Today we got to fly back across country to Vancouver. We feel like zombies as we had anticipated. I must say that our flight from Atlanta to Vancouver was especially awesome today. I got to do some of my favorite things while flying over America, the land of the free and the home of excess and overabundance. I got to do some napping. I got to watch some movies on those sweet little screens they have in the head rests of the seat in front of you. I watched all of Hot Rod, some of Transformers, and about two minutes of the Bourne Ultimatum. It was great. They even served drinks and snacks more than once. I got to enjoy coffee and cookies while watching some great entertainment. That's what I'm talking about. I also got a little reading in while listening to classical music on the headset. Wow. We weren't even in first class. I'm pretty sure we were in the last class.
Being home for two whole weeks was great. We had been anticipating the holidays for six months, which was our last trip home. 
Some of the highlights of our time back "home".
Staying up late and watching movies with my mother in law.
Driving my GTO that I would love to get rid of.
Vineyard Westside dinner and services.
Making new friends.
A little nintendo wii action.
Most awesome New Year's Party ever.
Hanging with the Detzels and checkin out our future home.
Newport Aquarium and seeing the Lord's creativity.
Talking about our experiences with friends and family.
Getting to do a little work on the future coffee shop.
Drinking a lot of coffee.
Price Hill Chili.
Chipotle.
All in all our time was wonderful. Maybe a little too busy. We can't wait to see where these relationships go in the future.
I get a great deal of satisfaction when I make something. I'm not really a crafty person since it always takes more time and planning. One thing I intentionally took time to learn to do recently was make home made beer. I was surprised how good it turned out and how community is built in the process.
There's not that much to it. These are the basic ingredients. 
There isn't much precision to homebrewing. Just measuring temperatures at certain points. You get some great aromas during this process. After boiling everything and checking some temps we add the yeast to the mixture and then on to fermentation for about two weeks all together. 
After fermentation you add a sugar solution to your beer and bottle it. From a 23 litre container you get about 50 pints of home made beer. It works out to be about 50 cents per bottle after cost of equipment. 
This gets you instant popularity amongst many of your friends. 
I'm so excited to come home I could almost barf. I have had a lot to anticipate and wait for this advent season. Good food, friends, family, stories, and best of all eggnog. It's gonna be awesome.
Man, I love learning more about myself.
One of the things that is inteded about our experiences is that we discover more of ourselves and what God wants for us.
Recently I took a test called Stregths Finder 2.0. This is a test designed to uncover your strengths and what makes you stand out from others. It also gives an action plan of how to use these strengths throughout your life. It is great. I dicovered that my five top strengths are:
Adaptability- this means that I am a go with the flow sort of person and that I discover the future one day at a time.
Empathy- which means that I have the ability to sense feelings of others by imaging myself in their place.
Maximizer- says that I seek to transform something strong into something superb.
Developer- this means that I recognize and cultivate the potential in others and that I derive satisfaction from small improvements.
Positivity- (I especially like this one) this says that I have an enthusiasm that is contagious.
I am pretty pleased with these strengths and hope to be in a position to use them to their fullest potential now and in the future.
The time is quickly approaching to go home to Cincinnati for a couple of weeks and we couldn't be more excited to reconnect with friends and family and get some more vision for what is going in our lives when we go home for good. We miss home a lot, but while we are here God has blessed us with a great community of people that have filled in as family while we are away. We have spent so much time together and done a lot of life together it is hard to imagine that in a couple of months we won't see them on a daily basis and discuss hard questions life has for us.
Last night we had our usual Monday night meal where we all gather and enjoy dinner together and just hang out or play games or whatever. Last night we tried to make it a little more special in light of the Christmas season.
We sang a few carols led by Deric's redneck twin brother...
We decorated and ate too many cookies and played a few games that I didn't have the attention span for. The only thing this party didn't have was some spiked egg nog. But there are more Christmas Parties yet to be experienced this season.
It was great. It's amazing how God weaves people into our lives. I was reminded how others are put in our lives while we are away to love and care for us as family would. It's not always easy or enjoyable, but it is worthwhile and necessary.
He looked amazingly terrible with those teeth. I love his goofiness.
I just watched Princess Bride and was reminded of how precious our wives are. I know this sounds like a no brainer, but it's easy to forget about that sometimes. We should be willing to lay our lives down for our wife. I was thankful for the simple truth this evening that my wife is a person to be cherished and fought for.
Boy am I lucky to have her. 
This is actually me and Carrie horseback riding on our one year wedding anniversary.
I want to be more passionate and dedicated in life. Not like this guy but you know what I mean.