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.
This is what my good friend Wikipedia says:
Hospitality refers to the relationship process between a guest and a host, and it also refers to the act or practice of being hospitable, that is, the reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers, with liberality and goodwill.
Hospitality is also known as the act of providing kindness and comfort to whomever may be in need.
Haha. Just a joke. Nobody take that seriously. I LOVE GAY PEOPLE!
This is one huge thing I feel that has been laid on my heart to explore during my experiences in Vancouver. How do we show hospitality to those who are different than I am? What could it look like to be hospitable to strangers and friends? We should give others the best we can. If we are going to give food to someone, give the best or at least something you yourself would eat. 
This will change the world.
I feel challenged to: be creative, employ the gifts available in our community, be inviting, put Christ on display to the world (in a non condeming way), be relevant with out abandoning truth, and enjoy life.