Category: Home schooled

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Senior Year Reflection

Some days I wish I had a telepathic thought converter that would take the thoughts that I have and transfer them to a document. It would definitely make writing my blogs so much easier. It seems like I have all these thoughts and experiences that fly through my mind’s eye in a day, and I don’t want to forget any of the details of what I think or remember.

As I move through the seasons of the year, it triggers these memories of the life I have lived and the emotions that flood my being are something too much to communicate or even try to express in any way, so most time they are just held in. Until the right moment presents itself to release them. For me, that is most times when I’m alone, or with my amazing wife, Chrissy.  I think perhaps I do this because it’s a safe environment for me to be me.

One thing I am discovering is that the more I do write, the more I’m letting some of the inner me out. The hard part is that even those who know me are perhaps are seeing a different side to me that most may have never known or seen. This is actually a bit intimidating and at the same time, freeing.

So, what’s with all the self-reflection and such? Over the last few months, Chrissy and I have been through some difficult times…the kind of things that cause everyone who goes through them to question everything, and that is okay. It’s actually has made us think and talk about things that we normally don’t discuss, and that has been good. In the mist of all this, life just keeps going on. It hits me now that we have plans that we have made and committed to rapidly approaching.

For example, a trip we have planned with our entire family is coming up soon. This may not seem to be a big deal, but somehow, we have grown our family to a total of 12 people and I’m sure there will be future additions to that number. Still, that’s a lot of people, especially to go on a trip with! This trip is one of those special trips that Chrissy and I really wanted to have happen. See, this year we have a high school senior in our home. Now, yes, we have had this before- 3 times before to be exact.

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The first child graduating was difficult and thinking about all that goes with your first born moving on to the next phase of their lives with all the unknown things and hopes and dreams you have for them and that they have for themselves. Then they move out, get married and all of a sudden, you’re a grandparent. Whew, looking back that was pretty quick, and before we knew it, we had 2 more graduates, another grandbaby, and another wedding, followed by 2 more grandkids. Talk about a blur. That brings me to the moment of reflection over the final of the four. The baby of the family.

Then it starts to creep in. This will be that last time you will be doing this senior thing. Not only that, but what you have done for the last 27 years is going to change a bit, because all the kids are soon going to be out on their own. Oh, sure they may linger in the nest for a bit longer, and that is all cool. No rush on our part.

What I think is the hardest part is remembering what you have done or not done and not being able to change that at all. If you stay in that place too long, you can start to second guess all you have done and whether or not it was the best for them.

A friend has a jar of marbles on his desk representing the number of weekends he has left before his first-born graduates. This was pretty cool to watch his countdown, but unconsciously I was having my own countdown without the marbles. I lost all mine after kid 2 or 3. (I feel a bit like the Lost Boy “Tootles” from Peter Pan, he lost his marbles too.) I believe that I almost have not wanted to think about this season of life coming, but here it is.

I want to say that I am so very proud of all my kids, what they are doing, and who they are becoming. I’m so impressed with the people they have become and are going to be. People full of God’s love and kindness, people who have courage as well as integrity. One of the best things has been to see how they take care of each other and hold each other accountable to the level of what it really means to be a “Hunter.”

For you Si-guy, my daredevil, the world’s most okay-est barista. I can only start to say how proud I am of you and all that you have accomplished. I am very excited to see where you go and what you do in the coming years. As I have always told you kids, whatever you want to do you can accomplish, just be sure to lay your plans out before the Lord and let Him have the final say on your endeavors. Follow him and walk in His ways. Always keep Him the most important thing in your life.

Stay humble and teachable. Be observant, always seeing what others do and don’t do. This will help you make wise choices. Be bold and passionate about what you believe in, especially when others try to steal your joy and passion about what you believe to be right. Let their words and intentions build you up in a positive way, not letting them destroy or devour you. Those who try to bully or humiliate you are only trying to bring you down to their level because they have a desire be like you in some way, but since they are struggling to make it where to where you are, they try to pull you down to where they are. Be merciful to them, show them love and grace in their ignorance. Still, beware not to fall into the same pit with those you secretly look up to also.

Gather friends to walk with you on this adventure; choose friends that you can trust, ones that will edify you and that are strong in your weak areas, so that they can join you in obtaining your goals. This makes the achievement of the goal you set so much sweeter because you have others surrounding you who genuinely care about you and what you’re working to achieve.

When you outgrow others, don’t be bitter, but be full of compassion and understanding. Stay gentle with an open mind. Keep good boundaries and hold firm to them; good boundaries can protect you from strife and heartache. Breathe deep, experience life and all the beauty that God has place in it for you. Be kind to others and most times they will be kind to you. Always remember where you’re from, and that you are a Hunter, and more importantly, you are a child of the King of Kings.

Always remember:

 

God loves you more than anyone.

Love him more than anything or anyone and love those around you as yourself.

Always be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.

Do everything that you do for the glory of God.

Your Mom and Dad are proud of you and love you more than anyone ever could!

 

I believe, if you have more than one child, the last is always the one you reflect on the most. You also hope you did all you could to help them be the person God showed you that they could become. Being parent is hard, but it can be the best thing you ever do. Then you become Popz and Abi, and it gets indescribably better!

 

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Family Force Five Christmas Pageant

One day we’d all sat down for supper, when Tori looked at me and said, “Dad? I need your help.” I said “Okay, with what?” She continued, “Well, Family Force Five is having a contest… and I want to enter.” Ben piped up in the most taunting voice he could muster, “She wants to meet Soul Glow Activator! She’s in love!” Tori quickly snapped back, “No I’m not!”

I interrupted, “Okay, settle down! Tori, what’s this all about? What do you need to do, and how do you need me to help?”

Tori stated to explain, “Well… I need to make a video showing that I’m their biggest fan.” She started to get excited, as she continued, “When they come to our area on their Christmas tour, they will choose two videos from those who live in the area of the concert.” The faster she talked, the louder she got as the pitch of her voice went higher and higher. “You and a friend get to go to the concert for free and go backstage to meet everyone in the band!” She was raising out of her seat. With wide eyes, she proclaimed “Then you get to go on stage to help with a song! I HAVE TO WIN!”

She had everyone at the table laughing about how excited she got.

I said, “Okay, settle down now. What did you have in mind? She unfolded her plan to show that she was a huge FF5 fan. She said, “I was planning to interview people them while they say that I’m their biggest fan!”

I said “Like who?”

“The kids at youth group. I was also thinking that I could have footage of me inviting people on the street to the concert. I was thinking that you could help me make flyers and get some video shots of me posting them in stores. What do you think, will it work, will you help?”

Ben said, “You’re crazy!”

I said, “Let’s think about this, you need to have some sort of flow for your video. After supper, we sat and came up with an idea of all the video shots we would need. In addition to the interviews and the flyers, we thought she could have a FF5 contest of some sort. So, we decided to have a praise guitar contest. This was a Christian music version of guitar hero. I also suggested that we do a music video with one of their songs.

Tori loved all the ideas. We had about a month to get everything done, edited, and submitted. So, we had a lot to do and only a little time to get it done. Tori worked on getting flyers distributed for her contest and lined up interviews with some of her friends. She asked if I would help plan out the music video.

For the storyline, we thought we could have our family receive an anonymous gift on the porch of a FF5 party in a box. We would have instruments, shutter shades, and iconic green FF5 Christmas pageant bowties. Everyone would be dressed conveniently in a red shirt, and we would have a concert on the front lawn of our house after receiving the box.

The funny part was that our family was working as the custodian crew at the church, so we were working very long hours, and we wouldn’t get finished until around 8pm or later. This meant we could only shoot this music video at night. I thought I would borrow a few bright spinning lights from my ministry and a snow machine as well. We decorated the front of the house with lights and presents. I had an inflatable nativity set; we put printouts of the bands faces on some the nativity people to be funny. We also spelled out FF5 on the roof of our ranch style house so it could be seen. I used my halogen shop lights to light the yard while filming, and they did a pretty good job lighting up the whole front of the house. We also played the song so with us lip synching. The craziest part was that we did all this around 9pm.

Everyone was involved Tori, the boys, and even Chrissy! We had so much fun creating this video. We had the lights flashing and rotating lights that sent beams of light all over the place in the yard with loud music playing. We didn’t have real snow yet, but the snow machine gave a great effect of snow falling. Silas tried to make snow angels, but was not too successful with the fake snow. It was a wonder that the neighbors didn’t call the police, but they knew we were always doing something crazy at our house. It was almost normal for the people driving by to see us out in the yard with blow-up guitars dancing around acting like we were putting on a concert.

There was one last fun part we wanted to put in. The boys thought it would be funny if we included a shot of Tori somehow falling off the roof while putting up lights.

Tori and Jonah went up on the roof acting like they were decorating the house for a concert. We planned that I would interrupt them with a decoration that I got for the video. Tori would move to the edge of the roof, pretending that she was getting upset because the decoration wasn’t big enough for her to win the contest. As she flailed around on the edge of the roof, she would fall from the roof, then we would rush to her side. She would then would look up in pain and whimper that Family Force 5 was worth it.

I had made a stuffed dummy for fun things like pranks and stunts for some of our dumb videos. His name is “Ted,” actually “Dead Ted,” because well… he was always meeting an unfortunate demise in our pranks

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For the falling off the roof scene, we dressed Ted in clothes to match Tori’s clothes. Then we would throw Ted off the roof. When we shot the ground scene of Tori talking, we would switch Ted with Tori. With careful editing, it actually worked great

We posted our video to YouTube and waited for a response from the band.

Side note: The video is still up on YouTube. Here is the address to watch it: Tori’s FF5 Christmas Video

A few very nervous, but hopeful weeks went by, and then we received an email stating that Tori was one of the winners!

When I showed her the email, she nearly blew a gasket!

Not only did Tori enter, but so did Ben’s girlfriend at the time, and she was the second winner.

The hard part for Tori was to choose who to take to the concert as her guest. She was allowed to bring one person. Naturally, I helped a great deal with the video, but I wasn’t not able to go because of my work schedule. So, Tori had a hard choice to make, but she did make a great choice. She picked her mom.

The night of the concert came. Tori and Chrissy went, so did Ben and his girlfriend. As the story goes, they got to meet the band backstage and helped onstage with multiple numbers. One song was “The Baby,” and Chrissy loves to tell everyone that she was almost killed on stage by a band member, named Na-daddy, who was spinning around like a tornado, while playing his guitar. He nearly smashed into Chrissy as she was concentrating on holding up a baby doll for the song at the right times.

The sad part was that Tori didn’t get to talk to the guys much, because one of the members of the band, Fatty, had been admitted to the hospital right before the show for kidney failure. , the band was in a hurry to get to the hospital after the show.

Still, this Christmas was another one that went down in the Hunter Clan’s history book as a interesting Christmas–definitely one that will always be remembered as a Fun Family Christmas.

One thing we always tried to hold to and teach the kids was that we work hard AND we play hard. When one of the family tries for something, we all encourage and support to the best of our abilities. Success for one of us is success for all of us.

 

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I should have ran off with the circus when I was 5!

The other day when Chrissy and I went to the fair we saw a booth for bounce houses and other cool inflatables. So, I naturally picked up a brochure of their products and services. There were all kinds of inflatables– obstacle courses, Velcro walls, jousting, and themed bounce houses. They had tons to choose from!

If you’re around me for any prolonged length of time you will figure out that I love inflatables. Somewhere deep in me I have the makings of a carnival worker, or at least someone who works or performs in a circus. If I’m getting raw and real here, I will let you in on a secret. Don’t tell anyone though. I think perhaps I should have ran off with the circus when I was 5.

I remember my dad getting me up super early when the circus would come to Williamsport. He would take me down to where the circus would set up. It was right next to the railroad tracks. The circus train would come in, stop, and unload right there. When we would arrive, often the fog would be just lifting and you could hear the men calling out to one another, laying out the huge tent that soon would become the “Big Top” of the Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Thinking back forty plus years ago, I remember sitting on the dike next to the Lycoming Creek with dad, my sleepy eyes trying to focus on what was happening in the field. Once the tent was spread out and laced, a line of big men would hoist up a humongous pole to their shoulders and make their way in under the tent to place the main support beams.

Then, my favorite part was coming. My dad grabbed my small hand and led me down the incline of the dike into the green, grassy field. We slowly walked trough the field closer to the action, to have a better viewing spot for what would take place next.

With my eyes wide and my mouth wide open, an exciting electricity flowed though my entire being that my small 5-year old body could hardly contain. My dad hoisted me up on his strong, wide shoulders and sat me there, so I wouldn’t miss anything that was happening.

Just then, I heard the trumpeting and felt the ground shake a bit. Out of the fog came the huge white-tusked elephants. Their enormous ears flapping back and forth, and their trunks swinging from side to side, they majestically walked alongside their trainers.

I remember seeing one of the beasts lay its trunk on the shoulder of its trainers as if to say, “Hi, I’m with you.” The man reached across his body and gently patted the elephant’s trunk, looking over his shoulder into its eyes and seemed to speak kindly to it.

I recall each one having a special harness on as they moved past me. Their fire hose like trunks would swing to and fro, grabbing grass along the way as they moved into place. When the trainer told them to stop, they obeyed immediately. The huge pachyderms knelt down instinctively knowing what they were there to do. Each handler hooked up a large ropey strap to an elephant, all the while lovingly encouraging and gently praising the animal.

Then it was time for the magic. With one loud shout from the head man, the elephants all stood up and with their trainers at their side started to methodically walk effortlessly forward, They moved in sync slowly, and as they did, the tent rose to the top of the poles, kissing the sky. I have always loved the circus from that day forward.

The sad part is that if I did steal away with the circus that day, I now would be out of a job with the recent closing of the Greatest Show on Earth. That does make me sad to think about. This show brought wonder, excitement, and even a bit of magic to town. It always made me feel like a kid again, no matter my age.

So the family story I have may not seem too surprising, but then again, we are the Hunter Clan– nothing is ever too easy or dull.

Over the years, I have rented these inflatables for various events, and I have always thought it would be great to own one. I never really did anything with it. Then one year I was working on an annual church event called Trunk or Treat. This is a Halloween trick or treating alternative, where kids get to safely trick or treat out of trunks of cars that are hosted and decorated by a group or organization. At my Trunk or Treats, I always like to have a little more for those attending to do than just walking around asking for treats. So, sometimes I have been known to have games or food for those attending.

One year we did a superhero theme, and I had seen a huge, inflatable slide obstacle course that looked like Superman. The front of it was Superman standing in his classic superhero pose, then alongside of him was this huge slide– it was something like 16 feet. So this thing was big; unfortunately, so was the price tag to rent it. I’m pretty sure it was close to $700.00. These things were not cheap.

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After renting that one, I got to thinking… I wonder how much it would be to buy a used unit like this? So, I started to do some research on the web to see if there were used units out there that I could buy. Well, it just so happens that there are inflatables out there, and incidentally they only cost a bit more to buy then what you rent them for.

So, I thought ‘tis maybe an option someday. Just imagine if I owed my own inflatable. That would just be so cool! I started to do the math. How many rentals would I have to have to do to break even on this? 4 or 5 maybe?

Like most great ideas that I have, but I don’t have the finances for, I put it on the backburner. Then, I had another event that I needed to have an inflatable at something like camp or VBS. That is when it really hit me that I could be saving my ministry amazing amounts of money that could be used in other ways to reach kids for Jesus. So, I when back to my computer and started the search process again. I remember looking on eBay and finding a nice variety of inflatables. Then I saw this one that was simply put– Awesome! It was a huge slide shaped like a parrot. I called Chrissy over, and said, “You have to check this out! She came over and as she usually does when she knows I’m onto some crazy idea she looked at it and said, “That’s nice. What would you do with that?”

That’s all I needed. I told her all my great ideas and uses for this inflatable. I told her how we could use it for ministry and to bring in a little extra cash at times. Then she asked how much is it? I said, “Look it’s only $1200.00! Then she said, “What’s wrong with it?” I said, “Nothing!” I knew at this point I almost had her. I was on the verge of my dream becoming a reality. I was so close that I could smell the popcorn and cotton candy of the carnival.

 

“How big is it?” she asked.

I said, “25 feet tall! It’s giant!”

Well, she said, “That is big! How big is that?”

She’s not always that good at judging how big things are when you say it in feet. So, I told her it was bigger than our house! We lived in a ranch style house at the time.

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“How much do you think we could rent it for?” She asked. I said, “I don’t know. The one slide I rented was $700.00, but I would not want to charge that much, especially to churches!

She said, “Well, let’s see what we have in savings.”

So, we looked and thought we could do it. I went a ahead and bought it. Now one thing you should always do if you are shopping on eBay is look at the shipping price before you bid. Now, this was not my first rodeo with eBay, but we were so excited that we forgot to look at the shipping costs. We just made sure this was not a pick-up only kind of thing.

We were so very ecstatic that we were going to get this amazing parrot inflatable and all we were going to be able to do with it. This was a dream come true!

Then the seller messaged us, and asked how we would be shipping. What? The seller takes care of shipping, not the buyer! Then I dug into the post a little closer, and I saw that the buyer would be responsible for arranging shipping for the inflatable. I looked at Chrissy and said, “Awwww… no problem we will just use UPS, and have them ship it.

So I started make inquiries about shipping our parrot, only to come to find out that an 800 pound heavy duty vinyl inflatable would be very expensive to ship. So, I told the seller that it would take us a bit to figure out the shipping, but we would take care of it.

You may have seen the show Shipping Wars? Well, that was what I discovered online way before the reality tv show was a thought. I put my item up, and potential shippers started to bid on handling my package.

I was still not happy with the results. In the end, our shipping cost was almost the same as what we paid for the inflatable. It was the best price we had gotten though. After talking it through, we still thought it was worth it so, we moved forward with shipping it.

The next bump was that the shipper needed it to be on a skid and shrink-wrapped. The buyer didn’t even want to help with finding a skid. I did pay a little extra for a lift gate on both ends of the shipping. I thought that would help a bit. From what the seller said, the driver was not happy about any of it. But, if you watch the shipping wars show, the drivers never are happy about any of the jobs.

I somewhat understood a bit when it finally reached our house from California. The seller had this thing rolled up in the most inefficient way. It came looking like a wrestling mat. It was about 12 feet long and about 2 ½ feet high. The truck that it came on for some reason didn’t have the lift gate, so the driver went back and changed the load to a lift gate truck but failed to bring a lift jack to take it off the truck and gate. So, I was told I needed to come to the depot and pick it up.

So, Chrissy, the kids and I borrowed a trailer, hooked it up to our full-size conversion van and went to ABF to get our parrot. We got there and they finally found our package– it was really hard to miss. They used a forklift to load it on the trailer. I signed for it, and we were headed home.

We got home and all of us worked together to get it off the trailer. Then we unrolled it in the driveway and called a few of our friends to come over and try out our new slide. As soon as I started to inflate it in the driveway, we attracted the attention of neighborhood kids we didn’t even know existed on our street. They stood at the end of the driveway to see this spectacle, hoping for an invite to slide down our mammoth bird. This was the biggest bird I had ever seen, let alone the largest inflatable. We set up lights in the driveway and played on this thing far into the night. Everyone loved it and had a blast!

The next day, we needed to figure out how to fold it and roll it into a smaller, more compact manner than it came in. After a few tries, we finally achieved a roll that looked like a red and blue super-sized burrito. It sat about 3 foot wide and 4 foot long. It was heavy! This is when we discovered the amazing uses of ratchet straps.

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Side Note: It didn’t take too long for us to figure out we needed heavy duty straps to hold it all together. We used a furniture dollie to make it easy to move in and out of the garage.

Last thing we needed to get our big bird ready to rent was a trailer, and Chrissy found one off of…Guess where? Yup, you guessed it, eBay! This time we made sure to check the shipping. Actually we just traveled a little ways to pick this up.

Chrissy was very smart on picking a trailer for our bird. It was a tip trailer, and it had hand crank winch. We would hook the parrot up and crack away pulling the inflatable up on the tilted trailer. When it reached the tipping point, the trailer would come down flat, and we would strap her on.

We have had our share of adventures with this huge bird. We even rented it to a famous rapping celebrity who lived close to us. He wanted his kids to play on it one afternoon, so he rented it from us. I had to sign a disclosure, so I can’t tell you who he was. I can tell you that I didn’t get his name quite right when I told Chrissy who he was. I asked her if she had ever heard of a guy named Art Kelly. She hadn’t.

Even though we had a bit of a rough start in the beginning, the parrot paid for itself and even help fund a mission trip or two.

Never give up on the dreams that God plants deep in you. If you truly believe He can bring it about, it may just happen sometime in the strangest of ways. Some of those dreams are even passed on and come to being in our kids’ lives. For example think about David and Solomon with the temple. Keep dreaming and believing in the impossible, and wait to see what happens.

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Our Candy Rocks

When the kids were young, we always tried to instill in them values that we felt were important. Like having integrity, honesty, gratitude, generosity, honor, self control, conviction, hope, love, respect, and responsibility. Just to name a few.

We also thought it was important to have creativity, ingenuity, and persistence. Always think outside of the box, use critical thinking. You should constantly be on the look out for opportunities to make our world a better place, give a hand up to those in need, and use the gifts God has given us.

We wanted our kids to have opportunities to flourish and make a difference. Lastly, we showed them how to be entrepreneurs.

One year, Chrissy and I decided we were going to teach the kids how to have a business and run it. As a family we decided that we all wanted to go on a mission trip. We wanted to go to Honduras with World Compassion Network. This was a mission we had come to know about and loved supporting. They do a number of mission venues from local to international.

Our favorite was the Family 2 Family Boxes. This was a small Rubbermaid box that you filled with specific things like rice, dried beans, soap, a hand towel, and a few other things. Then you brought the box to church, and it was shipped to Honduras to be handed out to families in need. The coolest part of this was that you could go on a mission trip to hand out the boxes.

Josh Grill WCN Director of Missions
Clothes to hand out
Chrissy and Tori
Jonah And Jonny

Instead of just handing out the boxes, WCN works hard to find credible local churches and pastors to arrange distributions to families in need. Then, when we go to hand out the boxes the local church, the church or pastor gets the credit for helping the community in need, not the North Americans who helped pass the boxes out. This helps to build the church in that community, rather than fostering dependence on WCN.

Most of the boxes are given to families that don’t attend the church, but are members of that church’s community. I almost forgot– these boxes would feed a family of four for about 2-3 weeks. That is pretty incredible, if you ask me.

We wanted to take our kids and go do this all together. Ben and I had just gone the year before, and it was a life-changing experience for both of us. Now, Chrissy and I wanted our whole family to experience this. The issue that we faced was that it was going to cost over $10,000 for our family of six to go.

Chrissy and I also wanted to take the kids on a vacation in the next year, one that they would remember for years to come. Up until this point the kids thought that vacations were just things that they gave away at the radio station. To do both things, we would need to come up with some serious money.

So, we sat the kids down and shared our hopes with them. We thought this would be a great learning experience for them. We shared what we would like to do, and they were all on board with it. The next part was how to get the money. We have always taught the kids and believed ourselves that if God wants something to happen, the doors will open, and a way will be made. We might need to do some work, and it may take some faith in getting there. We just need to be faithful.

So we asked the kids for some ideas we could do to raise money for the mission trip. Someone suggested writing letters for support. We said, “Ok, what else?” Silas suggested collecting aluminum cans and getting money for recycling. (Which he ended up doing for hours and hours with a family friend and his truck.) What else? Someone said, “Maybe we could start a business.” I said, “What kind of business?” Someone came up with the idea of sandy candy. This was a colorful candy that looked just like sand art, but you could eat it. I said, “Okay, let’s put together a business plan, and see if we can do this.”

That was exactly what we did. We saved up some seed money and then invested it in this business. We decided that we would hit the festival circuit. Every town around where we lived had festivals. So we would rent a space, and the kids would sell their sandy candy. Each of them had a job to do. We had 2 people who would handle helping the customers make their edible art project, then we had two callers who would bring people into the stand. They would introduce people to the products and bring them over to the stand, then the table people would close the deal. Chrissy’s job was to be the money and business manager. When someone needed a break, Chrissy or I would fill in.

Most of the fests were 3-day events– Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I was not always able to help with the stand, with me being a pastor those were days that I worked and had to be available for services.

The kids would take turns at each job so no one got bored with what they were doing. It became evident to us who was gifted in which areas. Ben and Tori were great at helping the customers and closing the deal. Jonah and Silas– they were amazing callers. It did help that they both were really cute. Si was about 9, and Jonah was around 11. So, the cuteness factor did help.

Our first fest nearly wiped us out and closed us for good. The town we had booked was known for having a population of healthy eaters. No one wanted their kids to have sugar. Then during the night a tornado came through nearby the fair grounds, and many of the vendors tents and boots were destroyed–including the Candy Rocks tent (that was us!). Our brand new, heavy-duty pop-up canopy was twisted and mangled and ended up a row or two over.

Fortunately, we always took the product and tables down when we left for the evening. The tent was a huge expense for us, but we needed to have it. So, we went out and bought another tent with the money we just made the day before. If we hadn’t booked other events we probably would have ended the business all together. But that is not how the story goes, because that would be just boring.

So as we peddled our candy to people, we started to make some money. The kids started to get into a rhythm. That’s right, we had successfully become a carney family.

The kids came up with competitions to see who could sell the most in an hour or, who could get the most compliments. Not only was this business profitable, it was also a great learning tool. Our kids then started to figure out the best times of the day that sales would increase, and they noticed the best locations to have our stand located in the festivals.

You would never guess where the best spot was. You might think near kids’ activities or other dessert foods. And you would be wrong on both accounts. The very best place to be was directly across from the Beer Garden exits. (At most of the festivals, this was the only area that people were able to buy alcoholic drinks, hence the name “Beer Garden.”)

When people would come out of the beer area, they would often be looking for something sweet to eat, and guess what stand they would stumble over to? That’s right they would come right over to Candy Rocks. It’s surprising how much people who have been drinking will spend on something sweet. Now, you may be saying that’s not right, you were taking advantage of them. We just thought if they weren’t buying our candy, they would be spending money somewhere else. So, why not spend it at our stand?

Maybe it was a bit unfair, because the kids would give a little sample of the candy crack to them in their hand, and then instruct them to eat it. Silas was the best at this part, as they were licking the candy from their hand, he would look at them and very excitedly say “Now, that’s good stuff, isn’t it?” Almost 100% of the time, they would agree with him, and then, without missing a beat he would say, “Follow me over here, and we’ll get you some more.” And they would follow him to the table and buy pretty much whatever he suggested. Crazy!

We did have our share of experiences that were just weird, but too funny not to tell. Like the time we had borrowed a few costumes from a friend. These we costumes that you would normally have to rent. They were high-end mascot costumes.

The kids thought it would be fun to dress up in costumes, and let people take their picture with them. So one of the costumes we had was “Dora, the Explorer.” We thought this would also give the kids an opportunity to practice their Spanish if the opportunity presented itself.

We took the costume with the intent of the kids taking turns in it. Well as it happened, the costume only really fit Jonah well. So, the other kids took turns escorting Jonah up and down our row, meeting tons of people. Jonah loved to be in the costume, because it gave him the opportunity to be as silly as he wanted to be, without anyone knowing who it really was.

He would take breaks to cool down and get refreshed. Then when he was ready, he would suit back up and go meet more people.

As different 80’s bands hit the stage, Dora/Jonah would bust a move. Sometimes he would be dancing with kids, at other times with senior citizens. Some of the funniest people he danced with were the big biker guys who were a bit toasty. As they played and danced with Dora, they were always very respectful and kind.

The one story that has been told over and over was as one evening the beer garden was closing, and everyone was coming out. Jonah was standing out in front of the stand in the Dora costume. Up walks a lady and says “Hola, Dora! Will you be my friend? “She started to have this long drawn out conversation with Dora, while Dora/Jonah just stood there, nodding and gesturing.

Then the lady started to pat herself down, looking for something. She frantically looked in purse, then looked at Dora and said, “Dora, do you know where my keys are?” Then she asked Dora to help her find them. It really was pretty comical. Especially watching Jonah handle the situation.

I may be mistaken, but I believe we helped the lady get to security, and they helped her from that point on. Before leaving, the lady gave Dora a big hug and thanked her for being her friend. No matter what the situation was, we tried to have fun with it.

The kids learned a lot that year, and they raised enough money to go on the mission trip with the help and support of others.

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The following summer, we did the same thing, and this time the goal was to go on an amazing vacation that we all worked really hard for. We made enough money to take everyone to Disney World.

Overall, it was a great experience for the kids and us. Even today we still have a small side business called Tyes of Hope. We help people create their very own wearable works of art. We let people create their own tye dye t-shirts.

We can do all types of events from parties to customer-appreciation events. Big or small, we can tye dye at them all. We can even have a custom logo printed on the shirt before you create your fashion memory.

We have decided that we want to go back to Honduras in the summer of 2018, so we are looking to open our schedules for more bookings. And yes, we do fundraisers too.

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Looking back, it’s amazing to think of all our family has done and experienced, and it’s really cool to see how God has made a way for us to do the things He has put on our hearts.

 

 

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Pranks!

Pranks!
Over the years, Chrissy and I have been known to pull a few pranks. Mostly on our best of friends. These little mischievous acts are meticulously planned out with the greatest of attention to details and timing. Here are a few that we have successfully pulled off over the years.
When we were in college, it seemed like we were always involved in some sort of prank, whether it be covering someone’s white Chevette with Oreo cookies to make it look like a Dalmatian, or awarding someone for being the 100,000th visitor to the Historical Duck Decoy Museum that, they recently had visited.
That was when we awarded a dollar store lint brush in the form of a duck as a trophy. Upon delivery, the recipient opened the package to find a very official-sounding letter from the duck decoy historical foundation, along with the major award of the duck. The best part of a prank is watching how it unfolds. For us it was sheer joy to enter this person’s home to see the letter, along with the trophy, displayed in a prominent place in their home.
One of my absolute favorites was the Mickey Premium Ice Cream bar wallpapering.
This was where we took a few wrappers that I had saved from Disney’s most awesome ice cream treat in the world and photocopied them to make 10 x 8 sheets of Mickey Premium Ice Cream Bar wallpaper. We covered our friend’s office with our wallpaper while he was gone on vacation to Disney World. He actually loved it. We have a short video of this prank on YouTube. https://youtu.be/psBUDfRDmEA
Then we had another friend who highly disliked snowmen. So we did a prank called “The Game.” We used left over garbage bag snowmen from a series I had done, and we strategically placed them in his office. We staged them as a scene from a mob movie. Again we made a trailer of this one too. It is also on YouTube. https://youtu.be/irdEB77gCbMI’m not sure why we did all the trailers. And I’m not so sure that he appreciated my humor on this one.
There have been so many more, that I just can’t think of all of them. But not all pranks go as planned or as you may expect. We had one such prank that we pulled with friends of ours. I will keep their names anonymous. I don’t want them to feel like I’m ratting them out or anything. Let’s just call them Dana, Bruce, and the twins who owned the gorilla suit.
Well, we were sitting around playing cards one night as we did often with our friends. This night was special because some of our children were gone on a camping excursion. The Hunter Boys were out with their cadet group.
Side note: The Cadets are a church-sponsored organization that is like a Christian Boy Scout group.
This overnight camping trip was serving a purpose. Our church was having an outdoor service the next morning, and the cadets camped out to guard all the equipment at the church in the yard. These brave boys ages 8-12 would fend of any unwanted, ill-willed intruders.
So, as we were playing cards one of us got the itch to be mischievous. That’s all it takes to set things in motion. We sat playing hand after hand, throwing out ideas as to what we could do to some poor, unsuspecting victim. Eventually, someone said we should prank the cadets!
The ideas starting coming, but we knew we didn’t want to go overboard and do something that would scar them for life. So, we finally cooked up the idea of launching water balloons onto and around their campsite. I have a launcher, and to make it even better, we thought let’s make it seem like a gorilla escaped from the zoo and was throwing the balloons at them. Dana made a call to the twins, who just happened to have a gorilla suit. The plan was in motion and could not be stopped. We made plans to meet the twins after we filled the balloons.
We parked in an area that was not conspicuous, and rallied the team for one last briefing on how this would go down. The four of us would launch the balloons and make gorilla noises as one of the twins would dance around acting like he was throwing water balloons in the parking lot under a security light. It was fun and not too scary, or so we thought.
The balloons started to fly and the gorilla danced, but we didn’t get much of a reaction. So we aimed for the tents trying to make direct hits. As we rained down our balloons of fury, a few of the boys woke up, most just kept sleeping. This is where it kind of went too far, remember the comment about not scarring the kids for life?
Well, the gorilla was told to charge, someone said attack, and we had balloons flying everywhere. The gorilla was shaking tents, and before we knew it, that jungle beast was unzipping tents and surprising sleeping campers. There were arms and legs going every which way. Screams of boys echoed left and right.  Then the gorilla came to one little boy who wouldn’t wake up so the gorilla entered his tent, bent down and gave a resounding gorilla growl. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, this was a Hunter Boy. He sat straight up, screamed, and started crying hysterically.
This was a prank gone wrong. Luckily, most of the boys were laughing– all except for Jonah. He had just had the pee scared out of him. The good thing was that his  mom was right there to take care of him and help him out of this awkward predicament. Mom somehow just happened to be there to rescue her baby boy.
We still have a good laugh about this one, well, most of us do. We learned not to mix gorillas, water balloons, and cadets together in the middle of the night, unless you want to have gremlins.  
We do still do a few mischievous acts from time to time, but nothing harmful that may cause anyone years of counseling.

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Shorts on the Ground

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Over the past few weeks I have been feeling a bit nostalgic, so like any dad who feels like reliving the past, I went out to my garage. Now, why would I go to the garage you may ask. Great question! I went to the garage because, if you know me for any period of time, you will know that, no matter where I live, I have a magic garage.
Side Note: I have a reputation for keeping things. I’m not a hoarder, but I could be. My garage holds some of the most amazing treasures. I had a friend that used to say “Whatever you need just ask Butch to see if he has it in his garage.” Yes, sometimes I did have things that people needed or we needed for ministry. I didn’t get the title of Kid Ministry MacGyver for nothing. That, my friends is another story itself, for another time.
So, I went to my garage and found a box of old video tapes that held our family history. Looking though these tapes made me realize that we could have had a video on America’s Funniest Videos every week for an entire year. It also jogged my memory of our first video camera and the time we took it on vacation.
Our oldest son, Ben, was just turning two. This would have been our first real family vacation. So, Chrissy and I decided to go back to the place where we spent our honeymoon, Assateague Island, in Maryland, close to Ocean City. Since we enjoyed the area so much, we wanted to go back to the place where we created some very special memories camping on the beach.
Side Note: Honeymooning on the beach sounds super romantic, and we thought so too, when we planned it. Let’s just say, sand plus newlyweds in a small pup tent on a beach teeming with wild horses while a hurricane heads inland creates a situation that could test even the strongest of marriages. I almost forgot about the pesky state bird, otherwise known as the mosquito
Back to the vacation. We made plans to vist Assateague Island for a day while camping on the mainland at a nice wooded campground in Ocean City, that sprayed for mosquitoes.
Packing for our big day at the beach, I kept in mind that this was our two-year-old son’s first time to the ocean. All the things that my mom had warned me about ran through my head. “Watch out for the undertow, when you were a baby you got rolled so bad that you had sand for days coming out of you.” And Chrissy’s Nanny, “Don’t forget to put a lot of sun screen on.” With all these voices in my head, I could hardly hear myself think. The biggest thing in my mind was making sure we had the cameras, the regular one and the video camera too.
On this special day, I thought to myself (louder than all the other voices), “I want my boy to have a great time at the beach. He needs a boogie board! Yeah, he’ll love a boogie board!” I really don’t know why I thought that. Still, we stopped on the way to the beach at a small store to buy the cheapest styrofoam boogie board I could find because things were tight on this vacation. Once I had boogie board loaded in the car, we were set to go. Whoo-hoo off to the beach! On the way into the beach area, we saw the wild horses, this was a plus. They just roam anywhere and everywhere they please; it’s very cool! We even have a picture of one sticking its head in our car window!
Finally, at the beach, we grabbed all our stuff and headed down to the water to pick our spot for the day. It was great, the sun was shining, temperature was perfect with a nice cool breeze blowing. As the wind blew off the waves, it picked up salt that you could taste from the mist of the crashing waves, it was a gorgeous July day. The best part was that the beach was not very crowded.
We did all the things you would imagine parents doing with their child at the seashore for the first time. Ben loved playing in the lapping waves of the ocean. Chrissy took pictures and occasionally, we would use the camcorder to capture some priceless moments for our little family.
After a while, I took the boogie board down to the water for Ben to ride. I placed him on it, sitting down. I don’t know what I expected to happen, but here’s what did happen. A wave came in and knocked him right off. Epic dad fail on this one, I thought. So, I marched my sand-covered, squalling son up to his mother, so she could comfort him. After all, I had just let him get tossed around by the ocean tide.
So then, me being me, I decided to show my son that boogie boards could be fun. I said, “Ben, watch Daddy do it!” I grabbed the boogie board, and ran down to the water. I waded out into deeper water and waited for just the right wave to roll in. I looked out to see if Ben is watching, and I saw Chrissy getting the camcorder ready.
And then it was now or never; the water sucked back and I knew it was going to be a big one. I readied the board and jumped as high as my short legs would take me and landed on the crest of the wave! I remember thinking, “This is awesome! I’m riding a wave! Yes!”
I jumped off the board just before the wave crashed down onto the sandy beach. I ran up to Chrissy and Ben, out of breath, and exclaimed “I did it!  Did you see that! I was great! Yeah baby!”
Chrissy said, “Sorry, I didn’t get it you’ll have to go do it again.” I now believe she secretly knew what would happen next and just wanted to egg me on to make sure it happened. I was, oh, too willing. I was like a dog playing fetch with his favorite ball. You know right before the dog’s master tosses the ball, he’s so excited to get the ball. Yup, that was me.
So Chrissy readied the camera, ben sat playing at her feet. I galloped down to the edge of the ocean with the boogie board over my head like I was some champion surfer ready to rip some gnarly swells. I made my way through the crashing waves out quite a bit further than before. I positioned myself, and waited for the perfect wave.
I could see Chrissy recording as I waited for my dream wave. I waved to her with a thumb up. I was ready for this epic moment. Just then the water powerfully pulled quickly past my legs sucking my feet into the sand. I looked over my shoulder this was a huge wave! It was quickly rolling towards me, building momentum. Higher and higher it went.
I bent at my knees and with all I had jumped into the air at just the right moment to be caught on the top of the wave. Cowabunga dude! I was riding on top of this wave! The rush of water around me was exhilarating, the adrenaline was pumping though my body. It was like the rush you get when riding a smooth roller coaster, but a 100 times better. The wave was accelerating, and with every foot it got closer to its crashing destination.
Then, just before I could jump off the boogie board, the wave took me by surprise curling under me only to drop me, fast and hard head-first onto the shore. I hit the sand with an audible crunch. I was involuntarily rolling through the water, gasping for air. I could feel my heart pounding. I clawed at the shifting sand to get my balance and pull myself up out of the water. I shook off the water from my head and wiped the salt from my eyes. I could feel sand in places you never want to feel sand.
What seemed like an eternity only took seconds. I crawled to my knees. Still being pummeled by aftershock waves. The tide rolled out enough for me to get to my feet and somewhat get my bearings.
I desperately looked for my wife on the beach. I thought to myself well, that was definitely spectacular! Though blurry eyes, I saw Chrissy laughing hysterically all the while frantically tring to get the camera lined up with where I was now standing. I waved to her laughing all the while trying to get some forward motion going.
There are those times in life when things happen, and you know you just came through something that could have had disastrous results, only to realize the worst had not hit yet.
That is when I felt it. The cool breeze and water lapping bare skin in a place, well, a place that should have been covered. I looked down and terror struck me to the core only to realize that my swim trunks were gone. I quickly threw myself down into the shallow water. Fumbling around like a fish out of water. I was flopping around as I tried to grab my shorts that had luckily got hung up on one of my feet.
I quickly maneuvered my other leg into my swim shorts and pulled them up, filling them with even more sand in the process. I embarrassingly looked around to see who else had caught an eye full of me in all my God-given glory. To my surprise, I didn’t see anyone running in horror or pointing and laughing, well, no one  except Chrissy.
Side Note: Thinking back to this experience, all I can think of is the You Tube song, “Pants on the ground, Pants on the ground, look’n like a fool with your pants on the ground!” That was me. I was a naked fool!
My attention then turned to retrieving my white Styrofoam boogie board. After paying good money for it, I wasn’t going to lose this thing. Right at that moment, I felt something smack me in the back of my legs. I turned to see what it was– it was a piece of Styrofoam. I bent over and grabbed it for a closer examination. It looked like a piece of someone’s boogie board, I wondered who broke their boogie board.  As I look down the beach, I saw 2 more white pieces being pushed up on the beach and it sadly occurred to me that it was my boogie board.
I gathered my wits, picked up what was left of my pride, and retrieved the rest of what was left of the board. I than sheepishly slogged up to Chrissy and Ben. Chrissy was reviewing her newly captured footage of my major wipeout. She looked up at me, snickering all the while and said “This is going to get us 10,000 dollars!” Then she disappointedly said, “Oh no! I missed you losing your shorts! I guess I just couldn’t find you in the camera. Darn, that would have been awesome,” she said. We both laughed, and I sat down to nurse my wounds.
Not only did I lose my shorts, demolish a boogie board and hurt some of my pride, I also had bright red welts across my chest and under my chin where the board had hit me when it exploded under the impact of the wave. I was a washed-up man.

Life has always been an adventure with the Hunter Clan– even at the very beginning!
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Frogs, Frogs, and More Frogs!


Frogs, Frogs, and More Frogs!
Well, I have been thinking on this all week! Now it’s time for one of the Hunter Clan’s Stories that frequently get repeated around the dinner table on Sunday evenings.
I have to start out by saying I totally understand fears and phobias. If you follow my blog, you will find out about some of my own craziness soon.
 Today, I need to focus in on the love of my life, Chrissy. If you have ever been around Chrissy for any extended amount of time you will learn that she has a very high dislike for things the slither, hop, or wriggle quickly across the earth.
The two creatures for Chrissy, that evoke a blood curdling shriek with dancing and prancing around, like one of those African tribes men doing a rain dance, followed by a full-blown panic attack, are frogs and toads.
I think this behavior stemmed from a childhood experience of  watching  her mom rescue a frog from a snake’s mouth. Chrissy watched as her mother took a garden rake and slammed it down on a poor un-suspecting snake enjoying a plump froggy dinner. The rake hit the snake behind the head, and  I’m told the force of the deathblow forced the frog from the snake’s mouth and projected it across the yard.
This traumatic experience has left a scar which makes her absolutely disgusted by amphibians. Then again, it could have been the so-called toad farms that her brothers kept in the window wells of the house. Either way she can’t stand these creatures.
One last bit of information you need to know before the story is that Chrissy is an amazing mom and whole-heartedly believes in homeschooling. She has homeschooled all four of our children. With that said, sometimes her fears will be overcome for the sake of an investigative learning experience. This can be an awesome thing, but then again it can bring on some of the most horrifying tales to be told.
One summer we had been given an amazing gift of a week in a friend’s family cabin in upper Wisconsin. We had just started a new ministry months earlier and money, well, it was tight. At this time vacations were unheard of for our family. To sum up vacations for us at that time, I will borrow some lyrics from one of my favorite artists Family Force Five, “Never heard of vacation, I think they give those away on the radio station.” Yup, that was us.
The cabin was located on a remote lake in the middle of nowhere. If Walgreens was going to have a store on every corner, they must not have heard about this place; even the closest Wal-Mart was about 75 miles away! This was not off the grid, this was beyond off the grid. It was fabulous!
We had our 4 kids and two dogs, our sweet Dalmatian, Lily, and a dumb Doberman named Maximus Decimus Meridius. (He was named after the main character from the movie The Gladiator, and that’s another story all together– “Are you not entertained?”) Anyway, we called him Max for short.
 We packed up all our necessities in our newly acquired GMC Safari van. (By newly acquired, I mean we were blessed by another family with the van as a gift.) Again, to say that we were tight would be an understatement. We were so tight in the van that I had to stop the van and get out to change our minds on what direction we were going. That didn’t matter to us. We were on vacay! WhooHoo!
When we arrived, it was amazing. We were on a lake- we had a row boat with a 20 hp outboard on it. The kids were like, “Awesome, we can tube!” We also had access to 4 wheelers and acres of forest to explore. That week we explored, fished and hiked. If we could do it, we did. We even did some schooling with the kids. It’s great when you can teach kids without them knowing that you’re teaching them. If I remember correctly, it started out as a contest. Who could catch the biggest bullfrog?
Then once the frogs were caught, we had a brave lesson on amphibians by Chrissy. I don’t remember who it was but I believe it was Jonah and Silas that kept the contest going throughout the week.
The week came to a close with wonderful memories and many adventures– all great stories to tell. I do remember one of the kids asking for a box as we were packing the car. I found one for them in the craziness of packing the van back up for the 6-hour trip home. I had no idea why they wanted it or who needed it. I just assumed that Chrissy needed it for something. Little did I know we were going to be secretly transporting four huge bullfrogs from the Wisconsin cabin to Chicago.
As with most of our family adventures, we left behind schedule, but figured we would make up time once we reached the interstate highway. Boy, we couldn’t have been more wrong. The first part of the trip was great. Kids were calm, the dogs we settled, the 4-40 air conditioning was on.
Side Note: This is a very special high tech type of AC. It requires four windows rolled down and maintaining a speed of 40mph. The breeze flowing through the van cooled us down nicely. In other words, the AC didn’t work great, and having the windows down was better.
Like I was saying, the first part of the trip was great. Wind in our faces, music on the radio, kids and dogs mostly zonked. Chrissy was doing what she does on trips, she was reading something.
Side Note: Not much will ever interrupt her. I mean, the kids could be setting off fireworks in the back seat and she would be oblivious. Okay, perhaps not fireworks but something close to it.  Like Silas teasing his sister, trying convince Tori that the  snow crab claws that he pocketed from the Chinese buffet will make great hair barrettes.  You get the picture.
Then we were coming up on the Illinois/Wisconsin line and traffic started to get heavy. We were used to this but then we saw the cause– road construction.  From that point, it was stop and start, and even a few sudden stops. Finally, traffic opened up, and we were flying, going down the road with the flow of traffic. That is when I heard from the back seats some sort of commotion. I looked in the rearview mirror to see the kids frantically looking at each other with panic on their faces. Nuts, I forgot to tell you about the camcorder.
Side Note: On this trip our oldest son Ben decided that he would document the family adventure with our camcorder.  He was doing interviews, surprise tapings, and so on. Everyone was getting somewhat annoyed with him.
Okay, so looking in the mirror, I thought, “Great, what did you do now, Ben? Our eyes met, and I knew right then that something was wrong. The dogs are moving around the van, agitated and excited. Three of the kids begin anxiously searching the van floor for something. All I see are feet and legs in the air. All the while, Ben is recording. He has this sheepish grin on his face. It’s the kind of look that kids have when they know something big is going to happen, and they want to be a part of it, be it good or bad.
Don’t forget, Chrissy is focused on her book in the front seat. I turn my head to look back at the kids and ask, “What’s going on?” when I see it. Remember the box that I gave the kids while packing the van? Yeah, it wasn’t for Chrissy. I see the open box holding one of the huge frogs that the kids had caught at the cabin. I immediately ask, “What are you doing with that? At that moment I hear someone yell, “I was just checking on them!” That’s right it was plural, more than one. The rest well… the rest is is now known as the Frog Incident of ‘04.
The kids started loudly blaming each other and the dogs started going nuts. Meanwhile, Chrissy is still reading, totally oblivious to the situation. And we’re still traveling with the flow traffic.
Then some one yells, “I found one,” and I hear a loud “CROAK.” Then “Oh, there’s another one!” Then “Grab Max!” “Lily’s going to eat them!” “Wow! They’re fast!”
Finally, all this commotion broke through Chrissy’s reading focus. She looked at me and said, “What is going…” Right then midsentence, I saw a bullfrog stretched out like it was making an Olympic long jump, fly through the air into the front of the van, smack into the windshield, only to turn around and launch itself over Chrissy’s head. I remember yelling “Noooooo!” while trying to drive straight and grab the frog all at once.
The van was shaking with all the commotion.
The look of sheer horror on my beautiful bride’s face was terrifying, even to me. I have never seen anyone remove a seatbelt so fast in all my life, all the while screaming. She hurled her book at the rocketing, ribbiting creature– only to hit me with it. Watching her try to escape this frog, reminded me of cartoon characters trying to run but not going anywhere. The legs are moving, but they have no forward motion. She flew out of her seat and wedged herself up on the dash of the van.
It was only by the grace of God that we didn’t crash. Of course this is all happening in slow motion. Jumping frogs,  screaming wife, and next thing I saw was the camcorder flying through the air. It landed with a bounce on the passenger seat where Chrissy was sitting. I’m yelling, half laughing, “Get those frogs!” The kids are scrambling, yelling, grabbing frogs. I have a hyperventilating woman on the dash of the van.
I can only imagine what people were seeing or thinking as I tried to get to the side of the highway. 
I pull the van off to the side of the road, the side door flies open, and kids pour out with frogs in hands raised over their heads like they just won a major competition. I get out and run around to the other side of the van. Open my wife’s door and peel her off the dashboard.
I was sure that I would have to give her CPR or call an ambulance. I gave her a bag to breath in and out of as she sat on the edge of the van seat, in a somewhat catatonic state. I thought this would take years of rehabilitation and family counseling to recover from this one.
I somehow convinced her that the frogs are all accounted for, and I promised that we would release them on the side of the road.
After calming everyone down and reloading everyone back into the van, we had a talk about how we needed to respect all living things by leaving them in their own habitat.
We then discovered the camcorder on the floor between the front seats still recording. I remember that we were all so excited, because we had the video that was going to win us $10,000.00 on America’s Funniest Home Videos. But, after reviewing the tape we discovered that our budding videographer didn’t catch much video of the event. The only thing he caught was the audio of the whole ordeal. Which was very funny. Unfortunately, I can’t find the tape to share even the audio now.
So, this has so many life lessons and applications. The biggest thing the kids learned was, if you want to see mom freak out, just trap her in a small space with a scared amphibian! That friend’s, is the story of the Frogs from Wisconsin.

Don’t forget to comment, share your thoughts, and subscribe. Watch for next week’s story. “Turkey Breast, Not Turkey Roll!”