Changes...to our hearts (The Micah Project)

Eagle Brook has a pretty amazing series, The Micah Project, going on that I think might have the power to really change the hearts and minds of the people of this church...and hopefully throughout the community. The staff has done an amazing job of giving us opportunities to open our hearts to those that are less fortunate than we are. Tonight our small group girls had the opportunity to volunteer with Feed My Starving Children, a group that puts together meals for starving children in poor countries around the world. Tomorrow (Tuesday), the guys get their turn (everyone in our group has kids so this allowed us to avoid babysitters)...I am really excited. The girls (along with the others that were at the Spring Lake Park campus put together enough meals to keep something 94 children fed for an entire year. What an amazing thought...one night of work can make such an impact! This really excites me for my chance to help.

We are quite fortunate. I think we often forget about this. God takes such good care of us...we do so little for others. I am a little ashamed of that. My heart yearns for this at times and I ignore it. Hopefully God will continue to stir my heart. I do now understand what the Bible was talking about in 1 Corinthians 7:32-34. Being married can be a real challenge to being able to freely give of yourself to God. Your priorities change...they have to as you have people depending on you which is something that is rarely the case when you are single. I wish now that I had realized how much more I could have done when I was single. I have to be careful though to not use family as a crutch to not do the things I feel God is calling me to...its a fine line!

Did I mention that I am really excited for tomorrow? We haven't been able to participate in everything the church has set up to work on our hearts. Last week they challenged us all to live for a week on a typical diet of the majority of the world (which entailed rice, beans, lentils, water, etc). Unfortunately, I was traveling most of the week and Meghan, being pregnant, really needs to watch her diet some. We, at least I, do hope to give it a try for at least a day though. I've heard it was quite challenging! Another thing that was set up for last week was the Step Into Africa experience from World Vision where you walk through a simulated AIDS ridden village in Africa. While we weren't able to participate in many of the activities this time around, it wasn't in vain as I think we can still make changes to how we do life. I hope we can raise our daughter to have a good world view and compassion toward those less fortunate. Its our job as parents to instill these kinds of values in our children...Lord willing I won't let my daughter down in this area!

Thank you EBC staff for creating an avenue for God to change our hearts!

What's going on with the Rasmussen's

Well we are a little overdue on an update with what we are up to these days. Addison is now 15 months old. I remember a short time ago bringing her home from the hospital wondering what in the world we are going to do with this little tiny pooping machine. Its amazing how much changes in just 1 year and 3 months. She's walking, talking, winking, roaring, laughing, running, playing, and smiling now. She's burrowed into our hearts in a way I can't even put into words. Honestly, its hard sometimes for me to even enjoy being away from home because I might miss something funny or amusing. I remember the first time she "winked" at us. I put it in quotes because we call it winking but really its blinking. We were at the mall in Coon Rapids and we let her down from the table we were eating at. She wandered over to a table with a couple kids and one of the girls was smiling at her and winked. Addison laughed and blinked at her. It was such a precious little moment that I cherish so much. You can see some videos of our little girl here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/trevorrasmussen

She's getting ready to visit her FOURTH country (not counting the one she lives in) in less than a month and it makes me think what a charmed life she's been able to have so far. I never left the country until I was old enough to vote and she's seen France, Grand Cayman, Britain, and now soon Mexico before she can even go to the bathroom on her own!! I can't help but be thankful for how fortunate we've been with all the traveling we've done in the past year...it won't always be like this so we are enjoying it while it lasts (and while Addison can fly for basically free). God has blessed us amazingly...I can't lie there...we live a charmed life. Sure others have more, do more, its easy to focus on what we DON'T have...but what we DO have is pretty amazing.

Valentines Day is coming up, this year we are keeping it low-key again...following our past traditions. While its a fun day to remember how much we love each other, we try to not get too caught up in the whole thing. I usually buy Meghan a little something and we'll have dinner and then maybe relax by watching a movie together or something. This year, the Roelofs are coming by and we're having pizza (heart shaped of course) and renting a movie. Honestly I look forward to that as much as I do some extravagant dinner. I've learned to really enjoy the little things like that.

Our eBay business has expanded. We are no longer just a place to buy covers for your Wii Remotes. Our focus has moved more into selling clothes, books, movies, collectibles, etc. Anything around the house that we no longer use. Amazon and Craigslist have also been great places for us to unload stuff we no longer need! It started with our garage sale last summer. Our friend Rachel had a TON of nice stuff that just wasn't selling so we made an arrangement to sell it for them for a fee. Its worked out so well and we've both made a lot of money in the process. Then we moved onto our own stuff and even stuff from both of our parents. I actually enjoy it more than the our Wii Remote covers because every item that sells means a little more room in our basement and garage! We are finally getting close to fitting both cars in the garage which has truly been my goal. Once this is done, we hope to use some of this money to finish our basement and add some more value to our house. While eBay takes some time, its proven to be a great venture for us and we are thankful to our God for providing the extra revenue stream!

Marketing gone wrong?

Most of you know that I am in marketing. I am always looking to hear about new creative ways people are marketing their products and services to try to reach their customers. I've come up with a few unique ones myself with my company. I was reading some news articles when this headline popped out: "Holiday Inn Offers 'Human Bed-Warming Service' to Combat Icy Sheets". After reading the headline I thought to myself, this CANT be what its implying, can it? Little old Holiday Inn wouldn't try anything crazy like that now would they?

Sure enough the article goes on to state,

"If requested, a willing member of hotel staff will jump in your bed, dressed head to foot in an all-in-one sleeper suit, until your nightly chamber warms up. Holiday Inn spokeswoman Jane Bednall described the plan as something like having a "giant hot water bottle in your bed."

Now I am sure on paper this sounded like a GREAT idea to some marketer who just KNEW this would get some press time. But what about the people who are hired to do this? What happens the first time they get some pervy guy (or Tiger Woods maybe) who wants them to stick around just a little longer. What happens when the wife finds out some young gal was in your bed "just to warm it up"? This sounds like a future PR nightmare to me. On top of that, how do you hire someone for this job? What are the qualifications to be a bed warmer. This was just too absurd of a story to not share. Anyone else hear and crazy marketing ideas lately that you just couldn't believe were real?

2010 is here...whats going to change?

2009 was a great year for the Rasmussen family. Addison got to experience a year full of firsts, 2010 will likely have much of the same as she still have so many firsts to achieve. I can't wait to be there for every one of them. Her biggest first will be that she gets to be a big sister for the first time. I realized that that we hadn't announced that to our readers on here so let it be known that Meghan and I are expecting the arrival of our next child sometime in early July. While we are really excited for our new addition, it brings a little apprehension too. Adding Addison to the mix was a big change but having two children in the house under 2 could prove to be really crazy. Luckily we'll get to go through a similar experience with three of our closest friends, the Roelofs, the Hidlebaughs, and the Normans. We are all expecting our second children within about 3-4 months of each other! Clearly Addison is too young to know how this will impact her life but we hope she'll take it all in stride!

2010 will bring stability to our lives. There was a lot of change in 2009...new home, new church home, etc. It seems like every year since we've met has brought a lot of change, but I think 2010 will be a stabilizing year for us and I am really excited for that. We have a great home that is affordable along with good stable jobs (and hopefully a recovering economy). We feel like we have really solid renters at both of our rental homes which provides a HUGE amount of relief for us after the craziness of last year. While the new baby will bring some craziness and sleepless nights, the rest of our lives have finally stabilized which is something I thank God for!!

With stable lives, its time to start focusing on ourselves a little bit too. For me, that means its time to really start to make sure that both Meghan and I are taking care of the important things in our lives. At Eagle Brook, I've heard Bob talk a few times now about defining your values. Its something I've never officially done, but its time for me to really do that.

1. God (while its always important to me, I don't always make it a priority...its time to really change that. I need to make God ACTUALLY first, instead of on paper).
2. Family (Meghan and Addison are vitally important to me...this has never been a question...same with my extended family. I also need to find more time to push my relationship with Meghan as husband and wife...rather than Addison's parents)
3. Work (I like to think of myself as a hard worker, but I've developed some bad work habits that I need to clean up to be a harder, more efficient worker. With the football season winding down, its a good time to develop NEW better habits!)
4. Friends/Self (I need to find more time to cultivate my friendships away from my family. While I LOVE my time with my family, Meghan and I both need to find time to spend with others to cultivate our individual sides of ourselves as well)
5. Hobbies/Sports (I have no problem spending time watching sports, but playing them has always been something I enjoyed. I've put that on the side burner to be there for my daughter for her first year. I miss being in good shape...this might mean going out running or joining some kind of rec league.)

I haven't figured out how this is going to look yet. My life feels busy but I think there is way too much time spend watching TV and on the computer. This can clearly be reduced to free up some time for my other values. TV and computer are NOT core values of my life. They serve an entertainment purpose but I feel like they are causing me to become lazy at times...I hate feeling lazy. I figure a new year is a great time to work on this...

Getting back into the groove!

Wow...so sorry for the past couple months. Life got a little crazy on us and the blog suffered as a result. I guess to get us back in the groove again, I (Trevor) thought I would just update you on what we've been up to lately for those who haven't been keeping up via other methods!

• Addison celebrated her first birthday.The party was a blast, though I think we crammed about 4 hours worth of party into about 2 hours. We had a costume party for the kids, it was adorable as the ages ranged from under 6 months to about 9 years all in costume! Addison LOVED her first bite of cake. She got TONS of new toys which she really needed as she was really bored with what she had. After the party, Addison went trick or treating with some of her cousins which was a lot of fun, the kids costumes were a hit with the neighbors.
  

• Addison has a great new babysitter, Bethany, who watches her on Wednesdays and Fridays (her Grandma Jeannie still does Mondays). She loves all the extra attention.

• We learned that last December was no fluke for our eBay business as it spiked again in mid-November. The increase in business means a boost in income for us which is SO helpful. We plan to pay off the 0% interest loans we used to get our new house up and going in 2010 with that money. We are so thankful for God providing for us.

• Things are going very well with our rentals. We are thrilled with both of the couples we selected which is a HUGE blessing. It was a rocky year as landlords, but we've learned a lot in the process and hopefully we'll make some good money back when we sell the homes.
  

• Now that we are settled in our house and at our church (Eagle Brook Church, SLP campus), we realized it was time to get back involved again. We joined a small group in the fall. Our friends Matt and Rachel wanted to find a group as well so we went to GroupLink at EBC on a mission to find a group that we could join together. We found a great group that meets less than 10 minutes from our house and all the couples have kids so we are all in the same boat. Its really nice. Initially Addison did NOT like that we were leaving her in a strange basement with some strange kids watching her. We think it was a combination of separation anxiety and being in a strange place. She's adjusted now though and is playing downstairs with the kids really well! We are enjoying having some adult time and making some new friends and deepening our faith!
  

• The holidays were a flurry as always for us. We spent Thanksgiving with my family. It was filled with lots of fun times as always! Then we went back to Appleton again in mid-December to celebrate Christmas with my family. Its rare we get to see that much of my family so its always a treat when the holidays come around. Addison loved all the new, unique foods she got to try for the first time! We just returned from a long weekend of Christmas celebrations with Meghan's family. We were thankful we didn't have to drive four hours in this crazy storm so it was a good thing that it was time for Meghan's family to have Christmas this year! Addison LOVES presents. Not so much what is in them though...she loves playing with them and ripping them open. Once they are open, she's less interested! haha After we show her what it does though, she loves all the new gifts.