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Daddy Day Camp: The Project

Last year during Daddy Day I decided that it was important to BUILD something together.  The way I learned how to use tools was from my father building things with us boys.  He showed us how to cut, hammer, measure, etc.  So last year we build a backyard catapult.  It was about 3 feet long and 2 feet wide and shot water balloons and balls across the back yard.  It was a fun project.

This year we needed something else.

So two weeks ago I posted this picture on Facebook and asked what everyone thought we were building this year at DDC.  So what could it be?

(for those who might worry...you'll notice that the drill doesn't have the battery in it and you can see the extension cord wrapped up on the garage floor, thus the saw is also not plugged in....so while they're holding them awkwardly, no one's going to get hurt.  Also note goggles were used throughout.)

First we measured our wood and made the marks where we needed to cut and where other parts would be attached later.

 Then it was time to use the circular saw.  Many would say that this was scary or dangerous.  I explained fully how the saw worked ahead of time.  I told them where they were allowed to put their hands and where they needed to stay away from.  Tobiah particularly I held both of his hands on the saw so there was no way he was going to wiggle free.

You HAVE to click on the picture of Tobiah using the saw and expand it as big as it'll go.  His face is AWESOME.  He loved the vibration and loudness of the saw....so much, that when we were cutting he would yell at it.  It was hilarious.

 This picture is Corban cutting.  You'll notice one of his hands isn't on the saw.  You'll also notice that it's balled up in a very tense fist hanging at his side.  He was not as passionate about the saw.  He is our cautious child.  I like it.

We found this leaf bug while we were cutting.  He was already dead, but he was fun to look at.  I set him on the board.  Then later without paying attention, I moved the board and readjusted the C clamp.....right on the leaf bug squishing his guts all over our board.  It was gross.  And we laughed hard.

After some instruction, I let them use the power sander by themselves.  Goggles required.  No thumbs were sanded in this undertaking....which honestly was amazing.  Tobiah didn't really like this vibration as much as the circular saw.  Corban loved it.

So did you guess it yet?

The answer to what we were building is.....STILTS!!!!

When I was a little boy my dad made us stilts.  I'm not exactly sure why he did that....I should ask him.  But my brother and I learned how to walk on stilts.  They're a lot of fun and they help tremendously with balance.  So I thought it would be fun to get the boys going on these. 

Corban is tearing it up.  He loves them and wants to be really good.  Tobiah struggles with picking up the wood, but is slowly grasping the idea of shifting his weight to make the job easier.  I think it won't be long before they'll be walking the neighborhood with them.


As a bonus everyone finished the project with the same number of fingers and eyes that we started with!

Guest Blog Monday: My Sister

Guest Blog Monday is a feature for 2013 where I ask a friend to write something for Monday morning.....so I don't have to. The theme for July is "Celebration".

I’m a little jealous of my sister…well, a lot jealous.  She’s awesome! But the one thing that completely isn’t fair (yep, that’s me, the middle child, whining…) is her birthday. Every single year we celebrate her birthday. 31 years old, really? A party? I’m pretty sure I get a card, a couple phone calls and handful of Facebook messages, but nothing like she gets every year. The cool thing is that she was born on the Fourth of July so we kind of already are celebrating. Aaaand since my mom passed the torch, we get to celebrate at my house. It gives me a reason to clean my house and my garage. I like it when it’s clean. Most, though, even though my sister rarely even gets to come ‘home’ for it, I love to hang out with my family, all of my family. I love being a ‘Martha*’ and bustling around, popping into conversations between everybody, because I love them all! My kids have a great time playing with their cousins, whom they see only a couple times a year. Ted grills and then enjoys relaxing and spending time with family too. I can eventually sit down and talk with Ted’s grandma about gardening, my cousin Tim about their vacation to Colorado, or my dad about his week pitching (horseshoes, that is…).

Isn’t that what celebrating is all about? Loving God’s gifts no matter what you are celebrating? Trivial things like going out to dinner before the Christmas Concert at school or ice cream after a Tball game, win or lose? Or big things like weddings and even a celebration of life at a funeral? Right now I’d like to celebrate surviving the entire day at Chapman’s Dam with only a few bug bites and a little sun kissing on my shoulders. We count our blessings and celebrate what God has given us. I know I am blessed; I have a beautiful family, I love where I live, and I truly enjoy my job. I have friends that I adore and wouldn’t trade for the world. My church family is loving and supportive and have been there for me my entire life. I love to celebrate; I have so much to celebrate. God is good, even for people who have a birthday on October 2^nd.

“Joy is the serious business of Heaven.” ~ C. S. Lewis

*Luke 10:38-42 New International Version (NIV)

At the Home of Martha and Mary

38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” 41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one.[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”



Wendy Carrington is a teacher in Warren and will be teaching fourth grade in the fall. She has a great husband Ted and two adorable kids, Annie and Trey. She loves reading and loves spending time with family and friends.

She actually loves going to her class reunions and her favorite games are cranium and scattergories. She has the best guitar teacher ever and is thinking about going on tour.....as long as it's lots of kids birthday parties.

My dander is up.

I'm a little edgy just now.  My dander is up.  I want to fight.

Yesterday, there was a fire on an Ethiopian Airlines plane.  The plane was on the ground at Hethrow in London.  No passengers were on board and no one was injured.  The plane was known as a Dreamliner from Boeing and is considered one of the most efficient and nicest in the world.  Article here.

So that in itself isn't a big deal.  The reaction to the event is. 

I'm going to give you a link to twitter via CNN.  I want to warn you ahead of time that there is some non-savory language.....because it's tweets.....and it's people.  I also want to say that I can't even read all of them without turning red.  LINK

For those who aren't going to follow the link...let me give you a sample.

-never thought I’d hear Ethiopia and Dreamliner in same sentence!
-Ethiopia can’t feed its population but it can afford a Boeing 787 #nointernationalaid
-“Ethiopian Airlines plane catches fire” … Honestly, i didnt realise theyd discovered fire in Ethiopia
-That Ethiopian airlines plane caught fire because it’s made from sticks and mud. What did you expect?

Those are some of the tame ones.  It gets worse.  Much worse.

I want to respond two ways.

1.  Ethiopia is one of the richest cultural countries in the world.  Addis Ababa (capital city) is ranked as one of the top places to visit in 2013 because Ethiopia as a country is one of the up and coming countries in the world.   Ethiopia is not a desert.  It's not hot all year round.  It is not in the middle of a famine.  While there is poverty, the devastating famine caused by drought that rocked the country in the 80's hasn't stuck around till 2013!!!

2.  It would be easy for me to say that this doesn't impact me.....but it does.  Because how I talk about Ethiopia and where my boys are from impacts people's perception of Ethiopia.  I need to be intentional about talking about how amazing we find the country of Ethiopia.  We have fallen in love with this gorgeous land.  We want our children to discover and love their heritage.  People are dumb and uneducated and stereotype....I get that.  We need to be better than that.  There was a train wreck in France.....does that mean the train was made out of french toast?  No.  That's stupid.  Let's be better than that.  Let's learn together.  Come over to my house and we'll make some Ethiopian food together. 

Daddy Day Camp: T-shirts

Last year we decided that instead of sending our kids to day camp or day care I was going to run Daddy Day Camp.  My schedule allows me to be flexible and work from home.  So why not spend the summer with the boys?  So we take small trips, go to the pool, build things, try new things.  The other day Marjorie left the lights on in her car.  So I taught them how to jump a car.  It's fun!

So last year, Marjorie and the boys created our "DDC" shirts.  This year, I was told that we were on our own.  So I decided we still needed shirts....but we were going to do them ourselves.

We started by going to Walmart and picking what color shirt we wanted.  Both boys wanted green, so I thought I'd go with green too.

We then bought some vinyl poster letters at Dollar General.  We put the letters on the front of the shirts (I made a template for the back).

We then used a 50/50 water bleach solution to spray on the shirts.  We wrinkled the edges and sprayed. After we did both sides, we sprayed them off with the hose and then soaked them in vinegar water.  Then a normal laundry cycle and we're done. 

The finished results....not a great picture....because we were hiking.

Tuesday Coffee

The other day I was too lazy to walk the 10 feet to the refrigerator to get milk out for my coffee.....so I just threw an extra scoop of sugar in and called it good.  What ended up happening was a taste that sparked a memory.

When I was in Brazil with World Vision I had some of the best and sweetest coffee of my life.  Normal coffee, came pre-sugared....and it was A LOT of sugar.  Because of the tastes of some of my compatriots, we asked them to brew a second thermos each day...of un-sugared.  I just kept drinking the sugary goodness.  Not only would the caffeine kick you in the butt, but the sugar had you buzzing until lunch.....where there was more coffee.

Throw an extra scoop of sugar in today for me.

Guest Blog Monday: Celebrate Good Times, Come On

Guest Blog Monday is a feature for 2013 where I ask someone to blog on a Monday morning, so I don't have to.  The theme for July is Celebration.


There is nothing on this earth that compares to the joy and excitement of these two things:

1. A dog, whom for two minutes, eight hours or several days has not seen its owner.
2. A child who is fed, changed and awake.

We have a dog named Francesca Alberta McWigglesbutt, or better known as "Shankie" when Amelia calls her name, who is a Boxer. She was named after my favorite male vocalist of all time, Francis Albert Sinatra. The joy this dog brought and still brings us is astounding. 

If she is in the other room and you call her name in an excited fashion, she's so happy that you'd think her tail is going to wiggle off. She puts her ears back, brings her tail end around to her front end and turns herself into an 80 pound kidney bean.

This does not even compare to the joy and excitement of my little girl, Amelia Jean. Everything in the whole world is new to her, even the things she knows. She'll hold up a blade of grass she grabbed from her shoe and say "What is this?" She has been informed numerous times what it is. She knows it's grass, but she wants me to tell her. So I do. And she always acts surprised about it, as if it was brand new information.

I can win staring contests with the funniest of adults, but I can't last 10 seconds in a staring contest with her. She is the funniest person I've met in my entire life. Every day she just gets funnier! This evening when putting her to bed, I asked if she was tired. She answered yes, to my surprise, and put her head on my shoulder. She starting breathing pretty deeply, then about 15 seconds later, spit out her pacifier, popped her face directly in front of my face and yelled, "I wake up!" How do you not laugh at that?

Every day for her is new. She finds adventure everywhere she goes. I can't wait to hear the little stories she comes up with every day. Today I was taking her nose, one of her favorite tricks. She surprised me by taking my ear, then my beard. She kept saying "Daddy's beard gone! OK, I put it back." Editors note: this was also while she was "going to sleep."

Children are the best way of keeping everything new. It's such a joy to see such wonder and such excitement every day. She celebrates everything. Like coming back after a ride in the car. "We're home! Jiggity Jig" is her standard. She's excited to finish her meal. "All done!" she will yell, while throwing her arms and ocassionally partially eaten food into the air.

Having or getting a kid is not always easy, but it's worth it. It gives you as an adult a reason to celebrate. You celebrate with them and they celebrate with you. They provide the most perfect, most sincere and most wonderful relationship you could possibly hope for.

Unless they're tired, hungry, or need their diaper changed. Then, look out! 


Chris Van Riper is an IT Professional, father and musician. He loves coffee, scotch, stereo equipment, bicycles, hot curry and beef barley soup. Chris lives in Erie, Pennsylvania with his wife Lisa, daughter Amelia and their dog Frankie.