Monday, December 26, 2005

Happy Boxing Day!

I hope that everyone had a very Merry Chistmas, and that they were able to spend time with the people that they care for the most. We had a good day, gathering together, just the five of us, we opened presents in the morning and went to church, and then late last night had a Christmas dinner. Pictures from that are attached.

Staci got pictures of everyone's "Christmas Face" with her new digital camera.

Dad was tired...


Mom was content with her children at home...


Stephen was glad to not be working...


Staci was excited about Christmas...


Scott was a little 'sugared-up'...


Staci also wanted me to let everyone know that she is available to babysit, if you need someone dependable for New Year's Eve.



(Oh, that's sparkling grape juice, by the way.)

I hope that you had an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of the season, the gift of Jesus Christ. Hope to see all of you soon and that you have a wonderful and safe New Year.

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Happy Birthday Trish-Fish!!!

Kind of late with this post, but we had a small gathering last Tuesday night for Trish's birthday. Here are some pictures from that gathering. We knew that Hacker was coming, and our house only has so many windows,


so we had this one at Baris, next to a brick wall, just to be safe.

Tom, Hacker, Brittney and Krackuh.



Scott, Jan and Trish



Trish and Abby,



Staci and me,



and Cliff and Teresa.



Mindy joined us at the house later for cake... which Trish was wearing.



Jonathan and Ronda caught up with us later too.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Finally a Post

Forgive me Bloggers for I have sinned, it has been 2 weeks since my last blog...

OK, so I took a hiatus from posting, largely because I had nothing to say, and also because when I started to write things for the blog, they came out kind of gloomy. But now, WCC is over, and the world can return to some semblance of normalcy. (Just kidding Brittney, WCC was fine, I could have done without some (most) of the first hour, but it was entertaining in its own special way.)

For those of you who attend church with me, what was the deal with the applause yesterday morning? I mean, I was as excited as the next guy that O'Brien finished at 11:45, but that was not cause to applaud! Do you think that with all the staging and the lights in the sanctuary that some of the attendees got confused for a minute and thought they were on the 'Jerry Springer Show'? I guess we were lucky they didn't start chanting "Randall!, Randall!, Randall!"

Side Comment: I was fascinated to learn that Dr. O'Brien had written two books, I didn't know that we had so much in common, I have read two books! (Although not his books, the books I read were "The Pokey Little Puppy" and "Horton Hears A Who.")



Staci's Back!!! Staci has finished her first semester at Baylor, with, we think, a solid 3.0, which is so much better than my own first semester at Baylor. I remember that first (only) semester so well..... Computer Science, where we wrote programs and actually created punch cards to run them in the computer lab, Freshman English, where the teacher told us the first day of class that her job was to 'weed' us out, a History class I don't remember a great deal from, Old Testament with Dr. Cresson, (those last two honors courses) as well as a P.E. class thrown in for good measure. All told 15 hours with an additional class requirement for the religion class of a small group discussion once a week covering the lectures. For those of you that may not know, I was weeded out! (perhaps it was my reading that did me in?) So I am extremely proud of Staci, as she has now progressed farther along in her Baylor career than her old man!

On a much more serious note, Dad (my Dad) is in the hospital, recovering from the amputation of his right leg. He developed some problems from a sore on his right heel while recovering from his hip replacement surgery on the left leg, and due to very poor circulation he was not able to heal properly and lost the limb from above the right knee down. Please lift him up in your prayers, as he needs to build up his strength so that he can try to use a prosthesis to walk again, and so that they can do a bypass procedure on the other leg to avoid this happening again.