TCC First Annual Dads & Daughters Night

This was not the first Father/daughter dance I'd been to. I've been to one that was in a slightly decorated gym, where everyone brought a snack to share, a hired DJ played all the "usual," there was no room to sit, less room to dance, and it was lots fun. Until one night, I listened to one of the songs that was played, and couldn't believe what I was hearing. I wish I could say that one song was all it took for me to want to leave, but it took three reprehensible songs, and then I was ready to leave and never come back. And that's what we did.

I always enjoyed the night spent with my sister and daddy, (even when the songs were horrible) and I missed it this year (it was always around Valentine's Day). Then, just a couple weeks ago, Mr. Finneran announced that he was planning a Christian Community Dads & Daughters night for August 13th.

I was excited about the idea, but I confess that at first, I wasn't too happy that it was going to be right after hours of swimming and water polo. I ended up having to miss water polo to get ready in time (30 minutes might be enough for Sarah and Jessica, but it's not enough for me!) It was worth it. The messy little room at TAC was transformed by Mrs. Finneran, Mrs. Jacob and my mom into an elegant and lovely dining room and dance floor. The fluorescent lights were out and the lighting was provided by candles, soft lamps and Christmas light strands. Pink and white streamers, light pink balloons, beautiful table cloths, and delicate doilies all added a special touch. I could never believe it was the same stark, unfinished and harsh room we'd had our swim team awards banquet in.

Sarah and Jessica, preparing for a picture together...

Sarah and Jessica

We had a meal, Mr. Finneran gave a devotional talk, and then the dads presented their daughters with a rose. Since my mom was responsible for getting the roses, I had seen them ahead of time, and already had my heart set on one that was not quite as bright pink as all the others. When Daddy picked our roses for us, he picked for me the very one I wanted!

My little brothers and some of the other young men were being the waiters, and they were all so cute, refilling drinks and offering more salad, or more sparkling apple cider. Little Torin was especially adorable, he was so excited to be a waiter, so eager to do anything, and very serious about his job.

My brother, Joel, and Torin, "helping" the DJ.

Then the DJ (who played the piano during the meal) cranked up the dance music and we danced. Then we ate cake, and danced some more.

Jessica and her dad, dancing very well...

It was all over way too soon. It was such a special evening, I'm so glad to have the night with Daddy and Sarah back. And the older girls are looking forward to planning an similar event for the dads and moms sometime soon!

Our table...

Sarah, with her lip-like heart candy from the dance.

Our roses... (there were three left over, so the three moms who were in charge of decorating and the six hours of hard work got a rose each as well.) Can you see the difference between mine and Sarah's and Mom's?

It was so nice, I can't wait to do one for the moms!

~Lizzie

Baptisms and Memories...

I've always been told I became a Christian when I was four. I don't really remember it, but I never questioned it. When I was 8, we went to a typical Baptist church, and some of my friends had decided to get baptized. In light of the up-coming baptism, many of the sermons began to center on verses about baptism, and I began to feel guilty and pressured to be baptized. After all, I was a Christian, so I should be baptized, right? I finally asked Daddy to take me to see the pastor so that I could get into the pre-baptism class/study that was required. But then I chickened out. Looking back, I'm glad I did.

March 24, 2003, I heard a radio program that finally struck home. The pastor's point was that if you claim to be a Christian, but still haven't surrendered your life to Christ, then you probably aren't really a Christian. And that you were particularly in trouble if you didn't remember becoming a Christian. He recommended that if you didn't remember it, that you rededicate your life to Christ and then write the date down, so that when the Devil gave you doubts you could come back with that date. I got the feeling that he was talking directly to me. I'm still not sure if I really was a Christian before then or not, but my official date is March 24, 2003, and that's when my life changed.

That summer, we joined the Christian Community Summer Club for the first time, and started going to a "house" group that met at the pool. At one of the August meetings, the pastor announced that his daughter Kara had asked to be baptized and that a baptism would be held at the pool in two weeks. I instantly knew I wanted to be baptized as well, and that it was right this time. Exactly five months after I finalized my faith, on August 24, 2003, I was baptized by Coach Matt and my daddy, along with 4 others, Kara, Matt, Sean and Kyle. It was so much more special to be baptized in an informal setting by my daddy and another man I respected, instead of a Baptist pastor that I didn't even really know.

This past Wednesday, July 22, 2009, I got to watch as all 3 of my siblings were baptized by our daddy, our Coach, and the two other men in our fellowship group, Mr. M and Mr. J. Along with my siblings, there were the rest of Kara's siblings, Rachel, Trissa and Torin, the one who asked for the baptism, Hannah J. and her sister, Rachel, and Chandler M. It was so exciting for me to see all my siblings publicly confess their faith in Christ, and so sweet to see all 9 of those children and young adults baptized. We had a meal together beforehand, and played in the pool and celebrated with dessert afterward.

Here are some pictures from the baptism 6 years ago (I can't believe it's been that long!) and some from last Wednesday.




Me, Kara and Sean... we look so young!

Praying for me to grow in the spirit and walk with God the rest of my life... along with other things. =)

With my daddy! And you thought I was short NOW...

Sean, Matt, Kara and me... I don't remember what Coach was saying. And too bad Kyle isn't in this picture. I think he was on the other side of Sean.


Pre-baptism talk... missing Rachel J. I ALMOST got everyone. :\

I'm only putting pictures of my siblings because there would be way too many pictures if I put all of them...






Praying for them...




~Lizzie

Siccing the Praying Mantis on the pests...

We have several little baby praying mantises that live on our seedling table (although the plants are desperately in need of planting now, and not really seedlings anymore... we're desperately trying to get them all planted!) but Mom found some odd little bugs on her eggplants... so we transferred a little praying mantis to the eggplant. We wanted to watch, but apparently he was kinda scared of us, and wasn't doing any hunting, so we left for a few seconds, and when we came back, he was holding one of the small green bugs in his... arms? Forelegs? Claws? ... whatever. Yeah. Those. It was really neat.


Also... some sad and slightly embarrassing news for me. The dress that I was so excited about making is not turning out well. It has odd pokes and bumps in very unfortunate places. The material isn't the best for the pattern design... and it's probably something I did wrong too, although I don't know what. It is a pretty easy pattern (maybe they skimped on parts that could have been harder, while looking more classy and smooth, to make it easier) and it went together pretty quickly, so I'm still hoping to fix it... but I don't really need it any more, because I found 2 cute dresses at Goodwill yesterday!! And I'm trying out water-fasting, so hopefully I'll lose enough weight to wear a third cute dress that has been hanging in my closet...

I was going to post pictures of them, but it's amazing how pathetic they look hanging on coat hangers... if anyone actually wants to see them, you may submit your request, and when/if I lose weight/fix a few things for them, then I might post pictures of me wearing them. =D

And this is my first day of just water. Daddy had decided to do a water-fast and on the second day of his preparations, I decided to jump in. All I've ever done before was a one-day water fast, and that was mostly because I didn't have much time to eat. In preparation, Daddy did a day of regular eating, but with no meat. Then we did a day of only raw fruits and vegetables. I had fruit juice for breakfast, a large apple for lunch and a huge salad with celery, bell pepper, tomatoes, black olives and sprouts for supper. The third day of prep was just juice. Strangely, I was more hungry yesterday than I am today.

It has been a very interesting experience so far. I slept better than usual last night, and woke up feeling very refreshed (which is unusual) but I have felt very slightly weak. Nothing to keep me from doing what I usually do, though, except, of course, vigorous exercise, like swimming or running.

~Lizzie

First Attempt at Flower Arranging

Mom brought me some flowers home from Costco today, because she knows I've been dying to try my hand at arranging flowers, and unfortunately, there's nothing of the flower variety to be found outside around our house yet.

I've never really tried to arrange flowers before because I had no idea how to go about it. All the arrangements I tried as a child (with dandelions and buttercups) never turned out like I wanted. All in all, I'm pretty pleased with my first official attempt.


I wish the greenery didn't stick out quite so much, but that's the way it grew, and there was nothing I could do about it.


I waited until it was getting dark out to take the pictures, and the "Available Light" setting my camera kinda makes it look black and white...


But it's kind of blurry without flash. And the flash looked bad.


I love roses!

I really enjoyed arranging these flowers, so I'm going to try to do it more often, and maybe get some more ideas (I got some ideas from Trina's blog), definitely collect some more vases (from Goodwill and yard sales) and hopefully start my own flower garden this year.

~Lizzie

Yay for spring-like weather in February!

If this is global warming, bring it on! Who cares if the polar ice caps are melting? (Okay, just kidding...)

This lovely weather was just what I needed to boost my spirits. I'm definitely a spring person. I like a little snow because it's pretty, but cold and shivering for too long drives me crazy. I love being outside with warm air and cool breezes.

Oh, and I was so excited! We had sparkling bubbles in the pool yesterday! They're usually just boring bubbles, but yesterday they were all sparkly and kinda rainbow colored. It was so cool! Alex was saying she wished we had underwater cameras so we could take a picture of it, but that it probably wouldn't look the same in the picture. And that made me realize something kind obvious that I'd never really thought about before... pictures are never the same as being there because you don't feel the same as when you took the picture. It probably has something to do with cameras not being as awesome as the eyes God gave us, but I think it's also because you just aren't there. For example, even if I could show you a picture, you probably wouldn't understand why we were excited about sparkly bubbles. But if you were swimming in a somewhat dark pool (because half the lights are off for some odd reason) and you're in the middle of a monotonous set of backstroke and you're kind of bored, and kind of tired and you roll to do your flip turn and see sparkly bubbles, suddenly you're just happy. Or maybe you're not. If you're a guy you might not care about sparkly bubbles at all. But it made Alex and me happy...

What does it sound like to you if a swim coach asks if you want to play a game called "Go Down 4 Times, Come Up 3"? (Don't answer if you heard this yesterday...)

~Lizzie