What a Weekend!

The great NW sun decided to stay out for more than a few minutes and we took full advantage of it. Which means that I pulled out the BBQ, scrubbed the mold off it, relocated the slugs that hibernated there all winter, and fired it up!
The girls spent the morning digging for worms (see my wifes blog) and during their nap I mowed and cleaned up the yard a little. We also went to the park across the street to throw the softball around as we shake the rust out of our muscles getting ready for another church softball season.
We ended the evening by having some friends over to play the Wii. The bowling, tennis, baseball and boxing were hits, and the Wario Smooth Moves drew some laughs but the favorite was Carnival Games. It doesn't get much better than shooting ducks, throwing darts, dunking the Joe Dirt look-a-like and shooting hoops in a rim too small. All this without Bubba and his mom/cousin/uncle Betty Anne spilling nachos and cheap beer on your shoes as you try to whack the frog onto the teflon lilypads.
Sunday was spent helping a friend move and helping a friend get to Hawaii (see Wifes BBF Blog)
I have strayed away from my typical deep thoughts, but I may get there this week and get something for all of you to chew on. For now I will just hope for a 2-14 season for the Miami Cowboys and their recent Michigan additions! GO FINS!

Weekend at the Beach

To all my fans who have been "crying for more".
I wish I could be sorry for not blogging recently, but I am not. I had the opportunity to spend a weekend at the Washington coast in a town called Grayland. Someone won a gold medal for naming that town. Gray was all we saw the first day. We tried to head towards where we thought the beach would be, but after being pelted with frozen rain drops and almost losing my youngest a la rejected nannies in Mary Poppins, we decide to stay in our shelter.
It was an awesome day of absolutely nothing.
The next day was filled with adventure. We went up the "Cranberry Coast" to Westport and had the best apple fritter to ever touch my tongue. After a walk along the beaches where some locos were surfing, we found a little place called the Westport Grill which had one of the greatest fish'n'chips to ever fill my mouth.
I also got to drive on the beach and took my daughters on an adventure of chasing seagulls and turning around so fast, their carseats tipped as I dug massive donuts in the sand. They call it "driving crazy on the sand" I call it pure fun. Thank goodness for "Low 4x4" mode or I would have called it "Geico pulling me out"!
So this blog will finish without any deep theological thoughts or soapbox ideas. My brain is still on "do nothing" mode. I sure hope it switches out by the time I clock in tomorrow morning.

This is the view off the deck of the house we stayed at:

Profound Quote

"What you are speaks so loud I can't hear what you say!"

- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

   This quote was used this weekend by the speaker at our church. It really got me thinking about the church in general and why it is so despised by some. As a church we speak at people, tell them to repent, tell them our way is better. Then we gossip about our neighbors, curse at our kids, and treat others in ways we would not want to be treated ourselves. Although we "talk the talk" we don't "walk the walk". So we should not be surprised that church attendance is down.
   Unfortunately the church is thrust in the spotlight and most people miss that everyone does this. I think that we all like to talk the good talk and tell people that we really are better than the way we act. We tell everyone things like "I am not one to gossip, but Mrs. Jones had the gardener over three times this week" or "Usually I am really nice to the people in line at Walmart, but that guy looked at me funny". Even our politicians who are out to clean up the streets are finding out that it takes a lot more than talk to show people what you are.
   It saddens me that the church is like this. But it frustrates me that the whole world is like this, and the church is condemned for it. Does anyone notice that the church is a group of humans? Although we strive for a higher standard, we are still humans and humans are not perfect. It is also unfortunate that only the bad "Christians" make it into the media, not the ones who are feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. But the media and it's treatment of the "religious" is a whole other soapbox that I will save for another time.
   I will end with this:
Next time you think that the church is just a bunch of hypocrites, look at the 3 fingers pointing back at yourself and realize that no matter what you say, it is what you do that will define who you are.

Fourth Post

Wow it is really hard to blog during the week! I started a few times, but kept being interrupted by life. Two little girls will do that to you! Although I guess they are not so little anymore. Layne is signed up for Kindergarten and Maisen has finally toilet trained herself. I would like to think that Coraly or I had something to do with it, but the most we did was make her wear panties, and when she messed herself, we let her stew in it for a short time. That sure changed her attitude towards using the "potty toilet".

Then our good friend had to choose this week (Spring Break) to have chronic deflating lungs. So she dumped her kids off on us to go have surgery. Good thing her kids are just about the same age as ours and they are all best friends. I guess we could call them our B.F.F. (Best Friend Family) Our kids are best friends (Maisen and Tirus are practically married) Coraly and Laura hang out all the time, and although Anthony works a lot, we get out to play racquetball a few days a week. They have always been there for us, so it was our pleasure to give a little back.

That just added to the crazy week with our church and my men's group going through some changes that were unexpected. I wish that I could report that the modern church is perfect, but anyone who has read the news in the past few years would know that I was either lying or seriously out of touch with reality. Maybe after this weekends sermon I will be brave enough to tackle my thoughts on religion. For now I will just pray that our church will use this time to refocus on our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and make sure that he is our priority, not the business side of church.

Well I am really looking forward to this weekend, the sun should be out, and we might break 70 degrees tomorrow! Tomorrow is also our day we can upgrade our cell phones, which is a good thing since we have to recharge them after talking on them for less than 30 minutes. I think I will be getting the "chocolate" so I can recycle my MP3 player. I will keep you updated on how well that works.

I am writing all this as Coraly is at the hospital with Laura. We are praying that she will be released tomorrow as she has been there since Tuesday! Please pray with us and I will let you know how it works out. I promised the girls we would make popcorn at 8, while we are watching Disney's Tarzan, so I better spell check this and post it.

Third Blog

Today is Monday; well I guess I am already getting my blog off to a depressing start. The weekends are always filled with so much fun, and the girls hate when I have to go back to work. It is even harder for them this week, since they have Spring Break from preschool and BSF. They are still a little confused why daddy does not get a spring break.

My men's Bible study took last week off, because most schools had Spring break right after Easter. We are studying the book of Nehemiah, and I just finished re-reading my lesson. I usually talk with my wife about what I have learned and it was amazing how her studies of Daniel and Matthew coincide with my study of Nehemiah. Something profound stuck out to both of us this week.

In Matthew 8, Jesus leads his disciples into a boat. In Nehemiah 2 we see the beginning of opposition. Both Nehemiah and the Disciples were clearly doing God's will. They were both following what God / Jesus called them to do, there is no doubt about that. Yet the Disciples suffered through a storm, and Nehemiah is threatened.
So why is it that Christians think that when trouble comes it is because they are not doing God's will? Why do we think that everything will be peachy for us, when we see that Jesus was persecuted his entire ministry and then beaten nearly to death, then executed in the most horrible way? And he is God's own son! If anyone should have had an easy life, it should have been Jesus.

So why are authors like Joel Osteen making millions of "christian" dollars off a false testimony of God wanting us to have a posh life? Why do we try to comfort our "brothers" by trying to help them find out what they did wrong. Why do we not get on our knees and pray that we will learn the lesson that God is trying to teach us? Since I am not God, I cannot judge whether people are in God's will or acting on their own selfish motives. But why are we so quick to think that tough times are always a punishment?

Don't get me wrong, I know plenty of people that have made bad choices and they are paying the consequences. I am one of them, I am still going through tough times because of decisions I made more than five years ago. But I have also recently been through quite a few things that were just "part of life". If you have read my wife's blog #1 you know that we lost our son only 15 weeks into the pregnancy. The doctors tell us it was a chromosome thing, and there is nothing that we could have done to prevent this.
I will get to my point and close what may be my longest blog ever.

Just because Jesus asks you to get into the boat, and you obey; don't expect a Carnival Cruise. We often learn the greatest lessons, and gain the most inner strength and wisdom through the darkest times in our lives.
If you are stuck in a time like this, take time to thank God for every breath you take, and ask that you keep your spiritual eyes open for an opportunity to turn your darkness into a light for someone else.

Second Blog (Sorry for the delay)

Apparently this whole blogging community (my wife) expects this thing to be updated hourly so she knows what I am up to. This being Sunday and I have spent the whole day with her, I think I will password lock the computer so she can get a life!

We woke up this morning and as I updated my budget tracker I found there was a little extra money for the week and immediately decided (my wife told me) we were going out to breakfast. After last weeks "Horton" pancakes at IHOP, the girls thought that is what "going out to breakfast" meant. We told them very firmly that Mommy and Daddy did not want to go to IHOP, we wanted to try Boondockers (a newer restaurant in our town).

So on our way to IHOP we decided to inform the girls this is last time we are going to get "Horton" pancakes, that went over better than I thought it would and they agreed. The girls shared the "Horton" pancakes (which are covered in frosting, and M&M's with a pink sucker sticking out the top) and our waitress was nice enough to throw 2 suckers on there, so Coraly and I did not fight about which one of us got the sucker this week (last week we shared and I think I got cooties).

Coraly had the Smokehouse Combo and I had the Bacon, Egg, and Cheeseburger. Many people probably think that was a typo (unless you have been to IHOP lately) but let me assure you, it is not. We got to IHOP around 10, and my stomach said it was too late for breakfast, so I flipped the page and started drooling. Let me tell you, it was as delicious as it sounds, unless you think it sounds gross, then I will tell you it was awesome. In fact I think when the snow melts and I can BBQ again, I will get a griddle to put on my BBQ so I can fry and egg as I am cooking my hamburgers, it was that yummy!

---

---

First Blog

So the other night as my wife was blogging on my side of the bed, when I wanted to go to sleep, I asked her if I could write on our (her) blog about my day. She told me no, and to get my own dang blog. Well I was against it, thinking it would just be a place for me to waste more time.

That night I had a dream about blogging and in my dream:
- I named my blog thewallinfrontofme
- I thought about naming it thewallbeforeme but then thought people would assume that I was a wall in my previous life and my blog would be about that... and that is just ridiculous!

So now that we have decided as a family to cancel our TV and invest in Gasoline (not stock market type investing, just the security of having gasoline in our cars) I feel like I have a lot more free time.

So here I am starting my own blog that 3 people will read: My wife, My boss, and my cousin Melissa who I think reads everyone's blog (even yours). Maybe someone will stumble upon this and get a laugh at what goes through my head, so this is for you random blog readers:

Snarkle fuddy invertojump tanash. (You know what I mean!)