kylegilbert

I don’t know if Mr. Wizard was into  microscopes, but I’m sure he would love this little hand-held device that I bought for my daughter’s birthday last weekend.

It’s called the Bionic Eye, and it’s made by Eye Clops.  It plugs into your TV, and it has zoom levels of 100x, 200x, and 400x.  The best part: it only costs about $30.

Below you can watch a video of me testing out the microscope.

Even if my daughter doesn’t end up playing with it much, I’m going to get hours of fun from this thing.

If you happen to know of anything that’s especially cool to look at under a microscope, please tell me about it.

Here’s a short video of my son and I doing a little wrestling.  Don’t miss his finishing move at the end.

Last night, as Keri and I were getting ready to go out on a date, my daughter ran up to me, and quickly drew this picture.  She said that it was a drawing of her – so we wouldn’t miss her too much while we were gone.

PS – In case you can’t tell, it’s a head with long hair, and two legs sticking out the bottom where the neck should be. 

Decided to play a round of miniature golf with the kids last weekend.  It was their first time, and it was a bit like trying to herd monkeys.  Lot’s of fun, but a little bit exhausting.

This was a pretty bizzare course, and that added to the fun.

If you’re a parent or ever plan to be a parent, what is your biggest dream for your kids? What aspiration is at the top when you consider their futures? Does it involve their ability in sports or academics? Is it related to their talents or social skills? Do you hope they will make a lot of money? Is it something based on your own failings?

As I’ve thought about this, I’ve come to a very strong personal conclusion. I’ve made plenty of mistakes as a parent, but there are two things about which I want my kids to be perfectly certain:

1. More than anything else, I want them to live for the glory of God – fully committed to Jesus Christ.
2. No matter what, I love them and treasure them with all of my heart.

You see, when it comes to these two things, I don’t want my kids to have to guess.

So to make that happen, here are a few items that I’m implementing:

• Mentioning these things in passing as we hang out and play together.
• Teaching the stories of Scripture to my kids and helping them to enjoy the Bible.
• Reinforcing these things when we pray together.
• Talking about these things in more detail when I can tell that their hearts are open and attentive.

Brynna and I needed to pick up some bread for dinner the other night, so we stopped in at Walgreens rather than having to deal with the crowds at Wal-Mart.  When we entered the door, I realized that we had a small problem.  No body told me that in October, Walgreens is transformed into a haunted house.  There were skeleton faces all over the place, and not just the innocent “Mr. Funny Bones” kind of skeletons either.  I’m talking about rotting hair and flesh kinds of creepies down several isles.

So I picked up my daughter and told her to put her head on my shoulder and keep her eyes closed – that there were some things that were kind of rude that she wouldn’t want to see.  Fortunately, I think she took me at my word and did what I told her too, and we quickly grabbed our stuff, paid for it, and headed out the door.

It’s a strange world that we live in.  It’s becoming increasingly difficult to protect the innocence of children in our society (and I know it’s worse in most other countries).

Some of you may be tempted to tell me that I shouldn’t shelter my daughter like this, but I’ll tell you in advance that I think you’re crazy.