New Year, Same Shenanigans

My mind thinks it would be a good idea to update this blog every couple of weeks, but apparently my disciple thinks once every month and a half is sufficient.

I last left off at the end of 2012. After spending Christmas in Colonial Williamsburg with Cary Anne's family, we flew back to Chicago for the last several days of our vacation. Our friends, the Hanes and the Cannariatos, were nice enough to invite us over for New Years Eve. When we showed up, their apartment was already half full of people from our church. Most were sitting around talking, but others were engrossed in the children's game Mr. Mouth. (Our pastor, Rich, was talented enough to play and text at the same time.) As the time stretched closer to Midnight, I decided to get festive by decking Justin out in some streamers. He seemed into it. Of course, at midnight there were cheers and hugs all around, and by 1:30am, I was laying on the hardwood floor dreaming of getting into bed. Clearly, I've become an old man. 

So far this year Cary Anne, Kelly, and I have tried to be more intentional about having "family dinners." With our busy schedules, it's often hard for us to find time for quality conversations and quality meals, despite the fact we all live in the same 3-bedroom apartment. Cary Anne stepped up to bat to make the first family dinner. We walked down to the local deli and picked up some quality steaks which she prepared with some mashed potatoes. She really set the bar high for Kelly and I.

About a week after that, Morgan invited us to a surprise party for her husband Zach. This was another soiree also hosted at the Hannariarto's place. Morgan organized a sports-themed event full of friends and family and co-workers. As Zach walked in, he was bombarded with shouts and silly string. Like every good party, there was plenty of good food and ridiculous games. (And by ridiculous, I mean it required Sarah to wiggle around the room making a hand vagina.) Later, Zach opened his gifts. For a couple of weeks leading up to the party, Zach had been telling me that he had been wanting to get into comic books so I went and grabbed him a couple of titles I thought he would enjoy. Since then, we've bonded in our nerdiness and gone to the comic book store together a couple of times. Our wives are very proud.

Around the middle of January, Cary Anne and Nick spearheaded the development of an Artist's Group at our church. For months, we had all been tossing around the idea of wanting to create a time and space for all the artists in our church community to get together and just work. The idea is still being developed, but for now the ball is rolling. Every other Saturday we all get together at an apartment and bring whatever we are working on. Some people paint, others write, and others play music. It's a little scattered, but it's exciting.

Lastly, you may or may not remember that back in May I decided to start filming 5 seconds of my life everyday. It was hard, so now I've scaled things back a bit. Just like with updating this blog, I've been particularly slow in editing the footage. Here's my latest update...

Hopefully, it won't be another 6 weeks before I get around to updating this thing again.