today, we went over to my uncle Vaughn’s to celebrate Lorenzo (my newest little cousin), Beau, me, Meri and my dad’s birthdays.


Kaela was thrilled to see me!


not a bad view from their back porch!



then, i took Stacy over for a quick tour of the new 3000 building.

it’s been a while since i’ve shown you all the progress on the construction downstairs. it’s all coming along pretty amazingly. almost done actually!



also, you may (or may not) be aware of my movie collecting fetish. the closet of my guest bedroom/office is pretty much my video library and it needed to be sorted a bit today.

tonight, Kirsch came down and went to dinner with us at RA. i love that place! (sushi and Mountain Dew™... great combo!)



then, Stacy and i went back and had a little Wii Fit workout. (i’m not very good at the heading soccer balls game... but i’m really good at the hoola-hoop game. and that’s a little weird because in reality, i can’t hoola-hoop to save my life.)

title pretty much says it all!

tonight, we took Leilani from Erin so she could have one night with one kid and get a little break. i picked her up and met everyone at Islands for dinner. she was so freakin’ cute! we were singing songs in the car together based on the names of people that she can say and she was trying to read to me from some picture book she had in the back seat.

at dinner, as you’ll see, my dad tried on my sunglasses. i’m not sure why.

we really wanted to go on the new Toy Story ride at DCA tonight... but by the time we go there, DCA was closed. very disappointing.

we started to wait in line for Space Mountain, but it was ridiculously long and slow so we bailed, hit up Astro Blasters and went shopping.

i bought a new pair of jeans at Quiksilver. they were 32s which is pretty amazing. but the crazier thing is, i fit into the 31s! however, they weren’t really practical as they were cutting off the blood supply to my legs. but i got in them and i got them buttoned and everything!

if you know me, you know that i do two things every week.

i weigh-in as part of my weight watchers experiment...



and i go to counseling with Ted. people sometimes ask me, “what does Ted look like?” well, today we were doing some scheduling for the coming month and i had my phone out so that i could check my calendar and i snuck a quick shot of Ted. shhh... don’t tell!

Stacy was teaching in Studio K today. she had the kids drawing the story as she told it. it was pretty cool. i took some pics.




these are the celebrate stations i designed this summer. we have them in every area of family ministries. the idea is, when God’s been doing something that you want to celebrate, you grab a rock out of the basket on the side, write something on the rock and place it on top of the station. it’s been really cool to see our families doing this together.



oh... and the Joker got Stacy.

there was something that, for some odd reason, drew me back to the car show this year. i don’t know if it’s because i planned it one year or i’ve been going for several years now, but for some reason, it’s the one Friends event i keep going back to. fortunately, i’ve been lucky and have only been running into people that i wanted to see. (yes... there are those that i’d rather not see.)

anyway, it ended up being a really fun night and i got to hang out with Letty and Savana a bit more. plus, i got to see Stuart, Jay, Victoria, Tori, Kaysie, the Service Team, Sabrina, Bri, the Hambright’s, the Haines’, the Lockard’s and a bunch of other people i don’t get to see enough of anymore.

so, since we were celebrating my dad and sister’s birthdays today (even though their birthdays are on Sunday), we decided we’d get my dad something that he keeps saying he wants. see, he always makes fun of Stacy’s nose ring and jokes that my mom should get one. so we got her a fake one. (i tried it on too.)

he laughed, though not as much as i’d hoped for.

Nani wore my hat today... she’s too freakin’ cute.

so, as you may or may not know, i’m going to be teaching a few classes at Biola in the fall. of course, the irony of this is not lost on anyone who knows me and knows that i’ve always made fun of Biola. but there are two reasons that i’ve decided to do this.

first, i’ve been asked to help change some of the very things i’ve made fun of. (not all of them... but some of them.)

second, the classes that i’m teaching are in areas that i’ve been personally exploring. the first class is an Evangelism and Discipleship class where we’re going to look at what it even means to be a Christian and what kind of response we can have to a God who loves us the way He does. of course, this relates directly to my blog from last month (“my significant insignificance and maybe too much information”).

anyway, the reason i bring this up is that it became the subject of our entire retreat here. i got to test out some of my ideas and thoughts on these kids and they loved it and we had some great conversations. i’m excited to get into the classroom and give this stuff a go. it’ll be cool because we’ll all be on a journey together discovering the same things instead of my simply standing and lecturing and giving the “right answers.”

today was the last day of the retreat here and we looked at ourselves in the context of history and God’s big story. it was a great sendoff for all of us. but before we go, we had to complete the annual tradition of playing Helium Stick.

if you don’t know what Helium Stick is, you have to try it some time. get some thin bamboo sticks (you can get a bag of 5 at Home Depot for like a buck) and have 4-6 people get in a group. hold the stick out at about shoulder level and have them gather on both sides. they can use one finger (their pointer) which must be facing up with the stick laying on top of it and must be straight out (not crooked). the group has to lower the stick to the ground without letting anyone’s fingers come off the stick at any point. if someone’s finger comes off even for a second, the group must start over.

lower a stick to the ground together. sounds easy! ha ha. sadly, nobody succeeded this year.

tonight, we had our annual “talent” show. (we use the word talent very loosely.)

we gave each group of kids a few random objects and gave them one minute to come up with a three minute skit (which we would judge from our couch). needless to say... they weren’t good. though some were entertaining!

not much to say here.

hmmm... maybe doesn’t work as well as Cali.

anyway, back to Arizona for the Service Team Leadership Retreat!



i found this application in the iTunes app store where you can “Joker-ise” your friends.

while we were in Havasu, the Urban Ranch Market opened downstairs and they began giving tours of the new tower that was just finished. (it has the first rooftop pool in Orange County.)



okay, so it has the first rooftop pool. it’s small and disappointing but has a nice view. and the market is a great idea, but it’s all organic and fancy and doesn’t really have stuff that i would want (including Mountain Dew).

the title pretty much says it all.

we have decided that the state motto for Arizona should be “Arizona... the land of hot dirt.”

what do you think? catchy huh?

anyway... we’re here in Havasu for a couple of days. i’m doing the annual Service Team Leadership Retreat up here next week and wanted to come up here and get things ready. (also, i wanted to play on the sweet new Sea-Doos.)

this morning, i was hungry and wanted an Uncrustable sandwich. i didn’t, however, want to wait 20-30 minutes for the thing to defrost. fortunately, when it’s 110 degrees outside, 3 minutes on the driveway will do it!



we had to apply the identification numbers to the Sea Doos before we could take them out. Alex did the ones in the first picture and i did the ones in the second. i think mine look better, but he disagrees.



it may be hot dirt... but it is beautiful hot dirt sometimes.



tonight, we went to Mudsharks for dinner and then discovered something new in Havasu. a few months ago, the WalMart here shut down. now, i hate WalMart. i hate it with a passion. it’s trashy and dirty and.... i just don’t like it. anyway, when the WalMart shut down it was because they were opening a WalMart SuperCenter down the road. tonight, we dropped by and i was a little surprised to find that it’s freaking amazing!!! of course, it’s brand new and a year from now it will probably be crap, but this place is nice and huge and has everything.



while we were at WalMart... i found that someone figured out how to bottle me!

Stacy and i went over to Bekie’s tonight to hang out. i got a few shots of Beau.

so, Phil Hotsenpiller and Rob Liefeld have been working on their graphic novel about the end of the world. today, i spent a few hours proofing it.

check it out at www.armageddonnow.net

first things first...



tonight, we had game night with Ang and Alex and played Apples to Apples. fun game!

yeah... i’m not sure either. somehow, Cori Cook ended up being in charge of throwing Brandi a baby shower and somehow that shower ended up at my house today.

i let them in, took some pictures (to document the odd, ridiculousness of the event) and got the hell out before the thing started.



note to self... no more baby showers at The H.

today we went to see the kids, visit the dogs and have some dinner at RA.


i’m not sure what Stacy’s brewing in her cauldron there.

it’s back to Cali today!


Megan is clearly upset that i’m leaving her



these are the Cruse kids (family friends) who were on the same flight as us

it was our last night...

so we went to Cheeseburgers in Paradise. (the burgers at Leilani’s were better!)

...i don’t know where i was.

first, we had breakfast at Castaways Cafe...



then, i walked down to the Whaler for some sun...



then, we had Meri’s last dinner with us at Outback Steakhouse

it’s true. i saw it for myself with my very own eyes. it happened.

Megan is working.

no... seriously. like a real job.

tonight we went to Leilani’s and Megan was our waitress. just imagine the fun we had bossing her around. (and she didn’t even spill anything!)


Stephanie works there too.


Ashley is clearly outraged by the sub-par service we’re receiving.

as i’ve been here in Maui for the past few days, i’ve been spending a lot of my time reading in preparation for my first college teaching assignment at Biola this fall. the book that i’ve been spending most of my time on is by a pastor from Simi Valley named Francis Chan and is called Crazy Love. (by the way, i absolutely recommend that you go straight to amazon.com or wherever after you’re done reading this and pick up this book.)

the book is really challenging. it really makes you think about who God is and who we are in relationship to Him. it makes you deal with the realities of what God really expects from us and the appropriate ways to respond to His crazy love for us.

there’s a part of the book that talks about how small we are in reality. it even points to a video (“the awe factor of God”) on Francis’ website where he (very briefly) shows how small we are in the grand design of the cosmos. (it’s pretty crazy really.) anyway, all of this is good and somewhat impactful when you’re reading it in a book, but you have to encounter it for it to really hit you hard. (at least, i do.)

tonight, i went out for a walk. (i go on night walks at least a few nights a week if not more. it’s how i wind down and process the day with God.) anyhow, i was walking up and down our neighborhood here in Kaanapali having a nice little walk and talk with God when i hit a dark spot... the in-between spot for two streetlights. i hit that spot and, for some reason, i looked up. it was amazing.

there were so many stars. and it seemed like, the more i stared at the sky, the more stars appeared. as if they were responding to my gaze, stars started popping out of the blackness and the void of space began to fill with specks of light. i literally couldn’t move for a moment. suddenly, the things i had just been talking with God about seemed rather insignificant. in fact, life in general seemed pretty insignificant.

i was reminded of Francis’ video and the fact that all of those stars that i could see (including ours) when put together are but a speck of light from a perspective outside of our galaxy. suddenly, the Earth felt pretty small and insignificant. and if the whole Earth is small and insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe, what does that say about me?

but here’s the weird part. the fact that God created all of that and still cares about what could easily be considered the insignificant details of my life is pretty insane to think about. to Him, they’re not insignificant. to Him, i’m not insignificant. to Him, i matter and so do the details of my life. that just doesn’t make any sense to me. (not that i’m complaining!)

suddenly, all i wanted to do was worship God somehow. and then it happened. (and this is the part that might be considered too much information.) as i began to contemplate how i could possibly respond in an appropriate manner, my dinner began to settle, my stomach growled and, standing there in the middle of the street looking up at the stars... i farted.

immediately i started to laugh at the irony of that moment. i mean... not only am i a small, seemingly (and reasonably so) insignificant being, but i’m gross and, in this moment, gassy. and yet, even in the midst of the great cosmos that He created, He still cares. as disgusting as i can be (both inside and out), He still loves me with an unbelievable love.

i’m not totally sure how to respond to the crazy love that God has for me. but, now i’m on a quest to figure it out.

- barnes

ps... if you wanna be blown away by how small we really are, check out the wikipedia entry on galaxies. after i just read that, i’m feeling even smaller. (each galaxy has somewhere between 10 million and 1 trillion stars and there are more than 100 billion galaxies out there! we’re just on one tiny little rock orbitting one of those stars in one of those galaxies. freakin’ crazy!)

we tried a new restaurant tonight. amazing view and beautiful place! too bad the food was really expensive and not very good. (i think that’s how they cover the cost of the real estate.) oh... and our old friend Charly (Megan’s friend who was a student when i was teaching at Lutheran High) came to stay for a few days.



there’s a good one!