someone's got a birthday...

Our little Lucy is turning one in just over a week. It's amazing how fast the year has gone by. She's such a sweet little (big) baby, and so funny. Her latest thing is puckering up to give kisses. She's got those chubby little cheeks and even makes the mmmmmm sound. You all need one of those kisses! We are planning a small party for a few friends next Sunday. I just know that Lucy is going to devour her cake. She's already got a taste for those things even before turning one! Oh no!

unknown family author

Bradens first books
Age 6, august 2006
Name: I am not a baby

Lucy said momy may I suk on my blankit that I had when I was a baby
no you are not a baby anemore.
Lucy said momy may I have my buny rabbit
no you are not a baby anemore.
Lucy said momy may I take a nap like I yoost to
yes lucy yes.

The end

[I didn't change anything except breaking it up into separate lines]

family movie stars

Click on the picture to see my mom and dad in a recent video promoting their church's small groups. My dad welcomes the young couple and my mom is the one on the couch sharing about her inner child.

day 23

word count: 33,714

The trip to Campinas set me back significantly.I'm almost exactly 5,000 words behind. With one week left it will take some major inspiration to finish the book with the time I have available.

bowling with the dowdys

The fam went bowling last weekend. Check out the skills!

croissants + butecos + bibles

Thursday morning, me, Alan and Wandson (who both we part of the project in Campinas), Leo, Thiaguinho and Diego (all friends and graduates or soon-to-be graduates from UFMG) left out of our garage at 7'ish in the morning to head back to Campinas. We drove down in part for the road trip benefits... to have the time together and two, to visit and reconnect with the friends we made at Unicamp. We just got back last night at almost midnight after three very full days. It's hard to pick a highlight from such an intense trip (we were out and about by 9 a.m. on Friday and didn't go back to our houses and sleep until almost 3 a.m.) but here's some of my favorite moments: croissants at the German bakery, conversation at the Star Clean about truth, discussion about our major questions in life on campus, hamburgers and world travel stories with João at Ponto Final, hearing André sing samba music at Fernando's bar in front of the dorms, and the moment that the band came up to accompany Andred singing the song he wrote about always wanting to write a song. Hearing Vinícius' story about how he began following Christ last year, and playing the cuzo at the ice cream store were also highlights.

Thanks to all of you who made the trip so special: Débora, Juliana, Ju, Carol, Gustavo, Vinícius, João, André, Paulo, Andred, Ricardo, Tucker, Gui, Chuck and many more.

not open for interpretation

I had a crazy, vivid, classic dream last night. I was at a church (that doesn't exist) here in Belo Horizonte. It was connected with Tim Keller in New York. I think he might have even been the pastor here. Anyway, me and some of our team were there and I was supposed to preach. The church was really big and opened up to our central park here. You could see all the trees in the windows around the sanctuary. There was a problem and some of the guys were running around trying to figure out who to talk to and trying to nail down the final order and stuff. But there was another problem. For some reason I didn't have any clothes but underwear. But the guys kept telling me that there was no time to change things and that I was the only one prepared. Awful feeling. I kept wondering if I stood behind the podium if people would notice. Again I remind you, this dream is not open for interpretation.

in the comics

Since returning from Campinas I've thought about how I could best share some of the happenings with you all. I put together some pictures from our time there (sorry, for some reason the camera automatically points at the kids!), and I included a few words about why we were there and what our plans are now that we are back in Belo. And no, I didn't spend hours and hours putting it together. I did it with this program called Comic Life that pretty much does it for you. Click on the picture to see it full size... there are two pages. I plan on doing a Part 2 whenever I receive a copy of the pictures from the project.

day 7

This was my first week for this year's writing marathon. It was pretty interesting. I felt like it flew by for one. Also the word count came easy (I guess I'm wordy) but the flow was jerky. I just couldn't get a good rhythm. I switched back and forth between first person and third. Ah, I doubt anybody's interested in the details.

Day 7 word count: 11,855 out of 50,000

23 days to go.

tip #141

Tip: you can't re-fill a beanbag with shredded paper... no matter how much you stuff in there. You can however have a really good time taking it all back out!

shades of pink

Here's a hug from Lucy in her new glasses.

stooges

Either I was wrong to think there were only 3 stooges or I'm just not sure which three they are. Bernardo, Francival, Emerson, Wandson, and I were together in the same place (at Chico's wedding) for the first time in a long time. Wandson and I were so happy to be back from Campinas and to have Francival in town on break from his studies in São Paulo.

what?

I'm going to let all you faithful readers write your own story for this one. Go ahead, fire away in the comment section. I didn't know Amy had it in her.

day 2

Current word count: 4,708

word count

Last year I wrote my first novel... my first rough draft at least. It's August again and I'm going to give it another try. Last year was more of a detective, mystery style. This year I'm writing about basketball. Current word count after Day 1 - 2,648.