One thing Saraya loves to do is to make cookies from scratch with me. She had been bugging me for a couple of days to make some cookies with her, so I came home a little early from work and we got to it. What we usually do is that I will make a full recipe, and I will measure out and let her mix a partial batch. Usually I just try to estimate the amounts of flour sugar, eggs and other ingredients, and as a result, her cookies never come out the same. This time I tried really hard to measure out 1/8 of what I was making. I did pretty good to, except I messed up a little on the butter, and the egg was tough to split in 1/4. As a result her cookies came out pretty good. After they came out of the oven and cooled, her mom suggested that she take a cookie to her teacher, whom she really likes. Saraya took the idea one step further and wanted to bring enough for her whole class to have a cookie for snack the next day. So the next morning we took enough cookies for her whole class to have. She got to hand them out to each kid, and her teachers made a big deal out of it. Saraya loved it!

You know, Saraya could have just kept them all for herself and eaten them over the next couple of days, and she loves a good cookie. But she decided to take them all to share, and I think she enjoyed that experience even more. That's the place I am trying to get to with my money and possessions. I really enjoy spending all of my money, and using all of my stuff, but God keeps telling me to share because He knows that the experience of sharing my stuff would be so much greater. For some reason it is so hard to get in my head. I am the kind of guy that just would not take all of my cookies to school to share with everyone. I would want to keep them all at home so I could eat on them for the next couple of days and enjoy the fruits of my labor. Why should I share with you? You didn't make the cookies, you didn't even have the idea to make them. All you ever do is go to the store and buy those cheap Walmart made cookies and put them on a plate like you made them or something! You know what I would rather do? I would really like to bring you one cookie so you could see how great my cookies are and really know how bad you have it. Then I would go home and eat about ten of them in front of my TV, all the while knowing how much better my cookies are then yours.

It's incredible how sinful I am some times!

Peter Pan syndrome

I was putting my daughter Saraya to bed last night, and after we finished with the whole bed time routine, brushing teeth, reading a few books, and praying, she started talking about her pretend brother. She doesn't bring him up as much anymore, but he will pop up in a conversation at least once a day. I asked her if she would like a real little brother some day and she said that she wanted 2 brothers and one sister. She said that I was going to have one, she was going to have one and her mom was going to have one. I asked her what she meant by all of us having one, and she said that we were all going to have one in our bellies. I then told her that only mommies carried babies in their tummies, and that when she got to be an adult that she could get married and maybe one day have a baby in her tummy. She then told me that she did not want to eat healthy food anymore. At this point I was a little confused at how we had arrived at eating healthy food, so I asked her why she didn't want to eat healthy food anymore. She then proceeded to tell me that she didn't want to be an adult and that she wasn't going to get married. She said she wants to be a little kid and not an adult. That is when I understood her not wanting to eat healthy food anymore. At our house healthy food helps you grow up big and strong. So in her head, if you don't eat healthy food you wont have to grow up. I tried to reassure her that she was not going to grow up anytime soon, and that she could stay a little kid for a long time, and that she was always going to be my little girl no matter what. That seemed to be satisfied with that and felt good enough to go to sleep, that is after I went down stairs and found her Dalmatian puppy penny that she had left in my room.

A lot of Christians seem to have the Peter Pan syndrome. They become Christians, and then they never really grow up. They very rairly read their Bible, or pray, and they for sure never study deeply or meditate on the Word of God. Which leads to not a lot of self examination or growth. They refuse to eat healthy food and insist upon just drinking milk. As a result a lot of Churches are filled not with baby Christians, but with fat lazy Christians. You see, baby's are young, newly born. That is not what we have. We have older Christians who have refused to mature. When you refuse to eat right you don't stop growing, you just become unhealthy. Your muscles don't get as strong as they should, your bones don't grow or become as dense as they should. You brain doesn't mature and grow like it should. So the end result is not a 30 year old baby, it's a very unhealthy 30 year old.

So don't be a fat lazy Christian. Start eating healthy food!

kicked out

Well, it finally happened. I got kicked out of a co-ed church league softball game! I believe our Umpire took an immediate disliking to me when at the plate to pray and flip the coin, I asked him if he had brought a brush to clean the plate with. He said he had lots at home, but did not bring one because this was only a rec league. I jokingly said something along the line of, oh I see how it is, we aren't important enough for you to bring a brush. I was trying to joke around with the guy to put him in a good mood so he would have some fun, needless to say, it did not work!

Flash forward about 5 minutes. We are in the outfield, and I am playing short stop. A ground ball is hit my direction, I field said ball and throw the person out at first. However the ump did not see it as clearly as I did or as clearly as anyone else out there did and called the person safe. I must admit, I was shocked at the call and thought that he had totally blew it, but beyond shock, I was not feeling anything else. I surly was not mad or upset in anyway. Me being the funny guy that I am, and still having that Jr. high desire to make my classmates or teammates laugh, threw my glove down in mock dramatic fashion. All the while with a smile on my face, and not taking things to seriously. At this point the ump says something that I didn't hear clearly, so I either said "what?" or I just stood there looking at him with a questioning look on my face until I herd him utter the words "your gone!" again. I was in shock and disbelief. I immediately tried to explain that I was just joking and was not even mad or upset, to which he repeated himself and said that he did not care and that I was to leave the field. At that point all I could do was laugh and head towards the bench. A few of my teammates tried to talk to him and it only seemed to make the guy madder.

We ended up loosing the game and got put out of the tournament, though it was a close game, and we had a really good chance to win even though we were playing a team that had killed us earlier on in the season. But that is not the important part. The important part is that after the game I went up to the man and tried to say I was sorry and explain myself and my intentions to him. Sadly this only seemed to threaten him and make him more angry. He ended up storming off, not wanting to hear anything I had to say. As he was walking off I did tell him one more time that I was sorry for the misunderstanding. I then went over to the opposing team and apologized to them, and let them know that I had not gotten angry and was just trying to have fun. They were much more understanding of the situation, and in fact said that they had not thought that I was upset anyway.

I told that whole story to say this. I have been kicked out of my share of sporting events, and I can honestly say that every single one of them was warranted except for this one. In every single one I had let my anger get out of control, except for this one. In every single one I had let my competitive nature get the better of me, except for this one. In every single occasion I left the field angry, with nothing but disdain for the person that threw me out, except this one. In every single case, I had not apologized, and had not even thought of apologizing to the guy who had to throw me out, except for this one time.

God does not expect us to agree with authority in every situation. But he does expect us to submit to that authority. They may be wrong, but God says that He places all authority in their positions, and that we are to respect it. Not because they are always right, or because they are smarter or better then we are, but because He put it there. I don't know why God put that guy in that position, but He did. Maybe after about 10,000 years in Heaven, when all the important questions have been answered, I will ask God about that guy, and what His reasoning was behind it. I know He has a good reason for it, I just don't know what it is yet.

Presidential election

I would comment on the upcoming Presidential election and the way I feel about the issues, but a friend of mine has already done such a good job of expressing himself on his blog, that I feel I could not do any better of a job then he has already done. So if you would like to hear my opinion on the matter, just click on his name and read what he has said. His name is shaun.

First School day

Today was my daughter Saraya's first day of pre K. We got there a little early and had to wait outside for the doors to open. When we finally went in and took her to her room, she put down her lunch bag in front of her name tag and ran right into the class. We actually had to make her come back and say goodbye to Dana and I. She was ready to go. She had even told me yesterday some of the things she was planning on doing. She told me she was going to paint me a picture and when I picked her up we would have to put it in the trunk because it would still be wet. I think she is a little like her mom in the respect that she has her little plan on what she is going to do way before she does it.

I am really glad that she was excited about going to class today. I don't think I would have dealt with it to well if she were crying and if she had not wanted me to leave her there. I think it helped out a lot that we took her to her class last week and spent a while there getting her used to it and introducing her to her teacher. While I know and trust her teacher, and I know that she will be taught biblical stuff along with regular learning stuff. I still have this thing in me that wants to keep her with us or with the grandparents. I don't want to let her go, but I realize that I am being driven by my desire to protect and control. I can already tell that I am really going to have to watch myself when it comes to letting go and letting God control and protect. I will not be able to teach her to trust in God if I show her I am unwilling to do the same.

I want to hold her close, but I know that it is better if I stand back and let her experiance life. The hardest part about being a parent is not taking care of your kids and putting up with all of the stuff that kids do, it is having the guts to let go when you need to. I totally get why parents home school their kids.

I know, it's been a while since I have written anything, and the men's trip happened a little while ago, but here it is. I have uploaded a few pictures from the trip and I hope it gives you a sense of what goes on during a men's retreat. The first picture is of Nick. While at home we men are often encouraged to keep our shirts and pants on, so on a men's retreat many men use this opportunity to show off their manliness. Nick is one of the manliest of the men, so he is one of the first of the men to shed his shirt and display his prowess.

Another thing we men do on our trips is call our wives. We all know that when we leave, our wives are lost without us. So because of that we call often just to take care of all the little problems that might happen during the day. We also call to lend our emotional support to our wives, as they are emotional wrecks when we are not there. We are the light of their worlds, and they just feel like the world is dark and scary when we are not there. We also take this opportunity to eat out. This is one of the few occasions we get to order food without our wives ordering a small dinner salad and then eating 2/3 of our meal. It is pure joy to sit down and get to eat everything on our plate all by ourselves. If you look closely you can see that Scott has a huge grin on his face, that's because he can hardly wait to finally have his meal to himself. Michele is notorious for the ordering a salad and eating from his plate. She even brings her own fork with an extended handle for extra reach.

Not much explanation needed for this next one, just a bunch of guys going to the bathroom in the river. You can also see a puff of smoke coming from one of the guys. Some of us also use this time to smoke the once a year cigar. I wont tell you who is smoking out there, but to some of those men there is nothing better then smoking and peeing in a river on a nice summer day.

Here is a few of the guys standing around throwing the football. Of course Jake has his shirt off because his wife does not ever let him go without a shirt at home.

Nick throwing the football, he has his shirt on because he just got a call from his wife and she said, " you still have your shirt on don't you?" Of course he told her yes, and then after he got off the phone he felt guilty and put it back on for a few minutes. You notice he has his hand in front of his face while he is throwing, that is because he is such a man, that he can complete a pass without even looking.

Finally, we always end our day with sitting around a campfire, or just some wood, and tell stories of the good ol days. Sean, Vanilla Mike, and Moix seem to have more stories then all of the rest. If I remember correctly, Mike has just gotten done telling a rousing tale about some shenanigans him and his posse got into. while Sean is making a few grunting noises and Moix is pumping his fist making a whooping noise. That about sums it up.

Big Baby

Well, tomorrow is the day that the men of the church are leaving to go camping and canoeing. I am excited about going because I will get to hang out with some very cool guys, and I will get a chance to get to know some other guys that I don't know that well. All and all I think it will be a fun trip. As everyone knows, I do not like the humidity, and I would never just choose to sleep out in it for no reason, but I am more than willing to do it if it mean's I get to develop some relationships. But from all of the comments I have been getting I must be the biggest baby ever!! It seems that the consensus is that I am going to get out there and just whine about it the whole time. I have also gathered that people think I have been going around complaining and whining constantly about it for the past couple of weeks. It's been a little weird to have so many people come up to me and say stuff like, you just need to suck it up, or you just need to make the best of it,and look at the bright side, when I never had plans to go out there and be a stick in the mud.

I am pretty happy with who I am. I know I still have a lot of room for improvement, and I am working on stuff constantly, and I know that in some things I just don't fit in with the typical southern guy. I don't care about hunting, and it's not that I am apposed to it, I just don't want to do it. Unless that is, I am allowed to shoot some neighborhood cats or my next door neighbors dog. Fishing is all right, but it is not something I am passionate about. I don't watch fishing or hunting shows on TV either. I also don't love to mow my yard. I do it because it needs to be done, and I can't seem to get Dana to do it, but I don't love it. I really could care less if my grass is Bermuda or crab. In fact I really don't know the difference. My only goal with my yard is not to be noticed. I don't want people going by saying look at that house, that yard looks like trash, and I don't want them looking saying he has the best yard on the street! If I have the best yard, then I have to keep up the standard, and I don't want to put that much into it. I'm not into trucks, and I don't have an opinion on the whole Ford verses Chevy debate. I don't work on cars, and I could care less if yours can go faster then mine. The only thing that I am really worried about when it comes to my car is if it works, and how good of gas mileage it gets. I don't love the hogs, and I really don't fallow any college sports at all. If I root for any college team it's going to be ASU because I graduated from there. So there are times when the guys are standing around talking about stuff, and I just don't have anything to say, well nothing intelligent anyway. I'm OK with that, I don't feel like I have to be a part of every conversation, and I don't feel like I have to know more then the next guy about everything. What I am not OK with is people thinking I am some sort of cry baby that complains all the time. So I am purposing to do better at it. I am going to not talk as much about stuff I don't like. I thought I was just voicing my opinion on things, but I guess it is not being perceived that way, and I can't change the way people perceive things. The only thing I can change is me. It's so frustrating when we try and change other people like our friends or our spouse, when all God wants us to do is to work on ourselves, sometimes I forget that, and it's good to be reminded.