SUFFERING

I recently learned of a friend, who is my age, battling cancer. It has once again made me think about what my response would be to something like that. I just read this in my devotions this morning:
While they (the world) interpret their trials as things that will make or break the quality of their lives, we interpret our trials as events that are shaping us to understand God and inherit His riches." from the One Year Wonder of the Cross Devotional by Chris Tiegreen.

CHRISTMAS HIGHLIGHTS

PRETTY SNOW

One of our first nice snow falls.

CHRISTMAS 2009

We are at my mom and dad's today for Christmas, something we haven't done for many years. There's a lingering rain/icy dampness here. Will and I went to the only open store this morning, which is the gas station off of I-65-we were looking for ice cream, egg nog, and a white elephant gift. No egg nog, but got the other items. On the way we saw a flock of wild turkey-just wish I had my gun and a permit. Something I hope to do each year from now on is to revisit the book, The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey. He has a great chapter on the birth of Christ, and helps put things into perspective on this day, and reminds me, what God, through Jesus, has done for me and the world.

INJURY

Well, it was bound to happen at some point...especially after turning 40. Will and I were playing basketball last Friday and I came down wrong or my shoe simply decided to stop, but either way, I heard a crunching sound, looked down to see I was standing on my ankle, then I just dropped. For a moment I thought the worse and figured I'd broken my ankle (I'm a baby, I always think the worse regarding medical things). It nearly took my breath away. Once I recovered, and was able to draw a small crowd to see if I was ok, I hobbled off the court to begin my recovery. I went to see the doctor Saturday morning and he had x-rays taken, from which we have learned there is no great damage-no fracture, no torn tendons...just a high ankle sprain and soft tissue swelling. I'm using an aircast and limp around real good, but other than that, I think I'm ok. It couldn't happen at a better time-while I'm off the road. We'll see how long I can milk this, though I spent Saturday and Sunday doing what I normally do and that is just sit around, so there has been no great change in my lifestyle-phewww!

CHRISTMAS SONG

Thanks to my Facebook friend Jill for putting this on her page. A very unique and entertaining Christmas song combining many favorites. The group is called Straight No Chaser

HOME

I hope to have something new up...but this past week I've been in Chicago for sales conference. The month is flying by...not what I wanted.

WORD OF THE DAY

"Schmee Schmee"
This is Sean's word for marshmallows.

THANKSGIVING

For Thanksgiving, we headed to my sister's in Mt. Airy, MD., where we celebrated Thanskgiving along with attending my niece's wedding. Before the wedding though, dad, Dean, Dawn, myself and the kids headed to downtown Baltimore to see Ft. McHenry, the place in which Francis Scott Key was inspired to write the words of our national anthem. (See link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner ).


Here are a few photos:

Click on the picture below to get a larger view of the fort.

SURF

I thought this was kind of cool.

THANKSGIVING

I had a great Thanksgiving at my sister's house as well as attending my nieces wedding. Along with my sister Barb and her husband Dean, my other sister Kim and her husband Jim were able to be there, along with my parents. We just got home Sunday night, and it will take a little time to covert the photos, but I'll have plenty of time this week to clean them up and post them.
We saw a serious car accident that added an additional 1/2 hour to the trip. The one car was either ripped in two or pancaked to half it's size. Very thankful for the safe trip home.

TOES

BROWNS GAME

This was the opening ceremonies performed by the Marine Corps, who also did the half time show.

If you watch ESPN pre-game show, you know who Stewart Scott, Matt Millen and Steve Young are. That's them under the umbrella doing their broadcast.

(Click on the picture to make bigger)

MORE TO COME...

It's been busy lately. I have some pictures I want to put up, but need to clean them up a bit. Liz, Will and I had a good time at the Brown's game, though it got pretty cold and the team stinks. It's a whole lot different experience than sitting at home and watching it.

Also, Sean had a pretty good report this past Monday. His O2 is still in the high 80's, and he is now off of Viagra...and since I didn't need it, we threw the bottle away. Now if I could only get those same type of commercials off the air, I could get Will off my back-he is definitely a teenager now.

WORK ETHIC

HAPPY 13th BIRTHDAY WILL

SECTION 350

If you watch Monday Night Football this coming week...I'm sorry...it's the Cleveland Browns playing. But, if you watch carefully enough, in section 350, you might see Liz, Will and I. I read an article that said the Browns may have a blackout in the area since they haven't sold out the game. So I got on StubHub and was able to buy $13 tickets that aren't too bad. Now, we're just not sure who to root for.

ADOPTION SUNDAY

Did you know today is National Adoption Sunday? I didn't either until I heard a radio broadcast the other day. Actually, the whole month of November is an adoption focus month. My local library had a kiosk of books promoting and explaining things about adoption, which was nice to see.

For some of you, you'll remember I went to Cambodia two different times a few years ago, with a minstry called Asia's Hope. Recently, the director posted a few thoughts on the ministries website, and I think his thoughts should be echoed here. Though I think more people should adopt, at minimum I think they should actively be involved somehow with the care of orphans, and this ministry does that. I hope the article I'm posting will challenge you and lead you to pray and think about how you can help the orphan around the world.

http://www.asiashope.org/directors-blog/

88...

...or 89 was Sean's O2 reading today. Dr. Lane said we can limit his O2 to naps and bedtime. His pleural effusion is also completely gone. That's great. According to Dawn, Dr. Lane seemed pretty excited about Sean's recovery, to the point he told Dawn and wanted to go talk to the surgeon right away. I think Dr. Lane was always confident that Sean's recovery would be what it turned out to be, but I am wondering if the surgeons were a little more skeptical. In either case, it's good news and we know God has been the one to ultimately heal Sean.

SEAN