New Year’s Day

First day of the year – what a great day we had!

This morning Linda and I went out for a walk/run.  What a beautiful day.  It was 48 degrees, clear skies, and no wind.  I was able to wear shorts and a short sleeve shirt.  The run was great and so was the company.  When we got home we all sat around and watched a couple Christmas TV movies.  Then we just hung out, watched the Rose Bowl, made dinner (great ham dinner), and then messed around on the computer.

It was so much fun to take a day where we just relaxed.  We had not done that in a long time.

New Year’s Eve

Las Vegas is one of those places many people come to for New Year’s Eve.  They estimated 303,000 visitors to our city for all the activities.  I would guess that with the locals added to that probably 500,000 people downtown on the strip.  Being in wall-to-wall people, where most of them have been drinking, is not anything I want to be part of.  So, we went to the store grabbed some snack food and a couple of James’ friends came over.  We hung out telling stories and related our life experiences to the Bible.  We had a great time.  The kids went home about 9:30pm and we watched TV.

At 10:00 they televised the events from downtown.  We watched from the warmth of our living room all the different activities going on.  As the clock struck Midnight there were fireworks that went off from the roofs of various casinos for 8 1/2 minutes.  As we were watching this fireworks show from our TV, I decided to see what it looked like from the upstairs.  It was so cool to go upstairs and watch the fireworks I was just watching on TV from out my window.

After it was all over we wrapped up the night watching a little more TV and fell asleep.

Anniversary

Last night was our 19^th anniversary. Wow! What a great time it has been. When Linda and I began dating I was only 19 years old and now we have been married 19 years. We have had a great time through those years. I am very grateful that God has given me such a wonderful gift as Linda for my wife! I am truly blessed by God.

I would have loved to been taking Linda to Hawaii for our anniversary but we went out to eat dinner instead. Maybe next year we will go to Hawaii. Well the plan was to go to the Seafood Buffet at the Rio. This buffet we have been to a couple times and it is the best place I have ever been for seafood. They have it all and it is all you can eat. You can sample everything your stomach can handle. It is expensive (that is why we have only been there a couple times) but it is our anniversary. I figured because it is Saturday before Christmas in Las Vegas, we better get there early. We ended up getting there at 5:30pm (a little latter than I wanted to but not bad). When I came into the Rio I looked from the balcony above and did not see the line, I was excited. Usually we would have to wait a long time just to get in. When we got up a little closer I was shocked – it was under renovation. It said “Opened Early 2008.” Oh man I couldn’t believe it. We really had our hearts set on seafood. What now?

We had heard that the Bellagio had a really good buffet with great seafood. Hmmm? That is only down the street about a half mile. We figured we would go there instead. We get onto Las Vegas Boulevard right in front of the Bellagio and it took us 20 minutes to drive one block, to get into the parking garage. Wow there were so many people down there. I am getting anxious because I know the closer it gets to 7:00pm the worse it is going to be for us to get into the buffet. Once we got into the Parking Garage it took us 20 minutes to get a parking spot. Then we went into the Bellagio and it was just wall-to-wall people. I had no idea where we were going to get to this buffet. We finally found it and now it is 6:45pm. It took us 1 hour to travel a half mile from one buffet to the other. I went to the entrance of the buffet and the price was outrageous and the line was unlike I have ever seen. The wait would be about 2 – 3 hours to get in. So, I went ahead and walked into the buffet just to survey what it looked like. It looked good but not worth a $100 (for two) and the 2 – 3 hour wait. What now?

We decided to go back to our side of town and just go out to eat somewhere we have been before. But – I thought – this is our anniversary it needs to be something special. So I decided that we go to the other side of town and try to find a nice place we have never been to before. The problem is, we don’t go out to eat much and are not familiar with this side of town. But, I thought it would be fun – kind of like an adventure. The only problem with an adventure is the time of night and our stomachs were growling at this point.

We finally found a nice Mexican food restaurant that looked like it might serve our needs for the night. At this point Mexican looked really good because we knew they would have chips waiting for us. We went in and it was exactly what we were hoping for; it was a nice atmosphere, great food, something new, and a place where we could just sit and enjoy what we had left of the evening. All-in-all it was a great night, even though it was not what we planned.

The lesson learned is that in the future I need to have a backup plan. No problem for next year though – we will be in Hawaii!

Christmas Party

A couple years ago we began having a Church Christmas party. This year’s party was held last Sunday night. We got together at my house, had lots of food, singing, and games. What a great time we had! The food was so good and abundant. I have been over indulging in the food this holiday season and it is showing (I have really been struggling with this, this year). Yvonne had been working with the youth on a couple Christmas songs. Wow they did a tremendous job! They are all very talented. I hope we will have more of that in church. It is always fun to play games – and we played many. We all had a wonderful time! Thank you so much Beverly and Linda for putting that together for us – you did a great job!

It is so great to have such a wonderful family of church members to be making disciples with!

Running Motivation

I have been running a little bit for a couple years. I have been pretty consistent for most of that time. I never really liked to run but love the way I feel for a couple days afterwards. The last four months my running has really declined and been very inconsistent. What I need is a reason to push myself to run and improve. The best way I know how to do that is to have a goal. So, I invited some friends to join me in running a half-marathon sometime next year. I know that having these guys joining me will motivate me to stick with my running.

Today was supposed to be a run day for me. I didn’t run early, as I usually do. As it got later and the sun set is was easier to not run, because it was getting cold. It would have been so easy to not run, but I knew I had to. I ran and it was cold but after about 15 minutes I felt great. When I came to the end of my run I felt like I could run another couple miles. I feel so good now and will continue to feel good all day tomorrow. I know if it wasn’t for my friends making the commitment to join me, I would not have run today. Thanks guys!

40

Today I turned 40 years old. I have talked with others about this monumental occasion. Some people have told me that they really had a hard time with this birthday. So far it has not been too bad. I really had not thought about it much until today. I can see how it could make a person feel like they are getting old. So, I am not going to think much about it.

I went running today and felt great. While I was running, I thought about how I feel better today than I have felt in the last 10 years. I need to continue running and striving to eat healthy. What a difference it has made!

Blogging

I have decided to begin a blog. I have some ideas of what I want to put on the blog and I know the things I will not. I am not sure how often I will log in with my random thoughts and experiences. I see that some people seem to update theirs daily. I will just have to wait and see how it all works out.

I want to write about the things that God is showing me, experiences with disciple making, what God is doing in our church, family events, my journey with running, and random other things.