today was our first full meeting with our Cook team. (at least, the California contingent of the team.)



and tonight we went to Islands with my fam and i took this horrible picture.

i swear... i’ve been stuck around the same weight for a few months now. grr.

today was Joe and Tammy’s wedding. they met on our Romania trip last year and fast-tracked it to the altar. (though there was no altar.)

there was, however, In N’ Out for dinner! (my kinda wedding!) the whole thing was more of a Ro-Union for our old team and we had a great time.



(we got a little tired after dinner)

the rest of these were after midnight and, therefore, were from a different day!

we had a HUGE inflatable obstacle course in The Hangar.



then we all stayed up forever just hanging out and talking after the kids all fell asleep.



since i had no responsibilities this year, i actually got to go home and sleep around 4.30 am.

i was at my parent’s today. they have a little statue of a dog just like Scout. when i saw this, i had to take a picture. (which one is real?)



awesome.

tonight was the annual elementary all-nighter. it’s a pretty amazing all night long craziness type event. last year i was in charge. this year, i’m just a spectator. i like that.



crazy kids, including Cori Cruze.



Ashley got us Yogurtland!

to be continued...

Stacy and i went shopping for Halloween costumes today. i won’t show you what we decided on but they are pretty amazing and i’m pretty sure we’re going to be the hit of Michelle’s party. i tried this on for fun.



afterward, we went back to The H for The Office season premiere party. in the evite, we told everyone to dress up like an Office character. then i e-mailed everyone except for Tyler and told them not to.

i just wanted to see Tyler and Allison as Dwight and Angela.



totally worth it.

that’s right...

Taco Bell lunch with Chino and Nani!

mmmm... Gordita!

first...



after i taught my first class today, i went up to check out the Thrasher house. the landscapers had begun their work and boy was that place torn up!



while i was there, i went next door to say “hi” to Janet and she had Dakota there with her.

taught in Studio K again this morning and took the camera onstage with me.

Tammi introduced me...



and the kids smiled for the camera...



and i’m pretty sure there was something about Jesus too!

Stacy made twice-baked potatoes for dinner.

tonight, i taught in Studio K...



and then had a guy’s movie night with Adam and Kyle and watched “Snakes on a Plane.” it’s the most horribly awesome movie ever made!

obviously, i didn’t go to Romania this year. but Stacy did. tonight was there reunion (or what we call Ro-Unions).

Michael Anthony hired me to shoot and edit some videos for Biola. today i edited. i forgot how much i really don’t like doing that. oh well... at least i’m getting paid this time!

today was the day i’d been waiting for since i came on staff nine months ago. i’d heard all about it last year before i came on and i couldn’t wait to see what we were going to do this year.

it was Staff Day Away.

every year, the staff gets a fun day away in the fall as a sort of kick off for the next ministry year. it’s a RH tradition that last year had the staff running all over Orange County on a scavenger hunt that ended with a boat ride in Newport Harbor. that was before i was on staff. so, i’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.

well... whenever you look forward to something like that, you’re bound to be let down one way or another. Michelle tried to warn us ahead of time, but we didn’t really listen. you see, our staff day away, really wasn’t.

we showed up in the morning and were told that we would be meeting with our sabbatical groups to catch up and spend some time together. not quite what i had in mind, but i thought “well, we’ll do this and then the fun will start, i’m sure.”

so, our group went to this little place called “Milk and Honey” and hung out.



it was nice to catch up with Laura and Andrew and i’m glad we got the chance to do that since our sabbaticals were so long ago. but as our hour came to a close, we rushed back to RH with anticipation for what would be next.

next was sharing time. reflecting on the past year. reflecting on our sabbaticals. reflecting on our ministries.

again... not what we were expecting.

the Taco Man came for lunch, which everyone seemed pretty excited about. (even though i’m not a huge Mexican food fan, i did enjoy the Taco Man.)

after lunch, we were told to get into our sabbatical groups for a little contest. ROCKHARBOR has a tradition (usually at Christmas) where they play Human Shuffleboard on office chairs in the hallway. this was another tradition i’d been looking forward to participating in. turns out, today would be my chance!

however, as Erre began to announce the game, he also announced some changes in the rules. usually, no one is allowed to touch the walls under any circumstances. if you do, you’re disqualified. this means that if you get near a wall, you have to stop yourself so that you can at least keep your distance. furthermore, they would normally line the walls of hall with people to ensure that nobody would go crashing into a wall. not this year though.

this year, Erre and Todd decided (as they were announcing this, i think) that you would be disqualified if you stopped yourself in any way. if you put out an arm or leg to stop yourself from hitting a wall, you were out. everybody thought something didn’t sound right about this, but we went along with it anyway.

i grabbed my chair and my team nominated me to ride down the hallway. we were fourth to go. we were also the first injury.

as i was hurled down the hallway at breakneck speeds, things were going pretty well. i was traveling quickly and in a straight line. as i began to approach The Commons, things changed. i began to veer to the left.... straight toward an outward sticking corner where Angelina had stopped before me. i was sitting cross-legged on the chair and my knees were sticking out just a bit. there was nothing i could do.

i crashed HARD into the corner and banged up my upper-shin pretty good. in fact, i’m not sure i’ve ever been in that kind of pain before. the wall’s corner was reinforced with metal and my shin indented in by about an inch. there was blood. there was pain. and i was laughing harder than i’ve laughed in a long time. (it was a bit confusing!)

did this stop the game? of course not! and being that i was 4th out of 11 (i think) i got to sit in the hallway as others came hurtling toward me, blood dripping down my leg and all. at one point, Amy Burdick was flying toward me. at the last second, Stacy (who apparently didn’t want to see me injured any further) pulled me out of the way. unfortunately, i was the only thing in between Burdick and the win. she went almost all the way to the main entrance doors and won the whole thing.

the pictures don’t do it justice. the wound is much worse than it looks. you can’t hear 1/2 of the people excited about the game and the other 1/2 pleading for someone to stop it all so that there wouldn’t be any more injuries. (i wasn’t the only one. turns out Tracy Close broke her thumb and will need a cast and surgery and others got slammed into as they sat like lame ducks in the hallway.) poor Carlos (our facilities guy) was pleading for someone to stop this as the hallway was getting torn up from chairs and body parts slamming into it.

yeah... probably wasn’t the best idea. but it was memorable!!!



afterward, we went across the street and watched “Napoleon Dynamite” in The Box.

not sure why.



so, all-in-all, Staff Day Away wasn’t away and wasn’t what we’d hoped for. i forgot what Janet and i learned in India... keep your expectations low and you won’t be let down. :-)

oh... and later, Stacy and i went and test drove an M3 for fun. it was pretty awesome!

today, the Families Team took me to lunch at Pei Wei for my birthday. it was crazy trying to get 18 people sitting together in there, but somehow, we made it happen! unfortunately, there were no pictures to document this feat.

however... as we were leaving, i saw this poster for a place called “Wonderland Bakery.” there’s a little girl on the poster and i said “wow... she looks a lot like Ruby!” (Debbie Guinn’s granddaughter.) this led to a bit of a disagreement as some believed Ruby to be MUCH cuter than this girl in the poster. we ended up going into the bakery and someone decided to ask the girl behind the counter what the girl in the poster’s name is. “Ruby,” was the answer!

who knew???

driving to work... my hair was a little out of control!

i didn’t take any pictures yesterday at the memorial service because... i guess i was a little distracted and forgot.

today, everyone came over and had dinner and hung out for Brett, Lisa and my birthdays. it was fun to do that with Jody here and everything. it was like old times and was comforting.

today’s word was supposed to be “test.” we were going to still try to work it in to the day to create a brighter spot, but Stacy got called in to work (which caused untold chaos with the family anyway) and so we didn’t get to do that.

this morning was the graveside service for grandma. mom and dad had asked me to do the service. it was just us so it was a little odd. but with our family, it was, of course, interesting! :-)

Stacy, Megan and i got there before everyone else. Aunt Pam showed up next and my parents, Meri, Martha and Virginia were about 10 minutes late. so, as they walked up, Stacy, Megan, and Pam stood in a line while i held up my Bible and pretended to be finishing the service. as they got closer, i said “amen!” and we all started walking away. we all laughed a bit and then we had to do the service.

i talked about how for us, this was the beginning of a weekend of celebrating who Grandma was to us. i read some verses and we said goodbye. it was short and to the point.

after, we all went to Mimi’s for lunch. later, i picked up Jody up from the airport and we all went up to my parent’s to hang out with the fam, the Corks and the Chandlers. it was exactly what we needed to celebrate who Grandma was.

tomorrow is the memorial service at the house.



here’s the puzzle clue for today that we didnt’ get to do yet.

word of the day :: “relax”



i had to do a video shoot for Michael at Biola today, so Stacy came up and picked me up there when i was done. she wouldn’t tell me where we were going, but she said it fit in with the theme of “relax.”

we drove for a while and pulled up at this small strip mall in San Gabriel. at first i was a bit confused... and then i saw it. the sign for a Chinese Foot Massage place. i freakin’ love foot massages!

and this place only cost $15 for an hour! they soak your feet in tea water for a half hour (whilst they massage your back, arms, shoulders and scalp) and then massage your feet for a half hour. yeah... it was pretty amazing. and all for $15!!!!

unfortunately, it was so relaxing that we forgot to take pictures of the place. (crap!)

anyway, when we got back tonight, Stacy made me try on the Biola sweatshirt she got me on Monday. i hung my head in shame for betraying Pepperdine and allowed her to take a picture.

today’s word was “simple.” it was a relaxing day and Stacy gave me a picture frame.



aside from this week being my birthday week, at ROCKHARBOR it’s also been what we’ve been calling “seek week.” you see, this weekend we’re launching the new “awakening” vision for the next year. but a few weeks ago, Todd felt like God was saying that we needed to really hand the new vision over to Him in prayer. so, he and the Strat Team called for a week of prayer. everyone on staff was asked to do the bare minimum this week as far as work is concerned. prayer meetings were called every day at 6 am, noon and 7 pm. the entire community was invited to the prayer meetings. also, we had people in The Centre all day every day for anyone who needed prayer.

to be honest, i didn’t think people were going to get into it. i couldn’t have been more wrong. i haven’t made it to any of the 6 am meetings, but the noon meetings have had a couple hundred people at them (people coming on their lunch breaks) and the evening meetings have all had around 1,000 people! it’s been pretty amazing. and we’ve seen some pretty amazing stuff.

tonight was the highlight of the week (so far) for me. the theme of tonight was prayer for our families. Michelle and Roger led a time of directed prayer for the families of our nation, community and church. but the best was when Michelle led the parents in a time of praying blessings over their children. parents all over the room were looking their children in the eyes, telling them how much they loved them and praying for them. it was incredible.

i prayed with one family where the mom was looking her 9 year old in the eyes and telling her she loved her and praying over her. as she finished, her seven year old daughter (who was adopted from Iran last year) looked at her mom and said “mommy, bless me... bless me now!” the mom was crying. the daughters experienced the love of their mother and the love of God. and this was happening with dozens of families all over The Centre.

one thing that happens quite often with our Families team is that was have to “afterglow” (as Michelle calls it). basically, it just means that when we have an event or a cool experience, our team just feels the need to sit around and talk about it and revel in the greatness of the moment. tonight, some of us decided to do this at Norm’s. so, we all headed down to Norm’s and had some late night greasy food and laughed a lot.

it was perfect.

it was simple.




oh... and for some reason, as we were leaving, there were two middle-aged men playing football in the parking lot of Norm’s at 1.00 am. weird.

today was my birthday... 30 years! holy old.

today’s word was “memories” and this was the puzzle i got...



when i got to work, she’d decorated my workspace. as you probably know, i have been collecting the Mountain Dew Green Label Art bottles. Stacy passed out cans of Dew to a bunch of people in the office and asked them to decorate them and creat our own ROCKHARBOR Label Art collection. it was a pretty cool idea and i got some fairly creative entries.



after work, we got in Stacy’s car and drove for a while not knowing where we were going. in the end, we found ourselves in Santa Monica where we met Megan for dinner at Houston’s on 3rd Street. i’d never been there before, so i was pretty excited. (and the food was excellent!)



after dinner, we walked around 3rd Street and saw the coolest dog tricks i’ve ever seen. (check out the Jack Russell on the skateboard!)



while we were walking around 3rd Street, i got a text from Katie saying “Happy Birthday.” when i texted back that we were here, she asked if she and Alec could come and see us. i said, “of course!” and so we got to hang out with them too!



all-in-all... an excellent birthday!

first, i weighed in this morning.



today’s words from Stacy were “Starting New.” i found this puzzle in my car. at the front desk was a Biola Sweatshirt as today was my first day teaching at Biola University.



i’m teaching two classes at Biola this semester. the first is an internship class and the second is an evangelism and discipleship class. today was my first day and it was pretty freakin’ awesome!

i woke up this morning to the ringing of my phone. before i answered, somehow i just knew...

Grandma Jeanne had passed away.

now, it’s not like we didn’t see it coming... we did. in fact, over the past few years, we’d gotten used to being told “she’s only got a day or two left,” but then she’d always make some miraculous recovery and be home in a day or two.

fortunately, this wasn’t like any of those times. there was no traumatic episode or rush to the hospital. she simply went peacefully in the night.

after i got the news, i still had to go and work at church. after church, i was supposed to go sailing with Michael Anthony, Kit and Tommy. however, given the events of the day, i headed up to the house to be with my family. we spent the afternoon eating (a lot) and talking and laughing. it was good to be together.

Stacy stayed home today because she had planned something for tonight to kick off my birthday week. when i got back to my place around 5.30, she was in the kitchen preparing a dinner for me. i took a quick nap and when i got up she had finished cooking. but then things got a little weird.

dinner was ready, but she just kept talking instead of serving the food. then the doorbell rang. it was Tommy. he said that he was driving back from the marina (they went sailing without me) and had a birthday present he wanted to drop off. (a signed copy of his old Basix cd... best present ever!) he gave it to me... we laughed... he said he didn’t want to interrupt our “romantic dinner”... and then he kept talking. then the doorbell rang again. it was Timmy.

i knew that Timmy had taken my place on the sailing trip and so, i assumed that he must have been parking the car or waiting in the car for Tommy and had gotten sick of waiting. but as we’re talking, Stacy reaches into a cabinet and pulls out a whole bowl of popcorn. this confused me a bit. just then, the front door opened again and in came more people. it was a reverse surprise party! (very creative)

the title of the party was “the one where matt turns 30” (just like the “Friends” episode) and was mostly like a kid’s birthday party. we had hats, toys and even a piñata! it was pretty awesome.

at the end of the night, Stacy gave me a gift that it took me a while to understand. (i’m slow like that.) it was a series of picture frames each with a word for each day of the coming week. these were to be hints of what that day would hold. the words were “surprise” (for today), “starting new,” “memories,” “simple,” “relax,” and “test.” i’m excited to see what she’s got planned!

here are the pictures from the party...

Stacy came back from her trip and we spent a night in after church tonight.

as you probably know, i edit our Family Time Curriculum at ROCKHARBOR. as i was doing this month’s edition, i realized that the picture of me that we’ve been using in it was from my pre-weight watchers days. it was time for a new headshot for a thinner matt. this is it. (though in the curriculum it’s cropped down to just a headshot.)



also, today i accepted a job as an editor/writer for David C. Cook on the project between ROCKHARBOR and Cook. so, now i have three jobs! crazy!

Stacy went on a girls surf trip to San Diego for a few days, so i stayed in tonight and watched the newest Rambo movie. very violent. very good.

they’re just so cute

first things first...



tonight, we had another birthday get-together thing at my parents...



afterwards, Stacy and i took the kids back to my place and had a sleepover! Chino and i made my room into the boys room and Stacy and Nani made the guest room into the girls room. it was way fun!