On A Roll

We had another good night at church last night.  The Lord has really been working on the band and we've had three or four good weeks in a row now.  The band's playing well, the students seem to be participating in worship more and the small groups we started a while back seem to really be coming along.  With D-Now coming up, I'm just straight-up excited about it all.

Outside of talking about the last appointment, I haven't said much about the baby, and I'm not really sure why that is.  I think that it has a lot to do with how long it took for the Lord to get us to this point.  It's kind of a casual thing for us.  It probably also has a lot to do with not telling anyone for pretty much two months.  At any rate, DeAnne's doing pretty good.  We're almost fifteen weeks now.  She's still nauseous pretty much every day but she doesn't complain.  Instead we just give thanks that there's a reason for her nausea.   Besides that, she's been fighting her sinuses this week and that's been giving her headaches.  Hopefully, she'll be able to fight it off though and avoid having to get treated for a sinus infection.

We return to car shopping on Saturday.  I'm not terribly excited about the idea, but it has to be done.  I would love nothing more than to be able to get a deal done and be through with it.  I'm praying that the Lord will direct us to the right decision.  I've been reading "Radical" by David Platt and it's really convinced me that while we may want a vehicle with a bunch of fancy extras, that's what we want, not what we need.  What we need is just something DeAnne can get the baby in and out of without destroying her back.  If it meets that criteria, then there's not reason for us to spend a bunch of money on other things.  Anyway, off my soapbox.

Have a good weekend and I'll see you all back here on Tuesday.

--Paul

Keepin' On

We had a pretty standard weekend.

Friday was Pleasant Home's Homecoming, so after eating dinner, we headed out there with Garrett, Amy, Bryan and Adrienne.  I'm still kind of getting used to the idea that my wife now works at the school I graduated from.  The building her classroom is in was still being built when I graduated, so I don't have any real memories of that building but when we go to a school-wide function like a basketball game and go to the gym, it's a little surreal to be back in those places again.  Anyway, we had a good time even thought the boys lost their game.

Saturday we spent some time over in Kinston visiting with Sarah, Mike and Liam.  They were up for Wayne's birthday.  Saturday afternoon, the youth boys from church all got together at Bryan's house and we played football and ladderball, ate pizza and had a good time just hanging out.

Sunday, DeAnne wasn't feeling good so she stayed home trying to get her head to stop hurting.  We had to run to Kinston again for Wayne's birthday party but I had to be back for the start of the guitar lessons I'm now teaching at church on Sunday afternoon.  I had 7 show up for the class, so I was pretty happy about that.  I think it went pretty well and I'm looking forward to seeing how far I can take the class.

So, as I said, a pretty standard weekend.  Nothing wrong with that.

--Paul

Heartbeat

We had our January appointment yesterday and we were able to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time. It was pretty stinking awesome.  We would have loved to have had another ultrasound also, but we're not up for our next one until our next appointment.  It's still pretty hard to believe that this is all happening and it's going by so fast.  It seems like we just found out and now we're three and a half months already.  It's crazy.

We haven't really talked any more about the car thing.  I'm on call this week so outside of revisiting the local dealerships, we're not going to be able to do much this weekend.  We've also got to get back to work on the house.  We still have a couple of closets to clean out and we've got plenty of stuff in the soon-to-be nursery that's still got to come out.  It's all a bit overwhelming, but at the same time, I've never been happier to be overwhelmed.  I just thank God every day for this amazing thing that He's done for us.

I was listening to the radio on the way home the other day and that day's "Walk In The Word" was about Jeremiah 29:11: "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." I don't know how many times I've heard this verse before, but this was the time I heard it and got it.  The Lord is addressing the Israelites but I couldn't help but think after all that DeAnne and I went through and all the time we waited trying to have children that  this verse really summed all that up perfectly.


--Paul

Car Shopping Is Not Fun

With the baby on the way, we've decided that the time has finally come for us to start looking for a new vehicle.  We spent all day Saturday looking here and in Enterprise.  I have to say, it wasn't a terribly pleasant experience.

Like most people who are car shopping, we're trying our best to stretch our money while at the same time trying to get something that's going to meet our needs.  Everybody wants to sell you on the flashy extras and we're not really interested in that.  We just want a small SUV/crossover that DeAnne can get a car seat in and out of without throwing her back out.  As long as it fits that criteria, is reliable and drives good, then we're pretty much set.  The problem is that the vehicles that meet those items are all priced and equipped so differently that it's hard to determine just what exactly is the best deal.

I just read that paragraph again and while I'm not going to rewrite it, it makes it sound worse than it really is.  It is frustrating, but it was our first day looking and we made some good progress considering we didn't really know what we wanted to look at when we started.  Like everything, it's going to be a process and it's going to take time.  It's still not fun.  Driving away in a new (to you at least) car will be fun considering we've been driving our Sentras for nearly 10 years now, but the process of finding that car is kind of painful.  Who knows, maybe this will be easier than baby furniture.

--Paul

Title?

After all the years I've been blogging, titles still give me the most trouble.  Something else that gives me trouble: coming up with something to talk about sometimes.  Outside of the BCS game, there really hasn't been anything going on this week.  For the first time in who knows how long, we don't have solid plans for the weekend so I can't even tell you about that.

The youth band is going strong.  I really think the last two Wednesdays have been the best we've played and I feel like the kids in the youth group noticed it.  Attendance was down a little last night but it's the loudest I've probably ever heard the crowd sing.  With church, when there's a full band, I think it's easy to just walk in and think that they're there to entertain you.  Garrett and I work to remind the kids that are playing in the band that we're not there to entertain.  We're there to lead worship.  I think that's really come across the last couple of weeks and I think that as a result, the youth that come have had a better worship.

The annual Disciple Now weekend is coming up for the youth and this years worship leader is going to be Kristian Stanfill.  He just released a new album this week called "Mountains Move" (mp3) and it's pretty awesome.  I'm hoping that not only do the youth learn some new songs from him but I'm hoping that I can watch and learn and become a better member of our worship team.

So there's a little brain dump for you this morning.  Have a good weekend.

--Paul

How Sweet It Is

I decided a little over a week ago to not go out to Arizona for the BCS National Championship game.  In the end, I'm glad I didn't go.  It was the right decision for me to make for myself.

Instead, I watched the game last night huddled around a T.V. with the friends and fellow Auburn fans that I've watched the majority of Auburn games with for the past three or four years.  Together we watched Auburn trudge through the lows of the 2008 season.  Saw the firing of a once beloved coach and the hiring of a new coach that no one was sure of.  2009 was better than I think any of us had hoped for and when the 2010 season began, we were cautiously optimistic that we might have a great year.

It hasn't been easy being an Auburn fan this year, especially for someone with a heart condition.  The close games, last second finishes, the come-from-behind wins and yes, the Cam Newton "controversy" all made for a hard season.  Through it all, I think this team proved that they were forged in fire.  Made stronger by those things that they faced.  It wasn't always pretty, but in the end, this Auburn team always found a way. When it mattered most, the kids on this team answered the call.

This was a special team.  One that doesn't come around very often.  One that, when watching, you could almost feel that this was how it was going to end for them.  What more appropriate ending could you have asked for?  This team was never meant to win in a blow-out.  Anything less than a heart-stopper would have been out of character for this team.  What's not out of character for them is the heart and soul that they showed on the field last night.  That is why I'm an Auburn fan.  We may not have the most National Championships, we may not have the most SEC Championships, we may not always beat Alabama or Georgia but Auburn fans, players, coaches: We're family and we're all in.

--Paul

At A Loss

I've stared at the screen for about 3 minutes now and I still have nothing to talk about, so I guess I'm going to talk about not having anything to talk about.

I'm still reeling from the youth service last night.  I know I'm in the band, so I might be a little biased, but I really think it was probably the best we've ever played.  It's hard when you don't have any more time to practice than we do but it all seemed to come together last night.

Not only was the band good, but I felt like Garrett had an excellent message and then small groups seemed to go really well too.  It was just a really good night.

Since I only blog two days a week now I need to go ahead and say "Happy Birthday" to DeAnne.  Her birthday is Saturday and I'm not sure if she's to the point yet of not wanting to say her age, so I'm just going to play it safe and not say anything about how old she's turning.  This will be the ninth birthday she's had since we met and I'm so grateful to her and to God that I've been able to be a part of her life for all these years.  We've celebrated birthdays as a dating couple, as an engaged couple and as a married couple and I can't wait to celebrate the rest of our lives birthdays as a married couple with kids.

DeAnne, you're probably the most incredible person I've ever known.  I love you, and I want to wish you a very happy birthday.

--Paul

Off To A Good Start

The new year appears to be off to a good start.  In case anyone missed it on facebook, DeAnne and I have announced that we're going to be having a baby sometime around the middle of July.  It's nothing short of a miracle of the Lord and we fully acknowledge it as being something that came straight from Him.  After all that we tried, His time has been fulfilled for this and now we're off on the adventure.  I can't wait.

We found out about the baby the day before Thanksgiving.  So for us, Thanksgiving held some pretty special meaning in 2010.  When we finally started telling people at Christmas, one of the questions we got pretty often was "How did you keep it a secret for so long?"  The short answer is that it was hard.  We wanted to make sure that we were past the most dangerous part of the pregnancy before we started letting it out.  We praised God in our hearts and with each other and trusted that He would provide us the right moment to reveal it.  There were a couple of people who knew but it was a very, very short list.

Christmas, a time when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, seemed to present itself as the perfect opportunity to share the news.  We were in Burke's one day and found some little Auburn baby booties and decided to give a pair to each of our parents.  We made sure it was the last present anyone opened and we recorded the reactions with DeAnne's phone.  They were pretty priceless.

So that's how the new year started for us.  Sharing great news with friends and family.  Not a bad start at all.

--Paul