Happy Father's Day

I just wanted to wish a Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. I am blessed to be a father and I am also blessed to have (or have had) a wonderful father, grandfathers, and father-in-law. I am also friends with many who are great fathers. I also wanted to wish a special first Father's Day to my brother-in-law Scott.

This Father's Day it is also on my mind to honor the wives (moms) and kids who give us the opportunity to be fathers. I love every moment of being a dad and all the challenges and rewards it brings. Without my wife and our precious Gracie, I wouldn't be a dad! One of my devotionals had some poignant thoughts about fatherhood, specifically "The role of a father changes as children grow, but it doesn't end. Praise and encouragement are welcomed whether a child is 4 or 40." (Our Daily Bread)

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.

What just happened?

Wow. June? Are you serious? I can't believe how fleeting time is. I'm sure a part of it is the fact that I am not getting any younger, but I also think that a significant factor is the information blitz that we face every day. Don't get me wrong, I love technology. I love email, Twitter, Facebook, sms, pix, flix, and blogs and how all of them allow us to communicate and stay connected with friends and loved ones (or total strangers!). But I also think this blur of information traveling at the speed of light also makes time fly by even faster.

I find myself getting emotional frequently (imagine that) just thinking about how much our precious little Gracie has grown since September and her first day of pre-school with "Miss Diane." In those moments I often have these thoughts that I wish I could blog or write about, but by the time I get some quiet computer time I forget to do it. I hope to have a better way to keep on top of this... maybe use some technology?

One of my favorite parts of technology recently is the Podcast. I have been using my Nike Plus kit for my iPod for about a year now, thanks to Topher Fulton giving me his old one. It has changed the way I look at running. It is fun and challenging again. In addition to keeping track of all my mileage and pace, it also allows me to listen to music or podcasts while I run. I started off listening to music, almost exclusively, but I quickly transitioned to Podcasts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting

One of my favorite podcasts is, Taproot Sermon Audio, a weekly recording of Taproot Church in Burien Washington. The pastor is a friend I met in a roundabout way. (maybe another blog post topic!) Anyway, I have listened to every sermon since Pastor Danny Braga arrived in Burien from Idaho and feel as though I am a part of that church in many ways. I have been touched and impacted in more ways than I can describe. Pretty awesome to think of how God can use even technology to reach others. http://taprootchurch.org/podcast

So for now I'll leave this post at that. I've got to find that balance between too long, and a tweet (or a twit, as my wife would say). Hopefully I can come up with a method to jot down my thoughts enough to remember them for blog posts. Ideally this will become a regular occurrence. For now, I'll sign off, I've got to go "twit" for a bit.

Twitter

I got a letter today from some dear friends, Doris and Art Fleming. Doris asked me when I was going to post more updates on my blog. I have been so consumed with work, golf, church podcasts, worship practices, and family that I have really slacked off (again) the blog posts. So this mini-post is for Doris. We miss you two so much but are so wonderfully blessed by your faithfulness and your latest journey! Anyway, I am now actually using my Twitter account, so all you Tweeters out there, here is my url: http://twitter.com/vandalgrad

We just returned from the State 3A Golf tournament. I'll write about that in another post. :-)

Spring Break

We are on the "West Side" for Spring Break. We have family in Seattle/Tacoma so the last few Spring Breaks have found us spending the week there doing a variety of things. As a kid I loved when my parents took me to to Seattle. We always went to the Aquarium, Locks, Space Needle, among other fun sites. We now enjoy spending time with our family and taking the little ones to fun places. Sometimes it is the simple things that are the best. Yesterday we got to listen to a young man playing his violin on the Seattle-Bainbridge Island Ferry while watching a huge cargo ship cross our path. We also went to the Aquarium, Children's Museum, and rode the Monorail. It is always a good time, but the best part of all is spending time with our family and enjoying that fellowship too.

Two Worlds, One Record

New Year's Resolution: Blog More.

Well, so much for that one. I perform so many tech related tasks daily that sometimes blogging is the last thing I feel like doing. But so much has happenened. I keep threatening to Amy to blog more and talk about our precious Gracie and how much she has grown. We watched some videos of her the other night and couldn't believe how much she has changed! I want to continue to try to post updates here as well as on my facebook page. I also think I should post some of our favorite Gracie-isms that are just the best.

Which brings me to the first one. I am usually in charge of "bath time," and most of the time Gracie has her choice of a "short," "medium," or "long" bath. She almost always chooses "long" which means she is in the tub for a long time. But lately she has wanted to take short baths so she has more time to play, color, etc. So the other night I told Gracie "we should set a record tonight with a quick bath." Gracie replied with "we should set a world record." So the bath was very fast and quite possibly a "world record" for Gracie. A couple nights later it was bath time again and Gracie said "Daddy I think we should do two worlds one record tonight." I was perplexed. Seeing my confusion she says "you know, a world WORLD record!" Ahhh! The light went on. She was emphasizing something even greater than a world record! Excellent! So now we use "Two Worlds One Record" all the time when we want something done quickly!

Start Out the Year With a Bang

January 5th, I was doing the score book at a KHS basketball game. Throughout the games, I felt what I thought was some stomach cramps or possibly mild indigestion. I figured it was due to my sitting for 2+ hours at the scorers table with no stretching or moving around. An hour or so later, the final game ended and we packed up and headed for home. I thought getting up and walking around would help. No such luck. When we got home we put Gracie to bed first. Then as I changed for bed, I noticed the pain still persisting in my stomach and it was pretty intense. I mentally reviewed what I had eaten throughout the day and found no reason to point to my stomach discomfort.

Next, I tried to lie down and go to sleep. After tossing and turning for about 30 minutes, I told Amy I couldn't sleep and went downstairs to wait it out. Unfortunately, the pain intensified, albeit slowly. Surely this indigestion would go away after a while I said to myself again as I went upstairs to try to eat/drink something to soothe my pain. No luck. In fact, things worstened again. I had a serious case of the chills despite the fact I had 3 blankets on and I couldn't get comfortable at all.

So like any true computer geek, I mustered up the strength and went to Google and put in my symptoms. After narrorowing it a few times I found some helpful medical sites that gave me some clues. After 5 agonizing minutes of sifting through symptoms and possible diagnoses, I was fairly certain that it was appendicitis. It was now 1AM and I still hesitated to wake up Amy. Then after some prayers, I noticed the pain seemed to be radiating towards my lower right abdomen area just like the web sites said. At that point I woke up Amy and my parents so that they could come watch Gracie while we went to the ER.

Hours, blood tests, and a CAT Scan later, the diagnosis was final. Appendicitis. A few more hours and I was being prepped for surgery. (lucky for me the surgeon was at the hospital that day!) The surgery went well and I am healing up slowly but surely. It was an ordeal I will not forget.

Happy New Year!

New Year's resolution: Blog more.

Happy New Year Everyone.

SM