I Made the Front Page!

So I went out to get the mail this afternoon, and the free newspaper, the Hawaii Army Weekly, was rolled up in a rubber band sitting by my front door.  I shook out any bugs that might be in it, brought it in, and unrolled it onto the coffee table.  Then I saw I was right there on the front page!  Well, the Sept. 11 service I played for was covered by one of the reporters who was camera happy.  I met him before things began, and suggested he could take pictures of the speakers instead of me.  He had fun taking pictures of just the piano for fun.  Anyway, you can see what he did with his photography by:

1.  Going to this website:  http://www.25idl.army.mil/haw.asp
2.  Scroll down to where it says, "Other Articles in this Issue" Friday, September 14, 2007.
3. Click on the article title "Community Pauses to Reflect"  The article and picture will open in a separate java script window.
I also see you can get to it from http://www.25idl.army.mil/ as well.

On a side note, you'll also see an article called Schofield Soldier KIA in Iraq.  He was from Wahiawa, HI.  I'll be playing for his memorial service on Wednesday.  Being in the military, it hits home whenever a soldier is killed.  This one really hits home.

"For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us." - the apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans (12:3-6a)

Love Military Life

So my daughter has people in her Kindergarten class from Samoa, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, (I know, all tropical islands).  It's very diverse.  I have friends from South Africa, Australia, and all over the US of course.  Sure is a different place than Illinois!  Anyone want to come for some Pupus and then get a plate lunch?  Or, we could go to McDonald's and have one of their Taro pies.  We could visit Genki Sushi, or L&L Drive-In.  We could get some fresh hot malasadas or some shave ice for a snack.  I haven't yet tried snorkelling, but hope to before we move again.  Definitely lots of great things to experience. 

Coast to Coast

We didn't stick our feet in the Atlantic Ocean at the end of June when we landed in Delaware after our flight from Honolulu, but we could have.  Now we're in San Francisco, CA, and preparing to fly home.  We have driven across the country, visiting 17 states (D actually logged 18 by including TX), and five of those were first times for me.  I'd never been to DE, WY, UT, NV, CA.  Every American should do this kind of cross-country travelling sometime in their life, just to appreciate the diversity of the landscape that we have!  Some of the highlights of our last few days, driving from IL to CA include the hills and huge snow fences in WY, the Salt Flats in UT, the dry dusty lifeless areas in NV, and the Lake Tahoe area of CA.  Spectacular!  One other note - last night here in San Francisco when we got out of the car to go into the hotel, it was freezing cold!  Well, probably in the low 50's really, but that's the coldest air we've experienced (besides AC) in 1 1/2 years!  Yikes!  We've enjoyed our trip, travelling as a family, seeing relatives and friends, and being away from home.  But we're ready to get back home to our own beds, and our friends in HI.  This is day 37 of our trip.  5 weeks and 1 day.  We'll land in Honolulu by 5 p.m. tonight, and M starts school tomorrow!

What does your flag look like?

Recently, my husband did a marriage conference, in which he used some DVDs by a guy named Mark Gungor.  He has a ministry called "Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage".  Now, the DVD's themselves are worth purchasing if you're married, and sharing with all your married friends.  They're funny, Christian, and have a unique perspective on understanding your spouse and how to make your marriage last.  Mr. Gungor's website is http://www.laughyourway.com/

Now, on to the topic of purpose:  as part of this ministry, there is a profile quiz you can take to understand yourself better at http://flagpage.com/.  It costs $10 (or maybe it was $12) to do the quiz and get the results, but they are very interesting.  It's very unique in the way the quiz only takes a few minutes to do, how it displays your results, and the kinds of things it tells you about yourself.  For example, there are 4 countries you might be from.  The control country, the fun country, the perfect country, and the peace country.  You usually have tendencies strong in one area, and somewhat strong in another area.  For example, I'm a Fun-Perfect.  Primarily the way I express myself is as if I were from the Fun country, but sometimes I visit the Perfect country.  Anyway, I don't have the mental capacity to figure out how to explain it in further detail, but I do want to recommend you check it out.

One interesting application of the flag page is for parents to understand their teens.  It can really help them to better relate to their teens, and also help teens understand their own personalities.  I'm really impressed with both this man's ministry for married couples, and the flag page tool (which a friend of his created - he's only helped to make it known and put it out there.)

Hope this encourages someone or provides someone with a resource that is helpful!