Happy Halloween!

I know a lot of people do not celebrate Halloween and that's cool, after all it was originally a day of bad celebration. However, my entire life it was never made to be that way, and for millions it was the same way. My memories of Halloween are the smell of mom making popcorn balls, candied apples and homemade suckers, carving pumpkins with mom and dad, Charlie Brown's Halloween special on T.V., fun movies at school and carnivals at night and you can't forget the candy. Normally I got so much candy, that there was no way that in 6 months I could have it all polished off. I didn't always like dressing up, but I did always look forward to Halloween. As a parent now, I see the same excitement in my children's eyes. I see the anticipation of the candy to come, I get the questions, "so how many days left now dad?" I see the enjoyment when we all set down and watch a silly Halloween movie together, and the excitement of carving a pumpkin. I believe that Halloween is bad only if you make it bad, for me it never was and for my children it never will be either. Tonight we will dress up, go visit some family members then go to church to the "Night of Lights" carnival and have the bestest of times. Today I pray for everyone's safety as there are people who try to take this fun day and make it something evil and bad. Get your treats ready, your costumes and candy bags cause tonight it's time to TRICK OR TREAT!



Here are the pumpkins our family carved. MaKayla and I did the Pirates of the Caribbean and Pam and Tamara did Dracula. Amy and Alex did some too, but Amy already posted those on her blog. Hope you enjoy.


Not That It Matters But...

THERE ARE ONLY 55 DAYS LEFT UNTIL CHRISTMAS!!!!
(When did summer end?)

Maybe

It has been a long time since I felt like I had a church I could call home. It has been a real struggle over the last year and a half to find the place God wanted my family to be in. Now I'm not going to say that we have found that place for sure yet but maybe we have. We have tried lots of churches in Odessa and Midland since leaving Harvest Time, and nothing was right. We even tried Temple Baptist once and at the time didn't really care for it, why I don't know, we just didn't. Well recently Temple has built a new building and changed from Baptist to Nondenominational and is now called Crossroads Fellowship. Our good friends invited us to come try it out and reluctantly we went, thinking we have already been here and didn't like it, only this time it was different. Our children absolutely loved it, and the service was really good. Not as fiery as the services we were used to, but God was there and the preaching was awesome. So to make a long story short, we have continued going there and it is continually growing on us and best of all our girls are happy and looking forward to going and everyone makes us feel welcome. I have been praying God would send us in the right direction and in his time he did. Now as soon as I can figure out how to get God on my clock, things will go a whole lot smoother in my life :)

Crazy Drivers

This morning as I was taking the girls to school, the drivers were particularly stupid along the way. I mean no blinkers, quick stops, cutting people off, and it was really aggravating me. As I'm driving next to this one guy he's on his phone blabbing away and constantly drifting over into my lane. I guess out loud I yelled "come on idiot get off the phone and pay attention." It was at this time that my most brilliant youngest daughter Tamara, sitting quietly in the back seat said, "Why don't you just pull up to him and give him the "CRAZY EYE" maybe then he'll pay attention." I was just in the right mood to do such a thing so I pull up next to this guy, stared at him until he looked at me and then WHAM! I gave him the crazy eye. I can't say that it made him pay attention, however he did give me a one fingered salute and drove off real fast. To which Tamara replied, "See I told you it would work." What smart children I have! :)

A Day With My Dad

I remember as a little kid waiting for my dad to get home so I could jump out and scare him as he came through the door. I'm pretty sure I never scared him but he always acted surprised. Then there were the times playing catch for hours on end without complaint even though now I know there was probably so many other things he could have been doing. My dad always went out of his way to make sure that he spent enough time with me. He taught me to fish, hunt, play ball, drive, work and overall how to me a man and not just any kind of man but a man of God. I remember those days like it was yesterday, I don't remember a lot from being a kid but I remember time spent with dad, I remember the anticipation of each event. Now at age 27 it is still really the same. This last weekend, my dad and I played in a golf scramble together. We didn't win, heck we didn't even come close to winning but I feel like I won because I got to spend a day with my dad. All week before the tournament I anticipated the day I would soon be spending with just him and me. Too many times when I'm around him I have to share him with my family, and my girls (which he is quite fond of) but not on this day, on this day for just awhile I was 8 years old again looking up at the greatest man in my life ready for the adventure that lie ahead. These days I don't look at him in as much awe as before, like daddy can do anything, but more with respect, love and admiration for a great man who is everything I want to be. It was an awesome day, a day that has now been logged into my memory bank of all the great father and son things we have done. I guess it just goes to show you, you are never to old for a day with your dad.

Tagged

Seven things you never knew about me and now wish you didn't. Or as you put it...Seven strange/weird/crazy things about me: How in the world did this strange thing come about?? Okay here goes nothing.

1. I am a perfectionist. It is almost to the point most of the time that it becomes compulsive. It drives my wife crazy but I like things done a certain way and I feel like it should be done right if you are going to do it. This is also the one thing that pretty much drags me down and consumes me most of the time. Do you realize how hard it is trying to be perfect? My favorite saying about all this is "What drives me, destroys me."

2. I love all kinds of music. I am not particular really to one type of music. I love well written songs or songs with deep meaning. If you can feel the writer or artists emotions in a song that is awesome to me. I love old country, my favorite is Don Williams. I could sit and just have the lights down low and ole Don in the back ground softly crooning. However, I really like how Eminem writes as well. I know alot of his songs are vulgar but some of his songs where he writes about himself are really revealing and you can really tell how he feels. I am a definite music lover, we recently got cable internet and I am now constantly downloading good songs. My I-tunes library is as diverse as it gets.

3. I like to write. Writing is one of the few things in life that I don't have to think about to do. I can just sit down at a computer and write and write. I can bull corn my way through a history paper or just sit and write like I'm doing now. It really doesn't matter what I write I just like to write. I don't like to be told to write something though. That makes me mad, I like to have options.

4. I hate Mexican food. I know this could possibly be the weirdest thing I could possibly say living in Odessa, TX but it is true. I mean it's not healthy, it gives me gas, and it's not pretty to look at before or after you eat it! I like hamburgers, love steaks and BB-Q and any other of the what I call "cowboy foods," but I just can't do Mexican food. It is my wife's favorite so at times I have to make exceptions but I'm always looking for those chicken strips or salads on the menu.

5. I am a cowboy at heart. If I had it my way I would live out in the middle of nowhere. I would heat my house with a black kettle stove and hunt and fish for my food. I would ride my horse to town and my spurs would jingle when I walked. I love to wear cowboy hats and boots and mess with livestock, I like a simple life with no t.v., no radio, just my wife and kids and nature around me. I hate how fast paced life is and wish there was some way to slow it down. I would move to a tiny town in a second if I didn't think all my girls would be bored to death.

6. I'm addicted to working out. My day feels empty without a trip to the gym. I can be having the worst day and after an hour and a half of working out, everything is better. I love elliptical machines they make it much easier for me to do cardio, since in my older age running creates great pain for my back and ankles. If I go more than a day without working out, I am a grouch. I don't ever feel satisfied with how I look though. No matter how in shape I am or how much my wife or other people compliment I always want more. I guess that's the perfectionist in me coming out again.

7. I really don't like body hair. I know this is a weird one and since everyone else threw one in I figured I would too but I guess this is my one thing I really don't like. I mean we are humans not woolly mammoths so why do we need hair? If I am cold I will put on warm clothes, I don't need hair to keep me warm. Oh and heaven forbid my wife goes a day without shaving, you could exfoliate and elephants back with her prickly legs. I'm pretty sure that goes for all women though. I remember as a kid my mom running her leg across me and thinking "dang cactus leg, keep to yourself!" Now I know some people think hair is sexy and good for them but I am not one of them. I like smooth hairless skin! There so now you know I'm weird but think about all the time men and women could save if we didn't have to shave. I rest my case.

I hope I never get tagged again this was hard work, but now I tag Pam(if she ever blogs again) or whoever else reads this because everyone else I know is already tagged :)

EXTREME BOY HUNT!!!

I am now on an extreme boy hunt to find the little romantic punk who gave my baby mono and eliminate him!
(I know she could have gotten it anywhere but its just way to close to the romantic boy statement so all little boys at school better run for their lives!)

My New Drink

For those of you who didn't know, I quit drinking cokes on October the 6th. It has been a very rough 12 days. I only have 18 days more to go and hopefully I will have created a new habit. In place of the eleventy million cokes a day that I was drinking I have started drinking lots and lots of tea from Bush's Chicken. This has been okay yet the flavor is getting old, so I began a quest to find my new drink. I am happy to report that as of right now, I am becoming addicted to Vitamin Water. It comes in many flavors, some good some not so good. I like the multi-v, xxx, and focus flavors. Which are lemonade, blueberry-pomegranate, and strawberry-kiwi. This is a good thing because I hate water by itself so hopefully this will help me in both drinking more water and getting past my cokes. Okay well, I am completely out of things to write about obviously since I'm writing about water. I'm going to class now to destroy more brain cells, and drink my vitamin water.

I Hate Tests!!

I think my professors are plotting against me. They are all getting together and saying, "hey let's put all of Adam's tests on the same day!!" I say, "What a horrible idea that is!!" I am so brain dead right now I can't even think crooked. So in light of all this testing I thought I would post a test for all of you to take. It only has one question and it is worth 100 pts! Here it goes:
If you choke a Smurf what color will he turn?
Good luck your time starts now!

Blessed

Today I feel blessed. Not because I'm having some super spectacular day, actually it's been quite the opposite. Yet I feel blessed anyhow. I feel blessed because God allowed me to wake up this morning. I feel blessed because the love of my life was there laying beside me to kiss me and tell me good morning. I feel blessed because I got to wake my girls up with a hug and a kiss and get them ready for school. I feel blessed because I have a wonderful home and cars that work. I feel blessed that God has given me the means and ability to go to school and better myself and my family. I feel blessed for the income that God has provide my family with. I feel blessed that I live in a country with so many freedoms and so many men and women defending those freedoms for me and my family daily. There are so many days that these things and more go overlooked in the hustle and hurry and stresses of everyday life but these blessings are awesome and more than I deserve. It's sad that it sometimes takes seeing other people's losses to realize all you have. Today my heart has been sad for Rhonda, Sydney, and Tiffany Mitchell who lost a Husband and a Daddy last night. He was a great man of God and is in heaven right now singing and rejoicing as he always did here on earth. Thank you God for one more day and all that you have given me for I know that I am truly blessed.

Romantic Boy!!!!

Okay that's it I've had it. Tonight I was sitting in the den painting Tamara's finger nails (and doing a very bad job at that), when out of the blue she says she is sad because this little boy Carson who was her boyfriend, broke up with her. Okay, for one who is this little Carson kid and two, how does she know what breaking up is. I mean you have to be dating to break up and where are two kindergartners going to go, to the eagles nest?? But wait it gets worse, she then proceeds to tell Pam and I that she is sad because she wants a boyfriend so she can kiss him like mommy kisses daddy. WHOAA!! Hang on now, mommy lays some pretty hot kisses on daddy and if Tamara wants to kiss a boy like that there is going to be some butt whooping going on around here. I then proceed to my room and pull out my 34" Louisville Slugger to which I show Tamara and say, "Look, this is my boyfriend whooping bat so keep those stinking little boys away." This upset her because she says other girls have boyfriends and she wants one too. (What kind of little hussies does she hang out with?) Anyway, as I try to talk her down from this insaneness, I get a great idea, so I think. You see our friends have a little boy named Paden and he is in love with Tamara and is always trying to kiss her. However, Tamara wants nothing to do with Paden's kisses and usually knocks him on the ground when he tries. So as I think of this example I say, "Tamara if you really wanted to kiss a boy, you'd already have let Paden kiss you." To which she replied very loud and in a Tamara's matter of fact way, "No Dad, I want a ROMANTIC BOY!" Okay quit laughing because it is not funny, not even a little bit!!! At this point I knew I was in over my head and I simply got up and walked away leaving her mom to handle this one. All I could do was go to the other room watch baseball and try to figure out a plan to have this little Carson kid expelled from school. I now realize that it can only get worse from here, so this may be my last blog, i'm sure that there won't be internet or computers (or romantic boys) where we are about to move.....very, very, far, far, far away!
(If you dare laugh about this your computer will blow up in 10, 9, 8, 7.........)

Mr. Kleenex Pants

I am convinced that I wear Kleenex pants. You may be asking what in the world is that, well let me explain!! It doesn't matter what I have on, it can be my nastiest pair of shorts or my nicest pair of slacks, but my children and my dog insist on wiping their nasty snot on me. WHY?? Well this is a question I have been asking myself for awhile now and all I can come up with is I have Kleenex pants. For instance this morning I put on my nice clean pair of khaki shorts got ready for school, walked outside to feed my dogs and Sadie, my old blue heeler, greeted me with her normal snot wipe across the leg. Now most dogs wag their tails, jump up, bark, etc. but no not mine she simply wipes her nose on me. I'm pretty sure she knows I don't like it cause she does it and then steps back a couple of steps like, "Ha! Got you again!" And you know what, snot does not come off of clothes that easily and when it dries you have that nasty glazed doughnut look on you. It's no different with my children, I'll see them wipe their nose on their hands and then ever so secretly try to butter up to me so they can wipe their hands off on my leg. Well this is it, Mr. Kleenex Pants is fighting back. From now on every snot nosed, or booger hand that is wiped against my pants will be retaliated against with a big loogey to the side of the head. It has become personal now, and in this war against pants of booger destruction I will win. I will snot be defeated!!!!

Searching

This morning I have been sitting and searching. Wondering what I am supposed to do with my life, where I'm supposed to be. I have loved being a stay home dad over the last 3 years but both my girls are in school now and it's time for new direction, but what? As I sit and I ponder different ideas nothing jumps out and says, "yes! that is the one." I mean yes I am going to school, but I've never been sure that that is what I wanted to do. Honestly, I don't want to teach. However, I really do enjoy coaching so what am I to do? I have been in a struggle with this for some time now, but it just seems that the issue is becoming more pressing. I honestly feel completely lost. One of my biggest problems is I am too busy trying to make everyone else happy and do what everyone else thinks I should do, but that is me, that is who I am. I've always been that way and perhaps always will. It is not just one thing though, it never is. It is not just that I have no direction in my life, but we can't find a church, which is extremely disappointing and discouraging. Its as if we have tried every church in Odessa, and Midland that have good children programs and have younger couples and we just can't find anything. I am really growing tired of this as well and this weighs heavy on me daily. I know in life there are peaks and valleys it just seems that for awhile I have been in the Grand Canyon and I'm tired. Normally I hold most of my thoughts and emotions in, I might tell them to Pam but most of the time I keep them in. I know I have a good life and I do feel blessed, I'm just searching, searching for something that will make me happy, fulfilled and fill as though I have purpose. Sorry for dumping on my blog, it just usually helps me to write out my thoughts. Pray for me, that I might find direction, to find what I'm searching for and to give me peace inside, because I really am tired and I just need help through this valley in my life.

Probably Didn't Deserve That!!!!

Okay, I'll probably get in trouble for telling this. Wait, no....I'm sure I'll get in trouble for telling this but here it goes anyway. For those of you that don't know, my wife is an adventurous sleeper. Many a night, she has awoken me to her walking down our hall, falling out of bed, standing up in our bed, sticking her head in the ceiling fan, trying to leave the house....and the list goes on. I mean it's not her fault, she never recalls any of it but it makes for outstanding party time stories. (although they always lead to me getting into trouble) Well the other night she took it to a whole new level. I'm laying there fast asleep, probably dreaming about, hunting or fishing or kissing my beautiful wife or something along those lines when, ...WHAM!! I feel this sudden smack up side my head. Out of natural instinct I tuck and roll trying to remember some moves I have seen on a Jackie Chan movie or in UFC fight, thinking that I am going to have to defend my household from an intruder. At about the same time, I hear "Oh my God I hit you!" "Oh I'm so sorry I hit you!" As I open my one good eye I see Pam there fist clenched in horror at what she had just done, yet she was still fast asleep. (Its good to know that her subconscious has a conscious) Well I couldn't think of anything nice to say to Muhammad Alsleepy, so I just got up and went to the bathroom to survey the damage. Sure enough, my right eye was swelling up. Now I wanted to go defend my honor against the sleeping warrior, but decided I might lose that fight, so I surrendered to the couch to ice down my eye, watch sports center and nurse my wounded pride. I got beat up by a sleeping girl. (Note to self, go buy a cushioned boxing helmet to sleep in or else face the consequences.)

P.S. If y'all see me with a black eye, know now it was because I told this story not because she hit me again while I was sleeping!

Adversity

I'm really tired today. School was absolutely boring, and I still have a 3 hour lab tonight!!! Really can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, at least not today. I was looking online for something inspriational and instead found this, actually today it seems more fitting. :)

Where did the time go?

I haven't been able to talk about this without crying but I can write it because I can type without seeing. My baby Tamara started Kindergarten this year and it was one of the roughest things I've ever gone through. I was really depressed the first couple of days. It has taken alot of getting used to not having her around. She always made me smile and always gave me something to look forward to, but she was ready to go to school. The night before school started I went to her room to tuck her in. I didn't want to, I knew that if I let her go to sleep she would wake up and leave, and then I realized she was going to wake up and leave anyway. So I was laying with her in her bed with my head on her shoulder. She put her arm around me as if she knew how bad I was hurting and just ran her fingers through my hair. We talked and talked and I told her how the time I had been home with her was the best time I'd ever had in my life. The tears filled my eyes and a huge lump choked my throat and I found that no more words would come. It was then my little baby said, "Daddy" to which I replied "Yes" in a tear choked voice. "I love you Daddy." I couldn't hold the tears in anymore. Good thing it was dark. Then my little angel broke my heart as she said, "Daddy, I have to go to sleep now Daddy." There it was, the moment I was trying to avoid but could no longer be postponed. With tears rolling down my face, I said "I know baby," and tucked her in kissed her goodnight and went out to put the pieces of my broken heart back together. Being a parent is awesome but nobody or nothing can prepare you for things like this. I know she will do great and has awesome things in her future, but how I wish I could somehow make time roll back, however selfish and unfair that might be. Anyway I made a video for her while she was at school on her first day and thought I'd let all of you see it. Hope you enjoy, hope it makes you cry, its only fair that everyone else feels my sorrow too! :)

My Girls

Since I am just starting this blog thing I have some catching up to do. I at first thought all this blogging was pointless until I realized I write a journal daily and might as well share some of those thoughts with everyone else. I love my girls. Pam is truly the love of my life. I honestly do not know how or why she has stayed with me all this time but she has. We just celebrated our 8th anniversary and I can honestly say I love her more now than the day I married her. We have been through alot but it has made us who we are and I wouldn't change a thing. MaKayla is my mini me. She wants to do whatever I do, and wear whatever I wear and gets upset if I try and make her act more like a girl. She loves to hunt, fish, golf and play all sports. She will make a cool wife someday although I'm not ready to think about that right now. She is very quick witted and very sarcastic. We were recently talking about tests we have to take in school and I was explaining that I had a test with just 2 questions. She laughed and said "that's easy!" I then explained that each question had to be answered in 3-5 pages each. She said "wow that's alot." Then stood up and with extreme sarcasm said "well, good luck with that," and walked off. Don't know where she gets that sarcasm from. :) Tamara, she is my baby. She loves daddy to baby her and treat her like a princess. However, she is also like a piece of flubber. She never stops moving and is wild and crazy. She goes at everything she does 110% with no fear of injury until after it has happened. At 4 she jumped off a 10 foot diving board at Balmorhea (that Pam was afraid to go off of), at 5 she climbed a pole in front of our house and touched the roof, and learned to ride her bike without training wheels, (something she will point out that sister didn't learn to do until she was 7) and the list goes on and on. She loves being a cowboy, and thinks she would be a good bull rider. Recently her and MaKayla were playing and MaKayla was the bull and Tamara was the cowboy. MaKayla was bucking around and wouldn't set still for Tamara to mount up so Tamara yells out, "quit moving ya damn bull!" After I gained composure in the other room from laughing I asked her why she said that and she told me that's what she heard the cowboys say on T.V. , and that's my Tamara. I love my girls, there is never a dull moment, but never a moment I don't feel completely loved.






For those of you who don't know, I am a coach on MaKayla's soccer team, and we are the "Pink Panthers." As I was growing up I always imagined myself as a coach. Giving inspirational half-time talks, leading those hard practices that nobody likes but all benefit from, yelling at the "boys" and making them play to the best of their abilities. Now I find myself, in the middle of the huddle saying "look we can talk about Hannah Montana, and Zac Efron as soon as the game is over, can we please just focus on the game right now!" Not really the inspirational halftime talks I envisioned. And instead of yelling onto the field and saying "rip somebody's head off," I frequently find myself yelling "quit holding hands and hugging and play soccer!!!" This is not what I bargained for. I am a boy, I understand boy things, there is no crying in sports and most certainly no holding hands. However, it is still alot of fun. We still run the practices that nobody likes, yet they all benefit from and I still get to yell at players although not quite like how I anticipated. We are 6-1 on the season and have scored double digits in three of our games. For you girls who don't know anything about soccer that are reading this, that is pretty dang good. We are arguably the best team in our age division and are continually getting better. Other teams tremble when they see the Pink Panthers coming! Maybe it's because we're that good or maybe they've just never seen a grown man in pink camo.

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