New Year's Resolutions

Okay here are my lofty and most likely unreachable goals. But I am setting them all the same.
They say "Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will land among the stars." unfortunately the truth is that you will most likely get caught in the atmosphere and be pulled back to Earth and crash in a huge fireball. But fortunalty in the New Year I am going to start being more optimistic. :-)

1. Read the Bible everyday.
2. Workout 3 x a week.
3. Go on more dates with my wife.
4. Be more patient with my daughter.
5. Read more.
6. Watch less TV.
7. Buy less junk.
8. Eat healthier
9. Listen to my wife better.
10. Sleep more. ( I had to have one I thought I could actually do)

Gender unknown?

Well we had our first sonogram yesterday. We were scheduled for a 12:45 appointment and didn't get into the room until after 2:00!! Amber had a big bottle of OJ to get the baby moving and unfortunatley it moved the baby too much. It moved so much we could not a get a clear shot of the sex of the baby. But the lady said if she had to guess she would have to guess that it is another girl. It's not what we were hoping for, but we will love her just the same. But to be honest it was really just a guess and will not know for sure until either the 32 week sonogram or until around May 18th.

Hope all had a great holiday. Anyone making New Year's Resolutions? Post them for us to see. I will post mine tommorrow once I have figured out what they are going to be.

31!

Well I turn 31 today. I am not sure my brother who is 11 years older than me claims to be older than 29 yet? I think he needs to move up to at least 35. Heading home to Delaware tonight. Sleet and snow are expected tomorrow so we are hoping to get out tonight while Anna sleeps. Most likely will not blog again until after Christmas. My sister just moved and not sure if she has her phone line up yet. So if not Merry Christmas Everybody!!

The 21st and the 25th

Well my birthday and Christmas are just around the corner. Only 6 days till Christmas and still too much shopping to do. Will I get any done this weekend? Probably not. The Steelers are on tomorrow and I have a lot of house cleaning and packing to do before we leave for a week back to Delaware next week.

Well for the last week of being 30 it was not too bad. I'll need to pull out my list of all I wanted to do before turning 30 and see if I have anything left I need to do in the next 4 days. :-)

Snow! and Kicks

Well we have had our first real snow of the year. It snowed on Thanksgiving day, but nothing stuck. The last two days we have had enough to cover the ground pretty good. And man is it cold! I think I really need to do a better job of sealing my house up. It gets pretty cold downstairs. Upstairs where all the heat goes is not too bad.

But more important than the snow, I felt the baby kick for the first time last night. It was pretty cool. Starting to become more real that a second one is on the way. 2. Not just 1 but 2! Wow, hope I am ready for this. If not, I have 5 months to get that way. That should be plenty of time. I could do 10 page papers in a couple of days, I can get ready for a second child in 5 months.

Right?

T.P.I.R.

Ok not to get stuck on a game show theme but this was pretty cool. Friday while I was home for lunch I caught the end of The Price is Right. The first guy's showcase was a trip and a brand new type of sports car. He bid 34,000 something. I was like "Are you crazy? More like 42,000!!" So the girl's showcase was a living room suite, carpet, a vacuum system and a plasma TV. (The plasma TV was the only decent part of that prize, anyway..) So she bids 16, 3?? something. Well they come back and they give the guys amount first....42,000 and 88 DOLLARS !! I would have missed by $88. Oh well. So they give the girls amount 16, 5?? she misses by on $180 and wins both showcases.

I have watched T.P.I.R. for as long as I can remember and that is the first time I can recall seeing that happen. It was pretty cool. Truly for her the price was right.

Ken loses!!!

I couldn't let my blog go by without mentioning the once "unstoppable" Ken Jennings. He had a great run and I believe is still the best contestant even on the day he lost. He had two daily doubles in which he bid a total of 10,000 and missed both. Had he not been the one to land on either one of those he would have easily doubled up the lady who finally beat him. I think he may just have got too big for his britches and thought it didn't matter what he bid he could over come any amount. But my hats off to Ken and looking forward to the tournament of champions.

Busy week

Wow, it has been over a week since I have blogged. It was quite a busy week with the holiday and all. We didn't get to go home for Thanksgiving, but Kevin and Mandy were nice enough to invite us to Mandy's sister's house for dinner. It was a good time. Work has begun to pick up so sorry I have not blogged as much lately. Will try to get back on a more regular basis.

What a week

A very busy week. Swamped at work, went to Wal-mart and cleaned house. Going to 40th birthday party tonight for a friend. Trying to finish planning for Thanksgiving. Setting up a lunch this week since we are losing one of our regulars most likely after this week.

However all in all, God is enough!

35 days

Well there are just 35 shopping days until Christmas. Thankfully this year it is the thought of the gift that counts. I was going to go into some thoughts about how we shouldn't worry about the gifts we give and be thankful for the one true gift that was given at Christmas. We all hear it every year, remember the reason for the season. Yet we all go out to the mall, see Santa, spend too much money and eat too much food. Not that there is anything inheritanly bad in all this, I enjoy it as much as the next person. But beyond reading the Christmas story in the gospels what other ideas to people have for not forgetting what the season is really about? Just wondering?

Extremist?

Okay, I told most people who would read this about this already. But since it is the most exciting thing to happen to me in a while I decided I needed to blog it.

A customer called and asked about services we had or didn't have on Monday. I answered his question he then asked to speak to a supervisor, I asked if he could tell me what it is in regards to. (My supervisor won't come to a blind phone call) He answered with a matter of fact, NO! I informed him my supervisor would want to know what the call was about before taking it. He then told me that I should not intimidate him and just put him through. Well it turned out my supervisor was at lunch. I made the customer aware and he asked for his name and said he would call back.

Well call back he did. And he left a message. In his message he said he talked to me and asked a question which I answered, but that I then "coughed" at him. (mind you I have had a cold for more than a week now) And anyways, I had coughed at him and that he realizes that there are a bunch of homophobic feelings going around today in neo-nazi America but that he did not think it was right for extremists like me to be playing games on the phone. He did not appreciate being coughed at and having his ETHNIC? background being made fun of. He then continued on about the different services we should offer.

To set the record straight, I do not endorse homosexual behavior. However, I do not make fun of it nor am I apart of any extremist group against them. This customer had never identified who he was during our call and certainly had no way of telling his sexual preference over the phone. And since when has letting out a cough become an official insult against any group of people, and when did homosexuality become an ethnic background?

Well anyway, we got a laugh out of it here at work. Because everyone here knows that I am the last person here who would be part of an extremist group, or purposefully try to upset somebody. If anybody can find a record of even heard of where coughing during cold season is a universal insult please let me know. I am 100% non-gay and a proud breeder.

Homecoming weekend

It was homecoming weekend here at MVNU this past weekend. I completely forgot it was until a friend asked if I was going to the homecoming basketball game. So we threw on our Cougar Crazy shirts and headed to the game. The visiting team took the ball first and went down and scored a three pointer. Our team then went down to our end of the court and proceeded to miss a pass and throw the ball out of bounds. Was not a good start. But we had a great finish, we won by more than 10 points!

It was not a major reunion year for me so there was not a lot of people there I knew from the old days, but it was still a lot of fun to go and cheer the team on again.

Heartbeat...

I can't believe I forgot to mention we heard the heartbeat last week. At our appointment last Wednesday we heard our new little one's heartbeat. It was I believe 155 which is a slightly slower heartbeat which I believe people tend to believe is more characteristic of a boy. :) But I am not going to get my hopes to high or to expectant one way or another. We do go for our sonogram at the end of next month.

I am also excited that one more of my friends finally announced that they have a little one on the way too. Between people at my work, Amber's work, church, the neighborhood, and good friends we know of 15, I believe was the count, babies that will be born in the next 9 months. We may be working on the new baby boomer generation.

Need More Excitement

Well another weekend is coming. And I usually only blog during the week so didn't want such a long time to go between blogs. But I don't have much to blog about.

I could complain about the incompetent customers who call in, but who wants to hear that. None of the calls were all that rememberable.

I did get to go Pizza Hut with some good friends on Wednesday, that is always fun.

I am in second place in my fantasy football league! Which reminds me I need to replace Holmes this weekend. My fantasy points juggernaut is out this weekend. :-(

Well that's all there seems to be for now. See ya on the other side of the weekend.

Steelers and Red Sonja

Okay, so I will give to the Steelers and Big Ben, they really handed it to the Eagles. Way to go Steelers. We will see you again at the end of the year.

Okay, that is out of the way. Last night I am at Wally world with Amber and Anna. Lo and behold I walk by the DVD's thinking it has been awhile since I have bought one. (Of course I have yet to watch the last two I have bought?) But anyways as I am looking them over and I see Red Sonja. Red Sonja! What is so exciting about it is that one of my best friends, Lee, is collecting all the Arnold movies on DVD and as far as I know this is the only one he is missing. Wishing I had a cell phone to call from there, I wait till I get home to give him a call.

Now he has had a history of spoiling great things like this by responding with answers like "Oh yeah dude, I have had it for like 2 weeks now." But this time he didn't. He thought for sure I was lying. I know this seems really dumb to most people, but Lee is always ahead of me on these kind of things. It was just one of those silly little things that is really cool to you but not to many other people. And since I have come to the conclusion that I seem to be the only person reading my blog, I am writing about it for me. Which from what I understand is who a blog is really suppose to be for anyway.

T.G.I.F.

Well it has been a long week. I went to cold friday's this morning and got up at 6am to make hot chocolate for the kids at the bus stop. Normally Kevin does it, but he is Argentina this week. Michaele will be preaching for him this Sunday. Looking forward to the weekend. Will probably do some cleaning. Other than that at this time there are no big plans so it should be a good one.

Of course Sunday could turn out to be stressful if the Eagles vs. Steelers game should come on in our area. I am a huge Eagles fan and only a very, very slightly less Steelers fan. Where as my wife, Amber, is just the opposite. We are both huge Eagles and Steelers fans except when they play each other we have our own team. So it will be interesting to see what happens. Will the Eagles 7-0 streak come to an end or will Big Ben's 5-0 streak end?

OHIO

W. ell it came down to good old Ohio. W. hen the county I live in was mentioned on three national news networks last night and this morning because of local students having to wait up to 9 hours to vote, it was kind of exciting. W. e are waiting for it to be official, but it looks like we are going to see 4 more years. W. ednesday the 3rd looks like it will be as late as we are going to have to wait for our answer. W. ell I guess my prediction was wrong about how long it will take. W. hich is W. onderful news for the country.

W. ow, its seems to be ending. W. hile I tried to keep my blog free of political statements one way or the other, I think most can tell
W. hich W. ay I W. ent W. ith my vote.

Election Day!!

Well it is election day. I am here in the swing state of Ohio and 4 people from work have already gone or attempted to go. Waits have been up to an hour and a half to vote. WOW!! People are turning out. I am willing to guess this will be the biggest voter turn out in history. I am also willing to guess we won't know who is going to win the presidency by the end of the day, week, possibly even month.

Two groups of students held an impromptu rally last night in our city square. I have long decided who I want to win, and would be really upset if he didn't. But if not I am trying to remind myself it will not be the end of the world. The United States has managed to survive many bad presidents. I guess we will just have wait and see what happens.

Wings like Eagles

Well Sunday I preached on Isaiah 40:31. It is funny, I like most people see that verse and think of soaring on wings of eagles. When the important part is the clause in the verse, those who hope in the LORD. It is in the bad times that we put our hope in the LORD that brings the renewed strength. It is then after relying on God that we can then soar like an eagle. We seem to want to skip any of the bad times and go straight to the soaring.

LORD as we go through the bad times in life, help us hope in you and trade our strength for yours!

86 years

Well last night myself and millions of people saw something that very well no one alive may have seen before. The Red Sox win the World Series. If you think about it, the last time they won in 1918 it was not broadcasted in anyway. The only people to see them win in 1918 were the people at Fenway park. To have been taken to the game you would probably had to be at least 8 or 10. So only the 94 + year olds who were in Fenway 86 years ago saw that happen. So there is a good chance we all something that no one else alive had ever seen before.

Seromon Preperation

Well I am called upon to preach this Sunday. Kevin will be in Argentina and on Halloween day and 2 days before a presidential election I will be preaching to our church. I don't think my sermon will touch on either of those two topics. I will probably be preaching on Isaiah 40:31. I have always liked the verse and like many Christians have a wall hanging with a picture of a flying eagle and the verse on it. But what is the whole story behind verse? That is what I am hoping to find and talk about this week. Pray for me.

Great Weekend cont..

The last blog was getting a little long so I thought I would make a second one for Sunday. I am an associate at a church that has just celebrated its one year anniversary. In case you didn't read the One Year blog. Yesterday we had 53 in church. But that was not the exciting part. Because a majority of those 53 won't be back and if we were not there would have been in church someplace anyways.

However there were 10 -12 who would not have been in church. Out of that 10 -12, we had a person who has been going through some tough times who said to the pastor that the sermon really spoke to him. Out of the 10-12, we had 2 guys greet each other who are not too fond of each other outside of church. And out of the other 40 some people, we had a kid from Romania who found a church home that is almost EXACTLY like his church at home (in Romania!!) who wants to help and play guitar for our service.

GOD IS ENOUGH!!!

A Great Weekend

Yes, I do work at an internet company with full time access to the internet. But since I work here 40 hours a week I don't have as much to blog about. As opposed to those who get to sit in really cool classes all day and get to take trips to Argentina. (Re: to the comment on my previous blog if you are confused)

Now that that is out of the way. This last weekend was great. Amber, Anna and I went to get and had Amber's bi-annual check up for her ring to keep up the warranty and did some shopping. We tried to go to "Once Upon a Child". But they were too expensive and one of the employees came in from her lunch and announced what a great sale Old Navy was having. So we put our stuff down from there and walked over to Old Navy where they had 50% off their clearance prices. I bought some shirts for .98 and 1.50 and a fleece for $6. And we bought Anna a couple of long sleeve onsies and pants. All in all we bought 10 items for $30. Some great deals.

Then on the way home we stopped at this great little farmer's market that sells pumpkins and stuff and bought some pumpkins. At the market they give kids hay rides, they have a maze of hay and a maze in the corn field. It is just a really neat place to go and take your kids to have fun and take their pictures. We are probably going to go back next weekend.

Plus while we were there Anna made me feel really special. A really loud truck drove by and made quite a racket and it scared Anna. She ran over to me and clung on to my leg for protection.

WOW! What a feeling to know you are the protection for your precious little girl.

She thinks she is the next American Idol

Celebrating a Church Year !!

Well this past weekend our church celebrated its one year birthday. It was actually on the 12th a year ago that we first had people from the community come and join our church. We had two people from the community who have really been touched by the church give their testimonies, they were really good. Then when Kevin preached he used Anna and another girl from the church as examples through out his sermon. It was pretty funny.

We then had lunch together and had a good time of fellowship. I will try to load the picture of Anna from the lunch where she got up on stage with the mike and thought she was on American Idol. It's really cute.

Then last night Anna did something really funny. She was in the kitchen by herself for awhile. I called her to come out in the living room with Amber and I. She finally strolled out of the kitchen very nonchalant. She then noticed the extra napkin from dinner laying on the coffee table. (Coffee table? what a strange name, we don't even drink coffee, its more like a Pepsi table...anyway) So she takes the napkin and heads back to the kitchen. It is at this point a light bulb goes off over my head.

She knows what napkins are for, she has made enough messes to figure it out. It then occurs to me that she has probably made a mess again and is quietly trying to clean it up herself. (She is only 18 months by the way.) Sure enough I follow her into the kitchen and she has left her sippy cup tipped over long enough to have dripped out a good size puddle and she had by that time already unfolded the napkin and began to clean up.

She is soooo funny. I love her so much. Whether it is her animal sounds, trying to sing the alphabet song of which she knows A,B,C, E,E,E ....I!... , or asking for three tisses (that's kisses to us) before laying down to go night night, she is always bring me joy.

Only 9 Weeks

Well we miscalculated. We were only at exactly 9 weeks along yesterday. Apparently you cannot really hear the heartbeat until 10 weeks. So now we wait until next month to hear it. But despite not hearing the heartbeat the tests and the doctor says that everything seems to be going well. Our due date has been set for May 18. Which will probably be here before I know it or am ready.

Pizza Hut

Just had a great lunch with the guys at the Hut. Ron, Ben, Aaron and I all had lunch today. Kevin must have forgot? It was a great time. Aaron and Ron weren't even going to make it orginially. Those two together always make it funnier. Oh the things we talk about.

Well in about an hour and half, well two hours with the half hour wait in the waiting room, I should be hearing the heartbeat of my second child. :-)

And here she is at one.

Here is Anna in Easter of 2003

Columbus Day

Well today is one of my best friend's birthdays. Did I send him even a card? Nope. I will call him before the day is out. I miss my friends from Delaware. I am currently in Ohio, but originally from Delaware where many of my friends and family are. I miss going to the beach and eating Grotto's Pizza, pumkin chuckin, and milder winters.

Well anyway. Tomorrow is the big day. I go to lunch at Pizza Hut with the guys. But more importantly my wife and I go to the doctor to hear our new baby's heartbeat. I hope I am as excited this time as I was when we heard Anna's for the first time.

Death of Superman

Yesterday Superman died. The man who brought the superhero, Superman, alive to my generation, Christopher Reeves, died yesterday. I am a huge fan of the Superman franchise. I loved the movies and I am a big fan of the show Smallville. The show pays homage to the history of Superman. They have had Christopher Reeves on the show and have named multiple characters after creators and former illustrators of the comics.

I do not know enough about stem cell research at this time to make a comment on it. But I do know that C.R. was a great advocate for it and that regardless if you are for or against it, one has to admire the dedication that he put into it.

I heard that the average life span for someone with Reeves condition is 7 years, he managed to make it 9. He was not made of steel, he could not leap over a building in a single bound, but he still seemed to be a Super Man!

Pic of me

this is me ( 10 years ago by the way)

Isaiah 40

31 but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wing like eagles:
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.


I place my hope in you Lord, please renew my strength. Amen

Wow!

One of my very good friends just showed me the sonagram pictures from his wife's appointment. He showed the A and B marking both of the babies. TWINS!! I am so excited for him. Although I am not sure just how excited he is? I think I would be really scared if our appointment next week they told us that? (Crossing fingers for just one, and a boy)

GMail anyone?

Anyone interested in a gmail account? It is google's new email service with a gig of storage. It is not yet open to the public. You can currently only get one through an invite from someone who has it. I have a couple more. They sell for a dollar on ebay. The first two to leave a comment under this posting with their name and email address I will send in an invite to. No catch. Just trying to be nice to those who take the time to read my blogs.

X Prize

I watched history in the making yesterday. Okay so it wasn't Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. But it was still pretty incredible. It is the kind of stories you hear them talk about on Star Trek. Stories that were always Sci-Fi until now. I tried to get my daughter to watch, but the significance of it all was lost on an 18 month old.

Sure there are bigger more important problems in the world then commercial space flight. But it was still pretty cool to stop and look at the sky and for a moment turn our attention away from all that is going on down here.

Reniassance Festival

I forgot that last Wedsnday I mentioned I was going to the festival. It was a lot of fun. The jousting as always was the best, followed neck and neck with the food. It was fun, but I think it would be more fun if I was in costume. Plus this one was not as interactive as other festivals I have been to.
Other festivals have had a lot more "characters". People who walked around and interacted with you. I had maybe 3 people speak to me in the Old English. But for the most part I enjoyed the atmosphere and the beef stew in a bread bowl. But next time I am defintely going in costume!

This is fun

I am already addicted to the idea of blogging all my thoughts. This is already my third blog for today. Work gets pretty boring. I am a CSR for an internet company. While waiting for calls we are free to browse the internet, email, or blog. It's not that we have a lot of free times. But it definetly has its slow times. There are only so many games and interesting web sites to visit. I have been working here for almost a year so I need new distractions.

For those of you who may know me and think I am doing nothing at work but blogging. I started this blog 15 minutes ago and this is all the further I have typed since I have to stop typing for each call.

I am looking forward to going to the Ohio Reniassance Festival this weekend. My wife and I are going with another younger couple (who we think are great) to their first festival. Seriously considered going in costume, but could not justify spending the money at this time. Would love to have the opportuinty to work at one sometime. Okay going to stop it here because it has been another 25 minutes since I typed the line "15 minutes ago".

The Life We Live

The life that I live is not all that exciting. It is not that exciting to live, probably even less exciting to read. But none the less, it is my life. I have read through some other people's blogs and I am not sure that I get it. I can see the value of journaling events for ones self. Even for some good friends and family. But to sit and read about complete strangers lives. Even the most exciting or humorous ones are only good for a minute.

Maybe blogs are only meant for a select few. But I know of people who will sit and pour over other people's blogs? Why? Get out and live your own life. It is too precious to waste to sit and read about other people's lives. Of coures that is pretty hypocritical. Because I will sit and waste an hour watching a show about a ficitional persons life. Hmmm... I feel like I should be enlightened by this sudden insight. Yet...I guess we need to have something to do in the non exciting times of life. If every thing in life was a thrill a minute, we would be out of breath.

Although having an 18 month old is pretty close to having a thrill a minute. = )

Medium depth thoughts

I don't really have deep thoughts, but hopefully they are not shallow thoughts...thus Med. depth thoughts. Thoughts like, if your 18 month old daughter is quiet for too long before going to sleep, check on her she may have taken her pants and diaper off and have a left a mess for you to clean.

Thoughts like, despite doing things like that, there is nothing greater than seeing your daughter's big smile just because you came into the room. I know every parents says this but, I really have the cutest little girl in the world. Once I figure out how to post pics on here I will put one on of her.