A Great Message

Morning everyone! It is snowing here at the in-laws this morning and we have one more get-together at noon, weather permitting. Yesterday's message at church was a good one. The pastor spoke on Rev 12, giving us a heavenly perspective of Christmas and how the angels may have experienced it. I encourage you to give it a read. It really addressed the victory over Satan that began with Christ's birth, and it's not all peaceful manger scenes like our Christmas cards tend to picture it.

Due to weather, some of our family couldn't come to the get-together yesterday. We missed seeing them, but enjoyed a quiet day with my wife's folks, aunt and grandma. Church, too much food, a nap, some basketball on TV, games, more food.........in that order. After the holidays this guy has to get back on the healthy eating bandwagon.

Enjoy your weekend!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday, Jesus! We are down at my in-laws today. We arrived last night in rain to celebrate Christmas eve and planned to stay overnight to bunker up for the big blizzard that is coming. I woke up this morning to 35 degree temps and more rain. Crazy! There still is snow on the ground, so we can consider it a white Christmas, but rain on Dec 25 doesn't quite feel right. We enjoyed a good dinner last night and missed the cousins who moved to CA this year. We enjoyed using Skype with Gpa and Gma and talked to the cousins for nearly an hour, so that helped make them FEEL present. We miss them. If I get that job I've been chasing, we plan to go visit them during spring break in March.

May God visit you personally this Christmas day and share His endless love with you. We are off to worship Him!

Christmas Eve Eve

Last night we continued the tradition that we have held by attending Lutheran Church of Hope for Christmas Eve Eve service. We are usually not in town to attend our home church, Westview Church, on Christmas eve so we go to LCH the night before we head out of town. We enjoyed the music, message and candlelight each uniquely drawing us to the real reason for Christmas. Then we went home to a great meal of roasted tomatoes and shrimp before the kids headed to bed. Bedtime has proven to be a time when my kids wax philosophical and ask all of their deep and profound questions. Last night each child had something to talk about. The young daughter must have been deep in thought about things religious after our church service because her questions were about Satan, where he lives, and that he is nothing more than dust to her. OK? Harrison on the other hand is growing into young manhood and needed to know what a virgin was (also a result of our church service). That led to a basic, yet informed and age appropriate discussion about sex, childbirth and the like. Wow, this dad wonders if he answered correctly as he wanders upstairs only to see that mom has been listening on the monitor. Great! I can't even maneuver THOSE discussions in private. No, I'm actually glad she was listening. It allowed us to discuss what was discussed and move through this next stage as a team. In case those of you reading didn't know......parenting is a hard job.

As Christ's birthday approaches, I wish each of you the grace, glory and love that one can only experience in relationship with the Living God. Merry Christmas!

Long Absence

Hey all! It is so much harder than I imagined to post every day to this thing. I feel that I have good excuses though. Over the past two weeks I have had multiple interviews, phone and in-person, and have spent much time preparing for them to do my best. I am currently a finalist for 3 jobs and am very thankful that I have had the opportunity to speak to these companies about gainful employment. OK, so here is what else has been going on:









First, my sweet daughter finished her gingerbread house...with help from mom.










Next, my sweet princess, oh yes and prince, performed in their school and church Christmas programs last weekend. Oh I am so proud!!










The boy is playing basketball this winter. Where do you think he learned that move? Or that form? By the way, they got their first "W" in this game. Woo Woo!













This past Saturday we celebrated Christmas with my family. It is so fun to hang out with the cousins.













Kennedy got an Easy Bake oven from Gma and Gpa and put it to work on Monday. It makes such HUGE cakes. LOL. She did share half with her brother.













Finally, on day two of Christmas vacation, the siblings have played pretty well together. Here is the "house" they created in the basement which included a swimming pool, the hot tub and the library rooms along with other rooms not pictured. I love when they use their imaginations instead of watching some screen (there has been plenty of that too).

We are moving through our Christmas vacation by doing our 2nd annual review of all 6 Star Wars movies. Thanks to our friends the Vander Wells who have loaned them to us for over a year now. Well that's it for today. More later!

Snow Day #2

Wow is it cold today! I took some time this morning to go load up on groceries and get out of the house for a while. According to reports, everyone was great while I was away, yet when I walked in the door the sibling bickering began. It must be me. I guess I need a job more than I realize. The home rolls along pretty well when I am absent. I have taken that to heart. I didn't sleep well again last night. My mind wouldn't shut off. I guess it's because I'm thinking so much about the possibilities of getting a job and my mind was just whirring last night. Oh well, hopefully I can catch up on sleep soon. I have praise team practice tonight at church. We will be accompanying the children's Christmas program on Sunday. Should be fun. Back to the routine tomorrow....take 2.

Snow Day

According to the news we have experienced 14.5" of snow since yesterday. It took me over an hour to snow blow the drive this morning and it is usually a 15-20 minute job at most. As a result the whole family is home today! We're only moderately driving each other nuts. Why do you think I stayed outside for so long? OK, I do admit it. It is a welcome change to cozy up, have lunch and spend the day with each other during the week. Back to the routine again tomorrow.

I woke up at 5 this morning. AARRGGGHHH, of all times on a snow day when no-one is expected to be anywhere. I got up and continued to read The Fire of Delayed Answers, by Bob Sorge. It has been a very encouraging read during this time of my job search. One of my wife's co-workers was prompted to bring it to work one day (she had no idea why) and soon learned how we could benefit from the read. Isn't God awesome? He provides in so many ways. I read a couple of chapters again today which reminded me to seek him during this time. I really recommend this book to anyone who is waiting on God to provide, no matter what situation you are dealing with.

The job and the holidays

First I will try to briefly address yesterday's post regarding my job. At the end of September my position was eliminated due to restructuring at UCB Pharma. I had worked for them for nearly 8 years and loved my job. Needless to say, God's been working on me for a few weeks now. He's convicting me of my lack of patience and growing my reliance on Him. I could write for a few hours about the topic but will spare you the details. I may be sprinkling in some of my reflections from the job search over the next days however.
On a more joyous topic, the holiday season has begun at our house. First you will see that my son baked cookies for some of the neighbors. His teacher at school challenged the kids to come up with 12 days of blessing, where you would bless 12 different people/families with some act of kindness. I'm very proud of the boy. On his own, he came up with some very unique ideas and has been busy putting the thoughts to action. He delivered the cookies on his own, and who knows what he said, but I hope it was coherent and from the heart.



















Second, my daughter felt the tradition of making a gingerbread house was top priority, so while it has yet to be completed, here is what we have so far.
Actually it is farther than that, but not yet complete.

Chaos abounds

What a weekend. I didn't sit down yesterday until about 9 pm last night. My wife and I are youth group leaders for the Sr. High group at our church and yesterday was a crazy day! My wife spent the whole day at church. First worship, then work in the newly created youth room, then music practice. This is our third year leading youth group and our youth have never really had a place to call their own. So....the past months (since July), we have spent countless hours building a room in the basement of our church for the youth. I have to admit it's pretty cool and quite rewarding to enjoy, but man has it sapped us. Anyway, this weekend we have our grand opening for the room, which includes worship (thus the music practice listed above), a talk by a local college football coach and a pie and ice cream social. Sunday night into Monday we will take a collective deep breath to appreciate that the long journey of creating a space is over.
On Saturday I attended a double-header basketball game for my 9 yr old. Wow, is that interesting! As a basketball player, this dad has to keep his mouth shut on the sidelines, there is so much for these boys to learn. Patience.....Patience. After the game my son had a friend over to play for the afternoon and I got to witness my 6 yr old daughter attempting at every turn to get the friend's attention. She came home from dance practice at 12:30 pm and immediately went down to change clothes. She came up in a pretty dress over tights (much too nice for a Sat afternoon at home) and proceeded to make herself visible to the friend. When asked why she dressed so nicely, she informed me that she needed to look nice for "him" and pointed at said friend. Oh man, I'm not ready for this yet...she's only 6! So, as you can see, the weekend flew by and now I continue the job search this Monday. Oh, more to come on that tomorrow.

I have entered the blogosphere

Hi there everybody. After months of dragging my feet I am diving in head-first. I have really enjoyed reading the daily happenings of friends both local and far away, and decided they too may have some small interest in what is going on in my world. So.....I will attempt over the next days, years, and months to enlighten you about what is going on with my life and family. I hope you enjoy the journey with me!