our new pet!

well, julie and i finally broke down and bought a pet. he's short, round, and a little noisy, likes to eat off the floor, and we love him. his name is Roomba--he's a vacuuming robot. bought him at Sam's Club.

i'm preaching this weekend... part 2 of an evangelism series. ken started the series off saying that everything he's heard on the topic really frustrates him. that's a great set-up for me to do part 2!!! no pressure. fortunately he's preaching (part 1 of the series) in milan this weekend.

we're having a few friends over for a new year's get-together this evening. i'm really looking forward to it. i guess i'll be a little bleary-eyed tomorrow morning for the 9:30 celebration, but starbucks is on the way there.

we had a wonderful christmas at the chilimigras ranch... julie's brother & sister were there, along with their spouses and kids. it was absolutely adorable having the three babies there together... see below:

december

okay... it's been a long time without a post. i feel like the longer i go between posts, the better the posts should be, so i end up writing nothing. kinda stupid.

anyway, being a dad is just wonderful. i love every minute of it... or 99% of it anyway. i'm sure there are moments when she's really fussy that i'm not "loving" it, but that's pretty rare. but i do look forward to waking up, just so i can go in and see her in the morning. she always gives me a huge smile and even a giggle sometimes.

what's new? hmmm... well, i made a DVD for my in-laws. it features slideshows (set to christmas music) of all 7 grandkids. i had each of the siblings send me 30-40 pictures per kid, from birth to present. then i arranged them, did a lot of photo-shopping to make them all look great, and did the Ken Burns effect on them (moving pictures, panning in and out, etc.) also did a cool DVD menu and such... i'm really happy with how it all came out, but MAN it's a lot of work. i also had to scan a lot of pictures from when the parents didn't have digital cameras.

i'm home working with eve today. i love it... she's taking naps really well now, so i can actually get some work done too.

i've been listening to some good books recently. on the fun side i finished "the lincoln lawyer" by michael connely (sp?)... it was a good, action-packed story... great for summer or vacation reading/listening. right now i'm listening to some lectures by bart ehrman, a biblical studies guy at UNC--great stuff.

the ph.d. research is a bit slow right now just because of the holiday busy-ness. hoping to ramp that up in January.

julie started her new part-time job at U of M. she's really enjoying it, and gets to work some of her hours from home. plus, full benefits! thank you jesus.

looking forward to a new year's eve get-together with a few friends. i have to preach that weekend, so should be interesting! might be a tad tired on sunday morning.

see ya later!