Happy New Year!

It's back to the grindstone after a wonderful Holiday season. We spent Christmas at the beach with my folks doing a little ocean kayaking. The surf was up, the beach was practically empty, and we had a blast. Also ate some most excellent seafood.

Whilst me and my brother and Dad were enjoying the waves, a photographer happened uponst us and snapped some pics, which you can see here. I think she framed the pictures well - but I'm not so sure about the dreamy effect. Anyhoo.

We spent New Year's Eve at our church's Watch Night service. Our pastor decided to have a testimony service this year, which lasted after midnight - we didn't get home until almost 3:00 AM. I thoroughly enjoyed the service, but I felt like I was in another world on the drive home. I'm not used to staying up so late anymore.

I gave my testimony, and I must say I quite disappoint myself as a speaker. I despair when I get up in front of people, which of course is silly because some of the most wonderful people in the world go to my church. But as soon as I got up there in front of everyone my mouth started to twitch uncontrollably and my brain switched to autopilot. I imagine something moderately coherent came out, as a few people later told me they enjoyed my testimony, but nevertheless it inspired a few sit-up-in-bed moments later the next night.

My wife and I sang Mercy Rewrote My Life in English and Romanian. I speak extremely basic Romanian (Where's the bathroom, I'm hungry, etc), but learned the words to the song so we could sing it. Romanian is a very beautiful language similar to Italian, but is a crazy language to learn for English speakers (in my opinion). I asked my wife how to say something the other day, and when she spat out a hundred-syllable Chinese sounding word all I could do was look at her incredulously and ask, "How do you get your mouth to make that sound?".

And speaking of Monica, she's about to pop. Her belly is the most ginormous I've ever seen a belly get. The doctor says any day now could be the day, so we better get ready.

Yes, we'd better.