See You At The Pole

Today was our annual "See you at the Pole" prayer event. This is an event that really took root about 19 years ago, encouraging our youth to arrive early to school or whatever "flag pole" they could find to pray for their school, their city, their city churches, & they nation. We meet around our fountain in the center of our quad and pray. I run our Student Council here at Western & my Council is in charge of planning all events like these. I was proud & amazed when I looked outside this morning & saw a large crowd simply praying. Students getting up early & getting to school at 7:30 opposed to 8:00 to take 30 minutes out of their morning to pray for blessings. Last year we had 30. This morning I counted 57 people in the prayer circle or standing close by joining in the prayer. Of that 57, only 2 were adults. I am blessed to be in such a great environment & I love being around kids that don't wait for change, but simply expect & demand it. Carpe Diam!

My sister, Tracy, was down last week for a visit. She currently lives in Virginia & works at a hospital back there. Thankfully she is moving back to Oregon in the next few weeks. I always enjoy my visits with Tracy & to hear all of her stories. She is definitely my most entertaining & crazy sister. I keep telling her we could make millions if we sold her story to a reality TV show. I mean you can't write the kinda stuff that happens to her. Trac is also a great Aunt & loves her nieces & nephews. She held & fed Allison for over 2 hours. It was a nice visit.

Our little stink-weed, as Sara & I affectionately call Ally, is growing so fast. She is such a happy baby & loves to be close to Mom or Dad. She is starting to learn how to play as well. She loves her little rattles & is starting to "talk" to herself. It's such an amazing journey to see your own child grow up right before your eyes. It seems like yesterday we were waiting on pins & needles for her to come.

We have compared Allison to numerous babies we have seen in the doctors office, at the grocery store, at a restaurant, or yesterday our good friend Christy Reyes stopped by with her daughter Jaeda. Jaeda is exactly a week older than Allison. It is amazing as we see Allison compared to these other babies, how big she is. Her head is double the size of all of theirs. She is much longer. Her feet are twice as big. She weighs more. As our doctor put it so eloquently: "When you have a average sized woman & a 'freakishly' large man, you never know what type of baby you will get out. It appears you have a really cute baby, but boy is she big!" I'm hoping for a 6' 5" girl. That would work for Volleyball, Golf, Basketball, or Modelling. Either way I figure my retirement is set!