The Northwest has been a great adventure. We spend the majority of our time in Portland. We hit the coast last night and saw some amazing sights. The conference went great and was a huge joy to be a part of. We are about to catch a shuttle for the airport so I'll only post a few pictures now. Once things slow down a little I might give a little more updated...to Clarksville tonight then to Nashville for Passion06, then to Louisville for a night and then to Gatlinburg for a college retreat for SouthEast Christian. Then a Jan-term starting the following Monday.

Look real close in the center and you can see Mt. Hood. It was beautiful!

Scott Erickson painted this behind me the first night while I preached. It was a pretty cool experience. I was not distracted at all like I thought I might be.

Live From Portland

We flew into Portland yesterday where I am preaching for a youth conference. I preached last night and this morning. The Lord has blessed tremendously. We've met some really neat folks and Susan has gotten to meet Paul and Meredith Ramey, some great friends of mine...now ours. We'll post some pictures of this gorgeous part of the country real soon with some updates from the conference. Thanks for the prayers...

The Birthday Present that Keeps on Giving

I received a key chain from my parents for my birthday a little over a week ago. I also received David Crowder's new cd (which rocks) from my sister Diana and her family. The key chain is one that is triggered to make a beeping noise similar to a radar detector when someone whistles. I'm not quite sure what to think of the key chain...actually I think I do know the message behind it...and well Susan will certainly benefit from it considering I will not be badgering her about where my keys are and she will be blessed by beautiful whistling tunes periodically around the house.

Well the other day I was on the way out of the house and couldn't find my keys and proceeded to walk through the house whistling. I quickly came upon my "radar detecting beeping" key chain and keys. I made my way out to the car excited to listen to my Crowder cd for the first time. A few songs into the cd...i thought "man...all of their songs seem to have the same kind of sound." Well turns out what I was hearing was my key chain. Every song on the cd, set my key chain off to is ever so beautiful beeping.

Susan and I were in Murfreesboro this weekend when I left my keys on top of the car. We took a hard curve and heard something sliding across the roof and hit the pavement and instantly I began whistling to see if my keys were in the car...no beeping informed us that it was indeed my keys that went sailing. We pulled over and recovered the keys.

Last night Susan and went and saw "Pride and Prejudice." Amazing movie! I put my phone on silent when the message came on the big screen to turn cell phones and pagers off. I thought we were set. Shortly after the movie begins...I hear a soft beeping noise coming from my pocket. You guessed it...the movie set the keychain off. I passed it to Susan for her to bury it in her purse. The key chain has no on/off switch. Just a battery. And well...it works.

That is the birthday present that keeps on giving.

When is the last time...

you broke bones playing tag football? Well for my Mom and Brother-in-Law, that would be this past Thanksgiving. Oh tis true, tis true! The teams were Susan (my wife), Hannah (my cousin), Scott (my brother-in-law), and Me going up against -- Bubba (my brother-in-law), Mary Coleman (my mom), Lucas (my cousin), Aaron (my cousin), and Diana (my sister - she only played for a few minutes and had to go to the bathroom).

Our family you see, is very serious about their football...or so it seems. This is the first game I remember a big group of us playing in a while but I think there will be others to follow soon.

Mary Coleman took one for the team as she deflected a pass that may have prevented a touchdown. (i really don't remember the play...it just sounds good so i'll give my mom the props.) She injured her finger...injured bad. Broke actually. She told us she thought she broke it, but did she go get ice...noooooooooo, did she take a break? Nooooooo. She continued on with the broken finger. The only thing that would have made the story would be if her team had won.

Scott, while almost deflecting a pass was tripped by Lucas...at least that is the way Susan remembers it, and flew about 3 feet horizontal before he hit the ground ever so gracefully...he hit hard yet finished his fall in a nice olympic like forward roll up onto his feet. He immediately felt pain in his shoulder. Did he take a break? Did he get a sub? Noooooo! He drove his team to victory!!! He did this with 2 broken ribs as he would find out after he went to the doctor a week later because of the pain.

Did I mention this was a "tag" football game? Yea, I think I did.

Maybe we'll play tackle next year and no one will get hurt.

Maybe.

Happy Birthday!!!

Today is my Dad's Birthday! I love my Dad tons!

Today he turns (4 x 9 + 4 - 15) x 2 + 5 + 5 + 1 =

What'd you get?

Happy Birthday Dad!

Finals Over!

Finals are finally over. Whew! It is indeed a great feeling. As you might can tell, I updated my sidebar again. I try to do this ever so often just to keep things alive here. I don't know how long I'll keep it like that...I'll eventually have to put my "Newly-bloggin" folks in one of the categories. What constitutes someone form being Bloggalotta..or little or barely etc...
Well, the folks that blog multiple times weekly got the lotta...the folks that ususally blog at least once a week but ocassionally more....got a little....those who are once a month got barely....although brett's last one was in October...he's newlywed so he gets off easy. Sus informed me we were no longer newly-weds the other day, although I still feel like it...she said cause we've made it past a year...i trusted her and did no further research.

I thought we might get a laugh out of these. I've got a couple of buddies who didn't even make it to barely bloggin. They would have made it to...I need some help-a-bloggin. All in good fun, here's their addresses:

www.danielgolfmusic.blogspot.com
www.ryancoatney.blogspot.com

I wonder how many blogs are like that out there.

Susan and I will be spending the weekend with our nephew's and are so excited!