Babysitting 2

Well, I have to say, that was one of the easiest babysitting jobs I've ever had. The baby's name was Kate and she was 10 months old. Naturally, she was a bit shy when we first arrived but we spent some time with her, mom and dad before they left. She warmed up to us pretty quick! Mom and Dad left around 9:45 and we played a bit before her bottle feeding at 10. She was pretty tired and was dozing off a bit while I fed her. After the bottle we played some more - she loves her Baby ABC book - and then it was time for a nap at 10:30. We did have a poopie diaper to change before we put her down, but Eric and I tagged teamed it and it wasn't too bad. She slept for a good hour and a half and then Dad came home around 12:45. She was a super cute, very good baby. Not once did she cry! I hope our kids are like that with babysitters!

Babysitting

I can not remember the last time I babysat. It has to have been at least four years ago. However, I've had my share of not so fun times while babysitting. Once when I was babysitting the boys next door - ages about 6 and 3 - I was putting the boys to bed. Well, the younger one was not so happy about this. We sat and "talked" for a bit - he was mostly crying/screaming while I was trying to convince him to go to bed. Well, towards the end of the conversation he said, "I want to send you back to your house. I want to throw you out the window and send you back to your house." Lovely, huh? Another time, I was babysitting the girls across the street - ages about 11 and 8. They always had pretty crazy pets. Not crazy like iguanas or ferrets. They had cats and dogs, but their dogs were always crazy! Well, on this particular day we were playing outside when all of a sudden the dog went nuts! He was running all over the yard in a full sprint and coming up to us all crazy like. I did not grow up with dogs, or any animals for that matter, so I had no clue what this dog was up to! We couldn't make it back in to the house because he was blocking our path, so I did the next best thing - "Girls! Climb the tree!!" So we did. We had to have been in the tree a good 5 to 10 minutes watching this dog go berserk before a couple came by walking their dog. This occupied Fido long enough for us to jump down from the tree and race back in to the house. Fun times.

Anyways, today Eric and I are babysitting for some friends. They have a baby girl who is about 9 or 10 months old. Eric made sure last night that I remember how to change a diaper and care for a baby, which I do, but maybe today I will let him have the joy of doing those things. It will be good practice for the future! I'll let y'all know how it goes...

The XPS 420

Bear with me for a bit, this may be a pretty boring/nerdy post. For 4 years now, Eric and I have been talking about getting a new computer. He has a 7 year old desktop and I have a 6 year old laptop that we have been using, but both computers are pretty much maxed out. Eric has been waiting to have a dual core processor with at least 3GHz of speed. Well, his time has come to get his dream machine. Yes folks, 4 years later we got a new computer! This computer is amazing! It's super fast, Eric can now play any game he wants to and we have an ultra sharp, digital, 22" widescreen monitor - oh snap! We also got a blu-ray drive, so we can watch some HD movies on this thing.

However, not everything was smooth sailing. Eric has been customizing this machine for months now on the Dell website and knows this machine inside and out. When we got the package on Tuesday, the first thing Eric checked was to see if the tower had the correct power supply. (The original order did not have the correct power, so we had to re-order which delayed the arrival of the computer). Of course the tower had the incorrect supply and one of the cd/dvd drives was missing. Needless to say, Eric was on the phone with Dell first thing this morning and all night - 3 hours! - trying to get everything sorted out. I was very proud of him for being so patient with the customer service people who transferred him between 3 departments at least 8 times, I don't think my patience would have lasted that long. But, it all turned out ok and they are sending us the replacement parts.

All-in-all, I love this computer!

Tuesday Trivia

In 1899, the streets of New York City echoed with the voices of newsies, peddling the papers of Joseph Pulitzer, William Randalph Hearst, and other giants of the newspaper world. On every corner you saw them carrying the banner. Bringing you the news for a penny a pape. Poor orphans and runaways, the newsies were a ragged army without a leader, until one day all that changed.

Today I'll be sharing some trivia from the Disney Movie "Newsies." If you have not seen this movie, I highly recommend it -- its a classic! If you want a preview of the movie, click here and you can see the first few minutes.

It's a fantastic movie about the newsboy strike in 1899. It stars Christian Bale as "Cowboy" and David Moscow as "David." My sisters and I loved this movie when we were younger and we still quote the movie and sing the songs when we get together.

Now for some interesting facts from the movie:

~ Most of the cast trained in dance and martial arts for ten weeks before filming began.
~ Most of the newsies depicted in the film are based on real people from the strike, such as Spot Conlon, Racetrack Higgins and Kid Blink. Jack Kelly is a fictional character, although he may have been based on the real Kid Blink who was accused of being bribed by Pulitzer to end the strike.
~ At the time, this was one of the lowest grossing live action movies in Walt Disney history!
~ While Jack Kelly is singing Santa Fe, there is a part where he's riding a horse. The part when his arms are thrown out and he is bent back, he is actually riding on the shoulders of his stunt master.

Please enjoy the clip below. This is the song The World Will Know from the movie:

Christmas in March!

Yesterday Eric, Jessi, Kelly and I went uptown to see Michael Bublé at Bobcats arena. (This was part of our Christmas present from Mom & Dad Welch.)

After a nice dinner at Rock Bottom we made our way over to the arena. We arrived a little late, but got to see most of the opening act, Naturally 7. They are an acapella, or vocal play, group with the members "playing" drums, guitar, bass and harmonica with no instruments. They were pretty amazing and extremely talented.

Michael Bublé was awesome! He played all of my favorites - Feeling Good, Everything, Home, Save the Last Dance for Me and Song for You.

It was pretty cool during Home, they put a video together that played behind Michael as he sang the song. The video was a collection of images of Charlotte, UNC, NASCAR stuff and pretty much all things Charlotte. Also, one of the guys in his band is from Charlotte. In the middle of the concert Michael introduced the band and they did some solos. Well, after they were done the band got a standing ovation. Michael pretended to get mad and stormed off the stage. Well, the guy from Charlotte got up and started telling us how Michael was not really a nice guy, he never makes eye contact with them, they aren't allowed to talk to him, etc. So the Charlotte guy starts to sing to finish out the show (he was pretty good!) and Michael comes back on stage and started "playing" the trombone in his place. It was pretty funny.

Trivia Tuesday

Failte! (Welcome!)

Today's trivia is all about St. Patrick's Day. This is one of my favorite holidays as it is also my birthday! Yesterday I celebrated my 25th birthday!

Did you know...

~ St. Patrick was not born in Ireland, but in Britain.

~ St. Patrick brought public attention to the shamrock after using the three-leafed specimen to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity to the pagan King Laoghaire of Tara.

~ St. Patrick's favorite color was blue, not green, and the people of Ireland weren't exactly fond of green either. According to them it was the color of the Fairies and Leprechauns and, unless you wanted to forcibly join the ranks of these wee folks, you would refrain from sporting that color too often. It wasn't until the 19th Century that green became the official color of Ireland.

I'll leave ya'll today with an Irish wish for friends:

Wishing you a rainbow

For sunlight after showers—

Miles and miles of Irish smiles

For golden happy hours—

Shamrocks at your doorway

For luck and laughter too,

And a host of friends that never ends

Each day your whole life through!

Unleash 2008

On Thursday, I had the privilege of going down to Anderson, SC for the Unleash 2008 conference. Elevation took 3 buses loaded with 151 volunteers down to New Spring Church for the event. What an amazing day! We ended up arriving at the church right as the event began. A couple volunteers from New Spring met us at our buses, gave us our Unleash materials and led us right in to the auditorium. The New Spring band led us in worship before Perry Noble came out to speak. Perry spoke from Luke 15: 25-31 asking three questions: What is it that God wants to do in my church? What are the barriers that stand in our way? What do we want to celebrate? At one point, Perry recognized Pastor Furtick and Elevation and he had to pause for a few minutes as the 4 rows of Elevators hooped and hollered for our amazing Pastor!

We then had a couple breakout sessions before and after lunch. I first attended the Volunteer Ministry/Guest Services session. New Spring's Volunteer Director led the session explaining how they get volunteers plugged in and their processes. Now, New Spring is kind of Elevation's older brother church, so there were a lot of similarities between their systems and ours. Nonetheless, it was interesting to learn how they do some things differently and think of ways to improve what I do as a volunteer coordinator. During our lunch break, I went to their resources desk and purchased a copy of Simply Strategic Volunteers by Tony Morgan and Tim Stevens. As I read the book, I'm hoping to learn even more ways to become a better leader. I'll let you know how it goes!

The second session I went to was Facilities/Campus Development. While this did not directly apply to the work I do at Elevation, it was interesting to hear New Spring's story of starting out renting facilities at Anderson College to, six years later, holding services in their own building with a 2,500-seat auditorium! Walking around their building all day, I could not help but imagine where Elevation could be six years from now. Will we have our own 40 acre campus with a state-of-the-art facility? Will we have multiple buildings throughout the Charlotte area? I don't know what God has in store for us, but I can't wait to find out!

In the afternoon, Perry preached from Exodus 4: 1-7 and focused a bit more on lead Pastors. As staff members, volunteers or attendees, we have no idea the struggles that our lead Pastors go through on a daily basis. Perry reinforced the fact that we need to consistently pray for our Pastor and be the staff for him to lean on. At the end, Perry asked that all lead Pastors in the room stand up. As all of the Pastors stood up, the entire auditorium began a round of applause in appreciation for all that they do for us and our churches. The applause had to have lasted at least five minutes before Perry led a prayer over the lead Pastors.

I am so thankful that we have a Pastor with such a laser sharp vision of reaching those far from God so they may be filled with life in Christ. I am so thankful that he will do anything and everything in his power to see that vision fulfilled. Pastor Furtick is truly an amazing leader for our Church and we are so blessed to have a Pastor that is focused on hearing from God and sharing His word with us each week. Pastor Furtick, thank you for all that you do for us at Elevation. I feel so blessed to have you as a Pastor and to be a part of this revolutionary move of God in Charlotte.

One of the greatest videos of all time...

"We are the world, we are the children..."

It is a Scallen/Orzechowski tradition to watch this video and sing at least 5 rounds of this song when we get together. Why? Well, because everyone needs to have a chance to sing a Michael Jackson and Biff (Steve Perry from Journey) solo!

We started out watching this on our VHS copy, but of course we now all own the 20th Anniversary edition on DVD.

I hope you enjoy...

Tuesday Trivia

Today's trivia is all about chocolate! Yummmmmo!

Did you know...

Americans consumed over 3.1 billion pounds of chocolate in 2001 - almost half of the total world's production.

Chocolate manufacturers currently use 40% of the worlds almonds and 20% of the world's peanuts.

Chocolate syrup was used for blood in the famous 45 second shower scene in the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Psycho.

In Hershey, Pennsylvania, the streetlights along Chocolate Avenue are in the shape of Hershey Kisses.

Happy Birthday Eric!

Today is my husband's birthday! Eric turns 25 today (quarter century in the hizz-ouse! lol) and I'm so excited to celebrate with him!




Eric, I'm so thankful to have you in my life. You are the kindest, most caring, most thoughtful man I know and I am so blessed to have you as my husband. Thank you for all you do for me. I hope you have a fantastic birthday!


I love you!

Trivia Tuesday....a day late :)

One thing I have wondered about for a while now is why the U.S. flag is backwards on military apparel. I figured there must be a good reason, but I just did not know what that reason was. On my way back to Charlotte on Sunday, I noticed that the flag was also backwards on the planes. Again, there must be a reason for this so I decided to do some digging when I got home...

Did you know that to wear our country's flag properly, the field of stars is worn closest to your heart? When the flag is worn on the sleeve of a military uniform, the flag should appear to be advancing and not retreating. Therefore, if the patch is to be worn on the LEFT sleeve, use a normal flag (also called a left flag). When a patch is worn on the RIGHT sleeve, use a reversed field flag (also called a right flag).

On a plane, the left flag is used on the left side of the plane, as usual. One the right, the reversed field flag is used so that the flag looks as if it is blowing in the wind created by the forward movement.

On the road again...

These weeks back home go by so fast! I can't believe it's time to go home already. This afternoon I am meeting my grandparents in Dearborn, MI for lunch. I'll visit with them for a bit and then head off to the airport for my flight back to NC. I can't wait to see Eric again. Being at my parents house like this feels like we are dating again! But I just remind myself that that is over now and I'm going home to him.

Below are a couple pictures from the snow fall we had this week: