She's Here...

Mackenzie Joyce arrived yesterday morning at 9:44 a.m. Kenzie (as we will call her) weighed 7 lbs and 10 oz (exactly the same as Will) and was 20 in. long. She has lots of hair is is a healthy happy baby. Tammy did great and is doing so well since yesterday morning. Not sure how we got through the day yesterday because neither of us got sleep the night before. I counted before we went to bed last night and we had been up for 40 straight hours. Anyways, I'm in a hurry, I just wanted to post a few pics and then go back up to the hospital. Here they are...

Almost There...UPDATED (At Bottom)

So the "busy" week is almost over. In fact, technically it is over since Friday and Saturday are my off days. I was able to get everything done, save some work on my Sunday night sermon which I will try and finish up tomorrow. Tomorrow will be just as busy around here, even though I'm off. I look forward to a peaceful and restful Saturday.

Of course, since I'm writing this, the baby has still not come. Part of our day tomorrow includes Tammy's 9:30 am doctors appt. Basically, from what we were told last time, they will be scheduling us tomorrow for a day to induce next week. I will try and post tomorrow an update on what day we will be going in the hospital. I also have to cut grass and finish cleaning house tomorrow. We have had to really keep up with the housework since we don't know when she might come and our families will be staying here when it happens. We also have a party tomorrow night for a girl at church who just graduated from Jacksonville University. Congrats Jayme! I really think of her like a sister because I like picking on her and annoying her so much. That's what I was best at as a brother growing up. Don't believe me? Just ask one of my 2 sisters.

God is good. What else can I say? I am blessed. I'm glad I can write for the few and far between that stumble their way on here from time to time. I enjoy reading everyone's blog, even if I don't always comment. It's a great way to keep up with old friends that we don't get to see much anymore.

I'm excited about preaching this Sunday. Of course it's Mother's Day, so I'm preaching my Mother's Day sermon. The title is, "Don't You Talk About My Momma!" If nothing else, it's peaked everyone's interest. I'll post a summary about it on Monday.

One more thing. The funeral that I mentioned this past Monday. Well, funerals are actually a good thing to attend. Solomon said in Ecc. 7:2, "Better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men; and the living will take it to heart." In other words, we can learn from a funeral because we tend to reflect on our lives and it makes us really think about things and put them in perspective. Well, this gentleman had been married to his wife, who passed, for 64 years. 64 YEARS! That's a long time to be with someone. I watched him during the funeral and he was either in a daze (I don't blame him) or he was fixed on her in the casket. He and the family were the last ones out (I was still in there at this point) and I watched as he got up, went to the casket, and leaned over and kissed her one last time. That broke my heart. I teared up big time when I saw that. There is nothing more wonderful than to spend your life with someone you love. I'm very lucky to have a wonderful wife that loves me and I love her so that as Prov. 31:11 says, "The heart of her husband safely trusts her". I hope that I can one day say that I was with my wife for that many years! (Of course, I would be 92 years old)

**UPDATE**

So we went to the doctor this morning and we saw a different one today who seemed a lot more "with it" than the one last week. Neither last weeks or this weeks doc was her regular doctor. Anyways, she said she is really not much closer and that they don't really schedule to induce until she is at least a week late. Therefore, we wait another week and go back to the doctor next Friday and do this all over again. Oh well, at least that means I can get in a round of golf this week!

What A Week!!

Well, as I'm sure all of you know, my wife is now 39 weeks along. Basically that means that she could go at any time. However, I have already told her that if she can wait until next week (I know it's not up to her) that would be great! This is just one of those weeks where it seems like I have so much to do. It started today with a funeral being held at our church. The family received friends at 10 am at the building, and then the funeral was at 11 am. Thankfully, I only played a small part in it, since the lady was older. Our associate minister (who is also one of our elders) has been there for many years and knew the lady much better than I did, so he did it. After the burial and feeding the family my day was just about over.

Tomorrow I will be at the hospital all day. One of our members is having neck surgery, so I will be there with the family. On Wednesday, our associate minister teaches the Ladies Bible Class at 10 am. However, he is going out of town tomorrow, so I will teach that class for him, along with my normal class on Wednesday night. Throw in Sunday morning Bible class and 2 sermons, and I am not sure I'm going to make it to Sunday. If Kenzie decides she wants to come this week, I may be preaching someone else's sermon on Sunday (which I don't like doing). I'd rather them be my own, although I do like to get ideas and snippets from other sermons.

Of course, the way things are going, I'm not going to be surprised if Tammy is late and we end up inducing next week sometime. I can handle that. I'm the kind of guy that would rather be in control and schedule this thing so I can have everything in order.

Also, I thought I might start posting a summary of my lessons each Monday after I've preached them on Sunday. I'd rather do this after the fact than before, so my members won't know my sermon before I preach it. I read many blogs of fellow preachers and it seems like most of them only post about religious things. I certainly don't mind doing that, although I like posting things about my family and life in general. The only downside is that those preachers open themselves up to the negative comments of people constantly looking to find fault in others. I get very annoyed with the whole bickering thing, although I will never fail to stand for the truth.

Anyways, to quickly sum up my 2 sermons, my A.M. sermon was on our theme for this year, A.W.A.R.E. (Always Watching for Anyone who Requires Edification) In other words, being aware of the needs of others. I preached on the aspect of being aware of the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Although we should love everyone (Matt. 22:39), the Bible does place emphasis on how we treat the brethren (Gal. 6:10). There are times when our brothers and sisters need our help, they need encouragement, a kind word, a willing listener. My text came from I John 3:16-18 and my points from the 3 verses in succession were:

1. Willingness - We must be willing to help others, otherwise we will never see their needs. Verse 16 speaks of sacrifice. Are we willing to sacrifice for our brothers and sisters? The first century church was (Acts 2:44-45; Acts 4:32-37).

2. Awareness - We need to train our senses (Heb. 5:14) to be aware of the needs of others. Verse 17 speaks of seeing (being aware) a brother in need.

3. Business - This is the action part. Verse 18 says that we shouldn't love in word or tongue, but in deed and in truth. Anyone can say "I Love You", but not everyone backs it up with action. Jesus talked about fulfilling the needs of others in Matt. 25 and said that even when we do it to the very least, we do it to Him.

Sunday night I preached on sin making us lose our senses. In the story of the Prodigal Son, we see that in Luke 15:17 the Bible says that he came to his senses. In other words, sin had desensitized him. He was able to get his senses back when he ran out of money and couldn't support his sin anymore. He found himself separated from that sin and then he came to himself. Also, David became desensitized in II Sam. 11 & 12 in his sin with Bathsheba. He knew it was wrong, but lost his senses. He had Nathan who basically called him out and made him come back to his senses and realize that he was in sin. II Tim. 2:25-26 also speaks of coming to our senses. It's downright scary when we see what Satan can do to even the most godly men through sin.

Look Out Tiger, Here Comes Will!

My son is a sports fanatic at a young age. He loves any and every sport you can think of. He loves to play it, but surprisingly he will watch most sports as well. He's even gotten to where he will watch golf on tv. What's really funny is that he picks up on everything. After watching some basketball games with me, I found him one night watching a basketball game and I heard him saying, "Come on ref!" I about lost it when I heard that. Funny kid.

Anyways, he has a basketball goal in his room he shoots on, a baseball tee, ball and bat, footballs galore, a soccer goal (as you can see in the video below), and a golf club set. Lately, he has been taking his golf club and plastic balls outside to hit some balls around the yard. THE KID IS GOOD! Now, keep in mind he is only 2. So he doesn't make contact everytime. But, when he does, look out. Here are some picture with a video at the end. Notice for a 2 year old he has pretty good form. Much better than dad (that's not saying much).







I know, our yard needs a little work. We just moved in to this house, so we are working on it. Now, the video. Sorry for the tree limb that appears a little more than halfway through. I am a self proclaimed amatuer.

Goal!

This is Will's video soccer debut. You thought it was big news when Beckham came to the USA to play? Not even close to when William Garrett made his debut in Jacksonville Florida on his new ESPN soccer goal. We kept saying "Score!", but the guy is actually saying, "Goal!" It's sometimes hard to understand the ESPN Deportes announcers.

Old But New

I have a couple of videos that I just put up on youtube the other day. We have had so much going on that I finally found the time to sit down and convert them and upload them to the internet. One is from right before Christmas, and the other is from the week of Thanksgiving.

The first video below is from the week of Thanksgiving. One of the ladies at church had asked if I would come to her school and read to some elementary classes. I was supposed to wear my pajamas as part of it because it was "Pajama Day" at school. I decided to dress the part and to bring Will along with me. This is a clip of early that morning, so that is why I sound funny.



This next video is of Will the night we got our first real live Christmas Tree. He was so excited about it because we had been talking it up. Enjoy!

Starting Him Early

This past weekend was the Lads to Leaders Convention. Thousands of kids, K-College, gathered to lead a song, read scripture, say a speech, perform a puppet show, compete in Bible Bowl, and many other things. Will is only 2, so he is not eligible, but that doesn't mean he isn't starting early. This is him leading Jesus Loves Me in front of his podium at home, and then saying a prayer.

Finally...

We move! So the closing is scheduled for tomorrow at 10 am. We have been busy all day packing boxes and doing some shopping. We are so excited to finally be moving out of the apartment and into our new home. I will try and post some pictures next week of the new house with some furnishings.

Let me just say also how good God is. He has taught us some patience in all of this, and also that he will answer our prayers, just not necessarily on our time. We were thrown a huge curve a few weeks ago when we found out that closing cost were going to be about $4000 more than what we had expected. This was very tough for us because it took the money we were going to use to fix up the house. We decided to just deal with it because what else could we do? Well, today, when I called to find out the exact amount I needed to bring to closing, it was $3,000 less than what she had told us when she told us of the $4000 increase. Needless to say we were elated, and now we can loosen our belts and breathe a little easier knowing that we are now $3000 richer.

Please continue to pray for us as Tammy is now 30 weeks along and has to deal with the discomforts of pregnancy. She is doing good with it though and I love her muchly!

Funniest Commercial Ever

I ran across this commercial again. I remember seeing it when it first came out and I laughed hysterically! It's still funny to me years later. Enjoy!

Home Update

So we were supposed to close this past Friday morning, move Friday night, and be in our new home over the weekend. Well, thanks to the bank, that didn't happen. Home buying is so frustrating when the seller is a bank. Again, they are taking their sweet time and didn't get the info into the title company so that we could close. So, right now, we have no idea really when we will close. Could be this Friday, but I am not going to hold my breath.

By the way, the selling bank that is dragging their feet in all of this is Wells Fargo. They are by far the worst bank I have ever had any dealings with. I had a car loan through them that I paid off and it took me a month to convince them that I had paid it off, even though the payment had cleared and they showed it in their system. They kept calling me telling me my payment was overdue when I had paid them $15,000. I guess it threw them for a loop when I didn't make my normal $350 a month payment. Long story short, do your best to avoid this company. In multiple dealings with them, they are not very customer friendly.

Update on the House

Okay, so here is the latest on our new home purchase. Tomorrow the air conditioning unit is being installed. Someone stole the old one off the back of the house, or maybe the previous owners decided to take it with them, who knows. The appraisal should be Monday or Tuesday of next week, and we expect it to appraise for way more than we are paying for it, since it is a foreclosure. The final inspection is on Tuesday, the genius inspector didn't finish it the first time because he said the power and water was off. He didn't bother to try flipping the breakers (the power was on) or turning the water valve outside on to allow water into the house (the water was also on). So, we have to go through that again. Other than that, everything looks to be right on schedule for our closing next Friday, the 15th. Needless to say, we are more than ready to move out of this apartment. I will post some pictures of the house once we get moved in and are able to fix it up a bit. Ta ta for now.

What's 3 months?

So I haven't posted in 3 months. So what? I was trying to be a better blogger towards the end of last year, but I fell off something fierce. So what has happened in 3 months? Well, a good bit. My wife is still pregnant and still due in May, but we found out we are having a girl. I was pretty excited because I really did want one of each. One of our friends from church had a girl and I think that made me really want to have one as opposed to another boy.

Well, we had a great Thanksgiving and Christmas. Got to see family and that is always good. I promised Tammy after the holidays that I would really get going on trying to find a house. Well, she and Will took a cruise the first of January and while she was gone I put an offer on a house, and they accepted. So, now we are just waiting for the normal stuff like the inspection and all. Hopefully we will close on the 15th of February. For pics of the new house, visit my wife's blog. There is a link to it on the upper right hand side of the blog.

The preaching is going well. We just finished our first year at Lake Forest and we really love it here. We have a great family to work with. We are excited about getting into our new home so that we can have people from church over to spend some time with them.

We have a lot coming up in the next few months. I am speaking at a youth rally this month and am scheduled to speak as a part of a gospel meeting sometime this year. Lads to Leaders is right around the corner and I am the Song Leading coordinator for the boys this year in Orlando. We'll see how that goes:) I am also doing a wedding here at church in April, so we have a lot going on between now and May when my little girl will be here.

I'll try and post some pictures and videos, since I have some but am obviously behind on posting anything. I promise to do better...we'll see how that works out!

Hot Pockets!

Found this video by a very funny comedian, Jim Gaffigan about Hot Pockets. I laughed so hard I got the best ab workout I've had in a while. Enjoy!

Gospel Meeting

I haven't written in about a week because last weekend I was in Raleigh, NC for a wedding. I flew back into Jacksonville on Sunday morning for the start of our Gospel Meeting. It ran Sunday and every night through last night. Needless to say we have been super busy, not to mention worn out. The Gospel Meeting went very well. We had Bro. Lovell C. Hayes from Jackson, TN. That man can preach the word, and do it plainly and easy to understand. He was pretty humorous and definitely got his point across. If you want to hear any of the lessons or see his Power Point lessons, just visit our church website here.

Are You Ready For Some Football???

Yeah, so last night I was able to attend the Monday Night Football game seeing the Jacksonville Jaguars play the defending Super Bowl Champs, the Indianapolis Colts. I ended up having to go alone, but I didn't mind too much since I really wanted to go. I purchased my ticket after I got there (from a scalper) about 90 minutes before kickoff. Those guys are unbelievable by the way. I wanted to punch one of them in the face. They are VERY aggresive and basically will harass you if you don't buy a ticket from them. Anyways I ended up with a pretty good seat and enjoyed the game even though the Jags didn't put up much of a fight. Just a few observations about the game and then you can see the pics and video below.

This game was won on the line and the Jags were outplayed on both the defensive and offensive line. They weren't able to get pressure on Manning, and if you don't do that, he will pic you apart. Manning threw one amazing pass at the end of the 3rd quarter that he literally threaded between 3 defenders. I know Brady has great numbers this year and has won multiple Super Bowls, but I would take Manning over him as my QB any day. The Jags are a decent team, but lack playmakers at QB and WR. I just don't see them doing much until they upgrade at those positions and maybe on the offensive line as well. Oh well, enjoy the pics and video below.







Here is the video of the Jags taking the field

It Was A Good Day...

Well I can surely say that today was a very good day. We started out this morning by going up to the church to do some door knocking for our upcoming gospel meeting. We handed out around 300 flyers in the neighborhood around the church. After that we went and picked up some lunch and went back to the apartment. We dropped off Mommy because she wasn't feeling too good and Will and I went to the park to play some ball. I bought him a t ball set along with the bowling set I bought last night (it was buy 1 get 1 free at Toys R Us last night). So we went out on an actual little league field and he hit the ball and ran around the bases every time he hit it. Needless to say he was worn out about an hour later. We came home and took a nap and watched the Miami-FSU game. I will admit, I didn't think my team would win, but they came out on top 37-29. That's what I call a good day. Complete with working for the Lord, spending time with my family, and cheering my team on to victory!

Bowling Night

So Tammy hasn't been feeling too good as of late because she is pregnant again. With Will, she really wasn't sick hardly at all. With this one, however, she has been feeling sick quite a bit. Some would say that's a sign it's a girl, but I don't know about that. Anyways, Will and I decided to have some fun and have "guys night" since Mommy didn't feel good. So, after going to the playground, we went to Toys R Us and picked up a little bowling set. Needless to say, he had fun knocking down the pins over and over again. I shot a little video footage of it...

Miami Game

So a few weeks ago (I know I'm a little behind in posting) I took Tammy down to the Orange Bowl in Miami for her first Miami home game. She had been to a Miami game before on the road, but never one down there. That was part of my motivation, the other part was because this is Miami's last year in the OB. We were buying seats once we got to the stadium, so I was willing to pay a good bit to get good seats so she would have a good experience. Well, my Grandfather, Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin all came with us. This is especially signifigant because my Grandfather is in a wheelchair and therefore has to sit in the handicap section. We ended up being able to all sit with him, which meant our tickets were cheaper than they would have been anywhere else in the stadium ($25 per). We were also on the front row of the closed in section of the end zone. Needless to say, we had great seats for this game. Not to mention Miami played and beat Texas A&M, who was ranked at the time. Here are some video clips I shot while there. Enjoy!


This is a video of Miami's Offensive Line working out before the game. See how close we were!


This is the team coming out on the field through the smoke.


This is Graig Cooper (RB) scoring the first TD of the game. That's my cousin Jonathan holding his hands up and then flashing the "U" at a camera man close by.

Jags Game and Old Friends

This past Thursday night, Tammy and I happened upon some tickets to the Jaguars final preseason game vs. the Redskins. We sort of got them 3rd hand. At any rate, it was our first Jags game and Tammy's first NFL game. I took some pictures while there, including a couple of Santana Moss, who played at Da U. Here's the funny part, we went with a couple of other friends from church, although they had tickets in a different part of the stadium. In the second half we went to sit with them because they had an almost entire row empty. I look up about 2 rows behind me and see a guy I first met at Leadership Camp in the early 90's, went to Faulkner with my freshman year, and haven't seen in several years. What a small world! His name is Dale Pratt and he is in the last photo.

Jaguars Practice

Last night, Tammy, Will, and I went to the Jacksonville Suns game with a group from church. It had come to my attention that the Jaguars would be holding their last practice open to the public at the same time as the game. So, we worked out a little compromise and went to the Jaguars practice for 30 or 45 minutes, and then over to the baseball game. I took some pics of the players as they came out to practice. Only the important ones of course. Well here they are, enjoy!



Byron Leftwich - QB #7



Ernest Wilford - WR #19




Marcus Stroud - DT #99



Matt Jones - WR #18



Maurice Jones-Drew - RB #32



Mike Shula - QB Coach



Rasheed Mathis - CB #27



Reggie Nelson - S #25



QB's Practicing - Guy in the blue is the head coach, Jack Del Rio. Guy on the left in the white top is Mike Shula, QB coach and former head coach of Univ. of Alabama