I'm guessing this site still works since I'm typing these words.  Hard to believe it has been around 4 months since I last posted anything here.  For the record, there have been at least TWO people who have approached me and asked me about this.  So, to those two people, thanks for caring.  Here's a blog post just for you!

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Between January and April, I worked with my father-in-law and rebuilt our privacy fence.  That's right.  It took over two months!  What I had originally thought would take a couple of weekends ended up taking 7 weekends!  Ouch!  Totally underestimated that, but so glad that it's done and it looks good, too.  It was good carpentry and construction eperience for a wannabe handy man such as myself.  I really enjoyed getting to spend quality time with Jan's dad as well as a few other friends that came over and pitched in from time to time.  Thanks to Gabrysch, Oliver, Kyle, Steve, and the lifeblood and architect, Tim!

Here are some pics showing some of the progress.  As you can tell, my backyard is pretty much shot now, which means an upcoming sod laying project.

I'm really pleased with the way it turned out and am proud of our work.  Looking back, I'm not exactly sure that I would do it again myself given that it turned out to be much harder than expected.  The hardest part turned out to be removing the existing posts.  They would usually snap off at the base or we would just run into some serious rock which the original concrete had settled into.  In the end though, we probably paid half of what the total would have been had I outsourced it. 

Here's to at least 10 years of having a sturdy dependable fence! 

 

The First Annual B-Dubs...

I've been wanting to host the first annual B-Dubs for a while.  After reading a friend's recent blog post that basically listed his various Top 5 lists for the year, I figured that now is the time.  So, without further adieu, here are the 2007 B-Dubs in order...no drum role needed...

Category:  Movies
1.  Bourne Ultimatum
2.  Blood Diamond
3.  God Grew Tired of Us
4.  Ratatouille
5.  Amazing Grace

Category:  TV Shows
1.  The Amazing Race
2.  Project Runway
3.  King of Queens
4.  The Office
5.  How I Met Your Mother

Category:  Beer
1.  Fireman's #4
2.  Pacifico
3.  Black and Tan (Guiness and Bass)
4.  Newcastle
5.  Modelo Espcial

Category:  Restaurant
1.  Moonshine (gourmet comfort food)
2.  Saccone's Pizza (the best Jersey style pizza not in Jersey)
3.  Magnolia
4.  Hula Hut
5.  Waterloo Ice House (25 cent wings and $2 draft Dos XX)

Category:  Music Artists
1.  Radiohead
2.  David Crowder Band
3.  Mute Math
4.  Neko Case
5.  (not enough data)

So, for next year, I am going to have to expand my musical interests so I can have more options when it comes to next year's musical category selections.  You can help by suggesting some new music for me to check out in the new year! 

Last night we went out to my parent's house in Wimberley to have dinner with some of my mom's family who was in town.  Ralph and Janet were there from Danville, Illinois where they run a very big family farm.  I had not seen them since I was a little kid, so it was a lot of fun to hear about life on the farm. 

A funny story involving Marley...

Ralph and Janet were telling us about their old dog Amos.  Amos was a big shaggy dog (think, "The Shaggy Dog") who looked and acted more like a human with a dog suit on.  Every day, he would join Ralph on the tractor, lean back in the passenger seat, and put his right paw up on the window sill as if he were just chillin'.  In the middle of the story, I heard something outside.  Since I had put Marley in the dog kennel with my parents' dog Cutter earlier that night, I got up to go and check on the noise.  I never went outside because I was too interested in Ralph's stories about their incredible dog Amos.  So, I sat down to listen to more of the stories.  A few minutes later we hear a noise inside the house and my mom says "the door opened!"  Before you knew it, in trots Marley greeting us as if he had not seen us in two weeks!  That dog had climbed over the chain link fence and somehow opened my parents' door to come and be reunited with us!  I should have been somewhat concerned and upset at him, but I was actually proud of him.  We've always known he had the talent to be a climber since the first week we had him and he would scale the doggy gate as a little tike.  Now, we have more evidence of this talent and more proof that he'd rather just be with people.  I'm thankful he didn't hurt himself and did not run away.  Hopefully he's not a bad influence on Cutter. 

Here's the Escape Artist himself

Tomorrow, November 6th, would have been my grandfather's 90th birthday if he had lived to be that old.  In a lot of ways it doesn't seem quite possible that it has been almost 4 years since he passed away.  I'm grateful that I have so many priceless memories of Papaw and hope that the Lord will allow me to hang on to them for many years to come. 

I will always miss Papaw, but will always be so thankful that I have so many good memories of him.  May his legacy continue to guide our family and bring us closer to one another through this bond.  May his faith in Christ continue to be passed from generation to generation in the Wilson family.  Happy Birthday, Papaw.

Genesis 17:7
"I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you."

The new sports journalisam TV show on ESPN, E:60, has done a great story on one of the Lost Boys of Sudan.  It is about a young man named Marachuria that made it to the US and discovered running as a sport.  Through running in college, he decided that he wanted to pursue qualifying for the US olympic team as a marathon runner.   To do this, he had to obtain his US citizenship.  Watch the video and enjoy another encouraging success story of one of the several thousand Lost Boys that were rescued and brought to the US.

Sunday night Jan and I travelled to San Antonio and met up with our good friends Dusty and Lori.  We went to see the David Crowder Band play at Floore's Country Store in Helotes.  I heard somewhere that the sold-out show was only the 2nd ever sell-out at Floore's, with the other one being Willie Nelson.  I'm not sure I believe this, but I do know that it was packed to the brim with 3500+ people there. 

The show was incredible as expected.  It was so nice to have them headlining instead of being the opening band.  We saw them open up for 3rd Day last year and was disappointed they only played for 45 minutes.  It was hard enduring two hours of 3rd Day after that too (no offense to the many 3rd Day fans out there.)  But, this show was a good hour and a half of Crowder goodies to feast on.  Every time I see them in concert, I am usually amazed at how much they had improved since that last time I'd seen them.  I think they've reached the level where I can't tell that they need to improve at all so that's credit to them. 

One of the highlights of the night has to be when they played "...neverending..." with Dave sporting a Guitar Hero guitar.  It wasn't just for looks though.  He actually played real chords with it that went right along with the song!  Incredible!  I think it was B Whack that took the time to program it and unlock it for live sound.  I'm not sure how he did it but my hat's off to him. 

The new cd Remedy is really good and I highly recommend it to everyone.  Check it out here! or buy it at iTunes, Best Buy, or wherever music is sold.  I already have a couple of Crowder favorites on this album - "For the Glory of It All" and "Never Let Go."  And, Ted Nugent (no lie) plays on one of the songs.  That's more random than Abra Moore playing on All I Can Say.

Someone asked about the camping experience from my (Jan’s) perspective.  In all honestly, this was not hard at all.  We borrowed a really great tent that endured ALL of the rain beautifully (as opposed to a few other tents that leaked).  We both slept pretty well thanks to some Ambien, ear plugs, good sleeping bags and thermarests.  The roosters started crowing after 3 in the morning but I usually didn’t hear them until after 5 which is when I would wake up anyway.  We averaged 6 hours of sleep each night which wasn’t too bad.  We were not doing a lot of physical activity due to the rain so we were not necessarily physically exhausted at the end of each day.  We estimate that it rained about 70% of time.   Most of that time, we were either in the church doing CHE training or hanging out under a tree or some other place of shelter.  The temperature was pretty cool while we were there.  I usually had a few layers of clothes on when I was out and about and then at night my sleeping bag was perfect for the weather conditions.  There was no running water or electricity.  They did have a light bulb which was run off a car battery in the room we ate in but otherwise, we all wore our headlamps.  Because it was raining so much, our team didn’t have to hike down to the creek to obtain water.  One of the buildings our church constructed last year had a metal roof and a gutter to collect rain water.  So, we used the rain water and ran it through a filter.  The water tasted like pool water so many of us would add Propel or Crystal Light single shots to flavor the water.   

As you know with camping, bathing isn’t always an option.  Wet wipes were our friend!  We did have a camping shower which by the 4 ^th day I had some people help me set-up so I could take a shower.  I didn’t plan on taking a shower the whole week.  I figured I would wash my hair on day 4 and that would hold me over for the rest of the week.  So, on day 4, a few of the girls on the team asked for some warm water from the Didinga girls who did all our cooking that week (we brought in our own food and paid them to cook it by the way).  Eunice, the pastor’s wife, heard that we wanted some warm water to wash our hair.  She came over and actually had us sit in a chair and lean back and SHE washed our hair for us!  I figured I’d have Brandon or another girl on my team help pour water on my head while I tried to wash my own hair.  I couldn’t believe she took time away from whatever she was doing to wash some of our hair!  Eunice was pretty funny joking that it was her salon.  Anyway, it felt so good having clean hair that after that I knew wanted to take a shower.  I didn’t care what kind of ordeal it was to set up the camp shower.  So, I admit it, I was the first to take a shower but several others went after me.   If I go again, and I hope I do, I will definitely make a point to use that camp shower more often because it really wasn't that difficult to set-up and use.

I had clean clothes for every day with the exception of my pants.  Those muddy things got re-worn but luckily the material was such that they didn't seem too dirty.  Probably could have washed them but since it kept raining there was no way anything would ever get dry.  With the exception of my pants, I left my clothes there.  After seeing so many people and kids in dirty and torn clothes there was no question as to whether I should keep my t-shirts or leave them.  I also left a pair of crocs since so many people I saw didn’t have shoes.  Those who did have shoes wore plastic type sandals which appear to be great for the muddy conditions because they are easy to clean and are durable.