Christmas Craft - Trees and Raindeer

A few weeks ago, we got together with some friends for a Christmas Craft day! The gals wanted to make some trees, here is their inspiration photo that we found from The Thrifty Crafter

...and we gathered all the supplied we needed, foam cone, jute twine, hot glue and craft glue.
The guys were tasked with making reindeer out of sticks, our inspiration came from these metals sculptures from Pottery Barn.

The gals busy at work, wrapping the trees!

...and the guys successfully made a herd of reindeer!

All different shapes and sizes!

Hudson even decided to help with the crafts, making himself an ornament!

Here are the finished trees that Heather and I made, we used two different sizes of rope/twine and I think they turned out great!

We had a ton of fun crafting for the day and it really got us into the Christmas spirit!

2010 Nygaard Pentathlon

This past Thursday, the SCRC (serious coin running club) descended upon the Valley High School track for the 16th Anniversary of the Nygaard Pentathlon. The format: 400m run, standing broad jump, shot put (12 lbs), bench press (One minute: 115 lbs), 1500m run. It was a prefect day for the pentathlon, overcast with temperatures in the 40's. We got to the track at noon and Ryan, the course official for the day set up the long jump.
Ryan, Eric and Scott are ready to roll.

After a quick warm up we got ready for the 1st event: 400m run. Last year, we had roughly 25 competitors...this year we had 7. I was reminded by Ryan that the very first year of competition saw 5 compete, so in a way we were getting back to the heart of the competition!

We did split the 400 up into 2 heats...

The starter explains that it will be a 2 command start, "Runner's set, and then the gun (clap)"

Eric brought home the gold in the 400m, coming in at 59 seconds!

After the 400m we reported our results to the official score keeper and prepared for the standing broad jump.

Ryan, taking upon multiple duties, served as the official score keeper as well, giving us up to the minute results!

Chris takes flight in the broad jump!

Paul nails his landing...

Ryan takes to the air

Here I am stretching out for every inch I can get.

Eric shows up proper long jump form

Joe leaps into the air

Scott stretches out for maximum distance

After the broad jump, it was on to the shot put. Joe tosses the 12 lb shot.

Paul launches the shot put into the air

Chris is next, following shot put form, he gives a loud grunt as he throw the shot!

Ryan tosses the weight into the air

Scott launches the shot put

Eric lets it fly

I take my turn throwing the weight

Then is it onto the bench press (big thanks to Aspen Athletic Club in West Glen for hosting us for the bench press portion of the competition!) Joe, wanting to get this out of the way goes first.

Chris is up next, proudly wearing his SCRC jersey!

and then it's Paul's turn.

Ryan, also wearing his SCRC colors, throws up the weight.

Scott focused on the task at hand throws up the 115 pounds

Lastly, Eric made us all look bad getting 62 reps in the minute time frame!

I didn't get any pictures of the 1500m run, we ran it in one heat, so there wasn't anyone around to take race photos.

After the completion of the pentathlon, we held an exhibition 4x100m dash. We didn't have enough people to fill 2 teams, lucky for us two guys showed up at the track wanting to get a workout in...Scott recruited them for the 4x100!

The second exchange zone!

...and the last hand off!

Ryan "pulled" something in his rear causing team 2 to fall behind, so Eric took the opportunity to celebrate his Nygaard Pentathlon victory (two years running)!

As the day draws to a close, we get a competitors photo...

Joe snapped another pic, so I could be in the photo!

Another year down and another successful running of the Nygaard Pentathlon! Big thanks to the SCRC for presenting the event, thanks to Aspen for hosting the bench press and to Valley track for hosting the other events. It was a day filled with the human drama of athletic competition, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

Official Results:

Format

Name: 400m (sec) - Shot (inches) - Jump (inches) - Bench (reps) - 1500m (min. sec): Total Score

Eric Weiford: 59 - 472 - 114 - 62 - 5.10 : 908 points

Scott Patterson: 62 - 345 - 86 - 34 - 4.54 : 672

Chris Harms: 60 - 372 - 80 - 27 - 5.06 : 649

Seth Comfort: 61 - 352 - 94 - 16 - 4.59 : 637

Paul Kolsrud: 62 - 334 - 87 - 18 - 5.15 : 598

Jow Aulwes: 60 - 284 - 82 - 11 - 4.20 : 587

Ryan Elsbernd: 69 - 300 - 80.5 - 20 - 5.07 : 541

Coffee Time

I love this time of year. The seasons are changing, leaves are turning colors and falling to the ground and Christmas is right around the corner. Signs of the season are everywhere! For me, one sign is a change in my coffee. I typically drink my coffee black and with a little bit of sugar.
...but this time of year, Egg Nog hits the shelves at the grocery store! For me, this is a sure sign of the Christmas season.

...and I love to add egg nog into my coffee. It makes a perfect creamer and the flavor reminds me of Christmas and decorating for the holidays. Growing up, as my family would decorate our Christmas tree we would always have a glass of egg nog and listen to Christmas music.

What reminds your of Christmas?

Book Review - The Gospel According to Jesus

I just finished reading The Gospel According to Jesus by Chris Seay and I thought it was fantastic. Tackling issues that face the Church and Christians today; surveys indicate that 84 percent of Christians have a misunderstanding of the true meaning of the word righteousness. Referring to God's restoration of our sinfulness and not personal piety or some code of moral purity, pastor Chris Seay offers that Jesus came to breathe life and light into the depths of all darkness.
Chris starts out the book with Chapter 1 called Righteousness or Righteousness? Digging into Matthew 6:33 "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then all these things will be given to you too" Chris unpacks what "His righteousness" means as well as, through research from the Barna Group, what our culture today views as "His righteousness". I thought this was great and also challenging as I took time to really think about what how I would define "His righteousness".
The next chapter, Kingdom Without a King, he challenges us to really examine what "kingdoms" we are surrounding ourselves with and who is the King of those kingdoms.
Chapter 3: What Is the Gospel? Chris examines that question, what is the gospel? Once we know what the gospel is, he then asks, what do we do now?
Chapter 4: Imago Dei. In this chapter, Chris looks at how we are all made in the image of God. Knowing that, he asks how are we living in community with each other...with others who are also made in God's image.
Chapter 5: We Fell, but Can We Get Up? I thought this chapter was excellent. Chris talks about how, a lot of us have an obsession with sin avoidance and how that has not actually helped us avoid sin. He does a great job of unpacking how we, as Christians, should reflect the image of God and compared it to holding up a mirror. Because of sin, that mirror becomes bent and distorted and we end up not reflecting God but we end up looking at ourselves...selfishly. He also does a great job of explaining how we should shift of focus from sin avoidance to recenter ourselves on Christ!
Chapter 6: Set Your Heart, this chapter continues on and unpacks worship and bringing Jesus back to the center.
Chapter 7: Justification: Rise or Fall? This chapter digs into justification and righteousness
Chapter 8: Shalom, the Fruit of Justice. This chapter starts to unpack what it might look like to live out righteousness, to live a life through a restored, liberated heart made possible through Jesus.
Chapter 9: The Ten Commandments of a Shalom Life, Chris wraps up the book with 10 practical ways to start applying in my own life. This is a great conclusion to an outstanding book. He unpacks what practices have worked for him and how we can live for God's kingdom and His righteousness.

Another thing that I really enjoyed about this book happened at the end of each chapter. Each chapter concluded with a conversation with people in Chris Seay's life, other authors, pastors, etc. and they discussed the topics addressed in the chapter. It was a great insight to how these different topics can and have been applied. He talks with Gabe Lyons, Shane Claiborne, Rick McKinley, Alan Hirsch, Mark Batterson and Dan Kimball and through these conversations I think it helps to see the gospel according to Jesus more clearly.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it. Through the Biblical references, through his own stories and through his conversations with others, he really got me thinking about what the message and gospel of Jesus really means and does that message shape my daily life.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opionions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255 "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Book Review - The Pocket Guide to the Bible

I finished reading The Pocket Guide to the Bible by Jason Boyett and what a fun book to read. It is about the Bible and I did learn a few new fun facts. It was clear that Jason Boyett did a lot of research in order to pack this book full with so much information.

It starts off with chapter one: Biblicabulary - "A glossary of the Good Book"
Chap 2: Cast of Characters (A to J) - He gives us the major player of the Bible, plus some of the strange minor ones too.
Chap 3: Cast of Characters (K to Z) - same as Chap 2
Chap 4: What Happens, Part 1 - "The Old Testament at breakneck speed", this is a humorous wrap up of the OT
Chap 5: What Happens, Part 2 - "The New Testament at breakneck speed", similar to pt 1 but this time the NT
Chap 6: The Brief History of the Holy Writ - "A timeline", this chapter give a history of the Bible and how it came to be what we read today
Chap 7: Versions and Perversions - "A selective survey of translations", this chapter runs through the major players in the translation world and the types of translations
Chap 8: List Ye Be Smitten - "Biblical Flotsam and Jetsam", a collection of really funny, random and strange things from the Bible.

I would definitely recommend this book. It is full of humor and interesting facts about the Bible and the people of the Bible. Boyett does an excellent job with this book and making biblical theology fun!

House Project - Paint

Here is a quick update on the house project. I got all the windows installed and all of the windows trimmed. One nice Saturday, I invited a crew of guys over for a house painting party! Here is the before picture, yellow house with green and red trim.

...and the after. Milk Chocolate brown with white trim and black shutters. Shutters? Well, I am still working on the shutters for the windows. When we replaced the windows, I found that the shutters were built into the house, so when the windows came out so did the shutters. Through the winter I am going to be building some new shutters!

The backside of the house. Big thanks to all the guys who came over and helped paint! We really appreciate all your help, we couldn't have gotten the house painted before winter without you!

During this whole process, we still had the leaves to deal with. Fall in our neighborhood is very pretty with all the colors, but it is also a lot of work when those pretty leaves fall to the ground. This pile may seem large, but this was only about half way through our process of cleaning up the yard! I love those trees!

Book Review - UnChristian

The book club that I am in recently finished reading UnChristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, and I learned a ton reading this book. Through research done by the Barna group these two guys look at the perceptions of Christians through the eyes of outsiders.
For me, I knew some of the impressions that people have of Christians exist but the percentages shown in the research were really eye opening! This book not only points out why these negative perceptions exist but also explore how to reverse them in a Christlike manner.
The book starts you off with a little of the back story of the two authors and how they got started on this journey to write the book. Then we jump right in with chapters discussing "Hypocritical", "Get Saved!", "Antihomosexual", "Sheltered", "Too Political" and "Judgemental". All of these chapters really drive home what the current cultures impression is of the church today and what we, as the church, need to start doing to make some changes. The book finishes with a look at what it would take to return us to be Christians...like Christ. It is summed up that in order to shift our reputation, Christ followers must learn to respond to people the way Jesus did.
We also found a ton of other resources that partnered with the book, first was their website. www.unchristian.com and from there we found podcasts talking about these chapters, info about the authors and the projects that they are involved with.
All in all, this is a great book filled with research and results that will likely influence the church for years to come. I would highly recommend it!