WEATHERING STORMS TOGETHER!

Last night was a very awesome night with a huge twist, or should we almost say twister, that threw a wrinkle in the plans.

I am blessed to have many wonderful brothers in Christ that I am walking through life with at this present time. But I have one set of brothers that mean the world to me and help me attempt to stay on the right path in my walk with the Lord daily. I would consider this my accountability group with a major stress on accountability. We are able to meet and try to consistently stay in contact with each other, so we know what's going on in each other's lives and we are able to pray each other through many things. The joy of watching the Lord work in each of us and through us has been awesome. We have prayed each other through many trying times, but have also celebrated and rejoiced together in some wonderful milestones of life, watching God work miracles all the way through.

Last night was our Monday night get together with the entire crew. We had great fellowship and great food. A few minutes into our study time together, we realized a tornado was in the area and we decided we needed to take action. We rounded up all wives and kids and headed to the basement. The storm did not take long to ratchet up and actually knocked out the power about 5 minutes after we settled into the basement. As time passed and the storm eventually blew over, we all headed our own separate ways to home, having weathered the storm together.

Throughout the night last night and into today, that storm has been on my mind because it gives me many thoughts to how we do life together. I will say on one hand, that I think Satan likes to use storms of life, similar to last nights, to worry us and distract us from what we need to be doing. But on the other hand, I see God wanting to take those storms and teach us how to weather them, not through anything we do, but through His power and His guidance. He shows us how we can do it together and how He yearns for us to be intentional in the relationships that we have, so that we can grow and help each other stay the course.

So although last night was not in the planbook as far as our study went, it actually showed me how important it is that we weather the storms of life in God's hands, but that He also allows us to do it with other brothers and sisters in Christ. I pray that we all can be so blessed as to have folks who will go to battle with you and for you. Folks who you can call at anytime for instant prayer or folks who will challenge you when you need to be challenged. Folks who will speak truth to you when you need truth, not an opinion that will match what you want to hear. I thank the Lord everyday for my blessing of a real accountability group. I challenge others to find a group or start a group if the Lord puts it on your heart. We all need brothers and sisters in Christ so that we can weather storms together!

StadiumFest 2011

In 2009, my buddy Scott Dawson put on StadiumFest at Samford University. There were over 25,000 in attendance and over 300 decisions for Christ that one day/night. It was such an awesome event.

Scott and his association felt led to do it again this year, bringing back StadiumFest in 2011 and hosting it at Spain Park High School. The lineup included Rick and Bubba, Bello the clown, James Spann, Scott Dawson with music by CJ Blount, Kevin Derry Berry, Casting Crowns, and TobyMac and the Diverse City Band. Take that lineup and mix it with a great location and the most awesome weather that the Lord could provide and what do you get???



You get 39,000 folks packed into Spain Park High School rockin it for Jesus with around 487 life changing decisions made. May all Glory be given to God who is worthy to be praised!! I know all who were there experienced StadiumFest in their own way and each were touched by different things and different folks. I would like to take the week and maybe put up a blog or 2 up to give you my thoughts and experience from StadiumFest. May the Lord give me the time needed and the discipline to put it into words.

Blog Restart

OK..... So how sad is it when you stumble across your blog and your last post was in December??
And how really sad when so much of life has really changed since December and not one inkling of it is shown through your blog??

Well I am turning over a new leaf. I want to make Sunday nights my blog night. Hopefully I can do better than just once a week but I am going to make it a statement to myself that I will try to do a better job of updating, and worst case scenario, I at least get one good blog in for the week!! :)
I am hoping that I can catch up the last 3 months as well. Guess we will see.

So, here is to restarting my blog.....again!! LOL

WHAT A WONDERFUL "WHITE" CHRISTMAS!

Christmas of 2010 will have to go down as one of the most eventful, and fulfilling Christmas days yet. From God's early Christmas present in baby Timothy to the wonderful white snow we were blessed with on Christmas day, this will be a Christmas to remember.





This Whitt household is probably not very traditional when it comes to Christmas in the sense of having 50 million presents around the tree. We keep it pretty simple. 3 gifts to make sure our kids understand what the Christmas season is really about, and that is most importantly the birth/life/death of our Savior Jesus, but it's also about giving more than receiving. Plus, the grandparents will provide close to 49 million presents to suffice. :) This year our kids got pillowpets, tag reader books from Leapster, and transportation vehicles...Caden got a bike and Lala got a scooter. Stockings were filled with chocolates and other goodies that Daddy seems to be enjoying more than the kiddos.





Shannon and I are very terrible (from the world's standpoint) when it comes to Christmas. We don't really buy each other gifts because we take care of each other throughout the year. Or if we do buy each other gifts, we can never make it to Christmas day to open them. We normally have our gifts open by December 2nd!! :)
But this year was a special one. With the new addition of baby Timothy, Shannon's little Taurus was no longer going to cut it. Talk about packed sardines!! So we did our talking and praying about getting a van and the Lord really came through. Shannon and I got an 08 Honda Odyssey for Christmas this year and I could not think of a more perfect gift!..........



Until Christmas day. Wow! What a beautiful sight it was. Except for the Christmas our family spent in Gatlinburg when I was younger, I have never experienced a true "white Christmas" in AL. We had a wonderful time the day before at Meme and Grandaddy's and we had a great time at Bitsy and Poppi's on Christmas day as well.

But the adventure came in traveling to my grandparents house in Huntsville. This is a tradition that has been in the family for almost 40 years now. I think last year was the only year that I have ever missed, and only missed then because Shannon was so very sick. I would not label it as the most convenient thing to do on Christmas day, but I love my family very much and have no idea how much longer this tradition will be able to continue. Plus I know how much it means to my grandparents since we only see them 3 to 4 times a year anyways.





Although it was snowing pretty good in Argo, we had no idea how it was coming down in Huntsville, and boy was it coming down. We started out around 11:00 and the further north we got, the harder it snowed and the more covered the roads began to get. My wife needed a puke bowl and she was not happy with me at all. But the kids were awesome and we made it there in one piece. Great family, great food, great fun and then came the decision to try to make it back that evening or spend the night. We decided to have a spend the night party and it was so much fun. I can't remember the last time I spent the night there, but it reminded me of the days where the cousins used to go spend the week with them. The next morning, we braved the snow to attempt to make it back home. I will say that it was very scary in the beginning. We were following mom and dad, and there were no real clear road tracks until we hit the interstate. It was very nerve racking. But we made it and all was well. And we have some wonderful Christmas memories about the White Christmas of 2010.



I hope everyone had as blessed a Christmas season as ours.

May your 2011 be even better!

TIME TO PLAY "BLOG CATCH-UP"

Since the last real blog I had was in September, and it's now Christmas break and I have "a little bit" of time on my hands, I figured I would play the "blog catch-up" game. I have no idea what order they will show up in and it will probably not be as good as it should be, but I will do my best. Since the wife is at work with the "picture computer", I will have to add pictures later. Hopefully I will find time to do that. I will also do my very best to not let months elapse before I update again! So let the "blog catch-up" game begin...............

50 free Christmas cards from Shutterfly

So if you have been reading my blog for any amount of time, you've probably noticed all the photo collages I post. I usually take way too many pictures of any given event, so I absolutely LOVE making collages with some of my favorites! Shutterfly makes it SO easy. And my friend (AND cousin) Page recently blogged about how to get FREE photo cards by blogging! So YAY, we will see if this works!

Shutterfly really is simple to use. All you do is load your pics to Shutterfly, and then there are several options. You can edit your pics, make collages, order prints or gifts, etc! They also have the cutest holiday cards! I would love to do a Thanksgiving Card... This is my favorite design! I love the colors, and of course, it's got a collage on it! :)

And then there's the traditional Christmas card. Since Christmas is less than a months away (GASP!) it's already time to start planning! And I learned a few years ago, that photo cards are def the way to go when it comes to Christmas cards! Simply load your fav pic, or multiple pics if that's what you choose, pick the design you want to use, and walah, it's done! Envelopes come with the order, so all you have to do is stuff and seal, then address and mail. We have yet to take our family Christmas pictures, but I am really hoping (with Page's help!) to get at least one good one of the 4 of us, then a good one of the boys, and then one of each of them. That may be asking a lot... but if we are successful, I already have the perfect card picked out! This is one of my favorite Christmas designs... the Snowflake Wishes is cute and contemporary, and has the perfect places for photos of our little family! :)

Also on Shutterfly, you can make photo gifts. There are several options, but one of my favs is the wall calendar. Again, load the pics you want to use, place them and add captions if you want, and you have the cutest calendar EVER! We've made one as Christmas gifts for family the past several years, and they are always a big hit!

So if you are looking for a new photo program, check out Shutterfly. Also, if you are a blogger, click here to see how you can blog about Shutterfly and order 50 FREE photo cards!

DUKE BOUND...AGAIN

If you know me, you know that I eat, sleep, and breathe Duke basketball.
If you know my brother, ditto.

Last year, my buddy Rusty and I were able to have the experience of a lifetime!!!
We drove up to Durham for a practice/coaching clinic for Duke basketball.
We had no idea what kind of expectations to have or not have.
And oh was it the bomb!!! We were able to watch the future national champs get after each other in a real practice. We were able to get a basketball signed by every player on the future national championship team. And then to cap off the weekend, I was able to meet Coach K for the very first time, get an autograph (or 2..had to get Nate's) and get a picture made with him.



Reminded me a little bit of my first trip to Bristol!! (That's an inside joke for the Bristol crew!! Love you guys!)
Once we returned home and had a few weeks to come off of cloud 9, it was so awesome to watch them play and end up being national champs. Not just for the sake of saying that they won it all, but they did it on the year where we were able to come up and get the full experience!
So,we decided we had to do it again this year.

This year, Rusty and I also took my bro and our other buddy Keyon. Nate and I have been there before in 05, when we went to watch Duke play Valpo and had a wonderful experience meeting JJ Redick and company! But never really even got close to seeing Coach K. Keyon had never been at all, so this was his rookie experience.
The trip up was great, but I will say that things did not go as smoothly as hoped for once we got there.
We were hoping to all buy basketballs and get them signed by the team, like we did last year.
Problem #1: K and his crew bought every basketball on campus to sell the next day at the clinic. So there were no basketballs at all!!! Very frustrating!! So we had nothing to get signed by the players. Had we known what was to come, it probably wouldn't have mattered anyways.
Problem #2: When we got to practice, everybody and their brother showed up this year. The year before, it was me, Rusty, and maybe 20 other people if that. Once practice was over, we got to hang out with the guys and talk and get the basketballs signed. Very easy, very low key. This year, no way Jose!! It was like Jesus feeding the 5000. They were everywhere!!! We ended up standing through the whole practice and story of trip was me showing my butt.

----Sidebar (wouldn't be a good blog if I didn't share good stories...LOL)
So we get into the practice gym and there are chairs all down the side. The managers are bringing other chairs out to put on the wall. The 4 of us stand in the doorway to the weight room just scoping it out and seeing how many folks are going to come in. I am already ill that the million man march was in Duke's practice facility. Mind you as well, we don't have chairs. We are standing. About 5 or 10 minutes before practice starts, we decided that we wanted to sit. Across the gym were 4 empty chairs, so we walk across the floor to sit down. Remember, still not jolly be happy. As we sit down, a visitor/coach proceeds to tell me that somebody was sitting in that seat. Well, and I blame it on my father, genetics...LOL
I proceeded to look at the guy and say "Yeah, me." I think my brother and our other 2 buddies did everything they could to not just bust out laughing right there, but they know me and know that this was not a good situation. The dude was totally floored and had no idea how to handle this. He and I had a brief discussion and thank the Lord, a level head returned and I decided to go back to the original standing position in front of the weight room so that I did not make the news by getting kicked out of Duke's baskeball practice facility.

Practice came and went and the end of practice was all of the players being led to the lockerroom with not one player (except Kyle and Miles who went to the weightroom) staying to sign. Can't say I blame the coaches either. It was the right move, but so opposite from the year before. I guess that is what being National Champs will do and that's ok. Highlight of the day though was waiting by the players door, which not a lot of the folks knew where it was, and getting to meet and get a pic with Kyrie Irving. Kid's a playa, yet it breaks my heart that he is hurt and probably done for the season.





Saturday was a good day. Got to the clinic, got our basketballs, got our clothes, got good seats. When it was time, we jumped in line to see Coach K. I knew how crazy the day before was, so I wasn't taking any chances. Come to find out at the end, they actually had to shut the line down and turn people away. Hate that, but glad we were up front. It was cool to see Coach K again and very cool to see my bro and Keyon meet him for the first time. When the clinic was over, we went back and watched college football all night.

It was a very fun experience and hoping that we can make it an annual event. Curious to see if we repeat as well. Thanks for letting me share.

LET'S GO DUKE!!!!!