just a list of family happenings

so here's the run down of stuff in our lives right now:

// anna had her kinder orientation yesterday.
// abe started another FPU class today.
// danielle almost got to go to california
// julia loves to feed the fishy we got and say "eat it fishy, eat it fishy!"
// and deb started her own blog. click here to view or click on the link at the right.

that's our life in a nutshell for the last day of august 2006. (oh and we also finished season 3 of 24 last night)

whoa, i'm feeling old

i recently read Beloit College's Mindset List for this year's freshmen. some of the things make me smile, others make me go "hmmm", some make me feel like i'm still young, and yet others make me feel old.

some make me feel old because i do remember something differently than what this class of freshmen does; like #6, #32, and #75. and others make me feel old because i'm not young enough to relate to them; like #9, #57, and #68.

in fact i kinda feel like i'm getting older because i'm older than some of the new teachers at the middle school i work at. my whole life teachers were the "authority figure", older, smarter, wiser. well now i'm older than some of the new teachers that have just graduated and are getting their first position. (to be honest . . . i'm smarter and wiser than some of them too! but you didn't hear that from me) :-)

now some of you are agreeing and nodding your heads, "yep, abe you're ancient!" and some of you are rolling on the floor laughing that i'm even having these feelings of being old because i'm still in my twenties and you were graduating high school when i was learning to crawl!
click to read more [+/-]

the fact is we're all getting older. time stops for no one. and at some point, should Christ prolong his grace, we'll die. am i ready for that?? spiritually - yes. physically - i don't have a choice if i'm dead, right? financially - yep, i got life insurance to take care of my family this past year. emotionally and mentally - that's where it gets a little "if"y.

you see i had never really thought about it much, because in my mind i'm still 20 or 23. but as my 30th birthday looms near i've started to think about life after i'm gone. i've started to dwell more on remembering the "today" moments. you know those moments that years from now you're supposed to look back on and say, "remember when . . . " i want to be able to remember them.

i have a beautiful fabulous loving wife, all three of my girls are "prettier, smarter, and more gracious everyday!" i take pictures with our digital camera regularly to remember the kids at each stage of growth. that's what i'm trying to focus on to remember; day after day.

gotta go, for now. but here's one of those pictures i want to remember . . .

we're in the middle of a '24' drive

i don't got much to say right now because 24 season 3 is getting pretty intense. if your not a fan, check it out.

but you might enjoy this video. in this "youtube.com" world a simple 'one take' video without glitzy camera action, millions of dollars, and without a lot of hype this video has become a hit online. it's so simple; it's awesome!

i don't want to type it out twice

so i simply cut an paste it here. enjoy!

reallife.MINISTRIES:: get to know your pastor - blogging

so you know by now that i'm really getting into this blogging scene. i think it's really a culmination of many things coming together.

although i'd read many books and articles about the benefits of journaling i was first intrigued by the concept in college. i think i'd read an article on spiritual disciplines so i went down to the local bookstore and bought myself a basic journal. i don't really remember what i wrote about in those first days, but i do remember i filled that book and eventually bought more.

i also remember in college (i don't remember if it was before or after the actual "journal") that i used to carry around with me little 'notepads' and a pen. i used to write down various random thoughts, reminders, appointments, etc. in these. i kinda felt like a journalist. since i always carried them with me they'd get pretty tattered in my back pocket. and the pen i carried would sometimes leak and leave a spot on my pants. deb remembers a time when every pair of jeans i owned had a little black ink spot on the back pocket about the size of a quarter. i got this 'notepad' idea from a former "Bible Quiz" coach. he also used to carry these notepads around everywhere. but what intrigued me was when i heard his wife say that their kids would always wonder why he kept all of them, but that she knew when the time came when he was dead that her kids would see those little notepads as a prized possession. far more valuable than any other inheritance that he might leave.

also in college i had a friend whom i respected named Bo. one day i went to his dorm room late at night and i saw him typing at his computer (rather fast i might add). i asked him if he was working on a paper and his reply was that he was writing to his daily journal. back then he simply had a word document that he added to the end of every day. it'd be interesting to find out if he has a blog out somewhere. the reason this had an impact on me was because it was someone i knew. one of my peers, someone my age who was actually doing this "journaling" stuff. not some old guy or lady writing about it in some book.

so ever since then i've had this intrigue with journaling. i've wanted to do it. i think it'd be a good exercise; mentally and spiritually. although part of me has been reluctant. mostly because i wouldn't want to fail by not having anything to write; not posting as often as bloggers should (or at least my preconceived idea of how often bloggers should).

in fact i tried starting a personal blog a few years ago, mostly because i thought it was a novel idea, not as a way of journaling. it was only recently that the mental shift took place in my mind. it was THIS blog itself that got me interested in blogging again. i began this blog as a way to reach out to the students of grandview in a new way. trying new things to reach a new generation. unlike that other blog though this one is meant for interaction. interaction is welcomed and encouraged over there, but it is truly more of a place for jounaling and a place for my family to remember me if i'm in heaven before them (should the Lord tary).

so that's it, that's how, why, and the 'because' of this blogging craze i'm into. and frankly after keeping this up for a month now, i don't think it's a craze. this is my way of life. so if you've read this far you truly have gotten to know your pastor a little better.

cheers! :-)

the day before school

well i can hardly believe that school's starting tomorrow. on one hand it seems new and exciting to meet the students and get my job duties for my various classes this year. but on the other hand it seems like it will be more of the same old routine. after being at the school for three years now i can tell you jr. higher's are pretty much the same year after year.

one thing that brought me to the reality of the new school year was a poster we saw at a resturaunt we went to tonight announcing the "Annual Balloon Rally Weekend" in prosser. every year for the past umpteen years prosser has been host to 20 to 30? (40?) hot air balloons. very pretty to see. anyways for the past two years i've been taking the girls early (6am ish) sunday morning to see the launching of all the balloons. so the balloon weekend at the end of september, FPU starting this week, SYATP also at the end of sept. and so on and so on are all reminders that time keeps ticking.

life: it is a moving!

a wonderful evening

school's starting soon (this tuesday in fact) and so life is naturally in a transition phase. anna will be starting kindergarden this year. danielle will be going into preschool. and deb's a month and a half away from giving birth. as for me, i'll be beginning school again this tuesday. i'll also be going to the walmart d.c. (distribution center) tomorrow (monday) in order to reapply for work. i first applied at the end of june and after going through the interview process and not being offered a job the first time, i needed to wait 60 days until reapplying.

why am i applying to the walmart dc?? click to read more [+/-]

well, i enjoy working at the school and all. in fact, most of the time it doesn't even feel like work. but the fact of the matter is that the d.c. pays more. yes, it's more work and tougher as well. but in order to pay off our debts (mostly school loans) as quickly as possible, we need to generate more income. so if i do get hired this time around i'll most likely be quitting my school job, possibly keeping my pizza hut job, certainly continuing as youth pastor. if all goes well we'll be able to be "DEBT FREEEEEE" in about 2-2.5 years instead of 4-5 years.

we'll keep you posted on our progress.

in other news, we changed the format of our youth services somewhat. over the summer we started meeting at our house in a small group format. we started this because essentially we were a small group trying to act like a "big group". i adjusted this slightly; we'll be meeting at our house 3 weeks a month and 1 sunday a month have our "traditional" youth service.

tonight was our 1st of those once a month services. it went really well. we had a larger than normal group of 17 plus the 5 in our family. overall a wonderful evening. we'll keep you posted on our progress here too!

this happened during the snack break at fiesta friday

usually julia is trying to turn me around on my swivel chair at home to get her a "faffle" (waffle for those of you uneducated in toddlereese). but her "round, round, round" is more persistant than playfull and then she follows up by grabbing my leg and declaring "up, up, up! faffle, faffle!"

the mundane life

i'm thinking creativity flows in spurts. we're at the end of Fiesta 2006 today, and i'm at a loss as to what to write. i mentioned this to deborah and she suggested i write about what we had for dinner.

so a little background: my sister is the Children's Pastor at our church and so she's been really busy with the VBS. deb and i have also been busy with various VBS activities. so the point being we've all been pretty busy to try to each fix something for dinner or try to get away to even buy something for dinner. deb was also looking in our freezer at the beginning of the week and noticed we had a lot of meals in there, if we'd only take the time to cook them. so she took it upon herself to cook a huge meal every night for our family (5), and my sister's family (5, also).

soooooooo, tonight we had carne asada and mexican rice with fresh salsa and chips. deb also made teriyaki steak because she's not to partial to mexicanish type foods.

are you hungry yet??

abe went to the store...

hi- this is deborah. abe just left for the store at 9:30pm. (we need ice cream- NOW). so he told me i could write the post for today while he's gone. i don't really think i could keep up a blog every day just talking about my life- i'm very impressed with those of you who are committed to writing everyday. i mean, i folded laundry this morning and made meatloaf for dinner. oh and we had more vbs tonight. but i don't have much more to say than that. hey, we did get some goldfish today (i needed them for an illustration during vbs tonight). they're all 4 still living. i guess we could keep everyone posted on their life span. anyway, julia is out of bed again and i still want to get the dishes done before abe returns... so goodnight :o)

i'm in the middle of it

so as you may have read, i got a new macbook on saturday. so now i'm able to roam around 'Fiesta' as it's happening, taking pictures, and blog immediately after. it's awesome.
click to read more [+/-]

once again another exciting day of fiesta. "Jesus is our Leader." (viva!) last night before dismissing pastor jon challenged the students to get 100 kids here by thursday night and we'd have ICE CREAM! there were 40 some on monday, 60+ tuesday, and today there was 72ish. (i'm not really sure on the total count, but that's close)

so the above pics were taken with my macbook running photobooth. all of them are of Fiesta, including the one of me and my mom.

in almost related news (related to my macbook). my mom is making me a custom protective sleeve for my macbook. i'll post pics and share more when it's complete.

and speaking of my mom . . . she told me today that she's going to visit her sister in indio, ca to visit her sister. my aunt mode(?) is bed ridden sick; so depending on how bad off she actually is my mom might decide to move there with my dad. oh the possibilities.

laterz

Fiesta Fun ! ! !

our church is in the middle of "Fiesta 2006" at our church. lots of fun and lots of lives changed.

one of the coolest things for me is to see the life that this VBS has brought to not only the kids but mostly to the members of our CONGREGATION. as i was up in the audio/video booth looking down on the festivities i couldn't help but noticed how happy the adult volunteers looked. they were here to minister to the kids, but it was they who were reaping the benefits of "joining with Christ" in the work of ministry.

here's a few pics, more later.


i'll post as the time allows.

the new family members

here's our new toys!
click to read more [+/-]

don't get too jealous, or maybe too mad depending on your "mac vs pc" view.

keeping up

i missed saturday's post because of no internet connection where i was staying. and this is sunday's post even though it will show up as monday's because it's after midnight. and because it's after midnight i don't have much to say other than . . .
click to read more [+/-]

i did it! ! ! i got a macbook this weekend! ! ! ! hooray for me! ! ! ! i hope you can tell, i'm pretty excited.

full pics and more stories tomorrow (monday's actual post). good night.

it's late and i'm tired but . . .

i'm dedicated and faithful to daily posting here . . . so here goes.

day #2: of the staff retreat is over. and kids may i introduce your new mom . . .


here's a front view

we weren't going to meet everyone till 10 am today so deb and i got up early and got her hair cut @ 9. and she looks fabulous!!







here's a side view













"the TEAM!"

$100 bucks and 100 flavors

so we've begun our wonderful grandview ag staff retreat. there was a whole week worth of "issues" to deal with before the actual trip began, but i'll save that for another post.

tonight we went to an outstanding resturaunt: Park Kitchen. it was a small place with seating for only 30; besides the bar. but it was one of those places that made you feel like you were in a tv show critiquing the food.

the menu was seasonal for 'mid august' and daunting to say the least. even though there were only about 30 items on the menu as well; besides drinks at the bar. so we decided to do the "park kitchen experience" where the chef sampled for us pretty much everything on the menu. it was $45 per person + 18% tip added. so including my lemonade the total was $110.30. but boy did we eat a lot of things i'd never in my life thought i'd be tasting.

so there you have it; abe & deb have had their first +$100 meal together.

cheers! here's what our trip has looked like so far.

this is the stuff blogs were made for

so i walk into our back room the other day to find this:

click to read more [+/-]

it's slightly irritating that after i uploaded it to youtube the audio is off slightly compared to the video. but nonetheless, you get the picture.

i don't even think anna's armpit fart needs much further explanation.

to eat or not to eat??

for those who don't know, i don't eat pork.

it's not really a religious thing; scripture says "no food . . . is wrong to eat." it's mainly a health choice. a few months ago deb and i were given a book by my mother-in-law called The Maker's Diet. i didn't read it all the way through, but mostly it talked about eating healthy and the foods mentioned in the Bible that the Israelites were told to eat. deb did read it all the way through and we ate some pretty weird stuff. but over the past few months there have been some general principles that we've tried to maintain. click to read more [+/-]

• no white flour (or at least limit as much as possible)


• organic milk


• limit white surgar


• no pork or shell fish - this is the biggest one for deb (she loved shrimp)


• more fresh vegetables and fruits


• etc.
  

and for the most part we've done well with these. in fact in the 8 months or so since we read the book i've only eaten pork once. (we were traveling and i ordered a sausage buscuit at Burger King before realizing that it probably was a pork sausage. i felt sick afterwards)

i won't go into the details why we don't eat pork or shell fish except to say it likened shrimp & lobster to "the cockroaches of the sea." you can read the book for yourself to learn more.

but last night i was reading in Rom. 14; specifically the passage about eating food or not eating and not condeming others for doing what you do. and it got me to thinking if i had been inwardly condeming or looking down on others who did eat pork. but on the flip side; as a youth pastor, if i order pizza for the group should i buy only pizza without pork toppings since that's what i believe is healthiest and best for my students? when when they're with me on a trip i encourage them to have a daily devotional time with God whether or not that's there normal practice, because i believe that's best for them spiritually. or would that be infringing on their right to 'eat freely' and be unhealthy if they want to? or perhaps they are simply ignorant and would choose right if they knew what i know?

so anyways i was sharing all this with deborah last night in bed and she told me a funny story. earlier that day she found our kids playing picnic.

they looked up at her and said, "we're pretending we can eat pork."

"i'm eating a ham sandwich," anna said.

to which danielle replied, "and i'm having pork brownies!"
(recipie - scroll down to comments section)

how do you do that?????

i thought about simply answering this question in the comments section, but since i've been asked by more than one person i thought i'd leave it as a post for all to learn.

"okay...how do you put a picture at the top of your page????"

first off, it took me a lot of searching to find what i was looking for. when i started back up with this blog thing i wanted it to look a specific way and the "built in" blogger templates just weren't cutting it for me. so after much time i found what i was looking for.
click to read more [+/-]

i found a template called "pure" at this site. just to let you know this process has you replacing your current template html with new "code". it's quite an easy process but could be intimidating if you've never done anything like it before.

first let me say since you're changing your template code it's a good idea to copy and paste the current code into a notepad file and save in case something goes awry.

when you download the template it has a text file with the html code (what looks like gibberish) and some picture files. instructions of what to do with those files are at the bottom of the site.

first, simply follow the instructions and then you'll end up with a blog that looks like the one in the picture.
(sidenote: you'll want to first copy the code for your links in the sidebar to a notepad file, since replacing the template will delete those links. you'll still keep all your posts and comments just anything you've added or changed to the sidebar will need to be put back in. so if you copy and paste that "code" into a notepad file and then copy and paste it back once you've set up the new template, it'll save some time.)

so all i did was tweak the code. first i got the dimensions of the "park bench" picture (738x154) and then i took one of my own pictures and resized and then cropped it to this size. i personally use gimp; which is like photoshop but free. but there's plenty of methods to do it.

then i found the part of the code in the /* -- layout -- */ section that referenced the park bench picture "img002.jpg " url and replaced it with the url of my new picture at photobucket.

and "presto!" you've got a new header picture. now if you're really adventurous you can get into changing the colors of everything like i did for my site. colors in the code are represented by a six digit "code" (letters and/or numbers). like the hex code, as it's called, for white is #ffffff. the possibilities here are numerous. changing the background color, color of normal text, title text, link text, visited link text, hovered link text, etc., etc.

i also went on to change the size of the header picture. as mentioned before the original demensions are (738x154) but i thought that was too skinny to see faces of the pictures i was resizing and cropping. so just after the code where you replace the "img002.jpg" there's a section to change the "height"; simply change it to whatever height your cropped picture is. i don't go too much more. 220px is the most i've done, right now it's set to 185px. the bigger it is then visitors see mostly picture in their screen and would have to scroll down to see your most recent post.

anywhoo, now i just resize and crop a new picture maybe once a week, upload to photobucket, and then change that part of the code in the template to get a new picture! (hmmm, i hadn't thought of it before, but now that i think about it i could even make a "slideshow like the one of anna below" and reference that to have an even cooler header. as long as all the images were cropped to the same size.

anyways, that was a mouthful (or should i say "handful" since i typed it?) hope it gets you the results you're looking for. and as i said above save a copy of your current template so you can always revert back to it if this process doesn't go right for you. it does take a bit of tweaking but it's well worth it.

if you have any questions; leave me a comment or msn me or google talk or maybe just give me a call. if you're someone i don't know you can get my email from my profile page. :-)

good luck!

anna's new peeps

well anna and danielle had eye appointments today. they weren't complaining about eye problems but we'd heard it's a good idea to get them checked before they start school. (anna's starting kindergarden and danielle will be heading to public preschool)
click to read more [+/-]

last year the dr said that anna was fine but that he could tell that later she'd need glasses. well later is now.

we brought home some glasses to let mom help pic some out. here's the three styles:


we finally decided on the blue frames but ordered them in red with pinkn on the inside.

should be here in a week!

please! oh please! don't send me this

i know we're all inundated with spam every day. thank goodness i've got a good spam filter. (between deb and i, we get about 400 spam messages a week!) anyways what really gets me is the "cutsey-wisdom-filled-touching-story-something-should-be-done-about-this" spam messages i get from people i personally know.

and the part that gets me the most is the endings. they usually go something like this:
click to read more [+/-]

>> Send this letter to all the people you care about, Including the person who sent this to you.
>> If you do so, You will certainly brighten someone's day and might change their perspective on life, for the better.

or promising some good fortune if you do. (or some threatening omen if you don't)

>> Send this message to ten
>> of your friends including me.
>> If you get 5 replies, someone you love will surprise
>> you. Happy days! Don't break this; it's
>> working!

now i know some of you get a kick out of these sort of things, and some of the stories will actually make good sermon illustrations some day. but please oh please don't send me this junk every day! or every week for that matter. in fact if you have to, limit yourself to one (a really good one) a month. and for pete's sake delete that last part tag line. and while your at it delete all those annoying >> marks. otherwise you'll force my hand and i'll have no choice but to block your email permanently from my inbox.

you know who you are. so in advance . . . THANK YOU!

what to say, what to say

well so much has happened since the last time i posted this may be a long one.


click to read more [+/-]

first off, this whole summer our school district has been serving free breakfast and lunch to children under the age of 18. our daughters have loved going to go eat at "Compass High School". espcially danielle and julia since they didn't go to public school this year so it makes them feel like 'big' girls.


today was the last day, they served food. they had sack lunches so we decided to go to the park a block a way and eat our final free lunch. we had fun.



second grand event: a few weeks ago deb had a brilliant idea to celebrate the 12 months of the year in 12 days. so we've been pulling a "month" out of a hat every day and then celebrating the things that happen in that month on that day. so the first month was feb.; so we celebrated deb and danielle's birthdays as well as valentine's day. next was dec.; so we celebrated my birthday and christmas.

well yesterday was july; so we couldn't wait until that evening when it got dark in order to shoot off some fireworks! yes we still had some fireworks left over from last month.


i only got pictures of them doing the sparkerlers and even that was a blurry picture, but then again, i don't think we want to much incriminating evidence.
click to read more [+/-]

okay the last thing is Holy Spirit Weekend. friday night and most of saturday we've been having a Holy Spirit Weekend at our church. a time to learn about who the Holy Spirit is, what he does, and what his purpose is for the world and our lives. and mostly a time to seek Him. it's hard to express in to words all that God did in the lives of the people there. but perhaps these pictures will give a glimpse.

(click on any of the pictures to see a larger version.)

video link to photobucket.com

i just wanted to see how an embedded video on photobucket.com compared to one on youtube.com.

all previous videos on this site have been on youtube. this one is from photobucket:


UPDATE: well basically i think it's pretty much the same. i have a free photobucket account and thus only have 1GB of storage, so if i post in on photobucket it uses some of that space. although i do like how it looks when loading. on youtube its unlimited, so i'll probably stick with youtube for video hosting.

old fashion home town parade

today grandview had their annual parade to kick off the fair and rodeo. and these are some pics.

here's our grandview float.

click to read more [+/-]

the shaded sisters

anna's hat is her chair cover.

julia waving to everyone.

danielle didn't like the police car noise. she said, "they're getting annoying!"

in case you wondered what the back of a parade looks like.

and that's all on the parade topic.

in other news, i put links to some blogs of people who started blogs after i did (makes me feel influential) anyways pretty cool blogs here's a snippet.

I have a dog, Heidi. She is an australian cattle dog - also known as heeler, dingo. She recently had puppies. Four. I think the dad was a boxer, but don't know for sure.

najeras

I'm really worried about the rumor going around that every time you give birth you lose one-fifth of your brain cells. I'm pregnant with my fourth. You do the math... because I can't.

Dandelions, Wet Kisses, and Handprints on the Door

a great start to two great blogs. enjoy!
(and remember to leave them some comments.)

Blogged with Flock

deb's 29 weeks

i realized today that i've only mentioned that deb is due with our 4th child in a previous post.

so for those who didn't know she is pregnant and due near the end of oct.; the 23rd to be exact. so here's a pic to show you how she's doing.

i'm trying flock

i heard of this new browser called flock.  it's dubbed as the only web 2.0 browser.  it's based on the firefox engine.  anyways it's supposed to be really handy to share pictures, post to blogs and other misc. features.

i'll post back my findings after using it for a while.

Blogged with Flock

pastoral luncheon, pizza hut, & 24

we woke up this morning with not really any plans other than the fact that i was scheduled to work at pizza hut @ 3 till 7pm. but when i got online this morning i noticed that Joddi-Jay was online at the church. i also found out that annie was with her and so i invited annie to come play with the girls since it's kinda boring for a kid to 'hang out' at the church office while your mom's working.

so she came over for a while and that's when Joddi-Jay invited us to a pastoral luncheon that was gonna take place today @ noon. she was kinda sorry she hadn't mentioned anything ealier. but we were able to get jason babcock to babysit for us in a pinch and off we went. we had a great time with other pastors.
click to read more [+/-]

then i started watching some of the wwdc video before i had to go to work. i've been working at pizza hut as a delivery driver for almost a year now. i began working there for extra income to help get out of debt. but more recently it's become income to increase my MacBook fund.

last but not least tonight; deb is at the store right now getting some milk. but we had called our friends the "mazucca's" to see if we could borrow their 3rd season of "24". if you're not a 24 fan, you're really missing out on a great show. and from what we hear from them, the third season is the best one. but beware for those whor are not yet fans, you will get addicted!

are you a 24 fan yet?? leave a comment.

pic of the day:

a great date today

deb and i went on a date today. we went to tri-cities to pick up my new "apple remote" for my iMac. (the other one my daughters had been sucking on it so it didn't work right. so i got a new one, with my warranty)

then we went to see the 5.10pm showing of "Lady in the Water". deb and i are both fans of M. Night Shyamalan's movies. we hadn't heard much from this one though. it was an okay film i guess, but he's had better ones. i really, really liked the intro at the beginning of the movie.
click to read more [+/-]

after that we walked through the mall on the way to victoria's secret. we'd gotten a postcard for a free pair of panties. but on the way their we stopped at some jewelry stores. deb's stated that she'd like a new wedding ring. one that matches my titanium one. so i'm planning on getting her one for Christmas. she loved going in there and the attention they gave us when they saw we were actually interested in some rings, even though we weren't going to buy anything just yet.

finally we went to red robin for some dinner, and then ended up back home around 9.30pm

well i gotta go see my bride, goodnight friends!

here's a pic from last summer. why? just because people like to see pictures.

debt free - priceless

ok okay, so we're not debt free, YET. but we will be! and we're changing our family tree at the same time.

in fact this morning when i was paying our kids for doing their chores this week. i tell them to put 10% in the 'giving' jar, 20% in the 'savings' jar, and the rest they can put all in the 'spending' jar or divide it up some more. danielle put some more in giving and then wanted to put the rest in savings. i asked, "don't you want to put some in spending for when we go to the store?" she replied, "i'll put one in spending, but the rest i want to put in savings for when we go to disneyland or disney world when we're debt free."
click to read more [+/-]

that's so awesome to me. not only does she know the power of savings, she knows that we will be debt free someday, and that daddy promised to take them to disneyland or disney world when we do!

anyways, here's a video i made:


oh and get debt free!

apples of gold

the pics above are from one of deborah's "apples of gold" group. it's a Christian based women's mentoring ministry. they've been meeting for 6 weeks; 3 hours every thursday. they learn to prepare a meal, eat, and then cover various topics on becoming the best wife and mother God calls them to be.

at least that's my understanding of it all. all i know is that deb has been really enjoying the time together with other women. and that i've been on babysitting duty every thursday.

anyways those pics are from their last meeting this past thursday 8/3/06. the only thing left is a formal dinner with the spouses tomorrow.

have a great weekend!

thanks for the comments

thanks to everyone who has left any comments.

if you'll notice the post time, you'll see that i'm up pretty late so all references to "today" actually mean 'friday, aug, 4, 2006'.
the girls got haircuts today. i didn't take any pictures yet, but i'll post them tomorrow.

hmmmm, so what else shall i say?? for those who don't know, i'm a mac user. i recently got my "first" mac in feburary. (first if you don't count the original purple iMac we got free from my inlaws that we only used to play pac the man.) anyways, i got one of the new Intel iMacs.click to read more [+/-]

it's a pretty sweet machine. and now i'm saving up to get one of the new MacBooks. and if your not a mac fan you probably don't know that on monday "the steve" will be taking the stage at WWDC to announce who knows what. and although i don't have any money right now to buy any of it, hopefully i will by the time it's dropped in price.

apple.com/macbook

donations accepted! ;-) click below

well if you're a mac user, let me know in the comments. if not, tell me why.

jr high summer camp

i posted the summer camp video i showed at church a couple weeks ago over at the youth site. check it out.
reallife.MINISTRIES

"thoughts on being a husband & father"

our friends in minnesota recently posted a great article on fatherhood and, eh, er, husbandhood?? anyways. it's a good read and i agree wholeheartedly.

as i've most recently kept up with this whole blog thing and no one has left any comments it got me to thinking probably no one reads this on a regular basis and surely why would anyone care. but then i thought even if no one else ever in the world reads these posts, i'm leaving a legacy for my kids. here immortalized forever (or at least until Christ's return) is a day by day memory of our lives.

so anna, danielle, julia, kid #4, and any other's that follow. if you're reading this years down the road when your father is absent from this world but present with the Lord, i want you to know how much i love you. you girls/(other kids) mean the world to me. and i want you to know that i've always loved you even before you were in your mother's womb. in fact i can remember a day at Northwest College (now University) when i woke up just absolutely thrilled/estatic about the day that i would be a dad. this was before your mother and i were "together"; i'm not even sure if i knew her then; and NO i wasn't going out with anyone else. i just was excited about being a dad someday. my heart felt like it would jump out of my chest by how much i was longing and excited about having a family. in fact i remember running into chapel before it began with a huge grin on my face and sharing with all my friends about how exciting it was going to be a dad. everyone's response was, "you're gonna be a great dad". and kids i hope that you can look back on your family and respond, "yep, you were!"

and finally remember i wasn't the only one thinking about you before you were born. Psalms 139:16 tells us that God is the one who knew us before we were born, and had a plan for each of your lives all along the way. are you living it? do you know Him?

i love you kids! i love you!! i love you!!!

what's up man!

so i finally joined youtube.com. so here's our first video.

we found out that julia had learned to say "what's up man" from her 2 yr old cousin, jeremiah.

anyhow cute stuff!

one of julia's favorites

so this is one of the videos that julia liked tonight.

when she first saw it she was saying "me, me, me."



afterwards she was saying "sheezbehrgeh", natch.

this kid took a nap

well friends, this is what happens when julia gets a long nap. she fell asleep on the way home from tri-cities (around 5.30pm) and didn't ever wake up for dinner. until 2 am that is!!! so now dear old dad has gotten up, given her a bowl of cereal, and staying up watching youtube videos. she likes the ones with other little kids in them.

so anyway, it's almost 3am now i'm gonna try to put her down to bed, but i'm not sure if she's tired yet??

Isn't budgeting great!

we went to tricities today to go shopping. spent lots of money on groceries, deb got some new maternity clothes that she looks great in, and eating out.

but it's all okay because it was 100% budgeted. since last september we've been actively following "the dave ramsey plan".

if you're struggling with money we seriously recommend you check it out. as he always says, "If you live like no one else, later you can live like no one else!"

a part of everyday life

this is a look into our lives:

just a happy day

enjoy today. (and smile)