Happy New Year...like 5 days later!

Man, it's been a while since I've written here! It's been pretty busy too- My sister visiting, Christmas, ski trip, a friend from college visiting, New Years, and wow...busy, busy.
So, let me recap the last couple of weeks quickly here:
My visit with my sister was great. I don't know if we've ever spent that much quality time together alone ever. But we went around the area, up to St. Augustine, down to Daytona Beach...it was a fun time. On the last night she was here, we went and saw "Fun with Dick and Jane," it was only so-so. I thought that most of the excitement and funny scenes were shown in the advertisement- I hate when they do that! Oh well.
Christmas was good. I spent most of the day with Bill and his family, I "had to be at their house at 7am" that Sunday morning- that's according to Olivia, Bill's youngest. So, we all exchanged gifts and had a good time. I preached on Christmas Day...I must admit that I winged my sermon. Like I prepared for it and everything and even used ideas and concepts from my manuscript for my sermon, but it was nowhere close to what I had written...but Bill thought that it was good, after he said that, I then confessed to him that I winged it, to which he looked a little surprised. Then after spending dinner time at Bill's inlaws, I went to another family of the church's house. I spent a long time there, about 7 hrs...so, I didn't get home 'til about 3am! It was wicked crazy! But I had a good time there. When I arrived, I was just in time for Battle of the Sexes...a fun board game, which I've played before and is a game that is so stacked against the guys! After playing that game, a group of us- ranging from 18-me (26), were talking the rest of the night away. It was a fun time, I'm glad I spent the night hanging out with them.
Then on the 27th, the youth group left for North Carolina, a ski trip to Cataloochee in Maggie Valley, NC...only a couple of hours from Atlanta. We stayed at Snowbird- a Christian camp. I must say more about Snowbird. The camp itself was nice, the staff there was nice, but I don't think that I'd ever send these kids or my own there ever again! Sure they are Christians and they are having a good impact on some kids, but they were obviously Baptist (not that I have anything against them in general). Decision theology was huge there, if you didn't make a choice to become a Christian, re-dedicate yourself (which I think is a joke...can we even do that???), or felt that you are exactly where God wants you to be, then you are nothing and are going to hell. Man, okay, so the concept of decision theology is really just a skewed version of the Holy Spirit working in you to get you to be able to say that Jesus is Lord, because we are dead on our own. The same when someone comes back to faith from being away for a while, the Holy Spirit did something to bring them back...God working through the means of Law and Gospel; again, nothing you or I can conjure up. The question on being exactly where God wants you to be depends on how you view that question- I've heard it as a way to blast Christians for not having enough faith to bring them to newer levels (or something like that); I've also heard it to be used for saying that you are not a "carnal" Christian. A Lutheran response would start with- "Are you baptized?" "Do you partake in public worship- where the confession of sins, absolution of sins, the Lord's Supper are offered?" And if you answer yes, then you are where God wants you to be (...to some degree, right? We can always offer degrees of variations on where we should be.) And I obviously agree with that, and maybe there's something more to that as well- that we can only be where God wants us to be in heaven, where sin no longer is a threat to us and that is the place where we will be when we are resurrected on the last day. But, that's not what the camp director was getting at- his was the second choice I offered (not being a "carnal" Christian). Out of those 3 choices, 12 people out of 70 responded (1 girl in my youth group raised her hand during the "is this where God wants you to be" quesiton...which was alright), but after that, he berated us for being nothing! What a jerk! Is that something that should move me? Grrr! And right before he was going to do all of this, I knew it was coming and I was about to have all of our kids leave...but I felt that that would have been disrespectful, but looking back, I should have...it would have saved so much grief that occurred after the fact! I guess that that is something to lookout for next time. And the other speaker that we had, he told great stories...that was about it. My suggestion is the next time they do this, let's create our own program and more skiing!!!! Oh, one final tidbit...most of the kids snowboarded and I told them that they were going to be sore (which they were)- not to have them not snowboard, just to let them know what they were in for (since I'd gone snowboarding before, I knew about the soreness). And I promised to do some "whitewashing," to which I did. "Whitewashing" is a hockey stop right in front of someone on the ground...whitewashing them in snow! It was easier to do that on skis than sled dogs (short skis). It was fun though! And I know that the kids had fun skiing!
So we came back on the 30th. That was a long drive back (10 hrs. ...although, it was a longer drive up there, 12 hrs., but the drive back always seems longer). But after getting back and dropping some kids off, I headed to Orlando to pick up my friend Dave from UND. I figured that I spent about 14hrs worth of driving that day, leaving at 10am on the 30th and arriving at my house at 2 am on the 31st! Dave and I did stop at a Waffle House (I love their waffles! Out of all the waffles I've had, none compare!), before getting back to my house.
I had a great time with Dave. I took him out to the ocean. We went and saw King Kong- not bad, I enjoyed most of it...there was one part with bugs that I just didn't like! And then for the rest of the 31st, we went to one of the guys in my small group's house...it was a good time there.
On New Years Day, after going to church, Dave and I went golfing! I've never been golfing in January before, that was a first! That was a beautiful day! Followed by spending the 1st at Universal Studios, which was fun! Dave hadn't ever been on a rollercoaster before, so I "forced" him to go! He lasted for 2 rollercoasters before he didn't want to do any more, so I had to go on the Hulk by myself. We went to both parks (Islands of Adventure and the Movie Theme Park)...I'm still trying to figure out why a family would want to spend a vacation there, you can do it all in a day, maybe a day and a half. Oh, on this day, I had to turn on the A/C at my house at night and then the heat the following morning! But until today, the highs for the past week had been near 80°, which was great!
Woot! That's a wrap.
Best Idea today: From yesterday, I went on a lunch date. It was a good time. That's all I got to say about that.
Worst Idea today: Not working out much since before my sister came...ugh. I can feel the lack of working out...I can't wait til after this busy season is over and I can get back into my routine.