Category Archives: CARES

Winding Down

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Things are a little crazy at the Box house these days! Our move is scheduled for Wednesday morning with All Tex Movers. I’ve never used them before, but they got good reviews from various customers and the BBB, so I’m giving them a try. I was very disappointed with the only other movers we’ve hired, so I’m a bit uneasy about these guys. I’ll post a review after we’re done. So far I’m impressed.

With that deadline in mind, we are furiously trying to pack up the apartment while also doing some of our final CARES events, babysitting, working at SWA, and working on the house. Here are some highlights:

CARES – Unfortunately, it has been decided that we will be the last CARES team at our property. We are disappointed since we’d hoped another team could pick up where we will leave off, but God can work all things together for the good for those who love Him. Instead of a new team, the staff will be taking over event duties, so the residents will still have fun stuff to attend. We have a lasagna dinner Friday night and a pie event on Sunday afternoon. After that, only our goodbye pizza party will remain.

House – Due to illness and busyness, we haven’t been out to the house for the last couple of days. We have swapped out the outdoor lights in front and finished painting the kitchen a pretty blue-gray color. Jenny’s dad plans to come up on Sunday to continue working on our cabinets. I ordered a DIY wireless alarm system made by Honeywell that I’m really excited about. It should arrive soon.

Packing – Jenny has worked hard and packed up tons of stuff. Some of it is already over at the house, but much remains. Since we’re paying the movers by the hour, we’re trying to get as much of it boxed up and stacked in the garage so it won’t take so long for them to load into their truck.

Next week you probably won’t hear much from me on here. Our new Internet connection won’t be set up until next Friday, and we’ll be busy packing and unpacking most of the week. Perhaps I can sneak in an update or some pictures if I have time.

The Word is Out

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Some of my loyal readers already know our big news through other means, but in case you haven’t heard, we just closed on a house yesterday. We had to keep it a secret until we told our apartment manager, which we kept postponing until a replacement CARES team was in place. It’s been killing us to keep this a secret because we’re really excited about the house. However, since it means stepping down from CARES and moving away from all the friends we’ve made, it’s definitely a bittersweet time for us. We’ve enjoyed serving as a CARES team, but we’re ready to move on and have more space and time for our growing family.

The house is in north Euless, a mile or so from the apartment we lived in right after our wedding. It’s two-story with 4 bedrooms and 2.5 baths. The bedrooms are all upstairs. It has a big fenced yard for Brenden with room for a swingset. The downstairs layout is circular with lots of open space, so it’ll be nice for entertaining and for Holly’s running spells. If you want pictures, here’s a link to the listing, but I don’t know how much longer the listing agent will keep this webpage up.

We don’t plan to move until April 21 or so since we’ll still be running events for our residents through April. In the meantime, we are packing up and doing some work on the house. We’ll be plenty busy through the end of April, so please pray for our sanity!

Weekend Adventures

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This has been a wild weekend! Here’s a recap of the highlights:

  1. Friday I shopped for supplies for our CARES Super Bowl Party. Jenny and I watched the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. We’d ordered the 1988 version from Blockbuster Online, but they sent the 2005 edition, which is excellent. Then I finished up 3:10 to Yuma, which is an excellent Western that I highly recommend. Two Baylor alums wrote the screenplay along with another guy.
  2. Saturday we went to Houston for a wedding. In the process of getting there, first I drove off without a milk supply for my parents, who were watching Brenden for the weekend. We drove back, picked up the milk, and dropped off the boy. On the way to the airport, I realized I’d forgotten my backback, which contained our flight passes, my airline ID, confirmation numbers, and my laptop. We picked that up and went straight to the employee parking lot at the airport since we were too late for the Headquarters shuttle.
  3. Upon arrival at the airport, Jenny was told that our flight had been canceled. Instead of leaving at 1:00pm, we were now on the 2:00pm flight trying to make a 5:00 wedding. Hmm. At the gate we learned that the flight was nearly full due to the spillover from the 1:00 cancelation. I signed up for the cockpit jumpseat and prayed that Jenny would get an open seat. At about 5 minutes until push time, with me sweating and pacing in the jetway waiting for her, Jenny learned that the gate agent had somehow deleted her from our flight listing. Another gate agent fixed it and gave her a boarding pass.
  4. In Houston we got a car around 3:30 and pulled onto I-45 only to find a huge traffic jam. I kicked myself for not getting that iPhone with the built-in GPS and Google Maps. Jenny and I figured out a detour and finally found the hotel with less than an hour to spare. The checkin line had several folks from Amsterdam. Jenny grabbed our bag and changed into wedding clothes in the ladies’ room while I waited to check in.
  5. Keys in hand, we ran up to the room. Then I realized the other thing I’d forgotten: a dress shirt. I decided my best option was to do the GQ thing and wear a nice collared shirt with my suit and no tie. It worked surprisingly well. I didn’t have time to shower and forgot to shave. Why hadn’t I done those things in the morning?
  6. Finally we rushed to the hotel and found it with 10 minutes to spare. Sitting in the pew before the start, I got a text picture from my sister: my son wearing a pink shirt and a big pink bow. At first I thought it was Reagan until Jenny corrected me.
  7. The wedding was beautiful and uneventful other than the traumatic picture beforehand. The reception was at a fancy club on the 43rd floor of a building in downtown Houston. On the bride’s recommendation, I used valet parking for the first time ever. I’ve always thought of valet parking as more suited to Porsches, Lexii, Ferraris, and the like, not for Dodge Calibers that rent for $22/day. At the reception I got to visit with some old friends from Baylor whom I hadn’t seen in over 7 years. We got to visit with the bride a bit, and she and Jenny got to meet for the first time like I’d hoped. The bride and groom seemed extremely happy and well-suited for each other. I love attending weddings that give me confidence in the marriage instead of feeling like a train wreck is coming. I actually met a dispatcher for Continental Express who happened to be a bridesmaid.
  8. On Sunday morning we had planned to attend a brunch at the newlyweds’ house, but after our many problems the previous day and a forecast of possibly thunderstorms for Sunday afternoon, we bugged out early to get home for the Super Bowl party. If we couldn’t make it back, hungry and excited residents would show up for our party and find the door locked. I texted the bride with the news. I hope she reads text messages instead of ignoring them like I used to do.
  9. We hung out with Mom and Dad and Brenden for a while at their house. Work called begging for someone to work a doubletime shift that night, which meant leaving the party early. I hadn’t planned on working but figured they had to be desperate if they were calling me, so I worked out a plan.
  10. Just before the party we learned that a good friend of ours was in the hospital. Despite some serious issues, he still has his sense of humor.
  11. The party went fairly well, with lower than expected turnout but a great game and plenty of food. I was halfheartedly pulling for the Cardinals since they’d never won before. They would have done it without that fantastic reception at the end by the Steelers. Great game.
  12. Once I got to work, I got a call from Jenny saying the power had gone out just at our apartment, just after the A/C unit made some weird noises. Since the apartment is nearly new, I don’t understand why that would happen. I tried to report the outage to Oncor, but their automated reporting system is terrible and wouldn’t let me do it. Somehow one of their reps detected that I was trying to report the problem and called me back. She didn’t have a fix for me, but at least they know. Dad came to drive Jenny and Brenden to their house for the night.

Fortunately it’s now technically Monday, so our weekend adventures have come to an end. I need a nap.

Soup

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I don’t blog on every CARES event we do, but tonight’s soup dinner was really cool. Although the turnout was lower than normal for a dinner, most of the residents who came were people we didn’t know well, giving us a great chance to meet some new residents. When we explained CARES to them, they really liked the concept. I’ll bet we see some of them at future events. Jenny worked hard in the kitchen during the day and made five different soups, all of which were delicious: black bean, chicken tortilla, potato, tomato basil, and vegetable beef. Even better, one of our awesome residents volunteered to help with the food and talked to the residents. And my mom came over to babysit Brenden during the event so we could focus on the residents. It was a great night, and we’ll probably try this event again this winter.

Vancouver 2010

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I hope all of you got to see the Opening Ceremonies Friday night. If not, NBC is about to rebroadcast it around 1:30am. =) Although I do have some concerns about the Chinese government, I must say the Chinese did an AMAZING job Friday night. I don’t really know how to describe it b/c you really need to just watch. We hosted a great watching party for our residents with free pizza. I got to see parts of it, but I’m going to watch the early morning broadcast in HD to see what I missed.

Anyway, we got so excited that I started wondering: what if we went to the Winter Games in Vancouver in February 2010? We love Vancouver, we love the Olympics, and we love many of the winter sports. Sounds fun, eh? I don’t know if we’ll actually go, but I found the official website. If we could only see one sport, we have to choose ice hockey, which are some of the most expensive tickets and will probably be very hard to get thanks to the hardcore Canadian fans. But we’ll look into it!

In the Nick of Time

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I’ve never really understood that phrase. Anyway, Sunday was our first water volleyball event. Having never owned a pool or set up a water volleyball net, I wasn’t quite familiar with the technique or the net that we had borrowed from a friend. I didn’t even know if I’d bought the right kind of ball. Wanting to set up the net before anyone was at the pool, I stopped there after work that morning to get started. I was tired, really tired, after getting up early on Saturday afternoon for another CARES event and then working Saturday night. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed, but first I had to outsmart the net.

Unfortunately, it was a lot more difficult than I thought. Our community pool is much wider than our friends’ pool and didn’t have good posts to which I could attach the net. I would have to stretch rope between the net and the side poles and somehow attach the poles to something sturdy. I also know embarrassingly little about knots. I can tie a bow and a double knot, but that’s it. I wandered back and forth and thought and thought. Suddenly I noticed a resident opening the gate to the pool area and walking over. In my mind a beam of light from heaven appeared over him and angels sang, but I think I just made that part up. He had finished his workout and was walking home when he noticed me floundering beside the pool and offered to help. I can’t fully explain how thankful I was to have his help. He had set up nets like this before and used to have his own pool, and he did most of the engineering work for me. It seemed like God had pity on me and sent this guy just when I needed help most. Thanks to him, I was in bed by 9:00, and the water volleyball event was a success.