Do You Dream?

Do you dream? Not sleeping dreams, but real-life, awake, in the moment dreams. What are they?

I am definitely a dreamer. I love to sit around and just dream up new ideas and concepts. Do you include God in your dreams?

A passage of scripture that I really like is Isaiah 55:9: "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.".

I also like Ephesians 3:20: "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us"

I definitely try to include God in my dream time. Afterall, if He can do immeasurably more than I can imagine, why not include Him in the brainstorms.

Think about some of the dreams you're dreaming and see if God can help out to clarify, crystalize, or even lend a helping hand.

Frustration = Living in the Flesh

I was working out this morning and was watching Joyce Meyer on TV and she said something very interesting. Basically, she said if you're frustrated you're living in your flesh and not God's grace. It got me thinking.

There are many days that I get frustrated, even at the littlest stupidest things. When I look back at the time I was frustrated I can see that I definitely was trying to do something my way, the way I thought it should be done, etc. Contrast that with the times that I consciously ask God to help me in the situation and how easy the process goes. I still might have hurdles to jump, but my attitude is much better during the process.

I can honestly say that there have been times at work where I want to scream so loud and smash my computer because there is some programming error I can't figure out, or some server issue I can't figure out. WITHOUT FAIL, when I actually pause and just take a little time to ask God to show me the answer, I get the answer right away (or least without too much more difficulty). I'm serious, without fail. It is actually incredible that I don't stop and ask for God's help more often in life. He is just waiting for us to ask. His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

True Story:
About 2 years ago I was dealing with a very random server issue in that the entire hard drive of the server reverted back to a point in time about 6 months in the past from the current date. Any change, file, etc that was made or put on the server between that time was completely gone. Disappeared into thin air. I was frantically working all night with our data center and we ended up getting things put back together, files restored from backups, settings re-applied, etc. They were trying to figure out what was going on with the server.

About a month later, it happened again! I could have screamed so loud that people in China would have heard me. However, I put my head down and got things restored, settings re-applied, etc. It was a major pain and took almost a full 24 hours to deal with. I told the data center we had to figure out what was going on. Well, they said they had never heard of this happening before. I tried Google searches, etc, and honestly I couldn't find anyone else in the world that ever had this issue. These sorts of things just don't happen on Windows servers.

Well a few months later it was about 11pm on a Friday night and the server reverted itself again to a point in time in the past. My heart was racing, my blood pressure was about to explode, and really felt like I was going to just start bawling. You have no idea how stressful that was to try and re-update everything on the server, including files clients added themselves via FTP.

I remember just falling to my knees and I said "God, I'm so tired, I'm weary. I need your help, I need you to fix this server. Please help me figure this out." I got the idea to just reboot the server (which I had done on all previous times), but this time, when the server came back online, it was back to normal! Everything that had been reverted back to a point in time in the past was fixed and it was as if nothing had happened! You know I praised God so much that night and I now call Him my "Server Admin".

The problem hasn't happened since and the data center guys after telling me over and over there was nothing they could do eventually tracked it down to a bad RAID controller.

I truly believe God's grace intervened that night.

I Want To Make A Lot of Money

When I started my business 8 years ago I would have told you that the number one reason I wanted to start my own business was to make a lot of money. It may sound shallow, but it is true. Over the years my feelings have changed. It's tough being an entreprenuer. Peaks and valleys, ups and downs. Good times and really hard times.

Owning a business is really hard. But I love it so much. I love the freedom of choosing how to spend my day, what I want to work on and being able to spend good quality time with my family. This is what I've come to love, but it hasn't always been easy. Holli would tell you that for the first 6 months or so of Caleb's life, I was always working. We were launching a new product and I was slammed. I don't really remember that because I was so focused on my work. I had a friend from Truth@Work recently remind me of this time of my life too and what it was like. Money comes and goes, but my family is something I can pour my life in to and I really do try to focus on that these days.

Those of you with small kids have maybe wondered in the past what it will be like when your kids are grown up and what the conversations will be like. I know I have thought about that before. Tonight I got a glimpse of that with Camden. Holli had MOPS tonight so I got to put the boys to bed. Caleb was so snuggly.

Anyway, Camden has been asking to come to work with me. I asked him if he would like to work with me when he gets bigger. He said yes that he wants to learn how to "program computers and build websites". I thought, "OK, this is cool". I told him one of the cool things that daddy gets to do is dream up great ideas for websites and then build them. I asked him if he had any cool ideas. He said yes and then went on to describe something like this (I'm paraphrasing):

"When I get bigger I want to work with you and we can build a website to make a lot of money. Then we will open our own bank and give all of the money to a teller. We'll tell lots of people about the bank and tell them if they have a need or don't have enough money, they can go to the bank and the teller will give them our money. The teller will say that a nice man gave them this money to use because God loves them."

WOW -- all that from a 5 year old. Obviously it wasn't that concise, but that was the jist of it. I told him that God gave him such a special heart and that He has big plans for his life.

After we had kids I have wondered from time to time if they would be interested in learning what I do and maybe one day work with me. Tonight was my first real glimpse at that. Very cool.

What Is Laminin? Watch And See

You might have already seen this, but I thought it was really cool and a great message. The YouTube video has made it's way into my inbox a couple of times from different people.

It's 8 minutes, but well worth it. Watch it when you have a little free time. Louie Giglio is great.

Pizza Picnic

Beautiful day in Indy today. Camden decided we should have a pizza picnic in the backyard! So we spread out a blanket and had some pizza. It was lots of fun. Great memory to make!

Fatherhood: Check Your Legacy

Thinking about fatherhood this morning and I'm reminded that I need to check myself and put life in perspective about the type of legacy I want to leave with my boys. Sure, they're only 5 and 22 months, but I think you always need to be thinking about how you're raising your kids, what you're teaching them, and even what they're watching you do.

This morning at our Monday Morning Bible study we were looking at 2 Chronicles 9 & 10. Basically, it's the end of Solomon's life and then his son Rehoboam takes over as king. In chapter 9 it talks about all of the gold and riches that Solomon had accumulated. We were discussing the question of "how much is enough" in today's world. But I kept thinking about what type of father was Solomon? The Bible says that he was the world's wisest man. However, when we kept reading, I'm not so sure (at least in terms of fatherhood). Basically, chapter 9 ends with Solomon dying. There's lots of talk about his money and riches, and then he's just dead and it ends with his son Rehoboam succeeding him.

In chapter 10 Rehoboam must make a big decision and he decides to consult his elders. Sounds like a good start as king right? Well, he doesn't listen to them and instead decides to follow the advice of his peers. Big mistake. Chapter 10:19 says that because of this "Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day."

Rehoboam's first decision as king and he blows it. It just made me think about fatherhood and I wondered what Solomon had taught Rehoboam, did he teach him, did he raise him correctly?

I want to make a conscious point of teaching my boys that God loves them and that He has a plan for them, a good plan. I want to teach them how to make decisions and how to consult God on those decisions. I think that is pleasing to God.

Back Home -- Safe and Sound

We're back home now and had a fabulous vacation! We spent our last morning in Orlando having breakfast at Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary Hotel.

The boys did awesome on the plane ride home!

It felt really good to get back to our house and sleep in our own beds.

We are truly blessed to have had the ability and priviledge to go on this awesome vacation. I didn't think about work at all and if you know me that is a major feat! It's been 8 years since I've been able to take a vacation and not worry about work, think about work, work on work all while on vacation. I really am blessed with where my company is now and the awesome employees we have working for us.

Now....It's back to reality! (Which isn't so bad!)

Disney Day 8 - Top 10 Things To Let You Know You're Done At Disney

Today we had breakfast with Mary Poppins at 1900 Park Fare at the Grand Floridian hotel. Tigger and Pooh were there too along with the Mad Hatter and Alice. The boys loved seeing the characters again and food rocked.

After breakfast we hopped the monorail over to Epcot and spent several hours doing some rides and playing. Caleb loved seeing the big ball again. This time we rode the ride inside the ball. It was very cool. However, if my brother Tom is reading this, you'll be sad to know that the boy yelling "Extra, Extra, Read all about it!" is gone! (sorry, inside joke). Also, Sue - Figment said to tell you hello. Lisa, Snow White says hello to you as well.

Back to the hotel to give Caleb a late nap and Holli, Camden and I munch on some Pizza Hut from the hotel.

After Caleb's nap we headed over to Downtown Disney to play a little bit. There's a cool lego store there with a big area where the kids and play with legos and build stuff.

Here are some of day's highlights:

Camden wanted to show off his room here at the Nick Hotel:




Camden saved us from getting eaten by a dinosaur:



Caleb had fun playing with the legos and he didn't even try to eat them:



And finally, the Top 10 Things To Let You Know You're Done At Disney:
(in no particular order)

10. You find yourself getting very upset when the slow Italian family in front of you on the ramp to monorail causes you to miss the train.

9. You find yourself getting very upset when the same Italian family magically shows up in front of you in line (an hour later) to meet the characters.

8. The toddler Italian throws a fit through most of the line and you find yourself getting frustrated. However, it is good to know that all 2 years no matter of geographic location act the same :)

7. As you watch people cruise around Epcot on those Segway scooters you secretly hope the wheels lock up and they go flying off.

6. You see the 1000th red-neck wearing a nascar t-shirt spit on the ground and you want to chuck your coke on them.

5. You're riding the Indy Cars at the Magic Kingdom dreaming the whole time that you can escape off the track and wreak havoc all around the park in that tiny car.

4. You're riding Small World and want to punch all of those happy singing animated kids.

3. You start trying on purpose to get in front of every tourist's camera when they are trying to take a picture.

2. You start thinking about Free Willy and decide to run around Animal Kingdom secretly unlocking all of the animal cages.

1. You've spent your last cent at the 100th gift shop selling all of that Disney C-R-A-P.

Yep, call me Grumpy. I'm Disney'd out. The boys however are NOT and Holli wants to stay on vacation and avoid the reality of all that laundry hanging in the room behind me right now. So I'm off to do the nightly pina colada trek and enjoy one more night before we leave.........

Disney Day 7 - 1 Billion People

You have to say the "1 Billion People" in the Dr. Evil voice and put your pinky up to your mouth.

Definitely noticing an increase in the number of people here on Saturday. The Magic Kingdom was a lot busier and the Nick hotel is packed! The pool is full of kids and the arcade is hopping. We talked to some other guests and then said last Friday and Saturday were at 97% occupency and then it dropped to 30% on Sunday. We're hoping that holds true this weekend :) We leave on Monday.

Before we left for the Magic Kingdom the boys did a craft at the hotel and made a post card. Caleb got marker on his face and all over his hands! Nothing a little wet wipe can't fix.






Even though the park was busier today we had a lot of fun. We parked our car at the Grand Floridian and then took the monorail over to the park. More rides and more playing and hanging out. The boys are happy just to run around and play.

The Family of the Day

We went into a restaurant to grab some lunch and were picked to be the family of the day. Basically got us a special seat to watch a little animated show and some free dessert. Camden thought it was pretty cool!

Here's a picture next to the sign that was on the special reserved table:


Here's a video from after the lunch:






Camden turned into a Super Hero:





Caleb discovered that ducks like grapes! Or "balls" as he refers to them:








Caleb and Daddy play peek-a-boo:




Toga time after Caleb's bath:



The is flying by fast and we can't believe it's already Saturday. We have been having so much fun and are so blessed to be able to be doing all of this cool stuff as a family. See ya soon!

Disney Day 7 - More Magic Kingdom!

Camden wanted to ride more rides, so back to the Magic Kingdom we go.

Disney Day 6 - Return To Magic Kingdom

Aloha, we started out the day with breakfast at Ohana's at the Polynesian Resort. It's a family style meal with Mickey, Pluto, Lilo and Stitch. Family style was great because it's much easier with the boys (no jumping up and down to get food) and it's all you can eat, so like usual, I ate too much. The pinnapple bread is amazing!

After breakfast we hopped the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom and spent some time there. We rode the merry-go-round, Small World (twice), Peter Pan, Indy Cars, Mickey's Philharmonic, played at the Pooh playground and spent some time just hanging out. Of course, Camden had to visit a lot of the shops. Plus, Cam had his daily ice cream bar.

We came back to the hotel to give Caleb a nap and Holli, Camden and I watched "Meet The Robinsons". Very cute movie.

After the nap, we all hit the pool and then grabbed some dinner at the hotel. Of course, after dinner Camden and I had to hit the arcade.

Holy Crowd Batman

Tonight on my nightly trek to get a Pina Colada I was amazed at how many people are now at the hotel. The pool is packed and the main "mall" area containing the shops, food and arcade is full of people. I know we're sticklers about bed time and we've been pretty lax this trip, but I'm amazed at how many little kids are up running around late at night.

Some of the highlights of the day:

Caleb Gets Wet:

Day 5 - Disney Hollywood Studios

First off, when did they change the name of the park from MGM to Hollywood Studios??? What's up with that?

We started the day off at around 6:45am when Caleb woke up. Holli and I kept him contained for about 15 minutes and then Camden woke up. We headed out for a breakfast at the hotel and then made our way to the Hollywood Studios.

This is a pretty cool park. Definitely more stuff for older kids here, but we found enough to keep us busy. Two big highlights of the day:

1. Lunch at Hollywood & Vine. We had lunch with Jo Jo and Goliath and Leo and June from Little Einsteins. Our reservation was at 11:10am which I was a little concerned about because I didn't know how hungry we would be. Afterall, we had a buffet breakfast at the hotel and you know how much I over-eat at the buffets. The 11:10 reservation was awesome. We were hungry and the timing was great. The restaurant wasn't busy at all, so we got lots of time with the characters. Plus, the bonus was that we got to eat breakfast again for course #1 and then at 11:40am they brought out the lunch stuff on the buffet, so course #2 was lunch! Definitely over-ate at this one. All of these character dinings are buffets, so you just plain eat way too much.

2. Hollywood Stunt Show: Totally AWESOME! We really liked this show. It lasted about 30 minutes and was a series of cool stunts with cars and motorcyles and fire. Caleb and Camden loved it. It's amazing what these stunt guys can do. There's a scene at the end where they blow up a bunch of stuff and the heat of the fire comes out into the crowd and it was so loud and hot that Caleb started to shake on my lap, but then he got this huge smile and started yelling, hot, hot, hot, car, car.

We finished up the day with dinner back at the hotel and Camden and I hit the arcade one more time while Caleb got ready for bed. Camden is still eyeing up those stuffed animals in that claw game. I did let him try again tonight and he actually almost got a stuffed shark. That was a major highlight for Camden. When we got back to the hotel room he must have told Holli about 20 times about almost getting it. I think we need to pray that Camden doesn't get a gambling habit. He kept telling me "Just one more time Dad, I know I can get it, just one more time." Oh Boy....On another game (one of those crazy press the button at the right time to win tickets games), he just pressed the button without looking and scored 250 tickets!! Now that is some luck. Maybe I should send him to Vegas.

Here are some highlights of the day:








Caleb having fun at the stunt show:

Caleb crashed out after the stunt show. Gotta love the Mr. Mischief shirt, sums him up perfectly:


Our daily Mickey ice cream bar snack: