Daley Ponderings

Inspired by an article in Family Fun magazine, I developed a fun motivator for bedtime cleanup that really works.  Before, there would be lots of complaining, dilly-dallying and nagging.  Now the house is clean every night before bed and the job is done quickly!  Here's how it... (More)

We arrived at the Fitzkees' house on Thursday night, and Nick said we could stay as long as we wanted.  We ended up extending our trip by a day and coming home on Tuesday, which was a good decision.  I think we spent the right amount of time for the whole family to enjoy the... (More)

We cooked bacon and pancakes (I found a nifty plastic pint jug in Walmart or somewhere that you simply pour water into the jug, shake it up, and pour it on the griddle) for breakfast, and then packed up and planned to meet for lunch at Great Falls, 15 miles away. Heather went back to... (More)

I've wanted to bike to DC for a while, but there never seemed like a good opportunity to do so.  Once we purchased the tandem bike, and started thinking about the possibility of biking all over the country, the Washington trip seemed like a good first step. The trip did get... (More)

As Heather mentioned , it did take us a while to get this post written, but I thought it would be good to have a record of it, so here goes... Each year for the last several years, Paul has organized a two day bike trip for the kids of BCF.  This year, we drove to Rockwood, PA... (More)

This is going to be woefully brief.  The bike trip was adventure after adventure, lots of fun, but lots of work.  Among the things you'd normally expect on a bike trip, it included four tire blowouts on the triple-tandem, a torrential downpour, a tent with no stakes, Jonathan riding... (More)

So, after thinking about it for a while, we decided to go ahead and purchase a new bike.  The reason it took some thinking is that it isn't a regular old bike with one seat, but has three seats, with room for three adults, or with the added child conversion kits, Noah and Jonathan can fit... (More)

As we've mentioned, our water is pretty hard, and dishwashers in particular don't like hard water, and the manual with our dishwasher says specifically that it won't work with our water.  But, it has worked pretty well for around ten months or so, as long as we kept the rinse aid... (More)

I have a double request from Grandma to post on the homeschool conference and to make the miscarriage post no longer the first thing you see when you check the blog.  So here goes. (: This was our second year at the CHAP convention.  Last year we spent so much time listening... (More)

Here are my notes from when Jon was in the Dominican Republic: Saturday - first dinner with Daddy gone - When Faith saw that Daddy was not in his chair at the table, she looked for him in the computer room.  The next morning when I got up first, Noah commented that usually Daddy is... (More)

The authors quote some statistics of how many children leave the church never to come back, and particularly notes some examples of where churches had "junior church" for the kids, and while it was fun and entertaining when they were young, when the kids were old enough to attend... (More)

Heather's dad sent a link to this article, which I thought was pretty good.  And at least, it is a good word-of-the-day for you. Your assignment is to use it in a sentence sometime today.  "NOW, SIR," concluded Davy Crockett, "you know why I made that... (More)

I am not sure what I think about this chapter.  The authors argue for Christian pastoral care within a communal setting, as opposed to the "professional" counseling.  I have heard of a couple stories of people violently against that idea, though I haven't seen anything bad... (More)

When we were going to bed, Kim said something about setting his alarm for 4AM or some crazy number like that.  Apparently, he gets up pretty early at home, and takes the opportunity to get up even earlier in the Dominican.  But, since I work for myself, I tend to get up pretty late... (More)

Again, probably showing my bias, I didn't get a whole lot out of the "World Mission" chapter, so I am going to combine two chapters into one post. The gospel word is a word for the present about the future.  Hope is integral to our message.  Non-Christians... (More)