My Worship Revolution

Yes, that was the title of Ed’s sermon on Sunday.
No, this post has nothing to do with that.

A bit overdue, but the good news is, the peanut in Rachel’s stomach is coming along healthy and all good so far.  Had an appointment last week, but here’s a pic of the little amoeba from 3 or 4 weeks ago.

The bad news, the baby is due to arrive February 10th.  Why is that bad news?  The one gathering I look forward to all year long isn’t in the cards for me this year.
I know, small price to pay, but let me mourn a little, ok?

This week at church we started a new series called "How To Be Rich."
We talked about our concepts of rich and whether we are or not.
So as part of the message, Josh and I hit the streets in Santa Cruz looking for rich people and finding out what people think it takes to be rich.
Here's what we found out:

Wanna find out how rich you really are?  Check out this link and see what you find out.
Feel rich now?

Well, weight update anyway.
Still trying to keep with the Ragamuffin Tops here.
Trainin for another Tri.
100 push up challenge.  (Which Liana and Kieth are supposedly doing…I think.  Supposed to be anyway.)
Weight loss?
Check it out:

Any of you who have watched a couple of my worship confessionals, or weight loss updates, or just about any other video on here know that I have a tendency to film them while I drive.  I figure, hey, I got time while I’m in the car, and contrary to popular belief, it isn’t too tough to keep your eyes on the road and hold a camera.  Kinda like holding a cell phone and…oh wait…that’s illegal now.  Which is stupid anyway.  But I digress.

Not everyone believes me that it really isn’t that bad.  Hey, that’s cool.  I’ve got my own pet peeves, too.  Like chicks who do their eyeliner while they’re driving.  So is there a point to this rambling?  Yes, in fact there is.

After a nail biting Yahtzee tourney before bed tonight, (which I won, getting a Yahtzee in all 5 games we played) she asks me if I have seen the poll on my cousin’s blog.  When I say no, she insists that I go look at it, refusing to tell me herself what it is.  This is the blog for my cousin’s family.  They live in Arizona and have an awesome family with two awesome kids (although Zach could get them killed someday since Travis has taught him to mouth off at every Raider fan he ever sees in public).  I started laughing when I saw it.  Here’s what I saw:

I think she thought of it cause she was calling me lucky after the dice rolled my way.

So yeah, I’m kinda honored that there’s a poll in my name over at their blog.  Right now there’s only 3 votes, though.  So go on by their blog and weigh in!

What d’ya think?
Will the Po-Po crack down on me and my SD1000 or Elura 100 one of these days??

Alrighty. In reality, this post is probably geared more toward those of you who are involved in ministry at an administrative level of some sort, but maybe someone else will surprise me.

I’m looking for some help.
I’ve never used a database to operate.  However, as a church we own ACS and several modules that they offer.  It could be really useful, but I’ve kinda remained ignorant on 2 fronts.

1. Not sure how it could really be used to help with everything.
2. It only works on Windows, which doesn’t make it very exciting or easy to use for my Macbook Pro.

And I think we poured some serious cash into these things several years ago.  So I think it kinda bugs our bookkeeper that we aren’t really using it! 

So, help a brotha out.
Are you using a database, and if so, how so?
Anyone out there using ACS?  What do you like?  What don’t you like?
Any other suggestions out there for a databas that you’ve found helpful?  Maybe something based online?

Who knows, maybe someone else out there has the same questions and you’re thoughts will help them too.
Please, do share.

So I’m a bit overdue on this one, but I’ve been on vacation. So get over it.

My wife asked: If you had three wishes – and you could wish for absolutely ANYTHING (except for more wishes) what would you wish for?
1. A crystal ball to know what the plan for the future is.  I know.  I probably don’t REALLY want to know, but it’s hard to convince me of that.
2. The chance to be on Survivor.  Probably shouldn’t write that, cause if I ever get real serious about it, and CBS finds this post, I may not make it.  But I’ll take my chances.
3. All of my kids to be followers of Christ.  Obviously, I’m doing my part to try and make that happen.  I don’t even wish for it to be an easy road, cause I know better.  I just want them all to get there, and touch exponentially more lives for Jesus than I ever will.  Does that stil count as one wish?

She also asked: If you could keep only three memories, what would they be?
Ooh,  That’s a tough one.  Like remembering where I put my keys?
1. The day I asked you to be my wife.
2. The night I saw a student freed from demonic possession at Laurel Pines in 2000.  Seriously changed my life forever.
3. Traveling to Australia/New Zealand with my choir in high school.  Not so much cause of the travel, but because I shared it with my mom, dad, and sister.  I feel like it seems so long ago that Vic was around that the memories kinda fade, so I would never wanna lose some of the great ones that I have, with him and the rest of my family.

On a lighter note, Steve asked: seriously do you still think the padres are better then the dodgers?
Umm…I plead the fifth.
Or should I say, sorry, I just hate the Dodgers.  Doesn’t even matter who the better team is in a given season.  The Padres are just better overall.

This is Erika.

She looked beautiful as she got ready to marry my brother-in-law, Joel.

Go to his blog and congratulate him!

They were married in a beautiful setting at the Ritz Carlton in Maui.

Caleb was the ring bearer.

He walked down the aisle great.  After that, not so great.  This next pic encapsulates the wedding for me.

Wedding ended with all of us gathered around the couple to pray for them.

Very cool moment!

On a completely unrelated note, today I got to surf in Lahaina!
Small waves, but had an absolute blast nonetheless!

Had fun teaching Rachel to surf too!

Her mom, dad, and brother, Isaac, all got up at least some too!
Here’s her mom giving it a go.

Meanwhile, Caleb enjoyed the “kiddie pool” area of the beach park.

So this is like a month overdue, but well worth sharing.
For Ryan‘s birthday, there were like 30 of us that all went out for a sail in Santa Cruz.
Yeah, that’s how we can roll out here on the coast!
The plan was to sail out and anchor near the pier.
Then we had a little dingy that was supposed to ferry people to and from the pier to get drinks and have dinner.
Then, as we were heading out, the guys on the dingy got a visit from these guys:

Yup, a visit by the Coast Guard.
Unfortunately, they didn’t exactly have everything they needed.

So next, the Coast Guard came by our boat.  And boarded.
It started slightly tense.
It ended with them pretty much hangin and partyin with us, and making some nice inappropriate passes at eh ladies.
Made for a good story and some great times though!

Oh…and of course I got a bunch of it on video.
Glad I had the SD1000 handy.
Always gotta be ready for bloggable material!
Check it out: