A few days ago my good buddy James Pierce flew up to visit. He had been living in Costa Rica so it is great to see him again. Since his arrival we have been fairly busy. Here are the highlights:
Went to Bella’s first A’s game with James, Joel, Jen, and Colette. They were playing the Tigers, who might just be worse than the A’s so we actually won the game. That was pretty exciting. Even more exciting: dollar hot dogs. That means I ate four. Not all at once, but that is still a lot of hot dogs. Bella had a great time and so did everyone else.
My so called friends tried to convince me to use facebook. I don’t want to. It will be one more thing to keep up with. I would much rather blog. This debate created some great conversation and laughs. (Especially at the people sitting behind us, as they acted like junior high children when talking about facebook).
Ate lunch at the Pita Pit. I know what you are thinking, “This is supposed to be highlights.” Well this is my blog and Pita Pit IS a highlight.
Played a show with The Art of Whimsy that ended up being 3 instead of 2 hours. I didn’t play the whole time, but it was a little longer than expected. Jordan Emmans played on our second set and that is always a good time. I also had the opportunity to play one of Jordan’s songs with him while Nathan changed a guitar string. It was good times. A bunch of old friends showed up which just makes for even better times. To make the night even better Bella learned how to clap. I think she is as excited as we are.
So that brings us up to today. Looking at it, it doesn’t seem like that much stuff, but it has been busy. I promise. The future holds game nights, breakfast with friends, and a barbecue of fresh salmon.
As a side note: there were too many things to link to on this post.
While Colette and I were in Maui we took Bella Ruth to her first aquarium. She had a blast and loved all of the sea life. These are some of my favorite photos from the day.
My wrist is killing me. I probably shouldn’t be typing, but when have I ever done something I was supposed to?
Was just reminded about Fiction Family, it is good stuff. Jon Foreman of Switchfoot and Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek make good music together.
Just got back from a pool party and Bella Ruth is now in love with swimming. Looks like swim lessons for her, and a little pool of our own.
All of those cake making shows on t.v. amaze me. Those people are crazy good at making cakes. That is probably why they are on t.v.
Going to be breaking out the sewing machine today and make some stuff. I am pretty excited about it.
I never really now when this these is long enough. Are there any sort of s.s.s. guidelines? Are 10 bullet points enough or too many? Mmmm. I should probably do 1 more just in case.
My brother once knew a person names Justin Case. True story.
Colette just saw the picture of her in a bathing suit I put on twitter… Oops, but not really, she is fine with it.
According to this “colored” person on t.v. white people are always on time, black people are never on time. She called it C.P.T. Colored People Time. That is ridiculous.
I just wanted to share with you guys the latest single from Coury Palermo and Sleepthief. I met Coury a few months ago now and think he is a great guy. I can’t say that this is my “style” of music that I typically enjoy, but I have great respect for Coury as a musician and must confess I like this new song. I think he is a stellar vocalist, songwriter, and lyricist. So here you go, I just thought I would share some new music you all (or y’all depending on where you are from).
So my plan was to put of video of Michael Jackson on here (just like everyone else), but youtube won’t let me embed the video so here is a link to one of my favorite MJ songs. I can’t tell you how many times I watched the video for this song growing up.
Ok so this feels a little weird. I am typically not the type of person that preaches. In fact, I am usually a man of few words. (I am not sure how I got roped into this blogging thing). Plus most of these words and thoughts are not my own, but here we go anyway.
In Revelation 8:6 there are seven Angels with seven trumpets, each trumpet blast means bad things happen. Death and destruction are everywhere and then in verse 13, after the fourth trumpet, we take a brief pause. Seemingly out of nowhere, we find an eagle flying calling out “Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!” In a moment of honesty our pastor admitted he had no idea what to do with this verse. Death and destruction everywhere and then a bird telling us it is only going to get worse. Awesome.
So we took a little journey over to Matthew 20 and the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard. A landowner goes out early in the morning to hire men to work his field. He then goes out in the third, sixth, ninth, and eleventh hour to hire more workers. (There were twelve hours in a work day) We focused on the landowner because he does something a little odd. Typically in that day landowners would go out in the morning hire people and that was it. But this landowner is always going to out to find more workers.
Then we took a look at all of the prophets sent to Israel. They came with the message of “Woe to you!” Now this wasn’t a message of lookout destruction is coming and there is nothing that you can do about it. These were messages of look out destruction will come if you do not change your ways. Repents and return to the Lord.
So we added all these thing up and go back to Revelation and with all of this in mind, the eagle reads a little different. Woe to you, destruction is coming, but it doesn’t have to be for you. Repent and come to the Lord. He is here even in this eleventh hour searching for more people who want and need his salvation. Even in the midst of God’s righteous anger and judgement of the earth, he is still searching for people who want his love.
For Father’s Day Colette and Bella gave me the newest Dave Matthews Band on vinyl. I was super excited. 1) I love Dave Matthews Band and 2) I love vinyl. Several years ago now, my mom gave me all of her old records and I fell in love. There is just something about listening to music on vinyl that makes it sound better and feel feel more authentic (at least when listening to music originally released on vinyl). To quote Empire Records, “some say it doesn’t make a difference. I say it’s the difference that makes it.” (Plus you can find some amazing deals on records. Music that would normally cost you at least $10 can be found for less than $1, depending on who it is and the quality of the case(?).)
So this is a little late. To be honest I forgot I was going to write this post. But I have decided to add to it and make it a little more interesting.
This last week I once again had the privilege of playing on the worship team at Bridgeway Christian Church. Musically, the weekend went very well. I was very relieved since I was unable to make practice on Thursday so Saturday afternoon right before the first service was my only practice. Normally, that wouldn’t concern me too much, but this time, there was no drummer. This left me, playing cajon, and another percussionist, someone I have never played with, on djembe, holding down the rhythm. Without a drummer there was nowhere for me to hide. Here are the songs that we played:
In The Secret - Andy Park
Rescue - Jared Anderson
I Will Rise - Louie Giglio, Matt Maher, Jesse Reeves, and Chris Tomlin
Lord Of All - Kristian Stanfill
*Message*
Lift High - Steve Fee and Eddie Kirkland
It Is Well With My Soul - Philip Paul Bliss and Horatio G. Spafford
Sing To The King - Billy Foote and Charles Silvester Horne
So this week we changed up the order of things just a bit. You may notice that we ended the service with three songs this week. Typically, we play around 6 songs, leave for the message and then return for a closing song. This past week the pastors collectively decided that a time of response was in order. So we cut the first set short and came back at the end of the service and led the congregation in three songs. This lengthened closing set gave them the ability to truly react and respond to the message. Which leads me to my question.
How does your church (if you go) order their service? Do they leave time for a time of response? And, what do you feel about it, do you feel this time is necessary?
Colette and I are in for trouble. Bella is only 7 months old and already has taken more of an interest in walking than crawling. Her main purpose for crawling is to get to something that she can pull herself up on and walk around. She makes her way around the coffee table, reaches across to the couch and back again, the rocking chair, our legs, anything about 6 inches off the ground she is standing herself up with it. In the last week or so she has also discovered that she can climb. This where the trouble begins. Fortunately, she hasn’t made it anywhere dangerous but I can tell the thoughts are there. To give you an idea of what I am pretty sure we are in for, here is a little story from my childhood.
Growing up my grandparents had a staircase that they were always careful to block off. I certainly did not need to go climbing up the stairs by myself, I was too young. One visit, just like always they blocked off the stairs. Everything is safe, right? For whatever reason I was left alone for a very short time. When my mother returned I was half way up the stairs, but not on the safe side of the railing. No, I was climbing up on the outside of the railing, on what was no more than half a foot.
I’m glad we don’t have stairs, but I’m wondering what ways Bella will find to scare us to death.
Bella, for whatever reason has been very cranky all day; constantly whining and not listening. She has already received several time outs until her attitude changed.
My iPhone fell out of my pocket and broke the screen. It still works, but is really annoying. The warranty is not void and will cost me $200 to replace. I am thinking of trying to fix it myself. I repaired Colette’s iPod so we shall see.
Colette received a free replacement iPhone since hers was acting up. I am a little jealous.
Colette and I purchased a new iMac today. Something we are in need of. Our laptop is over 5 years old and I can tell it is getting old. We upgraded to 1 terabyte of memory so it had to be a special order. I can’t wait to get it. With this purchase came a free printer and $229 toward an iPod. I took that money and purchased the iPod classic.
