Happy Birthday Charles!!!

13 years ago, I was preparing to meet my second son. After a quick 23 hour labor my Chuckie was born.

Here is where a lot of people would share all the birth details. I won't do that LOL However, I will share who Chuck is-- that's far more important anyway, isn't it?


Chuck was named for my grandfathers: Charlie Drake (but dont call Chuck "Charlie", he doesn't like it) and Frederick Schroder. I never met either of my grandfathers, and don't know too much about thier personalities. I do know that Charles inherited some of Grandpa Charlie's anxiety. He tends to worry easily, and needs to know that things will be ok.

Chuck is a bit of a fun loving goofball. He loves small children, and works very well with them. He is an entertainer, and can always attract attention-- cracking jokes, juggling, and just, well, being Chuckish.





Chuck is my fireball. Nothing is small, EVERYTHING is big. He loves big, he thinks big, and he feels big. He often reminds me of Simon Peter. I can absolutely see Charles running past everyone and into the tomb to find Jesus. I can see him getting fired up and slicing off someone's ear in defense of someone he loves-- and I can imagine the "Awww, DANG!" look on his face when the ear fell to the ground!! I can see him jumping out of the boat and swimming to shore when he sees his best Friend waiting for him. I see in Chuck the same passion, loyalty, and boldness that we see in Peter. Yes, definitely some of the same faults as well, but my prayer for Charles is that the Lord uses him in a big way, as He did Peter.

This is a picture of Charles not doing anything particularly "Chuckish", but don'tcha just LOVE those eyes?

Public Transit "Experiment" Results...

I've been meaning to update with the results of our bus "experiment". It went well, but, of course, wasn't perfect. We will probably continue to use public transportation on occasion, but for the most part, it won't work for us on a regular basis.
We did have a wonderful time using the buses. We met all sorts of people, from all sorts of backgrounds. Elderly, disabled, people going to work, college students, and other families. Everyone we came across was friendly--even those that tried their best not to notice Lyddie smiling and saying "hi", finally gave in and accepted her gift. The buses were very clean, and pretty much on time.

Our local public transit won't work for us to use on a regular basis for multiple reasons. The primary reason is that it serves only the city. Aliana's piano lessons and our homeschool co-op are both outside city limits in neighboring counties. While church is on the busline, the buses don't run on Sunday, and Wednesday night church lets out too late to ride the bus back home. Piano, co-op, and church are our primary outings.

We will likely continue using the bus occasionally. During the summer, we will go to the park more frequently, and will likely utilize the bus for that. We will also ride for light shopping trips and library visits. All but 1 of our dr.s are on the bus line, so we can do those appointments also. Most surprisingly, both of the menfolk who were the MOST opposed to ever riding the bus, have both expressed interest in using it for regular transportation to work!

I think our experiment went pretty well. We learned about public transportation. We now know how to get where we need to go. Mostly, we had fun, and we enjoyed each other while learning something new.