Inadequate

I want you to think about the most majestic and powerful words you have ever heard or concidered using to describe God, words like, well “majestic” “glorious” “awesome” “incredible” “amaizing”. The list of words like these could go on for ages and yet what strikes me most about them is that as wonderful or powerful as they may be they are all inadequte and even if we were to string them together in endless praise we would fail to capture even the essence of what God is like, or even one measure of his endless, merciful grace and love, or how powerful He is, we just can’t do it. Jesus is love a d to think we could begin to describe Him is insane and yet we persist and He in his Wondrful great love for us, who are like specs of dust compared to Him, takes joy in our inadequate praise and rejoices greatly in it. It makes me wonder about sometimes when I don’t give my all in worship to Him, if I can’t even begin to be adequate when I give my best how can I expect Him to be pleased when I am halfheartedly singing along to the praise band, who am I to think I deserve to not give my all in worship to Him not just on Sunday morning but every moment of every day, because “I don’t feel like it” or “my throat hurts” or “I’m just not in a worshipping place right now” I could go on with the excuses I have used and I’m sure you all could add plenty more on top of that, but the point is we serve such and incredible god, who loves us and chose us before we were even born, indeed “before the foundations of the earth were laid” how can we help but be so caught up in Him and His grace and beauty and love and… That we can’t help ourselves, we just worship him constantly.

“God I love you and thank you for all you have done and I ask that you would reveal new aspects of yourself to me daily, help le to continually fall in love with you, and rejoice in your beauty and strength even when I am weak and broken, and don’t know which way is up or where I am going, draw me close to You and shower me with your majesty and grace so that the world may see You in me and seek You because of me, lord use me to draw those around me close to You, to bring You glory in the highest!”

Amen hallelujah
Ethan

Yup!  That’s what the Basch’s did this weekend.  Too early? I concur!  The boys are very happy, that’s what matters.  It was fun decorating with them, they really got into it.

santa hats

santa? wearing our stockings on his feet?

boys checking out the village

neighborhood helping with doug's bday gift

e painting

neighborhood in tree pose not the YMCA - they requested that we do yoga - I couldn't refuse It was fun

my favorite pic of the weekend

doug decked the outside of the house up, we've never had that many lights before - looks good

basch boys

Luego de su primera temporada donde la serie 90210 vio pasar todos los problemas imaginables en torno a los adolescentes, más mucho dinero, la secuela de la popular serie de los años noventa creada por Aaron Spelling estrena su 2da temporada en la señal del cable  Sony en medio de controversias.

Cambia de horario, serán ahora los martes cuando los dramas en West Beverly Hills High School lleguen a la pantalla chica. Para los protagonistas de la serie: Annie, Naomi, Silver, Adriana, Ethan, Dixon y Navid las cosas no serán fáciles. A su regreso a clases después de un largo verano se verán sorprendidos por la llegada de nuevos compañeros.

Para tormento de los galanes de la escuela Teddy (Trevor Donovan) llegará a poner las hormonas de las chicas a tope. El nuevo jugador de tenis del colegio será el nuevo objetivo de algunas de las estudiantes, mientras que Gia, (Rumer Willis) una nueva estudiante de tendencia homosexual será una pieza clave en el periódico del colegio.

Hasta en las mejores familias
Resulta difícil pensar que son muchos los jóvenes que adquieren la independencia de los padres para vivir una vida sin reglas, 90210 va más allá de la premisa y se aleja, incluso de la historia que en los noventas también se convirtiera en escándalo. La segunda temporada de la nueva versión trajo a la pantalla chica la exposición de casos que podrían encontrarse en cualquier lugar: adicciones, madres adolescentes, libertinaje y abandono, pero la serie sabe llevarlo de la mano con mucho glamour, la máscara favorita de las chicas de Beverly Hills.

Pese a todo, esta nueva versión no ha contado con el éxito de la primera, en la que Kelly, Brenda, Brandon, Steve, Andrea, Donna y muchos más vieron correr su vida en la preparatoria e incluso dar el salto a la universidad, además de que permanecieron en el gusto del público durante una década.

Han sido dos años los que 90210 está por cumplir y, a pesar de la herencia de la producción anterior, sus protagonistas tienen mucho trabajo por delante para demostrar que su talento puede ir más allá de estos personajes e incluso brincar a la pantalla grande.

90210 /  martes / 21:00 horas / Por: Canal Sony

We celebrated Ethan’s ninth birthday on Saturday. As we are coming close to Christmas, we decided (after consultation with Ethan) to host a party where all the kids made gingerbread houses.  Each family unit got one to make, and then they took them home with them.  I think it was a success – the kids seemed to really enjoy it.  Afterwards we had “cake” (which was simply Smarties ice cream because Ethan doesn’t like cake) and opened gifts.  All the kids were from the neighborhood and it reminded us again of how good it’s been to move into Dalhousie.

We started our day as a family with pancakes, complete with the Big Pancake E (M was served on Oct 6). Ethan helped me make the pancakes, donning his chef apron to complete the look.

All the kids made gingerbread houses for Ethan's party. It's amazing to see the wonderful (?) diversity of design within a pretty tight parameter of style (four walls, roof, etc).

Ethan has always hated cake, so this year we kept it simple and he loved it.

Ethan was delighted and thankful for all the cards and gifts recieved. Here he holds a handmade card from his good friend Charlotte.

2 more episodes down and still NO idea what’s in the damn hatch! I only have the 2 part season finale left and there are still so many unanswered questions however this time we were given a few morsels of answers. Mystery 1 solved: John Locke knock out Sayid and destroyed his equipment. I KNEW it! Wait let’s go back to the record…”Locke is very suspicious because he does too good of a job convincing Sayid it was Sawyer (even though the audience knows it wasn’t) and I’m not sure he wants to be rescued from what he dubbed “magic island” because unlike at home he has a role and is respected. That being said, I’m going to pin it on a yet to met character.” Good reasoning but went with unknown character who turned out to be Ethan. I’ll give myself half a point for reasoning, for narrowing it down to 2 good guesses and for identifying that there was someone already on the island that was going to cause them problems. Fair?

And we got some answers about Kate in her flashback. Kate did kill the man she loved and predictably it wasn’t at her hands although clearly it was her fault (BITCH that’s why no one’s voting for you on my poll!). We found out the significance of the plane!! Now that I know it, am I really expected to believe Kate would risk everything by breaking into a bank to get a toy plane? How did it get in that safety deposit box anyway? We still don’t know what Kate’s original crime was to set the law after her but maybe in her next flashback. I’d also love to know what she did to her mom to piss her off so much. PREDICTION: Kate was molested by her step-dad and ended up killing him by accident. That seems to fit and still keeps her hands relatively clean…

Before I get to Sticks I need to say something to the on the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815: can you PLEASE tell each other more about yourselves! In honor of Walt telling his dad that he burned the raft I have my list of top info that would be really useful if shared:
- Hurley’s numbers (then maybe they’ll notice they’re on the hatch)
- Hurley’s numbers (it’s f’n important!)
- The fact that Locke can now walk
- Whatever the hell Locke knows about the island
- Prego’s psychic setup
-  The story of Jack’s father and Sawyer (this isn’t really important but it would be really nice for Jack and maybe him and Sawyer could then be bff’s)
- Am I missing anything???

One last thing about Walt. I’m starting to think he really does have some sort of super power. He touches Locke and then has a bad feeling about the hatch. In the past there was him always rolling the correct dice against Hurley and that bird showed up at his house when his parent’s weren’t listening to him. His step-dad DID call him the luckiest man alive…

And finally Sticks. What the hell were you thinking girl Locke’s the bet shot you got!? And how the hell did you know about the secret guns and that Jack had the key? Something was very odd about the shooting scene. I kept replaying it and it looked like she shot Locke in the stomach. Can anyone confirm? Is the island trying to protect Locke? Why did he get the use of his legs back again? Did it have something to do with the Hatch? I don’t think I like Sticks very much but Sayid is the man. His flashback was a great story and it made his scene with Frenchy more significant when he talked about giving up on finding his love. I really don’t see why he likes Stick’s other than she is pretty hott. But I guess on a deserted island that’s probably enough…

Next up on Finally Lost I get to see the Season Finale of Lost Season 1!! I’m predicting 4 answers and 2342 more questions. By the way today is the last day to vote for your favorite character, so please vote and I will do a write up on the winner.

Last night, I worked until midnight on Ethan’s birthday invitations.  I usually make them myself and this year was no different: brown kraft cards that looked almost like vintage map material, stamped with a skull and cross bones with an inviting “Ahoy Mateys!  It’s Ethan’s birthday party!” emblazoned on the front.  Inside the card, I marched through the important details that consume kids’ parties these days.  (Bounce House Waiver Enclosed! Peanut-free party!)  Ethan had his show and tell time today, and he proudly marched into school with the pirate ship we had constructed from a kit in order to set the stage for his exciting party.

And when I woke up this morning and habitually pulled my Blackberry off the nightstand?  This was the news alert waiting for me:

– Somali pirates attack  U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama for second time, but crew repels attack, CNN reports.

Seriously,  I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried…

“if God is like a lifeguard is He the lifeguard who reaches down And grabs the swimmers arm and pulls him out of the water, or is He the lifeguard who reaches his arm out and waits for the drowning swimmer to grab his arm before pulling him out?” mark driscoll said God is the former.

If a swimmer is drowning they do not have the strength to reach up and take hold of the lifeguards hand, much like us in our total depravity and spiritually dead state are before God reaches down and grabs us to pull us out of the water, so we will not drown. This is the beleif that we are saved only by Gods grace and by no act on our part, the beleif that we are totally depraved, and Jesus calls us which when He calls we cannot resist and then are redemed through our beleif by Jesus death on the cross, which we gain when God calls us and opens our eyes and hearts, and we are then drawn irresistably to God and inspired to live for His glory.

Amen, Hallelujah
Ethan

We all brought our kids to the recent campus leaders summit and they had a ball of a time.  By the end of the day Ethan was so tired and exhausted from the days excitement and chasing the other kids around that he was practically asleep before his head touched his pillow. During the day the kids had a ball a time together, like making Lion masks.

Jadon is the most delightful little thing. His smile is so contagious he makes everybody’s heart melt.

Today at lunch I was pretending to do push-ups on the kitchen counter.

Ethan looked at me and said “Daddy, are you excersaucing?”

I’ve been listening to 1000 Generations on this very early morning and can’t get over how deep their lyrics are. This past weekend I went and got an iHome docking station for my iPhone and when my alarm goes off in the morning this particular song wakes me up. It’s so soothing in the beginning, then its like “BAM” time to rock out! LOL Oh, if you pay very close attention to the background in the music video you will notice that is was shot at the Canal here in Indy. 1000 Generations’ home church is actually The Vineyard in Castleton right off of 82nd and Craig Road, but they are becoming HUGE in the CCM world. They have 2 radio hits now.

I want to write more later if I get a chance. FYI TODAY IS ETHAN’S BIRTHDAY!!! My little man is now two!!! He got lots of gifts at his party last weekend and as part of my gift to him I am redoing his bedroom. New paint, new trim, and thats just the start…I’m actually working on completely redoing the inside of my house. Oh, and a short update on the playhouse/mini-barn I talked about months ago…well it’s still in the works. I have actually gathered some very important materials, now I am looking for the basics such as 2×4s and OSB. It is definitely coming together though.