Insperational Video

I receive a lot of forwarded e-mails from people, most of them are funny or somewhat entertaining. This is a video that I received in a forward that I thought was very heartwarming. I thought I would post it on my blog for everyone. If you would like this in e-mail format so you can forward it on, just let me know.

The Joys of Hockey

It was my privilege to take our friends the Woodfords to their very first hockey game. Apparently the Hurricanes appreciate me being a fan so much that they sent me my very own Christmas card and some free tickets to a game against the Atlanta Thrashers.

This is the front of the card:

But back to the game... They had a lot of fun. Here is a picture of them at the game:

They ended up losing in overtime, but we all had a lot of fun.

Logan's Christmas

Although Michelle and I didn't get very many Christmas presents, our unborn son Logan cleaned up!

Michelle's brother Mat was kind enough to give us a more generous present. It came in a big box. When we opened that box, there was another box. I thought that this would be some sort of practical joke. It turned out not to be.

When we opened the second box we found lots of pieces. When we put the puzzle together it created this:

Logan also received this wonderful blanket from Aunt Julie.

Overall I think Logan scored.

Just a Little from Santa

Because of the money that we spent on our Secret Santa family, Santa was not left with much for us. So we had a little Christmas, but it was full of joy and I wouldn't have it any other way.

This is Austin's attempt at staying awake, while watching a movie and waiting for Santa.

Then it was Christmas Day and time for presents. Austin was so excited. He got three new games (which he asked to play everyday since).

Michelle and I love this picture. Austin got a train whistle from Nana. Michelle asked him to hold it up so she could see it and get a picture of him with it. That was the result she got.

All in all Christmas was wonderful.

Secret Santa

We truly wanted to get into the Christmas spirit this year and so we talked to our bishop and found out that one of my home teaching families was not going to have any gifts this year due to some financial problems. Well we decided that we couldn't let that happen so we offered to buy them presents without them knowing. So the bishop acquired a list from them and passed it on to us. We then went shopping.

This is a picture of the mound of presents. Then we had to wrap them.

But delivering them was the best part. We drove to their house and quietly delivered the presents outside their door. Then I pounded on the door to get their attention and ran away, hoping that I would not get caught. I didn't, but I did find out later that at the very moment I pounded on the door, the family was watching a movie and it was during the most intense part. The entire family jumped. I felt a little bad, put I thought it was very funny. All in all I think we truly felt the Christmas spirit this year by giving what little we had to a family that had less.

Father and Son Camping

Our stake has two Father and Son Camp outs a year. One in April and the other in the beginning of November. Well the camp out was scheduled for the 16th and 17th of November. So Austin and I, after talking about it, decided that we wanted to go camping. Well we don't have a tent. So Austin and I decided that we needed to go down to Bass Pro Shop and get a tent. I attended a window demonstration a few months ago and I received a $50 gift certificate to Bass Pro. Se we headed down there and found the perfect tent. A few days later I got a call from the Branch President. He told me that the camp out had been cancelled due restriction to open flames. See we are in the middle of a drought down here and the campground that we were going to go to is so dry that the Fire Marshall told the Stake President that we can't even light a coleman stove. So they called it off. Austin was very sad. So we decided to have a father and soon camp out anyway.

We set up the tent in the middle of the Living Room.

That is where we slept. He had hot dogs for dinner. We played and had fun friday night and saturday while Michelle and Nana went to Raleigh. They went to the temple and to Trish Elder's reception. We each had a great weekend.

Transformers...More Than Meets The Eye!

When I was a little boy I loved the Transformers cartoon. When the latest movie came out I was so excited. I took the whole family, including Austin. He loved it. Since then my love for the Transformers has been renewed, and Austin latched on to his new obsession.

Here he is in his Halloween Costume. I was so glad that we found this Optimus Prime costume.

We also when out and got all the toys from the characters in the movie. I keep them up on a shelf so that Austin won't take them without asking and lose some of the pieces. Every day when I get home he goes over to the shelf points up at them and says "Daddy, can we play with the new Transformers now?"

Here they all are sitting on the table.

I enjoy being able to share one of the things that I enjoyed as a child with my son (soon to be sons!).