Wes, Kari, Grace, and Abby came to visit this weekend. It was so much fun. They arrived on Friday and we were able to see some small parts of the town. We ate and listened to music on the green at the Promenade, visited Charlotte’s children’s library, ImagineOn, at at Pikes, went to Elevation Church, ate at the Penguin, the Roasting Company, and enjoyed our last meal together this morning at Krispy Kreme.

The girls are so wonderful to be around. They are always so happy, cheerful, and incredibly endearing. (Continue reading…)

Here are some of my favorite pictures from this fall. These are just a handfull of the bazillion photos we took of Grace and Abby in DC and Beaufort. These girls are so much fun to be around. Great medicine!

Thanks to JibJab for helping me make this wonderful movie.

Last weekend, Grace and I took a stroll to the park. I snapped this photo along the way.

A friend of mine showed me this video yesterday. Apparently this skit is making the rounds in churches these days - and rightfully so. It’s a great depiction of life today, and of God’s love for us. It reminded me of this video I found over a year ago.

Here’s the video…

This video got me thinking about the importance of a father’s love. It can break you if you don’t have it, and it can make you do anything and everything if you do have it. I’m so blessed to have the unconditional love of not only my Heavenly Father, but my real life father as well. Some aren’t so lucky.

The above video shows everything that God does for us in our everyday life. And the videos below demonstrate how real fathers properly emulate God’s love toward their family. It’s time to give thanks to the strong men in your life.

I love this movie. A great metaphor.

Acts 20:32

Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

Isaiah 54:10

Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

I can’t believe that I’m an uncle again. My brother Wesley and his wife Kari welcomed Abigail Leigh Denton. She’s a beautiful, healthy baby girl. At birth she was 8lbs, 10oz and measuring 21.25″. God is good!

As the band Live put it…

I don’t need no one to tell me about Heaven. I look at my daughter and I believe!

Congrats, Wes and Kari!

Press play to listen to the song: Live - Heaven

What a great weekend!
On Friday, my brother Wesley got in the car early in the morning and started driving to my house. From DC to Charlotte it’s normally about a 7 hour drive. With Wesley’s busiest day ever (his press release was the front page of DrudgeReport on Thursday), it actually took him 9.5 hours. But, that was understandable.

When he arrived at 7:30 on Friday night, the fun began. I planned a fun filled, but no-stress weekend. That evening we ran up to Creation for dinner. If you haven’t been there, I highly recommend it. Then we rolled over to the Gallery Crawl in NODA. There, we first hit The Rat’s Nest where the Loose Lugnuts were playing. We hung there for a little bit, then checked out Dolce Vita for a bit, then rolled home to prepare for a big day on Saturday.

Saturday morning Wesley’s good friend, Brian, drove into town and joined us for the rest of the weekend. When he showed up we jumped into the car and headed over to the US National Whitewater Center, conveniently located here in Charlotte. This is a brand new facility, and it was quite impressive. We had a blast. After a short instructional, we were on the water and rafting class 2, 3, and 4 rapids. We were on the water for about 2 hours, of which Wesley and Brian spent a few minutes each outside of the boat being rescued. Ha!

After a long afternoon rafting, we bolted over to the Pengiun to refuel. Pitchers of beer, fried pickels, and one of the best burgers you’ve ever put in your mouth was just what the doctor ordered! After going home and watching a movie, we went out to Cabo Fish Taco for some dinner, then called it a night.

Sunday, we slept in then rolled over to Kenilworth Park to play disc golf - 36 holes! The first 18 were great. The last half was a bit taxing. (Thanks for Jared joining us to keep us honest on the scoring.)

Here are the photos from the weekend.
Great times, even better company! Happy birthday, Wes! Hope you had a great time.

We all get them, we all delete them almost immediately, we all wish they would stop. Email forwards. Email forwards can take several forms. They typically are the little emails that friends and family receive and pass onto all their friends.

Titles range from:
Top ten reasons to…
Pray for [insert cause] please…
Chain letters, which end something like “pass this onto 5 friends now and you’ll have good luck for the next 10 days”…
Unbelievable photos…
Poems…
Etc…

Well, last week I received three which were absolutely great.

1. The first comes from my dear friend Dawn Brinkley. The email is titled How the Phone Should be Answered.

GOOD MORNING, WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA .
Press “1″ for English.
Press “2″ to disconnect until you learn to speak English

And remember only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ and the American Soldier. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.

If you agree…! …keep it going.

2. The second comes from my father. He sent me an email exchange we had nearly 10 years ago. (although I’m curious if my brother Matt actually did the forwarding.)

TIME
Always in a hurry, wanting to have some time.
Can’t keep up the flurry, but can’t stop to unwind.
The bill are there, and the deadlines too;
I pray to God, what can I do.
My wife, my kids, and others need me,
But most of all, my God and I,
Just need some time, for us, to be free.

3. The third one was a simple image sent to me by my buddy, Will Riney.
This made me chuckle.

Which made me think of this little image. This one actually hits too close to home when I’m visiting my folks.

Every since my buddy Yerg purchased a pop-art styled painting of Jeff Buckley from a local artist for $500 I’ve been on a mission to figure out how the artist creates his work. The pop-art is more of a shadowed, posterized effect. So, I started playing with Photoshop until I figured out an easy way to create the same effect.

I loved Yerg’s paintings, but couldn’t see myself paying a guy $500 for something I could do myself… or almost myself. I got pretty close. I played around a few times with Photoshop’s image adjuster, then I read a few online tutorials. Today, I think I figured it out.

It still takes a bit of work in Photoshop. And, I imagine that the painter still has to do some sort of photo transfer or tracing from an overhead projector to get this on canvas. But, I’m pretty excited at getting this far.

I think I have my new family project. The photo above is of my parents. My goal is to add each one of my brothers. This should make for some incredible wall art.

2006 was one for the books. I started this blog exactly one year ago today. Who knoew that it would grow into such a great outlet for myself and such a good means of communication for friends and family. I love that this blog allows me to document all the good and interesting points of my life, thoughts, ramblings, and finds.

Last January I wrote that I hoped to genuinly connect with more of my family and friends. I think this is something I still need to work on. But, I did make it a point to visit family and friends as much as I could. Here are the highlights.

In January I travelled to Palo Alto and San Francisco. There I met with several collegues from the domain industry, Hotkeys, Eloan, and Homegain.

The spring took me to Washington, DC to see my baby neice, Grace, be dedicated in church.

The summer kicked off with a bang, as I flew to Birmingham, AL to watch the July 4th fireworks with my brother, Matt. Then, I was off to San Diego to meet up with a few business collegues, and sneak off to visit some good friends.

The very next week, I flew back to San Francisco to attend the Inman conference. (Wow! Was the Isreali-Lebanon military campaign just this summer? Seems like years ago.)

In August, I snuck away for self-serving vacation through the Carolina country and mountains. It was awesome! I highly recommend taking the backroads throught the South Carolina upstate, and the North Carolina Blue Ridge Parkway. Maybe this year, I’ll take the trip during the fall foliage!

In Mid-August I attended my cousin Nikki’s wedding in Lake Tahoe, NV with my mom and dad. I also was lucky to spend time with them and Grace at the beach on Harbor Island.

Then in the fall I was off to Clemson homecoming with my brothers, Noah and Wesley. New York City for business. And this winter, we capped off the year with a trip of a lifetime to the Grand Canyon with all my brothers and my father.

It didn’t seem like a lot at the time. But looking back, I stayed pretty busy!

Here’s all the places I visited:

San Francisco, CA
Palo Alto, CA
San Diego, CA
Washington, DC
Birmingham, AL
Harbor Island, SC
Greenville, SC
Hendersonville, NC
Asheville, NC
Lake Tahoe, NV
Incline Village, NV
Clemson, SC
New York, NY
Las Vegas, NV
Grand Canyon, AZ