Mood:  happy

Anyway, I've been having a discussion on a forum that I belong to about funny things that our kids do or say. I happened to mention that with the last name of Tinkel, there are bound to be a lot of humorous things that have happened. Then I thought "What a wonderful topic for the Men's Monday Meme".  

I'll begin the discussion by mentioning the three things that I told the other great folks.

1. When I was in high school, my middle name mysteriously changed to "Gotta". Remember, now, my last name is "Tinkel" !

2. To this day there is a group of my cousins that do not use the term tinkle to mean going to the potty. I'm not even sure they know what that term means, although, how can they not know? We used it at in our house as kind of a joke. I mean, people were going to joke about it anyway, so it's kind of like "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" !

3. You have to be really careful about what you name your children when you have the last name of Tinkel...Ivana would just not work .

Okay, now your turn. The childhood memories that you write about don't have to be about your name. They could be anything funny about growing up. Something funny that you said or did,  a humorous tradition, something funny that grandpa or grandma did...anything really! I'm sure you can think of something. I have more that I'm thinking of right now, but I'll save those for another day!

Here are the rules for this meme:

1. This is a man's meme, so the answers must be the answers from a man. Either the man can answer on his blog, or a wife can interview her husband for her blog. However, if the wife puts it on her blog, she must stay true to what her husband said.
2. You are encouraged to put one of the Men's Monday Meme buttons found to the left on your blog. Just copy the code below the button of your choice. The more folks who link, the more readers you may have to visit your blog.
3. You may answer the question any time during the week up through next Monday. After you answer the question, add the address to your post to the Mr.Linky below. If you could, please only add the direct link to the post to make it easier for readers to find the entry.
4. My answer along with a new question will be posted next Monday. The new Mr. Linky will be added at midnight Monday night or sometime within the next couple of days after that .

And here is the new Mr. Linky:

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Mood:  lazy

If you have been reading my blog the past couple of weeks, you know that we have been extremely busy with ministry and some family matters the past week or two. For that reason, I haven't had time to promote the Men's Monday Meme as much as I usually do.  I know, I know, it's hard to believe that I have to promote anything as ingenious as the Men's Monday Meme, never-the-less I do. So, I have put the Men's Monday Meme on a staycation. No, I'm not going to put my laptop on a lawn chair in my back yard beside a kiddie pool! It just means that I'm going to keep the same question for another week and try to advertise it a little better. Having said that, PLEASE PARTICIPATE. Click here to get to the last question. And, thanks for joining in!

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Mood:  down

Yep, I'm still down. Computer problem has not been fixed and I am discouraged. I have been hopping around between my wife's laptop and my son's laptop and it is not fun. Not only that, but you won't believe how many things that you have stored on your laptop. For example, I am going to have to go to another Men's Monday Meme post to retrieve one of the meme logo's and then save it on to one of my small zip drives and then put it in this post. Then later, I'm going to have to hope that I remember my Mr. Linky password because it was programmed into my laptop to remember. ARGHHH!!! To much stuff! I hate this.

All of this mess makes me think about just getting away for a vacation. I had some wonderful vacations when I was younger. I don't know if I could pick out a favorite. I remember going to Massachusetts when I was 12 or 13. We toured a battleship and a submarine ~ I got stuck in the seatbelt in the parking lot of the battleship ~ good memories . I recall touring Plymouth and Cape Cod ~ I ate my first seafood at a restaurant there ~ hey, I was from central Pennsylvania, not a very seafood eating place! One of my favorite memories was going to the Boston Aquarium and then touring Boston itself. I grew up loving history and still do today.

Other favorite vacations were to Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, Gettysburg (as you can see we were a history loving family), driving the Blue Ridge parkway, touring Mackinac Island, and, of course, our trips to Florida and Disney World before we actually moved there.

I could go on for days about our vacations growing up. I loved them and I'm sure I will write many more posts about them. I have a lot of great memories. We've created some great memories with our kids as well. I love vacations.

That leads me to the question of the week:

What about you? Do you have some great vacation memories from growing up? Or, perhaps you've taken some pretty fun vacations with your own wife and kids. Tell us about your favorite vacations memory.

Don't forget the rules for the meme:

1. This is a man's meme, so the answers must be the answers from a man. Either the man can answer on his blog, or a wife can interview her husband for her blog. However, if the wife puts it on her blog, she must stay true to what her husband said.
2. You are encouraged to put one of the Men's Monday Meme buttons found to the left on your blog. Just copy the code below the button of your choice. The more folks who link, the more readers you may have to visit your blog.
3. You may answer the question any time during the week up through next Monday. After you answer the question, add the address to your post to the Mr.Linky below. If you could, please only add the direct link to the post to make it easier for readers to find the entry.
4. My answer along with a new question will be posted next Monday. The new Mr. Linky will be added at midnight Monday night or sometime within the next couple of days after that .

And here's the new Mr. Linky:

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Mood:  a-ok

I thought that this would be an excellent topic for Independence Day. I'm sure that you all know by now that I am a big proponent of not revising our history. I hate it when I hear of schools that don't teach the accurate story of our first Thanksgiving, or who leave God out of the celebration.

I cringe when I read the stories of how monuments have been put up apologizing to the Native Americans for bringing in diseases, taking over their land, and mistreating them violently.

I abhor talk about how our founding fathers didn't really know what they were talking about. If we still followed their view of things, we would still have slaves etc. 

I want my children to hear how God guided our forefathers and how God was the reason why they did so many of the things that they did. I'm tired of people telling me that we have learned so much more now, and the way we have depicted these historical events for 200+ years really isn't correct. We are so much smarter than the great men that formed our country.

I could go on and on, but you don't want to hear me rant and rave. So, I'll just ask my question(s) and move on.

What do you think? Do you think that the way history is taught to our children today is the way it should be? Has it been dumbed down and incorrectly revised? Or, is this revising really good for our country?

Let me know! Here are the rules:

1. This is a man's meme, so the answers must be the answers from a man. Either the man can answer on his blog, or a wife can interview her husband for her blog. However, if the wife puts it on her blog, she must stay true to what her husband said.
2. You are encouraged to put one of the Men's Monday Meme buttons found to the left on your blog. Just copy the code below the button of your choice. The more folks who link, the more readers you may have to visit your blog.
3. You may answer the question any time during the week up through next Monday. After you answer the question, add the address to your post to the Mr.Linky below. If you could, please only add the direct link to the post to make it easier for readers to find the entry.
4. My answer along with a new question will be posted next Monday. The new Mr. Linky will be added at midnight Monday night or sometime within the next couple of days after that .

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Mood:  a-ok

I was thinking about this yesterday as I was combing through the links for a new weekly freebie thing I am doing on homeschooling. The first week's theme was about whether or not Christians should send their kids to public schools or not. There some interesting information that The Old Schoolhouse magazine is offering for free. You can find that post by clicking here.

I have mixed emotions about public schools. I grew up in one in a small town and it seemed fine. It's been thirty years since I graduated, however. Things have changed. My oldest went to public school through third grad and he was fine. Of course, we live in another small town and a lot of the teachers were Christians. He really didn't seem to have a problem.

Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the norm in some school districts these days. You hear so many stories of violence, corruption, religious discrimination, and dumbed down, revised textbooks that we wonder how kids really know anything when they graduate. John Allen, our oldest, didn't experience anything like this. We pulled him out, not because of the school, but because of our schedule as full time missionaries and because we wanted a little more control of our child's education. 

Still, I don't think that we will ever send him back. I like being the one that chooses what curriculum we will use. I like being able to teach him from textbooks that don't try to revise God our of our history. I like challenging him with subjects that aren't dumbed down so that test scores will look good. I like being with my children.

I know all of the talk about socialization. That really isn't what this post is about, although it will come into play. Here's my quick view on that. First of all, my children get a lot of socialization. Remember, we run a mission. There are kids here all of the time. Not many folks run a ministry like we do, I understand that, but if you get your kids involved in church, homeschool groups, sports, etc. they will have plenty of socialization. And, since when did the main objective of school become socialization? I thought school was for learning. 

I realize that not all parents have the luxury of being able to homeschool their kids. Although there are creative ways of doing it ~ homeschooling at night, etc. ~ it still isn't possible for some folks. Here is the question(s) of the week, though:

What do you all think? Have some (perhaps most) public schools become to corrupt ~ socially and educationally ~ for Christian children to go to? Should we go back to the way of our founding fathers and teach our children at home? What about Christina schools?

I guess I've really loaded this weeks question. There's much to talk about. Maybe too much. Just pick an area from the questions above that you want to talk about. Have fun!

Here's a reminder of the rules. 

Here's the rules:

And here's the new Mr. Linky:

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