Weekends filled with excitement

Meghan and I live for the weekends. The week is fine and dandy, but the weekends allow us to have the most fun! Last weekend, my family invited us up to spend the long weekend with them and have a cookout...and cookout we did, Rasmussen style! My dad is known among my friends for serving up a mean steak, and he rarely disappoints!! He didn't this weekend either. Saturday night was make your own shish kabobs and they were GOOOOOD! Sunday night was even better though big ole Ribeyes and King Crab. I have never been a crab (or most fish) person, but it was pretty dang good. We really had a blast spending the weekend with my family, it was SO relaxing. We didn't really have any agenda so we just talked, played card games, hung with the kids, etc. One night we played $#!$ on your neighbor and the other night it was Hold'em. I ended up winning money in both rounds of hold'em, so I still got it!! :-) The weekend was capped off with a rocket launching of our own...Krista and Bill got Sheldon a rocket launcher for his birthday so after spending a good part of the weekend assembling it, we walked (well most of "us" hehe) down to the end of the street where there was a field. The rocket launched twice with no problems and the kids were elated with joy!! Now I have to find a way to get Sheldon a present that he will even want to play with! How do you beat a rocket that shoots hundreds of feet into the air?!?!?!

This weekend we are heading up to Minnesota. We are making a stop at our wonderful home in Rochester on Friday night to see the Bristols and to hopefully fix a leaky door. It will be nice to see them again, but they are also coming to see US soon...we sure do love visitors down here!! Then its up to Minnesota to help my wife alleviate her yearning for something I can't fulfill...watching the Twins! haha We have MLBtv now (thanks for all the suggestions from her last desperate post) but there is nothing like GOING to a game. The Roelofs and Hidlebaughs will be joining us for the night so we are really excited! By "we" I mean Meghan and by "excited" I mean overflowing with joy!! ;-)

On a side note, we FINALLY had another showing here on Wednesday. No word yet though but it was nice to actually have someone interested though!! Keep us in your prayers with this, we'd really like to move on OUR terms after selling our place. We find out the sex of our baby in ONE month (for those of you wondering) and we are so pumped for it! I hope you all have a great weekend planned ahead of you!!

Twins

Let's make this clear, no we're not having twins. This post is, however, about the Minnesota Twins. I miss them. I miss watching them on TV, going to games, etc. The highlight of the last three days of my life has been that I have been able to watch them on TV because they had a series here in Chicago against the White Sox. I could barely tolerate their less-than-bright commentators (I miss you Blyleven and Bremer), though just being in pure awe of actually being able to enjoy watching the Twins made it all worth it. We have this great thing called satellite TV (which actually I am not ecstatic about satellite TV itself) that has MLB Extra Innings where you can watch ANY game you want. It is costly, however, and we are too poor (baby, moving) to afford it. Though I perhaps would give up just about anything to be able to add that package onto our already $84/month DirecTV bill. I'm taking contributions. Meanwhile this Friday and Saturday you can find me depressed as ever just thinking about the Twins playing. Sunday and Monday should be better days when the nationally broadcast game versus the Red Sox on ESPN is on. Then there is a long drought for me. I hope to survive.

We're back on the market!!

There is now a sign outside of our Lakemoor home that reads For Sale. For those of you that missed our last blog, we are moving back "home" to Minnesota. We could really use prayers from everyone that we have a good, quick sale as we can't come home until we sell the house (I mean who can afford TWO homes...seriously). The last time I sold a house it took about 6 painful months and I really don't want to go through that again but I realize how tough of a market this is!

We have a great Realtor who I know is going to find us a good buyer but we are going to have to be patient. We are still waiting on our first home tour though so just getting that would be a real encouragement at this point. Here is a link to our listing on our realtors' site. You can even see a virtual tour for those of you that never made it down here to see our place! :-)

http://homesbykim.com/MyListings?operation=Details&listing_id=1190803895&ls=MLSNI

Well I just wanted to update you all on what is happening. Thanks for the prayers and support...we'll see you all again soon.

A Line Is A Line

Back towards the beginning of February, we had an oopsie, and we knew it. Trevor stayed home from work on the morning of February 21st. Twice that morning I peed on a stick with the same result: a very faint little line. We nervously discussed it. Trevor posted a message on Yahoo Answers about a faint line. We got the same type of response from everyone: "Congratulations, a line is a line!" Throughout that entire morning I kept on repeating myself saying, "Oh great, a line is a line."

A few things also ran through my mind:
*Sure the condom breaks ONCE ever and this is what happens!
*I'm not ready to be a mom yet.
*There is no way I am giving birth to a child in Illinois.
*Okay let's tell the whole world right now.
*At least I know we're both as fertile as can be.

I am now a bit over 12 weeks along, marking the end of the 1st trimester. It's now safe to tell the whole world.

In other news, my bullet entitled "There is no way I am giving birth to a child in Illinois" is coming to fruition. Trevor got the okay from his boss to move back to the Twin Cities, and so our house in IL will officially be up for sale this week. Although we will miss our newfound friends in IL, we cannot wait to move back. We are so excited to pick up where we left off in MN somewhere near the end of summer whether or not our IL house sells that quickly.

So November 1 is the official due date, but we all know how accurate those dates are.

This might be dangerous ground to tread...

...but what in the WORLD is Oprah doing these days???

I think she's really starting to go off the deep end or she must just be so full of herself that she thinks she can do no wrong...and she might be right. I'll open by saying I've never really been a big fan of Oprah, but I really don't like her entire genre. I think if I really had the time I would probably enjoy someone like Ellen (she just seems like good hearted fun) but Oprah has never been my thing. Don't get me wrong I respect her for getting to where she is...what a story. She's also done some great things for people, there is no denying that either.

Anyway, I've been getting more and more skeptical about her over the past couple years. She's clearly taken on a new age mindset but she's begun brainwashing her listeners now.

A couple years ago it was "The Secret" which is a book based on the "Laws of Attraction", you know like attracts like. Its a hodgepodge of unoriginal ideas that has been merged into a philosophy that because of Oprah has become a best seller. One of the main premises behind this one is that if you really believe you can do something or get something you can/will. WHAT?? She actually pitches a book that says, "The only reason any person does not have enough money is because they are blocking money from coming to them with their thoughts." Really now...I wonder how the little girls at her school in South Africa feel about that? I do believe in the power of a positive attitude...it can change your outlook on life but this is taking it to a dangerous extreme.

Now she's moved onto pairing up with this guy, Eckhart Tolle. Oprah extolled the author’s virtues, calling his best-selling "New Earth" book "one of the most important books of our time," the seminars one of "the most exciting things I’ve ever done." More exciting than all the lives you changed? More exciting than the school for the little girls in Africa? More exciting than your Angel Charity network? PUH-lease.

Anyway, not only did she put his teachings in her book club (which we all know many of her fans will gobble up anything she puts out there) but she started seminar series reminiscent of a church service of sorts. The path has been laid for years as she slowly and methodically began teaching her audience that there in fact is NOT one way to God and maybe not even one God...we all have out own Gods and our own paths to get to him. I am not going to pretend that I have read his book, cause I haven't (and won't). But I have read about it a few times and what I've hear has been very disturbing. Here is the most recent article that I ran into:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351545,00.html

I guess my point for writing this is that its really time to start looking at what we put into our minds. You hear messages like this enough and it starts become easier to hear and believe until one day you think...yeah I guess that does make sense! I caution you to not fall into the trap that she is setting up. There IS one way and one God and you can't just make up a path to Him. You can't just pick and choose the things from scripture that make you feel good and discard the others. This applies to all of life...we can't just accept the things that we like and disregard the rest. I can't just do the tasks my boss asks me to do and ignore those I don't like...there are consequences. I can't pay the bills that I feel good about this month and throw away the others. This line of thinking is TREMENDOUSLY flawed...the universe doesn't revolve around our own whims. There is order. There is right and wrong.

Sorry Oprah...this is one guy that isn't buying it.