Long Tough Day

It's been a lon tough day. I need to hit the sack. Tomorrow will be better! Good night!

This is all I have to say:

Philippians 4:13 (New Living Translation)
13 For I can do everything through Christ,[a] who gives me strength.
Footnotes:
Philippians 4:13 Greek through the one.

Good night!

BTW - Pray for Aaron he's a bit under the weather.

It's been several weeks...

Sorry guys! It's been several weeks but I haven't been slacking, I promise.

I'm a really busy guy... let's see.

Work: Made it through March, which was possibly the longest month ever. They did some re-shaping, re-organizing or re-structuring of the organization. Everyone knew it was coming because it was announced that it was going to be happening. Thankfully, by the grace of God I was not an affected employee. My responsibilities have increased, which is always a good thing, just no increase in pay at the moment. I'm sure that will come in time. Lot's of work and I think there's going to be lot's more work. Now I need to learn the two other processes I'm responsible for, April will be exciting.

School: Started two new classes. Psychology and Community & Personal Health. One is online and the other is on Saturday mornings. As you can imagine there's a lot of studying in the evenings going on. I need to make the grade!!!

Church: Well, Amy & I continue on with Sunday school for middle school kids and that is a blast! It's amazing how much of a blessing you could be in someone's life. Through the week we get text messages and calls asking about certain things in the bible and or about what we talked about on Sunday. Other times the text messages are just to say hi! I thank God and pray that I can continue to be a blessing in their lives as they are for me. Amy & I have also been doing a bible study with some other couples on the movie Fireproof. It's been interesting and the movie was really good!

Family: Being the parents of a busy 2½ year old is extremely tiring. Our little boy is something else and he's great fun! We're always racing and running around, playing with Monster Trucks or dinosaurs. It's a blast!!! We're potty training and he's doing ok... only a couple of accidents here and there, that's to be expected.

Ashley is here for Spring break and I'm loving it! My little girl is becoming a young lady. It's a blessing to have her here for the week. Aaron love's his sister and after about 30 seconds of being shy, he hasn't left her alone for a second! It's fun to watch them together. This weekend we went to Monster Nationals on Saturday, Church on Sunday and then we went bowling and roller skating on Monday. Keeping me busy!

My parents have been here this week too. They leave today for Miami again. I love seeing them and I wish they lived closer but I realize that Miami is for them. The warm weather and all their friends are there. Seeing dad is always a blessing... I'll leave it at that.

Hopefully this will explain what's been going on in this Cuban's life in the last few weeks.

Enough said for now.

This Weekend

Ok, this weekend has been kind of weird. Friday is normally my day to get things done and I had a plan for this Friday. Only one problem, I didn't get to accomplish everything I set out to do. In fact I wasn't even able to stick to my schedule. It was like something was holding me back all day long! Everything took longer than it was supposed to. Can't really explain it.

Darts was good. It was a fun time as usual. I played in probably one of if not the most smack talking games ever. This other guy and I talk junk all year round. When we played, it wasn't for the team... it was a personal game (friendly of course). Just like all other times we have played each other, it was a good game, good competition, of course I won!

Today, Sams Club with the fam. Its always fun when we go to Sam's... we love going there! We also went to Old Navy. We bought Aaron some clothes. Came home & the boy took his nap. Amy & her mom went to the outlets to a maternity store. She came back with a couple of nice tops and a nice dress. Best thing about it, she's a bargain shopper. She does really well finding good deals.

Tonight we went to another church we were invited to. It was pretty neat. This is one of those really, really big churches. Almost to the point that it's too big. It was cool to see though and I really liked their worship band. The sermon wasn't all that, this associate pastor kind of lost me and possibly even bored me a bit. Wasn't impressed, would've liked to have heard the senior pastor. Afterwards we went to dinner with some friends from our church that we went with and a few others.

Reading Ashley's blog tonight, she springs on me something about a little boyfriend... OMG! It's friggin tough being this far sometimes. She's a good girl. Puppy love, remember those days? What scares me is that I don't want my little girl growing up too fast. Keep her in your prayers or better yet keep me in your prayers.

Tomorrow church. We really look forward to Sundays. We like our church and church family. We've made some good friends. God is good all the time. Of course as with all churches they're not perfect and need the congregation and members to pray for the growth of the church and the individuals in it. One of these days I'll tell you about my miracle. I just still have a tough time talking about it and I know that I shouldn't feel that way.

Amy is not feeling to good right now, so with that said. I'm going up and going to bed. Good night.

Busy couple of weeks...

Let me tell you about the last couple of weeks... busy, busy, busy!

I had finals for my English & Accounting classes. Man they were tough! The older you get it doesn't get any easier to hit the books. No wonder you should finish college after high school!!!

Work has been rather busy as well. Making sure my team is performing & producing numbers. You would think that this crappy economy would affect how many people would take a credit card pitch but I tell you what; you would be surprised at the amount of people being sold day in and day out. In fact, my entire time will have sold over 100 credit cards each person by the end of the month! I'm pretty sure it's due to my coaching! ; )

Amy & I started to Fireproof our marriage. It's a couple bible study from the movie Fireproof. We're doing this with two other couples and so far we're both enjoying it. It's been fun and interesting as well as a blessing.

Last weekend's pig roast... was a blast. We went back to Amy's home town and I went to Billy's annual men's only pig roast! What a blast! And the pig was good too!

Well enough said... gotta go, tomorrow is a busy day.

Start on taxes.
Dr's appointment for Amy & baby bean 2.
Accountability group/lunch.
Kia for new tires and front end alignment.
Start on laundry.

See ya.

A Thousand Questions

This was a blessing to me, I hope it is to you!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASHLEY!!!!!

Happy birthday my little monkey butt!!! I love you!!! I miss you and hope you had a great birthday. I can't wait to see you!!!

I LOVE YOU ASHLEY "MONKEY"!!! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU!

Hello

Here I am... it's been a couple of weeks. I'm sorry for that. Between home, work, school & church I really haven't had much time for blogging. As I promised a few of you, here is my post.

Let's start off with today. Ace is no longer in the family, he is now part of the Franklin County Animal Shelter family. I had enough. His chewing on things finally just got to me and it just wasn't worth having a dog around that couldn't learn that he needed to chew on his rawhides not anything else!

Today, I also discovered a treasure. A play place that is free of cost and filled with good people. I believe Aaron and I are going to start going there every Friday. He had a blast! The best part about it is that it's right here in Grove City!!!

Today we got creamed at darts! Shake & Bake only won two (2) games out of nine! We were only playing the best team on the league. We still were able to maintain our hold on 2nd place! Which in my book is a win because the guys in 1st place are sandbaggers! Don't get me wrong they are a good team!!! Really good!!! I honestly think those guys could play for money and be pretty good at it...

As if the two blogs I have aren't enough, I believe I am going to start a third blog. Haven't decided if I will or not; but let me tell you what I'm thinking about. What if I blogged a daily/nightly devotional or I'd rather call it a bible/prayer journal. Many times we don't talk about or beliefs or that we are Christian in fear of losing friends or being chastized by people or people thinking that you're a "holy roller!" Well, really, who cares? Look at 38 if I can't be myself and let people know that I'm a Christian, then I need to hang it up. The gist is that I'm not going to hang it up, I believe... so what? Let me know your thoughts about the 3rd blog. I guess I would really want folks to follow & subscribe if I'm going to do that. So your responses will be well received.

Let me tell you about my weekend... I know a couple of you are wanting to here. I went on a 72 hour walk. I went to the Walk to Emmaus. It's a three day mens retreat, but really it's not like a usual retreat because the journey is different each time. It's dynamic, I guess would be the best description. In a nut shell it's a weekend where you enjoy the fellowship of other Christian men. This is a non-denominational community of Christians. On my weekend we had Methodists to Menonites, Pentecostal (sp?) to non-denominational churches. The focus of the weekend was the love of God for us. All I can say is wow, what an experience. If any Catholics are reading, the Walk to Emmaus is the protestant version of the Catholic Cursillo.

The weekend made me look at myself and my priorities. Made me think whether or not some of my priorities were mixed up and they were. The weekend consisted of no watches or cell phones, 15 talks (5 on the Grace of God & the other 10 on different topics such as priorities, piety & discipleship), lots of food, no outside world distractions, the fellowship of Christian men, holy communion and the love of God. It was a mountain top excperience and I have to be honest, I've been walking on a cloud all week. The question is how to stay on the cloud?

I have a few ideas. I know that I have to keep it up. I know that I have to read scripture, pray, fellowship and have someone hold me accountable for doing all of the above!

Now, if you're reading this and thinking, man, where's Alex? Dude, I'm still here! I'm just not ashamed or embarrassed to say that I love God & he loves me back! I'm not saying my life is perfect, I'm just saying that I know I'm less than perfect. I'm not saying that I'm better than anyone or that I don't sin, I'm saying I'm a sinner and I know it! I also know that Jesus died on the cross for me & you!

Look, I had an amazing weekend and I want to hold on to that. We all have faith in something, I just re-evaluated my priorities and now I know where my faith ranks. Instead of leaving it somewhere towards the bottom, it's now up on the very top of my list.

By this point I've probably lost a couple of readers or bored some others to sleep. I just wanted to share my weekend with you.

This week I also found out that my employer, just like many others are looking at making some cuts. I'm not sure what that means for me. We were told that they really weren't looking at my area, but you still never really know. All I can ask is that you keep that in your prayers. I know that I was put in that job for a reason.

In two days is Ashley's birthday and then a month from now she will be visiting. I'm sooo excited! I'm sooo excited! Everything is going well with Amy & the pregnancy. Loving life folks, loving life!

After a post like this it may be a couple of days... maybe not!

Togetherversary!

Amy & I have been together for five, yes (5) years! Wow... it seems like yesterday and at the same time it seems like forever ago. I've got to tell you, I love her to death.

Amy is a special woman. A great mother. A fun & loving step-mother. A giving friend. Above all else she is a phenomenal wife! I'm not saying our relationship is perfect... I'm just saying it's perfect for us. We were meant to be. You know what I mean?

Meeting Amy was pretty amazing. She was this young, cute, sexy, curly haired blond recruiter at the office in Ohio. I had butterflies when I first met her. Even though she won't admit it, she gave me a Christmas card because she wanted me!!! When she handed me that card, I knew at that very moment we were going to end up together.

Of course, it took a couple of months and even maybe a couple of drinks for me to muster up enough courage to tell her that I liked her. It was obvious, we spoke on the phone like almost every day.

When I moved to Ohio, we pretty much shacked up and have never left each others side. With a couple of exceptions where I have had to travel. I remember going to meet her grandmother... she told us that we reminded her of Ronald & Nancy Reagan. What she meant by that? I'm not sure but we took it as a compliment. I remember going to meet her sister in Tenn. for the first time. We hit it off straight away. I remember meeting Mom & John for the first time. It was like I had known them all my life. It seemed I passed the test for her family.

We went to Cheyenne to pick up the kids. From the very first second they loved her. I knew it. I knew they would! And when she met my parents, they loved her right away. I'm telling you she is a special woman.

We compliment each other very well. Sometimes I'm the voice of reason, other times she is. I thank God every day for such a wonderful wife. She is a blessing to me, my children, our children and everyone else.

I love you Amy... here's to another 5 years and then 5 more after that and then until the end of time itself.

I'm going to bed now... happy togetherversary!

Do you ever...

Do you ever just want to scream? Cry? Lay there and not move? Yep, that's how I'm feeling. Don't know why, I just do. I'm not even in a bad mood or cranky!

This week will be a tough week. It's going to be a short week at work & school. But just because it's short doesn't mean there's less work to be done. I'm going to be going to a men's retreat this coming weekend (Thurs night thru Sun). Not sure what to expect. Didn't really want to go, but really didn't have a reason not to. You know what I mean?

I don't want to leave Amy. If you know us, we rarely spend very much time apart. That's how we like it. We find comfort in each other. Please pray that neither one of us has any anxiety while I'm secluded from life for a couple of days. ;)

Updates:
School has been going all right. Yes, I got an A on that one class that I predicted I would. Thankfully one out of the three classes are done! Two more to go. I'll be happy just to pass my accounting one. At this point I have a solid C in the class. Have I told you that I hate that class? Well, I do!

Ashley is coming out to Ohio for her spring break. We are soo excited! I am beside myself. I can't wait to see the little monkey!!! When we told her that she was coming she started to scream and told us that she was so excited she needed to run around. Kids are funny!!!

Well, that's my update for now. Good night.

Blog Updates

I found these cool buttons where I can get your reactions to what I wrote. Simply click on one of the reactions and it'll keep tally. Make any suggestions if you see a reaction that you think should be on there. Thanks.

Good night!