Personal Favorites...

The ladies at our church just threw Melissa a baby shower this past weekend and we received some really cool items and outfits:

Here is a picture of my 'personal favorites' of all the outfits that we received at the shower...

Bits and Pieces

EMILY: She says the funniest things sometimes. Yesterday she came upstairs crying and told us that she had fallen down the steps. She wasn’t acting hurt anywhere… I think it just scared her. We asked her how far she had fallen (basically, we were wanting to know from which step she had fallen.) She responded by saying: ‘I fell about 45 or 46.’ The rest of the night, when we asked her how far she had fallen, she responded with the same numbers. Just makes me laugh every time I think about it. (Her response, not that she fell.)

NO BOY NAME YET: Melissa and I cannot settle on a boy’s name. We’ve gone back and forth about several. Maybe I should auction the naming rights off on ebay? Have people bid on the chance to name my kid? *Melissa… stop hitting me…. I was just kidding.* However, maybe after the baseball tournament is done… I can create a poll on the blog with our top five picks and see what the public opinion is… Hmmmm.

EMILY 2: We were at gymnastics with her the other night and she was really doing some cool things on the bars. At one point, she was hanging upside down with her feet and she looked over at us to make sure we were watching. We both gave her a huge thumbs up and she smiled really big. Then she got down… ran to the door to the lobby area where all the parents are… opened the door… turned to us with all the other parents watching and yelled: ‘MOMMY, DADDY… DID YOU SEE THAT? DID YOU SEE THAT? THAT WAS AWESOME!’ We laughed along with all the other parents. The ways she says ‘awesome’ cracks me up… she almost growls it out and it comes out ‘aweshome.’ Very funny.

BARRY BONDS: I don’t like him. That’s all I have to say. I just don’t like him.

THE CHICAGO CUBS: I can’t stand them… that’s all I have to say… I can’t stand them.

ULTRASOUND: Melissa had an ultrasound on Tuesday. The baby already weighs 5 pounds and Melissa still has six weeks to go. As a comparison, Emily weighed about seven and a half pounds when she was born. They think he’ll come out weighing about eight and a half pounds. And he’ll be born about two weeks earlier than Emily was. A strapping young chap. I’ll post a side pic of Melissa in the next couple of weeks… with her permission, of course.

NEXT DISNEY TRIP OFFICIAL: We will be visiting Walt Disney World from September 20 to September 26. Melissa’s parents have offered to come with and help watch the newborn. Disney is offering a great deal for September where they offer you their dining plan for FREE. For every night that we are there… we will get one Table service meal, one counter service meal, and one snack… ALL FOR FREE. We usually budget about $350 for food… but with Emily… probably more like $425. But the great thing is that it will allow us to try some ‘sit down’ restaurants that we wouldn’t normally be able to afford. According to my calculations, it will save us about $800 worth of food… because we are going to take advantage of all the ‘sit down’ meals given to us. We are excited. Our first night there will be at the Animal Kingdom… and we’ll be eating at the Rainforest Café. Emily hasn’t eaten there yet… and we think she’ll love it… what with all the animatronic animals moving and making noise all around. Should be cool.

So long for just awhile…

Book and Movie Review

Lord of War: Rated R... for violent images, strong language, and sexual situations. I'll be honest, I have a hard time recommending Rated R movies for various reasons. Braveheart, Matrix, Shawkshank Redemption are just a few exceptions to the rule. Well, it's time to add another. I loved this movie. It's a look at the life of an arms dealer. Nicholas Cage was great... as was his supporting cast. The story was well written and held my interest the entire movie. Even the beginning credits were interesting to watch as it followed the 'life of a bullet' all the while "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield plays in the background. I do not remember any blatant nudity... but there is very strong language and violence... just so you are warned. On the whole, this film is engaging, entertaining, and timely. 9.7/10


Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller: It's hard to describe this book. I loved it... it was funny and honest and insightful. It's definitely a postmodern book. It doesn't offer any easy solutions to life and faith... which is probably why I like it so much. The chapter on the author and his friends setting up a Confessional in the middle of their college campus was worth the price of the book all by itself. Very fun and quick read. 9.2/10


That's all for now!

For the most part, our house is finally ready for the new baby to arrive. Here are the pictures:


The nursery in all its' sports teddy bear glory...



More nursery...



Emily's has upgraded to a bigger bed size... and Melissa has finally gotton all white furniture in Emily's room! (She's been wanting that for awhile...)



Because we turned our home office/computer room into the nursery... we had to get creative in where to put all our office stuff. Here was solution number 1: An armoire to house all the computer stuff... down in the basement now.



Solution 2: Two new oversized book shelves for all our books. Solution 3: Throw the rest of it the guest room closet, the storage room, or in the garage.

Prayer Labyrinth

We put together a prayer labyrinth at the church here last Sunday night. I got the idea from Group's 'Prayer Path' and David Drury at Spring Lake... in fact, we adapted many of David's ideas into this labyrinth. The few people that came really seemed to enjoy the time.

Basically, our labyrinth was seven different stations that were located throughout the sanctuary... each station dealt with a different portion of the Lord's prayer. Some stations were just meditative in nature... but most of them prompted the participants to engage in various activities. Here are a few pics from the experience:


People were encouraged to take a rock from the table and drop it in the bucket of water to symbolize their releasing any unforgiveness in their lives.


This is a blurry picture of a wide shot of the sanctuary... I guess it's kind of hard to tell what is going on here... but I wanted to include an 'overview' shot of the labyrinth.


Participants were given a list of the names of God... then they were asked to write the one name that they cling to most on the white board: For some it was Yahweh Jireh... the God who provides. For others it was the simple acknowledgement of the great 'I AM.'


This station asked people to light a candle for someone they wanted to come to know Jesus... or someone who needed God's healing touch.


Communion was served... right in the middle... they had the opportunity to use the altar for this station as well.

Overall, the night went well... I just wish more people would've take advantage of it. I think we are going to try one again sometime soon.

If: Part 3

Due to rising gasoline prices… my head has not been able to adequately wrap itself around any of the ‘serious’ articles that I would like to write sometime soon. (No, I don’t know what rising gas prices have to do with it, but I have to blame it on SOMETHING.) So, I am moving back to my trusty ‘If’ book for the second week in a row.

If you could change one thing in the world right now, what would you altar?
Lower gas prices! Just kidding… sort of. Another one of those questions where the easy answer is to say: No More Evil, No More War, No More Terrorists, and No More Cubs Fans! (Just kidding about the Cubs fans thing… sort of.) I’ll go with no more evil, but I still run into the whole eliminating free will thing… which God declined to do… and though this might surprise some of you… God is more knowledgeable about creation how the world is supposed to work than I am.

If you had to assassinate one famous person who is alive right now, who would it be, and how would you do it?
Well, assassination is quite a serious crime. I mean, I just said that I would like to eliminate all evil, which would include assassination. However, this was the question asked… and my answer would probably be one of two types of people: Someone from the Hollywood left that doesn’t know anything about anything and uses their fame to get involved in issues that we make him/her look better… not necessarily because they want to change the world. The second type of person would be the famous Christian right wing radicals that say dumb things like: Hurricane Katrina happened because God was pouring out his wrath on a morally bankrupt New Orleans. Gag me with a freakin’ spoon. (Or better yet, I choose that as my method of assassination… death by spoon gagging… watch out Pat Robertson, if you see me coming at you with a spoon…) ‘Course, there are certain Cub players and MANAGER that would be close to making my ‘list.’

If you could permanently alter one thing about your physical appearance, what would you change?
Easiest question so far: I’d like to lose weight… I would like to permanently hover at the 175 mark for the rest of my long, tennis playing life.

If you could have stopped aging at any point in your life up to the present, how old would you want to remain?
There are several ways to interpret this question… what exactly happens when I stop aging? Do I stop learning? Does everybody in my life stop aging at the exact same time? Or does it just have to do with my physical aging… while the rest of the world grows old around me? Another question I would have is whether I can lose weight after I've stopped my aging... I mean, I would probably chose 24 or 25, but I'd like to lose some of the weight that I carried then. If I can't lose weight, then I would be forced to go all the way back to 18 or 19 when I was last under 200 pounds.

If you could inherit a comfortable home in any city in the world that you could use but not sell, where would you want it to be?
Easy, St. Louis. Yes, some dreams do come true. Orlando would take second place.

If you could inherit a vacation home anywhere in the world in which you could spend one month a year, but that you could never sell, where would it be?
1) Orlando 2) San Diego

Ok, you know the drill… what would be your answers to these questions?