Vacation-o-rama

It's finally here.

We are officially on vacation for the until next Monday and I could not be happier. I've already golfed twice. The last real vacation that I had was right before Josh was born and that is approaching three years ago.

We're hanging out at my parents house in Dayton for the week and then, tomorrow, Heather and I are heading to Las Vegas for a few days.....without the kids. We've never been and so I figured, hey, why not? If we hate it, we are only spending two days there and if it's fun, we found a new weekend getaway spot. We're coming back on Thursday and then just more hanging out at the parents. My sis, Jen, will be here with my new little nephew, Jaden. I haven't got to meet him yet so I'm stoked to finally see him. My bro and Charissa are here too, so we're having a good old fashioned Young family reunion.

I love being at my parents house because it's very relaxing and peaceful and a great place to spend a few days hiding out from the world at large. I dont know if you've ever been to Dayton and it's unlikely that you ever went on purpose but jeeze, there is nothing out here but a golf course and a Smiths grocery store.

So thats about it...we'll see how Vegas goes. I haven't decided how much I'm willing to lose playing blackjack, but I'm going to bet it will be less than $50 cause I can't stand the thought of seeing that money go and not getting anything back for it. Who knows? Maybe I'll win enough to pay for the trip....that would be sweet. Unlikely, but sweet none the less.

The latest

Wow, this past weekend was busy. We decided to celebrate Ryan's first birthday on Saturday because we knew there would be a ton of family around and we were scheduled to take the weekend off from leading worship so it seemed like a good weekend to do it. The Beer clan came in (7 in all) and then my mom and little sis, Karina. Add in the four of us and Jeffy, Charissa, and the nugget and that made for a TON of people in our house. It made me reeeeaaaaallly grateful for our new place and amazingly enough we all fit inside! We had a great little family party and Ry-ry got his first taste of cake and he loved it. I think Josh likes Ry's gifts more than Ry does. So we spent all day Saturday with the family and mom and Karina took off to go home and then it turned out that we had to lead worship on Sunday so we went to church early came home, fed everyone again and then my mom, dad, Karina, and a friend decided that they wanted to go to the city on Monday so they showed back up at 8pm on Sunday night and we all hung out with my family and Robyn (my monther-in-law....who graciously stayed until today to help us recover). I had a ton of fun on Sunday night for sure. It was an unexpected chance to hang with my moms and pops. Then we all got up early on Monday and went to breakfast. While everyone got to go to the city and hang out, I got to go to work....yay. It was probably the busiest weekend we've had in a long time but it was a blast to have everyone here and to actually have enough space for them all!

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In other news, I joined a gym on Monday. I've wanted to join one for a long time but I could never find one that had racquetball and basketball as well as all the other junk that you get at a gym. The place I joined used to be a corporate gym where you had to know someone who works in the building to be able to join. I knew this but I just called them on the off chance that I might be able to find someone I knew who could sponsor me to join. Much to my surprise they were actually having open enrollment and I could just walk in and join. So I went to check it out and it was pretty sweet. I still hold every gym to the standard of the 'ol Captial Courts because I think that was the best gym ever. This place is no Capital Courts but it's the best thing I've found since living here in Scotts Valley. So I signed up on Monday afternoon and Heather ended up being out with the boys when I got home for work so I shot over there for my first workout. I showed up at 6:30 and there was hardly anyone there....it was flippin sweet! I ran a couple miles on a treadmill (surprisingly, not that boring) and then shot some hoops for 45min or so. The whole time I was there I hardly saw anyone. I'm not sure if this is going to be a positive or a negative though. It's great to be able to hop on any machine I want, but I'm going to want some people to play bball and racquetball with. I guess I'll have to see what develops. So we'll have to see how long my passion for going lasts. I really just want to start lifting a bit cause I'm tired of getting pushed around when I play my Thursday night hoops game and I think I'm tired of being a weakling. I'm gonna pay for it for at least the next year so I better stay on it and, who knows? The next time you see me I might be all the way up to 170 from my meager 162!

We meet again....

I recently went to breakfast with a friend of mine from church. I was talking with him about some things that I was going through at home and in life in general and we were discussing the fact that the majority of my issues stem from my arch nemesis....pride. I HATE pride and yet it's been a battle for me for who-knows-how-long. I have a constant need to be RIGHT and, in general, I want to be the smartest person in the room. It really drives me nuts that it feels so good to be right and I truly don't want to be that kind of annoying person. Usually, I can do a fair job of hiding it or downplaying (the ever present flip side of pride: false humility....a completely separate post) but as with anything, it's way easier for it to come out at home. And being right all the time doesn't really help out on the 'ol home front.

Occasionally, when I know that I'm having a particularly rough go with my pride, I'll semi-confess by saying "I have a need to be right all the time...." but while I was at breakfast with my friend, God really convicted me of that line of thinking. The sooner that I can recognize and call it out for what it really is, the sooner I can get free of it. "being right all the time" is a much easier thing to say than "i am really having a tough time with pride" but you gotta call it what it is.

The hardest part for me is that I have so much to be prideful about. I have a fantastic wife and great kids, I'm successful in my job and I'm making more money than I ever have, and I have a very "up front" position at church. It goes to my head so fast! And isn't it just like the enemy to whisper into my ear to take out all my pride on those around me that have given me such a great life? It's so easy for me to think that I'm the one who is making all these things happen. And that's the great thing about accountability, I have someone I can go to and admit the most horrific things about me and that person will still love and care for me and pray for me. I used to hate to have to admit the things that were/are screwy in my life because I didn't want to be caught being "wrong" (again...pride, gah!) But, about 2 yrs ago, I was at my church's men's weekend and the leader of the weekend gave each person a scripture that he felt was for each one for the weekend. Mine was a scripture in Psalms that says "Those whom the Lord loves, he corrects"....just great! EXACTLY what I wanted to hear! It turned out to be such a fantastically liberating verse for me and I walked away from that weekend able to admit that I'm screwed up and it's OK. It's not OK to stay that way and not be willing to change but God has great grace for me and as He works on the things in my life, it's ok to share and talk about my "stuff"....I think I got off topic...oh well.

Anyways, I've been thinking about my pride a lot and how being "right" is actually pretty hurtful to those around me and that's not who I want to be. To hammer home the point our pastor talked about pride this weekend and I was reminded of the verse in 1 Peter that says that God opposes the proud but give grace to the humble. I so desperately want to be someone who is humble and gracious to others above all else. I don't want to be right all the time. I don't want to be a jerk or to be annoying to be around. That's not who God made me to be. The last thing that my friend said to me was "you can't rest on you laurels". This pride thing isn't gonna go away without some serious effort to continually pray and ask God to change me and, gulp, make me humble.

So there it is. Now everyone (all 5 people who read this and don't already know) knows I have a tough time with pride. It's a tough pill to swallow but it's just one more step on my road to being set free from this junk!

Golfin with the Pops

This past weekend, my parents came down to visit. I think it was mostly for the grandkids but I guess they may have wanted to see us too :) It was so great to get to see them and my little sister Karina. That makes two weekends in the past month or so which is extrememly rare for us. We had a great time hanging out, puting the new, as yet un-named bbq to use, making fun of each other and just flat out having fun.

One thing that has become a staple of visits with my parents is that my dad and I and (usually, except for when he's crippled) Jeff go out and play some golf. My dad started us golfing when we were just little lads. In fact, I bought my first set of clubs from K-Mart on layaway for $100. I saved a year for those things! For the past few years, it's become a matter of fact thing. Whenever we see each other, we go play. He used to beat me pretty regularly but about 2 years ago, I started winning....and winning big (sorry, dad). I think thats mabye why we play so much; he just HAS to beat me. And I wonder where I get my competetive nature from?

Anyways, all that to say that golf with my dad is one of the things in life that I treasure most. We just get 4 or 5 hours to hang out as father/son and as friends. We don't even have to talk about anything but golf and the things going on around us. It's just great to just be together and I value that time so much. I can't wait until Joshy and Ryan are old enough to come out and play with us and we can make it a foursome.

Ikea

Phew! I'm tired. We just got back from 4.5 exhausting hours at Ikea. That place is like a time warp. We wanted to get some ideas for the new pad so we thought we would just jet up and take a look around and see if there was anything that would work. Turns out, we wandered the place for hours and walked out $300 in the hole. I swear, now I know what it must have been like to be a Israelite following Moses through the desert. I think I circled the same place like 12 times. Actually, a more proper description of it would be like a casino. No clocks, no clear path out, and next thing you know you wallet just got lighter by a few Ben Franklin's. Oi Veh.

The best part was on the last 10 minutes of the drive home all I heard was "WAAAAAAHHHHHAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH" at about 88 decibels. Oh well, the boys lived and we got some much needed junk for the house.

On a separate note, I don't think I ever want to move from this place. It's not that I am so in love with it or anything, I'm just petrified to think about moving all of the stuff that we will accumulate while we're here. Our move from our old apartment to here was so stinking easy because we had hardly any junk. This place feels almost empty but we're filling it up fast AND we now have a garage to put a bunch of stuff in. Heather is already talking about getting a huge sectional couch and a couple chairs and a bigger table and all I can think about is how much I don't want to move all that out of here if and when we move again. At least it's still a minimum of 11 months off.

sweet meat

On Sunday I got my very own BBQ. Now, this may not seem like such a big deal to some of you but you have to understand a few things to know why it's a big deal to me. I LOVE BBQ. For the past 3 years, I've been trapped in a small apartment with no space to BBQ. In order to alleviate my cravings for scorched meat, I would go to Jeffy's or to my other friends house where I would mooch from them. Then about six months ago, Jeffy moved onto the church campus and my other friend, Eric, moved to a new place about 25min away. I was reduced to regular servings of boiled corn on the cobb and broiled steaks. My BBQ life was devastated.....until now.

I have to admit that I did something fairly dumb in my eagerness to secure my new BBQ. I couldn't find anyone with a truck so I thought to myself "I can just buy it unassembled and put it together at home." The guy at Home Depot said that it would only take about 45 min and I thought "Great! I'll have it up and running in time for dinner." Yeah, BAD idea. Those who know me know that I have zero assembly skills....i usually have Jeffy do it for me. I got the thing home and it took me 45 min just to put the stupid base together and the swear words were about to start flowing. Thankfully, Jeffy showed up after a little while and I didn't have to cuss. Unfortunately, by the time we got it put together enough to actually use our wives were starving and didn't want to put up with an experimental, "I think this might work" BBQ experience. So we got pizza instead. Bummer.

Last night, I came home from work and finished it off and threw a beautiful, Black Angus tri-tip on the grill and it was b-e-a-utiful. Amazingly enough, I cooked it to perfection along with some grill roasted corn on the cobb. I guess I've learned a thing or two along the way of all my BBQ mooching from my friends. Then tonight I fired that baby up again for some chicken and more corn on the cobb....its soooooooo awsome.

Now that I think about it, I should name my new BBQ because we will be spending a lot of time together in next next few years. Anyone got any good name ideas? I'll take submissions in the comments.

Why I hate Apple HIll

I was at my parents house a few weekends ago and we were sifting through old picutres and I found this one. Opie, do you remember this at all? I think the only enduring memory of Apple Hill that I have is that on that day everyone got carmel apples but I didn't because my mom wouldnt let me take out my retainer.....i was pretty bitter about it. So bitter, in fact, that anytime someone mentions going there and how much fun it is I just can't see it. The place only holds sadness and pain for me. I would wager that this picture was taken at the start of the day and not after the carmel apple debacle. On a side note, Opie looks like he's posing for the Mervyn's sunday add for boys clothes.