen), and played more card games. Saturday evening, Rich and I had the opportunity to go out by ourselves for our 3 year anniversary while Scott & Sarah watched Anna Ruth for us. We walked around downtown Greenville to work up an appetite just in time to arrive at Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria. Rich loves that place mainly for the great selection of beers on tap (which has recently gotten even better since the alcohol cap in South Carolina has been lifted), but also for the yummy pizza. We got white pizza, and it did not disappoint. After finishing our meal, we walked over to Coffee Underground where we got some very sweet milkshakes and enjoyed the ambience of the underground. When we got home, we stayed up much too late watching The Office Season 1, while enjoying more good beers and a wide array of chocolates. We were glad to be able to go to Greenville, since we won’t have many more half-day Fridays to facilitate making the weekend trip now that Rich is changing jobs.

Submissive to Scripture

Here's a great little article by Doug Wilson about how we ought to approach the God-breathed Word.

4th of July in Birmingham

Last night we went to see the local fireworks here in Birmingham. They were shot off above the Vulcan. An elementary school nearby has a field in front where many of the locals sit to see the show. We were told to arrive early to get a parking spot, so we did, and Anna Ruth played on the playground while were waiting for the display to begin. She tried out a curvy slide, but had some problems with her shoes catching on the side and turning her backwards.

She still had fun, though. The fireworks began around 9PM, and were better than we expected. We've been spoiled by the great fireworks displays in Charleston, so we were pretty sure the ones here would be duds. But to our surprise, they had some big ones, and even some fireworks that were smiley faces, which I had never seen before. (Though, I didn't catch those on video.) Anna Ruth enjoyed them for a bit, but her short attention span became a challenge after only a couple minutes. She wanted to run around and interact with all the kids, but we wanted to watch the rest of the fireworks. Oh well, such is life with an active toddler! Well, here is a short video of some of the fireworks that I was able to capture while Anna Ruth wasn't too crazy. And if you're wondering what the UFO in the middle of the screen is, that's a street light that was coming on and off throughout the entire show.

Feminism in the PCA

One of the most serious problems in the PCA right now is the encroachment of egalitarianism. A Denver, Colorado church has hired a female Covenant seminary grad as "Minister of Church Life" (their own words). The obvious problems with this action are claimed to have been dealt with in a position paper done oby the church there. The pastor there claims that this is merely a semantic issue, not to be blown out of proportion or confused with anything bad, which, of course, they wouldn't do. Any PCA elder or member ought to be concerned with this issue. At least two pastors in the PCA have already dealt with this in writing, actually dealing head-on with the position paper that supposedly will clear the air, showing that it, in fact, reveals the problem to be as deep as is first supposed. Because the paper is fairly long, and others have already done good work in dealing with it, I will link to these discussions. The first deals with the paper directly, while the second is not as direct. Please read these.

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: