Propose-i-versary

Saturday was our Propose-i-versary. That's our made up word to celebrate the day I asked Amy to marry me (she said yes!). It also allows us to kind of celebrate Valentine's Day early and miss the insane rush to restaurants and their ilk three days later.

This year we left the girls with Amy's mom (thanks Mom!) and went to Demiceli's, an Italian restaurant in Anaheim. Armed with a coupon and a month's worth of sleep deprivation, we ate good Italian food, talked and enjoyed each other's presence. Then, we went to Stoddard park and walked around together. We avoided getting hit by the baseballs some guys were hitting and watched a bunch of little kids viciously attack a pinata. It was great!

I also shared the song "Dancing In the Minefields" by Andrew Peterson. I shared the video on facebook and said

"Six years ago yesterday, Amy Godwin Gilmore said 'yes!' This video doesn't get the specifics right, but it gets to the heart of our marriage. Yeah, 'I'll walk with you in the shadow lands.'"

I hope you also enjoy it!

2011 Book List

Below is my 2011 reading list. The titles in bold were my favorites. Feel free to comment or ask questions.

Reading List 2011
Goal: 60 books

1. Decision Points by George W. Bush
2. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
3. Pursuit of Honor by Vince Flynn
4. Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
5. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
6. Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament by John Walton
7. The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God by D.A. Carson
8. Church Planting is for Wimps by Mike McKinley
9. American Assassin by Vince Flynn
10 Cyndere’s Midnight by Jeffrey Overstreet
11. Raven’s Ladder by Jeffrey Overstreet
12. The Unexpected Journey by Thom Rainer
13. Upside Down by Stacy Rinehart
14. Evangelism: A Biblical Approach by G. Michael Cocoris
15. The Ale Boy’s Feast by Jeffrey Overstreet
16. Becoming a Contagious Christian by Bill Hybels
17. Business As Usual in the Missions Enterprise? by Tom Steffen
18. The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
19. The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
20. Ministering Cross-Culturally by Sherwood Lingenfelter
21. Perspectives on the World Christian Movement ed. by Ralph Winter and Steven Hawthorne
22. The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by H.W. Brands
23. John MacArthur: Servant of the Word and Flock by Iain Murray
24. Serving with Eyes Wide Open by David Livermore
25. Golf’s Sacred Journey by David L. Cook
26. The Searchers by Alan LeMay
27. Slave by John MacArthur
28. Erasing Hell by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle
29. The Purity Principle by Randy Alcorn
30. Biblical Theology in the Life of the Church by Michael Lawrence
31. Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy
32. I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris
33. The Next Story by Tim Challies
34. Teach as Jesus Taught by Roy Zuck
35. A God-Sized Vision by Collin Hansen and John Woodbridge
36. Don’t Call It a Comeback ed. by Kevin DeYoung
37. The Mission of the Church by Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert
38. Sacred Parenting by Gary Thomas
39. Boy Meets Girl by Joshua Harris
40. Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism
41. The Cross of Christ by John Stott
42. Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? by C. John Collins


Fiction: 13
Non-fiction: 29

Pictures!

This is me and my beautiful wife at some friends' recent wedding. Click here and here and here and here to see many more, including a lot of pictures of the little person you really want to see!

New Pictures

Check out Web Album 2 on the sidebar to see updated pictures from Amy's dad's and wife Belen's California visit!

How About Some Peas?

Alice's face in this video is priceless.



Also, check out new pictures in "Web Album 2" on the right.

Daddy-Daughter Day Dos

Try saying that 10 times fast!

Today was my second Monday watching Alice. Pan-Pacific Plumbing has been very gracious in providing a nanny three days a week in the same building that Amy works in. Those days are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Fridays are days where various people in our church watch Alice and Mondays are all mine!

Alice hadn't eaten from a bottle for five days, so I was a little scared she wouldn't drink from the bottle and just cry all day. She wasn't as voracious as she was two weeks ago during our first Daddy-Daughter Day, but she did pretty well nonetheless. I had her at my office at church for about three hours and she did just as well there as at home.

Per my grandmother's request, I've uploaded a bunch of pictures to our web albums, which you can access here. I'll also be posting some of the many videos that we've taken recently. Enjoy!

Alice Mary Gilmore

She's here! At 8:08am, Alice Mary Gilmore was born. She weighed 8' 14" and was 20.5 inches long. She's with mommy now and trying to get adjusted to this world of air and lights!

We're very happy and so is Grandma Godwin!

Praise be to God for his unfailing love, faithfulness, and goodness.

Psalm 127:3-5 - Behold, children are a gift of the LORD,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one's youth.
How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
They will not be ashamed
When they speak with their enemies in the gate.

Morning Update

Amy decided to get an epidural last night and received around midnight. She's now (7:28am) been pushing for an hour!

Facebook . . . or not!

For some reason I can't get Facebook in the hospital. I imagine some bored employees were caught messing around on Facebook, so it's probably blocked. Oh well.

Hiccups

We're listening to the baby's hiccups on the heartbeat monitor right now!

Quote of the Day

"Doo doo doo doo . . . I'm bored." - Amy Gilmore

Down from the Mountain

Amy and I spent this past weekend with our church college/career group at a cabin in Big Bear Lake. Most of us went up Friday afternoon and the majority of the group came back yesterday afternoon. Amy and I came back Sunday evening.

It was a good time of fellowship, devotion, movie-watching, game-playing, laughter, some sleep, good walks in the cold and snow, lots of food and getting to know people.

God was gracious in allowing all our vehicles to get down safely and He gave us some good discussion times as well as a great opportunity to attend First Baptist Church of Big Bear. We heard an excellent sermon on the breastplate of righteousness, sung God's praises with his people and even saw one of Amy's college friends!

I love my job!

The Ankle

It's been a eight days, so I figure I'd post quickly about my ankle. Yep, that's it over there. Well, that's it last Monday, June 1, a couple hours after I sprained it playing basketball. Here's how it happened:

On Mondays and Thursdays this summer, we have early morning basketball gatherings in our gym at Village Bible Church starting at 6:30am. As we were playing last Monday, I got a rebound underneath the basket. Because I was almost directly underneath the hoop, I took a dribble out and jumped up for a shot.

I made the shot, but I hardly noticed that because when I landed my left ankle rolled (inversion is the technical term. You learn a lot from injuries!) and I and at least one other person heard a loud POP!

As you can imagine, I immediately fell to the ground, writhing in pain and trying not scream, cry or whimper. About a minute later two guys helped me up and carried/dragged me to the pew that runs along the side of the gym wall. I laid down and elevated the ankle. Someone got a baggy of ice from the kitchen and I began to ice it. The teams began to play again and about an hour later, I limped very slowly to the car after locking everything up.

The picture above is a few minutes after I took my shoe off, allowing the ankle to swell up.

Today my ankle is much smaller but still swollen. I went to the doctor a week ago today and the X-rays came back negative so I have still never broken a bone in my body, praise the Lord! However, several people have told me that sometimes a severe sprain like this takes longer to heal because of all the "soft tissue" damage. We'll see. The bruising that began on Tuesday and especially Wednesday is still around. I guess the blood find natural "gutters" in the body and so all around the base of my foot there is a purple "stain." It has even spread to my three smallest toes, coloring them a nice shade of purple. I have been icing and elevating and using a nifty boot from a friend at church who broke the growth plate in his ankle last year. The boot has been very helpful, as it allows me to get as close to fully functional as possible.

We leave tomorrow for New England, so we'll see how my ankle does at 30,000 feet. I also plan on bringing the Ace bandage and an ankle brace for the trip. Someone mentioned that Satan may be trying to discourage me from all the youth activities we have planned for the summer. Because I believe that God is sovereign over even Satan, I have looked at this as an opportunity to be reminded of my frailty and vanity. It is humbling to hobble around on crutches. It requires patience to take much longer to get places and to do even the easiest things. Whatever the reason, to God be the glory.

Click on the huge ankle above to see some updated pictures!

Just One Of Those Days

[Disclaimer: To most who know me, this post will not shock anyone. However, in order to keep up the drama, I will explain things as though they are completely unbelievable!]

Yesterday was just a weird day, the kind you have every once in a while and hope you don't have another like it for a long time.

It started out normally. I woke up, read my Bible and prayed. Then, I got my running clothes on went jogging. Ate breakfast, showered and got dressed. I found my to-do list for the day that I had crafted the night before and reviewed all 12 things to make sure I knew what I needed to do first.

One of those errands involved stopping in at church. On Mondays, our church is locked up and usually no one's there. The same was true yesterday, so I hopped the locked gate blocking people from parking in our lot. Then I unlocked the outer gate that protects the entrance to the gym, the sanctuary and the offices. I did what I needed to do inside and locked everything up inside. As I went to close the outer gate, I walked through and yanked on the gate handle . . . which promptly came off in my hand!

"Fantastic," I thought. I spent the next five or six minutes trying to fix the thing, but given my obvious mechanical prowess (wink, wink for the uninformed), that failed. So I called Pastor Ron and asked him what to do. He told me to put the handle in his dad's box (his dad is the maintenance guy) and it would get dealt with today. So I did and then I left to do some more errands.

Finishing those, I headed home to do the dishes, laundry and the massive amount of homework that I had/have. Now, usually when I'm in my car, I have my IPod plugged into the car's stereo system to listen to some of the 14 days of songs, Bible or sermons that I have on there. Because our car was broken into in October 2007, I now take the radio/CD/IPod faceplate out every time I park the car. Since I had my arms full of groceries and books, I figured I'd come back down and do that after I'd dropped things off in the apartment.

When I got to our door, I put my stuff down on our little balcony table so I could get the keys out of my pocket. Only the keys weren't there. I went back down to the car knowing what I was going to see.

"Yep, there's my keys in the ignition."

I hadn't left the engine running, but the key was turned so that the radio/CD/IPod could still play. And yes, the doors were all locked. I thought about calling AAA to come open it, but I decided to head back up to the apartment. Once there, I figured I could get the screen off of our bedroom window and climb in there. The only problem with that is that we live on the second story and our bedroom window opens to about a twelve foot drop to the ground. Of course, that just made it all the more fun to try to break into my own apartment!

I climbed over the railing, easily detached the screen, opened the window all the way, awkwardly shoved the vertical blinds out of the way, got a good toe hold and jumped onto the sill and then jumped over our nightstand into our bedroom. Well, at least now I had the apartment opened. I decided to forego AAA and just call Amy. It was almost lunch time so it worked out great that she could come home immediately. After I hung up with Amy I opened one of our windows that opens. However, I opened it too high and it came crashing down! A piece of plastic flew off from the side of the window. It was a piece of the larger contraption that involves a metal cable and and spring to keep the window at whatever height we want it at.

Of course, now I had broken the window dealie-thingie. So I called the office and asked if they could send a maintenance man to fix the window. They said they would but I was curious and using a pair of pliers I rigged it so that the window would still work.

Amy came home, unlocked the car and then we got to spend lunch together. After that, my day went fairly normal, as I did laundry, dishes and a lot of reading and Greek work.

Wow, what a crazy day.

Two Years, Paintball and Work Boots

Yesterday marked the second anniversary of our marriage. Because of the kindness of my Uncle Glenn and Aunt Dorothy, we were able to spend the weekend at their apartment in El Cajon, near San Diego. We got lots of rest, went to Coronado Island and enjoyed the beach. It was a very relaxing and needed time of being together. We are both so grateful to God for his provision for us over the past two years. We know that is only by his abundant grace that we are more in love now than we've ever been.

Several weeks ago, several of the men of Village Bible Church drove down to Camp Pendleton to engage in some very serious work: Paintball. Actually, it was probably one of the most fun days I've ever had. I'd never been paintballing before and I'd heard many horror stories about the pain and the soreness and the welts. Well, those stories were true, but those things were all worth it. The place we played at was pretty incredible. I believe there were at least eight different courses with all kinds of buildings, ramparts, trees, nets, bushes, trucks, tanks and other objects to make for some really fun and tactical matches.

If you want to know more, ask me sometime, but here are a few pictures that show the aftermath.
Monday was my first day of work at Pan-Pacific Plumbing. The morning commute was nice as Amy and I drove to work together. I was put to work outside doing "pre-fab," a term I only heard from Amy a day later. Basically, I helped out with the guys who were cutting, fitting and organizing pipe to go to the various jobs that PPP has going right now. It was somewhat interesting and I got to learn a lot about it pretty quickly. However, my work boots wreaked havoc on my feet. I hadn't really worn them too much since my construction job in Palmdale right after graduation from TMC. They were pretty cheap work boots from K-mart and the soles are just shot. So, my feet are still paying for it, and sometimes it's difficult to watch. That's it for now. I will post some pictures from my friend Travis' wedding sometime soon.

What's Going On?

Well, a lot has been going on down here in our little corner of Orange County. Here's a peek into all of it.

• On the morning of Thursday, April 3, Amy and I headed out for a four-day camping trip to the Grand Canyon in Arizona (for those of you that were wondering). We rented a Saturn Aura from Avis for $1.07! We decided to use some of our credit card points to get $200 in gift certificates to Avis. So we crammed all our stuff into the sizable back seat and enormous trunk and started out on a 500-mile trip around 10:30am. Here are all the freeways/highways that we ended up taking: 22, 57, 60, 15, 40 and 64! We arrived at Mather Campground at the Grand Canyon just as the last light of day was disappearing. We caught a brief, darkened glimpse of the canyon as we drove to the campsight. One first for me was setting up camp by the headlights of the car. That was fun! Oh yeah, it was freezing while we were there, literally! Well, to make a long story short, we had a great time sleeping, cooking, eating, hiking, taking pictures, making and enjoying fires and having the great privilege of acknowledging our God for his creation of such a wonderful place. We're both so glad we went and Amy actually added a state to her list of states visited!

• On April 12, we drove to Studio City for the wedding of a classmate, Micah Panama. Micah and I were classmates from first grade until we graduated from Santa Clarita Christian School. The ceremony was held in a beautiful Presbyterian church and the reception was at a very nice restaurant in Hollywood, with a view of the Hollywood sign from the street (which we forgot to take a picture of!). At the reception, I was able to see several high school friends that I hadn't seen for some time, and Amy got to finally meet them.

• This past Friday we drove up to Santa Clarita right after school got out and beat most of the traffic to attend my lifelong friend Matt Dixon's wedding. Matt and Sarah had a beautiful wedding at the Hyatt in Valencia, and again, we were able to see many friends.

• After congratulating the couple, the six of us (my family and Amy and I) piled in my parents' van and drove up to Santa Maria for the 22nd Annual Easter Egg Hunt at Grandma's! Amy and I stayed at Aunt Kathy's and Uncle Mel's due to the catlessness of that grand establishment. Saturday morning meant a typical big Parker breakfast and the usual Easter Egg Hunt festivities at Grandma's. I'm proud to say that I finally won an Easter Egg Hunt by finding all five of my eggs first! I don't think that's happened in a decade, at least. Unfortunately, Alex and Tyler and Chris were unable to make the trip and my cousin and THE best man, Mike, was on duty, protecting Santa Maria from various and sundry criminals. We made the best of it, had a good time talking and laughing and eating and watching the Spurs beat the Suns in double overtime. The ladies went shopping and soon after returning, we again piled in the van and headed to Santa Clarita. After a quick pizza dinner, Amy and I headed for home.

• Amy continues to enjoy her job as Accounting Assistant at Pan-Pacific Plumbing and is learning more and more about the different projects and duties it requires. She has also enjoyed having a fellow member of Village Bible Church and good friend, Emily, join the ranks at Pan-Pacific.

• We are in the process of looking for another car, so that Amy will have her first car and so transportation to and from Talbot will be easier on us this summer and in the fall. Lord-willing, we'd like to buy a used Toyota Camry in the next two months or so.

For pictures from the past several months and including the Grand Canyon and the weddings, you can click here to see the web albums that we've recently added. Hopefully, some of the videos will be there too, including the one of me making scrambled eggs at our campsite!

It's been busy and will continue that way, as we have several more weddings this summer. It's exciting to see God-honoring couples commit to each other for life.

Soli deo Gloria

The Found Ark?

Here's an interesting article at Time.com. Seems a bit of a stretch, but has lots of info I've never heard of before.

And here's a crazy video of a mass prank pulled at Grand Central Station.

Complaints for Christmas

Yes, you read that right. All I've got for Christmas is complaining. However, in this case, I think the complaining is warranted. This is only the second post in December 2007.

We're in Great Barrington, Massachusetts right now for Christmas. In fact, it's 8:21am as I type this. The first clock I saw this morning said 6:13am. Amy's little brother Dan woke everyone up to come downstairs to the tree to open stockings and presents. Yes, it was too early. We got many presents and enjoyed watching everyone open theirs.

Oh, and it was my first white Christmas! It hasn't snowed in three days, but the snow hasn't all melted yet. It's beautifully cold outside and we have five more full days to spend in Great Barrington. One day we'll spend partially in Connecticut at Amy's grandpa's house (we call him Pop-pop). We're hoping to maybe spend some time in Boston, since that didn't work out while we were with Amy's dad in southern New Hampshire.

Right now, Amy and Lisa are asleep on the couch; Mike and Raphaelle are asleep upstairs. Dan is trying to download ITunes and figure out his new IPod nano. John is asleep and I have no idea where Amy's mom is. That's all for now, and I will post again before we leave for home.

Back . . . due to popular demand! (Or because of two comments)

All right already! I'll attempt to post a brief update today.

Wanting to appease the Santa Maria contingent of our family - and the fact that it's one of my favorite places in California - Amy and I left Liberty Christian School at 3:33pm in an attempt to beat the traffic and get to Santa Maria before it got too late. Amy drove the whole way, and although we got stuck in the usual persnickety jam prior to and on the Sepulveda Pass, we made quite good time, arriving at the Parkers' around 8:00pm. We had a good time eating with the family and catching up with Grandma, Aunt Tracy, Uncle Mel, Aunt Kathy, Jess, and the Best Man, Mike.

The next day we went to the Harvest Festival in good ol' Arroyo Grande. Although nowhere near as good as the annual Strawberry Festival, it was still a fun atmosphere. Mike had gotten there earlier in the morning to work crowd control as part of a volunteer event for the Santa Maria Police Academy. Amy and I got some pretty good (overpriced) kettle korn and looked at a few of the booths selling the normal Central Coast fare. There was even a Ron Paul for President booth. Things wrapped up pretty quickly, and the wonderful matriarch of the Aris family treated us to Marie Callender's in Pismo Beach. Incidentally, that was where Amy and I ate on our honeymoon!

Mike and I drove back to Santa Maria, watched some of the Cal-Oregon game, read and then went golfing at Sunset Ridge. It was windy, some sprinklers were on and our golf games (as usual) were at top performance. I believe we only lost about eight or nine balls to the "lakes." It was good time for best friends to catch up and talk about life. For the first time in recent memory, no one had to climb over the barbed wire fence to retrieve a slightly mis-hit ball.

While we were golfing, Amy and the womenfolk enjoyed their time at an apple farm or two. Some apple cider was purchased, among other things.

That night, Uncle Mel barbecued ribs, and of course, dinner was amazing. We had another good night of talking and hanging out and watching TV.

Sunday morning we got up and drove to Grandma's for waffles and turkey bacon before heading over to Grace Baptist Church for the morning worship service. There was good music and a good sermon on Sabbath rest. Interestingly, the youth pastor, Pastor James Barr, was about to practice his preaching by taking two months off for some rest and for some observation of other local youth ministry departments. We didn't stay for Sunday School and headed back to Pleasant Place (the street the Parkers live on).

And then we watched most of the Raider game. It was a beautiful thing to watch, because Raider victories have been few and far between in the last four seasons. After that, we headed home, and made in just a little over four hours!

This last weekend was a busy one as well. Amy left on Friday afternoon with more than twenty other ladies for Idyllwild in the mountains (not sure which range) for the annual women's retreat. They had a great time, and Amy especially enjoyed the colder weather (lower 40s, upper 30s!).

While those shenanigans were taking place, I headed up to Santa Clarita after the Liberty Christian Homecoming football game (Score? 54-0. Yeah, they lost.) Anyway, the 405 was great and I got to Brian, Nick and Travis' apartment around 11:15pm. I stayed up and talked with Brian and Travis until about 1:15am. I slept in Travis' sleeping bag on the couch and slept hard until about 8:30am. On Saturday, we played video games, watched TV and had brunch at IHOP. Then, I visited my college RD, Siona Savini and just talked for about two hours in his renovated and spacious apartment. After that, I headed over to 18726 Wellhaven St. to see my dad and Trevor. My mom was at Hume Lake for a ladies' retreat, and Scott was in Ontario, CA, for TMC's Outreach Week. Trev, Dad and I ate at Baja Fresh and then went to the SCCS football game. I got to talk with a bunch of people and had a great time. I left near the end of the game and got back to Westminster around 11:15pm.

Amy got back on Sunday at about 4:15 (I think) and we went to Costco and Stater Bros. before going home and fixing up the apartment. We also put up a wall cabinet above the toilet that looks real nice and adds a little bit of storage.

And now it's a new week and God is still on his throne, so let everything that has breath praise the Lord! (Psalm 150:6)

Magic Mountain

Saturday was my first trip to Magic Mountain. I know I went to college for four years just down the street from said theme park, but I was also a poor college student. So, it was my first time and it was so much fun! We met at church at 7 am and organized the caravan for the trip, leaving around 8:00. After the nearly 3 hour car ride up there, making our way through 2 major construction SIG alerts on the 5 freeway, we arrived at Magic Mountain at 10:45. I think we finally got in the park around 11:15. Despite my dislike of rush hour traffic, I was thankful for the nap on the way up! Once we arrived, bought tickets and organized groups, my group headed over to Revolution (at least I think that's the name of it). We waited in line for a while in the pouring rain and then the ride was shut down when we were about 25 feet from the front of the line. Bummer. We waited for a little while, thinking it'd be better to stay more dry and wait for the ride to re-open so we could be first... especially because most of the other rides were closed. Then we finally left for The Riddler's Revenge and the rain cleared up! The best part about standing in that line was finding a soggy $20 bill on the ground :-D After that was lunch and more rides. We went on Goldrusher, Scream, Colossus (I didn't go on this one), Goliath, Revolution, X.... and maybe some more... I really don't remember since the day was pretty crazy. But it was fun! And I think X is pretty much the most amazing roller coaster I've ever been on :-D Check out the pictures from our rainy day at Magic Mountain, if you feel so inclined, and have a lovely Tuesday!