No way

I just clicked on one of my "bookmarks" on the top of my Safari page and look what appeared:


I thought Al Gore was the only one that knew enough about the internet to reach the end.

Victory can be painful

Over the course of the last two days I've found myself celebrating two very sweet victories:

Tuesday night saw the G-Ballers win again! This win catapulted us into 3rd place in the league standings. Quite an accomplishment for this comical volleyball team. The Baconaters were certainly a tough opponent, but Jeff and Duce's amazing ability to play the whole court by themselves proved to be too much for them. At one point (I believe it happened twice though) in the game I sent a ball sailing towards the chairs (way out of bounds) and Jeff, in super-human form, hit it back into play and Duce sent it back over the net! It was pretty incredible. Unfortunately, these wayward shots of mine have left a deep bruise on my left wrist.

Then today, in the first day of TAKS Football, I managed to get my nose busted by a third-grader. TAKS Football is an annual "flag football tournament" between the four elementary schools. The third-graders play on one day and the fourth-graders play the next. Since, I was helping coach the third graders I got to go along today. And, we won! Like, we won the first game and then won the second game, making us the 2008 TAKS Football Champions! In the history of this little event, my school has never won first place in either third or fourth grade so it was a very big deal. It is amazing how competitive and intense the whole atmosphere gets. At one point, we scored a go-ahead touchdown and I was giving all the kids high-fives as they returned to the sidelines. One kid enthusiastically jumped in the air to meet my hands and totally missed - smacking me in the nose instead! After I regained consciousness, ok-not really, but there was blood and it still hurts pretty bad, I found the whole incident quite funny.

We've got one more round of football tomorrow and as long as I don't come home with any broken bones I think we can consider it a success!

Crazy, mixed up post

I have had a little bit of trouble coming up with something to write about the past couple days, but now I have way more than I should really put in one post. So, hold on, this could get long...

First of all, Week 2 proved to be much better for the G-Ballers Volleyball team. We won! We took the other team down in just two games. While it wasn't pretty at times, we still won and had fun in the process. I'm thinking there may be something to the power of the socks. We might not look that menacing:


But watch out! We come ready to play:


Secondly, I've been thinking (which is usually a scary thing) and I am still so amazed at the incredible people God has brought into my life in the last couple years. I've been fortunate to spend a little quality time with several of my peeps the last couple days and everytime I walk away from them I am very aware of the huge blessing they are to me. Proverbs 27:17 comes to mind when I think of them, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."


Thanks guys for being such amazing friends.

And finally, by now I'm sure all of you have heard about what happened to Steven Curtis Chapman's youngest daughter yesterday. The whole situation is one of those unbelievable tragedies that is completely impossible to wrap your mind around. I remember living through one of those same kind of situations when I was in high school and a man armed with a gun entered my church's sanctuary and began firing at hundreds of teenagers. Mind-boggling. But, guess who came to Fort Worth, TX a few days later to bring a message of hope - Steven Curtis Chapman himself. My heart hurts for his family. This is the song he sang, it still comes to mind often:

With Hope

This is not at all how
We thought it was supposed to be
We had so many plans for you
We had so many dreams
And now you've gone away
And left us with the memories of your smile
And nothing we can say
And nothing we can do
Can take away the pain
The pain of losing you, but ...

We can cry with hope
We can say goodbye with hope
'Cause we know our goodbye is not the end, oh no
And we can grieve with hope
'Cause we believe with hope
(There's a place by God's grace)
There's a place where we'll see your face again
We'll see your face again

And never have I known
Anything so hard to understand
And never have I questioned more
The wisdom of God's plan
But through the cloud of tears
I see the Father's smile and say well done
And I imagine you
Where you wanted most to be
Seeing all your dreams come true
'Cause now you're home
And now you're free, and ...

We have this hope as an anchor
'Cause we believe that everything
God promised us is true, so ...

We wait with hope
And we ache with hope
We hold on with hope
We let go with hope

It's 7:30 on a Saturday Night and...

I think I'm going to bed! How sad is that?

I'm just flat out exhausted. I pretty much spent all day yesterday outside (field day and football practice) and then came home and ran 3.1 miles! Yes, really I ran 3.1 miles without stopping. I'm just as shocked as you are. While I was running I was seriously wondering if God has something on the horizon for me that includes running away from something dangerous, because my ability to run that far is completely beyond me!

I got up early this morning and spent all day working on a Habitat for Humanity house. It was a very cool experience but I'm completely drained. And sunburned. So, I'm off to bed!

Back to reality

Well, today my vacation officially ended and life picked right back up where it left off. My first day back at school was pretty good, the kids were crazy but really it's just that time of year! 13 more school days!

Here's a quick recap of the last couple days with the boys:

Tuesday was crazy sock day for Luke and Landry, mis-matched socks was the craziest thing we could come up with:

Tuesday night we had a "Fiesta." We ate Mexican food and all wore sombreros. Then after dinner we even beat up a pinata! It was so fun. Alex doesn't look like he enjoyed the experience, but he really was ALL over it. Perhaps he was trying to look sick!!


On Wednesday, the big boys went to school and we went to the zoo. Again, it was so much fun. Luke and Landry were so funny every time they recognized a new animal, they would jump up and down and get very excited. We even took a ride on the train.


All in all it was a very fun few days with the boys!

My Vacation

I have had the great privilege of hanging out with four great boys while their parents are away on a little trip. They were a great excuse to take a couple of much-needed days off of work. Today was day 1 of "my vacation," and something happened that made me laugh a lot at myself.

This story should also give you a pretty good idea of how much I talk to myself in my head!

Before Kristy left on her trip her iPod just quit working and nothing she/we tried would fix it. Going on a long trip without your iPod is just not a good idea, so we found a temporary solution. And, I have been looking for a reason to get to the Apple store so I offered to take hers in to see if they could figure out what was wrong with it. Now, if you've never been to the Apple store they have an "iPod bar" staffed by self-proclaimed "geniuses." Since I was in need of the services of an iPod genius that's where I headed. Sounds logical, right?

Well, I approach the iPod bar and one of the geniuses rudely asked me if I had an appointment. I replied, "no, I didn't know I needed one." He proceeded to tell me to go talk to one of the people in orange shirts about setting up an appointment. Please note that there were 17 (I counted) geniuses working in the store and about 10 customers. So, I'm thinking alright dude I'll make an appointment to talk to you. I go over to an orange guy and he tells me the earliest appointment is 1:15 (it was 12:00 at the time). I asked him if he was joking and he asked me if I had eaten lunch yet, and I didn't laugh. Normally, it probably wouldn't have bothered me but I didn't want to get stuck in Southlake when I had to be back to pick up Parker from school. I calmly left the store and did a little retail therapy while I thought about my options.

About fifteen minutes later I returned to the store ready to let them have it. I mean don't they know that I own just about everything Apple has to offer? Do they know that I tell everyone I know how great Apple is? Do they know I have a blog, that maybe five people read, and I will tell everyone on the whole internet how horribly treated I was? Do they know I'm not afraid to pick up a phone and call Steve Jobs and let him know what is happening in his stores? (Yeah right, I'm totally terrified to pick up the phone to call anybody!!) I just need someone to look at an iPod, not do brain surgery!

So, I'm so ready to be tough and when I walk back in the store the guy who helped me earlier walked straight to the iPod bar and talked to a different guy, who agreed to meet with me right away. In about 5 minutes he had diagnosed the iPod as having a completely empty battery. It just needed to be charged. Apparently, I had not been patient enough in my earlier attempts to charge it. And, perhaps I learned an important lesson - slow down, be patient, watch expectantly - you never know what might pop up on the screen.

The moral of the story is, I love Apple again. You should all buy their stuff and not be afraid to go in and talk to the geniuses when you have a question - they know their stuff, just make sure you have an appointment!

I also wanted to document the last couple days with the boys:

On Saturday, Landry was kind of missing his Momma so he walked around in some of her shoes for awhile:


Then, we watched Parker's second baseball game of the day.


Then, we went swimming, but there's no pictures of that.

Then, on Sunday we went to church. After church, Parker and I went to Six Flags for a little while. He didn't know where we were going, this was his face once he found out:


Here are some other pictures from the day:






Tonight, we had another baseball game and we've got a full house again! It's been a great time so far, I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

My Mom

Today is Mother's Day. A day to celebrate your Mom and thank her for all the amazing things she's done for you. I can't even begin to know where to start in thanking my Mom for all that she has done and been for me. She's an incredible lady.

I am sure she still deserves many thanks for doing things like changing diapers, washing clothes, cooking amazing meals, being everywhere important all the time, cheering me on, the list could go on and on and on.

I think this Mother's Day, I'm most thankful that my Mom is my friend. She laughs at me, she encourages me, she listens to me, she loves me - no matter what.

Mom - You are without a doubt the very best! I love you so much and admire the amazing person you are. Thanks for being you! :) Happy Mother's Day!

I like to think of it as giving 100%

So, about a week ago Wednesday, I discovered that after a lifetime of failure I may indeed be able to do this exercise called running. Two nights of successful (depending on definition) running convinced me that I needed a new pair of shoes, so I bought some. Now, I didn't just go out and find a pair of comfortable running shoes, I found a pair of comfortable running shoes that would broaden my knowledge of something else I enjoy, electronic gadgets (especially ones made by Apple)!

Today my "running system" is complete. I own a pair of Nike+ Running Shoes, a Nike+ Sport Kit, and an iPod Nano. Combined, these items make me look like the serious runner I am so NOT! But, it's ok to pretend.

You see, the little red thing goes in the bottom of my shoe and the little white thing attaches to my iPod. Then they talk to eachother.



While I'm running and listening to music a voice will come on and tell me how far I've run, how long I've run, and what my pace is. When I'm finished it will even tell me how many calories I have burned. Then, when I connect my iPod to my computer it automatically sends the information to the Nike+ website. Then, the website keeps track of all my runs and goals and stuff. It's pretty cool!

Here are a couple screen shots of my stats for tonight. I actually did 3 workouts tonight - the first one was to calibrate the sensor to my running so it would be accurate. This was a half mile that doesn't "count." Then I did 1.04 miles:


Followed by another .57 miles, for a grand total of 2.1 miles tonight. A couple days ago (before I had the sensor and Nano) I set up a goal for myself to run 25 miles in 4 weeks. Here is where I am right now, and apparently I am a bit behind where Nike thinks I should be at this point.


I guess I'm going to have to do a lot of catching up!

So, you can see I'm what a lot of people might consider obsessive compulsive when it comes to running and electronic gadgets, but I prefer to think of it as giving a 100% effort!

30:00.5

Thirty minutes and 5 tenths of a second. That is how long I ran today. Without stopping. And, I'm pretty sure I ran up Mt. Everest too.

I don't mean to bore everyone with my less than spectactular skills, but seriously, 30 minutes running. Me? I can't quite believe it myself. I'm not quite sure of my distance today because I actually did a little off-roading. Here's what I look like post-thirty minute run:


I look good, don't I?

Well, I'm kind of tired

What a day it's been! Certainly nothing to complain about, just lots of really good stuff all in one day.

I started the morning with a baseball game. Then I made my way to Mayfest to watch some performances and spend some time with a cool kid named Parker. Then I went to another baseball game. Then I went to dinner with some more cool people. Then I spent some time with Will and Allie. Then I went to Walmart with Will. Then I played with Will and Allie some more. Then I ran 1.75 miles. Then I did some laundry. And that brings me to right now! Crazy!

It's been several weeks since I have seen Will and Allie and I honestly kind of wondered if they would really remember me. I mean, I knew they would remember me, but I just worried that it wouldn't be the same as when we were hanging out about once a week. Just seeing them made my heart happy, but hearing a "Will Story" really made me smile. My parents had taken them to Chick-Fil-A for dinner and as soon as they walked in Will ran over to the booth we sat at one night and told them, "this is where I sat with Aunt Emily." How crazy is that? That happened three months ago, and, he was totally right! I love that kid! Allie is growing like a weed and talking so much. My favorite thing she said was, "purp" for the color purple. It was really cute.

They weren't really cooperating in the picture department, too much playing, but here's an attempt:














Now, about the running 1.75 miles. I'm pretty sure that is the longest distance I have ever run in my life. I'm convinced it was made possible by my brand new shoes:


That's right, after my little breakthrough the other night, I convinced myself that I could go even further if I had some better shoes. In a couple days, I will be able to unveil something else these shoes can do, it's pretty cool! (I really need to get a life!) :) Seriously though, the shoes were great and I feel like I could have gone even further if it hadn't been 9:30 and the fact that I was already back at my house. Maybe tomorrow!