Posts Tagged ‘videos’

Our Volcano Adventure

April 26th, 2010

The past week we had our own crazy adventure due to the volcano in Iceland. Because of this volcano many have had their plans changed and the stories that will come out of the past week will be worth sharing. Our story is perhaps not as dramatic as many of the others that will be told, but it’s still our own and I feel it is still fun to share a little bit of it.

On Friday of last week my parents were stranded in Munich needing to get to London for business meetings. So, they called us and asked if we could rent a car and come pick them up in Munich and drive them to London. After 3 hours of running around the house like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to pack and get everything ready, we were on the road to Munich. We stayed there a night and then drove to Nancy in France the next day. The following day we drove to Orleans just south of Paris and stayed there for two nights and then back on the road to London. We stayed one full day in London and then we left my parents and drove back to Prague. It took us two days of driving all day to get back to Prague. In the end we had spent about 44 hours in the car (with an almost 7 month old) in 7 days. It was crazy.

The saddest part of our trip was that my sister and her husband, who were suppose to be flying out to London for the meetings as well, were never able to make it because their airports didn’t open up in time. When we left Prague we really thought that they would still be able to make it to London and we were so excited that we were going to get to see them and surprise them in London. The fact that we were going to see them was the thing that really made us decide that taking the road trip and spending so much time in the car with a baby was worth it. We were all really disappointed that they never made it. I was especially sad that I didn’t get to spend time with my beautiful sister and wasn’t able to share London with her.

I was glad though to get to see my parents and have some time with them. And there were a few highlights of the trip (some things that made the hours squeezed in a car with a fussy baby sort of worth it):

-          My mom getting to see Thaddeus’ army crawl in person

-          Seeing my parents playing with and holding my baby boy

-          Having foie gras in France

-          Trying sweetbreads (which were actually really tasty)

-          A good talk with my parents

-          Meeting some new people

-          Staying at The Montague in London which is one of our favorite hotels

Here’s a little movie showing some of our trip (NOTE: if you are reading this in facebook you have to actually visit the blog to see the video. Click here to visit my blog).  The first is all the little videos we took on the trip and the second is a condensed version. Enjoy!

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany

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6 Months Old and Oh so Cute!

March 26th, 2010

Today my little baby, Thaddeus, is 6 months old! Often over the past half a year I felt like the 6 month mark would NEVER come – it felt so far away. Now that it is finally here there is a part of me that feels like it just flew by.

So, today in honor of my quickly growing boy here’s a post all about my beautiful baby:

Favorite things:

-          Music time with Daddy. Almost every day Bryan and Thad have a few minutes of music time. Usually this involves Bryan playing guitar for Thad for a little while and then the two of them playing on the African drum we have from Ghana (Thanks Carrie and Mathias!). Thad LOVES the drum especially. Here are two little videos showing you Thad playing with the drum (and flashing some cute smiles too):

-          Yoga time with mommy. This usually means that he lays on my mat while I do a little yoga and make some funny faces over him. But, if he starts getting fussy then I’ll hold him while doing poses or do a little baby yoga with him, moving his limbs gently. Here’s just a little video of our yoga time:

-          Being carried around in his sleepy wrap. He didn’t like the wrap at first, but now he LOVES it. When he’s in his wrap he’s happy doing pretty much anything, whether we are folding laundry, dancing to some music, or doing the dishes (I think his favorite is doing the dishes – he seems to like watching the water).

-          Bath time. Ok, so he doesn’t ALWAYS like it, but most of the time he seems to really enjoy it. He likes when Bryan splashes the water a little and seems fascinated by the little frog thermometer that floats in his bath.

-          Putting his feet in his mouth…well, really putting ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in his mouth!

-          Drooling. This kid can seriously drool. Sometimes I keep a bib on him so that I don’t have to change his outfit every few minutes after he’s soaked it with drool.

-          Reading and flash cards. He loves it when we read to him and it often calms him down. We also have Language Discovery cards and Animal Discovery cards, which he loves to look at. They say they are for 9 months and up but we show them to him regularly and talk about the pictures. He usually gets a big smile on his face when we start looking at them – so cute!

Things he can do now:

-          He can roll over. He definitely prefers rolling from his back to his belly, but he will also occasionally roll from his belly to his back. Here’s a little video of him rolling:

-          He can grab toys and sometimes even move them from one hand to the other.

-          He can sit up for just a few seconds on his own. Not all the time and not for more than a few seconds, but we still feel like it’s an accomplishment and we are proud of him.

-          Laugh heartily with a full body little person laugh.

-          Unintentionally scoot himself backwards a little bit.

-          He can sometimes lift his body up using both his hands and his legs so that he’s almost in a crawling like position, but he can only hold it for a few seconds. Here is a quick video of him doing this a little bit (although it’s not as good as how he does it now):

Things he really doesn’t like:

-          When mommy leaves the room.

-          Naps.

-          When something is just out of reach and he can’t get to it.

Well, happy half birthday to my little boy! We love him so much!

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany

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Links: Food and Health

June 27th, 2008

So, as some of you know Bryan and I like food – we like food A LOT J My dad is an amateur gourmet chef, all of my grandparents are excellent cooks, Bryan’s mom is a superb cook who comes from an Armenian background where food and eating together as a family was seen as very important – so from an early age we were both taught the value of good food. We have been taught the importance of really enjoying food and taking pleasure in eating good food with good friends.

Over the last few years though we have started to eat more intentionally. My health problems (I have a chemical sensitivity) have lead us to learn more about what we put into our bodies and has led us to avoid pretty much all processed and packaged foods. It’s actually been a fun adventure. We make almost all of our meals at home from scratch now and I think that has really improved our cooking skills.

I think all of this plays together to create a keen interest in food and especially in how food relates to health. So, when we came across these videos recently we were quick to watch them and we weren’t disappointed.

This first video is of a lecture that the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food and even though it is a bit long (about an hour) it is definitely worth watching. I found it totally fascinating and interesting and more than a little entertaining as well. If these issues interest you at all I highly recommend it. And if these issues don’t interest you then I still highly recommend that you check it out.

This second video is one of the TED lectures given by Mark Bittman. He talks about meat and meat consumption in the US in extreme but fascinating terms. I really enjoyed watching this video as well.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Beth Stedman

 

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Roundup From Around The Web: Extreme! :)

February 19th, 2008

Do you ever have days when you just feel inadequate… un-used… un-creative… out of the loop? I feel a little bit like that right now…
I worked a ridiculously long day yesterday which was not fun, but some good things came out of it I think… well for one I got a lot of hours out of the way and a lot done, but maybe more interestingly I was able to spend a lot of time blog hopping and reading articles and watching interesting video clips (my job requires me to spend a lot of time on the computer but often the work is rather monotonous and can be done while listening to lectures, half watching video clips, etc – I still struggle sometimes with whether or not it is ethical for me to do these things while working but then I think that if I couldn’t do them I would probably go insane from the monotony and end up quitting my job which I don’t think is what I or my employer would want…so, I continue). Anyway, I found a lot of interesting posts and articles and videos that I would like to now share…

First, some stories…

Here is a story about a female referee that one school wouldn’t let ref because they said they didn’t believe women should be in authority over men – personally I thought this was ridiculous and I was very proud of her male co-workers who, when they heard about what happened, decided to protest by not working for refereeing for this school  

This post gives a beautiful and extremely challenging picture of what it means to really follow Jesus and what it means to follow Jesus despite our clumsy and often broken efforts.

I have been reading this blog off and on for a few weeks now but this particular post really stood out to me. It is a beautiful story of history and love. Reading it made me cry.

Second, some challenging discussions…

In this post an introvert wonders about hospitality and what radical hospitality should look like. “I wonder if stretching myself in this area is good discipline, or if it is actually being untrue to the person I am? Is it more genuine to just let my friends know that I am introvert who enjoys their company, but needs to get away, or should I look at pushing thru this and learning how to live in a different way, while still being who I am?” The comments here are also really interesting.

Sarah at Accidental Blog discusses whether or not there is a “right” expression of ecclesia.

Third, some other interesting thoughts…

Theopraxis discusses Isolation and the Suburban Condition – I found this to be an interesting post giving me a lot to chew on.

I just found this blog today and came across this post about this families “consumption fast” very interesting and challenging. The idea is that they aren’t going to spend any money (no shopping, eating out, movies, etc) except for paying bills and buying necessary groceries. Bryan and I have gone through periods where we have basically unconsciously done this because of necessity for a week or two here and there but I was really intrigued with this families goal of doing this intentionally for months straight (until July). Check it out to read his thoughts on the idea.

Here is an interview with N.T. Wright discussing Heaven… Interesting stuff.

Fourth, some very interesting videos…

This video is a clip of David Fitch talking about Church Planting Via Missional Orders. I found it very interesting and challenging.

My friend recently told me about TED and the videos that are now being shared from that gathering of people. I haven’t watched that many of them yet but they are FASCINATING. Basically each video is about 15 to 20 minutes long and they are little mini lectures about a variety of topics given by a variety of people (business professionals mostly it seems) – seriously very interesting videos. In this one Hans Rosling debunks common myths about developing nations using some fascinating media and enlightening statistics. In this other video John Doeer talks about climate change and green technologies (I personally found him a little extreme to listen to but I agree that we need to take better care of the earth that has been entrusted to us and I really do think that greentech can not only be good for the planet but can also be profitable and economical. In this video Larry Lessig talks about how creativity is being strangled by the law and talks about how we need new creative laws to deal with the advancements we are facing.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on any or all of these!  :-)

 

Rejoicing in the journey –
Beth Stedman

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