Tea & A Bagel

Breakfast yesterday and today. Yum. Yesterday I sat sipping my tea and eating my bagel during a long lull in phone calls. It was wonderful. As I did, I thanked God for tea and bagels. It seems a silly thing, but I really enjoyed the quiet moment with my tea and bagel. God is such a gracious God!

Also yesterday I received a phone call (I'll keep it anonymous just in case) about a family with a 3 year old daughter who just passed away after complications with heart surgery. I was asked to pray for this family and have done so several times since I heard. In the conversation I heard of questions that the family was asking: "Why would God let this happen? Is God punishing me? How can anything good come from this?" And I'm sure many more. I too started wondering these questions and my pondering continued on my ride home in rush hour. I tried to put myself in their shoes. The parents only had this one daughter and she was their pride and joy. Sure, she was a bit weak, but they had faith that the Lord would heal her. But He didn't. Instead, He brought the little girl home to be with Him.

I don't envy the difficult time they are facing and I will continue to pray for this family. Still, I find myself wondering how I would handle such a turn of events if God brought them my way. Would I be like Job, who lost all of his children and everything he owned and even his own health; yet "through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God" (Job 1:22). I can't even pretend to imagine what sort of feelings he felt. How alone? How desperate? How lost? If I were in his shoes, would I still say God is good? Would I still believe He is sovereign? Would I remember that He never gives me more than I can handle?

I will continue to pray for this family that God will comfort them and strengthen their faith and trust in Him. I will pray that when God allows tragedy in my life (because it's only a matter of time), I will be like Job and "fall to the ground and worship" saying "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:20-21).

Inn-N-Out and Family Rejection

Wow, this throws new light on a common misconception about the nativity. I did not know this. Perhaps I should learn Greek!

By the way, you need to stop reading this and go do something else, like exercising or something!

Paul's Sarcophagus, or Digging Up Important Dead Guys

So archaeologists think they may have found the Apostle Paul's sarcophagus. Read that story here. Think it doesn't sound plausible? Read one person's thoughts on how likely it is that this could be true.

This has the possibility of being a very important find. On the other hand, it carries with it the very likely possibility of unnecessarily buoying or crushing people's faith. Many people put too much stock in "proving" Scripture by finding artifacts. Examples are Noah's Ark, the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, etc. Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't search for things pertaining to ancient history because they teach us so much. I just know that there is a fine line between admiration and veneration.

Oh, and who knows when they'll actually open the sarcophagus anyway.

1-2

That's right, we won one game over the weekend, and it was to avoid being the last-place team in the tournament. We got destroyed in our first game by the host team, Brethren Christian. I swear they 16 year olds that were held back several times. On Saturday morning we played Rio Hondo Prep and we played really well in the first half, specifically in the first half of the first half. We were only down by two and we were getting lots of steals and many easy layups. However, the other team made the necessary adjustments (i.e., they stopped throwing the ball to us every time down the court) and our guys couldn't run the offense (again). So we ended up losing 45-33. Our point guard scored 24 of those 33 points, so that tells you about our balance on offense. In the last place game in the early afternoon we played a team that was smaller than us on average and although we didn't execute very well, we led 19-9 at halftime. However, both teams played sloppy and out of control in the second half, and it seemed that no one could shoot anymore. It came down to last second free throws and ball control and we hung on to win 27-26. That's right, we only scored eight points in the whole second half.

So there are plenty of things to work on in practice. Yesterday I ran them a lot because I don't feel like we were in good enough shape. Practices are outside and when the wind picks up, shots can go wild, especially when we shoot on the hoop with the crooked rims. I am learning much more than the kids are, because this is the first time I've ever done this. I am trying to instill character-building into my basketball teaching because I don't just want them to learn to play basketball well. I want to teach them to live well.

Oh, and no, I'm not the next John Wooden.

I'm Nervous

I was never one of those people that got really nervous before games when I played in high school. But now that I'm on the coaching side I'm nervous, I'm hyper, I'm hopeful, I'm . . . you get the point. I've been debating all day how to act. Do I act all excited or do I convey a calm, collected attitude? We'll see. Here goes nothing (or everything!).

Basketball Season

I began my coaching career last week. I'm the only coach of the junior high boys. Tryouts were supposed to be held on Monday and Tuesday. However, I only had 13 guys show up, so I decided to just begin practicing. It's been a welcome back for me of sorts, because when I was in junior high, my team practiced outside too. I have quite a bit of talent, and I'll probably have to rely on that this Friday and Saturday at our first games. We are in a tournament with several bigger schools. We play at 5 pm on Friday, and then two more games Saturday morning/afternoon.

Last Wednesday was a frustrating day because the junior high flag football coaches decided to have a pizza party right after school gets out, which is 2:20pm. They were celebrating their football championship that they won before Thanksgiving. But they didn't tell anyone until the day of, meaning I had only four of my 13 guys for practice. To make matters worse, one of the players injured himself and had to sit out the rest of practice. The players did show up to the last half-hour of practice, but they were in a goofy "we-just-ate-pizza-and-played-arcade-games" kind of mood.

Thursday was much, much better because we actually had the gym due to the varsity teams being gone to a tournament in Las Vegas.

Friday was my coaching debut . . . for two teams that I don't coach! I had to coach the JV boys and girls because the varsity teams (along with the JV coaches) were in Las Vegas at a tournament. So, after learning the names of several of the girls, I proceeded to coach them to a miserable game in which the girls could never come back from a 12-to-14 point lead. The boys game followed and they actually played pretty well and we were leading at halftime. However, several players got in foul trouble and our top player fouled out in the third quarter. Then, in the fourth, things fell apart. We got outscored 26-1 in the final quarter. That's right, 26-1! I had only brand new players to work with, so we ended up losing.

So, I'm 0-2 as a coach so far! But I really love coaching and it seems like something I'd like to continue doing. I love planning out practices and seeing the guys succeed. We'll see how things go this weekend and I'll make sure to update about the games.

Christmas at Work

Today Rebecca and I went shopping for Christmas ("Holiday") decorations for the office! We got a real Christmas tree and green & gold ornaments (those are the colors of the company). We got a tree skirt and garland to hang on the front of my desk! I also finally received the battery charger for my camera in the mail and I'm hoping it works well, despite the slightly mashed box it came in.

BUT, since I don't have my camera with me today, you know what that means.... PICTURES TOMORROW!!!!! Oh yeah, and I'm going to try to add an album of some of our honeymoon pictures soon :-)

I saw online that it might snow on the East coast. How exciting!!!! Happy and I are hoping to "go to the snow" (that's what it's called here... weird) to join in a ski/snowboarding trip in February. I hope we get to "go to the snow" before that, but we'll see. I love Christmas time!!!

Frost

That's right! There was frost on the roof of the "house" next to our apartment building (side note: the "house" is a display for 5 Star Homes... quiet neighbors indeed). Of course, I took a picture of it. Yesterday was the first morning that it has smelled cold when we went outside. It was WONDERFUL! Last night it smelled cold too. I just love it! I'm so glad there is at least a little weather change down here.

For those who don't like the cold--I'm very sorry. But at least it doesn't last all year :-) 

Thanksgiving pictures!

Yes, this is actually a picture of Happy with our FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE!!!! But there are many more pictures of this weekend in our Web Albums. If you'd like to go in order, I finally added a few pictures from our bike ride in Mile Square Park. Following that is the football game played on Thanksgiving morning. Then we got our first Christmas tree on Saturday when we came home.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Even though Thanksgiving is technically tomorrow, I probably won't be thinking about posting on my blog because I'll be in Santa Clarita! Plus, I'm here at work and the phones have rung about a dozen times since I got here at 7 am. Needless to say, I'm hoping that we can all leave sooner than the originally planned 12:00 closing time. We'll see.

Soooo... HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!! I don't have pictures of any turkeys so I thought I'd post a picture of a sunset I saw from our apartment a few weeks ago. I'd just gotten my camera so I was pretty much taking pictures of anything, but this was especially beautiful. I don't see the sun set much during the week (particularly after the time change) since I leave work (driving north) just about when it's going down. Sunsets always make me think that heaven must be spectacularly breathtaking and God is the most magnificent Creator!

Last night Happy & I went to both the girls & boys high school basketball scrimmages. In light of the football games we had attended I wasn't expecting much. However, I was pleasantly surprised as the girls pulled ahead in the last minutes of the game to win by one point (I don't actually remember what the final score was :-) hehe... I'm such a girl)! The boys, on the other hand, absolutely crushed the other team and it was really fun to watch. I forget the score for their game as well, but perhaps my wonderful husband will leave a comment and fill in the missing information. I'm looking forward to the basketball season much more now than I was after the football season.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and give thanks to the One who deserves all our praise!