I was at the Cincinnati Commandos playoff game last night and didn't get home until a little after 11:00 p.m. I texted Heather I was on my way and Livvi hijacked the phone to text me she wanted to show me something when I got home. She actually fell asleep before I got home, but Heather told me what happened:
About 9:45 p.m. last night, there was a knock at the front door. Wondering who in the world would be visiting at that hour, Heather answered the door, expecting to see one of the neighborhood kids. Instead, it was a few folks from church, more specifically, from the Vacation Bible School Livvi was in prior to the accident. Livvi came down wearing my t-shirt as a night gown (big arm holes). They gave her a big card they made wishing her well, telling her they are praying for her, and sending their love. Livvi had a huge smile on her face and twinkling eyes. Heather could tell she felt very special, almost like a superstar. It nearly brought me to tears to know how much our church family and friends love our Livvi. If you are one of those folks and are reading this, THANK YOU! We love you, too! God is good indeed!
Livvi is doing much better and has an appointment to see the doctor again on Wednesday.
Can you believe it is Christmas already? The stockings are hung by the chimney with care and it appears Santa stopped by for a quick (and, thankfully, light) delivery.
This time of year was busy, just like every Christmas, with holiday activities with the homeschool co-op, American Heritage Girls, church, work, family, and, of course, Joie's birthday party.
Our church's worship band presented, for the fourth year in a row, Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God. It keeps getting better and better each year. This year, our leader asked me to audition for a very small part (30 seconds?). It was an honor and a thrill to be a part of such a great concert!
Last night, we did our annual trek over to Delhi to visit Heather's side of the family. We ate, opened presents, and enjoyed each others company. When we got home, we noticed the PJ Fairy had stopped by while we were gone to give us all new pajamas, as she does each year on Christmas Eve.
We spent the morning together, just the four of us, sharing just a few gifts with one another. Around 11:00 a.m., we left for Ammaw and Ampaw's for brunch and, yes, more gifts. We also got to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus! We came back home a few hours later so some naps could take place. We went out again later for dinner at a hibachi Japanese restaurant. Yum!
All in all, a great Christmas! Merry Christmas! Pictures will be posted soon.
This is a conversation Heather overheard heading home after church this past Sunday. Livvi (L) is trying to encourage Joie (J) to go to her toddler class at church:L: You should go in the toddler room.J: I didn't.L: You should next time. You'll have fun!J: No, have fun with daddy.L: You will have more fun with the other kids.J: No, I don't like my kids.
Heather really has a compassion for people and a passion for helping people in need. A few years ago, she had an idea for an outreach for our church. In 2007, she started "iMPACT with Backpacks". It would have been enough to just gather backpacks and school supplies and pass them out, but she envisioned more. She thought a party to go along with it would allow us more time with the families and would offer the kids a great time of fun and love. Each year has gotten better as she fine-tunes the event and we learn from past events. This year our 3rd annual event involved a pizza lunch, a mini-concert, a short testimony, the demo team from Livvi's martial arts club, and a visit from the Kona Ice truck. There were about 140 backpacks picked up yesterday (at least 50 more yet to be picked up). 53 of the 70 families we were helping showed up at the party and had a great time! We were even fortunate enough to have a reporter from Channel 9 News (a great guy who attends our church) do a little story which aired last night.
Local Church Makes 'Impact' With Backpacks - Cincinnati breaking news, weather radar, traffic from 9News | Channel 9 WCPO.com
Congratulations, Heather! Another job well done! Love you!
Our iMPACT Youth Group hosted a fundraiser at Scallywag Tag on Sunday night. Livvi and I played Laser Tag for the first time. Man, is that FUN! Livvi had a blast as well! She had so much fun, she hinted she might like to do that for her birthday. Livvi stayed put the first game, but thereafter, she was running around with me shooting everything in site! We really had a blast and were disappointed it was over so "soon" (2 hours). While I did a lot of shooting, I got hit quite a bit, too! I got a whole new appreciation for our troops who are probably wishing all they had to do was shoot lasers at fancy vests!
Friday night, my dad was inducted into the Oak Hills High School Hall of Fame. I am so proud of him! My brother and two nephews were able to make it down for the event. It was great to see them! It was also so good to see folks from church, some guys who used to wrestle for dad, and even a former MatScot (OHHS wrestling "cheerleader" responsible for cheering, score keeping, stats, etc.). There were at least 20 people that came on Dad's behalf to share in this moment. As he was being congratulated by his former wrestlers, my dad, in his incredible humbleness, said this award was because of them. If they hadn't won, he wouldn't be getting all this attention. While that is somewhat true, if they didn't have a great coach that knew how to coach and motivate them to be the best, they probably wouldn't have had the success they (and he) had. Congratulations, Dad! We love you!
My dad has received many awards and much (deserved) recognition over the years. He will get to add another accolade to the list when he will be inducted into the Oak Hills High School Hall of Fame on Friday, January 30 around 7:00 p.m. While my brother and I agree this is WAY overdue, our whole family is so happy and proud of him. Here is the official press release from OHHS. In addition to being an outstanding wrestling coach at Oak Hills, he actually helped coach the University of Cincinnati team while he was on it, as the head coach, Glenn Sample, was pretty new to the sport. A collegue of mine found this UC Paper from March 22, 1962 online. See page 10 - viewer discretion is advised :-)! He is also in the UC Hall of Fame.
While he is appreciative of the recognition, he is very embarrassed by it and would probably prefer to not be recognized for the most part. Nevertheless, I love it and wish he'd get more. In fact, while he has had many sports-related accomplishments, I would love for him to get recognized for the stuff he's done since he stopped coaching in 1974. I'm not even talking about his time as a great assistant principal and principal, but rather his seemingly tireless love and service to his Lord. He helped start a church in 1978 (New Covenant Christian, later changed name to Oak Hills Christian) with a team of people who, over time, left the church for whatever reason. There were times (years) when he was the only elder in the church and was soooo involved over the years. People kept giving up while both of my parents stuck it out and did whatever they could. There were times of great rejoicing as well as times of many tears and wonders of what God had planned for them and this small church (down to about 40 people at one point). After years of praying that God would send people to our church, we got up to about 100-150 or so and in 2004, we merged with another church of similar size (maybe a tad bigger) and changed our name to iMPACT. Combined we were about 250-300 each Sunday. We now have three services (one of which is on Saturday evening) and are getting consistently over 400 people each week (Note, they attend all three services each week, if possible). He's still praying for more (unsaved) people and now we have the good "problem" of trying to figure out where to put them! :-) Praise the Lord!
I hope I wasn't rambling. I didn't intend to go into all that (and there is PLENTY MORE), but it just seemed a natural progression from what I set out to do initially.
Dad, forgive me for posting this as I know on some level you don't like it, but you and Mom deserve so much recognition for stuff outside of sports. I hope you know MANY people love and appreciate you two for your love of Jesus and His church here at iMPACT. I happen to be one of them!
Every year, we would send out Christmas cards like everyone else does. We did the metamorphosis from just cards to picture cards to letters (with pictures). For Christmas 2006, we just never got them out. We like to blame Joie because she showed up a month early and was born on Dec 22. However, truth be told, we weren’t ready to buy or mail them out anyway. In 2007, we continued the new tradition of NOT sending out cards. In the age of e-mail and Internet, we figured we could still keep in touch without having to be super organized with our time. Somehow, we just cannot get everything done that is on our list. Therefore, please do not be offended if you have not received a card from us (no one has).
This year, we are morphing into another phase. We started a family blog about two weeks ago and are posting our Christmas wishes here. You can keep up with us by subscribing to our blog either via e-mail or via one of the many feeds available.
Now, onto the actual Christmas “card”:
Heather, Olivia, Josephine, and I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a fantastic new year!
Livvi continues in Tae Kwon Do (TKD) and should be getting her red belt in mid-January! She really excels at school (2nd grade) to where she is bored most of the time. As the teachers don't have the time for her (as there are some special needs kids in her class), we've made the decision to home-school her for the remainder of the year. She reads at a better than 4th-grade level and will be starting math at the 3rd grade level in this new home-school class. We'll post further updates here in the very near future. She has also taken swimming lessons and passed Level 1. Also, per a previous post, she joined American Heritage Girls a couple of weeks ago.
Joie turned two earlier this week. She is quite the talker, though sometimes we don't have a clue what she is saying. She is getting pretty good with her words and is forming sentences as well. Oh, and she is incredibly opinionated! She loves "Go, Diego, Go" and TV in general (not a good sign). On a more positive note, she really likes books and being read to. Heather tries to take her to the library for toddler story time each Wed morning. She likes to go to Livvi's TKD class and watch. Some friends gave her a white martial arts belt to wear and she is in character! She bows before entering the room (over and over again) and does kicks and punches. We keep asking for a toddler class at TKD, but they are still considering it. Heather took her to a gym class for 30 minutes each week at the YMCA. She seemed to like that as well. She is also a pretty bright kid and, like Livvi, is a joy to be around!
Heather continues to do a great job of raising our kids! She is so kind, compassionate, and patient with our girls (and me). She is excited and nervous about being a home-schooling mom. It could be a challenge with Joie around as well! She tried something new this past year in teaching a college accounting class at Cincinnati Christian University.
I just "celebrated" my 20th anniversary at Cincinnati Insurance a couple of months ago. Sounds impressive until you think about the fact that that is probably not even half way to retirement! I also continue to serve at iMPACT Church as the pastor overseeing our finances and communication efforts. Our church is really doing great! We added a Saturday night service a couple of months ago and are now averaging around 400 each weekend! We really seem to be reaching those that need to hear the message of God's grace through Jesus. It is really exciting to be a part of this congregation!
As a family, we vacationed in Orlando, Florida back in March. In April, we stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge in Mason before going to the Cincinnati Insurance Company Associate Appreciation Day at Kings Island. We also spent the night in a hotel on Thanksgiving here in town so the kids could go swimming. I got to travel as well for work to Austin, TX, Bismarck, ND, Tallahassee, FL, New York, NY, and Hartford, CT.
Many times, we’ve been told to ponder the sacrifice Jesus made by leaving Heaven to come here and live among us, ultimately dying for our sins. How many of us would have chosen that path? You say, “Well, he is God, so it was probably easier on him.” He was equally man as well when he was here on earth, so he had many of the problems and temptations we have as well. Consider Joseph and Mary and the sacrifice they made as well. How many of us would have been (or are) as faithful to carry out God’s will? It would have been so easy to quit and/or be angry!
Consider these things this season and share the Light of Christ to others.
Merry Christmas! We love you all!
Luke 2:1-20
Glenn Beck's story of Christmas (audio)
