Good weather

Ahhhh nice days in winter are so few and far apart. Ryan and I had to
stretch our legs a bit in the backyard this afternoon. Sorry I've been
slack on the blog, my computer is awaiting some parts (it broke on me
at the LAN party this weekend. )

Consider the Ravens

I am having a hard time starting this blog post off for some reason. I am a little nervous about putting something like this on the site just because it is a bit personal as far as my feelings and beliefs go. I actually sat down one day and wrote a short essay on how I felt about God's generosity and how he has taken care of me. I put it in a word doc and forgot all about it. It's been a few years and I was cleaning out my documents folder when I ran into it tonight. It was a nice surprise and if you have the patience to read it maybe it will refresh you and surprise you like it did me.

 

Luke 16:10 He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.

This is a great scripture!  Basically it means, if you can be trusted with something small , you will be given more things to be responsible with.  This is a facet of life that most people either do not grasp or in my case just plain have a hard time with.

Why is this so hard?  What does it mean to me?  Both good questions.  It is hard to trust someone other than yourself.  Remember the old addage, If you want it done right, do it yourself?  That is pretty much how most of us feel.  Even if we profess faith in Christ we still want to run the show ourselves.  "Tithing 10% are you crazy?  Maybe if you don't want me to pay the rent!  Or better yet starve!". "Giving to the poor/homeless?  They need to get off their butts and get to work!" 

My promise to you is, if you give a little of your time and money, even if you don't think there is a chunk to break off.  And you give it up to the Lord Jesus Christ.  You will be blessed with MORE.  He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.  If you can give faithfully even a small amount you will be trusted with more. 

Have you ever heard someone say something like this? "If i won the Powerball I would do such great things with the money.  I'd give to charities, I'd help out my family, I'd help the poor"

They are missing the point!  You can do these things now.  Start small, do it quietly.  Know that you are being faithful to God and what he wants for your life and he will bless you!  Small steps, baby steps even.  Give a dollar a month to your local charity.  Hand the beggar at the intersection your spare change and tell him God Bless You!  It may seem small , but to God you might as well be giving a million dollars away. 

But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins,worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. Mark 12:42:43

The first steps of faith can be terrifying.  It's counterintuitive, it goes against what we may have been raised to believe.  The crazy thing is, it works!  It really works.  God will not let you down I promise you! 

"Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!" Luke 12:24

He is not going to let you starve or make you miss paying your bills.  I have seen amazing things happen.  When I was in my early 20's I was trying to figure out a budget.  I sat down with 2 of my friends at seperate occasions and had them help me put all of my assets and debits for the month on paper.  At that point I realized that with a tithe of 10% plus all of my bills I was going over budget 200 dollars a month before I even considered entertainment or even food!   Neither friend could see any alternatives to my plight.  It seemed like tithing would be impossible. 

Let me tell you this, I made it.  My money seemed to stretch.  Money would show up at the just the right time.  I'd get some overtime or a paid holiday would come around just when I needed it.  Someone who owed me money would pay me out of the blue.  I was blessed at every turn.  Not only did i have enough to pay my bills but what I had left over allowed me to go out and have a good time on the weekends.   

This is Good News!  God loves you!  Trust in him and the rewards will be many on earth and in heaven.

"Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Luke 12:32-34

That's my girl

Jessi is on a roll! Our new baby must be Super creative because he's
certainly given Jessi the art bug!

Stickies and Fun times

Jessi is gone in New York for 3 days and doesn't come back to be until late tonight. In her honor I am putting up a couple of fun pictures just to help all of us who are missing her feel a little bit better.

Me and Dom hanging out

Fun times at Fun Run

Ummmmm I hope your face doesn't get stuck like that Christina ;)

Winter in February what the heck!

I have to laugh at myself sometimes...

Here it is we are barely into the second week of February and I'm looking outside in disbelief at snow.

It's Febraury for Pete's Sake of course it's supposed to snow.

But it was 70 degrees yesterday dang it! Booohoooo hoooo

Choo Choo

Well if you don't know Ryan's new obsession is Choo Choo Trains. He absolutely loves them. We have a big track and lots of trains to play with and he would watch Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends nonstop if we'd let him. If he spies anything that looks like a train he hollers CHOO CHOO as loud as he can.

I was tipped off that a fun place to bring kids on a nice day was English Landing Park in parkville. They also have a retaurant that is actually inside an old train car. The entire park is alongside some busy tracks so I thought it would be perfect for Ryan. He hadn't actually seen a train since he was little so off we went.

First we ate at Tommy T's. A nice little burger and dog spot with icecream and a great view of the train tracks.

We heard the very first whistle of a train in the distance and Ryan chimed right in, "Choo Choo!"

We played for hours. They have 2 great playgrounds right next to each other. One for toddlers and one for kids a bit older. Ryan climbed all over both and ran around in the dirt and leaves.

Finally Jessi fought through traffic and came to hang out with us after work. It was getting pretty windy so we left after 4 hours of fun at the park. Yay for nice days!

Cheese

Who doesn't like cheese with their fresh firehouse sub sandwich?

Bask in the sweet sweet glory

Lan party pics. I know you are as excited as I am.

A long story

I'm standing in the cold darkness of early morning. I'm in the middle of the street my hands, coat, and arms are covered in a filthy, brown, salt dust. I'm late for work and blocking the entire street. I look around and I wonder just how the heck I ever ended up in this place.

Flashback to 3 years ago. It's Christmas and Jessi had hinted that she wanted xmradio in her car for her present. We load up and head to Best Buy where after much deliberation we pick out a lower end radio and set up a contract for service. The salesman assures me that the install is easy and after many hours of cursing up a storm and running wires all through Jessi's Civic she is jamming out to the best that satellite radio has to offer.

Lets move forward a couple of years to January 3rd 2009. Jessi, Ryan and I are sitting in our brand new Honda Odyssey. The Civic has been left behind as we motor back to Kansas City from the dealership in Lawrence. Our excitement is complete, this vehicle has everything! Absolutely everything, plus the radio is even XM ready! I'm excited about getting the radio transferred over to our new car so we can listen to satellite radio in the minivan.

3 weeks ago. After hours of searching the internet and calling and visiting the dealership I am informed that our XM Ready stereo is only READY for the dealership to install a $600 attachment in order for it to work. Nice.

2 1/2 weeks ago. I have called XM radio to let them know we are done with their service, thank you very much. 30 minutes later I'm the proud owner of an xm radio for my truck with the assurance that it will be super easy to install. (SUCKER)

2 weeks ago. My new radio arrives in the mail complete with chinese installation instructions and an installation kit that doesn't work with my truck, even though I was assured it would. After a few hours of upset calls to customer service representatives that couldn't care less I decided to modify the kit and use some double sided tape to make it work in my truck.

7 1/2 days ago. I am happy again. The radio works, though it doesn't seem to turn off when I take my keys out of the truck. I assume that it's supposed to do that because I'm a moron.

Yesterday morning..... finds me in the street. I awoke, showered, shaved, and loaded up my truck for work only to find that it wouldn't start. My new wonderful XM radio had drained my battery down to nothing.

My wonderful jumper cables were woefully too short to make it across my garage to our Odyssey. At that moment I have a great idea. (Remember I'm a moron) I will push the truck out into the driveway and then back the odyssey up and give myself a jumpstart and be on my way.

2 things that my uncaffineated brain failed to recognize.

1. My truck barely fits in my garage and I have to fold the mirrors in to even get it inside.

2. My driveway is sloped at an angle. Quite an angle as it turns out.

Everything starts out ok. I fold my mirrors in, grab the car near the door handle, and begin slowly pushing my truck out of the garage. When my F150 gets halfway out I realize that I'm going to have to get in front of the truck to push or i will be smashed by the mirrors up against the sides of the garage.

It's right about that time that the rear wheels started to really descend down that slope. My truck decided it wasn't going fast enough. I of course had just let go of my door handle and moved around to the front of the truck to avert disaster.

After running down my driveway and almost getting run over by my big green monster I manage to get behind it and slow it down enough to keep it out of the neighbors living room. Sweet!

I pull the Odyssey out spin it around and face it towards my truck. In order to pull this off I have blocked the entire street. There isn't any going past me at this point. I own the road.

That's when I found out that it is hard to hook up jumper cables in the dark with no flashlight or garage light. Plus that shower has made my hair wet and I'm getting cold. I didn't plan for 30 minutes in the cold dang it.

10 minutes later I'm driving down the highway towards work, running late but glad to have my sweet commercial free radio jamming out the latest-greatest Alternative hits.

Totally worth it!

Wingless flight attempt number 307

Chase dreamed of some day becoming a bird dog.

Lan Party Madness

This past weekend was the first annual Lan Party at the Kingsbury's. For those of you who don't know, a Lan Party is a gathering of people + computers at someones house or in some cases place of business. We all hook up on a LAN (local area network) and play computer games with or against each other.

In our old house we had created an office space in the basement that I carefully wired and ran cabling so we could have a LAN there. Unfortunately I underestimated the actual space needed so my goal of throwing my own LAN party was thwarted.

Our new house however has a huge basement space and it turned out was wired perfectly for running lots of power sucking computers at one time.

The invites went out and we had 12 people show up. Not bad for a first test run. Besides some craziness with my pizza order everything went well. Jessi even brought in some suprise late night Krispy Kremes which were the hit of the party.

We killed each other all night long and the last of the hardcore stumbled out into the cold dark streets around 3am.

Thanks to everyone who showed up and a double thanks to the wives that made this all possible ;)

Facebook

I gave up on Myspace about 6 months ago to focus on this blog. I told myself I was done with social networking sites.

I underestimated the powers of friendly persausion.

So here I am, the proud new owner of my very own facebook page.

Oh boy

Valentine's Day 2009

One of the things I have always loved about Jessi is how practical she is. Some ladies out there would be offended if their husband had never took them out on Valentine's day in 9 years. Not Jessi, she is a real trooper.

Hehe ok ok we have never gone out on Valentine's Day because we always go out the week before or after to miss the crowds.

This year we decided to completely destroy a Plaza giftcard we had and enjoy a feast at the Melting Pot on Ward Pkwy.

We arrived in the freezing cold and they showed us to the private room I had booked in advance. Complete with a half dozen roses and a custom bottle of the finest sparkling cider.

We started with a delicious spinach and artichoke fondue that we dipped veggies and fresh rye, pumpernickle, and sourdough bread chunks into.

Then we had a very tasty cobb salad with all the good stuff.

A piping hot bowl of coq au vin arrived (a boullion with red wine and mushrooms, garlic, onion and other stuff in it) and we were treated with center cut filet mignion, terriyaki sirlion, chicken, shrimp, and salmon among lots of tasty veggies and a plethora of tasty dipping sauces.

To finish it all off we had a chocolate fondue which was covered in melted marshmallow and then swirled with graham cracker crumbles. They poured liquid fire into it to sizzle it all together and we dipped strawberries, cheesecake, bananas, pound cake, rice krispy treats, and other wonderful bits into the lavishly prepared molten smore concoction.

Yeah we had to be rolled out of the restaurant doors ;)

Happy 9th Valentine's Day baby!