For My Sister On Her 40th Birthday

Today is Shannon’s Birthday.
Shannon is my older sister.

She is the person who...
1. encouraged (dared) me to jump off a 2’ high ledge when I was 3 years old.
I broke my arm. I cried about it for hours.

The Stinson's, pre-Leslie. 1978?

2.) when I was 6, gave me an education on The Tooth Fairy, The Easter Bunny, & Santa Claus all within 5 minutes. I cried about it for days.

The Stinson's, in all our 1980 glory.

3.) sat with me and said “Yeah, I can do your hair for you. It will look cool and winged back like the guys on TV.”  I'm still crying about this.

The Stinson's, with special guest: Shawn's hair. 1986?

4.) who might kill me for sharing all these pictures.

She is also the person... who looked out for me, laughed with me, encouraged me, and gave me guidance and advice when I needed it. I’m thankful for her and all the great times we’ve had together.

Oh yeah, she’s also the person who turned 40 today!!!!
So maybe, she’ll give me guidance on how to survive that when I get there ....a looong time from now.

Happy Birthday, Shannon.
Love you!

My 12 Favorite Instagram Pics of 2012

You're reading this, so I assume you either know me personally or follow me on pinterest, the book of the faces, or the twitter. So you probably also know that I enjoy using Instagram.

My Instagram Use
For those of you out of the loop, Instagram is a smart phone app that allows you to easily take, edit, and share pics. I've been using Instagram for a few years now and enjoy it. I do my best to try to use it (and all social media really) to educate, entertain, or enlighten. That sounded awful fancy, didnt' it? Really, I just try to post stuff that I find interesting or funny. If you're wondering what you should or shouldn't post, I suggest you chase this rabbit.

Daily Instagram Photo Challenges
I have even gone through some spells of taking pics everyday as part of different photo challenges that some bloggers put together. While that is fun, I have found that it often loses it's entertainment value if the theme of the day is boring.

For a while, I considered starting my own daily challenge, but that idea ended when The Lovely Kristi and I started listing things to put on a daily photo list.We started with some good ideas...

Day 1) Favorite person
Day 2) My Collection
Day 3) Stink Eye

But sadly, as the list got longer, instead of progressing into a great list of photo ideas, it regressed into a list of things no one wants to see.....

Day 23) Is this a rash?
Day 24) My scar
Day 25) Inside my used kleenex

I gotta admit, we laughed a lot while making the list of things no one wants to see.
But, anyway, to be clear. I am not starting a daily photo challenge.
 
I am however going to share with you some of my favorite pics from this year, in case you missed them when they originally posted.

My 12 favorite pics...
with the captions that originally appeared on Instagram.

The Lovely Kristi. Celebrating Christmas with the Allreds.

Day 10: Self Portrait. Running my first 5k tomorrow. This is what they call a 2X shirt. I guess they're not used to bigun's running in these races. Tightest shirt I've ever worn. On the bright side, I do have a great rack. #febphotoaday

Day 5: Smile. A great summer day with Dad in 2010 when kids playing in the hose turned into the adults playing. #marchphotoaday

Ethan was super excited until he learned this was a giant box of regular size pop tarts and not a box of head sized pop tarts.

He's not always as sweet as he seems.

Ethan & Uncle Joel doing some early morning fishing.

Another pic from a great weekend. Wrestlemania broke out last night with my boys, Natalie, @aimeekaitlyn, and @stephen_g_d

Sept. 29th - Underneath - Baptizing my oldest son, Ethan a couple weeks ago was one of the greatest moments of my life. I'll never forget watching his face as he came back up from underneath the water. So thankful He's given his life to Jesus Christ. (Photo credit to The Lovely Kristi) #fmsphotoaday

 

Side note about this pic... This day would have been perfect I had remember to zip my pants after baptizing Ethan. Instead I led 250 people in worship with my fly down. Oops.

Sept 20th - Man-Made - That little man made our night pitching for the first time. (See what I did there =) #fmsphotoaday

Sept 22nd - Up - Ethan and Gavin knew Alabama would win today. So they found other ways to entertain themselves at the game. Alabama was up by 33 pts at the end. Looks like they were right. #fmsphotoaday #rolltide

New blog entry. My Encounter With Baywatch bit.ly/QvWFlb

Sometimes when shopping, kids come in handy.

Those were my  favorites.
As you can see, most involve my family and our adventures.
Just for curiosity's sake though, I checked with Statigram, and apparently my most liked photo on Instagram was this one.....

Happy Halloween from Charlie Brown & The Great Pumpkin. Photo credit to @mistyshantay .

Happy New Year Everybody!

8 Things I Now Know About Hiking

While in Gatlinburg last weekend, Kristi and I decided to try something new and go hiking. I googled the words "Gatlinburg" and "hiking" and it led us to Rainbow Falls. I learned a lot that day. So instead of hoarding all this knowledge to myself here are...

8 Things I Now Know About Hiking

1.) If you see someone else on the hiking trail, you must speak. It’s like a law or something.
Every group of people we passed felt compelled to say something, anything. Kind of like being on an elevator. The problem is that both parties are moving in different directions. So talking is like Twitter, limited to 140 characters or less. As people pass they’ll say something very quick like “You’ve only got 1 more hour to the top.” Or “Watch out for the creek ahead.” Or one of the oddest ”When they say don’t feed the bears, they mean it!” (I’m not sure what that was all about. It was more creepy than funny when the guy said it.) I would have been fine with just a smile or friendly nod, but for some reason everyone wanted to chat for 3 seconds as we passed. (Now, when I say passed, I mean we were heading up on the same trail that they were heading down. If you think that we were walking faster than someone and passed them on the way up, then you clearly don’t know me well.) Strangers on the trail might even try to find something you have in common with them and briefly discuss that. Kristi and I accidently both wore shirts that day proudly displaying our support of the University of Alabama. While walking the streets of Gatlinburg and hiking the mtn, we got at least 20 shouts of “Roll Tide!” But the best had to be from a group of Asian students who looked happy when they saw our shirts. They spoke in another language to each other, pointing at us the whole time. Then one of them said to us “We’re from UA.” It took me a minute to realize what he said through his very thick accent. Then he exclaimed. “Row the Tide!!” We gave them a friendly “Roll Tide” in return and walked at least 10 feet away before we started laughing.

 

2.) Accessorize
Walking sticks change from “something to make of” to “something you wish you had” the further up the mountain you go. The first hiker we saw on the trail looked something like this... I almost laughed out loud. It was as if he stepped out of an outdoor catalog. I spent a little while making fun of these people. But the higher we went, the rockier the terrain got, and I started to slip and slide around the trail. I finally admitted at one point. I wish I had a walking stick. It was a sad moment.



3.)One important question to ask.
Why am I doing this? Is the view of an 80’ waterfall worth a 3 mile uphill hike?
In a word... no.
Here’s what we saw.






I’ve just saved you a 4 hour walk in the woods.
You’re welcome.








4.) How many days will a heavy guy in bad shape be sore after a 6 mile hike?
The Answer: 5.
Starting with the feet that first day.
Then the pain makes it way up to his calves and camps there for a few days.

5.) What not to wear.
You should carefully consider what you wear before hiking. I started off with a long sleeve pullover, but lost it when I got sweaty. Then put it back on when we reached snowy areas. I guess that wasn’t so bad. The problem I had was with shoes. I don’t think my New Balance tennis shoes were designed for the Rainbow falls trail. So the real question is “Do you need hiking boots for hiking?” If you like muddy tennis shoes, twisting your ankles, and ending the day walking in wet shoes and socks (AKA: “six flags” style.) then no. You don’t need hiking boots.

6.) Rations
As you can see, we went on this hike without any real planning. We didn’t even bring a single bottle of water. This came to our attention about 1 hour into the uphill journey. By the 90 minute point we started talking a lot about how good water would be right then. We even got so thirsty that suddenly a small stream flowing down a mountain looked like a great source of refreshment. It didn’t take long at all for me to talk my lovely wife into doing this...

It was only afterward that we began to doubt our decision and she mentioned that we might get sick because of the possible amoebas we just ingested. Luckily though, neither of us got sick and we were glad we took that drink.

7.) Know the difficulty of the hike before beginning.
My wonderful Google search, led me to many trails we could have hiked that day.
Some were marked “Easy”. Easy trails had things like, paved paths, stroller & wheelchair accessible. I could just imagine us walking through the woods and having to pass Grandmaw Moses on her scooter, so I kept looking.
“Moderate” trails listed slight inclines, rocky terrains. Not recommended for small children. That sounded pretty good to me.
Then the “Difficult” trails said things like very steep, mountain climbing, and were very long paths. So I knew “moderate” was the way to go.
A 2.7 mile hike to a waterfall sounded like a good idea. It seemed to be a great way to spend 2.5 hours in Gatlinburg. But that was not the case for us. It took us a little longer. As this video will show, our 4 hour moderate hike was a little more difficult that we expected. Good luck understanding the big guy as he tries to talk while winded.

8.) Have a buddy
It’s a good idea to have a buddy when hiking. There were times I would have stopped and said, “That’s it! Forget it, I’m heading back down.” But Kristi encouraged me by saying things like “we’ve come this far, let’s keep going.” And I did the same for her. We walked for a while with a nice young couple and it was obvious the whole time that he wanted to keep going, but she was done about half way up. But at least they were together. But the most interesting group we encountered was Baljeet and his girlfriend. Both of them were of Indian decent or at least it appears that way based on how they looked and talked. (Wait.. is this sounding racist?) We never officially met them, so I began referring to them as “Baljeet and his girlfriend”. (Baljeet is an Indian character on the cartoon Phineas & Ferb. He is hilarious.) So that seemed like a nice nickname for this young man to me. (Yep, this sounds racist for sure.) Anyway, this couple was very nice. We passed each other on the trail a couple of times as they would take breaks and so would we. They seemed nice enough. But they were very annoying. You see, they were both thin and in good shape and just seemed so happy to be moseying up and down the mountain holding hands. I didn’t see any sweat on them. They never appeared to get winded. I began to dislike Baljeet and his girlfriend by the time we both reached the top simply because they remained so giddy as I grew more fatigued and ready to be done.


That about sums up our hike and lessons learned. I’ll probably hike again someday. But I assure you I’ll be more prepared for the terrain. I’ll have better accessories, rations, and clothing. And I’ll try to stay far away from annoying, happy, friendly, fit people like Baljeet and his girlfriend.

I'm a clock watcher

Well, Here I am.
At work.
It's 2:18 and today is "Festivus". (Seinfeld reference)

I've been told I can leave early, but not before 3:00. That means I'll be leaving at 3:01.
I'm so ready for Christmas. I'm really excited about Christmas this year. I can't wait to see the boy's response when he sees all his gifts from Santa on Christmas morning. Of course since he's not even 2 so he currently has no idea that he's going to "rack up" in a couple of days.
Here's what he's getting from us....
A Tricycle
A "swirling sawdust workbench" complete with tools.
A large metal Tonka Dumptruck
An art Easel (Easle?) with a chalkboard on one side and dry erase board on the other.
A remote control Car
A "Little People" Farm
some clothes
some chalk and accessories for his easel.
some bath tub toys
and finally a figure 8 electric race track. You know the kind with the two cars and the triggers to race around it.(The box says for ages 8 and up so I guess I'll always have to play with it with him, for safety of course.)

I'm glad we're building a new house. We're going to need the room for all his stuff. This list does not even include the gifts he'll get for all grandparents and great grandparents and aunts and uncles. It's going to be great.

But also with this fun comes the issue of scheduling the madness. Here's our schedule as it stands right now....

Today... go by Walmart for last minute presents and christmas snack foods. then get home and wrap presents.
Tonight..Possibly open some presents with Ethan and Kristi. (We've always opened one on Festivus because we're so impatient.) The hang out with Kristi's Parents and sister for milk cookies and a ]viewing of the Christmas Classic "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation". I'm laughing just thinking about it.
Tomorrow morning...Go to Kristi's parents and have Christmas with them.
Tomorrow Noon...Go to my parents and have Christmas with My immediate family.
Tomorrow evening.. @ 5pm lead worship at the Christmas Eve Communion service at church. then go hang out at home or with the Allred's some more.
Tomorrow late night... help Santa assemble gifts and get everything in order for Christmas.
Christmas morning...Santa Claus @ our house
Christmas midmorning..Breakfast with Kristi's Grandparents and aunts and uncles on the Allred Side.
Christmas Mid to later morning...Lead 10am worship service at church
Christmas Lunch...Christmas with Kristi's Mom's side of the family..
Christmas afternoon...Crash and burn. Try to get some rest and enjoy the booty we collected over the past few days.

I'm tired just thinking about it.

One final thing....
I can't express how awesome it is that The Creator of the universe did what He did for us. I don't want to get into a heavy theology thing right now, but I've been thinking about the fact that on the one hand God gave his only son to walk the earth like us, experience what we experience, then die a horrible death to save us from our sin. (Even though he did rise again.) I would never give my son for anybody. Ever.

Then on the other hand I realize that because Jesus is God, God sacrificed himself. He choose to come here and go through what he went through just so that we could have a relationship with him.
To know that God came in the humble way that he did says so much about our God and our Lord and the things he finds important.

I am so thankful for the gifts he's given me, including my family, my job, my church, my possessions and my friends. I am so unworthy.

"And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?"


Charles Wes­ley, Psalms and Hymns, 1738.

Just another manic Sunday

well, I was too zonked to post anything last night. I came home from church and went to bed before 10. I think I'm turning old fast. If I'm not careful I'll end up listening to Big band music and A.M. talk radio and enjoying it.

...DANG, I already do that!! Oh well.

Yesterday was busy, but fun. Did the normal church stuff. We sang a new song in the AM service "Blessed Be Your Name". It went pretty well. Some folks stood and really got into it. As usual, some were some who just sat and didn't even sing.
I really don't understand those folks. Is it fair to assume that because they don't even try to sing unless it's a song they grew up with that they don't understand what worship is? Is that judging them too harshly? Do I even have the right to judge them?
And if I want them to be involved does that mean I should lead songs I know they'll get into. Boy, that will be fun, NOT!

I also helped my sister-in-law (wife's sister)and her family move yesterday. Joseph also came and helped. I am thankful that I have a group of friends who are willing to do that for each other. I feel kinda sorry for the folks in the world out there who have to pay a moving company. I assume that means they don't have any real friends. How sad.

The students from church are going to fuge Monday. I really wish I could go with them. I haven't been involved in something like that in a long time. I guess I'll just have to send my prayers along with them.

I guess that's about it
Later.

Saturday 06/04/05

what a looooong day. I had to be at job #3,(which isn't really a job, but should be) today at 5am. We had a fundraising event. Which raised more money than lst time, but not as much as I would have liked. We really need to find someone rich who will put us in their will or something.

Anyway, it was a long day, but productive. I got home after 4, and had an argument with the wife about...whatelse....my "priorities". Unfortunately she's right in everything she says. I cant wait until job #3 is no longer an issue.

We also went to eat at our favorite restaurant, Perico's then we went to the mall to buy the boy some new dress shoes. I has alot of fun with him at the mall. I put him down and let him wander while followed him. The coolest things was when he walked up right in the middle of a group of four teenage girls talking. He stepped right in the middle of them and then looked up at them as if he exected them to be talking to him. I had to say "excuse me" and reach in to get him. They all laughed and waved at him. It kinda makes methink that that would have been a cool way to meet girls about 15 years ago. Man I'm getting old.

We ended the evening by going to the grandparents and letting some of the aunts and uncles play with "the boy". Everyone enjoys the tricks he'd doing right now. One of my favorites is the fact that he loudly says BURP right after anyone burps. It's awesome.

Later.

Today

1st entry ever.
Someone told me about this site (Livejournal.com) and I had to check it out.
Did alot today, but not enough. There's just not enough hours in the day.
Overslept this morning, late for Job#1. It's just a matter of time before they realize that I am a slacker and I get canned.Got a call while at job #1 that I needed to get things ready for next week for job #2. So I had to go by there after job #1 was finished. Unfortunately I also had to stop by job #3 before heading home to get ready for a big event for tomorrow.

All of these things made me get home late which didn't go well with the wife. But she understood and expressed her unhappiness that I always make plans and just expect her to be home to take care of "the boy" while I have to be gone. She is totally correct. I take advantage of her way too much. But that leaves the question what do I say no to? Job 1,2,3, or home. I know what the answer is not. I've got to find the solution to this.

After a while she cooled off and we played with the boy for a while. He's so awesome. I love watching him learn new stuff. We played with an umbrella tonight. He laughed every time it opened up.

The wife and I also discussed our friend's situation. He was arrested recently for horrible crimes and has thrown away his entire family and life with some really really dumb decisions. Not only did he give in to some horrible temptations he also has been lying about alot of things. I'm not sure how to respond to him now. His letter from jail was like a plea for friendship, but how do I remain friends with someone who is such a monster.

But even as I write this I am reminded that I too am a monster, but in different ways.