ÐnA | Family Affairs

We had a great time in Portugal at the PEP meeting. the best way i found to get there was to fly from Basel to Madrid, and from there to Porto. We spent the night with the folks in Madrid on the way down. That was nice to meet them and fellowship with those great guys!! Next morning we flew to Porto. as I mentioned, we had the same flights as Tino and Marz, so it was nice for the company as well as keeping Alice entertained.



Arriving at the airport in Porto, we met up with the metanoya folks from Paris. From there it was a metro and a train to the town of Esmoriz. Then a 10 minute walk to the location of the seminar site. All in all, it was a great time. Wine with lunch and dinner, soccer every day, out to the local cafe in the evenings for a beer with the other parents, great classes, great skits, great people....really great.

We arrived after mid-night, but I woke the kids to say hi. The boys smiled, hug and kiss, and rolled over back to sleep. Liani was anxious to tell us all that happened while we were gone. But soon enough she also dozed off. Thankfully we were able to rest today, as the trip yesterday was realllllllllly long. Up at 7:30, and out the door by 8:15....and arrived home 12:30 at night.




A big thanks to all who made this happen...those here at home who watched our kids, the CP board organizers, and all the others behind the scenes.

Angie and I will be traveling for 6 days to a parenting seminar in Portugal. It is the first time that both of us are away from the kids. So keep them (and us ) in your prayers.
We fly to Madrid and spend the night there, then on to Porto Sunday. Tino, Marz and Alice are on the same flights as us.... FUN!!!!
I hope I find some wifi spot down there.

Dan & Gin have a request on their blog...check it out:

We have incurred some extra expense in shipping stuff here which we weren’t aware of when we shipped some of our books and toys from California and are faced with raising @ 500 USD to clear it from customs as well as handle port fees. Ouch!

If you feel you can help us with this fund raising effort we would greatly appreciate it. We are accepting Paypal donations via the Button on the left hand column. Thanks for taking the time to consider this request. In return you will also receive a back link via a thank you page that I will setup once we start receiving donations.


Paypal link on their blog.

Here are some clips taken this evening at bed time. Pardon the poor quality: low lighting, my phone-cam, dirty lens, all added to the lacks. But she's still cute as ever.

Twinkle twinkle, little star....



ABCDEFG......

Having chosen English as the preferred language in the EEC (now officially the European Union, or EU), the European Parliament has commissioned a feasibility study in ways of improving efficiency in communications between government departments.
European officials have often pointed out that English spelling is unnecessarily difficult; for example: cough, rough, through and thorough. What is clearly needed is a phased program of changes to iron out these anomalies. The program would, of course, be administered by a committee staff at top level by participating nations. In the first year, for example, the committee would suggest using `s' instead of the soft `c'. Sertainly, sivil servants in all sities would resieve this news with joy. Then the hard `c' could be replaced by `k' sinse both letters are pronounsed alike. Not only would this klear up konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but typewriters kould be made with one less letter.
There would be growing enthusiasm when in the sekond year, it would be anounsed that the troublesome `ph' would henseforth be written `f'. This would make words like `fotograf' twenty persent shorter in print. In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kould be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments would enkourage the removal of double letters which have always been a deterent to akurate speling.
We would al agre that the horible mes of silent `e's in the language is disgraseful. Therefor we kould drop thes and kontinu to read and writ as though nothing had hapend. By this tim it would be four years sins the skem began and peopl would be reseptiv to steps sutsh as replasing `th' by `z'. Perhaps zen ze funktion of `w' kould be taken on by `v', vitsh is, after al, half a `w'. Shortly after zis, ze unesesary `o' kould be dropd from words kontaining `ou'. Similar arguments vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. Kontinuing zis proses yer after yer, ve vud eventuli hav a reli sensibl riten styl. After tventi yers zer vud be no mor trubls, difikultis and evrivun vud fin it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drems of the guvermnt vud finali hav kum tru.