This is part of a series called 24 Days of Thankfulness. These posts are in RANDOM order, NOT priority order. Each is something I am thankful for leading up to Thanksgiving.
DAY #8: Barq’s Root Beer
Most people still think I’m a Dewaholic, even though I’ve not had a sip of Mountain Dew in years! Mentally, I’m still in love with the taste of Dew, but in reality, due to one of the cardiac meds I’m on, the taste of Dew (and most soads) has been altered, so where it tastes gross. Only root beer retains normal taste.
So now I enjoy Barq’s – and WHY am I thankful for Barq’s? Because it is the ONLY root beer with caffeine which I need for migraine control (and life control). Since I don’t drink coffee or tea, Barq’s is how I get my caffeine! I now know which restaurants have Barq’s and enjoy a few cans a day. (Like with Dew, no bottles, plastic bottles alter the taste, yuck!)
So, it may not be very spiritual or profound, but today, I am thankful for root beer with caffeine, so I’m thankful for Barq’s!
Hide the Beer, The Preacher’s Here!
(Oh, it’s just root beer!)
Today I launched a little Thanksgiving Project over on Kidology.org called “24 Days of Thanks-Giving” – basically I am providing a simpleWord doc you can download and every day from Nov. 1 until Thanksgiving add ONE thing you are thankful for.
It’s really just something I need to DO MYSELF – but I thought maybe others might want to join me, and I’d enjoy reading/seeing what others are thankful for. So you are welcome to use the Word doc, or just post in the forum what YOU are thankful for! So let me begin today, with my first post. These are NOT going to be in priority order, otherwise I’d have to go God, Family, etc. and then later on, people might judge me for putting one thing “above” or “before” another – so right out of the gate let me say, these posts will be in RANDOM ORDER of things I am THANKFUL FOR!
Once again it is time to post the Bastian Christmas Letter! We hope you are in the midst of enjoying a wonderful Christmas Season! As usual we are getting our letter out the week of Christmas! (Ahhhhhh!) We mail it to family and some friends, but to save on postage I also post it here on my blog so anyone interested can also download the PDF and enjoy it, just click on the image here:
2010 was our first full year in Colorado and while I don’t feel I have taken advantage yet of all the reasons I move here, it was a fantastic year. I’m glad it wasn’t as busy as 2009 was!
Then, in February, I went on a personal solo sabbatical to experience “Yosemite in Winter” snowshoeing the valley. It was incredible. I didn’t blog about it, as it was a personal time between me and God. But I did make this highlight video:
March saw anotherCPC – I’ve lost track how many I’ve been to, but I’ve been to every single once since 1995, so I’ve been to over 35 of them with all their locations, some years there being three! (See Why You Should Go to CPC)
In April I hiked Devil’s Backbone with some friends as the beginning of Hiking Group I’m trying to start in Colorado.
In May, I went on my third Yosemite Summit. This has become the highpoint of my year, as I unplug (quite literally!) from everything and spend almost a week disconnected from normal life with God and some other children’s ministers.
June was a real treat, as I finally got to go to Toronto to see my brothers town, just before the G4 riots and before he moved to Ohio! I also spoke in at the KidBuilders conference while I was there.
July brought be back to Camp Timber-lee for the zillionith time and August was mostly down family time.
In October, I decided to become a rat, and we lauched our Family Pit Stops, which have become a highlight of our family – and are mentioned in the Christmas Letter. (My dad says that reference in the Christmas Letter needs explanation and sounds like we all head to the restroom together. If so, read this link.)
In November, of course, I reflected on all I have to be thankful for, and then, before I knew it: December was here!
One thing I do realize, as I reflect on my blog, is how much Facebook and Twitter has trumped my blog. There are so many events that in the past that I would have blogged, but that I didn’t because I was updating Facebook along the way or Tweeting pics and comments. The only problem is – those posts are long gone, and difficult, if not impossible to link to, which is why as much as I surrender to the advent of Facebook, I really don’t like it. I would much prefer that every had a blog and Facebook only aggregated feeds from them. But that’s a post for another day! (on my blog, not Facebook!)
I do plan to do some re-thinking of how to integrate all my online data collection in the New Year… its tricky! But I do know, I much prefer things on my blog, as they are “safer” and better preserved than Facebook, but things are read more on Facebook.
Saturday while my wife went to a tea at church, Luke and I decided we needed to have some fun too, so we went to McDonald’s where there was a play place! The last time we were there, about a month ago, we celebrated Luke’s first basketball basket and those of you on facebook got to see the video of I happened to capture right before my iPhone battery died! What an exciting day that was!
If you want, you can watch Luke make his FIRST basketball basket right before turning four:
Well, when given a choice of three different restaurants with play places, he chose McDonald’s when I reminded him of the basketball hoop and showed him the video on my iPhone. We got there and after eating and watching some “big boys” hog up the hoop for awhile, finally we got some court time. Luke shocked me by how quickly he got the hang of it. Soon he was nailing the shots, often in a row! Once he made THREE in a row before having some dry spells due to getting so excited he’d get erratic in his shooting for awhile. But we kept track – first it was FIVE SHOTS we celebrated, then it got up to an amazing TEN! Then it was FIFTEEN! But when he got to TWENTY even I was impressed and we had to ask another little girl what was after 20 and learn how to count so high!
Every number after that was celebrated as a major life achievement! On TWENTY-FIVE another boy came in with his dad so we surrendered the court and left as though we had just won the NBA FINALS!
Luke had not only shot 2500% better than last time, but learned to count into the 20’s better than ever before!
As we were driving down the road home, I was telling him how proud I was and he asked, “How proud are you, Daddy?” and I said, “This proud…” and I rolled down the window of the car and yelled out the window at the houses we were passing and yelled as loudly as I could,
MY SON JUST SHOT 25 BASKETS AT McDONALD’S ALL BY HIMSELF!
I looked back at Luke and the look on his face was worth a million dollars. He couldn’t believe I was THAT proud, that I would yell it out the window! After I rolled up the window, he said, “Are you so proud you would do that again?” And I said, “I’m so proud I would do that all the way home.” And I did.
I don’t think anyone actually heard me. And I have a sore throat today. But it’s O.K. My son knows that I was so proud of him I wanted the world to know it.
Have you let your kids know you are THAT proud of them lately? Your volunteers? Whoever it is you are proud of?
They are wondering, just how proud of them are you? Are you willing to shout it? Is your throat hurting yet?
Well, I decided to bless my wife by cooking the Kid U Post-Conference Pizza Outing Left Overs last night… it was good stuff, Gino’s East if you’re curious. Deep dish pepperoni pizza to be exact, and there was some left over to take home to my wife who missed the late night dinner due to getting our little boy to bed.
I could swear (though I don’t) that she said, “Just put it in the oven at 350, it will heat up better than in the microwave.” I was a little surprised, thinking she meant just put the box in, so I answered, “Really? Just put it in the oven?” She replied, “Yes.”
So I did. I set the timer for 20 minutes but about 15 into it the kitchen smelled of smoke. I was on the phone with my dad giving Kid U highlights when my wife comes in crying, “Did you put the BOX in the oven?!?!?”
I said “Yes, just like you told me too.” Turns out it was on fire!
The fire was quickly put out, and after all the excitement, the pizza was fine, though it definitely had that “smoked” flavor! Please tell me we aren’t the only couple with communication problems.
The lesson learned? Best to just let the wife prepare the food and I’ll stick to clean up duty!
As blogged last week, I got to be interviewed at the Equip Conference in Peoria last week. It was fun to talk about how my mom encouraged me as a boy to not wait until I “grew up” to serve the Lord (some would say I still haven’t!) as well as to give some highlights of the workshops. I gotta tell ya, radio interviews always go by SO fast… those 15 minutes seemed like only 5!
They had me busy speaking nearly every session so the booth was run by some of our staff who did a great job, even dealing with the weirdos that come by the booth!
Afterward we headed out to a local pub (recommended by my good Christian friend Bill Allison) who recommended I order their famous Pork Tenderloin… he said it was GIANT… and he wasn’t kidding!
It was almost as big as the Giant Donut I had in Texas! I ordered without even looking at the menu (or the price) and dove in!
That is one giant sandwich! There no way I was going to be able to finish it! So what do you do with a giant sandwich that you can’t finish?
Play tic-tac-toe with your staff!
I’m the X’s, and was allowed to go first!
HA! foolish move! The game was won, but I didn’t let on just yet!
Contining the set up with a forced block misdirect…
Mwaaaaaaa haha! Another wasted move… Everything was proceeding as I had foreseen….
What choice did my foe truly have? None! But they tried in vain.
The VICTORY WAS FINE! Defeated my foe was! Vanquished into Nothingless!
It is a day that will be long remembered.
(The guy at the table next to us took the left-overs home to his dog)
This weekend I had the privilege of participating in a Kidology To Go in Georgetown, TX, just North of Austin, the capital of Texas. I’ll be posting pictures later of the awesome children’s ministry rooms at NewChurch. One of the highlights of the trip was getting to hang out with CP Team member Jeramy Chapman.
We hadn’t seen each other since CPC Dallas in 2003 (I think), so it was awesome to catch up. Jeramy is the childen’s pastor at The Journey, a five year old mobile church. I will be writing a Kidology Report on mobile children’s ministry based upon this visit, so stay tuned! As a sneak peek, here is a flash video of the 20 minutes set up of the Kids Church room speeded up to three minutes. Enjoy:
But first, Texas style breakfast…
But before all the great ministry, Jeramy made me get up an hour earlier than necessary to take me to his favorite donut joint, Round Rock Donuts. Reportedly ranked #2 in the entire USA by an independant British pastry reviewer. (Krispy Kremes didn’t even make the list)
There were many choices, how would I decide? And then I saw:
The Texas Donut! WOW! It was the biggest donut I’d ever seen. Here it is next to large muffins to give a better idea of the size:
When in Texas, eat like Texans… so I ordered a Texas Donut:
After a few bites, (and a smaller chocolate covered yum yum) we were off to the Kidology To Go host where I continued to work on my donut during seminar breaks:
After the conferen it was off to Jeramy’s house to meet his wife and kids and to enjoy some of Jeramy’s hand-battered Steaks!
and WOW it was a great steak! I always make sure to get a steak when I’m in Texas, and this was one of the best yet! (Jeramy’s secret: Daddy Hinkles)
Dinner, Texas style! Sunday I went to Jeramy’s church (reporting on that later) and then on the way to the airport, we headed into downtown Austin.
Hands on experience? I decided to milk this opportunity to learn.
Then we decided to take a bus ride, and the driver nicely let me drive! But it was a bad idea, I quickly lost control of the bus:
It was a great weekend, and I look forward to posting more from the two wonderful children’s ministries I observed, but right now (on the plane!) I am just eager to get home to my beautiful wife and adorable son.
ost people still think I’m a Dewaholic, even though I’ve not had a sip of Mountain Dew in years! Mentally, I’m still in love with the taste of Dew, but in reality, due to one of the cardiac meds I’m on, the taste of Dew (and most soads) has been altered, so where it tastes gross. Only root beer retains normal taste.
