Burger King and the Cleavage Queen

I've gone insane again and decided we needed to do another big Halloween thing.  This will be our last Halloween in Lafayette before moving back to the land where the trick-or-treater is an endangered species.

The first time we did this was 4 years ago with some friends from church.  Our neighborhood gets bombarded with hundreds of inner city kids every Halloween so we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to love on them a little.  We put together this big Wizard of Oz thing where we all dressed up like a character from the movie, we built our own version of the Emerald City, we had the soundtrack playing in the background, and we gave out candy along with a little handmade book that shared the gospel Wizard of Oz style.  The kids really seemed to love it, even though some of them had never seen the Wizard of Oz and had no idea what we were doing.  They thought the Tin Man was a robot!  That didn't stop them from acting like we were the main attraction at Disney World.  Every kid wanted Mama to take their picture with one of us.  That was a little bizarre, we weren't expecting that.  It was exhausting but fun and hopefully the message got into the hands of those who needed it.

For the past couple of years I'd been thinking about doing a Willy Wonka themed thing, but we're kind of limited on character choices for that one.  Actually, I guess there's plenty of characters to choose from when you consider Charlie's grandparents and all, but they're just not fun characters.  Then a few weeks ago I thought about Alice in Wonderland.  That one has lots of fun characters to choose from and we have both the old and the new versions to play with.  I just wish Alice had a better soundtrack.  The Wizard of Oz soundtrack is fantastic but Alice....not so much.  We may have to improvise a little.

For the set, I'm thinking we'll have the Mad Hatter's tea party, maybe a game of croquet going on in the front yard, and definitely some giant mushrooms.  Heck, let's go all out and put the caterpillar on the couch and let him wile away the hours on his water pipe.  We all know what he was smoking in that thing.  In fact I'm pretty sure Lewis Carroll was on an acid trip when he wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.  Then we could set up black lights all over the place and play Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit in the background while we all complain about the establishment.  I'm sensing that I may have gotten off track a bit.  Anyway, we'll figure something out.

Over the weekend Jayson, Taylor and I picked out our costumes at Old Vogue.  Yes, we take the weenie way out and rent our costumes.  There is no way we could put together the whole Halloween experience and our own costumes too.  I ran out of that kind of energy when I was about 38.  Renting them is pricey but it's worth it to us.

Jayson is supposed to be the King of Hearts but he looks an awful lot like the Burger King.  His outfit comes with these little short king pants and he's supposed to wear tights with them.  I CAN'T WAIT to see him put on a pair of tights!

Taylor was supposed to be the White Queen but given her costume and hair choice, we're calling her the Off White Queen.  They even had these adorable boots to match.  We were talking about the White Queen's makeup and how she has this really dark red lipstick and black eyebrows.  Taylor's fine with the red lips but when I suggested she use a black eyebrow pencil to darken her brows she looked at me as if I had just told her I wanted her to quit college and become a stripper.  She absolutely refuses to darken her brows in any way, shape or form.  I had no idea she was so protective of her brows.  My bad.

I am the Queen of Hearts or the Red Queen.  I will have to add a little undershirt to my costume since it is made in such a way that if I inhale while wearing it, I will completely ooze out of the top of it.  This could be traumatizing for the children and no picnic for me either.  I treat cleavage sort of like the good china.  It's only for adults and you only bring it out on special occasions.  Halloween doesn't qualify.

Now that costumes are out of the way, I can obsess over the set.  I see some chicken wire in my future which means there will likely be injuries to go with it. 

The Most Bestest Church Staff Ever

A few months ago we switched the church website over to a Blogger site since it's so much easier to update than the nightmare we were using. We have a page on our new site (Get to Know Us) where we've listed all the staff positions and contact info. I asked everyone to send me a picture of themselves to put on that page because people who are looking for a church sometimes like to see if the staff looks at least semi-normal. Or maybe that's just me. The first thing I do when I go to another church's website is check out their staff page to see what everyone looks like. If they look all perfect like they're carved out of cream cheese, I'm not going there.

I have had zero response to my request for pictures so that means it's up to me. God help them all. I've carefully chosen some pictures of our staff from my own photo archives, their Facebook pages, and the few websites that popped up during my Google search and managed to make it through our filters. Before putting them on the official website, I thought I would test drive them here.

I would love to know what you would think if you saw these pictures on a church website. Do the people look friendly? Do they look approachable and "real"? Would you visit a church with a staff like this? Have you seen any of these people on America's Most Wanted? You know...basic stuff like that.

Dennis Malcolm
Senior Pastor








This is what Dennis looks like every Monday morning.


Marti Thomas
Executive Pastor











Marti doesn't let her position on the staff prevent her from expressing her girlish femininity.

Tim Osborne
Mission/Men/Small Groups Pastor









Tim carries a ladder with him everywhere he goes because it makes him feel closer to God.

Joel Sprayberry
Worship Arts Leader







Well, he's an artist. Whaddya gonna do?

Matt Adams
Youth and Children's Pastor










He deals with high school and middle school kids all day every day.  You have to be a little "off" to do that.

Barbara Quebedeaux
Office Administrator











It's a little known fact that there were originally 4 girls in the Brady Bunch. Barbara was the oldest sister, Beatrice, who secretly eloped with Richie Cunningham's older brother who we also never saw.

Shannon Green
Arts & Communications Administrator











I'm actually the most authentic one on staff.

Courtney Tribe
Children's Creative Assistant










Although we don't allow smoking in the office, Courtney does enjoy a stogie on her personal time. And as you can see, we are facial hair friendly.

Sadly, this is only a portion of our staff. I was not able to get pictures of our other staff members, Susan Smith, Grace Guidry, Nancy Hocutt and Keri Culotta because their websites were blocked by our ultra Christian appropriateness filters. That's the rumor I'm going to start if they don't send me pictures.

Even though I didn't request pictures from them, I ran across a few pictures of our elders that I thought the general public might like to see. These are the spiritual leaders of our church, the men who meet and pray regularly to tackle all the big decisions.

Senior pastor Dennis Malcolm is also on the elder board at Trinity. Few people know that the time he spent as one of the Rockettes is how he paid for seminary.











As a respected elder here at Trinity, you can see that Bob Kulbeth is brimming with intelligence, decisiveness, and the ability to come up with solutions for complex churchy problems.











Rusty Dunn has been instrumental in helping to promote many ministries here at trinity, including those for men and small groups. Men of all ages seek him out for his mentoring abilities.









Mark Thomas (who insists on being called Hoss) is married to our executive pastor Marti Thomas. Don't they make a cute couple? It's a good thing Mark and Marti are so down to earth, otherwise people would be jealous of their fashion sense.










So that's our highly respected, uber Christian staff, men and women of God who are modeling what it means to be a follower of Jesus. I just feel so fortunate to be able to surround myself with their wisdom on a daily basis. I feel extra fortunate when their wisdom is tied up in meetings all day which has allowed me to pay this unsupervised tribute to them. Hallelujah.

Church, Frogs and Rocks

Our last official vacation day was a long one but a fun one.  We drove in to Eureka Springs and headed straight for St. Elizabeth's Church.  It's unusual because the entrance is through the bell tower.  It's a beautiful little chapel and Jayson was helpful in explaining all of the statues and symbolism of the Catholic church.

Inside the foyer there were 4 statues with candles in front of them where you can pray.   We understood all of the statues except one.  Apparently you can pray to Jesus, Mary, St. Therese or Friar Tuck.

Along the walkway up to the entrance of the church we noticed that there was a separate building which we assumed was the priest's house since there was a satellite dish and a barbecue grill.  The roof of the house and the yard below was full of coins.  I wasn't sure if this was a Catholic tradition or just a "thing" for this particular church, but it looked like we were supposed to toss a coin onto the roof so we did.  Well, Taylor did.  She chucked her coin which looked like it was going to make a perfect landing on the upper part of the roof but then it turned onto its side, rolled down the roof and landed in the yard below.  We figured that meant her wish wasn't going to come true.  It's my guess that these coins are considered some kind of offering and are probably collected from time to time but I really wanted to make a suggestion to the priest:  Dude, put in gutters, you're lawnmower probably eats up a couple of happy meals every time you mow.

As we drove to our next destination, I fell in love with Eureka Springs and decided that we need to retire there.  Fortunately, Jayson agreed.  It's quaint, quiet (except for the more touristy parts), the architecture is amazing and it's full of arts and crafts of all kinds.  I can just see us living in a quirky little house (with lots of bottle trees) and driving around town on our scooters.  OOooo!  Or matching Segways!  I, of course, will be part of the local hippie art colony where I will make new junk out of old junk to sell to the tourists and I'll design custom tattoos for senior citizens.  Jayson will play golf until he gets more holes in one than my Uncle Fred.

We stopped by Frog Fantasies hoping to see their huge collection of frogs, but they had just moved into a new place and don't have room for their collection which is packed up in 50 banana boxes right now.  They had a few things on display and for sale and we had a nice visit with the old frog guy. 

From there we made our way to Thorncrown Chapel.  I had seen pictures online and knew it would be amazing and it was.  The architecture is incredible.  It has over 400 windows from floor to ceiling and is surrounded by a beautiful wooded area.  All of the furnishings and decor inside the chapel mimics the architecture of the building, making it a cohesive, beautiful experience.  I loved it!

After a quick lunch downtown we headed to Quigley Castle, which I had been looking forward to all week.  Everywhere we went, Jayson & Taylor asked me why we were going there, what we would see, what was so special about it, etc.  I had no idea.  I caught a glimpse of this stuff on the internet, it looked cool so we went.  They both thought that Quigley Castle was the "big cheese" of this trip but I had to disagree.  I didn't find it cheesy at all, I loved it.  Yes, it was a little overkill but it was definitely a one of a kind experience.  Mrs. Quigley had a large collection of rocks, stones, shells, marbles, etc. that she used to completely cover the outside of her house as well as anything else that would sit still.  She made sculptures from her collection and also has a lot of big, free standing chunks of minerals.  And the bottle trees!  I love bottle trees and I lost count of how many she had.

The inside of her house is just as spectacular.  The perimeter of the interior is surrounded by a "garden mote" where she has 2-story tall trees and plants growing inside.  Really, really interesting.  I think Jayson wasn't crazy about the whole Quigley experience because he was afraid it would push me over the deep end.  I saw it as a glimpse into the heart of someone's passion.  Jayson saw it as a glimpse into the mind of a crazy person and I think he was frightened at how much it resembled the mind of his wife.  Silly man.  He doesn't have to worry about me sticking stuff all over the outside of our house.  My collection is big enough.  Yet.

That's How We Roll

What day is this?  Day 5?  Day 43?  I think the fun is starting to wear off of the Green Family Arkansas Vacation.  We're starting to get a little cranky and on each others nerves and frankly, I'm surprised we've lasted this long.

But...all is not lost.  I knew it was only a matter of time before we turned on each other but experience has shown there is a cure for this.  All we need is some outside force to come along and either try to fix things for us or start picking on one of us.  If either of those things happen, we will band together like a pack of rabid hyenas and tear the outsider limb from limb.  The bonding process caused by the unwelcome outside force will cause us to completely forget about whatever little petty differences we had and we will be rebonded for a few more days.  Or at least long enough to get us home where we can each have control of our own TV.

The plan for today is to do as many of the touristy things in Eureka Springs as we can.  If the past week has been any indication, we will accomplish exactly 2 of those things.  But this is not a bad thing since most of the fun happens between the activities and is not the actual activity itself.  The road signs alone have been well worth the trip.  These are the choices we will have to narrow down:

The old Wal Mart store in Bentonville.
Terra Studios in Durham
In Eureka Springs:
     Art Colony
     Frog Fantasies
     Quigley's Castle
     St. Elizabeth's Church
     Thorncrown Chapel
     Turpentine Creek
     5 more caverns

I have a feeling that anything with "art" or "studio" in it will get voted down but that's when I'll fire the ammo I accumulated at the prison exhibit in Little Rock.  If I had to learn all about the Tucker Telephone (and believe me, I could have lived my whole life without knowing that), then by gosh this family can surely suffer through a little glass blowing.  I may have to call in outside reinforcements and have some stranger start telling Jayson & Taylor how stupid I am for wanting to see some art studios.  But my luck, that plan will backfire and I will be ditched for the art-hating replacement.  Better not risk it.

Mr. Chatty Pants, Bad Juju, and the Mennonite Women

This morning during breakfast I laid out our plan for the day which was to visit 2 cave sites.  The first was the Mystic Cavern which includes the Crystal Dome Cavern and is only 8 miles south of Harrison.  The second site was the Cosmic Cavern located near Berryville, AR.

The Crystal Dome Cavern is small but it is pristine.  It has been preserved since its discovery so there is very little damage that has been caused by humans.  In fact, the only real damaged area is shown in the picture on the right.  The tour guide said these are footprints of the man who accidentally discovered the cave.  He saw what he thought was a 5' hole in the ground.  He wanted to explore the hole so he took off his boots so he wouldn't get them muddy or wet.  He jumped down barefoot into the hole and discovered that it was over a 10' drop.  You can see his bare footprints in the rock because the oils from human skin cause rock formations to stop growing.  That's the story we were told.

I have a couple of problems with that story.  Yes, there are a couple of indentations in the rock that resemble bare human feet.  But I'm thinking that if I jumped down into a hole that I thought was 5' deep and it ended up being 10' deep, the chances of me landing on my feet are pretty slim.  There would be a butt print accompanying those foot prints and a couple of palm prints to get me back on my feet.  And even if Mr. Cave Discoverer did manage to land on his feet, where are the rest of the foot prints?  Did he just remain frozen in that position until someone lifted him straight out of the cave?  Not likely.  I really wanted to tell that tour guide chick that there was no way her story could be true, it was completely illogical and she really shouldn't believe everything she's told without thinking through it first...but I didn't. She was so proud of those footprints I decided to let someone else pee in her Wheaties.

The Mystic Cavern was much larger than the Crystal Dome but shortly after its discovery it was used to hide a moonshine still so there is all kinds of damage down there.  Despite that, it still has a lot of beautiful formations.

After the Mystic Cavern we headed back to Harrison for lunch and a pit stop.  Let me just say, the timing for this trip has been perfect.  Kids are either starting school this week or getting ready for it next week so there are no crowds anywhere.  And the temperature in those caves is around 60 degrees which is a little slice of heaven in mid August.

After our little break we drove to Cosmic Cavern in Berryville, AR.  While we waited in the gift shop for the next tour to start, some guy whose brother-in-law used to live in either Lafayette or Lake Charles tried to get all chatty with me.  Apparently he was immune to the "don't talk to me I'm not friendly" vibes I was giving off.  I had to chew off my own leg to get away from him and once free, I dutifully notified Jayson that there were friendly people in our tour group and showed him which ones to avoid.  I'm just a thoughtful wife that way.

Mr. Chatty Pants then decided to take advantage of one of the Cavern's ultra cheesy ways to separate the tourists from their cash.  You buy this bag of sand that has a variety of stones and "jewels" in it.  Then you take your bag to this big trough with running water in it and you pan for the jewels you just bought.  In his defense, Mr. Pants (I don't know him well enough to call him Chatty) had about a dozen kids with him and this was a good way to keep them occupied for a good 10 minutes.

The Cavern gal took Mr. Pants' money from him and led him and his children over to a wheelbarrow full of plastic bags of sand.  She showed the children how to shake off the bad juju then let their hand hover over each sand bag until they were hovering over the bag that made their hand feel warm.  When they found the warm bag, that's the one they were meant to have.  Mr. Pants and his children shook off their juju then did the hovering hand thing and chose their hot bag.  I can promise you that from now on the Green family will not make a single decision on this trip without shaking off our juju and doing the hand hovering thing over our choices.

The Cosmic Cavern was also used to hide a moonshine still so there was a lot of damage to it but, again, it was still beautiful.  It has 2 bottomless lakes in it...no one has been able to find the bottom or even determine how deep it might go.  There were a lot of steep stairs in this cavern and some very tight spaces to squeeze through.  We also spent a lot of time ducking in low areas and I have the bruises on my head to prove it.  I have no idea why, when someone says "watch your head" I immediately rise up and promptly hit my head on whatever I was supposed to be watching.  It's like a freaking Pavlov's Dog response for me.

I escaped the Cosmic Cavern without a serious concussion and we headed back to Harrison to call it a day.  Taylor has this annoying habit of having to eat at least 3 times a day.  Jayson and I are good with one, maybe 2 meals and a whole bunch of non-stop snacking in between.  Taylor does the constant snacking thing but she wants regular meals too which can be so inconvenient.  Jayson and I were still full from lunch (and looking forward to the cookies and muffins we bought from the bakery where we had lunch) but Taylor was starving so we cruised through the Arby's drive through on the way back to the hotel. 

Here are bits and pieces of the conversation we had while waiting for the food:

"Hey, look at those 2 Mennonite women."

"What's a Mennonite?"

"How can you tell they're Mennonite?"

"By their clothes and the little hat thing the wear."

"Are you sure they're not Amish?"

"What's the difference?"

"I'll Google it."

"Are Mennonites Christian?"

"They could be Quakers. Are there still Quakers?"

"They're Mennonite, I can tell."

"But, they're getting into their car. Can Mennonites have cars?"

"I think that kid (working the drive through) has a rainbow earring."

"Oh leave him alone."

"That doesn't mean he's gay, maybe he just likes rainbows."

"What difference does it make?"

"Was it in his right ear or his left ear?"

"I think it was his left."

"Oh that's the gay ear."

"The gay ear?  Are you kidding me?"

"Everyone knows the left ear is the gay ear."

"I thought it was the right ear."

"It's both ears.  Remember George Michael?"

"Who?"