Caleb is concerned about my backpack trip

Caleb knows I'm going backpacking later this week and will be gone Fri, Sat, Sun and Mon nights. Caleb turned to Christa tonight and said, "That means we need to go to restaurants every night!"

Time to move may get more urgent

Someone tried to break int our neighbors house this afternoon. Middle of the day. Christa actually saw them and made a police report. There were three kids walking around the back of the house, looking a bit suspicious. Christa opened the window and then went out front and they ran off. later they came back and tried to break into our neighbor's house through their backyard. At home was a 13 yr old girl taking care of her 5-yr old brother.

The officer who was here says that this is still the safest place in the area. But we will be moving soon.

Caleb's soccer team

Caleb has signed up to be on a local soccer team and Im going to be the assistant coach. Can I say how excited I am about this?? Before I got married and had kids I alwasy said that I couldn't wait to be my son's sports coach. The guy who is the head coach is a friend from church and Caleb already knows 3 of the other boys on the team. The practices are Tues and Thurs, which will be interesting with our schedule considering I have my men's group on Thurs and Christa does her boot camp on Tues.

So this week I need to gt Caleb some cleats, socks, shinguards and his uniform.

Business still good

In an an environment where car sales are taking it in the shorts I'm starting to do pretty well. Last month I did 4.3 M and so far this month I'm trackng 4.5M. Dealers are still signing up and wanting to do business. This job could work out pretty well after all. It's been a shift being out seeing dealers all day as opposed to half in the field and half in the office like at Mechanics Bank but I'm adjusting pretty well.

Oh, I talked to a dealer today who knew my former boss at the credit union. He referred to her as "stupid, dumb and vindictive". That pretty well sums it up

Ephesians 1:4

"Just as He chose us in Him befoer the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before Him in love".

One phrase which is very difficult to get around, no matter what your spiritual disposition is, is the phrase "He chose us". Whether Calvinist, Arminian or something else, how can you get around this? We did not choose God. He chose us. And not today, yesterday, last month or even when we were born. We were chosen by Him before the world was even created.

Why were we chosen? Simple. Not to be saved...not to be good people...but to be holy. Holy means that which is set apart for a specific use. God set us apart for His own use. We are to be holy and blameless. This is two sides of the same coin. To be holy indicates an inward dispositon. To be blameless indicates an outward appearance. So God chose us not only to holy inwaqrdly but also to lead such good lives that no one can question what we do or say.

Remember what we were chosen for. Lead your life this way

Where's Matt with his shotgun??

Christa called me at work this morning to tell me that there were 2 wild turkeys in our front yard. Caleb and Regan were going nuts over seeing them. Christa said they were a bit on the scrawny side and if we caught them we couild only get a couple of sandwiches each out of them.

Our time away

Christa and I got away Friday night for my birthday. We dropped Caleb nad Regan at my mom's house and went to San Francisco overnight. Got reservations at the Marriot and a sweet little moon-faced russain girl at the desk said "I get you good room". Sure enough we were on he 34th flor witha view towards downtown SF.

At the same time we were there a conventin was happening at the hotel. Harlequin Romance Writers of America. I kid you not. Hundreds of mostly dowdy-looking midde-aged wome hoping to be teh next Barbara Cartland. From seeing some of these women their only shot at romance was writing about it.

So we hung out in the city for the afternoon and evening. We got a beet and some nachos at a dive bar around the corner from the hotel )4th Street Bar and Deli) and then we went to Old Navy for bathing suits. We didn't know the hotel had a pool on the 5th floor. Christa needed a new suit to beign with and I found an obnoxiously loud one on closeout for $9,

For dinner we walked about 6 blocks to Perbacco. This place has been around for only a year or so and has already made it only the Chronicle's 100 best list. It was pretty serious restaurant row. Next to Pebacco was Tadich Grill and next to that was Aqua. I had some grilled halibut with a black garlic butter sauce that was amazing. Christa couldn't decide what to order to I ordered for her...ravioli with braised greens. She loved it. We got some coffee at Starbucks and cheesecake at CHeesecake Facotry and walked through Union Square. We ate cheesecake while watchng over the city from the 34th floor. We fell asleep and woke up at 8:30 (try doing that with 2 kids!)

We woke up and went to Mel's Diner for breakfast, packed up and went back to get the kids. Pretty good night out. My mom was concerned that we were staying at the Marriot becuase it was South of Market...historically not a good place. She thought we should take a cab to the restaurant because of all the homeless people on Market. We didn't really see any but there was a good protest. I don't know what it was about except that it was a group of people with both American and Israeli flags.