well, i’ll blame the busy-ness of the summer on the lack of posts. there has been a lot going on in the bowden world.

first, the prayer request. about 2 weeks ago dana’s dad was diagnosed with lymphoma. he has a rather large mass in his abdomen and pelvis and small mass in his neck. he started chemo today and this should run 6-8 months. i think there is a 50/50 chance of beating it. tack this onto a recent move from nashville (where they lived 30 years) to atlanta. dana’s mom and dad are dealing with a lot.

second, we are in the market for a new house. i won’t go into it all here, but through random circumstances a lady made an offer we couldn’t refuse on our house and we took it. we have to be out by sept. 28. we’ll take boxes if you have spares!

kaitlyn has turned one and also started walking and hannah is getting ready for school. you can see that dana has her hands full.

as you can see there is lots going on. last night i posted new pics to the photo gallery. they include red river, kaitlyn’s birthday, and kaitlyn’s presentation to the church yesterday. enjoy!

random thought of the day while walking - if a 1.5 foot tall plant is growing out of your gutter, it might be time to clean them out!

on sunday we sat down around 8 to watch planet earth on the discovery channel. our friend griff had suggested watching it and i had heard good things elsewhere. griff’s main take on it was that it really shows how great God’s creation is and how everythng works together and works well.

it was not long before hannah’s bedtime, so she sat down to watch it with us. this segment was about the great plains on each continent and some of the animals that live there. it was really cool. there were tense moments where our first instinct was to change the channel, but they turned into teaching moments for hannah. the first was a fox who was trying to penetrate a colony of geese. for a while the geese handled him pretty well, but they left their nest vulnerable, so the fox either ran off with eggs or baby goslings. we had to explain that out of survival some animals had to kill other animals to eat them. they handled it well and hannah seemed to understand.

another situation was a night scene at a watering hole in africa. it seems that at night the elephants lose their upper hand. they showed how a pack of lions could attack an elephant, separate it from the herd, and take it down. again, it was not a violent scene, but nature at work. that elephant fed a pack of lions for a week. again, we had to teach hannah about survival of animals. i think she handled it well.

but the best part of the evening was as we were going to bed. you see, hannah sleeps with a stuffed elephant named ellie. ellie has been around since day one when aunt julie gave it to hannah. it is a rare night when we go to bed without ellie. hannah’s comment on this night was, “the lions can’t get my ellie because she is stuffed!” pretty cute! even cuter is that she constantly holds ellie by her tail so as to keep the rest of ellie’s body soft. it works in her mind.

when i was telling griff about this story, we then traveled down the road of what happened in the garden of eden. when everything was in perfect peace and harmony, did the animals eat each other? my initial thought was that God provided food for them through the garden where they didn’t have to attack others. there truly was peace. it wasn’t until the fall of man and the closing of the garden that the animal world became survival of the fittest. anybody have any other input? just a curiousity.

it’s been a few weeks since i last updated - partly b/c of a lack of time and partly b/c of a lack of things to say. two significant things have happened though on which i would like to share my thoughts.

the first is the cabc prison trip that we went on 10 days ago. last year was my first year and i had these comments: freedom in prison (march 8, 2006). b-hood has already left her thoughts on her blog: prison trip reflections (march 9, 2007).

i really enjoy these trips, especially doing the grunt work since i don’t sing. (well, technically i do sing, just from the back row. back there i’m free to do choreography and sing with emotion, or just take it all in.) a lot of work goes into planning and carrying out these trips (kudos to b-hood for doing it), and it really is a lot of trouble that the prisons go through to make it happen. BUT, the offenders really appreciate it and the ministry goes both ways as they indirectly minister to us.

i love the camaraderie that the group has while we ride busses, set up equipment, eat, etc. we rotate busses each day, so the group is never really the same. it’s really the way fellowship in the church should be.

it blows me away to think about all the offenders in the state of Texas. there are people of all color, all ages, and all sort of situations. you look at them and wonder what they could have done to be there. you talk to them and many have been in prison longer than they were free. i talked to one guy who easily was under 40 who had been in jail for 18 years. i saw old men with walkers and young men in wheelchairs. you see people filled with the Spirit and you see others who make you wonder if they are just filling their free time.

just being in the building as a visitor makes me glad to be free and reinforces the fact that i don’t want to ever be in there.

now, moving on to the most special time. the Sunday that we were on the prison trip dana received the news that her granddad in north carolina had passed away. it was expected and a blessing in a way b/c he had been going downhill for some time. it is still a loss. the situation made it so that she would travel to the funeral and i would stay home with the girls. i was actually quite excited about the challenge, though a little nervous, too. she decided the morning of her flight to take kaitlyn with her, which turned out to be a good thing for dana and even better for me. the upshot was that i got the awesome chance to spend 3 days one-on-one with hannah.

i love both my girls and try to spend as much time with them as i can. obviously working takes away much of their awake time. but three whole days with hannah was awesome for both of us. she got my undivided attention and i got her love in return. we mostly played outside since last week was so pretty. we ate at her favorite places, went to the ranch to hike, drive the tractor and throw rocks, we watched he movies, we read, and we played games. i pretty much wore her out each day and she did the same for me.

dana taking kaitlyn was a Godsend, as she was able to bond more with her and kaitlyn provided some major joy and stress relief. of course, she didn’t mind showing her off to family and friends, either!

there you have my two significant recent events. enjoy!

i’m biased, of course, but i will say that we have two cute daughters. the oldest has quite an imagination, too.

on most days, hannah is supposed to take naps in the afternoon. some days she takes long ones, but on others she just sits on the bed reads or plays with her stuffed animals and lets her imagination run wild. just last week, we had two such occasions.

the first we didn’t really discover until that night when dana and i were getting her bed ready. we were pulling back the comforter and i found something not quite right. it seems that either her curious george doll was cold or playing dress up. george had been dressed in one her baby’s doll clothes. i felt for him, but really had to laugh.

the second occasion was more special. dana heard hannah in her room talking but sometimes it’s hard to hear the specifics. so, when dana went in to get her “up”, she walked in to hannah sitting on the middle of her bed surrounded by her animals, but this was no ordinary situation. hannah was re-enacting the manger scene. hannah was mary, baby bear was Jesus, dora was a wise man, beanerella bear (ballerina bear) was a shepherd, etc. hannah even had her blanket on her head as a covering. when dana walked in she was carrying kaitlyn. hannah decided that kaitlyn needed to participate. she decided that kaitlyn needed to repeat her role in waco christmas celebration as baby jesus. you just have to love the fact that she is getting into the spirt of the season!

As I came to the door to pick Hannah up from her BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) class yesterday, I saw a group of smiling 3 year olds jumping up and down singing ���Jump up high, Jump up high, Jump up high and praise the Lord, Jump up high, Jump up high, Jump up high and praise the Lord!��� It brought tears to my eyes. It is an awesome thing to see Hannah so excited about praising her Lord at such an early age. Her Bible study teachers are such a wonderful example of God���s love!!

Last Wednesday after BSF, I asked Hannah to tell me about her Bible story. She said, ���Jesus was on a mountain. He died on the cross.��� I asked her why. She said, ���because He rescued us.��� Later that day, we were praying at home. I did the praying. When I was finished, she looked at me and said, ���Mommy, you forgot to pray to God about Jesus dying on the cross for us.��� WOW!

While Alan goes to BSF on Monday nights, Hannah and I sometimes watch ���Deal or No Deal��� on TV. The other day, Hannah was talking to Alan and she said, ���The Bible is true or NO Deal!���