Happy Anniversary to us!

(That's 18 years for those keeping count.)

I am as random as they come

(from Tamie)

Only five random facts? Just five? Honestly, I am the most random person ever and could easily fill a book.

In no particular order, as a testament to my randomness ...

1. I love cookie recipes. Nothing makes me happier than finding a new cookie recipe, baking up a batch with my kids and having everyone proclaim they are the best cookies ever, which happened today, in fact! We made the winning recipe from this year's Pillsbury Bake-off, which I will happily provide upon request. (Bonus random tidbit: I run from everything else that's remotely domestic except for cookie-baking.)

2. I am easily bored by my hair. I am known to frequently change cuts, styles and colors just to mix things up a bit - and even then I fix it differently almost every day.

3. I really, really want to visit Australia and/or New Zealand. If you'd like to buy my plane ticket, just let me know.

4. I have to sleep on my left side with the covers over my ear. If I'm really cold, as is often the case in my own bedroom because of Chilly Willy, AHEM, I'll pull the covers completely over my head. But I have to have a cool pillowcase against my cheek - go figure. When CW travels, I turn on the ceiling fan, set it on low, and turn the other fan on and point it at the wall, just for familiar white noise.

5. I'm right-handed, but I make left-handed check marks. They're much more interesting, I decided in first grade, and so that's been my MO ever since.

OK, I just re-read Bobby's random facts and now know that I can be a bit more random. Here are two more:

6. My Bible has a giant red Kool-Aid stain on the outside pages courtesy of our first family mission trip. I'm sure anyone who sees my Bible probably thinks it's gross, but it makes me smile all the time. Happy memories.

7. I have no sense of direction at all. I only know east and west as it relates to Quail Springs Mall. Thankfully, Oklahoma City is laid out on a grid. The greater Nashville area ... not so much. I spent the 11 months we lived there driving around in circles. I found many Backyard Burger restaurants that way, however.

Tagged: Seven random facts about myself

(from Bobby, in late-night rambling mode)

Terry tagged me (and Tamie).

Our assignment: List seven random facts about ourselves on our blog, then tag five other bloggers. If you are a blogger and reading this, consider yourself TAGGED. Please stopping tagging yourselves after we reach FIVE.

Tamie is asleep, no doubt dreaming elaborate dreams about David Duncan, pulpits and pizza. So, I'll take the liberty of providing random facts for myself, and Tamie can offer her own sometime when she's awake.

BOBBY'S RANDOM FACTS

1. I am in three fantasy baseball leagues. The Fellowship Fantasy League is a points-based keeper league in its fourth season, meaning that my Ross Rangers score points based on offensive stats each day (such as 1.5 points for a run, four points for a home run, etc.) My team started today in first place (for the first time in a while). "Keeper league" means that we don't redraft every year, but keep and develop players over time through free agent pickups, the waiver wire and trades. My pitching is collecting points "over its head" so far this season, but my offense is pretty nice and should produce all year. My lineup includes the likes of C Russell Martin, 1B Albert Pujols, 2B Chase Utley, SS Jimmy Rollins (with SS Troy Tulowitzski on the bench!), 3B Chipper Jones, OF Ichiro Suzuki, OF Josh Hamilton (budding Texas Rangers superstar) and a number of other stars. I also am in two other head-to-head leagues where teams play each other weekly and you get "wins and losses": My team "Goober's Gamers" are in the Mayberry League and my other "Ross Rangers" are in the Brothers of the Barbecue League. I am so far doing OK in Andy's hometown, but struggling pretty badly in the BBQ world. Alas, enough rambling about fantasy baseball! But it is FUN!

2. I attended two summers of high school journalism summer camp at Abilene Christian University and planned to attend college there until Oklahoma Christian sent a nice recruiter to my house and made me change my mind. I had never been to Oklahoma until the spring of my senior year of high school when I attended a scholarship dinner at Oklahoma Christian. Who knew that I'd meet my wife at Oklahoma Christian, all my children would be born in Oklahoma, and that -- 22 years after my high school graduation -- I could say that I have lived 19 years in the Sooner State?

3. My three years away from Oklahoma were when I worked for The Associated Press for a year in Nashville and two years in Dallas before moving back to Oklahoma in 2005 to join the Chronicle. In a strange way, the best decision I ever made was when I left The Oklahoman after nine years in 2002 and moved away to work for AP. I grew so much as a person and a journalist in my time with AP, and proved to myself that I could succeed in a big-time news environment. So, I have no regrets -- and feel like I am fulfilling my life's calling back "home" in Oklahoma. Monday marks the beginning of my fourth year with the Chronicle. Time flies when you're having fun!

4. I have had "writer's block" lately when it comes to blogging. Not sure why exactly. But the thoughts are flowing tonight, or is it morning? Guess Tamie's frequent posts in recent days have inspired me to contribute myself to "our" blog.

5. Mom and Dad are coming to watch Brady, Keaton and Kendall next week when Tamie and I fly to Los Angeles for the Pepperdine Lectureship. I am looking forward to returning to Pepperdine (it is just such a beautiful campus), but as much as I fly, it always makes me nervous. I like nothing better than LANDING!

6. I sleep with four blankets and two fans running, 365 nights a year (well, as many nights as I'm home). The blankets are necessary because it can get quite chilly with those fans going full blast. My wife thinks I'm NUTS, and maybe I am.

7. I just watched the first four seasons of "JAG" on Netflix and can't wait for season five's release on May 20. Tamie, on the other hand, thinks this is an awful show. She laughs in all the wrong places. In the interim, I have started season one of "NCIS." It appears that my TV critic wife may like this "JAG" spinoff" better than the original.

OK, tagging assignment completed! Well, almost ...

Bonus random fact: The last two digits of my Social Security number are LOW. And I read tonight where my economic stimulus money from Uncle Sam and George W. could be deposited into my account as soon as Monday. Given that we get paid monthly and payday isn't until Wednesday, I must say that an early deposit of economic stimulus money on Monday would not be an unwelcome surprise.

Cheers! Thanks for reading!

Telling on my baby

(from Tamie)

Kendall will be 9 on July 9. We will spend that day driving 900 miles across a big chunk of the U.S. OK, not quite 900, but many more than 9.

So we're planning her birthday party a month early for that reason, and so her friends can more likely make it. She's very, very happy about this. So thrilled in fact, that despite all the dancing around, giggling and other exuberance, she could no longer express her joy to her satisfaction.

"I wish I had a tail," she declared, "so I could wag it."

Boy, don't we all.

By the way, she chose the cute little Dalmatian photo above. While she begged me not to share the story. :)

Telling on myself

(from Tamie)

Last night at church, a friend/awesome mom/general all-around fantastic/kicking tail at the Y kind of girl congratulated me on blogging regularly again.

I had to admit to her it was because Bobby was out of town and I didn't have anyone to listen to all my minutiae.

Since I'm telling on myself today, I'll share the April installment of Crazy Things That Happen to Tamie at Work. (You may remember a previous episode, where I nearly impaled a college student with a bathroom stall door in the Bible building - must look for that link.)

A few weeks ago, I started smelling a strange odor in my office. It smelled like ... well, there's really no way to sugar-coat this. It smelled like a dead animal. It was faint and intermittent, but it was there, by golly.

When you smell something strange, it never fails: You want other people to smell it, too. I have no idea why we're wired this way, but admit it - if you sniff the milk and it doesn't smell so fresh, you need either sympathy or confirmation from the person standing closest to you.

So I mentioned the strange smell to Virginia, who is all about getting to the bottom of weird things that happen (one of the many things I love about Virginia.) She goes into full-on Nancy Drew and starts sniffing around my office. She smells NOTHING. I am completely unprepared for this because Virginia's nose is legendary. We sniff all around. At one point, no joke, I had my NOSE UP AGAINST THE ELECTRICAL OUTLET. Nothing. Tonda comes in and sniffs. Nothing. We recruit random folks to poke their heads in and breathe. Nada.

This goes on for a week or so, on and off, with no one smelling the faint-yet-repulsive dead animal smell except me. Virginia files a maintenance report (poor OC maintenance people, no doubt drawing straws to see who has to climb into the bowels of the Bible building and see what carnage awaits.)

A day or so later, I walk into my closet at home and smell THE TERRIBLE SMELL. Oh my goodness, it has followed me home! I start looking around, sniffing everything in sight. I pick up my new favorite pair of shoes, these cute white leather ones I just bought.

Cue the music. I sniff the tops of my pretty white shoes. Oh my goodness, I about lost my lunch - they smelled AWFUL!

The only conclusion I have is that maybe, possibly, they were treated with some toxic chemical to keep them cute and white. And that when I wore them to work and sat down at my computer for a long time, my nose was close enough to my shoes to detect the awfulness - no one else had the same perspective.

I'm sure you'll all rejoice with me and the OC maintenance folks now that the source of THE TERRIBLE SMELL has been found. I do know how to clear a room ...

Oh-so-strange dream (warning, not for the fainthearted)

(from Tamie)

Last night I dreamed about David Duncan.

I'll pause now and give everyone (especially Barbara) a moment to recover.


.
..
...
....

OK, here's the dream. A whole big bunch of us were at the church in Harrah, Okla., where I grew up. David was preaching that day for some special event.

We were all standing around talking before services, and David told me he was going to do something truly shocking, something that would completely knock people's socks off. Those were his words, folks: shocking and socks.

At the appointed hour (got to love the CoC lingo) he began his sermon. It was completely appropriate and David-esque until ...

He paused. And stepped back. And reached inside the pulpit (there were shelves inside where the sound equipment rested) and pulled out a huge slice of pepperoni pizza. Then he took a big bite.

Everyone was speechless except for me. I began laughing so loudly that I woke myself up.

So I have no idea (a) where David was going with this particular illustration or (b) whether he finished the pizza, because honestly, I don't think pepperoni is his favorite, which of course leads us to (c) why on earth I would dream something like this.

So, always one to look for a little wisdom, I consulted the Google-approved Dream Moods Dictionary.

Pizza

To see or eat pizza in your dream, represents abundance, choices, and variety. It may also indicate that you are lacking or feeling deprived of something.

Why yes, I am deprived of something. PIZZA. Totally makes sense to dream about pizza. But why would David be the one eating it and not me? This makes me wonder about

Church

To dream that you are in a church, suggests that you are seeking for some spiritual enlightenment and guidance. You are looking to be uplifted in some way. Perhaps you have made some mistakes in the past which have set you back on your path toward your goals. With proper support, you will get on the right track again. Alternatively, it may also mean that you are questioning and debating your life path and where it is leading. You are reevaluating what you want to do.

This obviously has something to do with me being a sub-standard third grade Bible class teacher on Wednesday nights. I choose not to blame Mrs. Thomas, my own third-grade teacher (although her husband, who was high school principal, totally busted me at high school graduation when my friend Kelli and I tried to spell out something cute on top of our mortarboards) and therefore suggests

Childhood

To dream of your childhood, indicates your wish to return to a life where you had little responsibility and worries. It also represents innocence. Alternatively, it suggests that certain aspects of your childhood has not yet been integrated into your adult personality. Or on the other hand, some childhood anxiety has yet to be resolved in your adult life.

Well there you go. Obviously David doesn't have the same issues I have. He is perfectly comfortable coming to my childhood church and eating pizza in the pulpit. Then there is the highly controversial

Laughing

To dream that you are laughing, suggests that you need to lighten up and let go of your problems.

Must ponder this more as time allows.

The scene opens ...

(from Tamie)

... with Cara, Makayla and Kendall all sitting at a table in the third grade
classroom last Wednesday night. (We worked on notes to missionaries-in-training Brent and Jill Nichols and Zane and April McGee at the end of class.)

Cara: I'm writing my letters in cursive.
Makayla: Me too.
Kendall: I'm printing mine.
Makayla: Why?
Kendall: Because I'm not sure Brent and Jill can read cursive.
Tamie: Kendall! Adults can read cursive. It's OK to write your note in
cursive.
Kendall: OK then, Jill can read cursive. But I'm not so sure about Brent.

Really, I wish that Ross child's parents would do a better job teaching her manners.

----------

We have established AND documented that teaching Bible classes aren't my forte. I finally figured out why: The children are totally on to me. They know that I'm putty in their hands, so easily entertained and distracted. I'm like the substitute teacher we always longed for in middle school (her name was Mrs. Brooks) who we could totally play. Every Wednesday night now I'm getting my just dessert, let me assure you.

"Miss Tamie, can we play (insert name of fun game here) where you ask us questions and we do (X, Y and Z) while we answer them? Oh please oh please oh please?

When they're in Remedial Minor Prophets someday, I'll be the one to blame.

More on Mexico, for those who demanded it

(from Tamie)

We've logged some complaints about The Ross News.com in recent weeks (not ON the blog, which is funny in and of itself!)

It seems a few folks were counting on more of a missions report than we offered about this year's Spring Break trip. And they have let us know of their displeasure with people who call themselves writers not ... well, writing.

There are a few reasons for our veritable silence. Which I'll lamely offer up before I give in and tell a little more.

First, the trip is really demanding. In a good way, sure, but it takes a lot out of you at the same time it fills you up. A spiritual transfusion sounds like a nice illustration until you think of the recovery time - which gets longer each year for me!

Second, and this is a very strange thing, but some folks don't like their lives or daily activities splashed all over the Internet. I can't tell you how often people say to me after a funny exchange, "Hey, wait a moment ... this isn't going to show up on your BLOG, is it?" Whereas our children now beg for us to blog about them, normal people wince at the thought. So it's a balancing act of sensitivity for people who may not always trend toward such.

Third, I try to wait until all the laundry is done before I talk about a trip. I'll let the timing of this post speak for itself. :)

--------------

We knew this year would be a different trip than the previous ones. You don't invite one side of your extended family along without knowing everyone is in for some adjustments.

But then again, like everything else in life, you never really know. :)

Bobby's parents were troopers. They tried to understand the craziness and the logic behind so much of what we do. They worked hard to adjust to life with 190 people in close quarters after the briefest of introductions. They appreciated the beauty of the people and the place, even when it wasn't easy.

They probably won't make a return trip, but that's OK - some things need only be experienced once (like plumbing trouble inside a tent, for instance.) We'll just leave that one right where it is.

----------------

Also in the "we-knew-this-would-be-different" category were our travel arrangements. Riding with one of our favorite people in the world, John Trotter, has become our tradition. John grew up in the same part of the world as my parents and knew my late grandfather, so hours spent talking to him seemed like minutes. And his love of the people in the valley really helped define our expectations about this trip the first few years.

This year, I offered to drive, which we figured was the least we could do what with filling up a whole van of Rosses and all. Let's just say that a merciful God and the prayers of many, many righteous people are the reasons we're all still here. That is a LOT of driving - 2,700 miles according to the back of our t-shirts, which also include helpful trivia about toilet tissue, burros and slices of bread. Trot was with me, at least mentally, for a lot of the trip. I heard myself saying some of the things he had told me on my first trip to our first-timers - about Joshua Trees and landmarks. I missed him, but maybe it was time to be kicked out of the nest.

-----------------

This is quickly becoming more of a compare/contrast than an actual account of the trip, which hopefully won't incite further riot. :) But to that end, one of the most memorable parts this year for me came on our trip home, specifically the last four hours or so of our drive.

After we dropped my sister-in-law and her two sons off at their home near Fort Worth, and once we had deposited my in-laws at their home nearby, the five of us hopped back in the van for the last 200 miles. I figured Bobby would sack out, the kids would each claim their own row in the 15-passenger van and I'd turn on the radio.

Not so. All three of our children piled into the front row (this REALLY surprised me, because the whole way there and back, every seatbelt was taken - I just knew they would want a little breathing room). They wanted to talk about their experiences, their thoughts, their hopes for future trips. And they wanted to hear everyone else's, too.

That time was and still is so precious to me. I had seen glimpses of that level of understanding on the trip, just little comments they made or small gestures here and there. But hearing all three of them talk about how much they love serving and working and soaking in the experience of missions ... they get it. They really get it. And I am so, so grateful for and humbled by that.

One of my deepest prayers is that we can take every opportunity to enlarge their worlds.

Here's a video that will show lots more than I could ever tell, courtesy our friend Evan Burkett, Edmond's college minister:

Whine, whine, whine

(from Bobby)

I have spent the better part of two weeks whining about my crashed hard drive.

Well, now I have taken whining to a whole new level by writing my May Chronicle column about the experience.

Television, cultural relevance and a little mommy guilt

(from Tamie)

There are the shows we'll admit to watching, and then there are those we won't. Bobby and I would never cop to the fact, for instance, that we watch "Desperate Housewives." Really, it's a "don't ask, don't tell" policy we have with that particular comedy-drama.

But I'm coming out of the closet after last night's episode, where Lynette Scavo decides that God deserves some "face time" after seeing her through some particularly bad life circumstances (cancer, deadly tornado, etc.)

Without giving away the plot and the outcome, I found myself sitting in a pew somewhere else in the sanctuary, wincing as Lynette raised her hand. And then wishing I hadn't.

I mean really, how amazing would it be to see a true seeker, someone so inexperienced and genuine, in one of our assemblies?

(And speaking of shows we'll admit to watching, did anyone catch a particular song from last Thursday night and have to manually close their mouth? I keep waiting for a contestant who will purposely choose contemporary Christian songs each week.)

*******

I've been put on notice.

Next week is testing week for the K-kids, and Keaton takes his teachers' instructions very seriously. He told Bobby and me over the weekend that I (and I quote) am to "prepare 5-star breakfasts every morning during testing week.

Cruising through the McDonald's drive-through doesn't cut it, he added.

This child routinely cracks us up. In my office, I have a homemade card he made, one that visitors often laugh about. It reads:

"I love you, Mom! I appreciate how you work hard to keep are (sic) house in order. Love, youre (sic) son, Keaton R."

It's a half-compliment, I assure you.

Remember us ... the quiet ones?

(from Tamie)

Just when you think life couldn't possibly get any busier ... there goes your blog-time!

I don't know where to start trying to catch up. These are our younger two children, Keaton and Kendall. They live with us. :)









Our older one doesn't tell us when school pictures are going to be taken. Instead, I try to snap cell phone photos of him when he's not looking.



Frosty was looking, but he seemed cool enough with it.

It's time for an all-new Office! Who's with me here?

World's worst bloggers

Yeah, yeah, we know. We really shouldn't post so often. But we just can't help ourselves.