the iWait on iDay

well i did it! i got my iPhone. and it's now eagerly awaiting a new home on ebay. good ole free enterprise in the US of A! (go ahead hit the "buy it now" button. i know you want to.) :-)

oh and you thought it was for me?? well as sweet as it would be for me to get myself i can't justify paying an early cancellation fee with my current provider (sprint). and then there's the fact that currently it's the church that pays for my cell phone.

anyways i figure that when my contract does expire (oct, 2008) there will be new models and probably cheaper.

but for now i hope this one finds a great home. i've read news that nearly all of the at&t stores have sold out. and apple stores are starting to run out of stock. so hopefully that will bode well for ebay prices.

here's some pics of the iWait on iDay:

and this is of the actual iPhone:

------------
oh and in other news i've got a crack in the screen of my macbook (i won't tell you the story, i'll let the person who did it decide whether they want that broadcast to all the world). boo hoo :-( it's a $400 fix since accidental damage isn't covered by the warranty. oh well, i guess i can start my MacBook Pro fund. :-)



// today i'm thankful for:
1. ebay
2. mexico
3. a fun friday
4. payday
5. relevant magazine podcast

--------------------------

in line

i'm sitting in front of the att store in line for an iphone. Should be a fun day! More news later.

a summer full of saturdays

well summer days are here again.  a couple of summers ago (or was it just last summer??) deb began referring to this time as "a summer full of saturdays".  basically because i'm home all the time. well not all the time because there's times that i come to the church. but more or less i'm home a lot more than during the school year (obviously) and our schedule is pretty much freed up and we can plan (or not plan) to do anything we want.

it's actually kinda nice, but after the first 2 weeks or so. we're not really sure what to do now! now i'm sure our time will fill up. and a house full of kids makes for never a dull moment. but we've already run all our 'errands'. i guess we could "deep clean" the house. but that's not really very much fun. and then there's times that we do have the house fairly clean and then we wake up the next morning and wonder, "well now what do we do??"

we have taken our kids to the library now that it reopened. and we'll take them to the park every so often. and one of our summer habits is to take them to a local high school where they serve free lunches to kids during the summer.

so since our schedule is pretty much open (although our money isn't unlimited) what suggestions does anyone have for the laras to fill their time doing?? anybody want to invite us over for lunch? or dinner?? or anybody want to come over for either?? or what other kinds of stuff does your family do on it's saturdays??

// today i'm thankful for:
1. sunshine
2. airplanes
3. kleenex
4. small groups
5. kids with their own unique personalities

--------------------------

22 days 21 hours and 21 minutes

well it's getting down to the last few days/weeks till our team heads to mexico. (for those who haven't heard a team from our church is connecting with a team from stone church to spend ten days with missionaries steve and amy shoop.)

it's finally sinking in that it's actually coming since we went up to yakima to have dinner with the team from stone church. basically to meet each other, talk about the trip, share a dinner, and pray for our trip. so now it seems really close.

plus the fact that this morning our team completed our "endurance climb" that i have every missions team do before we go on a trip. this is a chance for us to bond together, do something we thought we couldn't, but work together to accomplish something difficult. we have one team member that is severely overweight and on occasion has seizures so i've only asked her to make it about 1/3 of the way up the hill but everyone else made it all the way to the top. (some wanted to give up on the way, but i made them press through.)

so we're on our way. and then i had danielle and her cousin cathy (the kids pictured above) give my sister (who's in town visiting from minneapolis) go and give her the "picco chueqo"* (sp?? pronounced [pee-ko chweh-ko]- basically sad eyes, long face, and pouty bottom lip) in an effort to ask for support for the mexico misison trip. and IT WORKED!! she gave each of them $50 towards their trip. so then my other sister maggie (in the orange shirt) and i also gave elia the picco chueqo and she's such a softie that she gave us $50 each for our trip too!!

anyways, keep us in prayer and as out of the seven only 2 are completely paid off. and the rest of us have some balance left on our account.

and in case you'd like to donate to our trip you can contact me for more details using my email address: abelara [at] gmail.com (i purposely wrote it like that so as to not get a bunch of spam by online scam artist) or you can mail a check directly to the church. (you can find the mailing address at the bottom of the church website) with a memo in the check that it's for danielle and i's trip.

// today i'm thankful for:
1. budgets
2. summer vacation
3. deborah
4. having a guest room
5. my engaged sister!

--------------------------

if this helps any here's my "picco chueqo":

--------------------------

* in spanish it literally means: "crooked beak"

not what i expected

good morning everyone!

well it's finally over. our 3 months of no cable or fast internet connection at home. i have several observations about our time "unplugged". and i hope to be posting those "regularly" over the next few days/weeks/ or whenever i remember something else.

but one thing i will say now. simply . . . we're not going back! at least we don't have any plans to right now or for the immediate future. we have started Netflix.com so that we have some media entertainment (that we can be selective and choose). and i've also restarted most of my podcast subscriptions.   it might be too small to see but i've now got 61 'unplayed' podcasts and another 10 currently downloading.

things i didn't expect from our time 'unplugged':

1)  i'm not dying to get cable and internet access back on at home.  cable not a big deal to me - internet access . . . this was something that i thought i'd be eager to turn back on.  but i've realized that yes i was online WAY too much.  and i simply don't need to be.  and that by not being online so much makes my wife happier.  (and what husband doesn't want that!)

2)  i didn't write as much as i thought i would be.  but i would say that i was more mentally active.  i read more.  i thought more clearly.  basically my mind wasn't "cluttered" with frivolous stuff.

3)  i noticed my kids more.  i wouldn't claim that i became the "perfect" father (lets face it only God fills that spot).  but i would say that i simply spent more time with them.  and although current psychology may argue that what kids need is more quality versus quantity of time.  i would say that kids need both.  and that you're more likely to have those quality time moments the more quantity time that you have!

as i said before i hope to make this blog a regular part of my life again.

oh, and i almost forgot.  one of the last times i wrote i mentioned not letting a "cat out of the bag".  well at least for those locally, you know that the 'cat is out'.  our pastor will be taking a sabbatical/respite/extended vacation (we're not really sure what to call it) for most of the summer.  his last sunday for the summer will be this father's day.  then on sunday evening he heads to seattle for a flight monday to Togo, Africa.  he will be back on july 2nd.  and then will come back to preach/share about his missions trip on july 8th.  and then he will be on 'vacation' until the last sunday in august.   so in all he's gone a total of 8 sundays this summer.

 i will be preaching most of those sunday's although we do have a guest speaker for the week that i will be leading a team to mexico on a missions trip.  and then my sister will also be sharing during the summer.

anyways so a busy summer ahead!

// today i'm thankful for:
1.  almost being done being sick
2.  safari 3 beta (for mac and windows too)
3.  summer vacation
4.  blogging again
5.  having my wife as my girlfriend

--------------------------