Rebecca St. James Book

We spoke with Rebecca St. James this morning about the re-release of her book, "Wait for Me". Check out her website for more info about the book and how to buy it.

How Normal is Dana?

According to Women's Health
● 6am is the time the average woman's alarm goes off.
● 58% hit the "snooze" button.
● 10 minutes of post-snooze time before the average woman tears herself away from the mattress.
● 20% of women use their cell phone as their main alarm.
● 36% of women prefer to hog the hot water.
● 52% of women style their hair every morning.
● Their favor hair-sculpting tool is a blow dryer.
● The biggest morning time-waster is deciding what to wear.
● 33% of women down java while getting ready.
● Top 3 task the average woman tackles before she leaves for work: eat breakfast, check e-mail, and watch the news.
● 1 hour is the amount of time she takes for her morning routine.

What in the world...?

Can anyone figure

out what this is?
TAKE A GUESS!! E-mail us at shine@olivet.edu ...if you get it right, YOU'RE A WINNER!

Weekend in Milwaukee,WI

Just a few notes about our long weekend in Milwaukee,WI. We chose to go to Milwaukee because we didn’t want to travel that far from home, but we wanted to go somewhere new and where there would be things to do. My dear wife Natalie blogged these comments about our trip:

Johnny and I started out our weekend with a Rustic Anthropology boat cruise on the Milwaukee River. An interesting experience on an old boat with people we didn’t know. It was similar to a boat cruise we took last summer on the Chicago River but this cruise was the calmer more peaceful version. After the cruise we heard a presentation about the history of the river while eating some fine Italian cuisine at Riverfront Pizzeria. I wouldn’t recommend this cruise to people with small children. We had a really nice time.

http://www.urban-anthropology.org/Eventsprograms.html

We also took a morning to go to the Milwaukee Public Museum. Our favorite parts were the IMAX show The Human Body and the Planetarium show CSI: Cosmic Adventure. These shows were very educational and interesting. Johnny really liked the huge round video screen. We also checked out the main part of the museum and the butterfly room was our favorite part. Butterflies were actually crawling out of cocoons and flying around in the room. This would be a great place for kids. They even had a large children’s area close to the butterfly house. http://www.mpm.edu/

We even had time in the evening to check out a cabaret show called the Hula Hoop Sha-Boop. There were only four actors/singers and they sang music from the 50’s. Even though those songs are from before our time we recognized the majority of them from movies and TV shows such as Happy Days, Leave It to Beaver, and Mr. Ed. http://www.milwaukeerep.com/

Finally, we finished our trip by going to the Milwaukee County Zoo. We had a very nice time walking around the zoo looking at all the animals. We even took a trolley tour around the park which was very informative. Our favorite part of the zoo was watching an actual glaucoma surgery performed on a small primate. http://www.milwaukeezoo.org/

If you get a chance to get over to Milwaukee, there are many things to do. We only had time to do a few things and while we were there we were informed that there are many other great things to do. Milwaukee is a great city to visit and it was nice to be a quiet downtown area were you don’t have to pay an arm and a leg for parking. I forgot to mention that the last day of our trip was Johnny’s Birthday so we ended the day with a Surprise Birthday party for Johnny at my parent’s house. We had our family there and some close friends and Johnny was very surprised. He didn’t suspect anything which made it a lot of fun.

Spirit of Chicago Cruise

Dana and Chuck toured the shores of Chicago via a dinner cruise on Friday night. We had a blast! The only downfall was how cold it was, but thankfully, you could just hang out inside the boat all night if you wanted to. It departs from Navy Pier, and we amazingly found parking right next to the boat.

The buffet dinner was fabulous with lots to choose from: beef, chicken or fish along with several side dishes and a range of desserts. Our favorite was hands-down the beef - but I'm also a sucker for desserts, especially the eclairs and amazing chocolate cake garnished with strawberries.

The main entertainment was dancing. On our cruise, there were a couple of high school parties who pretty much did all the dancing. The cruise director also pulled out a couple of amusing routines involving audience participation. For more information about the cruise, visit http://www.spiritofchicago.com/. The Spirit of Chicago cruise is a more dressy event. For a more casual cruise, try Mystic Blue Cruises. All in all, we had a great time although I would recommend trying to go when evening temperatures are above 60! I would have preferred to be able to roam outside a little more.

Shaohannah's Hope

The orphan care ministry, Shaohannah's Hope, is reaching out to help those in need because of the recent earthquake in China. The ministry founded by Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman works to care for the orphans of the world by engaging the church and helping Christian families reduce the financial barrier to adoption. The organization is supporting volunteers in the area who are heading to the front line of the earthquake to care for the orphans in the affected areas. Shaohannah's Hope is using donated funds to help purchase needed items for the children, especially tents, food, and medicine. For more information logon to www.ShaohannahsHope.org.

Chuck E. Cheese

Dana and family's trip to Chuck E. Cheese was a hit! Carly AND Brianna had a blast as is evident by the pictures.

Help the Victims of Myanmar Cyclone

A terrible cyclone has hit the Buddhist country of Myanmar, in Southern Asia. 23,000 are confirmed dead, 46,000 are missing, and the death toll is feared to hit 100,000.
Additionally, one million people are living in these conditions.

UNICEF is helping to provide water, food, and shelter, and emergency supplies. Your generous support helps provide immediate assistance to
children and their families when an emergency strikes.

Flying the (not so) friendly skies...

Recently we talked a bit about some things you might want to know before you take your next airline trip. Check out this article.

"10 Things Your Airline Won't Tell You"
by Jim Rendon of
Smartmoney.com

Big Jim the Cosmetologist and Geoff Moore

Anyone see a resemblance?

Fried Ice Cream

I credit this AWESOME recipe to my friend, Mindy. It is SO yummy. It's a "fake-out" recipe - to use Rachel Ray's term: tastes like fried ice cream without the actual work of frying.

3 c. corn flakes, crushed
¼ c. butter, melted
½ c. firmly packed brown sugar
2 t. cinnamon
2 T. honey
Ice Cream
Toppings

Combine corn flakes with butter, sugar, cinnamon and honey. Spread out on waxed paper and let cool. Roll rounded scoops of ice cream in corn flake coating. Store in freezer. Makes 10 large scoops. Top with your favorite ice cream toppings like chocolate, caramel and whipped cream!

10 Things Your Airline Won't Tell You

We discussed this article, courtesy of Yahoo News. Can you believe our planes are that much older than Europe? I thought we had the best EVERYTHING in the U.S. There's that elitist American attitude again... :)