A Lighter Fare

If you read here regularly you know that there is a mix of mundane, fun, funny, sad, heart wrenching, etc. It's a hodge-podge of what my life is. The last few entries have been on the tearing up side. Water works have been a plenty. Some have complained that they soaked their keyboards and that Best Buy doesn't cover water damage. So, to help you, my bloggy friend, I am going to the lighter side for a post.

The following are some funny and interesting things I have seen recently that I think are worth a looksee.


Do you ever get frustrated with how fast people drive through your neighborhood? Call your friend who is really good at drawing.



I think this is me?


I want to build one of these rooms and do some fun videos. Wonder if anyone out there can do it for me?


OK, I have no idea how they did this. Trick photography? You tell me. It's pretty awesome though.


I LOVE the Amazing Race...can't wait to see it again. I would love to be on this show some day. It screams me. It's almost like they wrote the show for me, but I just haven't been on it yet.


Never celebrate too early! (I've been there)


There is a reason this video has over 137 million views. We all love to laugh. Try not to laugh...watch the whole way.


I love to fish. Wish I could fish like this! WOW!!

Youth Quake

We are smack dab in the middle of Youth Quake. It's our middle school service project camp that we run for our district. We have around 15 churches or so represented here with almost 200 students and leaders.

The whole concept of this camp is to help middle school students learn how to serve God by serving others. The basis of this comes straight out of the Bible. Check out this passage from Matthew 25 in the New Testament. It is a record of Jesus speaking. He basically says that whenever we care for someone else, it is like we are caring for Him. Amazing! When we give a hungry person some food, it is like we are giving food to Jesus. I love that!

These middle school students are tearing it apart. They are serving like crazy and I am just amazed. Our service projects include the following: working with the elderly at care centers; doing absolutely free car washes; working in community gardens with the area food shelters; making, serving and eating lunch with the homeless. There are a bunch more things and they are so cool.

Tomorrow we will be putting on a carnival at Grant Community School for kids of all ages. Every church will be running several different booths. There will be face painting, balloon popping, bean bag tosses and a bunch more. Of course there will be free cotton candy and sno-cones. yummm.

The evenings are filled with fun and serious times. We did the amazing race yesterday and it was so much fun. There was a dunk tank and there was getting into frozen clothes and slip and slides and launching of those marshmallow snoballs, just to name a few things. We went to a park with water fountains to play in and had a huge soccer game and enjoyed some amazing BBQ chicken.

The serious stuff is our evening sessions. We have 5 sessions and 4 speakers. I get to speak twice and then Kyle, Jessica and Michelle each get to speak. We also had some special guests from China share with us tonight too. I also have the great privilege of leading worship. There truly is nothing like leading 200 middle schoolers in song about God and to God when they have spent the day serving others. I can't believe I get to do what I do. What a true privilege.

I will toss some pics up soon.

Golfing during the holidays

Yesterday I went on our "annual" Williams Men Golf trip. We headed out to one of the fine golf courses in South Carolina and began what is always filled with laughs, arguments over scores and lots of terrible shots.

My dad, brother, brother-in-law and I hit the links. We actually went 2 days ago and then by the 4th hole it was raining too hard that we called the front desk and asked for a rain check. I didn't even go look for my ball I hit off the tee because it was raining too hard. (that is a rarity, as I think a good game of golf is if you come out at the end with more balls than you started with. i love the woods!)

So we came back the next day. My brother and I rode in one cart together and my dad and wes rode in the other one. Rune and I can STILL fight like nobody's business to this day. (that's why I think we would be fun to watch on the Amazing Race as we would make for good television.) I think Rune's counting leaves something to be desired and Rune finds that often I forget a stroke...he counts every single one! No matter how loud we got, we would always race each other back to the cart to see who would drive to the next hole. We are seriously 10 years old still! Well, he's 8 cuz I'm the oldest...and yes, I should know better. But we laugh every time we see each other slowly walk faster and faster until it becomes a sprint. All is fair game too...poor clubs don't like that part.

I had 2 very memorable shots. The first was from the woods and straight into my golf cart, off the inside of the windshield and out into the perfect spot on the fairway. The second was from a tough shot by a tree (is there a theme here?) and over a big water hazard, hitting the top of the wall that the inlet from the lake stops at and up onto the green! It was my 3rd favorite shot ever.



The final score? Well, my brother golfs a lot and my father golfs quite a bit too. Lets just say that I was leading after the 4th hole and leave it at that, shall we?

Oh, Rune called ahead and asked if it was OK that I wore jeans because I was from out of town and didn't bring any dress pants...and I would lose my pants if I wore any of the others' pants. So when we got to the first tee box the "ranger" said, "We have a dress code here, so you can either take off your pants or go back home and change." I began to jokingly unbuckle, but I think he was semi-serious. I hate golf rules. They are so uptight.

One more thing...The lake was down a lot as there has been a drought out here and there were about 10 balls that I found down in the rocks by the water hazard. So yes, it was a good game.

I went skydiving, I went rocky mountain climbing, I went...

Last weekend was our Father's Day celebration. I know, you are thinking, "Father's Day was last month!" True, but my family had to go out of town and we celebrated Mother's Day with our friends the Condellos and the Unwins. Perhaps I will write about that another day. It was fun...for the guys.

Anyhow, the girls decided we should celebrate together again. So the first time we would all be together was last weekend. I was told to wear nice clothes and a tie; to bring a sleeping bag, matches and a spoon. Steve had to bring (I can't remember) and Brian had to wear a swimsuit under his jogging pants. This was all a rouse as I walked outside to see everyone and they were not wearing what I was wearing. The girls had a great laugh about that one. Then the three guys were blindfolded.

We jumped into the car and drove off. I told Jeanne-Ann that I have an amazing sense of direction and that I would figure out where we were going. I figured out that we were in Mollala. Not bad, huh? We got out of our vehicles and were lead up to a wall where the girls took our pictures and then we turned around and took off our blindfolds. We were at Oregon Skydiving!!!!!!!

For EIGHT years I have been saying, "This is the year." Well, this is the year. We went in for training and waited...and waited...and waited. The clouds were out in full force and they don't dive when you can't see the ground. They were hoping it would happen, but not hugely optimistic. We set a new date for yesterday.

Now I had all week to get mentally ready for this great event in my life. Well, we woke up to clouds again after a week full of sun. We got there and it was still cloudy. We waited...and waited...and waited. We went to get lunch late and said if nothing by 12:30 we would jet. We waited a little bit longer and at 1:15 there was some blue spots and some activity inside. Finally the first group (from 9AM...we were at 10AM)went up.

Then it was our turn.

I realize this a bit longer than normal...but what an amazing day!


We went in and got our straps all set, put on our "really cool hats" and walked out on to the airstrip. The plane pulled up and we began the boarding process. I went in first, which meant that I would dive last. The plane went down the runway and turned around for take off. The engines roared and we began...then we slowed down. I was upfront, basically next to the pilot, and heard him tell my guide that the front tire felt flat. That was fine for take-off, but not landing. We all got out while they put air back in the tire.

Then, finally, we got back in. With roaring engines we took off. There was not a lot of wiggle room and the windows were pretty low, but we got a pretty good view of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood. We climbed and climbed and climbed. It was not like taking off in a 747. The climb process was pretty slow, but it built our anticipation up a lot. Steve, Brian and I kept high fiving and knuckling each other. We were so EXCITED!!! Out of the 3 of us, Steve went first. When Steve stood at the door and I saw his face, my stomach really started to tumble around.


If you know me, you know I love to be scared and thrilled. This was THE moment. Steve went, and then Brian was up. He rollwed out with a gorgeous view behind him and then it was my turn. Looking at the propeller in front of us and the ground below my heart was elated! Then we rocked...left, right, roll! Yahoooooooooo!!! I was flying. I did it.

I was in the air. 13,100 feet above the ground. I told Kirk, my guide, to have fun and spin all he wanted. I was thinking when the chute had deployed. He started to spin moments after we jumped. Faster and faster. It was like when you are on one of those playground "merry-go-rounds" and you look up, but you are looking down. Then he kicked his legs to the other side and he spun us the other way. I wondered if I would get queasy, but I never did. One more spin on both sides and then suddenly YANK! He opened the chute and we began to float. Wow!

We had a very serene floating moment and then he asked if I wanted to steer. Of course! So he told me to pull down on the one side and we began to spin. Haha! More spinning. It was crazy cool. We went all the way flat in a spin. Then he had me pull the other side and we spun the other way. Then I pulled both. Weightlessness. When we would spin, there was an intense amount of pressure on my legs. They began to lose circulation but it didn't matter. It was like the pain I enjoyed from the sunburns I would get on my college spring break trips to Florida. I didn't care that it hurt, I was just glad I got color.

Steve landed first and Brian and I landed at almost the exact same time.

It is hard to explain the feelings I had. Excitement, thrill, joy, bits of momentary fear, smile, trust, weightlessness, bodily stress, stomach whirl. If there were a word for that combination, that's what it would be.

You gotta go.

Seriously, I mean it. You must go skydiving. this is your sign!

Amazing Race Charla and Mirna's Accents!

Did you watch the Amazing Race? Congrats Eric and Danielle. Did it drive anyone else CRAZY listening to Charla and Mirna use the same EXACT accent in EVERY country? I captured this moment on here. Thought you might enjoy. Uhhhhgggggg! It drove me nuts!