December 30 – “Not a dinosaur”

Could there possibly be anything worse than getting called into the principal’s office?  I think maybe Chris discovered that there indeed is.  What could possibly rank so high in the realm of horrifying fates?  Wait for it … she got a call from the dentist.  They had an opening and her future appointment could be moved up should she so desire.  Now who in their right mind would “so desire”?  That would be my lovely wife.  The opening was for 10 a.m.  She received the call at 9:35.  And she made it with moments to spare.  As it turned out, all they did was a cleaning.  At some point she is destined to suffer though a crown and all that entails, but for now at least she is in the clear, dentally.

While waiting for time to leave for our rendezvous with grandchildren, I began the arduous process of ending our records year and opening up a new one.  Not that I am a world-class financial genius.  I just mean I had to empty out all the file folders where we put our monthly bill statements, and get those innards ready for the income tax sweep sometime next month.  Whoppee.

Around noon we headed to the LaMarque Vaughans’ house for lunch.  Pizza, of course, which was inhaled as quickly as possible so they could get on to more important things.  It was an opportunity for the Waco bunch to get in some serious cousin play time in the domain of the LaMarque crowd.  That meant serious video games on the one hand and breaking in the new climbing toy outside on the other.  It was a little chilly, though, so inside activities were clearly the more popular option. 

Last night we finally got a chance to see the movie Jurassic World, thanks to Zak and Caleb.  They brought it along in hopes they could watch it – again.  They had no idea they would have the joy of introducing it to Nani and DadDad for the very first time.  And it wasn’t an easy position for them to be in.  See, they knew what was about to happen.  And on the one hand they didn’t want us to be frightened.  On the other hand they didn’t want us to dare miss what was coming next.  That notable combination of fear and adventure.  Perfect recipe for a movie.  My favorite line in the movie?  “That thing in there is not a dinosaur.”  Even though it looks like a dinosaur, roars like a dinosaur, eats like a dinosaur, consists of the combined DNA of six or eight different dinosaurs, and frightens people almost (but not quite) as much as a dentist.  Nope.  Not a dinosaur. 

1 Peter 3:9 says, “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.”

Father, thank you for the chance to share something dinosaur-ifically special with our grandkids.  Amen.