My daughter thinks I'm a vampire

It all started last week when my father-in-law was reading a Sesame Street book to my youngest daughter (1.5). As they were turning pages she pointed to The Count and said, "Daddy."

He alerted us from the living room and we all had a good laugh. Then later in the week my wife noticed my daughter was looking in the Sesame Street books for the purple skinned "Daddy"  on her own. Should I be alarmed? Is it the widow's peak? The goatee? Or maybe it's my Transylvania accent or the way I laugh?? I know I have teeth issues but yikes!!AH-AH-AH!!!

A family Fued night

The young adults participated in a PCC Student Ministries' Fund Raiser and... we LOST BIG TIME (to the 50+ Ministry)! But we had cool shirts (Thanks to our YA team mate from S. Africa-Charmaine) and a team name. Way to go Mellow Yellows.







And we are unveling our new website designed by our own Andrew Dunn of Peal Designs. Great job, Andrew!




check it out www.pccya.com

My Twin Brother Ronnie

I haven't been in a Denny's in a couple years. When I was single I used to go every other Tuesday with my friend Ronnie after our Street Church gathering. This week I was pleasantly surprised to find out our local Redwood City Denny's has been majorly upgraded as I relived the past on Tuesday Night. That's a good thing because I remember years ago the table tops were just as nasty as the bathrooms. I wonder if the healthy safety board intervened or something, because it was quite dangerous to your health to indulge in a little Moons Over My Hammy (my favorite), back then. But now, with their extreme make-over Denny's edition they went a little Starbucks/Cafe-ish. I liked the lights and even the bathrooms were more than decent.
But my favorite part of Denny's this week was hanging with Ronnie. I've known him for almost 11 years, as long as I've been in in Redwood City. Ronnie is 38 years old. He can be found screaming his head off at a Giant's game as well as in the front row of a Brittany Spears' concert. He's a Special Olympiad who swims, golfs, and plays basketball. Ronnie sometimes has the most amazing memory usually bringing up embarrassing my most moments and things I wished he'd forget I said. And other times he takes my "advice" out of context and I wince as he recounts what he thinks he heard me say, that he usually already passes on to five people. I get a phone call from Ronnie almost every day, sometimes twice a day and sometimes he leave messages on my home, cell, and my office line-just to report about his day or ask for some one's phone number. But sometimes he calls and prays for me and my family on my voicemail. Amazing. Ronnie is a gift! He has some mental disabilities but this doesn't stop him from being completely unique, fearfully and wonderfully made, created by God. He often refers to me as his, "Twin Brother," when he introduces me to someone. As I sat across from him, giving into one of my tempestuously tempting vices: seasoned Fries with ranch dressing, I thanked God for putting Ronnie in my life. I really do enjoy him. God's used him to teach me me a lot of patience ( a lot), compassion, and also child-like faith and simplicity. Although there are times when my heart breaks for some of his challenges that he's gone through, and other times I am on the floor laughing. Here's a quote from our Denny's conversation:
Ronnie: Don't take this the wrong way, Tony, but you're lucky to be married to Wendy.

Me: Why would I take that the wrong way?

Ronnie: I just didn't want you to think I was mackin' on your wife.

Me: No worries, I take that as a compliment. My wife's hot, I know!

Ronnie: Ya, that's what I meant, I just didn't want to say it out loud.

Ronnie also said, "Let's make sure to tell the waitress that God loves her after the meal." He did. And then he asked me how to say it in Spanish, and he tried that, too. I totally enjoy this guy.

nose, mouth, eyes, ears

I'm a pizza snob so this is in no way an endoresement for Pizza Hut, just four different ways to experience pizza and it made me laugh.

Talk to the Hand

I've been playing around with this free iPhone application called Easyshot. I used it for Valentine's day and once in December, too. It's free and kind of fun. I took this picture recently of my hand and realized my hand was telling quite a story. Here's some of the highlights.

1-I'm a sloppy cook. Although I like to cook, I don't really make that much time to do it (Wendy's better), so when I do I rarely pay attention to recipes, go too fast, and don't watch what I'm doing. Hence, that shady spot represents burning myself twice in ten minutes.

2- I inherited my Dad's ginormous thumbs. Makes it very difficult for Texting (and using the easy shot application). Once people notice they often scoff....and then I smush them with it.

3-I am still wearing my orange yarn from summer in support of NOT FOR SALE and setting slaves free from human trafficking. I'm purposing not to just let this be a one time church theme, but a goal for my life. I'm sick to my stomach with the millions of people, many of them children, mistreated, used and abused for labor and sex.

4-I've always hated cancer and it's effects. But not until I've seen how it really working in my Uncle's life has it caused me to really actively fight through prayer about it. So now, I wear this yellow LIVESTRONG bracelet in honor of Daryl, and the millions of others, who are fighting and surviving cancer. Please pray for miraculous healing in his life as he still fights cancer's effects!
I talked with him today praising God that he's been survivor for almost a decade! I know it's God's grace so he could be a great husband to my aunt and father to my cousins.

5-The 5th observation is that I'm hairy, I blame my Italian genes. But if you look close you'll also see blue paint residue from my daughter. She's really a budding artist. I love being her dad.

6-You'll notice there is no # 6, but since this pic was minus a wedding ring since it was my right hand, I wanted my "hand story" to say something about marriage. I really love being married. I highly recommend it. It's a lot of work but so worth it. I am constantly sharpened and humbled. We are actually taking the LOVE DARE right now with our church. I'm so stoked to be married to Wendy in our 5th year this year and can't wait to add our 2nd Gap any minute (hopefully)!!!

Hands tell us a lot. Take a look at your hand. What does it say?

I got some new Dance Moves

We are still..... waiting..... for our Baby Gap to make her appearance. So I've been pre-preparing blogs so that when she does come I can have some to post. My NEW AND NEXT VLOG is coming out in a few weeks, updated with some new stuff. I've been looking for some new intro music and was recommended this song. I probably won't use it, cause I don't speak French and don't know what he's saying, but I may use some of the dance moves.

LOL

I seriously laughed out loud at this. This is Angjelah Johnson, a comedian who also happens to be a Christian and friend of some of our PCC friends (the Ibarras). I hope we can get her to come up to RWC and do some stand up. Enjoy.



Sometimes you just need to laugh. This has been go-to laughter invoking for me!

God is always here

I woke up one morning last week to my car wrapped in toilet paper and with shaving cream all over it. The "nice" thing was that the shaving cream spelled out encouraging things like "Man of God, God loves you," and "Man among wolves." So I had to make a visit to the car wash thanks to the midnight visit from some of the men (wolves-not that I'm naming names ROCKY & PORTILLO) in our young adult community.

The cool thing is God gave me a cool experience at the car wash. I took my daughter with me and it was a little scary for her. Those gas station car washes have those machines that you drive into and it goes back and forth washing, rinsing, and drying, etc. They can be loud and for a little almost two-year old, they can be scary. She was in the back seat saying, "Hold you, Papa." (Her words for: Hold me!). Since I couldn't get out of the car and go back there I just reached my hand back, cupped her cheek, and said, "Papa's here, I'll protect you." And for the whole five minutes she rested her head in my hand. It was so perfectly sweet. Her eyes darted back and forth watching the water pound the windows while I reminded her of my love and presence and in that moment God reminded me that's exactly what he does with me, even when I don't see him. He's always here.

2009 Winter Retreat Video

I finally finished editing the video from our retreat three weeks ago. As always, I continue to love our community and I am especially encouraged after spending hours editing. I always have sweet moments of prayer and reflection looking over clips (over and over again. And this time I did a lot of laughing). I remember what God did on the retreat for us as a whole but as I see the faces of the people in the video, and I also remember God's work in each of them individually. I seriously love thinking about how God has written each story and transformed each person, transforming us all. I completely enjoy my calling to pastor in our church family and to invest in the lives and futures of each of PCC's young adults. Not only is it fun, but it's deeply fulfilling and worshipful to be a part of this community, this awesome family of God!

Dance Party

Chalk this up to another reason I love my daughter and being her father.


I hope she grows a heart to worship God like David did, with dancing and all her might. May this be true of every one of God's worshippers. May we all have a heart to worship like we do the things we love, for it is in living passionately like this that we bring God worship, too.

Javaluya

During Christmas we as a church hope for people to join us as we celebrate, right? This spoof is hilarious, again reminding me that Christians are weird, and sometimes we have to be really sensitive about our insider language to not ostracize those taking a risk to seek God with us. This video speaks for itself.

Make a Caption

One of my favorite magazines always has a comic caption contest. They post a picture and then have people send in their captions. I keep hoping to have one of mine published. It can be so funny how one picture elicits so many different responses. So, until I make it big, I thought I'd try it on my own. Post your captions to the picture below by leaving a comment. (This is not my daughter by the way).
Later in the next week I'll also post my "Santa Stance." What I think about Santa and how our family will deal with that little holiday "issue. "

Let there be lights, and more lights, and more...

I wanted to avoid shopping like the a swarm of mosquitoes on Black Friday. But we had set up our Christmas tree and of course we were short one string of lights. So, we made a dash to the mad-crazy Target filled with after Turkey day bargain shoppers. I beat my way through the crowds to the light aisle. The amount of lights to choose from is ridiculously big. I just wanted one regular, old-school strand of white lights. There is now a crazy 22nd century selection, Jetson style. Blinking, moving, mesh...you name it, they have it. Speaks to how this season has has the potential to be so glamorized that we sometimes miss really enjoying why we even have it to begin with.

On another note, I always notice when manger scenes have other random additions to Bethlehem. Santas hanging out with shepherds, snoopy leaning up on sheep, or Winnie the pooh on a Ferris wheel. Like this one. Did you know there were penguins hot air ballooning over the manger when Jesus was born?

Please share and make me laugh if you've seen anything like this on a front lawn near you.

Ok, where are the hidden cameras?

So my wife and I are at the movies last week. We're having a little coffee before the flick starts when my wife spots this:

Are you kidding me?

What would you do?
A-Ignore it, it's not my problem. I'm just here to see a movie.
B-Notify the manager asap, this is a matter of national, financial security.
C-Take a peak, what harm is there in that? I've always wondered what's inside an ATM.
D-Snag some cash and run. Or maybe get some popcorn, some new shoes, or a trip to Hawaii.
E-__________ (you fill in the blank).

This is where you comment. Can you tell I'm trying to create a little interaction here?