Here I sit in my office on a Friday afternoon in front of a computer, working like I was back at North Phoenix, editing video for our Independence Day Celebration. I know, I brought it on myself, and I'm not complaining, but I forgot how much work it is to produce about a half hour of (reasonably) good video. Let me tell you where I've been...
A week ago Monday I went to Philadelphia with Rick Stasser, the NBC Sports Anchor from Vegas, and friend, and we met up with Stan "The Man" Teeple, who is a businessman in Philly, a Green Valley member, and a good friend. Stan earned his name, as he led us on a tour of Philly, a trip to NYC Ground Zero, and a private showing in his theater of my movie, "Ocean's 13." (Yes, I was an extra in it for about three seconds at the end). We videotaped for our program, and had a great time. Too many stories to tell. (Oh, yeah, Rick and I also went to DC by ourselves, videotaped there, went to a Nationals game, and lunched at Baltimore's Inner Harbor on the way back.)
Now, all week long, I've been editing like a madman, and oh yeah, I also have to get the choir and band ready too. Yeah! It really is going to be great, and our church loves when we do services like this. I'm really looking forward to it.
Two weeks ago Monday I was in San Antonio at the Southern Baptist Convention. Served on the Committee on Committees, and actually got to sit on the convention platform Wednesday morning, something I never thought I'd get to do. It was okay, but without Annette, it might as well have been in Needles, California.
The kids were at Vacation Bible School all week, and all I ever hear is reports from teachers on how witty and bright Connor is. Go figure. Dad and Chloe are really bonding now, and I will be dedicating lots of time to my little girl starting Sunday after church (all this will be over!). I'm taking Connor to see Ratatouille (Connor loves anything related to cooking-and movie popcorn!), and I will be taking Caleb to get more photos made (he's a very good looking little baby). It's been busy, but I'm looking forward to blowing some things up on July 4!

Here's the family from photos taken the last couple of days. Connor and Caleb, dad and Chloe, and Annette.

Connor is on the cover of our church's latest magazine (the benefit of dad being the editor), along with a lot of his friends from church. The issue is focusing on our Children's Ministry, and if you'd like to see it on line, you can go to our church website at www.greenvalleybc.org and check it out. Connor is sweet on little Natalie Mason, who is the little girl in the left-hand corner. When we tell stories at night and I let him fill in the blanks, her name comes up quite a bit. He is also taken with the little girl at thebottom, Day-day Limbengco. (I know that's wrong spelling, but it's a Philippino name, and I can't remember...) He thinks she's pretty neat, and when she's around, she gets his attention. His other buddies are the two boys with the long hair that kinda look like twins, Aki-shawn and Noah Jewell. Anyway, take a look...

Last Friday I went with my buddy Jerry Davison and some good people from Hope Baptist Church to Red Rock to video a commercial for their annual Men's retreat. I was the cameraman for this spot, and I think it turned out fantastic. Jerry is incredibly creative, and it is a blast whenever we get together to do stuff. We laughed and laughed at all the takes we took of the cavemen. Jerry's the old caveman with the white hair.

Here's a beauty photo of my Connor taken by my good friend Hexel Hernando. Hexel is such a master photographer- you should hire him to photograph your family. Really.
Connor is such a salesman. He has a 1000 watt smile, goes right for the first name, and charms ya. The other night, he asked me to tell him another story, after I just finished with two long stories. I told him no, and he countered with yes, and when I said no again, he grabbed my face, leaned in, and pleaded, "Change your mind!" I laughed so hard Annette came in from the other room, just in time to hear me begin a third story.

Here's photos of 2/3's of the kids. Caleb is such a sweet little baby, but he is our crybaby for sure. He'll scream on cue if you take the bottle out of his mouth or if you startle him, and he has a good little scream going on. He is so cute, and fun to be with, though...

Chloe is our little one girl wrecking crew, and is also pretty fast with the water works. If I say, "No no Chloe," for whatever reason she's giving me at the time, the tears flow like she was Tammy Faye Baker. She is a drama queen! This photo was taken at Easter, and I've been doing various things with Photoshop, so the colors may look a little un-natural- sorry.


I took Connor to his first Las Vegas 51's baseball game Friday night, and he lasted three innings, about the same as our starting pitcher. It's a great time- he gets a hot dog, a gatorade, some cracker jacks, he takes my camera and takes pictures of me, he goes and sees the mascot Cosmo, and he's ready to go. Somewhere in there there's a baseball game.

Annette and I dedicated baby Caleb to the Lord in front of our church family last Sunday. We had Connor and Chloe with us, along with Annette's parents, and our choir, who we also asked to stand with us. It was a special time. We pray for the day thart Caleb receives Christ as Savior.
Since the last post, I went to New York for the first time. Our church staff attended the Pastors Conference at the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and had an incredible experience there. God is at work in that church. We were in conference most of the time, but also found a day where we saw the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building (we went to the top), and attended a Yankees game. It was a lot of fun.
Annette's mom and dad also came to help while I was gone, so they were able to be here for the dedication. ALso, ANnette's sister Alyson, who is a flight attendant, now includes Vegas on her routes, and is able to come see us from NYC one night a week. Annette is so excited, and Alyson is glad to be able to see the kids on a semi-regular basis.

We had a great Easter. I led six services over the weekend, and we had over 1600 in all of our services combined. After church our family posed for some photos for our new church magazine, and we found out just how hard it is to get three kids to smile at the same time!
We were invited to the home of our good friends, Stan and Jan Teeple, who live in Sun City Anthem. They have a beautiful home with an incredible view of the distant Las Vegas Strip, and in typical Teeple fashion, pulled out all the stops for a great party. The Easter Bunny was there, the kids had a hunt, and the food... oh man. Most of us men watched the Masters, while sampling the feast. CHloe was WORN out and Connor is still on a sugar high. It was a great day to worship and be with friends.

Here are a couple of photos of my mom from our trip to Yuma. The photo of her in the purple was from her party. She enjoyed ggetting to see Caleb for the first time. Caleb's middle name is Benjamin, my grandfather's (her dad's) first name.
Connor has been down with fever for several days, and now that he's recovering, the baby (Chloe- I still call her the baby) has a fever. I'm not sure what to call Caleb...