tonight, we got together with the Corks, Chandlers and our family to celebrate Christmas. as always, a fun time was had by all!

every year, Fashion Island puts up this HUGE Christmas tree. supposedly, it's the largest on the West Coast. (somebody said largest in the country, but i don't think that's true.)

a very beautiful day out...



and, here he is... Keving.

you think school’s out and you’re done... but you’re not. the whole “last day of school” thing is so anticlimactic for a teacher. today, i graded a lot of papers.

as a surprise date, Stacy took me to do something i’ve never done before...

shoot a gun! it was pretty awesome!

the kids in StudioK had a chance to write messages to God on rocks...

here’s my favorite one. (if you watched Arrested Development it’ll be yours too!)

i was out for a walk today and noticed that the clouds were amazing... so i went back and got my camera.



tonight, i hosted our annual “Twas the Night Before Christmas” family event. it’s actually an event put on by the Arts department for our families. (we just support it.) but, this year, i hosted... and it was awesome! the families are all supposed to come in their pajamas and watch Christmas stories acted out for them. check out my PJ’s!

what do you do when the budget is running low and you have a giant party to throw for all of your leaders? apparently, you make it a potluck and give it a 50s theme for extra measure!

i can’t believe it’s been a year since the last one i was at (as a volunteer!). what a great year!



Tammi tries to shoot a gun... entertaining.


she looks like she’s singing, but she’s not... she’s talking about her amazing volunteers.


ha ha ha ha ha ha ha


ah... they’re goofy.


Pete wins.


again...


i think Pete loses here.


an excellent look for Keving.


i guess she asked “what needs to be done?”

today we had our RH families Christmas lunch and gift exchange...



this is where i live...

every month, ROCKHARBOR families is looking at another question to be considering in how we do ministry. each month, at our first team meeting of the month, the question is revealed in a creative manner. today... it was inside a piñata.

today was the last day of class for my internship ii class. they were a great class and put up with my learning curve a lot. i’m going to miss them!

i’m not sure why i took a picture of Tommy hosting in the Hub today... but i did. and here it is.



and, tonight, i had some of my students over for an ugly Christmas sweater party of my own. (i have to get the most possible mileage out of that thing!)

this morning, we met over at Leigh’s house for our last meetings. it was actually kinda interesting. some of the preschool curriculum discussion got a bit heated. (a sentence that makes me laugh out loud just now that i read it.)

but it was good. it lead to some great discoveries about our team and the dynamics we’re working with. in any case, the meeting was a little more relaxed than the others!


Janet wanted to be comfortable.


Cristi is passionate about preschool scope and sequence!


Tori really wants to care but the blanket makes her want to take a nap.


Leigh just observes. i think we’re fascinating to her. like a case study.


when Cristi really gets passionate, she stands up.


(the previous pictures of me were posed in order to convince people that i made some positive contributions to the meeting. i did not.)

later, we headed into town for some lunch and had a lot of great conversations about personality and shared great stories and laughed a lot! (also, we debated the under or over use of the word “love.”)



also, Michelle accused me of not giving good hugs. so then, everyone had to rate my hugs and, in the end, it was decided that my hugs were, in fact, amazing. (thank you very much.)



on the way out of town, we drove through this amazing place called “The Garden of the Gods.” it was really beautiful and there were all these amazing naturally occurring formations.



unfortunately, we didn’t really have time for the whole “Garden of the Gods” thing so we had to haul ass to the airport from there. we barely made it!

all in all, a great trip... though i’m glad to be home!



by the way, Leigh... we LOVE you! ;-)

so, today was pretty much meetings all day.

but these are pictures i took from our drive on the way into the office.



beautiful.

anyway, i had a meeting with Janet this morning over breakfast to talk about what leadership would look like in the curriculum. then it was meetings all day to talk about branding and components and content and on and on.

it was very productive though and... the really beautiful thing about this company... they have Mountain Dew in their cafeteria in ALL THREE FORMS!!! (bottled, canned and fountain dew.) amazing.



that night, we had the DCC company Christmas party. this is where i really saw the cultural differences between DCC and RH. if you saw the pictures from the RH Christmas party, you got the idea of what that was like. well, this was as opposite as you can get.

people in formals in a banquet room at a hotel. a speaker. a full dinner with appetizers, salad (which i didn’t eat, of course... being a meat-a-tarian and all), a main course and dessert. worship.

well, you get the idea. it was different. and i’m not sure if we fit in. we were laughing a lot and having fun. people kept looking at our table. (i’m not sure if they were annoyed at us or jealous that they weren’t sitting with us. probably a little of both.) ;-)

anyway, here are the pics...

today, Michelle, Tori, Cristi and i headed out for Colorado Springs for a three day trip to meet our Colorado counterparts!



the flight was a little hairy. we got about ten feet above the runway when the pilot pulled back up because it was too icy to land. we flew around for 45 minutes while they somehow de-iced the runway. (i’m not sure what this consists of. i picture hundreds of men out there scraping away at the tarmac with giant ice-scrapers.)



then, after we landed, Michelle broke her heel while we were getting the rental car. (really, Michelle? high heels in the snow?)



so, by the time we got on the road, we were already running late (because of the 45 minutes extra in the air) and we were really hungry! so, we decided that even though we had meetings to go to, our stomachs had to come first. we found a Chili’s that had a Kohl’s in the same parking lot and we got lunch and new shoes for Michelle all in one stop.



and then it was on to the David C. Cook fortress (it’s seriously this intimidating looking building that can only be described as a fortress).



when we got there, we were welcomed by Janet and Leigh and the entire company. (we were kinda treated like celebrities. i think it’s the California thing.) we had a meeting or two and headed off to a great dinner.

more tomorrow!

oh... when we were getting a tour of the DCC building, we saw this and thought it was pretty cool. (minus the unfortunate location of the fire alarm.)

i think the title says it all. normally, the RH staff goes to Disneyland for the Christmas party, but this year... well, we have budget issues. so, we stayed in and made a party of it all!

enjoy the ugly sweaters and know that i got 3rd place for the guys. (not bad out of like 30 or so guys!)


um... yeah. we look good.


a few sizes too small there, Mike.


Aida won it all!


Lexie actually made Tim’s sweater for him!


there are now two Basix cd’s floating around out there. watch out, Tommy!


not an ugly sweater... SHAME!!!!


ugly sweaters and ugly couches.


the finalists.


waiting in line for TK Burger


Doug Berry tries to hide his Starbucks in his pocket before he goes into the movie theater. (it didn’t work!)

we’ve been talking a lot lately (both at RH and in my internship class at Biola) about how we tell stories. mostly, we’ve been talking about how we tend to tell them wrong.

for instance, we make Noah and the Ark this cute little story we tell kids about animals and boats. we make it so cute that people make little cartoon pictures about it and put them up in nurseries and whatnot. this is jacked up.

Noah’s story is about God’s vengeance on a world that had forsaken Him and His covenant with all of creation thereafter. He destroyed the world. i totally understand why we would celebrate this with our youngest children. (that’s called sarcasm... there’s no really good way to denote that in text.)

anyway, i was out shopping tonight for ugly Christmas sweaters (for our staff party tomorrow) and i saw this and it made me laugh because it’s EXACTLY what i’ve been talking about. enjoy.

i got to Biola early this morning, so i sat on a bench and was checking my email. i finished that and started my own little PhotoBooth session. don’t judge.