Friday, October 23, 2009

Daddy had a birthday!

Yup! My 49th birthday...Oww!!! That hurts just to say it. Actually it looks worse on paper than it feels. I'm sure everyone remembers hearing their parents talk about they don't feel like they're getting any older, but the signs keep showing up to prove that they are. I actually don't feel any older today than I did 10 years ago when I turned 40. I actually think my 40th was my most favorite and active year. I ran a mini-marathon, graduated with my MBA, and took a month long trip through Europe (backpacking) with my Honey.

Now I'm still as healthy as the proverbial horse, I still haven't had a single cavity on any of my teeth, I have 7 great and beautiful kids, a great new job, a new town, and I have a beautiful, loving wife to share it all with. Let me tell you, life doesn't not get much better than this.

THANK YOU JESUS FOR ONE MORE YEAR!!

Sunday, October 18, 2009

I believe we've found a church

I believe we've found a church home. New Life Providence in Virginia Beach is a rather large charismatic church. The thing that makes it a good church, is what I heard the pastor say today. He said they have three core values - Prayer, Worship, and the Word of God. Everything else secondary. They have lots of small groups available; Pam and I will have to start trying them out. They have a strong youth ministry and missionary ministry.

Another inviting thing is they strive to be a multi-ethnic church. It reminds me of the church home we had in Charlotte. A memorable experience we had first going in is that no one seem to recognize us as visitors. I know some would find that as offensive, but when we walk our whole tribe into a church, we tend to be the only Black people or at least we stick out because we've increased their black population exponentially. This church has people from many different ethnic backgrounds, so we don't stick out except there are a bunch of us. My kids (especially the girls) like that.

Now we'll have to find a ministry to plug into. Keep praying.

While you're praying, please pray for our finances or at least for patience and wisdom on my part. I tend to worry about that and I know that it doesn't please God for me to worry about anything.

Birthday Girl!







Our youngest baby girl had her first birthday celebration. They never celebrated birthdays or anniversaries in their culture. I think there were a lot more important things living and surviving for the day and thanking God for another day of life. Because they didn't celebrate birthdays, they don't even remember what their birthdays were on the Ethiopian calendar. The Ethiopian calendar has 13 months and their year is 6 or 7 years behind ours.

Each of the kids in the family get to pick what's for dinner. "Z" chose Buffalo wings and fries. She's a girl after my own heart! We couldn't find any spicy ones at WalMart, so we added on generous doses of Texas Pete! Everybody but Mom and "D", that is.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Family Fun Day Out







We finally made it to Busch Gardens, and boy did we pick the best day ever. It was sunshine and high 70's all day. With the summer season over, we got to ride any of the rides we wanted to and were able to get off and jump right back in line to ride again. It was fantastic.

A couple of the kids weren't too keen on high/fast rides, so they stayed behind and just watched a lot. But the most fun to be had was by Mom!! I could not believe how much she loves roller coasters. She road EVERY roller coaster and most of them at least 3 times! One roller coaster she road 5 times, and it was the scariest one of them all. My stomach called "surrender" about 3/4 of the way through the day. Did my honey stay behind and help me nurse my queezy stomach? Not for a second! LOL I don't think I have every seen oneyone have so much fun in such a short period of time. Her arms were raised on every ride she could get her arms up on. I looked over once to see her little legs pointing straight out, her arms straight up, and her mouth wide open, screaming with delight. It is worth getting season tickets just to watch her have so much fun.


The kids had a blast, of course and we had a great time together as family. Nobody got lost, sick or bored. The older girls discovered that they can scream "like the girls on the movies". That was hilarious to hear.