lots o' cooking

dinner for 120...

tuesday night, lindsay and i peeled 30 pounds of potatoes and got them sitting in water. when i got home on wednesday, i turned the stove on so they'd head on to a boil. the ladies did the vast majority of the cooking and packaging of the food though. you know the disposable aluminum pans? we had half size ones (9"x12" ?) and filled up 4 with green beans, 6 with mashed potatoes, and 11!! with mac & cheese. my goal was 4 large pans (8 half size) of each side item (since i was told that a full-size pan has 32 servings), so i hope this will be enough...

we've also got 3 huge bags of salad, a bunch of rolls, cookies, drinks and juice, ranch dressing, and we have someone picking up fried chicken from the walmart and kroger delis right beforehand. orders placed for 50 drumsticks (for the 50 kids) and 150 mixed pieces (for the 70 adults).

i'll let ya know how it all goes!

big boy bed

saturday morning, i took apart jake's

crib that had been turned into a daybed in order to turn it into a big boy bed. the bedrails didn't end up working so we'll have to look for a set from the manufacturer or something, but we went ahead and set up jake's full size bed! he loves it and one of the first things he did was invite us to lay down (since he lays in our bed so much ... ).

i was also able to weed & feed / winterizer at lowe's and spread it over the whole yard. lindsay went to sam's with a friend, jenna, from small group and bought a ton of food as we prepare to serve a meal for 120 at an organization in lexington that reaches out to young (usually single) mothers and gives them life skills, fellowship, and a Christian environment. it's going to be a lot of work, but we'll have a good crew to help!

did i mention

that we'll be taking a cruise in the bahamas in two weeks? yeah, can't wait.

it's for our 5th anniversary; a biggie. we decided we really needed to do something for ourselves to celebrate. it is also somewhat to celebrate the nearing end of seminary and whatever life changes (read: taking on a pastorate) that will ensue afterwards.

the itinerary: weekend class til 5pm on 11/3, then drive to knoxville where jake will stay with his maternal grandparents for a week. early sunday morning we fly from knox. to miami and spend the day there seeing the city a bit. monday morning, board boat and set sail. tuesday: nassau. wednesday: coco cay island, royal carribean's private island in the bahamas. thursday: key west. friday: return to miami, fly back to knoxville that afternoon. return to lexington tiredly sometime that weekend. friday, november 9th, is our actual anniversary day so we'll look for a little something special to do that day as well.

less than 2 weeks to go!

american history thru film

this weekend i had the second of those three weekends of class

and instead of sitting at home alone, lindsay and jake spent the weekend in knoxville. in the downtime after class and this afternoon, i was able to knock out four movies from the lists: jaws, easy rider, the french connection, and gone with the wind. jaws worked as a great, suspenseful horror style movie - much like alien. (on that note, i'm looking forward to watching halloween for the first time ever in the next couple of weeks). easy rider was ... interesting, but it functions incredibly well as a portrait of the late 1960's in america. the french connection was a decent suspenseful cop drama, but the best of the weekend was easily gone with the wind. i had been somewhat dreading the 2-disc, 4-hour epic, but it did not disappoint. besides giving a great picture of the south from 1861-1873, the story and acting were not trite and cliched as i had expected. i guess it's a top-5 movie for a reason! next up is the bridge on the river kwai.

movin' modules around

so i did some quick re-arranging and finally created a front page that (almost) doesn't scroll.

all my classes, links, movies, books, etc. are on the front page along with the 3 newest posts. i have most of the site already broken down into these modules so it was just a matter of re-ordering them. i also included the right sidebar on all the archives pages and the 'blog' page is less cluttered with the stuff that is only on the front page now. i also have my next project in mind, but it will take more work. thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

wardrobe change

with the flick of a few keystrokes, i gave the site a new look.

i uploaded the wallpaper i've had on my laptop for a while (originally obtained from tallskinnykiwi, an emerging church blogger, who either took the pic or got it from somewhere else.) and i moved it around using css to the spot on the image i wanted (right-click and 'view background image'). then i just picked a new background color to match. oh and i added some school books on the left and returned the smc b/w pic and the 'one' logo back to where they were.

wonderful weekend

a couple of our closest friends from our d.c. days, jason and missy, visited us ...

for the weekend. we gave them a brief whirlwind tour of kentucky, relaxed a bit, and played games with friends like old times. after picking them up late friday evening from the airport, we ended up staying up until 1am just chatting, catching up, and reminiscing. we went to bed with no alarms (besides jacob's internal need to wake up with the sunrise) and enjoyed the one morning of the week that doesn't require a clock.

we ventured over to the seminary and then had lunch at this great little mediterranean restaurant that i never take the opportunity to visit (mentioned here recently). with our bellies (more than) sufficiently filled, we spun around downtown lexington and were essentially done with what i wanted to show off of the lexington area so we decided to head out to the big horse track and see what the hubbub was all about. we watched the third race and made modest bets (all lost) on the fourth race. jake loved seeing all the beautiful horses but the sun was beating down so we left the thousands in attendance and headed on home. we took a rest and then grilled out and had some friends from our small group over to play games all evening. a great time was had by all as we dug talkin' tango and cranium out of the closet.

sunday morning was church followed by a delicious italian lunch at bella notte. for the afternoon, i wanted to show off more of the mountains of kentucky so we ventured out to natural bridge for what turned out to be a bit of a hike. jake was a trooper and the view was beautiful! after a bit of a drive (and some ice cream!) we arrived at home for a short nap before going out for dinner with a local pastor who is an old friend of missy's. great food and conversation to wrap up a wonderful weekend.

we are looking forward to attempting to visit the d.c. area in april or july of next year. we'll see what happens!

10-year high school reunion

we went to nashville this past weekend for a quick trip centered around my 10-year high school reunion.

it was blast! there was a family picnic at a park on saturday afternoon and a banquet/dance on saturday evening. it was great to see so many people that i hadn't seen in years. i've connected with (and spied on) some on myspace in the past year or so i wasn't clueless as to what's gone on with a lot of people since high school. i also studied up with the senior yearbook and was able to name almost every alumnus on sight. such a scott thing to do i suppose.

there was a bit of a hubbub in the last few weeks leading up to the reunion as some complained about the price and some (inevitably...) kvetched that they weren't coming to a reunion with people that just made fun of them in high-school. instead they set up an 'anti-reunion' at don pablo's across the street. that's fine, good for them. the funny thing was that half of them ended up coming over and crashing the real reunion (i thought they didn't want to be around us?). it was pretty late in the evening though so it's not like they got much of anything (besides music and dancing?) of cost.

actually, a funny point in the evening for me was when, around 10pm during the dancing (which, as a sidenote, stunk because they only played hip hop and none of the fun dance music you're used to hearing at wedding receptions. could've used some swing music or something ...), i had been standing at our table people watching for quite a while and decided to sit down. all of a sudden three alumnus crashed in (they hadn't been at the real or anti reunion prior to this) and made quite an entry. they were all the typical jerks (but not jocks) that made fun of everyone in high school so it was much like a group of villain wrestlers bursting in to interrupt a match. in fact, i think i could even hear jim ross screaming "good golly is that j.r., jay, and john's music??!?!" [ripped off bill simmons joke]