The Greatest Wedding Entrance...EVER!

Crap, why couldn't I think of this...?

Friday Download

What a week it's been. Here's a recap of a week that has flown by:

• Visited Kingwood Church in Alabaster Sunday. Had a great time. Love the people there. Several of their staff have invested a lot in our church and I for one am very grateful for their efforts/sacrifice.
• My brother, Daniel, came up Monday to stay with Amanda and me for Spring Break. Pretty amazing what God is doing in his life. Just wish I would have started living for God at that age.
• Filled out my tournament bracket. So far I'm 12 for 16 (not all that good). I have a tendency to try to pick too many upsets. Of course, I didn't help that favorite Clemson got beat by Michigan of all teams. Their basketball team suffers from the same "do-awesome-the-first-half-0f-the-season-and-then-completely-melt-down" thing that their football team usually does.
• Got to help some of the youth make a video for Fine Arts. I may be a little biased, but I'd be surprised if it didn't advance to Nationals.
• Had a great service Wednesday night. There wasn't a whole lot of people there (Spring Break), but the worship was very powerful and raw and I felt like the teaching/preaching time went well.
• I tried something new with my sermon this week. At the end, before I gave an altar call, I opened it up for Q+A. It's easy for people to get lost even when you think you've covered all the bases. Teens get to ask questions everywhere except church...so why not let them be more informed about spiritual things?
• Went bowling with Amanda and Daniel. I had a pretty decent second game--for me anyway. I think the baby was throwing Amanda off because her bowling ball kept veering all over the place.
• This pregnancy is going be really fast. I thought it would take forever. But it's already almost here. Yes!
• Got to watch some NCAA tournament action last night. Thought American was going to pull off the upset but in the end we see why Villanova was a 3-seed and they were a 14-seed. Great teams always find a way to win games.

Marriage...Ouch

Whenever the topic of "marriage" comes up, my mind immediately turns to this great montage:

Then I found this video today (on Tony Morgan's blog). It's funny--but that awkward funny because you know it's true for tons of people. (Just a stat for you, 6 people I graduated with in 2005 with have either already divorced, or are in the process of).

My prayer is that I will NOT be this to my wife.

Wednesday Morning Download

For those of you who may not know, Wednesday is the biggest day of my week.  It always is (except on rare occasion). I absolutely love Wednesdays.  Today, is particularly busy, because on top of all my other "normal" tasks, I am going to the Speed-the-Light Luncheon at Joe's Crab Shack.  This is the annual event where we eat fish, listen to a lot of heart-gripping stories about people who gave boo-coos of money to STL, and then make our pledge that never quite stacks up to the little girl who walked through a blizzard and raised $20,000 last year.

Had an interesting breakfast this morning: pretzel sticks and left-over birthday cookie-cake (and a glass of milk).  Actually was pretty good.

Got my Alabama watch fixed this weekend.  It had been missing a pin that held one of the links together for over a year (and a half?).  Took it to the Galleria--on my quest to find some new Pumas, that failed--and got it put back together.

Sunday was my first Sunday in about 4 weeks to actually be in the main service.  It was great.  Really enjoyed communion and was in awe of the message in tongues and the interpretation.

Loving my Office calendars from Josh and Amy...I mean Michael Scott.  I have one huge one that hangs on the wall and is monthly, and one that sits on my desk and HAS A QUOTE FOR EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR :)

Well, I guess that's it for now.  I have to fix the sound order for tonight's service, which is going to be great by the way.

Peace!

P.S. -- Here's some more great tips I've learned about being a Dad:

Holiday '08 Rundown

Well, this is my first post post-holidays, and I must say it has been difficult catching back up.  I've been checking emails and blogs and fantasy football for almost 2 hours now.  Once you get behind, it's difficult to catch up.  Here's a small recap of the past couple of weeks:

Thanksgiving was great.  We stayed up here, so it was my first Thanksgiving without my parents.  Almost panicked because I thought there was no Dressing--but the day was saved.

Went to Nashville for our annual Staff Planning Retreat.  Had a blast.  Nashville is one of my favorite cities.  Still think I only saw about half of the Opryland hotel (I think I read somewhere that it has around 70 square acres of space INSIDE).  

Upon returning from Nashville I was stricken with the rotavirus (see pics on earlier post).  That sucked!!!  I would not recommend the rotavirus to anyone.  Uncontrollable puking.  Fatigue.  Can't sleep.  Miserable.  (As I side note, I believe it was Jack's in Harpersville that got me sick.  Anyone who wants to join my boycott feel free to do so).  

Drove to my Grandma's (Dad's mom) in West Va for Christmas.  It took us 14 hours to get there, but only 12 to get back (I know we ate an extra meal, but that still leaves and extra hour.  Perhaps driving downhill helped???).  I love my family.  Dad's side is definitely more lively than my mother's (and louder!).  We saw a little snow, but there wasn't enough to play in.  :(  We froze our tails off when we visited D.C. (I think it was around 20 w/ 30+ mph winds).  Saw Bush's dog chasing a frisbee.  There was a U-Haul in front of the White House (I guess to move Bush out).  I got hustled by a semi-homeless guy.  When went to 1 of 5 (?) Smithsonian buildings--and didn't get to see all of it!!!  D.C. is also probably one of my favorite cities (I love the city, in case you can't tell)

Had a great Christmas with my family (though there was no Dressing).  My Grandmother fixed the SHARPEST homemade mac-n-cheese I've ever tasted.  Had a little bad news.  My Dad's brother has been given a year to live (lung cancer).  On Christmas Day, he had to go to the hospital.  The cancer has spread to his other lung and throughout his body.  Remember him in your prayers.

There was tons of other details, but right now my mind is going hay-wire (I had two cups of coffee this morning).  I am glad to be back.

Thanks to everyone who reads and posts comments.  I love you guys.  I look forward to a great 09!  

Instructions

Found these great tips on Brad Leach's blog.  I think these will definitely help my parenting skills:

Hurricanes in December

I would like to start off stating the obvious: Hurricanes don't occur in December.  And though a meteorological hurricane may be far from present, a "life hurricane" is not.  Last week was--in a word--crazy for me.  Things started off slow.  I had a hard time focusing--especially at the church, I lacked energy, and nothing was going on.  It was setting up to be quite a pedestrian week.  

Then Wednesday came.  I'm not entirely sure that I've ever had a day like Wednesday.  The closest I could compare Wednesday to would be an experience I had in 3rd Grade:  Hurricane Opal.  I lived in Southeast Alabama then, so we lived relatively close to the Gulf.  Hurricane Opal came through and wreaked havoc on our area.  We were without power for a day or two, there were trees down (my granddad lost his barn/shed).  It was chaotic.  Wednesday was kind of like that.  For whatever reason, I felt depressed (I guess that's the right word) when I woke up.  Then the day continued to get worse as several "flare-ups" occurred.  Then there was a mediocre worship service, which got slightly better because I actually didn't feel like the teaching went that bad, then slightly worse because people didn't respond to the altar call.

So I went home and my wife and I unpacked the day's happenings and were about to head to bed, when one of us got the wacky idea to check if Amanda was pregnant.  Three minutes later we went from extremely low to the top of the world...we are pregnant!  

So the rest of the week was spent telling family and friends about our exciting news.  So this week has definitely been like a hurricane.  Turns out the hurricanes in December aren't that bad :)  

On the Way

I had a really cool way I was going to announce this, but I don't have time to get the stinkin pic to upload, so here it is>>>

Amanda and I are having a baby!!!

Needless to say, I'm thrilled (really quite an understatement)!!

The NEW Home for the Holidays

So, this is Amanda and my first Thanksgiving as a married family.  With that has come a whole set of complications.  One is that our families live several hours apart.  Another is that her family has two (maybe more?) separate Thanksgiving celebrations.  My family has always had T'giving at one place because Dad's family lives in West Va.  So we have to pick every year which family to have T'giving with.  BUT, add in two more T'giving meals and you have a dilemma--not to mention anything of Christmas.  Fortunately, Amanda and I are pretty smart cookies, so we came up with a Win-Win (we couldn't get a Win-Win-Win like Michael Scott would have liked).  We are going to hit up the T'giving with Amanda's family (staying at our NEW home for the holidays) and then go to Grandma's (Dad's mom) for Christmas.  Yes, I know that leaves out Mom's side of the family.  That's why it's a Win-Win and not a Win-Win-Win.  

All this has made me wonder how stinkin' hard it will be if we move WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY off someday...

Married Life

Well, the honeymoon is over now.  We had a blast in the mountains.  We wound up staying an extra day.  Turns out my parents (special thanks to them for paying) had made our reservations through Thursday instead of Wednesday--it was a nice treat.

Amanda and I came back home to find a completely destroyed house that had been labeled.  There were literally thousands of labels everywhere.  It was a good joke...kudos to the groomsmen.  I'm already working on the plot for revenge.

The past couple of weeks have been kind of a blur.  I almost don't remember anything about the wedding.  The Hyatt Place was EXTREMELY NICE.  We probably spent more money on food this week than should be legal.

I'm glad to be back to the real (married) world.  It's nice to have all the pomp and circumstance and then to have the secret getaway, but it's also cool to sleep in your own bed, with your wife.  It's nice to be able to focus on ministry instead of a thousand details of things that have to be done before Wedding Day.  It's nice to be me.