how about a MOWHAWK!?

kade decided he needed a new look for the school year and soccer season. in honor of chuck liddel's ufc victory he chose a mowhawk. kades new look led the sharks onto victory over the fireballs 6 -5. oh my bad, we are not suppose to keep score... if we lose i will forget about the score. it was a lot of fun for our first game and our kids did great. enjoy the pics and we will keep you updated on there run! peace.

the sharks

i have been give a promotion in the world of ayso soccer and am know the head coach of "the sharks" a group of 7 five year olds looking to have a great time every saturday afternoon on the soccer field. it will be a little different than last year, becuz the coaches have to stay on the sidelines and last year we were allowed on the field.

we have a game tommorow at 3 and i will try and get some pics to shwocase on monday.

peace.

booty call

hey since i left a depressing blog earlier, i just thought i'd leave a message for all of the usc trojan doubters that there is always a silver lining in the clouds... usc is ready to go and booty got the call and showed up. it looks like the coaches and the writers are in agreement and have usc up to 3 in both polls.

what a week!

i just send an email to a friend and thought it summed up last week. so i decided to copy it over and blog it for everyone else to read as well...

"I had a pretty crazy week last week. Here is the short version…

Tuesday, I get a phone call at about 7 am that Anais, a girl that was in my youth group and very special to me died the night before in a car accident. I was at a lost for words and really did not know what to say or think. They were about to send an email out about it, but decided I should not here over an email. I was pretty devastated. I think as a dad, the pain is a little more knowing the love her mom and dad had for her as well.

Wednesday, I had to take kade to the dentist because he had a cavity which ended up in a root canal. Boy that was tough to watch but he was a trooper. He did really well. The dentist even said Kade did better than many adults in his office having root canals. I bought him two new toys from the cartoon, "Avatar". Wednesday ended with soccer practice... i am now the head coach of the "sharks".

Thursday, was good during the day, because I did not work and hung out with kade and evan because their school was closed to get ready for school starting next week. So that was great, but I spoke at the viewing on Thursday night. I was asked to share some anais stories, so I did. I held it together for the most part, but saw a lot of former students that were friends of anais and had been part of the youth group or oikso as we know it. We cried together.

Friday was the funeral. It was nice also but sad. You should never have to bury a 20 year old friend. I than needed to get away for the weekend, so me and some friends from la habra got out of town. We had a good time. I think I needed to get away. But than this morning I was reminded of Anais again as I read some messages from people about what I said at the funeral and how much they enjoyed me being there. So I am not doing so good toady… Peace.

RELOAD IS COMING!

i have been eating and breathing the reload curriculum for the last couple of months, but am excited about getting this training out to thousands of leaders by the middle of next year. all the details on reload are HERE! if you are in one of the 21 cities make sure you hit reload.

Yanks complete five-game sweep

this is a day late but much worth posting ... it was a great sports weekend for me.

• the yankees swept the red sox who i hate passionately and now have a 6 1/2 game lead in the american league east. the greatest victory was sunday as the red sox really felt like they had the yanks, but nothing like a rookie closer choking and mariano rivera being as tough as nails.
  
• tiger won his 12th major destroying the competition. i used to hate watching golf, but since i now play 4 or 5 times a year. i really enjoy and appreciate.
  
• another weekend closer to usc beginning another run toward a championship with a new offensive crew. i love to see the haters think they are going to collapse.
  
• i played baseball with my son kade and other friends and their kids. kade still can hit the ball with his time off. evan loves to attempt to hit the ball and almost makes contact on his own. next year... he will be making great contact.
  
• i just found out that kade can play football next year at the age of six and we can return from the recreational activity called soccer that will begin next week. six year olds playing football ... priceless.
  

BELIEVE Update

i had a great meeting with mary glenn in regards to our continued discussion on uniting alhambra churches to provide activites and resources to the young people in our community. our long term goal is provide a drop in center for youth to attend after school. the summer has been very busy and we accomplished very little, but we are very hopeful to see where god leads us.

we currently have about 6 or 7 churches that are verbally committed and have attended group meetings or at least sat and dicsussed the vision of BELIEVE with mary or myself. we are hopeful to have something more tangible to talk about and promote in the coming month.

if you are locally located in the alhambra area and are interested in being involved please let me know. i know we will need people who like basketball, are available to have conversations with students that english is a second language, mentor at risk youth or hang out at a future drop in center.

Here is the vision:

Believe (in Alhambra YOUTH)

To create a community/movement for Alhambra youth that is:

• A safe place of refuge
  • Where they can learn from different generations.
  • Where they can build real friendships.
  • Where they can find support from positive role models/mentors.
• Empowering youth to make a difference in Alhambra (opportunities to serve, etc)
• Building bridges across diversity (ethnic, religious)

This community/movement – can move locations – this is about its essence.