Today was the perfect day to put our zoo membership

to use. It is the 50th birthday of the Birmingham zoo,

so there were free train and carousel rides, free cake

and ice cream and the last weekend to see the beautiful

Butterfly Encouter exhibit. Besides, since visiting

last month with my mom, Analise and I were anxious to

take Brian back to share our new favorite animal

exhibits with him – and to bring you pictures!! Above,

we’re all settled in for a train ride (Analise didn’t

have many smiles for the camera today, though she

enjoyed and pointed at all the animals she saw).

Our favorite exhibit at the zoo is the Lorikeet

Aviary. It’s an enclosed structure filled with

lorikeets (birds) that you can walk into. For $1, you

can buy a cup of nectar that the birds will FLOCK to.

Last time with my mom, I had at least 10 birds on me at

one point, including one on Analise’s head! This time

they stayed on my arm. Analise liked the birds, but

after a while, it got to be a bit overwhelming to have

them flapping and squawking around her head. Brian

enjoyed it just as much as I thought he would! Above is

one of the better pictures of Analise and I, though we

have a series of them, including pictures with the birds

on the neckline of my shirt, flapping in my face, and

sitting on my shoulder next to Analise. Below is a

close up of one eating from Brian’s cup of nectar.

One of my favorite parts of our last visit was the Butterfly Encounter. It’s another enclosed structure, filled with flowers and bushes and lots of butterflies. I love that you can usually get very close, close enough for a good picture. Butterlies are so hard to photograph! Today, though, there weren’t quite as many butterflies as last time, maybe because the “season” is almost over. Here’s 2 of our best butterfly pics:

The tiger was pretty cool. He was pacing back and forth in front of the glass, eyeing hte couple kids who wanted to get nose to nose with him. If you’ve seen the movie Madagascar, I imagined it was similar to when the lion started seeing everything as steak:)

Another favorite was the exhibit with the giraffes. Analise is pointing, below, at an ostrich that was eating nearby. The giraffes are being fed on that platform, and there are other small deer-like animals (kudus, I believe) in the exhibit. A girl walking by said to her mom, “3 giraffes, 2 ostriches, and 4 canteloupe.”

We have many more pictures (Brian actually took 90!), but here’s the last couple – Analise and Brian enjoying their carousel ride, and a picture from yesterday of Analise sleeping, which could have been taken today after our zoo trip:)

I thought I’d take this opportunity to show off Brian’s handsome birthday gift and graduation celebration gift. His PhD diploma finally arrived last month, and I found this beautiful frame for it (bottom) and his master’s diploma (top). He’s settled into the role of Dr. Toone, Assistant Professor of Computer Science quite well, I think. Congrats, honey! We knew you could do it!

In a previous post (see here), Analise was inside my stool (turned over to prevent her from standing on it, and possibly falling off). Now she’s learned how to remove the top from her activity table and climb up into it. She was quite content there on Saturday evening, and with much work, managed to get herself out. Very impressive… I’m sure she’s going to find new things to climb soon, though!

Labor Day
Not much exciting happening at the Toone household. It’s Labor day, and as most of you are enjoying a relaxing family day, Brian’s at school. No Labor Day holiday at Samford. Classes as usual. I thought for sure it would turn out to be a prank on the 1st year profs, but he actually had students show up:)

Analise is rocking excitedly in her rocking chair while watching Baby Galileo. She’s started bringing me her Baby Einstien DVDs, wanting desperately to watch them. It’s so funny to see how excited she gets when I actually turn it on (and not so fun to see how grumpy she gets when I don’t!). I’m spending the day as usual – getting breakfast ready, cleaning up after it, catching up on things during nap time, getting lunch ready, cleaning up after it, entertaining Analise, etc. We’re having dinner with Brian’s parents and brother early this afternoon and then joining a few friends from church for some college football game tonight.

College Football
It appears that the South is all about college football – mainly, Alabama and Auburn. I can’t understand it, I suppose due to the fact that I went to a school without a football team (UW-Green Bay) in a city with the coolest, best pro team in the nation (the Green Bay Packers). I think the Midwest is a bit prouder of their NFL teams than their college teams, at least from my perspective. Anyway, I think weekends in the fall are going to be busy with invitations to join people to watch college football games, and I’m going to have a hard time finding my dear Packers on TV to enjoy by myself, since we don’t have extended cable. In California, my sweet husband spent quite a bit of time trying to find the Packers on the radio many Sundays, bless his heart:) He could wear a cheesehead proudly!

What else is up?
Last week was busy with school starting at Samford and trying to readjust to Brian’s schedule. We had friends over for dinner on Thursday, went out to dinner on Friday with friends and back to our house for dessert. Saturday am Brian organized a work day at church to get some things accomplished, and by Saturday afternoon, we were all ready for a nap:) We had a quiet evening at home on Saturday, while all our friends were either at the Auburn-Georgia Tech game or watching the Alabama game, and we fell asleep watching the Clemson game. We missed the exciting ending – winning by 1 on a field goal with 3 seconds left. That’s how “into” college football we are!

I have uploaded pictures from Hurricane Katrina to our photo album. These pictures were all taken the day after the worst of the Hurricane blew through Birmingham, Alabama. Unlike many other schools in the area, Samford did not close its doors. So I had to bike into work in time for the Fall semester convocation at 10AM. All of these pictures are taken between 8:30 and 9:45AM Tuesday morning. The worst of the hurricane was over our area between the hours of 11PM Monday and 1AM Tuesday. Click the picture below to view the pics!

More Hurricane Katrina pics…

Well, Katrina blew me right out of commission for a few days. Brian has some crazy pictures to post of the wind damage in Birmingham. We lost power on Monday night, and it blew and blew and blew, thankfully not blowing the house down, though. We had a quiet, powerless, warm day on Tuesday during which the only thing I could find to do was scrapbook:), but we finally regained power in mid afternoon. No cable or internet until just now, though. My one TV station of Fox and a very very fuzzy NBC were driving me nuts. There are still quite a few people here in Birmingham without power, though. All this is nothing… my heart goes out to those in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. It’s crazy to remember that Brian and I were just in Biloxi, MS last month, and we remember what it looked like before. The devastation is just unbelievable. My heart and prayers go out to them. Toss up a prayer for our good friend, Timmy, a local fireman, who’s trained in technical and water rescue. He headed down to help yesterday, and we’re not sure when to expect him back.

Anyway, nothing much going on here, except Analise has had a fever since Sunday night. She’s just feeling lousy, and I’m feeling bad because I can’t help her. The doctor didn’t find anything definitive wrong, but we’re waiting for some secondary tests. I’m hping maybe the fever’s on it’s way down, and she’ll wake up her cheerful, playful – and hungry – self in just a bit.

Ah… it’s good to be plugged in again!!

My Little Adventurer
I should have realized back when Analise was almost 8 months old and got herself stuck between the end table and the wall (click if you’ve not seen the picture) that she was always going to be up to something. Well, she’s now progressed to climbing. Yesterday she learned to climb onto an 18″ small stool I keep in the kitchen. I found her proudly standing on it. Not cool. Today as I was working in the den, she was in the kitchen trying to get back onto it, so I turned it over. I went back to work, and it got very quiet in there for a while. I finally decided I needed to check on here. This is what I found:) I left her sitting there, wondering if I’d hear her needing help eventually, but she got herself out just fine. The adventures continue…

Tub Troubles
Analise loves bathtime, splashing and playing with her toys. The other day, I was watching her and she tried to stand up, but squatted down. When I reached down to pick her up and sit her back down I found a few “logs” floating!!! Yuck! Brian came running at my holler. I cleaned Analise off, and he disinfected the tub and toys. Analise was a bit disappointed that her bathtime had been cut short.

What Else is She Up To?
While my mom was here, Analise had a personality explosion! My mom took the time to write down all the things she is up to, and it’s quite a list.

• Words she’s saying: “Daddy”, “uh-oh” (probably the most frequent), “mm-mm-mm”, “oooh”, “num-num”, “no-no-no” (not used as the actual word, I don’t think, but when she really really really wants to communicate something). She’s trying to say lots of words, and she chatters all the time. It sounds like she’s speaking Japanese fluently.
• She rocks in the rocking chair, stands in it, sits her stuffed animal in it and rocks them.
• She balances things on her pull toy to give them a ride. She says “uh-oh!” when they fall off.
• She pretends with stuffed animals and dolls, sitting them in high chair or strollers, trying to put clothes on them.
• She started snuggling, hugging and kissing her stuffed animals.
• She kisses pictures of animals in books.
• She loves books. She spends a long time pulling books off the shelf, turning them right side up, turning the pages, before going onto another book. She loves to bring you books to look at with her. She is particularly into lift-the-flap books and pop-up books.
• She climbs up stairs and slides down on her bottom. She gets really excited to do this:)
• She dances when she hears music, and she’s started walking backwards and sideways.
• She straddles and sits on the soccer ball and then bounces on it a bit. She enjoys pretending to talk and listen on an old cell phone.
• Favorites: Stuffed gorilla, pink and white penguin, Baby Einstein DVDs, cuddling with Mom before a nap, balls, plastic tubs or boxes to sit in, lasagna, any kind of beans, bananas, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, watermelon, teddy grahams, ice cream and string cheese.

Just wanted to ask for all of our friends to be praying for us and for the residents of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana tonight and tomorrow night. New Orleans sits 12 feet below sea level and the storm surge is expected to be 20+ feet. If you do the math, it’s easy to see that you could drown in a three story house — even if the house isn’t washed away.

The worst for us here in Hoover will be Monday night. Here is an excerpt from the NOAA inland tropical storm warning:

MONDAY…WINDY. SHOWERS AND A CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS. SOME
THUNDERSTORMS MAY PRODUCE TORNADOES. HIGHS AROUND 82. EAST WINDS
15 TO 20 MPH INCREASING TO 20 TO 30 MPH IN THE AFTERNOON. CHANCE
OF RAIN 100 PERCENT.
MONDAY NIGHT…VERY WINDY. WIDESPREAD SHOWERS AND SCATTERED
THUNDERSTORMS. SOME THUNDERSTORMS MAY PRODUCE TORNADOES. LOCALLY
HEAVY RAINFALL POSSIBLE. LOWS AROUND 72. SOUTHEAST WINDS 25 TO
40 MPH WITH GUSTS TO AROUND 60 MPH. CHANCE OF RAIN 100 PERCENT.

This is the fourth tropical storm that will blow through Alabama this summer.

• Tropical Storm Arlene
• Tropical Storm Cindy
• Hurricane Dennis
• Hurricane Katrina

That’s not even including Hurricane Ivan from last year which stranded us while looking for houses in Birmingham. The airport was closed for a few days because of the storm.

Honestly, even asking for prayers and desiring for God to have mercy on those who are in the most direct danger, I can’t help but feel most alive in the midst of nature’s fury with these storms. I think it’s recognizing that there is something in God that is so big, so powerful, so dangerous, so awesome that a massive Hurricane such as this one awakens me to it — but I recognize it is still only part of the footstool of God. Isaiah 66:1

Analise Fluff
For all of you checking in for Analise pics, these are especially for you. Analise has been quite busy trying to ride her rocking horse lately (above). She stands next to it, lifting her leg up, trying to get on herself. She’s pretty excited when someone stands there and rocks her. Below, Brian and I were all dressed up for a Samford Faculty dinner at The Club, a classy member-only dining club overlooking Birmingham. I enjoy the perks of being a professor’s wife! It was a fun (free!) evening out.

Extreme Analise Room Makeover
Alright, finally pictures of Analise’s beautiful room makeover! My mom did a great job. She was the definite motivator and the pocketbook. I had no desire to paint, but it looks so much better in the light yellow (lemon ice). You can click on the top picture to see a larger version. Some highlights:

• My favorite project was taking white, wooden letters, about 4″ high that spelled her name, and using scrapbooking stickers to decorate them, and hanging them with pink ribbon. I’ve had these for a while, and I was itching to do something with them. I’m excited at how it turned out!
• We also hung the quilt that came with the crib set (spontaneous purchase off Ebay a long time ago, that again, I was itching to put up). It’s hung with pink ribbon as well.
• Mom made a nice yellow gingham curtain for around the changing table to cover all the clutter.
• We found a nice scarf to drape as a curtains, tied with a pink ribbon. The front window didn’t need much, because it’s got stylish plantation shutters, but the whole room looks better with window treatments.
• The last touch that didn’t quite get finished is a string of chenille hearts to hang across the top of the windows in front of the scarf swag. Mom took them home to finish since we ran out of time with all our little projects.

It was our own version of Deisgn on a Dime or one of those fun HGTV shows that mom is always watching (and I would, if I had cable).

What’s been keeping me busy since Mom left…
I’ve been really busy lately trying to get our church’s home church ministry organized. It will be called ONE ACCORD, and right now, it’s a big hit with over 50 people meeting WEEKLY at 3 different homes. It’s a great opportunity to experience real community and grow with others on a deeper level than the usual Sunday experience. With groups that big, one of my tasks has been to divide. It’s stressful… I’m a people-pleaser, and I’m so afraid someone will be disapointed. We’re also trying to nail down the invisible details of how we’re going to do things. We’re basing our ministry on a very successful home church ministry at North Point Community Church, detailed in the book Creating Community. It’s exciting but overwhelming to try to put it all into practice. As I’ve said in other posts, our home groups, both here and in California, have become our second families. We’ll have a kick-off event on September 7th to bring everyone together and lay out all the details, so I’m sure you’ll hear more about ONE ACCORD in the future!

Smart Toys
Brian made a funny discovery with Analise’s little Leap Frog Alphabet Pal. It’s a caterpillar with a letter on each leg, and it plays various things for the different modes – letter name, letter sound, color, etc. As Brian was playing letter sounds together to make words, the thing said, “Hehe! That tickles!” We realize that it won’t play the sounds for A and S together… probably to prevent it from saying bad words. There are a few others combinations it won’t play either. Funny -and sad – that toys have to be that smart.

Promisekeepers and Scrapbooking
Brian just took off for a weekend with the guys from church in Mobile, AL for the Promisekeepers rally. He attended the event in California 2 years ago and had a great time, so I’m sure he’ll really enjoy himself and the fellowship this time, as well. One of our friends from church who is also husband-less for the weekend is coming over for a night of scrapbooking. Woohoo!

As always, I’ve got lots of catching up to do. But I just stumbled across a really cool article from Leadership Journal, a publication of Christianity Today magazine. It’s an excerpt from a book called Blue Like Jazz by Don Miller about 6 college students who took radical responsibility for the atrocities that have been done in the name of Christianity. Very powerful idea…
For your evening reading… The Campus Confession Booth.
Leave me a note if you have any thoughts about it!