The Surreal Life

Grim Fandango -- have I really gone a full week without posting any updates here? That is, like, the insanity of a manatee! I wrote up a summary of our weekend below; check it out, if you are so inclined (and you had better be).

We finally returned to Bristol at midnight or so Monday morning, and it has taken us most of the week to get ourselves in order. For instance, we finally unpacked our bags this evening. Sandi and I have taken turns fighting some bug which left us with all the energy of a three-toed sloth on an antihistamine. To give you an indication of its impact on our lives, I went to bed at 8:00 PM yesterday. The flipping sun was still in the sky, and I was asleep! What in the world is up with that?!? Sandi took the opportunity to do some more decorating in the nursery; you should take a peek at the pictures below.

The big event of the week was our monthly waiting families meeting in Knoxville on Tuesday. The topic of the discussion was multiple adoptions, and we had a couple who had adopted three children through Bethany as special guest speakers. Their (greatly condensed below) story was fascinating, primarily because they simultaneously adopted two children who were not siblings. Bethany generally requires a one-year interval between adoption proceedings, but one of the two bouncing babies in this situation was the biological sibling of the couple's first adopted child, and the family had already entered the finalization stage for the adoption of their second child. This made for some interesting thought processes on my part during the ride back to Bristol. As you may know, one of my few real skills is looking at a set of circumstances and generating a 'nightmare scenario' within its framework. This couple's adoption journey has now forced my poor brain into knots trying to top its bizarro-world qualities.

Amazing as it is, the meeting itself was not the surreal part of the evening. After we adjourned, we had to hand in a form for the upcoming extended family shindig; Mark has a knack for getting us to hand him stuff even after we have finished all our paperwork. We got to talking to the guest couple, and they are both from Winston-Salem. Being able to talk about the Reedy Creek area and the quality of Lexington-style barbecue on the other side of the Appalachians made for a wild experience. To compound the zaniness factor, Jerry and Belton had originally planned to have a family with biological and adopted children, much as Sandi and I had envisioned.

I think that pretty much covers what we have been doing for the last week, unless you want me to go into the subject matter of my analysis class. No? If you insist, I will call it a night. Have a great weekend!

An Overlate Update . . . er, Mate

As mentioned previously, Sandi and I were in North Carolina last weekend. The trip was our first back to the home country since our beach trip, so the agenda ended up more than a little full. We had to pull the old Scooby-Doo trick of splitting up to get everything done. While Sandi and Joyce went to Walnut Cove to visit her grandfather, I headed to Mt. Airy with my parents to attend a get-together with Dad's side of the family. Andrea and Stephen were able to get away from Columbia as well, which made for the most complete collection of Carrolls in a good long while. By the way, a complete collection of Carrolls has roughly the same street value as a Betamax copy of The Star Wars Holiday Special.

On Sunday, our home church (that makes us sound like missionaries -- I need to find a better phrasing) had a home speaker: Dr. Ergun Caner, from the divinity school at Liberty University. Since my only prior knowledge of Dr. Caner was that he got into a silly-string fight with students at Andrea's graduation, it goes without saying that I went into the morning service with massive expectations. I found him to be a very engaging speaker, in spite of his media-unfriendly facial hair; his humor easily outstrips my best comedic efforts. Moreover, his messages had a good deal of theological meat to them, which is always a huge bonus in my book. His role as theologian and apologist got me thinking about what I might be able to do when I have a chance to go on sabbatical; if my mathematical colleague Bill could study the piano at Cornell for a year, can I wrangle some theology classes? Of course, this would be several years down the road, so I have a while to formulate my malevolent schemes.

This is where I would normally wish everyone a good weekend, but that is in the post above. Seriously -- what are you expecting here? Go home, and get off the lawn!