July 4th

July 5, 2009 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment 

This July 4th I worked. Ya I know, but hey times aren’t the greatest with the economy and I’ll be happy to get anything I can right now. After I got off work, Cristina and I got to go over to some long time friends of ours house, the Reids. We had a great time eating, talking, sweating like crazy during intense games of ping-pong, meeting new family members. Bert is in the Air Force, so when it got dark we all went down to Luke Air Force Base and watched their fireworks show. It was a lot of fun and I had a blast (haha get it) taking pictures. Enjoy!

This is a little boy in our church named Tristan Varner. Please pray for him as he is having an 8 week treatment for Lyme’s Disease. Tristan and his mother actually live in Austin, Texas but are out here for the treatments and are currently staying with the Reids. Great question for you…How old do you think Tristan is?

Just to let you know, Tristan is only 3! He looks a lot older huh?

This picture was only taken because of my wife complaining about us never taking pictures of each other. So here’s to the wife!

I leave you this time with some pictures of the fireworks. Let me know what you guys think.

AP

Car Trouble

June 22, 2009 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 3 Comments 

The Picture below pretty much best represents my life as of the last two weeks. I have a very intense fascination with cars. That fascination is dependent on one main clause…that they work.

My first car was pretty much a dream first car. It was an Acura Integra GS-R, it was a stick, redlined at 9,000 rpm it was amazing! After I totaled that one in college I got an even more amazing car, a Mitsubishi Eclipse GS-T with about 330 horsepower. It was soooooo fast! That wore out with time, I sold it to a roommate and then got a Nissan Maxima SE. Great car, more roomy than any other car I’ve had before but still nice. I then got married to my wife Cristina, who has a Mazda 626. In the last two weeks I have had to replace the front axle and boot on her car, recharge it with Freeon, her car then overheated on Sunday (making for a wonderful time) we replaced all four of her tires, then my brakes started wearing out (wonderful metal on metal sound let me tell you) so I had to get those replaced. All this wouldn’t be bad if getting your car worked on were like going to the grocery store or some other venue of updating your life. However, car mechanics have this wonderful tact of telling you that EVERYTHING on your car is breaking all at once. You’ve been there before, you go in to get a nail taken out of your tire and they tell you, “while we were under your hood…” and then they continue to list off things like…

1. Your transmission is falling out from under your car

2. Your engine manifold left quarter head gasket seal is leaking from the front

3. Every hose or tube that connects something to anything is falling apart, cracked, or just old, so you know need that replaced

4. Your “hardware” needs to be replaced (In my world of computer technology hardware means anything that is outside of the computer’s operating system, you know anything that makes the computer work ram, hard drives, fans ect.) so wouldn’t think mean THE WHOLE CAR!!!!

5.  Now comes the fluid. You know most of your car is driven or runs by things that pump fluid from one part of the car to the another part of the car. Well of COURSE all the fluid needs to be replaced. They use fancy terms like drained, flushed, replenished, recharged, so on and so forth

Yes I know the list can just go on but I will choose to stop at least for now. To make a long story short Heaven will be great! I’ll never have to go into the shop to get my angel wings repaired. I’ll never have to get my halo fluid flushed because it has grown dim over the past 1,000 years. The bearings on my rollerblades will never have to get clean because the gold dust on the streets I skate on each day have clogged them up. I can just live 24/7 (or maybe that will change too because technically we don’t have days up there) 100% in awe of God and glorify Him.

Until my next post…

My thoughts in black and white

AP

San Diego Trip

June 4, 2009 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments 

Recently, my wife and I got the opportunity to have a few days off and get away to my in-laws house in San Diego. We actually helped them move from La Jolla to Mission Valley over the weekend. It was a very fun and exciting time. I got to sleep in each day, have Starbucks for breakfast, enjoy walks on the beach, afternoon walks through small town shops, amazing candy stores, and a phenomenal dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack. I would highly recommend this place if anybody is a love of crab, it was AMAZING! While we were there My wife and I, Melissa and Chris, all got into a discussion about the famed Coronado Bridge which goes between downtown San Diego and Coronado Island. This bridge is known as the second most popular suicide bridge in the world. Not only in suicide attempts but as well as suicide deaths. Many people who have actually lived from the fall itself have died in the river below of drowning. Very interesting facts indeed. This bridge is second only to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. So i reassured my in-laws that they are living in the “Great” state of California that has the two most deadly bridges in the world. 

On a side note, Cristina and I had a ton of fun moving Chris and Mel and we definitely enjoyed the bonding time. Thanks for the great get-a-way Mel and Chris! 

Logan Harman

May 17, 2009 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

This week I got to be a part of something very special but very sad. A family in our church named the Harman’s had a death in their family. On March 4th, 2005, Chris and Shelle Harman brought a beautiful baby boy into this world named Logan. Logan was 6 months old when he was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA). It was this past Monday, May 11th, that Logan went home to be with the Lord. Logan lived a happy and wonderful life and impacted many people in the short time he was here with us on earth. Although he only lived to be four years old, he will not soon be forgotten or missed.

The funeral was conducted Saturday by Pastor Perham at Mercer Mortuary in downtown Phoenix. There were many in attendance, from firefighters, nurses, family members, friends, and church members who wanted to pay the respects to the family. Pastor preached a message on…

1. What Logan Could Not Do
2. What Logan Can Now Do
3. What Logan Wants You to Do

It was a serene time of remembrance, laughing, crying, and hopefulness as we watched a slideshow of Logan’s Life, heard a poem from Logan’s nurse (Milinda Preciado), and wonderful praise of the family from Logan’s uncle (Wayne Fournier) The day ended as everyone gathered outside for a balloon and butterfly release.

I couldn’t help myself but get wrapped up in the service. It was very painful to see such a wonderful family go through such a great tragedy. It was not even a year ago that Chris and Shelle went through the time of giving birth to two still born twin baby girls. Now they had to let their son go as well. So much of Chris and Shelle’s life was wrapped up in caring for Logan, from the Conversion Van they drove, to their house, their time, and their many trips to Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

It is times like this when you have a tendency to not look out in faith and ask God “Why?” We must remember Romans 8:28, and it is truly in “All things…” that God will work out for His Glory, our benefit, and the betterment of others.

Below is the front and back of the bulletin I got to put together for the funeral. Even if you don’t know them, please take time to say a prayer for the Harman family.

Estrella Mountain Hike

April 28, 2009 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 4 Comments 

Monday was my day off from work. So my wife and I decided to go and hike Estrella Mountain which is just south of the city. We hiked a total of 4 miles which took us just over an hour and a half. It was alot of fun and the both of us enjoyed the exercise and the fellowship together. Here are some of the pictures highlighting our trip.

My New Picture Tab

April 24, 2009 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

Hey everybody!!! I have recently created a picture tab at the very top of my blog. If you click on it there are two picture galleries from my wedding and engagement photoshoots ( Thank you Steve Troell) They have some really neat views of the pictures. Check them out and let me know what you guys think!!!!

AP

Honestly!?!?!?!

April 11, 2009 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment 

Does somebody really need tires that big?!?!?!

Food for thought

April 10, 2009 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

My parents are in town for the weekend so I decided to take them to one of my favorite restrurants that I like in the valley…Pars Persian cuisine. It was def. a new experience for them with “interesting” flavors. We finished the meal with some Saphron ice cream which is amazing. It’s yellow like you see in the picture posted below. Enjoy!

AP

Church Work

April 8, 2009 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment 

Recently, our church has been going through the process of trying to acquire a building in which we can call it our “home.” In the weeks leading up to this, the Pastor had asked me to put together a Keynote presentation and present to the church different scenarios of possible developmental stages for the church. In this presentation he also wanted to express the obstacles surrounding this move. Here is a link to a quicktime movie that shows you what I created. It took about 8 hours for the whole project to be completed. This included making the presentation, taking multiple photos of churches in our surrounding area, as well as many brain storming sessions with the pastor to make sure we were communicating the right things.

Click here to play movie

Long time no post…

March 8, 2009 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

For all of you who faithfully check my blog I do sincerely apologize for not posting in so long. Life has been a little hectic, but hey, everybody’s life is right now. America is going through a recession, we are getting used to our new president, the housing market is in a great slump, people have lost there long time jobs, and most of all Christians are having to trust God like they never before have.

My life has truly been blessed by God. My wife and I have been very active in our church as well as our jobs of late. I do appreciate the church family that God has given to us at Vision Baptist Church. I am honestly learning what it means to have a church family. Previously I have attended bigger churches my whole life, which have been great. I have never been apart of a smaller church until now. We are a close knit group of families that I believe God has put together for a specific reason. This past Sunday was one of the many times we have gone out for fellowship after the services. I got to capture some of the moments we had together.

The group

This is a Roy Boy. I cannot remember his name because he is one of the twins, and I don’t remember which

This guy gets a lot of my camera time. Titus has shown up on my blog quite a bit lately. He is easy to photograph because…well you can just look at him and tell.

Thanks for tuning in again. I promise not to be this long between posts again.

AP

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