Laughing vs. Not Laughing

Laughing vs. not laughing. Some things aren’t making me laugh right now, but I really do love to laugh.

For instance…last night I was dropping Hunter off at church for worship practice. (He gets to play drums with Ronnie and the Singles Ministry worship team Sunday night. Very cool!) I had Smalls with me and decided to walk him around the outside of the church so that he could take care of business. As we were walking along a huge toad jumped and startled Smalls. Smalls jumped back and then promptly pounced on the toad. All I said was, “No! You lick my face! You can’t eat the toad!” I grabbed him up and he was really wiggling to get out of my arms and back to that toad. Something so simple as that really made me laugh.

What doesn’t make me laugh is our upcoming schedule for each night of the week.

Monday – Ronnie and I are home.
Tuesday – Ronnie singles worship team practice, every other Tuesday for Ebby is Teen MOPS
Wednesday – Ebby and Cole have AWANA’s and Hunter and Veronica youth group
Thursday – Ronnie and I are home.
Friday – Ronnie worship for Celebrate Recovery
Saturday – Ronnie worship practice and then church
Sunday – Ronnie church in the morning and then singles ministry in the evening.

We are only home together two nights out of the week. Throw in Veronica’s work schedule and it is going to be crazy.

Something that made me smile today is the gift card I got for Home Depot from my friend Missy. (Thanks again!!) I am in the process of a couple of projects around the house and this will really come in handy. The first project is making our dining room table. I have it all planned out and now I just need the supplies.

Something that didn’t make me smile today was realizing that I might be doing some damage with Veronica. I am told all the time (with or without her around) how beautiful she is. People come and seek me out to let me know that they saw her and how beautiful she is and that we look alike (I am not in any way trying to say that people think I am beautiful!!). My response is usually along the lines of “Oh, thank you. She looks just like my mother-in-law who is so beautiful. If she were standing here you would actually think she looks just like her.”

The damage I think that I have done is projecting to Veronica that I don’t think that we look alike or that I don’t want us to look alike. I myself think Veronica is beautiful (actually I think all my children are beautiful) and that she gets her good looks from her grandmother. The dark hair and eyes along with the darker complexion comes from Ronnie’s side of the family. My side is lighter eyes and a complexion that tans easily, but is lighter. I have to quit saying this and just stick with “Thank you”.

Something else that made me laugh this week was Ronnie planning a date for us tonight. Going so far as getting tickets to a play that a friend is in and seeing if we could swing dinner. Two nights ago he was on the phone with another friend, Jennifer, when he realized that he is part of the worship team tonight for the Women’s’ Ministry fall kick off. There is a national speaker coming in from Proverbs 31 Ministry. I am thinking that we can’t be in two places at once. Seeing as how worship is part of his job I said that I would help out tonight at church and we will just forgo the play. It just made me smile that he forgot about his work needs in all the excitement of dating me tonight. :)

Something else that doesn’t make me smile or laugh…when pregnant women come up to my desk and let out one of those “silent but deadly” farts. They won’t look at me and then slink away leaving the smell behind. Please don’t come up to my desk and fart. Go to another desk and leave it with them. That would make me laugh out loud.

One more thing that doesn’t make me laugh or smile. I have to get a part-time job. That doesn’t make me smile at all, but it is necessary for a while. Thankfully Ronnie has a willing wife and not one that doesn’t want to pitch in. I would much rather be the unwilling wife who insists on staying home and being a housewife. That would make me smile.

A visit with English

We have had a great time having English home. We haven't really done much of anything, but it has been good just having her around. She will leave tonight (Saturday) to head back out to California. This time she will be at Travis AFB about an hour to the east of San Francisco. She is excited to get out there and catch up with some friends she has made over the past two years.

Whenever all the kids are together I try to take a picture of the four of them. They are all growing so fast that I want to capture it as best I can. I have taken these photos since they were little. I try to take at least one a year where they stop what they are doing and gather together for a photo. All of them have turned out great...until this year. They kids weren't really feeling it. I couldn't get them all to smile at the same time, have their eyes open, or looking at the camera at the same time. It was funny. Eventually English gave up and started being goofey and Veronica went inside. Here are the results:

Then here is a cute picture of English with Smalls.

On Friday the kids got another box in the mail from Waltwee. He went back to the hat store and sent us some new hats. We had the best time with these hats last night. I could not stop laughing long enough to talk on the phone when someone called. It was fun just being silly.

I am not sure when this picture was taken. I found it on my camera. I love it though.

Here are two videos. The first one is of Enlgish multi tasking. Sheis exercising, playing with the dog and talking on the cell phone all at the same time.


This is a video of the kids and the hats last night. You will notice Hunter sitting at the computer watching "My name is Earl." He was partaking in the fun, but then the desire to watch his tv show took over. At the beginnign of the video Veronica was posing...she thought that I was going to take a picture not film a video. It started the laughter all over again.


It has been so great having English here. I wish that she could stay longer, but I understand that it is a little boring here. We have started back to school and Ronnie and I both work full time. There really isn't much for her to do. All of her high school friends are off to college and you can only go see a movie so many times. I can't wait until Christmas when she will get to come home again. Then we will be able to go tubing and have fun in the snow.

Hurricane Season

What a crazy hurricane season this is turning out to be. My mom and Walt are getting ready for Hanna, which is still a tropical storm. Ike is right behind it and looking more like it is going to hit the east coast anywhere from south Florida on up. Ike could also go to the south of Florida and up into the gulf…who ever knows what these hurricanes are going to do. Hannah went a little crazy there for a while, but straightened out and is heading inland now.

I talked with my mom this morning and people are trying to get ready for Hannah and thinking about what they are going to do for Ike. The waiting game is the hardest part. No one can truly predict where these storms are going to land. You just have to get ready and be prepared “just in case” it lands near you.

Back when Hugo hit South Carolina in 1989 my family stayed at home. We didn’t leave the beach. Hugo did a lot of damage along the coast of SC, but it also did quite a bit of damage inland. There were many tornados from the storm and some fires caused by lightening and the tornadoes. It was very interesting to ride out a big hurricane like Hugo.

My mom and Walt are still at the beach and will ride out Hannah. It is just a tropical storm right now and will just do a little wind damage. It might cause some erosion, but the mess shouldn’t be too bad. I did make sure that they would leave the beach if Ike comes towards them. It makes me quite nervous. Those two probably would try to stick it out, but hopefully they will think twice about the danger and leave. Maybe they could even come up here and visit for a few days until the storm is gone. That is my vote!!

My friend Wendi is currently living in the panhandle of Florida, but right now she is visiting family in south Florida. I am sure that all of these hurricanes make that whole area nervous. This is just a tough time of year for the coastal states.

I hope that these storms don’t come anywhere close to land, but if they do I hope that my MOM will leave the beach and head WAY inland….like to Minnesota.

You're Killing Me "Smalls"

We have a new family member. "Smalls" joined us Thursday night. He is a 14 week old Shih Tsu. I can't say that I got very much sleep last night. He barked and cried all night long. It was all ok when I came upstairs this morning and saw his little face looking at me through the door of his crate. Smalls has already made himself right at home in his short time with us.

Smalls is a rescue dog that came to us with all of the things a little puppy needs in life. A crate, toys, food, and water and food bowls. What a deal.

Can any of you name the movie where we got the name "Smalls" from? Only the Rays would name their dog "Smalls". I hope he doesn't get picked on by all the neighborhood dogs.

What a busy week this has been. I have been meaning to post for a few days but never seem to get around to it. School hasn't started yet and I am already feeling like I should slow down.

Let's see...the first thing I want to share is that ENGLSIH IS COMING HOME!! Unless something else happens to the poor girl she should be home on Thursday. I think that if they mess her paperwork up one more time she just might hurt someone. From Rochester she will head out to Travis AFB in Northern California.

Second...Walt-wee sent this hat to Cole after he broke his arm. It is so funny. I came upstairs the other night and he was just sitting on the couch with this hat on. The kids love it. There is no grandparent-grandkids story behind such a hat. Walt saw someone with one on one day and just had to have one. They searched for and actually drove to the other end of the beach to get one. When Walt heard that Cole broke his arm he decided that Cole should have the hat. It has been a source of laughter here for the past couple of days.
Thirdly...Here is the newest member of our group, Micah. I wish I could say that he was named after Hunter, but that just isn't the case. In a round about way his older sister named him. This little guy is so cute, and has a head full of jet black hair. Below are his parents, Brandon and Heidi at the hospital. We went to see him his first day and he visited with us for about 30 minutes with his eyes open. Little babies are so perfect.

A New Baby!

Congratulations to our friends, Heidi and Brandon, on the birth of their new son, Micah. He was born a little before 5:00 this morning and weighed 8 lb 8 oz.

Last night we got together with them and headed over to the Greek Festival. Heidi was feeling so uncomfortable. There was a low pressure system working it's way through Rochester and another friend of ours, Jennifer, had mentioned that it may be the night that she goes into labor. Actually what Jennifer (the farm girl) said was that is when all the cows have their babies. Of course Heidi isn't a cow, but obviously it worked.

After the Greek festival we all headed over to Jennifer's house for dessert. All of us except Heidi. She was feeling so poorly that Brandon took her home so she could lie down. While we were visitng Brandon got a call from Heidi telling him to come home and take her to the hospital. From what I understand Mayo sent her home, but obviously they went back to the hospital and had their little boy. How exciting!

Congratulations!! We love you and I can't wait to meet Micah this afternoon.

Ten out of Ten

Last night poor little Cole broke his left arm. He was skate boarding down a pretty decent hill, got going to fast, did his normal jump off but was going too fast and fell on the asphalt. Hunter was with him and ran back to help him. Thankfully there were some neighbors in their yards that helped him until I could get there.

We got in the car and went to Olmsted Medical Center (where I work). On the way Cole told me that he was so glad that he had his helmet on. He hit is head and then it scrapped along the gound. There are some visible marks on the front area of the helmet. I am very thankful that he only broke his arm.

When the nurses were asking him questions they asked on a scale of 1 to 10 how bad does your arm hurt? He said, "10!!" Later after he received the Morphine he asked how bad it hurt and the arm pain had gone down but the pain from the Morphine shot was a 10. We were giving him a hard time that the shot pain was equal to the pain in his broke arm.

We got to Olmsted and this is what Cole looked like.

This was Cole after he received the Morphine shot.

I htink the Morphine did the trick.

You can see where it broke in this piture. Ronnie took all of these pictures. I didn't think of taking pictures. I don't think I would have taken pictures.
Here Cole is still at Olmsted waiting to be transfered to St. Mary's (Mayo) to see the Pediatric Orthopedic 4th Year Resident. Morphine is now Cole's best friend. This is just a splint on his arm
We went over to St. Mary's and started having a good time. Ronnie ran home during our transfer and brought Hunter along. Nurses were coming in asking us if we were having a party. We were being silly and goofey. I guess that is the wya we handle situations like this. Laugh a little and it takes your mind off of things.

At St. Mary's they gave Cole and IV and took the splint off. Hunter immediately turned green. I do mean green. He started sweating and his face was green. He thought he was going to throw up. Since I have to work this morning it was decided that I would get him out of there and take him home.

After they got Cole's arm set he and Ronnie finally got home around 1:30 this morning. Poor guys. He has to go back in a week to have the rest of the cast put on. They had to saw a place down the middle due to swelling.

Cole is going to be one sore little boy this morning. At least through all of this he can tell his friends how important it is to wear a helmet. That is the thing that we all kept talking about last night.

Here is Cole's cast. Fingers to just below the shoulder. You can see the the saw marks on the cast. The white part is just tape to hold the cast together until he goes back in a week.

Congrats English!!

I am very proud to say that my little girl, English, has graduated from her Air Force tech school today. She graduated with at 94%! Wow. She will make her way back to the coast of northern California sometime soon. Her base will be Travis AFB, which is up near San Francisco.

The sad news is that English won't be coming home on Thursday. Someone lost part of her file, they have to reconstruct that part of the file, redo her orders and then she will be able to leave Lackland AFB in San Antonio, TX. They could get her file together this week or it could be a month and a half. Anyway, she has a certian day that she has to report to Travis AFB so depending on when they get her file together will determine if she gets to come home or not.

I am very sad at the thought that we may not get to see her soon. At the same time I am so stinking proud of her that it makes the sting of not seeing her a little easier to bare.

Happy 13th Brithday, Hunter!!

Today is Mr. Hunter's Birthday. Happy Day, bud!

We aren't really doing much today for his birthday. He had a friend over last night, and he wants to have some friends over for a bonfire next weekend.

The two pictures below were from our trip to North Dakota. In the first one Hunter is playing Lightening, which is a basketball game. The second one is of Hunter and his "groupies" that showed up just before the concert the youth group worship team put on at the basketball courts.

Two other things:

1. Veronica got a job today. She will be working at the Caribou Coffee store up by the north Target. She is very excited.
2. English comes home in 5 days. I haven't seen her since Christmas so I am very excited that she is coming here to visit us during her vacation.

Have a great weekend everyone!!

So behind!

I feel like I have been so behind on posting lately, but once I stop and think about it we have only done one or two things. 1) Unpacking boxes and 2) unpacking boxes. No fun in the Ray house lately.

Well I take that back. We did go on an awsome missions trip to North Dakota. I tried to post some pictures, but was having some trouble with loading them. I will try again another day. Anyway, our trip to North Dakota was so much fun. I haven't ever been that far north before. We were about 15 miles south of the Canadian border. As we were driving up there we kept passing these beautiful golden fields. I can't even begin to explain how beautiful and gold these fields were. Once we arrived at our destination one of the first things I asked was what was growing in those fields. It was canola.

Of course while we were visiting the people of Dunseith, ND ( an Indian reservation called Turtle Mountain) I had to ask questions. After the first couple of days I started to think about my fathers family and how when they would describe the people of the reservation that it sounded like my family. It was neat to put two and two together (my grandfather was Indian.)

After returning from ND I started my new job. Let me just say that I LOVE IT!! I have no after work-work. No take home projects. I do my work through out the day. When 5:00 rolls around I just turn off my computer and walk out the door. None of that "wait and let me finish something." No, "Hey Ebby, can you just do this for me real quick?" Nothing like that. It is so glorious!! ABSOLUTELY GLORIOUS!!

All of the people that i work with are really nice. I get paid well and have full benefits. Let me repeat that. I have full benefits. Now if I oculd just start getting paid. :) I started right in the middle of a pay period and will have a short check when I do get paid on the 12th. Oh well after that all will be good.

Here are a few bullets of past or future happenings:

• Hunter tried out for the Youth Group Worhsip Team. We don't know if he made it yet.
• Hunter's 13th birthday is Saturday. Two teens in the house. Ugh!
• English comes home on the 14th. YEA!!!!!!!!!
• Veronica has been hanging out with a lot of her old friends.
• Cole is bored.
• School starts at the beginning of the month.
• I like using bullets.
• Ronnie is busy at the church, but enjoying a little extra time off during the summer.

Well that is all. I will be taking some pictures coming up. Be ready for lots of pics of English. She doesn't make it on here very much since I can't take pictures of her very often.

Have a great week everyone!