Daley Ponderings

Jonathan has been wanting our family to put on a Star Wars play ever since he started reading his Syar Wars book.  I keep telling him, "You write the script first, and then we can figure out more details."  So he finally decided to write the script, based on the movie Star... (More)

"Francis of Assisi is alleged to have said, 'Preach the gospel always; if necessary use words.'  That may be a great medieval sound bite, but it falls short of what the Bible teaches about evangelism." I used to like that quote, and the evangelism models it leads... (More)

It's definitely a telling commentary on my life that the first chapter of Total Church , "Why Gospel?" was less exciting to me than the following chapter, "Why Community?".  I think the former is in my head only, where the latter is in my head and heart.... (More)

It got up to 67 F outside this afternoon.  We had a picnic lunch and then spent a long time outside enjoying the sunshine (kids absorbing lots of vitamin D) and playing with rocks.  Jonathan cleaned and filled the hummingbird feeder.  I filled the regular bird feeder.  I... (More)

2/23 - Faith repeated the Church of the Ascension doorbell, singing exactly on pitch. 2/24 - Noah was working with Jon on pronouncing "sure" correctly, having trouble with the "sh" sound at the beginning.  Finally, he said to Jon, "How 'bout I just say... (More)

Faith can crawl downstairs now, and off chairs and couches. 1/14 - Faith finally signed milk .  She still only does it with prompting, but it's a start. 1/13 - Noah said broccoli with prompting "bwah-kuh-wee" We've been working hard on /k/ and /g/ in... (More)

We began the day learning about Guy Fawkes Day (Jonathan says now if we ever visit England he wants to visit at the beginning of November so he can participate in the festivities.)  We ended the day by taking Daddy to the ER.  Jon's notes in italics . It was quarter of five... (More)

We now have a dishwasher in our kitchen, which Jon installed himself (running new electric, supply, and drain.) Yeah! There is also a ceiling fan/light fixture in our bedroom to replace the bare bulb fixture.   Yeah! 5/13 - N count to 10 5/13 - Jonathan's practical... (More)

Very early in the morning, we got up, had breakfast and said goodbye to Sarah (all the other Dutlers said goodbye the night before.) Janet and Stephan came to pick us up and we crammed all ourselves and stuff into the mini-minivan. They took us to the Basel airport where we spent quite... (More)

In the morning we once again took an early tram to the train station. This time we boarded the train by ourselves and rode to Bern. As soon as we got off, we were greeted by Reto, “You must be the Daleys!” Reto is a programmer that Jon met through the LifeType project. He... (More)

Once again we took an early tram to thetrain station, meeting Janet and Stephan there. Then we rode to Zurich and the first thing we did was walk to the historical museum. We saw ancient gold, medieval and more modern weapons, and costumes, elaborately panelled rooms, banners and medals from... (More)

The morning got off to a slow start, but we did more packing and I believe Mom and Dad came to Richard's so we could all go together to the heart of Basel.  We were originally going to see some sights and then meet Janet and Stephan for lunch, but we ended up just getting there in time for... (More)

The Swiss prefer to drink their water with carbonation and it's hard to find bottled water without it.  The tap water in most places (including the public outdoor fountains) is perfcetly drinkable but you have to ask for it.  At the castle, they served us the "with gas" kind most of the... (More)

Can I condense three weeks of activities into one post?  We'll see how it turns out.  One thing we discovered at Christmastime is that Noah loves cocktail sauce.  He just dipped his finger in and licked it off, licked the bowl clean and wanted more! We had Christmas at... (More)

Last weekend, we went to Keystone State Park with the Tomans.  We got a group campsite so we could put both tents together.  It was right on the lake and separate enough from other sites for privacy. I hadn't done much with our camping supplies since two years ago, and some of... (More)