On Sunday after church Jenn and I got to go camping with some of our best friends in the world, the Percivals. We had a blast! We got up to Sequoia National Park Sunday evening around 5:30 giving us just enough light (with the help of our lanterns) to set up our tents and get a fire going. We had burgers and hot dogs, I made bacon and eggs in the morning and we got to do a lot of playing.
It was very cool to get to use a lot of our new camping gear (courtesy of Jenn’s parents, mostly). We busted out the propane stove and our camping cookware set complete with pots, pans, cups and plates. It was fantastic.
The Percivals have 4 kids, 3 of which they brought with them (they left the 1 year old with some friends) and it was very fun to see them running around. These little girls were cheating death for 2 days climbing rocks, navigating the camp fire (one of them actually stepped in it at one point; she’s ok) and even breaking in their new princess fishing poles. Needless to say, Snow White is about as good a fisherman (fisherwoman?) as I am, so they didn’t catch anything.
We had a great time, but lived in fear of getting caught in the rain as that was the prediction. Fortunately, the weather held off until the last morning and we were already pretty well packed up so that we could make a quick exit. To our surprise, though, we did not get caught in the rain, but in the snow!
I woke up and quickly scurried out of the tent to take my morning…stroll? and felt little snow flakes falling. It didn’t stay light for long and soon we driving home in some beautiful, though a bit scary, weather.
Maybe I should’ve sprung for 4 wheel drive on the Escape!
Last weekend we did the hardest thing we’ve done since I’ve been here; a musical. It was a combination of Granger Community Church’s series, “Let it Be…Christmas” where they used a Beatles song each week to walk through the Christmas season and of “Across the Universe, a movie-musical using Beatles music.
Our drama guy, Kevin McGill wrote an amazing original script which he and I devolped and our band ripped it up like John, Paul, George and Ringo. Here are some pictures below.
When Jenn and I were searching for a church to hire me, we spent 10 months learning what we were looking for. We felt like we wanted to be in a place where we could be involved in other areas of ministry in addition to music and in particular, we wanted to be involved in missions. Well ask and you shall receive I suppose because now, Jenn and I are going, with 10 other people from our church to the horn of Africa. In January we’re taking off for two weeks and helping missionsaries that are already there impact the lives of the people there. It’s really exciting. Perhaps the coolest part of this whole thing is that a bulk of the team is made up of people from our Worship and Arts department here at the church. Three of the guys from the band and two singers are going which is incredibly exciting. Because of the make up of the team, the name of our trip is "Rock the Horn ‘08." I’m pretty excited about it so I thought I’d share the logo with you, which was designed by one of the guys on the team, named Justin.
We’ve got a long way to go with support raising and preparing spiritually and culturally, but it’s going to be an exciting time for sure!
So after two months and change, I am feeling bloggy again. Now, there are some of you who were, let’s say, pleasantly persistent, asking me to post again; Well, here you go.
I’d like to point out some changes in this here blog, as I’ve been doing a little house cleaning. You’ll notice that I’m focused a little more on linkage now. If you read this thing, I’d love to know it and be able to link you. If you go to Clovis Hills, then I definetely want to know about it so I can put you on here!
I won’t make any promises, like I have in the past, about my posting activity. What I will do is say that I’ve enjoyed the break and am excited to be a regular blogger again. You can look for some new elements to my little corner of the blogging world that will, hopefully make you want to stop by on a regular basis!
So this weekend has been insane. On Saturday we had a party to celebrate my mom being Breast Cancer free for 5 years. It was a big day. We called it the pink party, so everyone, including myself wore pink. I know what you’re thinking; “Paul, how can someone as cool as you rock a pink shirt?” Well don’t worry dear friends, I did and it looked sweet.
Okay, anyway. The party was up in Oakhurst and was crazy with family from all over the country, and friends. My sister, Alison was the brains of the operation and her and Jenn threw down a pretty sweet get together. My brother did a video slideshow (made on a mac, thank you very much) and I wrote a song and sang it for my mom. All in all I’d say we’re pretty fantastic kids.
If that wasn’t enough we had church on Sunday where a transformer blew at the start of 2nd service. The power was down for only a couple minutes as our crack technical team rolled right through, but it was long enough to make things awkward, as Kimberly and I tried to yell from the stage to keep people entertained. After church we had a rehearsal for next week’s service, because I’ll be gone all week in Chicago at the Willow Creek Arts Conference.
Today I went over to Dana’s and laid down some vocals for a song we’re working on for our upcoming “Heroes” series. Now I’m helping Jenn get ready for summer school, sending out a few last minute emails and trying to find time to pack for a few days in Chi-town. Oh the insanity!
This summer is going to be pretty break-neck as well with rolling out some vision for the fall (music wise), recording, conferences, a much needed vacation and two series where our pastor will be gone.
So this weekend has been insane. On Saturday we had a party to celebrate my mom being Breast Cancer free for 5 years. It was a big day. We called it the pink party, so everyone, including myself wore pink. I know what you’re thinking; “Paul, how can someone as cool as you rock a pink shirt?” Well don’t worry dear friends, I did and it looked sweet.
Okay, anyway. The party was up in Oakhurst and was crazy with family from all over the country, and friends. My sister, Alison was the brains of the operation and her and Jenn threw down a pretty sweet get together. My brother did a video slideshow (made on a mac, thank you very much) and I wrote a song and sang it for my mom. All in all I’d say we’re pretty fantastic kids.
If that wasn’t enough we had church on Sunday where a transformer blew at the start of 2nd service. The power was down for only a couple minutes as our crack technical team rolled right through, but it was long enough to make things awkward, as Kimberly and I tried to yell from the stage to keep people entertained. After church we had a rehearsal for next week’s service, because I’ll be gone all week in Chicago at the Willow Creek Arts Conference.
Today I went over to Dana’s and laid down some vocals for a song we’re working on for our upcoming “Heroes” series. Now I’m helping Jenn get ready for summer school, sending out a few last minute emails and trying to find time to pack for a few days in Chi-town. Oh the insanity!
This summer is going to be pretty break-neck as well with rolling out some vision for the fall (music wise), recording, conferences, a much needed vacation and two series where our pastor will be gone.
Okay, no he’s not, but that was the most clever title I could come up with to talk about riding my bike to work. I’m finding that when I ride in the morning it’s a pretty sweet time to prepare for the day. I haven’t quite figured out that whole focusing and thinking about specific things, because truth be told much of the time I’m thinking how much easier it would be to drive, but I turn on the iPod, rock some tunes and cruise.
I think I like it so much, not because it gives me time to think about stuff, but because it gives me a period of time where I can think about nothing other than pedaling and the occasional bit of traffic. I’ve often struggeled with finding time to turn the world off and the 6 miles to work and 6 miles back give me the time to do that.
So before and after work my only problems are the sweat on my forehead and the pain in my booty.
