Little Kitty has been gone all day today at her older friend’s house. Her friend is a sweet girl who is 12 years old. Kitty came home exhausted. In fact, she’s lying on the floor crying right now. Kitty’s friend called and invited her over as well as a kindergartner and another friend of hers TO CLEAN HER HOUSE!! While Kitty was lying on the couch, she told her dad that she was tired because she’d been cleaning all day. Shocked, I asked her what she’d done. She’d dusted and cleaned the mirrors. Rowland told her he didn’t know that she knew how to do those things, and she responded that the girl taught her! We were teasing her about being invited over to clean and asking her if she vacuumed, too, and she said, “No, we mopped!”

Meanwhile, at my house today, I cleaned house as well - by myself. Carson had two friends hanging around here, and William had two friends hanging around here, and Jia was here, and I was the only one cleaning! Something is so wrong with this picture!! How is it that a 12 year old girl has already figured out not only the benefits of child labor but also the way to get work out of the children? Here I am, 41 years old with four kids, and I can’t even get everyone to flush the toilet after themselves. The lightbulb is on now. Watch out, Kids!!

Rowland and I went with David and Anita, some new friends of ours here, to the Police concert in Denver last night. Sting’s voice doesn’t seem to have aged at all. He gave it all he had for a good two hours. After the fourth (yes, fourth!) encore, I was done! What’s the deal with encores anyway? I looked the word up in the dictionary, and it says a repeat performance due to popular demand. I’ve been to a good many concerts, and I’ve yet to see an encore that wasn’t “planned.” I guess if the band totally sucked, and the crowd was walking out, there might not be an encore. One encore is good, even great at times! Two encores must mean that the band is going through their hits and trying to come up with the best one to play. Three encores are obviously planned as are four - especially when there is video to go along with each one. So, essentially, they aren’t encores. They are, instead, VERY SHORT intermissions intended to get the crowd revved up! Let’s just play all of the songs during the concert, then kiss the crowd good-bye and move on! After all, it wouldn’t have changed the way the crowd felt about the concert. It was awesome! And to think it was done with just three pieces, a drummer, Sting on bass, and a kickin’ electric guitar player - almost as good as my husband! Very close! But not nearly as sexy!!

The other fun part of the night was that Anita had never been to a “non-Christian” rock concert. We were up high, so we didn’t get jostled with the crowd, and I think that the days of smelling “that sweet smell” may be behind us, but there was still beer. As luck would have it, we had four young drunks behind us. They were in the wrong seats (imagine that) and had to be asked to move. As they stood behind us, inching their way down the row, I grabbed Anita to push her forward. I knew beer was coming down. Sure enough, I was just a tad late, and she was baptized by beer. Now, she can say she’s REALLY been to a rock concert!

Tonight we took off for the Parker Country Festival in downtown Parker. The kids were excited about the rides, the cotton candy, and just hanging out together as a family. We found a parking place close to the festival, and everyone piled out of the van. As I was grabbing jackets and closing the doors, I looked about 10 yards down the sidewalk as William “heely-ed” around the walk. In a matter of seconds, he was flipping to the ground, landing, for the third time, on his front left tooth.

Several years ago, he had an accident on the diving board while doing a backwards cannonball and knocked out one tooth, knocked the other tooth up in his gums (requiring a trip to the surgery center), and had to get stitches in his chin where the tooth busted through. For a couple of years, he had a big gap in his mouth, but he finally grew teeth in 1st grade.

Last Summer, we were all swimming in the backyard. No one was rough-housing, and we were all visiting as the children swam along the bottom of the pool in the shallow end. William came up screaming, as he had knocked off part of his front left tooth. The tooth was capped, but the dentist said that it would probably happen again. Once all of his top teeth are in, we can do some orthodontic work to keep his teeth from sticking straight out.

Poor William….once again, he’s knocked off the bottom part of the same tooth. He also skinned his upper lip and chin as well as his shoulder and knee. He was a trooper, though, and decided to try to walk around for a little even though he was wimpering, and the tissue held to his tooth was full of blood. We continued to walk toward the food tent.

A couple of blocks down, little Kitty started whining that her flip-flops were hurting her. Sure enough, she was developing a blister on the side of her foot from her shoe. We tracked down the medical tent and put some gauze and a band-aid on her foot and got some ice and gauze for William’s mouth. We walked a little further until William got sick and had to sit on the ground with his head between his legs. Rowland hung in there and got us all a little something to eat before we decided to call it a night and head for home.

On the way home, Rowland said, “You know, this always happens to us!” So true! I’d call it the Braswell Cloud, but I think that this time, it’s just having four children! The best laid plans…..

Yesterday was Rowland’s 45th birthday. Hard to imagine that we’re heading to the 50s now! His best bud Grant’s birthday was Sunday (only 37!) so the Englishes and another couple, Danny and Suzanne with baby Evan, came over for cake, cards, and wine tasting. We had such a good time laughing and playing SkipBo. The guys won, but it was just because the girls were too busy talking to play. We could’ve won and will next time!! I didn’t realize that you could do wine tasting at home. I always thought that you had to travel to a winery, but all you really have to do is invite Danny to the party. He’d sniff the wine and come up with words like “fruity, oak-like, full….” Even Amy came up with “smells like sweat, like kids who’ve been playing outside!” Believe it or not, “sweat” was the right answer. Go, Amy! I sniffed my wine, and I came up with the same answer I always come up with - “smells like wine.” I love a good glass of wine - or a bad one, too! Even two bad ones!! I think that a mom’s limit on glasses of wine should directly coincide with the number of children she has in her home. That’s four for me!! The only problem is that if I were to have the four that I truly need and deserve, I wouldn’t feel much like having those four children in my home the next day!

In addition to the wine, we had chocolate birthday cake and vanilla birthday cake and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. Rowland got the coolest present from Carson. Carson bought him a collection of 20 John Wayne movies on DVD. Rowland and his dad were big John Wayne fans, and Carson worked really hard to find the DVD. I guess he’ll be a big John Wayne fan, too. It must be a Smith thing!!

This weekend while Rowland and I were in Chicago for Nathan and Nicole Wiens’ wedding, we spent a few hours on Friday at my old college, Wheaton College. Everything was just as I remembered it. It is a beautiful campus that was founded in 1860, I believe. We toured the Billy Graham Center Museum, which was definitely worth the time. The thing that struck me as I was walking through the museum is that the believers who came before us didn’t wait for people to come into their churches to tell them about Christ. They were out in the streets, in the taverns, in tents, anywhere they were able to find people. The praise song, “I’m Not Ashamed of the Gospel,” goes through my mind. It’s pretty easy for me to walk up to visitors at church and make them feel welcome. I’m pretty good at sharing my faith with those who seem interested. Billy Graham was quoted as saying (and I’m Kitty-phrasing this) that he is not concerned about the countries whose doors are closed to the Gospel. God will, in His time, open those doors. He is much more concerned with those open doors that we don’t walk through. Am I ashamed of the Gospel? I hope not, but I also don’t think that I have nearly the courage of my forefathers. It was a great challenge to me.

While on campus, we also visited my old dorm. I had totally forgotten that I lived in Smith Hall. I still live in Smith Hall!!! I peeked in the windows, and the lobby looked the same. The rooms were old and had not changed much either. A man walking out of the dorm said, “That’s Wheaton. It really doesn’t change.” It’s amazing to me that people are still living in those same dorms, eating at the same dining hall, going to chapel four days a week in the same seats I sat in. Lots of memories flashed through my mind. Twenty-two years ago!! Hmmm…..

Rowland also drove us into downtown Wheaton, which is a typical small town downtown. We ate lunch at a restaurant along the railroad tracks, then went for ice cream at an ice cream parlor I used to visit. It hadn’t changed either. It was just as I remembered it. As we drove out of the downtown area, we were looking around us and looked up to discover that we were in the middle of the railroad tracks with the lights flashing and the gate coming down! Before we knew it, the gate had landed on top of our rental car!! There we were stuck in the middle of the railroad tracks with the gate on top of our car! I won’t write the words that came out of our mouths, but you can imagine! Rowland decided the only way to keep from getting run over by the train was to back up - with the guard rail on the car! Oops!!! There was a “slight” scratch on the roof, but it was not nearly as bad as we anticipated. We laughed and laughed and then noticed that, to our surprise, no one around us seemed to even notice what had happened! That rental car may never be the same!!!

So much for memory lane….It was a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to go back! I didn’t particularly like it then, and my feelings haven’t changed too much!!