Tag: family

Legendary…and not so much

It was a DVR night. Watched Dream Wife with Trudi and Shae. Two words – insipid; dumb. Disappointing, too, since it stars Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr (three years before they did An Affair to Remember.

Then watched a couple episodes of Jon and Kate Plus 8. (Kate needs to watch herself on TV sometime so she can see what a nag she is.)

This followed an late afternoon with Sam, Shae, and Dalton at the movies watching I am Legend. Well made, but highly unenjoyable for me. Too much tension. (PG-13 because of the violence and horror genre.)

Wii-lationships

Trudi and I have started teaching a Sunday School class together…the first time we’ve ever tried to teach an adult class together. I’ve called it “Wii” (hope I won’t get any nasty-grams from Nintendo’s lawyers), because it’s about relationships…making the two “i’s” form one “we”.

So far, so good. We had our second week (or is that “wiik”?) and people seem like they will enjoy it. We will be looking at personality types, love languages and other relationship items.

Next wiik Trudi is at the helm. It should be fun.

And we have our own blog for the class. It’s the Wii-lationships blog. I forgot to record the class yesterday, but when we do, it will be available as a podcast, too.

I Wonder How Many Will Be Invited to the Marriage

A big weekend in the extended McDaniel family. As first reported back in June, Nathan and Brandi will become Mr. and Mrs. Griepp this weekend. (Wonder if they thought about becoming Mr. and Mrs. Hogan?)

My sister, Tammy, myself, our spouses and our children are all sad that we weren’t able to make the trip this weekend for the wedding. As I write this, I imagine everyone is at the rehearsal/dinner and know that we are missing a great time. It is very disappointing not to be there.

But we send our best wishes, and hope that tomorrow is spectacular. Beyond that, we send our hopes and prayers for a successful marriage. The wedding is important and memorable (my favorite memory of our wedding is of my granddad in his tux), but it is but a small point in the larger story of the marriage.

I don’t know how many will be at the wedding, but there will be many that will be blessed from the lives and marriage of Nathan and Brandi.

(Send pictures!)

Bowling with Sam and Shae

Spent New Year’s Day at the Capital One Bowl in Orlando, cheering for the Gators and Heisman Trophy winner, Tim Tebow. Shae and I wore Tebow jerseys. Unfortunately, the Gators lost. We had a good time.


Shae as we wait to get in. You can see Sam sitting in the background


Sam was tired after staying up all night.


Actually, he was happy. He’s just serious about eating.


This is on the ramp on the way to our seats. Sam would make a new friend shortly after this picture.


Ashley Pounders and Shae.


From our seats, high in section 312.


The Gators on the field.


Fireworks were at eye level.


Apache flyover


My favorite picture and memory of the whole day

Belated Merry Christmas

Enjoying the Christmas break with family. Heading out to see the National Treasure sequel this afternoon. We saw Enchanted while at the beach last week. Everyone enjoyed it and we would recommend it. Hopefully Disney gets this one right, too.

Picture is of Tammy, Terry, and Luke, as we sat down to Christmas dinner at mom and dad’s.

Beach Bums

It is absolutely perfect weather this week. Sorry if you are in some miserable place with miserable weather.

There’s not a whole lot to do around here, but that’s okay, since I’m not looking to do a whole lot. We’ve been to WalMart a couple of times, found the bank and the post office, and have spent time at the beach and by the pool. Of course, the girls and Trudi have spent more time there than I have.

This picture was taken yesterday, before the morning chill had lifted. Today it is mid-to-upper 70’s.

Not in church on Sunday

Rarely am I not in church on Sunday. In fact, I don’t know when I last missed. (I’ll save my reasons for another post.)

But today Trudi and I skipped going to church.

A friend of ours blessed us beyond measure with a week at a condo on Marco Island. (If you don’t know where that is, look it up…there’s not much south of here that’s still in the U.S.) We had a very relaxing day today, getting up very late, having breakfast, taking a walk on the beach, watching football and movies and generally doing nothing.

Tomorrow we return home to take Sam to his basketball game, then we’ll come back to the beach for the rest of the week. Looking forward to it.

Scrooge is over, now we’re pooped

That title is more literal than you might guess. We finished Scrooge on Monday, with mixed results. The cast and crew got better every night, and Sunday was a great crowd, full and very responsive.

Monday was small and “appreciative”. All-in-all, everything went very well.

Now it’s over, and I’ll be spending most of the rest of the month out of the office. Yesterday was full of several errands and about 30 minutes in the office.

Today is the “pooped” part. Our septic tank at the house has backed up. Barry the plumber – a very nice man from church – is currently trying to determine whether there is a clog or if we need our drainfield redone. (“A drainfield for Christmas for me?! Oh, you shouldn’t have!”)

In the meantime, I missed the opportunity yesterday to wish my brother-in-law, Terry, a very happy birthday. So, happy late birthday, TS!

Scrooge 24/7

At least, it feels like it’s Scrooge all-day, everyday at the moment. This is the last week of preparation before Friday’s opening night. Monday’s dress rehearsal was over at about 10:30pm. Last night was about an hour shorter. Last night was the first night for everyone in makeup, so that took some getting used to for the new cast members.

Tonight is church, and tomorrow is our final dress rehearsal.

This picture, from last week, made me laugh. Sam and Jeff Kirkland were taking their bows during Whaddaya Say. I was tempted to put it on the Scrooge blog, but I’ll just keep it here for now.

List of Thanks 2007

  • “God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.” (Romans 5:8, The Message). Getting what I don’t deserve; not getting what I do.
  • Family.
  • Friends.
  • A home to live in.
  • (lots) of good food to eat and a wife who loves to cook it.
  • The Gators.
  • My Powerbook, iPhone, and other computer goodies.
  • Sports on T.V.
  • Holiday movies.
  • Good health.
  • I still have (most of) my hair.
  • The sense of smell.
  • 82 and sunny.

…and to all a goodnight

Before I head to bed, thought I’d fill in a couple of the gaps from the day. Hope you enjoyed it. It was an experiment for me, and a way to share “A Day in the Life” with you. Here are some tidbits that didn’t make it into the blog before now, but which were part of the day…

– Between the groceries and dropping off paperwork, there was a picture I tried to get, but just missed. It was of Trudi passing me headed the opposite direction on the interstate as she went to pick up Shae from school. I snapped the picture, but my shutter was too slow to catch her.

– Before we went to Kohl’s there was a quick stop by the church to pick up the receipt for Trudi’s gifts that I left in my office. I should have taken a picture of my office. Just because.

– As we left Kohl’s, we passed emergency vehicles blocking one lane of the road in front of the store. A fire truck blocked our view, so we couldn’t tell if it was an accident or what, although Trudi thought it looked like a red vehicle on the other side of the fire truck had front end damage. We found out later it was the car of Kathy, a friend of ours. Chase Goss and her daughter, Trinity, were also in the car. Someone had pulled out in front of them. Kathy, Chase and Trinity all seemed to be fine. Chase told me all this when I dropped Sawyer off at the church. She had pictures on her iPhone of Kathy’s car. (They would have made a good entry for the blog.)

That’s about it. Trudi and Shae are getting up early to head to JC Penneys. I have to have Sam and Summer to the church for Upward Basketball by 9am and I’ll pick up Sawyer from her sleepover then.

Good night.

Dalton and Ravioli Soup

A cool evening gets us Ravioli soup (one of my favorites) and cheesebread (the kids’ favorite).
Dalton – Sam’s friend and our “adopted son”- joined us.

Making NFL Picks

My picks for this weekend in the USA Today pool I’m in. Other members of the pool mostly are connected with Assemblies of God HQ in Springfield, Missouri. Was invited by my sister, Tammy. (Hey – Tam – no fair looking at my picks. Specially since I’m ahead of you right now!)

Busy days

Been busy. Very. But tomorrow’s my official Day Off, so here’s the plan…

I’ll be blogging my day tomorrow.

I’m not exactly sure what all I’ll be doing, but whatever it is, I plan to put it on the blog. Good or bad, exciting or dull, fair weather or foul, I’ll put a picture and a blog post for each step along the way.

See you tomorrow!

(This picture has nothing to do with anything, other than it’s old.)

It’s Even Good to be…

…I won’t say how old, even though I don’t think she’d really mind. After all, she is still young and beautiful. Happy Birthday to my lovely Trudi. Tonight we’re going to let her open her presents, then we’ll all go out to eat. At dinner we’ll continue with a family tradition – on anyone’s birthday or special day everyone takes a turn saying something nice about that person. We always have lots to say about her.

(This pic is from last year’s birthday.)