The Call Says It All

Well today I got the call at work that I have been waiting for sometime. Richie called me with all the passion that could muster to tell me he had dressed himself this morning.

It seems that only just a few months ago he was potty trained, and now he is dressing himself. I know that soon he'll be going to his first day of class, his first baseball game, his first drive in his car, his first real date. Man I know time will fly.

Hotels.com

Today Julie and Richie we're driving to Temple, TX, my birthplace, and they were talking about Joseph and Mary trying to find a room in the Inn. And Richie said if they had computer they could have logged onto Hotels.com so they could have gotten a room. Man is he a character!

A Word From One of Richie's Heroes

Richie loves to watch Shark videos. His favorite is the Great White Shark. But he can just about tell something about just about any shark. By chance I got him Shark Attack: Whale Shark and Mako Shark Richie loved it. Overtime I ended up getting him all of Ian Shark Gordon's DVD's. His favorites are the Great White Shark and the Grey Nurse and the Port Jackson shark DVD's. One day my buddy Rob from Australia called me on the cellphone and I let Richie talk to him. Richie thought he was talking to Shark Gordon himself. It was pretty funny. But it got me thinking what If I really tried to contact Shark Gordon himself. So after some searching on the Internet I actually found his email address, and I emailed him. He actually sent Richie and I a reply the next day and here it is.

G- day Richie and Michael

I am often not close to the computer because of research commitments but you caught me today. Great to hear you both liked the shows which I very much enjoyed making. If the TV powers at Discovery decide to in the future, I would very much like making some more. The whole reason I made them in the first place was to make sharks interesting and not demonize them (big word Richie ask Dad Ha ) as they are often by the press. The fact people like the shows so much means I must have done something right.

Richie this word we live in can give you most anything dependant on how determined you are to achieve you future dreams.

Yours in sharks


Ian (Shark) Gordon

This was literally Richie's response when I told him he had gotten an email from Shark Gordon. He was really stoked.

Seems like forever

Since I have made my last post. As a family we all went to Denver CO, for a trade show for my company WORDsearch Bible Software. While I was at the show, we all went to Casa Bonita with Richie's Uncle Don. We also went to the Denver Downtown Aquarium and we got to see a Sawshark and a Zebrashark that we've never seen upclose. Richie liked it so much we ended up going back right before we left for home. We ate in their restaurant and got to small Black tip reef shark.

We also went to the State Railroad Museum in the rain. It pretty much rained for the first three days we were there. As you can see how drab the weather looks in this picture. We didn't care how bad it was raining we just couldn't stand the hotel anymore!

During the sunny part of the weekend we went to Tiny Town COwhich we saw on a PBS show. I thought it would be a really cool place, instead it was pretty boring even for Richie. They had a whole city which was pretty cool, but the train was pretty lame. Here is a picture of Richie inside the Tiny Town jail.

On Monday of our two week excursion from home Julie and Richie came to CBA, and they got to meet Rob from Koorong in Australia for breakfast, they also met Bob and Anne Jones from the Salvation Army, Marianne from Parsons, Chad from Mardel, but they didn't get to meet Stuart from Word in Australia. They went with Richie's Uncle Randy who is a worship leader at Agape Outpost in Breckenridge, CO. So they got to hang out in the mountains while I worked.



I drove out to Breckenridge on Thursday and got there about dinner time on Thursday. Man it was nice. We got to stay with Randy's pastor Mike and his wife Carolyn Atkinson. They treated us just like family and we felt so blest by them.

During our time of rest and relaxation we went down the Downhill slide, just like a Bobsled. The first time we all went Julie, the I can go fast enough Roller Coaster Queen of Queen's didn't want to go very fast. As a matter of fact Richie was yelling at her to go faster. Richie and I pretended that we were part of the Jamaican two man Bobsled team. We ended up riding the Bob sled later in the week because we had so much fun going fast, especially when Mommy wasn't in the way.



One day we went to Georgetown Loop Railroad and also toured an abandoned silver mine. The train ride was pretty interesting but it was the last time Richie has shown any interest in trains so we maybe past that for now. We also went to a park in downtown Georgetown that was pretty cool. We ate at this old hotel/Restaurant called the Red Ram. The food wasn't so good but I saw a guy in there that looked just like the Doc from the HBO series Deadwood which I love.

One other highlight of the trip was riding a ski lift to about 11,000 feet above sea level. That was a lot of huffing and puffing, and a lot of water drinking. Julie Richie and I hiked higher up the mountain and even got to play in some snow with Richie it was very cool. Pardon the pun!



At the end of our time in Breckenridge it was a mixed blessing. We really wanted to go home as this was the longest we'd ever been away from home since Julie and I were married, but Breck was very hard to leave. We had gotten used to the climate changes, and most of all it was nice to be in the low 70's when back home it was in the 90's.

We can't wait to go back to Breck and will doing so Labor Day Weekend. So much so, Julie, Jenny, Ray, Joyce, Richie and I will be spending about 18-20 hours together in a mini-van as we drive to Littleton, CO for Randy and Teresa's wedding at Ken Caryl Baptist Church, and then back to mountains yeah!!! Of course our boy Richie got drafted to be a ring bearer. We pretty much figured that would happen as we have had his tuxedo for at least 5 or 6 months, in preparation for their upcoming future marriage. We all looking forward to Randy and Teresa'a marital bliss.