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| bloggingI blog elsewhere from time to time. You might check there if you're interested in what's going on in my life. 
For those of you who prefer to read it here, here's my latest post from there:
Vanessa and I have been leading worship for about nine months now.
We've presided over the high-density holiday months - thankfully the
holiday-free summer months are upon us - and have encountered an
interesting situation. Some of the people at our church want songs
commemorating secular holidays, like Memorial Day or Independence Day.
Something inside of me
cringes at the idea of "America the Beautiful" being sung within the church
service. I'm not a big "separation of church and state" type - quite
the opposite, I think the phrase is often abused or misunderstood to
lend credit to those crusaders that hate all things Christian. But
singing songs to America (or displaying the American flag up on the
stage - ugh!) in a worship service, especially one that takes place in
a largely-Hispanic neighborhood, seems inappropriate. Not like
"sinful", just "unnecessary" or "silly".
We ran into a somewhat-similar situation during Christmas - neither
of us is particularly fond of most carols. We settled on singing one
carol per week (and almost ended up singing our favorite a few times!), but it was tough finding really good Christmas music that didn't sound trite after a good butchering by umpteen off-key carolers.
They are ultimately two slightly different issues: what do you think
about the presence of secular ceremonies in the church service, and
what do you do with those common, oft-repeated holidays (when you KNOW
what's coming)? Y'know, if it weren't for Currently Listening on Xanga, I may never post here again. But I really like that stupid little feature.
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| So... what've y'all been up to? 
Yeah, I've been pretty busy with life being just wonderful. After
a torrid 10 weeks of engagement, I got to marry my best friend on
August 20. We spent eight amazing days in northern California on
our honeymoon. We came back to get my kids ready for school in a
whirlwind. And I get to wake up next to the woman of my dreams
every single morning.
I have so many pictures of our travels, but have not been able to go
through them all. For now, you'll have to settle for pictures of
our wedding -- as if you haven't already seen them on HER site.
There's so much to write about... maybe someday I'll be able to put
into words how redemptive God can be with our lives, how gracious He
has been with my life, with Vanessa's life, and with our life
together. He is SO good!
Thanks to everyone for your well wishes, for your help with our
wedding, for your love and support. I pray God's richest
blessings on all of you, even as He has blessed us so richly!
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| So much to do, so little time. And so little money with which to
do all of it. But so much importance on all of it. Wedding,
honeymoon, house, place to live until the house is finished, finding a
place for Timmy, finding a place that will take us for a short-term
lease, surgeries (?), health insurance, car insurance, dealing with the
state for licenses, full schools with no room for transfers, rehearsal
dinners, birthdays, how do you make a boutainneire, how do you SPELL
"boutainneire"?!, teeth whitening... okay, maybe that last one isn't of
"so much importance"...
I'm just glad I have you with whom I get to do it all, Vanessa.
As hectic as things are right now, I'm sure loving you like
crazy. We make a great team!
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| Things have been awfully busy lately, so the ol' update hasn't been
very forthcoming. Vanessa is as wonderful as ever. Work is
as crazy as ever, perhaps even moreso. (We're working on closing
a deal to provide about 1600 routers to a gas station chain in the
Midwest. Lots of money potential.) My parents left for
Chile this week; at the same time, my kids finished the school
year. Which means the kids are home and bouncing off the walls,
and I've no one to help deal with them during the week (like when I'm
trying to work). Vanessa's great on the weekends, as we usually
take the kids out house-hunting, or clothes-shopping, or
movie-watching.
Will Ferrill doing Harry Carey is just classic. Arguably my
favorite of his characters - Carey is a great character in the first
place, a baseball announcer who'd do broadcasts totally lit. They
don't make 'em like that anymore...
Anyway, that's what I've been up to. I have some new pics to post
on myspace one of these days - in the meantime, feel free to go there
and comment on the mostly-new ones I've added there recently.
Other than that, hope everyone's having a great summer so far!
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