A Blog Seldom Used

So it's official.  I will probably never be a big blogger lol.  I can never remember.  But I figure I can post when I feel like it.  It's not like many people read it anyway.  Maybe that's why it's not that fun for me haha.  Maybe I'll try to go friend some people in the blogosphere.

And now for an update.  I've been living in the trailer for a while now.  My previous post had some pictures of what that looks like.  But the good news is that it's almost over.  Sometime next week we should officially be moving into our new home.  Yay!  The house is pretty darn cool.  They should have the wood floor finished some time today and then it's pretty much just touch-up from here on out.  I'll post pictures at some point.

This house is probably the most colorful we have ever had.  My parents usually just paint the house an off white or tan.  This time it all changed.  We had a couple people from our church who have a good idea of color come and look at the house.  They helped us pick out some crazy colors.  The entry way is a dark brown which opens into a dark yellow living room and light yellow kitchen.  Originally we had a green in the bathrooms and den but it was the most awful color to have covering a room.  It looks fine in my room because 3 of the walls are a light brown and it's just on the accent wall.  So we changed all but my room.  The rest of the house are tans and browns but that's still way more color variation then we have ever had.

Overall the house is turning out to be really cool.  We are gonna have an HD projector with surround sound in the room above the garage which is going to be SWEET!  And we have a brand new Table Tennis Table which will provide many hours of fun.  (We play a lot)

I'm planning on finishing up school here in May.  (Lord Willing)  I will be 19 at the time.  I'm going for a BSBA in Computer Informational Systems.  I can't wait to be done and to be able to work full time.  (That sounds so sad.  But hey, I need money to live)

Those are the big things that are happening in my life right now.  If I think of more I'll keep you posted.  And hopefully I'll remember to post new things. ;)

Trailer Sweet Trailer

Current Living Space

My Trailer

Inside our Trailer

Parent's Trailer

So I've decided to return to the blogging world.  Haven't done it in quite a while but I think it will give me something to do now that I've moved.   Currently my life is pretty tight.  And by that I don't mean "Cool," I mean that I'm living in a Trailer Mobile Home.  We own two now. One is for my parents and the other is for my three brothers and myself.  Now I don't mind living in such a tight space that much, but it does get difficult when you have very little room to put stuff.  You can kiss large wardrobes goodbye.  We are all sharing one shower in my parents trailer which thankfully gets us hot water.  We have a TV in our trailer and and XBOX 360 and Play Station 3.  Problem is that with 4 brothers it becomes hard to decide what the TV is used for.  We also have Dish Network so at least we have some good shows.  And just a few days ago were able to get Dish Net for our internet.  But it's limited to 20 Gigs of use.  Its not a lot when you want to watch movies and play online video games.  But it's enough for us to work on school and the such.  Most of the time I still go to the church to do the school if I can. 

Now one of the most annoying things is the lack of an actual bathroom.  So yes.  We do have a porapotty and no I do not like it :p  I have actually been able to get away with only using it a few times in the 2......  Or is it 3 weeks?  I don't remember.  Anyway, only a few times in the period we have been living here.  I've been able to wait till work or till I go to the church. 

Now for why we are in the trailers.  If you aren't aware, my family purchased a little over 20 acres of land on which we are currently living.  We built a metal barn which is really nice and we are in the process of building a house.  The concrete is supposed to be poured sometime today.  (YAYAY)  Sad part is that we are still 3 to 6 months from it being finished.  (Pray its on the side of 3).  Now something really cool about the property is that one section of it is a small forest with a creek inside.  A lot of fun to explore and we've created a network of trails throughout it.  In the front of the property its mostly open with lots of really big Pecan trees.  Which just recently started dropping all of the Pecans.  We actually had a lot of fun getting a group to come and help us pick up a bunch of them and then roasting marshmallows and making smores.  Towards the end of the evening a few of us did some really bad swing dancing.  But it was fun. 

This is definitely the least fun part of my family's moving process.  But I think my family will be better for it.  Having to live in such close proximity will ultimately bring us closer.  I don't know how much longer I'll be living here with my family but this will probably some of my last memories of living with them so I might as well make them count.  Pray that we are strong, have good attitudes, and have family unity.   And most of all that we honor God with how we live.  I think if we keep those things in check then this place will be a pretty fun place to live. 
 

Dishes for TV and Internet

Anyway....

You know I don't have a lot of readers.  But I don't post much so that's probably a really good thing.  But I felt like posting today.


It's pretty amazing what God can do.  I don't know about you, but personally I'm not very good at giving God that which he is due.  If you read Kayla's most recent post then you saw that she had a really cool experience where her mom prayed for her and something cool happened.  For me personally I've had some cool experiences at work.  Tuesday this week I had a low sales day.  (For those who don't know, I sell discount dental plans)  But Wednesday I had a great day.  IN FACT. So did most people at the office.  We SMASHED our previous record.  I got home and found out that my family had all prayed that I would have a great day at work.  Turns out they've been doing that a lot.  And guess what?  I now have one of the highest averages this year in the office.  A 17 (Almost 18) year old guy having one of the best averages.  That's called a blessing.


God has it covered.  I've been thinking a lot about the future lately.  And though I don't know what God has in store.  But I know God has a plan.

 "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." - Jeremiah 29:11


How cool is that!!  Sounds pretty cool to me.  No matter what life throws at me I know God's got a plan.  I look forward to it.  God has blessed me so far with a great family, Great friends, a great job, and a great church

SURPRISE!

Ok.  So for those who don't know.  I am never surprised by a gift.  I almost always figure out what the gift is.

Now this year Christmas was very different.  There really was only a two things that I actually wanted.  But my parents didn't ask until a few days before christmas and they were rather expensive.   So I kinda left it up in the air and figured "I'll get what I get"

I got 4 gifts that were pretty awesome.


1.  From my grandparents I got $50 for Amazon Kindle.  I love to read and that allowed me to purchase a bunch of really good books.  Happy Day

DJEMBE

2.  From my parents I got a Djembe. Now there is a funny story about this
Like I said my parents didn't ask what I wanted till a few days before Christmas.   This is one of the things I told them I wanted.  However, to keep me from guessing, they put a small box under the tree.  When I unwrapped it, it turned out to be a tissue box and on one of the tissues was written "Look behind the Chair"  And so I did and Look what I found --->

Five-Ten Chase Phantom's

3.Now this gift was a huge surprise.  This was from all of my little brothers.  They teamed together cuz these are very expensive shoes.  Now the funny part is this is the other thing I told my parents I wanted and they actually made a show of considering it, but after a discussion, decided there was no way to get it in time.  They already knew that my little brothers had purchased them a while before.  Now about the shoes.  They are made for free-running.  You can click here to learn more about them.  Also, Can you see the 5 and the 10?


4.  One of the best gifts I got was from Kayla.  Apparently she was worried I wouldn't like it. I don't know how that's possible :p  I am kinda a sucker for things that are all about the memories.  She made a calendar.  The calendar had pictures of me and friends.  Most of the pictures fell under the month they were taken.  And a ton of birthdays were on there as well with the picture of the person whose birthday it was.  The whole thing was amazingly awesome.  I was completely surprised by it.

And those are my major gifts that I got for Christmas this year.  I am blessed to have an amazing family and great friends.  I thank God for the people and possessions that he has blessed me with.

What Kayla Left Out

For those who read Kayla's blog you will recognize some of these stories.  She told it this way


1.  This was ridiculously funny.  Kayla is literally saying to me "I DO NOT want to do the pinata."  And I mean not not 3 seconds later Stephen says "Twenty Nine!"  I don't think I laughed that hard the whole night.  Of course I had to tell everyone the story while she is up there.  And She completely misses.  She finds it and then it twists slightly and she misses it.  Sooooooo funny.

2.  Okay.  So Kayla and I work at the same place.  I actually get off work about 2 hours earlier on Thursdays.  It just so happened that on this Thursday I'm going to Kayla's house to study with her mom.  (Cuz she knows about economics to a degree)  I'm there for two hours before she gets home.  She grabs her laptop and sits on the other side of the couch from me.  We are laughing about something and randomly she says "Why is my hair wet?"  And of course it was in her bowl of cereal that she had behind her.  I had a fun time laughing at her.  (THAT TAKES SKILL!)

3.  Now the fun one.  So there is the whole Lasagna story.  Except here is something you didn't know.  Carla gets a text from Kayla once she gets there.  Carla starts laughing and says "Guess what they are having for dinner?"  I didn't even answer.  I just burst out laughing.  Cuz as she said in her post, we had already discussed how funny it would be if it happened.  It was hilarious.

But wait there is a story that takes place between her leaving and arriving.  If you know Kayla, then you know she is horrible at directions.  HORRIBLE!  I walked her through the whole trip before she left and so did her dad.  We told her the exit number and the the exit name.....  Of course she misses it.  So she keeps calling back and we keep helping her get on the right road.  Finally She gets to the neighborhood.  She drives right by the house and her mom hands me the phone cuz I have been to the house.  I figure out where she is and tell her to turn around.  "the house should be the third on the left"  ...she drives right by it.   I have her turn around again and she says "there's no cars.  I can't see.  There isn't enough lighting"  I think we repeated this process before she finally saw the cars.  It was rather funny.

4.  There wasn't much more I could add to this story other then I kept playing her in words with friends and she used a ton of data because of it :P


And That's That

Thanksgiving

Hey Guys,

Soooooo I haven't Posted in a looooong while.  I thought I'd tell you a little about my Thanksgiving Vacation.  It was a lot of fun.  We left the Thursday morning before Thanksgiving.  That Night we stopped and Stayed in Wichita, KS.  Then we drove to Burlington, CO where my dad visited his brother. And then finally we drove to our main destination the next day of Elizabeth, CO.

Now for those who don't know, This is where I spent 10 Years of my life.  I got to see a lot of family and got to attend my old church.  Now that was fun but also slightly strange cuz some of them I hadn't seen in years and it was awkward trying to start a conversation.  But I got through it and had some fun with the people who were easier to talk to.

After church we went back out to my Great Aunts where we were staying.  We basically had our Thanksgiving Meal on Sunday because that was the best day for us to get together.  There was close to 50 People there.  Uncles, Aunts, Grandparents, Cousins.  It was pretty awesome.  And then I discovered something.  My Colorado friends have NOTHING TO DO.  After most of the family had left they said "Hey Lets go Hang out at Walmart." There didn't used to be a walmart there.  It was just added a few years ago.  But Seriously.... WALMART!!!!!!!  Apparently that's what they do for fun.  So they practically dragged me there.  Because to me.  That's not fun.  But whatever.  We had fun on the drive there.  And we picked up a movie.

The next couple days were slower.  I read a book and laid around.  It was rather nice.  The last day we were in Elizabeth we went and hung out with some of the guys that graduated a few years back that my dad had discipled through Highschool.  It was pretty fun.  We saw IN TIME which was ok at best.  And then we went to eat and talked for a LOONG time.

The Next day we drove to Denver.   That was fun.  We met up with my grandparents and went out to dinner at Gunther Toody's which is a 70's style restaurant.  Its a lot of fun and good food.  The next day was thanksgiving.  Because we already had our "Thanksgiving" Meal, we just went to a restaurant.  Mimi's cafe is really good food.  They had a home style, Thanksgiving meal.  The best part was this Tomato and Basil Bisque.  It was the best I had ever had.  SOOOOOO GOOOOOD.

After lunch is where it gets fun.  I had talked my dad into letting me buy a tablet on black friday.  We went to Best Buy at 2:30 and found a line already forming.  So Colten and I sat in line for 9 Hours.  And then we didn't leave best buy cause of all the good deals until 3:30 AM.  About 13 hours after we arrived.  But we got a bunch of cool stuff.

Then that day we woke up at 8 and played cribbage with our Grandpa till 10 and then we drove all the way home and didn't arrive until 11:30 PM.

Overall a Pretty fun trip.  I liked it lol.  But I haven't caught up on sleep yet and it's Monday lol.
 

MUSIC!!!!!

In case you haven't noticed.  i love music!!!!  on the top left there is a playlist of songs I like for some reason or another. 

Me Wearing My I4's

They Came in Early :)

What are friends for?

BETTER QUESTION: 
WHAT ARE WE FOR OUR FRIENDS?






Sometimes I think we take for granite our friendships.  I've had to go through moving once, I had some great friends.  It wasn't an easy experience.  Now I have a huge number of friends, and some very close ones.  Whenever I think about life without them, it legitimately hurts.  I love people and I love my friends.  I am such a relational person that the idea of life without close friendships is frightening as all get out.  Something has occurred to me though over the past few years I've lived here.  Your friendships are always better when you work on them.  I try hard to make my friends days better.  To make them happy.  And the best part, when they are happy, I'M HAPPY.  Funny how that works right.  Our friendships go so much deeper and are so much greater when we strive to think of each other first.  And this doesn't just apply to friends it applies to how we live our lives and how we treat people.   So I encourage you to give it a go.  Try to be the best friend you can be.  Be kind to people, talk to them, learn about them, listen.  You'll notice some great things will come your way.

Greeeeaaaattttt

So a few days ago I noticed my ears were feeling kinda clogged and weird.  Then this morning I woke up and felt really lightheaded and when I walked I would lose my balance.  It was really weird.  So my mom took me to the doctor.  Now I almost NEVER get sick.  It is a very rare occasion.  I had no other problems when I went to the doctor at all.  She pretty much look in my ear for 5 seconds and told us what we already knew.  My eardrums were inflamed and  I had an ear infection and it was in both ears.  Suuuuccckkk.  And turns out that it messes with the fluids that help you with your balance.  Hence me getting all dizzy lol.  Now I have to take 8 pills a day for ten days.  I wouldn't normally mind but it kinda stinks that I have to take two huge pills 3 times a day and two more on top of that to help with vertigo.  But it already feels better and the dizziness has stopped.  I'll get over it lol.  Hopefully my ears heal quickly. 

For Those Who Want To Know

This is gonna be a kind of run-down of my life until now.  I thought it would be kinda fun and would give a cool overview.

I was born in Delta, Colorado.  It's a small town but a really cool place.  I only lived there till I was 3 but I have family there so I get to visit every once and a while.

At the age of 3 I moved to Elizabeth, Colorado where my dad became the youth pastor at Harvest Bible Church.  I was at that church for the next 10 years of my life.  My cousins were members of the church and their father was the pastor.  It was a great time.  I made great friends and got to be apart of a lot of great things.

While in Elizabeth we lived on a farm.  Not your typical farm either.  Originally it was 80 acres with a pond.  We sold 40 of that to my cousins.  So I grew up with them.  But back to the farm.  We had a crazy variety of animals.  Cows for a short time.  Chickens, Turkeys, Rabbits, Ducks, Pheasants of a large variety, Emus, Ostriches, Goats, frogs, lizards, salamanders, dogs, cats, and more lol.  A LOT.  We also planted 4 or 5 THOUSAND trees on that property. I learned how to work on that farm.  All of those animals took a lot of caring for.

As far as sports go I played soccer, which I was OK at.  I also played football one year and did OK in that.  I mainly wrestled.  I wrestled for 7 years in Elizabeth. 

Now to where I am now.  Around 5 years ago my family came to Fort Worth, Texas for a national rabbit convention.  My dad, while there, remembered that a man who mentored him in college attended a church there.  So we decided to visit.  Turns out that Harold Bullock, the senior pastor, is having one of his wisdom seminars.  Long story short.....  My dad goes, sees Harold's incredible wisdom, decides he wants more training, prays a lot, moves family to Fort Wort.  No intention of becoming a youth pastor....................................................... Wait for it.............................................  Yeah you guessed, not even a year after we move there, the position opens up and he is asked to take it.

Since then life has been awesome.  I have made a number of amazing friends.  There is no church like hope. Nowhere do you see the scriptures lived out as much as at Hope.  We have influence all over the world.  There have been a huge number of churches started by people from Hope.  And they are all part of what is known as the HOPE GLOBAL NETWORK.  People travel form all over the world to visit and to learn from Harold.  Harold has his own website to.  haroldbullock.com

Between my dad and the people at the church, our youth ministry has turned into a training ground for incredible men and women.  I have had the privilege to be apart of that.  The leadership team of the youth ministry is known as KANDU.  It's the highest level of commitment.  I have had the privilege to be apart of it.

I have been able to do a lot since I have been here.  At the church I have the opportunity to not only be on the leadership team, but to serve in children's ministries, worship ministries, and a variety of other ministries.  I've been playing percussion since I got here.  I have collected a large # of drums.  I enjoy it a lot.

As far as school goes.  For 3 years I attended a private christian school.  Christian Life Prep.  I played football in junior high for 2 years and one of those years we were district champs.  I also ran cross country and took 5th at state.

I now am no longer attending high school and am enrolled in Accelerate University.  A program started by a few ladies at my church that will allow me to get to degrees in 3 years and for a fraction of the price.  I started last year and now have 27 Credit hours.  It's a challenge but way worth it.  Check out the website!!!  accelerateuniversity.com 

Now you'll remember I wrestled a lot.  I only wrestled for 2 Years after I moved here.  Wrestling is not as big in Texas.  The last year I wrestled I beat the same 4 kids at most tournaments.  I did win a national tournament though so that made it worth it.

I also have an amazing job.  I work for Qualbe Marketing Group as a Telephone Sales Representative.  I sell discount dental plans.  Our website is 1Dental.com. 

So basically things are great.  Only complaint is Texas Weather.  I HATE IT.  And hate is a strong word. I still HATE it.  But I LOVE the people.  I have AMAZING friends. So I guess I can get over the weather...... For Now