Archives for December 2006

Today, our family went ice skating. Yep, ice skating. In Coronado. On the beach. Under the sun. At the world famous Hotel Del.

Shannon and her sisters, Caitlin and Erica, and TJ and Tyler all went ice skating together.

Jake and I bonded instead with fancy hot chocolate, a cookie, and a walk on the beach. At one point he went off walking really fast and I said, “Jake, where are you going?” He said that he was “making foot prints” as he stomped proudly, I snapped a picture. I love his smile in these pics.

As a side note, my intern coordinated a gift with all our adult and student leaders contributing and gave Shannon and I a gift cerficate to a night at the Del. Oooh laa la. How fun is that. We decided we’re going to use it to celebrate 13 years of marriage in June. It’s a rough life, but someone has to do it.

So, I was in Kohls the other day looking for a new sweat suit for Christmas. In the process, I overheard a lady telling a story very loudly about being in the store when someone came in and asked the clerk where he could find an ugly Christmas sweater. The clerk looked at him a bit confused. He then proceeded to tell her that he was going to a party where the ugliest Christmas sweater won $100. I thought that was the greatest idea ever.

So I stole it. Not the sweater- just the idea.

We had our student leader Christmas Party last Saturday night at our house and decided to lower the expectations from ugly Christmas Sweater- to just plain ugly sweater. I went to the thrift store in search of mine- which I’m pretty positive I wore in high school while snow skiing. Anyway, others went to grandma’s in search of theirs. But, for the prize money of $40… here’s our contestants.

It was finally narrowed down by survivor-type vote-off to these two below. Jade (on the right) ended up winning with his grandma’s doily or something. Noah took second with his- shoulder pads and all. Oh good times.

Well, on Sunday morning we were talking about what signifies the holidays are here for our students. You know like Christmas trees or a trip to grandma’s house or lights on houses or whatever. Then we talked about Mary’s song and the things that she would have said would indicate that Christmas time is near. Her list was a little different.

Being the most holy part of Christmas however, at one point, I spoke of how Jesus would have appreciated it if the Wisemen had brought him gold, frankincense, myrrh, and peppermint stick ice cream. Then the angels would have sang another round of the hallelujah chorus dressed in pink.

This brought amazement to the students eyes and a mission to some of their souls which caused a mad hunt after church service by those who love me… which resulted in not one, but two half gallon containers of Dryers peppermint stick ice cream hand delivered to me- and get this- free of charge. Oh I do love youth minstry volunteers.

I can hear the angels singing now. My Christmas is complete and I can now stop making my grocery store dart board. Love is in the air and soon- very soon- my belly will be a nice shade of pink on the inside.

Yesterday I woke up, tried to eat, but felt like junk. I went to the office to do a devotional and tried to study for my Old Testament final. Um, that wasn’t working so good so I went home.

Tried to sleep, then decided to do a reverse fast. Instead of not eating, I brought up everything I’d eaten to check for viral activity evidently. I hate puking. I hate having my head that close to my toilet. I have no idea how birds do it. How do you eat puke? Whose idea was that? Anyway, my puking has now stopped I think.

You know what’s the worst part though? My puke was brown and not pink. If the stores would start putting peppermint stick ice cream in the freezers I could have a nice creamy tasty puke. Instead. I’m stuck with leftover lunch. I’m getting bitter. Several more trips to the store, I even tried target’s freezer section have left me “peppermint stickless”. I’m going to go put on sack cloth and sit in ashes as I mourn now.