Here is video from Asa’s First Birthday Party. It was a lot of work, but we had a great time. I’m going to bed now.
I can’t believe that it was only a year ago that we got in a car wreck, went in and out of labor for 30 hours, found out Asa was breach, and had an emergency C-section. Now our little bundle of joy isn’t so little anymore. He was born 6 lbs 11oz and now weighs over 22 lbs, and you can ask anyone that has held him that he is pure muscle. The only thing squishy about the boy is his poop.
He can crawl. He can pull himself up. He can walk while holding on to things. He will eat ANYTHING you put in front of him. He smiles anytime you point a camera at him. He can do sit ups. He babbles all day long. He is always smiling (even when he cries…it’s weird). He is a sharp dresser. He speaks three languages. He paints and I’m pretty sure he knows how to do long division.
He is a blessing from God and Shannon and I thank Jesus every day for the gift that we have gotten in Asa. Happy Birthday Asa!
Here are some posts from the past that I would recommend checking out if you want to be nostalgic.
Also feel free to leave a comment below to share your birthday wishes for the boy.
So this is how my week has been so far. Towards the end of last week we received a mdical bill…from the emergency room…from before Asa was born. This was only days after we had finished clearing up all of Asa’s medical bills from his birth.
Saturday we received a letter from our mortgage company saying they had to drain our escrow account to pay the property taxes for the first half of 08. This is because the title company wasn’t intelligent enough to find out they weren’t paid before we bought the house. Now if we don’t get the seller (the government) to refund our escrow account, our monthly payments are going increase drastically.
And now I’m sitting on the cold concrete sidewalk outside of a Chevron as the guy is hooking up our van to tow cause the transmission died on it. This is our only vehicle and we really don’t have a lot of spare cash laying around to fix it.
This trend seems to happen pretty often in our family. Just when life seems to be going semi-smooth, Murphy shows up with all his friends and has a kegger in my living room.
But here is the other cool trend in my life, God always shows up a few days later and kicks Murphey’s @$$.
I must say things are really crappy right now, but I look forward to seeing what God is going to do in the days to come.
For those of you that didn’t catch the live feed yesterday, I thought I would post the video on here. At about 5 pm yesterday, Asa finally figured out how to work his hands into the crawling equation and started crawling. The video below is literally minutes after Asa started crawling for the first time (thanks to my jail broken iphone).
I ran my first triathlon today…this is a video recapping the event. As soon as they post the results, I put up the results for me and all my friends from church that ran with me.
UPDATE:
The results from the tri have been poster. You can go here to see everyone’s results.
Here are the results for me and my friends:
Men:
49th Nathan Schmidt 1:34:09.15
64th David Williams 1:40:27.80
71st Ryan Wallace 1:44:25.10
74th Greg Qualls 1:49:20.55
Women:
21st Misty Davis 1:42:18.00
33rd Tracey Odonnell 1:48:36.85
67th April Barreiro 2:22:52.05
As you go through your day today….don’t forget.
While you run your errands,
While you sit at your desk,
While you check your email,
While you play with your kids,
While you eat your lunch,
While you drink your Starbucks,
Don’t forget.
While you are going through your day, Jesus was beaten beyond recognition, hung on a cross, and died for your sins.
Don’t forget.
I forgot to do a post on the 5th for Asa turning 10 months old. So this is about as close as it’s going to get. I got a video of Asa eating some graham crackers last night. He’s been teething lately. The boy has four already and is cutting a few more.
He isn’t crawling yet either. He’s getting really close though. He’s army crawling everywhere. It’s a little slow…but it works.
Hello,
With only a few days away from running in my first triathlon, I wanted to share some words of encouragement and wisdom with my fellow athletes out there. I didn’t grow up a very athletic person. I’m not that coordinated, and I’m not that strong.
I tried playing basketball, but I was to aggressive. I would generally only get to play for five minutes before I would foul out. I tried playing football, but I wasn’t big enough, strong enough, fast enough, or aggressive enough to be any good (it didn’t help that the coach wanted me to play center at 6′ and 135 lbs). There was really only one sport I was good at…track.
It doesn’t take a lot of strength or skill to run. So I did really well. I wasn’t fast, so I ran longer distance events. I wasn’t the best, but I always placed. I ran on the varsity track team at my school starting in eighth grade until I graduated. (we were a small division school). I loved pushing my body to it’s limit and then some. I loved competing. It’s this history of competition that starts to bring up some long lost feelings inside of me.
Some of my feelings are good and some are bad. I think sports can bring out the best and the worst in people (and sometimes at the same time). I know from experience that sports and competition can bring out a laundry list of sins in people…pride, selfishness, arrogance, timidity, course language, unrighteous anger, belittlement, ect.
I have seen people pray before a game and in the same breath speak crude and prideful words against the other team. I have been an arrogant winner and a sore loser. I have been poor sport. I have cheated. I have belittled and demeaned other athletes and teammates.
But I have also seen athletes become even more Christ-like through competition and sports. I’ve seen teamwork and unity abound. I’ve seen men with great talent and heart walk humbly in a knowledge of Who gave them their gifts. I have seen men suffer well in harsh anti-christian environments. I have seen men point to Jesus as their true prize and not some medal or ribbon.
It is with this in mind that I write this letter. I am determined that sports and competition will not bring me down. I am determined to not seek glory for myself. But I pray that my competing will be done in a way that brings glory to Jesus. I am determined that it is more important to finish the race with integrity proclaiming the good news of Jesus than to win and dishonor his name (not like I have a chance of winning). I am determined that Jesus is my ultimate prize. The reason I compete is to draw closer to Jesus and humbly point others to Him.
Whether I win or lose, I am determined to “run the good race.” I hope you are determined too.
To the glory of God,
Greg Qualls
I thought I would give a short update on how things are going for the triathlon before I go to bed. Tonight we ran a simulated triathlon. I actually was able to finish. It took me about two hours to do the whole thing.
I feel pretty good at the moment, but tomorrow will be the real answer for how I feel. I’m going to take some ibuprofen and go to bed. Hopefully I’ll be able to walk tomorrow. If not…..well….um…I guess I’ll have to borrow a wheel chair or something.
I thought I would include the video update from Tuesday for those of you that didn’t see it. I hope you’re getting some enjoyment out of my pain….at least someone is.
Tech Wednesdy is back! Well for now. It has been a long time since I got my iPhone. So long that the warranty has actually gone out on it. So with that in mind I decided to jailbreak it. Jailbreakng an iPhone simply allows you to do whatever you want with it.
You can put whatever third-pary programs you want on it. You can access the OS. You easily add new ring tones. It is a beautiful thing. But the most beautiful thing about it was using Pwnage Tool. Pwnage Tool made what could be a headache of a process really simple.
I love my iPhone, but I love it even more now. My favorite thing is the ability to do video with my phone now. One of the first programs I installed was Qik. It’s a program that allows you to do live video from your phone. I’m loving it!!!!!!
If you have an iPhone and you aren’t worried about voiding your warranty, I highly recomend jailbreaking it. If you decide to, use this guide. It was really helpful and walked me through the process step-by-step (and it didn’t even have Suzanne Somers).
