My friend Anita tagged me. I’m not usually one to do tags, but I like Anita:).

Update: After my mom spent the last ten minutes bewildered by how similar Noel and I are, I realized that I need to mention that this is Celeste posting here:)).

The Rules: Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog. Share 5 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog. or Share the 5 top places on your “want to see or want to see again” list. or Share 5 things you never pictured being in your future when your were 25 years old. Tag a minimum of 5, maximum of 10 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. The tagees have a choice of which they want to do.

I guess I’ll go for the 5 weird things. But, oh, where to start . . .

1. I’m a type ‘B’ personality. Not much gets me upset, nor does much work me over. However, most of the time, if I sense that you are also a type ‘B’, I tend to get very type ‘A’ all of a sudden. It works in the other direction, too. I’m sure I’ve annoyed MANY type ‘A’s out there from my being overly, purposefully nonchalant:).

2. As silly and funny as I like to think of myself to be today, as a child, I was dead serious around everyone except my family. I never smiled with my teeth showing for pictures, I was generally unimpressed with anyone who thought they were funny. We didn’t have many home videos while growing up, but the ones we have are golden: I’m often giving my brother the ‘look of vinegar’ for something he’s doing that I think is non-funny.

3. I’m scared to death of komodo dragons. I mean I’m literally PETRIFIED. I cannot hear the mention of one without feeling myself tense up and getting very nervous. I pretty much hate all lizards and reptiles; but these take the cake. I think it all goes back to some National Geographic bit I watched one night up at the cabin while I was alone . . .

4. I secretly dream of being a back-up singer for James Taylor or someone like that. I don’t think I have the voice or the stage presence for it, but there’s something about it that entices me. When I saw James Taylor in concert, I watched the backup singers most of the time. They seem to have such fun! I could always be a backup dancer for someone cool. I’m not sure who’s cool these days, so I won’t name any names. I’ll just keep my moves to myself:).

5. I wore a helmet in 5th grade. Yes, it was a bike helmet, but no, it wasn’t for biking. It was for general walking around. Going on a walk? Wear your helmet. Going to the store? Wear it. Long story short, I had a major head injury and as a result was dizzy all the time. My parents worried that one day I’d just fall over and bust my head again, thus the need for the helmet. I’m sure some of you know this about me already:). Obviously, many other people found this to be strange. But thank goodness for confident parents . . . it never occurred to me how very, very odd this was. I thought I was ‘cool’ and ‘different’ (their words) :).

Well, there you have it:). And we all know that I could think of at least two hundred things that are weird about me. But, hey - it’s good to be different; and we’re all just getting more interesting as time goes on.

I tag Larissa, Julie, April, Lynsey and, of course, NOEL:).

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I know many of you have thought that I would / should get one for a while… and I finally did! I got an iPhone!

I had already written about it sure… but the iPhone is just so cool! In fact, Celeste took this picture of me with our friend Scott’s motorcycle using my iPhone camera.

Pretty cool huh?

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Jason and I had fun converting my Ferengi Rules of Acquisition Widget over to work on an iPhone Web app when he was here a few weeks ago. So, since then I was looking through all their apps and looking for apps online trying to find ones that I could possibly do better and ran across a couple of Weight Watchers point counters for the iPhone, none of which really looked all that good, and many of which you had to “switch” to the number keys to enter anything in. So… I decided to make one of my own.

While I had never really done the whole “points” thing with food, Jason had done it, so he knew what it was like to figure them and all, so when I finished it he tested it and loved it. I then decided to submit it to Apple’s Web apps page and… to my delight… it not only was accepted, but was listed as one of their “Staff Picks!”

UPDATE Jan 18th, 2007:
I’m not sure if it was because I had part of the “WW” logo on the calculator or what… but Apple has (at least as of Friday night at 9:31 pm CST) taken the web app off of their list.  As everyone can now see the icon is changed out, so hopefully they will put it back.  I’m not going to say anything for certain yet though, as I’m not sure why it was removed, but no worries… the link still works and you can still use the iPoint Calculator.  Just bookmark it on your iPhone and enjoy!  (Also… please email both Apple and WW to ask them to bring it back.  Thanks!)

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Well, I mentioned our view in the last post but I didn’t show it… a huge mistake as everyone emailed and wanted to see it. Rightly so too! So, thanks for being patient, and here are some pictures of our view… some with a wintry sky, some without. Notice how you can’t even see the mountain when it’s snowing!

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I know many of you have been waiting a long time for this… and they are finally here… pictures of our house! These are of our “part” (the upstairs) of the house. As you can see it is very much “us” and looks and feels like you’re in a loft in downtown Springfield, or New York, or anywhere else… except we have an amazing view.

Click the pictures to make them big… and once they’re big you can click on the right or left of the picture to advance one way or the other. Pictures of the downstairs will come soon.

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Our cousin Matt Scott told us about this video… it’s funny because it’s true. Yet another font (hello Papyrus) that is way over used in our society.

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Well, it’s 2008… so Happy New Year everyone! We’re glad (in a lot of ways) that 2007 is now over, and that we have a fresh start with this coming year. While we had a lot of wonderful, wonderful things happen in 2007 it was, overall, what we’re choosing to call a “faith building year.“

2007 started out with our decision to move to Albuquerque starting to become reality with our house beginning to be built (a good thing). We had decided to move out here around December of 2006… just before Christmas… and it was God’s hand that led us to do it for sure. Things just fell into place to make the move very obvious, and as much as we hated the fact we’d be leaving friends and family (including church family) behind in Springfield, it would’ve been selfish and unfaithful for us to stay. Faith building #1.

We had just came back from Christmas (and house planning) in Albuquerque last January when the great ice storm of 2006 hit Springfield. It knocked us (personally) out of power, internet and phone for 10 days. We were finally, and thankfully able to get have internet access and let our clients know what was going on. I believe the ice storm, however, was a faith building experience for everyone in the Springfield area.

It wasn’t long after that we made our trip back to Texas to attend our good friend Amber’s Mom’s (Hermion) funeral. Her mom had struggled with cancer for basically as long as Celeste had known Amber and it was, in many ways, a relief to see her finally go home. The funeral truly began with “fun” and while there was crying and sadness there was joy and praise for her life and the gift she still is to Amber’s family, and to all of us. It was another faith building time though.

Then Granny Rose, the spitfire, piano playing, very active mother of Celeste’s mom, had 2 strokes. We were really worried about her for a while, and worried too that she wasn’t going to recover to her full self. God answered our prayers in the way we hoped He would and she is doing much, much better now… but it was a faith building time for sure.

There didn’t seem to be anything else that could happen. It wasn’t even 3 months into 2007 and all this had happened already… then, while we were on the road one day we got a call that Celeste’s brother had been diagnosed with Thyroid cancer. While this is “the best” kind of cancer you can have if you’re going to have it it is still cancer and it was yet another thing to lay at the feet of the Lord. He was gracious to us all yet again and healed him completely from it.

It wasn’t long after that my older brother Barry’s wife Sheila unexpectedly passed away one morning in April. Barry was, understandably, beside himself with grief, and it was a time for family to stand next to him and with him through it all. Our oldest brother Leland did a great job of representing this correctly at the funeral when he said, “Isn’t it great to be able to get together for such a wonderful event?” We know, without a doubt, that Shelia is with the Lord now, along with Amber’s mom. While her funeral had a much more somber mood than Hermion’s it was an amazing funeral because Shelia wrote most of it herself. While she didn’t know when she was going to go home, she knew that she wasn’t long for this earth and she planned accordingly. Barry even pointed out that she had written “Lord willing” on the calendar for a planned trip to Oregon. The whole thing gave us all, as a family, to represent things the way they should be… and Shelia helped us before going to get the right start. It elevated my opinion of her a great, great deal… and helped our faith become stronger for sure.

Among all this we had plenty of reason for worldly celebrations as well… such as the wedding of Cari & Jeremy. And, back in January we had the wedding of my sister Janelle and Maxx. We also had a record year with Park East (our business), so there was a lot to smile about too… but it seemed that we constantly had something new to add to the prayer list at church.

Recently it was the final days of our dear family friend “Aunt” Melissa. The day we got to Albuquerque Celeste’s mom got a call that Melissa was on her final days. She had suffered with MD for many, many years, and we knew that she was ready to go home as well… however, it didn’t make it easy, especially for Celeste’s mom who was there with her for the entire week until the Lord gathered her up. In the nursing home she lived in for many years she always kept a red cord on her door… a symbol of the hope she had that the Lord was faithful and that He was going to one day come back and escort her home. That red cord was still there on the day that He did just that… and was then given to Celeste. A treasure, and testimony, to what a faithful, Spirit filled, life can do; hope and wait on the Lord.

With all this behind us we were ready to continue in prayer when we found out that Celeste’s dad Dan had his 6th and 7th kidney stones simultaneously. He went in to surgery a few weeks ago and then about 2 weeks ago had to go back in because of complications. He wasn’t doing well at all for a few days… and we were all honestly pretty concerned… but worry didn’t take hold of us because we knew that God is faithful and no matter the outcome we, and Dan, was in His hands. Thankfully, yet again, God showed His grace and Dan is doing very well now. He still needs to pass the final stone, but he is himself again, and we pray that we all have many, many more years together.

God is good… we have no doubt of that. He hears us… we have no doubt of that. And whether it was one of the times that didn’t turn out like we’d like, or one of the times what we hoped for coincided with what He saw fit to give us, our faith was strengthened through every single experience, “good,” or “bad,” that happened all year.

We look forward to what 2008 brings, and hope that God will grant us another full year together, as well as many, many after that. We praise God and thank Him for all He does and is… and have faith that this year will show His love for us yet again, and will carry us through whatever we happen to encounter always providing all we need.

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