LARSROOD.COM

A short update

I'm still in Colorado and its very cold here. We've been snowboarding the last 3 days and have had a great time. Yesterday it snowed all day long. Pretty much a blizzard. Had a great time last night with the guys in my condo. Stayed up pretty late talking about a ton of real things. Makes me remember why I like youth ministry so much.

Currently I'm lying in bed at 3pm. I'm tired and taking a break the rest of the day.

Colorado is cold

Tomorrow I'm getting on a bus with the high school group and heading to Crested Butte Colorado. The weather there right now is cold. By cold I mean -8 degrees. I'm looking forward to a bunch of days of hanging out with students and boarding. I haven't gotten a lot of chances to be with students on trips since I've been here in Texas so it should be fun.

What won't be fun? 16 hours on a bus. That will suck. I will wish I was a 110lb sophomore girl. They can curl up and sleep anywhere. 6'2" and 250 doesn't like buses.

I'll miss my family. When I get back though we're going to Houston. Whoo hoo. That's a fun town to visit.

Merry Christmas

I'm not opposed to poking fun at myself. In fact I sort of find it therapeutic as it keeps me humble. Tonight was our Christmas Eve services at church. I was assisting our senior pastor at one of the services. I think I missed an e-mail at some point because I was a little confused about my role. After opening the service with a prayer of adoration I thought I was done. 1/2 way through the service after a choir anthem there was a big pause where my senior pastor and I looked at each other. After he pointed at me I jumped up and led the congregation through another prayer.

Here's what I know about me. I don't work very well in situations that are overly formal. I am an informal person but also am someone who needs to have people "know" me in order to be comfortable. I'm not normally too nervous in front of groups but if I am not known by the people it becomes increasingly uncomfortable for me.

So that's over. We have 6 kids, 5 adults and no pets at Castle Rood for Christmas eve. I'm guessing that tomorrow morning will be nuts. Nuts opening presents, nuts having kids want others presents.

On a totally positive note I gave Danielle her Christmas present tonight and she said that it was the "best gift ever." Flip Video Camera She immediately started shooting video. The days of me hearing "Where is the video camera" and "the battery is dead" are over. Danielle now has a camera that is simple and pink.

Go Jesus It's your birthday

Probably one of the better youtube videos I've seen in a while.

Holiday disaster avoided

So yesterday I came home from work and stopped by my neighbors and lamented that I didn't want to go home because of our construction drama and the fact that so many family members were about to come into town. I was also a bit sick and just didn't want to deal with being home. (yea bad attitude)

Well when I got home I went upstairs to talk to Danielle. Our 2 year old daughter and her 2 year old friend were upstairs playing in their room. A little later I noticed them sitting on some paint cans upstairs but didn't think anything of it.

I was in the guest room with Danielle when one of the girls walked in with a paint can and dropped it on the floor in front of us. 1 gallon of white paint all over our carpet.

We went into fix it mode. Danielle jumped on google to figure out a solution. I grabbed the shop vac and the boys grabbed cups. They ran back and forth from the bathroom to the bedroom pouring water on the paint. We used the shop vac to suck it all up. It took about an hour but all the paint came up.

Keith my neighbor ran out to get a steam cleaner from the store but we ended up not needing it.

Disaster avoided thanks to google, shop vacs, boys with cups of water, a determined wife and me.

Hard to complain

It's hard for me to complain when I realize that what I have is more than most of the world. But, I'm going to complain a little. We've been in the middle of this remodel for six months now. Yesterday we had a crew in to start putting in the new floors in our kitchen. I didn't realize that they would have to put a coat of stuff all over the floor first to level it out before they were able to start laying the tile. On top of that they took the toilet and sink out of our downstairs bathroom and set it on the deck next to the toilet from one of our two upstairs bathrooms. We look pretty white trash with two toilets on the deck. Sadly that means there is now only one toilet left in the house. In the next two days we will be adding 6 additional people to our house with family flying in for Christmas. On Saturday we will add two more and subtract one. They have promised me that the kitchen floor should be done by Friday (hooray) on a sad note the upstairs bathroom is in shambles.

What I want for Christmas is normal life and my daughter not thinking that our contractor is part of our family :)

Just the simple things.

Iphone Ringtones

It's been a while since I've posted anything remotely techy on this this site but here's a quick blurb. Today Apple updated the Garage Band portion of iLife that now allows you to drag songs directly from itunes (as long as they aren't protected) cut them down to size and then "Share" them back to Itunes as a ringtone.

Pretty cool feature. My wife's new ringtone is "She's Crafty" by the Beastie Boys

Babysitting and Texas weather

Right now I'm babysitting. Of course it's pretty easy. My neighbors are gone and they just got a sweet flat screen set up and a new couch. So I'm sitting on the couch and watching tv. Not such a bad deal really.

The weather in Texas is nuts. This weekend it was 40 degrees, today it was 75 and tomorrow its supposed to be 40. I don't get it but I'm cool.

What a day

Today I did very little. I played basketball, played with my kids, watched tv and cleaned up puke. Kaije was on the trampoline tonight and threw up. So sad for him. He feels sick.

I have little else to talk about today. I wish my wife was home. For anyone out there that is a single parent I feel for you. It's no fun.

A weekend of crazy

We just dropped Danielle off at the airport (by just I mean about an hour ago and I'm not typing this while I drive on my cell phone). She's flying to Los Angeles to celebrate her grandfather Fritz's 90th birthday. I'm stoked she gets to go and be with family. The kids and I are home. Home is crazy. We are still in the middle of the remodel but I have good news. I'm sitting right now in our newly redone sun room sitting on a couch and drinking coffee. For 4 months this room was our kitchen as we were remodeling that area too.

So three days alone with 3 kids, a sermon to prepare, church Christmas party to go to and all that.

I will survive.