Merry Christmas to me!

OK...here's the story. I used to have so much fun when I would go to my Aunt Sarah's house and she would let us play Mario on her Nintendo. There was nothing fancy about that system, just lots of fun! Anyway, over the last little while, I had been telling Adam (when he and others would talk about various games and systems) that I just want to play Mario...nothing fancy, just Mario. So, what did he do? He got me a Nintendo DS lite with Mario as well as Mario cart. How fun!!! So, while it was charging in the kitchen, I decided to sit on the floor and enjoy it for a while!

Adam and I seem to have started our own little family tradition. We are just like little kids when it comes to Christmas presents. We love to get things for each other and then open them immediately! He went shopping for me yesterday morning, came back to mom and dad's house (where Aubrey and I were) and wrapped them. He instantly wanted me to open them, but I held off until I had time to get what I was planning to get for him. He took me to the mall and let me run in while he sat in the car with Aubrey. I came out with the package, we drove home, I went in and wrapped it and then we sat on the floor across from each other and opened our presents. I didn't get a picture of Adam with his...I was playing my DS! I got him a black pin-stripe suit. He very much needed one as the one that he has is from his first year of college...8 years ago.

I snapped this pic tonight when we got back to mom and dad's after church tonight. She was zonked!

I had a dentist appointment today, so mom kept Aubrey while we ran down to Wapak for the appt. She was such a good girl for mammaw.

merry times...

Val wanted a pic with Aubrey in front of the tree in our church's foyer... Aubrey seemed quite contemplative this year.

The tree is somewhat small compared to us.

Typical Aubrey

See? Told ya so.

Except for when she's in this pose... the chair worked out nicely as a bed.

wca staff xmas dinner

This year for our staff Christmas dinner, we went to Champion House II. They have really good local food, and have recently started a seafood buffet. So, many of us chose the buffet, which is always enjoyable. Just imagine... all the marinated conch, conch fritters, snapper, turtle stew, sushi, mussels, crab legs and cole slaw you can eat! The actual list is much longer... So good.

The Staff

This is how Aubrey spent most of the evening.

youthish update

Several of our girls are on a football team that plays in a league. The season is just starting, and the games are a lot of fun to watch! We went a couple weeks ago and watched them play some other team called "Elite." Our girls' team is "Future." Anyways. They won 2-1 and two of our youth girls scored a goal apiece! Fun times!

Speaking of "fun times," we recently had a Stay-Awake-a-Thon fundraiser for our youth group. This was our second annual one, and the attendance jumped remarkably from last year. We had 24 kids come to this one. It started at 8:00pm Friday and ended at 6:00am Saturday. Wow. A ton of fun but the weekend was shot. We had the youth group's XBox360 hooked up to our 32" HD tv on one side of the room...

One kid brought his PS2 and we hooked it up to a projector aimed at the wall. It ran FIFA09 literally all night long, while...

In this corner we had a Wii hooked up to another tv. Along with these, we had a 10-computer LAN game set up in another room for the inside activities. Then we had a volleyball game outside around 11:00pm... followed by pizza and snacks and soda. Great stuff...

Here I am horrifically beating up Jessica in boxing on the Wii. I knocked her out. As any good youth pastor should.

chemo...

Dad started chemotherapy last week. He's gotta be on it for 6 months, getting treatments twice a month. This type of chemo doesn't cause too many problems they say. Dad was feeling great for the first day of treatment. This pic was taken Thursday night at Wendy's. Dad went with us to do some shopping and get supper, and I whipped out the camera to get a shot.

Mom and Dad were scheduled to fly up to the States (where we are) tomorrow afternoon. But Dad had a rough day today, getting sick and feeling generally "lifeless." So, due to that and some other complicated circumstances concerning a treatment in the States somewhere during their time up here, it's looking like they'll stay down in Cayman over the holidays.

This stinks. But it's our thinking that it's for the best, for a number of reasons. So, if and when you think of it, shoot up a prayer for us if you would. For Dad especially... he sure was looking forward to seeing his grandson. But it'll work out... Romans tells us so.