The Final Game at Texas Stadium

All my life, I had wanted to see the Cowboys play in Texas Stadium and when they announced 2 years ago that they would be building a new stadium, I began to plan to attend a game this year. My dad's brother and family live in Ft. Worth so when they announced the season schedule this past April, I began to look at different games to go to and made plans to meet my dad down there and go the the game with him, his brother and my cousin. After looking at ticket prices, I decided on the final game against Baltimore and got tickets from www.viptickets.com The biggest fear of course when purchasing online is that it might be a scam or that they might not send the tickets etc. I have to say that I was very impressed with the site and the tickets were delivered in a timely manner and were really good seats. Of course, I don't like the price I paid, but unfortunately that's the way tickets are sold these days.

My dad and I were both supposed to arrive on Friday, but his flights experienced several delays and he finally made it to the game with 2 minutes left in the 1st quarter. The only disappointing thing about the game was the final score, but the post game ceremony with all the former Cowboys players being introduced was definitely worth the trip. Enjoy the pics and videos

Merry "Puking" Christmas

The following poem is based on actual people and events (of tonight) with some (but not many) elements of fiction

Twas the night before Christmas and things were not so nice
Almost everyone was puking, even the mice

Mother-in-Law was vomiting in a trash can
The smell so bad, we had to roll down the windows in the van

A while later, the littlest one spoke up from the back seat
and said "I'm sick"
then proceeded to puke on her feet (and coat, shirt, pants etc.)

Later both grandparents were puking in a tupperware bowl
the sickness was really starting to take it's toll

Finally round about 9 o'clock,
the washer had finished cleaning the sock (and coat, shirt, pants etc)


The kiddo's were snuggled all in their beds
& Daddy and Mommy popped some pills for their heads

Christmas Day was coming in just a few short hours
Here's hoping that sickness does not tomorrow sour.


Merry Christmas everyone, here's hoping yours is puke free :-)

Cedarville 10 Year reunion

For all of you who couldn't make the reunion and those who did who want to watch it again here is the Class of 1998 video tribute. Thanks to all who sent pictures

My daughter's first campout

Sierra turned 5 this past Saturday and my desire was to do something really special for her that would create lasting memories instead of just giving her more "toys" or thing that she would forget very easily, so I decided to take her tent camping which is a big passion of mine. I was a little unsure of how she would do, so I put in some extra prayer for patience and tolerance and tried to not have too high of expectations.

As it turns out we had a grand time and she hasn't stopped talking about it. I took her down to Skyview Ranch where I worked in college and we had a great time swimming in the lake. Anybody who knows me, knows how much I love Skyview so I was very excited to be taking her there and sharing that experience with her. After swimming and enjoying the lake that wasn't there 10 years ago, I put on my pack, put hers on

and we were off on our "hike" out to the Oats Field.

After hiking to the far edge of the property and set up our tent and built a fire...

We had to hike down to the creek to filter some water for dinner and we had to walk through the field with the horses. I was a little scared, because 12 years ago, when I had my junior campers in the Oats Field on a campout, they let the horses out into that field and I woke up to a voice whispering "counselor we have trouble" and looked up to see about 8 of campers with horses straddling or standing in close proximity to their sleeping bags. This time, I felt pretty comfortable because we were in the upper field and had a tent. Our gourmet camp meal was Kraft Easy Mac over my whisperlite camp stove and hot dogs over the fire followed of course by the traditional camp dessert S'mores

After dinner, we read some of our favorite nature books followed by our all time favorite book "My Daddy and I" We sang some songs... "My God is so Big" and "Lord of all Creation" and captured these amazing pictures. Sierra even took the one of me all by herself.

Sierra thought it was really cool to use a groundhog hole to go to the bathroom in and found it funny that we "burned" the toilet paper with a match to 'leave no trace' and we finally went into the tent about 9:30 and after a little trouble (she didn't have a pillow and a nose thing) and Dad accidentally rolling over on "Clarabelle" (her imaginary friend) she fell asleep about 10:15 and woke up only once in the night and then at 5:30. At 5:30 I just looked at her and said "No, you go back to sleep" she did for about another hour. We had some granola bars and fruit leather and tore down camp and then read some creation Psalms before hiking back to enjoy some Saturday morning Skyview Ranch cinnamon rolls for breakfast. We finished off our adventure by enjoying the petting farm and canoeing in the lake and touring the old barn because it sounds like it might be getting torn down.

This was a trip that created a ton of memories for me and hopefully her and one that I will always treasure.

FIREWORKS

Thanks to all who read and commented on my last post. I will be doing some follow up comments but I hope it has promoted some good thought and discussion amongst your households.

On to a far less serious topic: FIREWORKS are way cool. It had been 6 years since I had actually gone to a fireworks display due to kids, life etc. I have seen some off and on and on TV, but to actually plan on going, finding a good seat etc. it had been a while.

Woo town (aka Wooster, OH) has a pretty kickin fireworks display so this year we decided to take the kids and go. We went around five down the soccer fields and went over to our churches bouncy castles and free hot dog/pop/water outreach area and let the girls play and we all enjoyed a free hotdog and beverage. Then we walked over to visit with the grandparents and Sarah's sister and her family. I grabbed some killer ribs and then we got some homemade ice cream (I'm not a big fan) and let the girls play a little more before going to stake out our seats. Now we normally put the girls to be at 7:30 and the fireworks weren't supposed till 10:00 so this was a little out of the norm for us.

One of Sarah's good friends from High School and his family joined us and we picked a prime hill off the walking path close to Highland on the Hill and WOW. When they finally started, it was an awesome display. They looked like they were exploding right down on us. It was great. Quellie (aka Raquel) our youngest was not too amused though and while she didn't cry, she spent most of the time with her hood pulled down over her face with Mom covering her face while sneaking occasional peaks. My oldest spent the time on my lap, constanly peppering me with all sorts of questions. It's like someone puts a quarter into this kid to wind her up. She just doesn't stop.

We had a great time and can't wait till next year.

"Christianese"

Our church had VBS last week and when I got home Friday night, my soon to be 5 year old daughter had a big blue pool noodle (the theme was "divin in with Jesus") and my wife asked her to explain to me why she received said noodle. She stood there looking confused and said I don't remember why... my wife tried to prod her a little more before she whispered in her ear and then my daughter said "because I asked Jesus into my heart" I asked her what she thought that meant and she responded, as I expected with an shrug of her shoulders and an "I don't know."

This prompted some further thinking into the issue of salvation, particularly of children as I have been doing some reading (How to Bring Your Children to Christ ... and Keep Them There by Ray Comfort and Parents Concerns for their Unsaved Children by a Puritan author whose name escapes me at the moment) on the subject during the past couple of months and general thoughts over the past few years. I find myself having some very real questions about the "evangelizing" of children in particular the use of the term "ask Jesus into your heart" one of many terms that I refer to as "Christianese" or words/phrases that we hear thrown around a lot in Christian circles that I don't believe are biblical

First of all where do you find the phrase "ask Jesus into your heart" in the Bible, yet alone described or given as an answer for "how can I be saved or have eternal life."

Second of all, I know with all certainty that if given the opportunity and the gift to work with children that with the right words, music, dare I say 'bribes' (candy or pool noodles?) that I could get a whole roomful of 3,4,5,6,7 etc. etc. year olds to "ask Jesus into their hearts" I know this because I'm usually successful when working with groups of children this age to do what I want them to do including my own daughter. I can get her to agree to pretty much anything. Many people say, but the Bible says you have to have "faith like a child" but are children really capable of understanding and having the saving faith (along with the correct understanding of sin and the act of repentance the Bible talks about in regards to salvation) Or when the Bible says have "faith like a child" is it speaking in regards to having the unwavering trust and confidence a child places in their "father" to keep them safe from the monsters under the bed or the Tigers at the zoo. Read http://www.jonsplace.org/rel/faith.htm to learn more about this concept.

Third, I have worked with many teenagers in the "church"who clearly have no "fruit" or love or affection for things of Christ who when I express a concern to them or their parents inquiring about the condition of their soul and heart will cling to the fact that 'when they were 4, or 3 or 7' take your pick they said a prayer during VBS or Sunday School and asked Jesus into their hearts.

This question goes right to the root of how we "do church" and raise our children and I believe is serious enough to truly wrestle with. What age can a child understand the true gospel. (does the old baptist 'age of accountability' vary from child to child') The more I read and study, I truly believe that it is my role as a parent to continue to speak and model the "biblical" gospel of repentance and placing faith in Christ for salvation and not focus on getting my child to "say a sinners prayer or ask Jesus into her heart and leave the salvation up to God because after all Ephesians 2:8,9 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast."

Please post thoughts/comments. I would love to discuss with others. (note, I am not in any way trying to put down or knock our church's VBS program, just merely trying to promote discussion on what I believe is a serious topic)

Rental Car Envy and random things that make you go hmmm.

So it's 1:15 Monday morning CST and I am in a hotel in Houston, TX (well actually Humble as Bush Int'l airport is exactly in Houston) If anyone was wondering what it was going to take for me to post my 2nd entry to this blog after not posting for 4 months, well getting delayed by plane travel and not being able to sleep will do it. I was supposed to back in Ohio tonight or rather this morning sleeping on an air mattress at the Millers getting ready to head to work tomorrow but the weather had some other ideas.

I went to Baton Rouge this weekend for my Dale's wedding (Dale is my biological father for those of you that don't know) I took a 1/2 day on Friday and flew down Friday even to Houston, then onto New Orleans. In Houston we all got on the plane, then sat and sat (if you fly a lot you develop a good sense of when the wait is "not normal" and you just sit there waiting for the announcement to come) Sure enough... captain comes on and announces that the maintenance crew wants to change out one of the tires on the plane and then makes a bad joke about it being the fault of his co-pilot on the previous landing, then some other bad jokes about what we were going to be doing once we got airborne. I was not amused and neither were any of the other passengers. So they finally get the plane ready and we push away from the gate just as this huge thunderstorm opens up and starts dumping rain. So we're sitting on the tarmac and the engines stop and the captain announces that they're going to delay takeoffs for a while and we can feel free to use our cell phones and other portable electronic devices.

Random thing that makes you go hmmm #1: Speaking of portable electronic devices and their accepted "use" on flights, what is up with the safety cards in the seat pockets banning remote control vehicles.... is this a serious problem on airlines. I have always wondered this... the pictures with the circles and red lines through them are as follows no am/fm radios, no cell phones, no lighters and... no remote control vehicles. Were people back in the 70's bringing these things on planes and running them up and down the aisle??? I need answers!!!

#1.5: on portable electronic devices, why are IPODS banned during takeoff and landing? They don't emit any type of frequency that I know of but maybe some of you engineering types can help me out. Do they really pose a danger or are the airlines just behind the times? Anyhow, I figured out that if you have a window seat, which I almost always try to book; you can clip the IPOD into your pocket closest to the window, keep that earbud in and run the cord up behind your shoulder and the flight attendants are none the wiser and you can listen to music anytime you want. (FYI, so far none of my planes have crashed)

Speaking of music and to get to one of the subjects of my title, I had serious rental car envy this weekend. I had a Hyundai Sonata (sp?) that really wasn't anything super special except it had a dock for my IPOD, XM satellite radio and controls on the steering wheel to switch between the 2 and regular radio, volume controls and even a mute button to stop the noise if you need to talk on the phone or order at a drive through. I know for all of you who own newer vehicles no big deal right, but as for me and my 2003 Nissan Sentra, let's just say I know one feature that I definitely want on my next vehicle...

Random things that make you go hmmm... #2... this car or rather this 'traveling museum' as the handwritten cardboard written sign on the drivers side rear window proclaimed.

There are no words, so I won't even try.

Ok, so there was a wedding! I enjoyed seeing my grandparents, my Dad (Dale) who got married and my Uncle Glenn. The ceremony was very simple and thankfully short as I was roasting in my tux. (Here's some pics)

I met a bunch of random people that I'll probably never see again from Leda's family but I did get to meet her kids (Olivia, Sarah and Travis) which brings me to

Random things that make you go hmmm #3: Her oldest daughter Olivia is a little older than me and married to a guy who shares my birthday and grew up 2.5 hours away from me in Libby, Montana and went to a rival high school in Whitefish. (I know 2.5 hours is a long way for all of you who grew up in populated states that have over 1 million people) but Whitefish was the second closest division rival we had with the closest being a 2 hour drive and 2 of the 6 schools being 8 and 10 hours drives respectively. So for MT, that's practically like we were neighbors.

Well that's it... I'm finally wore out, I'll try not to let another 4 months past before I post again.

Muddy Waters! (Not the Cafe in Dowtown Wooster) and commitment

I finally have a topic for my first post! Today was my friend JC's birthday and he and I both love to hike and are currently planning a first ever men's hiking trip for our Adult Bible Fellowship Cords of 3 at Wooster Grace church. We're going down to Wildcat Hollow south of Columbus and he had the day off because of his birthday and I had the day off from work (Thanks dead President's of the past) so we took off to Wooster Memorial Park (aka Spangler) to hike the outer loop red trail. Check it out here http://www.wooster.edu/geology/wmp/WMP%20map.pdf

The trail compared to others JC and I have hiked in our lives is relatively easy, but it is definately a challenging little jaunt compared to the flat farmlands of Wayne County Ohio. JC brought along his dog Paisley who is a pup that hadn't gone hiking before. This added a little fun to the trip as the dog had a mind of his own and reminded me a lot of my 4 year old who goes with me on hikes sometimes and just decides at random points to sit down and not go any further on the trail and needs encouragement and prodding.

There are 2 points along the red trail where it crosses Rathburn Run, (the creek that flows through the park) that don't have bridges and with all the rain/snow we have had this winter lets just say the water levels were pretty high compared to summer and left us with no good points to cross. At the first one, we were able to find a log that had fallen down across the creek that was about 3-4 feet off the water. It was wet, slippery and not the ideal choice, but provided the only opportunity to cross that didn't guarantee us getting wet. I got up and crossed and waited for JC who came across without incident as well. Paisley had to swim. When we got across, we talked about the idea of commitment. When you get up on the log, you are commited to that course of action to the end, whether that be falling in and getting wet or safely crossing. Life is a series of commitments and it seems like in today's world people don't consider commitment all that important and are constanly looking for ways to get out of them when they "get wet" or difficulty comes their way. When I commited to my wife, it was for better or worse, till death do us part. When we decided to have children, we commited to raising them. Marriage and raising children aren't always easy, but they are things I wouldn't trade for the world. Maybe if we thought about what the word commitment means, we wouldn't be so quick to make them if we were not ready to stay on the log till the end.

FYI, the second crossing we came too was less inviting than the first and we had to hunt for a long time before we found a place that even looked possible. It was another log, but this time it was about 8-9 feet off the water with a bunch of other logs laying across the middle of it and the first half of it was over some very deep, fast moving water. JC decided to stay back and watch me on this one before he chose his course of action: I got up on the log and did the first half no problem, I came to the middle and started to try and maneuver through the logs in the middle. I was pushing off another log trying to leverage myself and was doing well and coming to the end of the log I was pushing against and had to try and move from using it for balance back to an upright position without any leverage. At this point, I was away from the deep rushing water and over a fairly shallow part of the creek, I felt myself starting to slip and decided that at that point, I was going to fall off the log so I decided to try to have as much control over that process as possible and leapt forward into the creek and ran as quickly to the bank as possible. Thanks to my wonderful waterproof boots, I managed to keep my feet dry and escaped with a few wet spots up the back of my legs. JC decided he didn't want to risk the log pulled up his pant legs and decided to basically high step it through the shallowest part of the creek he could find. I wish I would have had a video camera.

Overall, it was a great day and JC and I are looking forward to some more hikes this spring and summer