Saying Goodbye

Daniel is on a 12 month deployment now. The slide is pictures from when he left. Thank you for all your prayers. Our family has definately been touched knowing we are not alone.

Family Pictures

I was behind on getting Samuel's 1 year photos taken. His birthday was in July but we didn't make it to Sears for photos until Friday afternoon. Which of course was Daniel's last night home. It's become a tradition with my family to do a group family picture when big changes take place like deployments. Here are some of the photos taken. Avery had a 10 minute nap on the way to Sears so she wasn't very pleased with having to pose and smile in pictures. Enjoy...

A side note... Friday, Jarrett had school pictures taken & Avery will have to wait until February for her solo pictures. The focus this time was the whole family & Samuel's 1 year old pictures.

Fish Slappers and Daddy

The other night at dinner I asked Daniel to take pictures of the city of Nineveh if his travels take him to the city. Jarrett over heard this and got really excited. This was the rest of the conversation:


Jarrett: "You're going to Nineveh Daddy?"

Daniel: "I might - it's in Iraq."

Jarrett (very concerned): "But Daddy Nineveh is a bad city! You don't want to go there!"

Daniel: "Why not?" (At this point I'm starting to wonder how much has Jarrett observed from the news & our conversations.)

Jarrett: "Because the city is full of fish-slappers!"


Now if you know Jarrett, you will know that since he was 3, he has loved the Biblical story of Jonah. Jarrett can tell the story word for word. His reference to fish slappers comes from the Veggie tales movie Jonah. Fish-slapping was the sin that caused God to send Jonah to Nineveh according to the Veggies. We thought about telling Jarrett the truth about Nineveh & what it's like today but decided not to. For today and for as long as he loves the story of Jonah, we will let him believe that Daddy is going to Nineveh to fight the fish slappers. We will pray that God will protect Daddy and keep him safe from fish slappers. And even though it's not nice to be a fish slapper - God still loves them.