Park Street Church's Bicentennial

Hello all! Today is our church's 200th birthday. Pretty cool, huh? Below is a little note I was sent from the church on Facebook. It tells you a little about this history of the church, and it's kind of neat:

PARK STREET CHURCH CELEBRATES ITS BICENTENNIAL
Boston Landmark Plays Special Role in City’s History

Friday, February 27, 2009 marks the 200th birthday of “Brimstone Corner,” which stands on the corner of the Boston Common with its well-recognized, 217-foot white steeple—once the first landmark travelers glimpsed when arriving in Boston. Today Park Street Church is the third stop on the Freedom Trail and an active Congregational Church.

On February 27, 1809, 26 locals signed a charter to found the church. The original building was completed in eight months, from April to December. Since that time, Park Street Church has maintained a strong tradition of evangelical teaching and social reform with far-reaching effects both in Boston and around the world.

This is the site of many notable events and “firsts.” William Lloyd Garrison delivered his first antislavery speech from the pulpit. “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” was performed by children on the church steps for the first time in 1831. Many groups formed here, including The Handel and Hayden Society of Boston (1815), the American Temperance Society, the Animal Rescue League, and the Boston chapter of the NAACP.

In celebration of its bicentennial year and in anticipation of an exciting future, Park Street Church will be hosting a series of special events. Guest speakers—famous Christians sharing their faith journeys—will speak at the church on a monthly basis. Exhibits will display items from the church’s archives. Symposiums are being arranged to encourage intellectual discussion in the arena of faith; topics include “Faith and Science,” “Problems of Suffering,” and others. Reunions will be held, as well as activities for children and families.

In addition, a book by Dr. Garth Rosell about the history and identity of the church was recently published. The church is also looking forward to the release of a half-hour film highlighting themes of its legacy that shape its present life.

Thomas Menino has issued a proclamation from the Mayor’s office designating February 27, 2009 as “The Park Street Church Bicentennial Day,” and the governor has issued a citation honoring the anniversary. The church encourages Bostonians to join in celebrating this landmark date for a Boston landmark.

Hot and Cold

So this month I made myself really stick to our grocery budget. Usually, I give myself a ballpark figure and just go from there, and I usually end up spending more than I intended. There's no financial emergency on our end or anything, but I did decide that I was going to pay more attention to this one aspect of our budget and try to be more financially responsible.

One of the things I did to make this work was use cash. I withdrew a certain amount for every week and only used that for the week. This helped a whole lot, because once you're out of cash, you're out of cash, so I tended to pay more attention to what I had to work with. This meant I pretty much cooked every meal.

Up until this week. This week, I am just uninspired by this little game of "what can I cook that will be yummy and only use up $xxx?" This week, I don't feel like doing dishes or cleaning up after Noah or eating anything I would cook. This week, I just want to eat out.

So we have caved and eaten a few fast food meals and one restaurant meal. It has busted our budget by a little, but not to the extent that I used to bust it every month. ;) So overall, I consider this month a moderate success.

Does anybody else budget and cook and make a meal plan and all that? Any tips? Or do you just love to eat out and freely do what you want to do when it comes to your food budget (if you have one)? What have your experiences been?

A Look Back

Okay, "A Walk to Remember" has sent my mind back like 5 or 10 years to all that teenage/early 20's romance. So I started thinking about Nathan and me and our story, and I made him dig up an old video for me to watch.

When Nathan and I got married, his brother, Andrew, made us this video slide show for our rehearsal dinner. It is full of pictures of us growing up, along with our engagement pics. I love these pictures (except for maybe the ones of me in fourth grade, with my mop of hair and ugly green glasses). Some highlights are:
- The intro, from "Princess Bride." That was Andrew's touch and was a surprise to all of us.
- How much Noah looks like Ken.
- My ugly 4th grade photos.
- How good looking Nathan got as he got into his teens. He says the girls weren't really after him in high school. This leads me to believe that all girls at Waco High were idiots. Of course, I haven't verified his "no-girls-were-after-me" claim, now that I think of it. I'll have to double-check with his brothers. Although I doubt they'll tell me the truth.
- A picture of us on our very first date (I'm wearing a red dress).
- The pic with the guy dressed as a goal post--that was the Dean of Students at Rice, and the guy dressed as the official was the President. The other two guys with us are Mark and Brandon, Nathan's college roommates, who I miss dearly at the sight of that photo.

I'm posting the video here because I want it on the blog for my own sake, but if you're interested in watching it, I must warn you that it's like eleven minutes long.

Lauren & Nathan - Growing Up + Engagement pics from Lauren Benesh on Vimeo.

Brushing His Teeth!

Funny Noah Stuff

The Boy is learning a lot these days and does something funny and unexpected at least once a day.

For example, he knows that socks and shoes go on your feet, that gloves go on your hands, and that headbands and rubber bands go in your hair. A couple of weeks ago, he started bringing me my shoes at random times and trying to put them on my feet. Cute! Then, he found Nathan's glove and walked around for a bit wearing that huge thing on his little hand. And the funniest is when he finds one of my hair things and puts it on his head. Ha! The cool thing is that although I do say, "Okay, we're putting your socks on your feet," and stuff like that, we haven't made it a point to teach him where you put a glove or your shoes or anything--he pretty much made the connections himself.

As far as the funny things he does every day, a good example is something that happened yesterday. I was lying on the couch most of the day, trying to deal with the nausea that came with the stomach bug that Noah passed to me. At one point, Noah was playing with his back to the couch, so I couldn't really see what he was doing. But then, a few minutes later, after he got up, I looked up, and he wasn't wearing pants! He had totally taken them off as he was sitting there next to me, and I didn't even know it! There he was, standing there in his Curious George onesie, showing off those cute, pudgy, bare legs, like there was nothing amiss. It made me laugh. This is his new thing--he realized recently that he can take his pants off (the ones with an elastic waistband, anyway), and he thinks it's really fun to work them off every so often. The other day, he was sitting on the floor playing with one leg in and one leg out of his pajamas.

I should really start writing down the funny stuff he does, because there really is something new every day that makes me laugh. :)

Sick Noah :(

Noah has never been sick. Well, not really sick, anyway. He's had colds, but nothing else--no ear infections, no real fever, nothing we've had to take him to the doctor for.

Last night, though, I kept hearing him wake up and cry or moan in his sleep. So I went in there and rocked him at one point, but he just wriggled so much that I put him back in his crib.

Finally, at 5am, I went back in to check on him again. I reached down into his crib and felt something wet. At first, I thought it was just a pool of sweat, because the kid sweats a lot when he's sleeping. But then I realized it was really big for a pool of sweat.

Reaction #2 was that maybe his sippy cup tipped over and leaked. So I picked him up, and I realized that he was covered with whatever this wet stuff was, himself.

Reaction #3: Oh no, this is poop. So I went to turn the light on. Wrong again.

It was vomit.

Vomit all over his sheet, his pajamas, his blankets, and now his mama. Thankfully, his two stuffed animals were at the other end of the crib, because I don't know that I would have ever felt like I got them clean enough if they had been covered, too.

Poor baby. He did go back to sleep, but he kind of moaned on and off for the rest of the night, although he did sleep much better once all the yuckiness was cleaned off him.

This morning, he is a different kid. He is acting like he was never sick at all, except that all he wanted for breakfast was applesauce. Other than that, he is running around, just like normal. I guess he just ate something that didn't sit right with him. Anyway, I'm glad he's feeling better! Now we both just need a good nap.

What Happens When Nathan is Out of Town

1. I update my Facebook status way too often. Here are my status updates from today:

• Lauren is going to go find me a Wal-Mart in New England today. Wish me luck! ;).
• Lauren just bought a bunch of stuff she didn't know she needed.
• Lauren just cleaned a ketchup thumbprint from the top of Noah's head.
• Lauren cried while watching "A Walk to Remember." And I can't believe I just posted that on my status.

2. I watch sappy movies. And I don't even intend to do it. I guess I just stop on the channel when I run across them, which I wouldn't normally do if Nathan is around, and I get sucked in. It's always been this way, now that I think about it--just about every time he goes out of town, I watch a girly (most often tear-jerker) movie. The three sappy movies that come to mind are "A Walk to Remember," which I just saw for the first time tonight; "An Affair to Remember;" and "Return to Me" (that's a really good one).