Hope...

Hope.

Hope brings me vision.

Hope sustains me through difficult times.

Hope raises me out of bed in the morning to tackle the day.

Hope disperses the mundane.

Hope opens doors when others have been slammed shut.

Hope stirs the soul's fire when despair has attempted to toss water on the flame.

Hope starts new dreams and keeps older ones alive.

Hope fills the glass that was half empty to overflowing and spilling over into aspects of life that I never thought could be touched.

Hope reaches down to pull me up when I am at the bottom and points me to a Savior who is completely crazy about me.

Hope pushes me to be better for my two sons.

Hope aids in the healing of the past and ushers in the meaning of "new creation in Christ".

Hope keeps my eyes fixed on the prize.

Hope presses the re-start button each day so that I keep looking forward and dwell on the past.

Hope will grow me past PTSD.

Hope gives me the future that I thought could not be attained.

Hope doesn't drain me...it motivates me everyday.

Hope brings a smile to my face when I watch my two sons laugh, fills me with warmth when I hug them, wipes my tears away when there is pain, and holds all of the pieces together when I think all is lost.

Hope.

Hope is bigger than me.

Hope is the Lord God Almighty. Crazy about me. Crazy about my sons. Wants the best for us. Wants us to succeed. Desires an intimate relationship with us because we are His creation. His masterpiece of art.

I am so thankful He gave me His Hope.

My grace is sufficient for you...One Day At A Time!

Vacay 2013...A Change of Plans Brought Memories for a Lifetime

Chandler and Spencer walking at Fiesta Texas. A thousand words.

"What time are we leaving?" Spencer asked me as I pounded away on the keyboard Thursday around 5:00.

"I have about 30 more minutes on this project, buddy and then we can start putting all of our things together, load the car and get on the road." I responded to my quite excited 7 year old.

Thirty minutes turned into an hour of course, but the spreadsheets were complete and emailed. Up the stairs we climbed to pack up the final bits of clothing and other needs for the Cahill Family Vacay to San Antonio. The goal was to leave at 5:00. We drove out of the garage at 7:15. Man plans...God laughs.

Awaiting us in the quick 3 1/2 hour drive out I-10 was a 103 year old hotel in the heart of San Antonio just around the corner from the Alamo and two blocks from the famed Riverwalk. Priceline blessed us with this first night for only $60! Quite the deal to say the least.

On the drive, a gorgeous sunset led the way as we sojourned west. Once we arrived, checked in and parked, we took the elevator to our room. Spencer opened the door and his mouth fell open. There in the room stood two four post cherry rice beds and two bathrooms. They upgraded us for no additional charge. What an awesome way to start the vacation. The place was beautiful and filled with history. A perfect fit for being around the block from the legendary Alamo.

The plan? Our only plan for the entire vacation was to have fun, go to Sea World, Fiesta Texas, Alamo, Riverwalk and see some family. No real strategy on when. Lets fly from the seat of our pants and soak in every moment. No rushing. No stressing.

Sooooo...off to Target to pick up a couple of things and then back to the Riverwalk. I have traversed the Riverwalk many times over the past twenty years. I don't remember the fish ever being this large! The river was full of ducks, ducklings and fish awaiting all of us patrons to feed them. Of course we obliged as we found a great Tex Mex place with good shade and a table sitting on the Riverwalk edge. Chandler, Spencer and I threw chips to all of the begging animals and aquatic life as we ate chips/queso, quesadillas and soaked in the scenery. After the feast, we walked the river, took pics and ended up at the Rivercenter Mall where we had fun at The Disney Store (miss this place) and other places. That night we met the cousins at County Line BBQ and we chowed again while all of the younger cousins played and Robert (2) entertained us with his cuteness.

Day 2 cranked up with a morning boat cruise around the river with an entertaining history lesson

Riverwalk River Cruise

from the driver. One of the best decisions of the day? Not doing this cruise in the afternoon when the temps rose to over 100 degrees. Getting on the boat, the mercury stood at 85-90, so the 30-45 minute river cruise brought much less sweat and even lesser discomfort compared to the people that decided to take the trip down the river in the blazing afternoon heat.

The plans quickly changed later as the cousins got caught out in a diaper emergency, so the Alamo got pushed to later in the day. Chandler found a place that served Italian Gelato! Oh man...if you have never tried this stuff you truly have not lived. I think we sampled almost every one of them (except bubblegum...YUCK!). Spencer had some then and Chandler and I decided to wait and come back later after we had more Tex Mex on the Riverwalk. Our Tex Mex choice was the long-standing Casa Rio. They started their restaurant in the 1940's on the Riverwalk. Amazing! Off to the Alamo to meet the cousins again. I minored in History at U of H, so I love this stuff. What made this even more awesome was walking these hallowed halls with a History expert in Vince. Vince is a history teacher who has studied Texas History for years. He told me things that I had never heard from his recent research. Always amazed at his knowledge.

Spencer feeds me some gelato

After the Alamo, we walked across the street for our gelato (I had the Tiramisu - who wouldn't?!). We hung out and laughed and talked some more, but we had to check out of our hotel and head out to the San Antonio Missions minor league baseball game.

The Missions game turned out to be pretty epic for a minor league baseball game. They had just called up a guy who had finished his college playing days and it was his first night. He didn't have a name on his jersey. The guy played like he was ready to be called up to AAA ball. He almost knocked the game winning home run to deep center field only for it be caught on the warning track. The next guy up hit the game winning home run over the left field fence and the place erupted. It was good old-time baseball. To top it off, seats were only $11 at the field level. When was the last time we paid that for an Astros game?

Shamu doin' her thing.

Spencer couldn't wait. As we checked into our next hotel, he knew that the next day we would head out to Sea World. Both of my guys are animal fans, but even more, they love aquatic life. Dolphin, whales, sharks, fish, sting ray, penguins, seals, walrus, etc. They both love them all! Sea World has them all including a couple of really cool roller coasters. At this point, Chandler and I get a shocked. Spencer decided he wants to ride the Steel Eel. This is a pretty serious coaster. Not only does he want to ride this bad boy, he wants to ride the very front! Ooooookay! As we get in line, all that goes through my mind is that he will change his mind when we get up there. Nope. He got even more excited. The coaster climbed the hill with that familiar chain sound pulling us up to let us go when we reached the top. We take off and Spencer lets out a spine tingling scream. He was scared for the first 5 seconds and then he started to laugh and scream at the same time. He's hooked.

The three of us on the Steel Eel at Sea World

We saw Shamu later in the day, watched the dolphins, goofed off with the cousins at the kiddie water area, and had a blast at Sea World. By the end of the day, we headed back to the Steel Eel for one more ride and then to the car. By the time we arrived to the hotel, the restaurant had closed, so we found a Buffalo Wild Wings close by. Spencer fell asleep in my lap before the food got to us. A good sign of a fun day. Chandler challenged himself with spicy wings as I asked the waiter to put the Tour on of the 50 TV's in the room. He obliged and we feasted again to the sounds cycling in the background. Another great ending to a wonderful day.

Fiesta Texas loomed. I have to be honest here by saying a I was a bit nervous about this one. I knew that Spencer had a blast on the Steel Eel at Sea World, but this is Six Flags. They specialize in the roller coaster. He wanted to ride one straight up first off. Okay!

The first coaster was a fail. It was fun, but quite jarring, so he didn't like it much. We then got on the Road Runner. For those of you who remember Astroworld and the Runaway Mine Train, it was quite reminiscent of that ride. We had a blast with that ride. So much so that we rode it about three times that day. Chandler rode the new Iron Rattler, Superman and a couple of others that Spencer was either too short for or was a little nervous in getting on after the first one we rode that day. The rain showed up and cooled things off which was nice actually as it also emptied the park! No wait in the lines produced a lot of options for rides. We all loved the shooting ghost Scooby Doo ride (much like the Buzz Lightyear ride at Disney). All in all, a wonderful day. We caught up with the cousins again along with Uncle Bobby and Aunt Sandra that night at Willie G's Ice House. Great food and more fun with awesome family that we don't get the chance to see very often.

Chandler with little Robert. He LOVES Chandler.

Season tickets make sense on a trip like this because if you have an extra day, like we did, then you can go back and hit the things you missed the first time through. So, we actually did plan out the last day of our vacation. We took a shuttle to Sea World that morning and saw all of the shows that we missed on Sunday. We also saw the sea lions, took in a ski show, and of course, rode the Steel Eel again. After we finished there, we drove out to Fiesta Texas to get on some rides we missed the day before. Spencer surprised Chandler and I again by saying he wanted to ride the Iron Rattler! He was tall enough, but this beast hits 70 mph, has a full loop twist and a dark tunnel. He rode with me in the middle car. It completely freaked him out and he cried for about five minutes. After I calmed him down, we went and rode some other rides and then he said he wanted to try it again! After the third time asking me to ride it again, I finally said, "Buddy, you cried for five minutes after you got off, why do you want to ride it again?"

"I am not scared anymore."

"Are you saying you were scared because you didn't know what to expect in the ride? And that now that you have been on it, you know what to expect and you will be fine?"

"Yes, daddy. I want to ride it again. I know what's coming now."

Soooo, off we go to the line for the Iron Rattler "take two". This time around? No fear. Nothing but elation! He was psyched the entire time. He screamed. He laughed. He was grinning from ear to ear. Seven years old and 45 pounds of no thrill seeking energy.

At the Alamo

After the last ride on the Iron Rattler, we took the trip east on I-10 to head back to the humidity metropolis. Spencer cried because he didn't want to go home. Chandler said it best, "Dad, that's a good sign of a great vacation." He was right. We had a great time the three of us. We laughed. We screamed. We stood amazed.

No specific plans each day brought lasting memories. Love these two. Love being a dad. Love making them laugh and smile.

My grace is sufficient for you...One Day At A Time!

Nothing Like Being On the Stage...

As some of you know, one of my passions is performing in some way or fashion. Recently, I was given the blessing to start up the drama ministry at our church. We have a great small group of folks that love to get up on stage and really make something special. When we first started, we put together some great sketches (mostly from Willowcreek) that struck the heart with a clear message which were quite funny due to what everyone brought to their characters.

Enter the spring (In Texas spring starts in January because our winter is maybe a couple of weeks ---- and that is a stretch!). I sent a script to Woody, our Pastor, and Robin, our Worship Pastor, and asked them to take a look at and see if we could do it sometime during Easter week. The church had a great and thriving drama crew years ago, so most people had never seen something like a 30 minute dramatic presentation that was a little...no a lot...on the non-traditional church side of things. They read it and both agreed that it was moving, heavy and really needed to be on its own night instead of a Sunday morning. I completely agreed.

From there, the Lord really took over. I asked a great friend, Madelyn, who was a theater major at Florida State University, to come over and direct the cast. She, of course, did a fabulous job and brought more out of all of us than we could have without her.

The cast assimilated after only a couple of weeks and we had our first read-through on a Sunday evening. Our Pastor, Woody, who has a great background in stage acting, took the role of Caiaphas. Convincing really doesn't cover how well he did this part. Carl, with full head of steam (not hair...sorry Carl...love ya, bro) tackled the challenging, arrogant character of a Roman government official and took it to a great level of arrogance, sarcasm and authority that it demanded. Sabrina played Pilates wife. She was a little nervous at first, but wow, when she got into the character...game on! One of the great blessings was being on stage with a living miracle, cancer survivor, Kristina Barrett. Watch this little girl everyone. God has something special for this one. She is a 10 year old that has no fear of direction and was the comic relief the script asked for. Thank you to Chad and Melissa for all of the time they drove her up to the church and to Chad for all of the times he helped Madelyn with keeping up with where we were in the script when we dropped lines in rehearsal. Michael had to be one of the most compassionate Jesus' I have ever seen portrayed on stage. He had never acted before, but you would NEVER know that based on his performance and how he made Jesus the true Man-God. Terra played Kristina's mom and had the challenge of keeping up with me. Yes...I tend to go off script and ad-lib at times. She brought depth to her role that was truly awesome to act side by side with on the platform. I played Pilate at a time in history that is completely silent on him, after he is sentenced to live out the rest of his life on an island. No one really knows what island or where it is located. Historians have debated it for years. This is what makes the script so fun. It is truly a creation from almost nothing.

Soooo, off we go to rehearsals. Each week two to three times a week, we met for an hour or two each practice and slowly started finding the characters, the blocking, etc. Madelyn's son, a talented skate boarder (is that a word?) and videographer, put together a teaser trailer for the performance that we showed at church and I put up on Facebook and Twitter. We tried to market it as much as we could at church and on social media leading up to that Thursday not really knowing who or how many would actually show up.

When the night came and we finished our mic check, we prayed as a cast and went to our designated areas to get into character. I stowed myself away in a room with a bunch of stacked chairs. 7:00 came and I could hear more people coming through the entrance doors into the foyer. By 7:05, Matt, our esteemed youth pastor, came in with a chair dolly and brought out about 60 extra chairs! Wow! So, the turnout was nice. The place was packed.

Lights out. Cue opening music and voice overs from the beginning of the script and off we went. The Lord really touched a lot of people. I was quite blown away at how it all came together and due to its success we will be doing more of these for special occasions in the future. One of the most frequent requests was to perform on multiple nights! How cool is that?

So, all of this to say, thank you for all that came out to see this unique performance and keep an eye out for more in the coming months of the Not-So-Ready -For-Drama-Team Players.



My grace is sufficient for you...One Day At A Time!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind in 2013

Yes, May 2nd. A full five months since my fingers have touched the keys in this blog. So much for consistency. I believe, lately, the only consistency has been the fact that I truly do not know what happens next, where that will lead and what that will entail!

The day after my last entry, I perched myself onto my $29.99 (had to be honest...it wasn't $19.95) digital scale with body fat % read out. Yep, not so good news. I had grown to 198 pounds and let's just say my % was uh...high. Time for a plan. Fast forward with a lot of riding later and I have lost 20 pounds with my bodyfat still falling.

Time for a new plan as I have stagnated as of late though. So, I am signed up for my first race. An Aquabike (no this is not some race on water with one of those massive tricycle looking things at the park or beach). It is basically a triathlon without the running. Gives me something to keep focused and forces me to write out a training plan.

Meanwhile, back at the Batcave (or in my case the spiderweb since I am much bigger Spiderman fan than Batman), the boys and I have had an extremely busy spring. Between work, school, work, school, cycling, work, school (you get the idea) sleep fits in somewhere.

So where to from here? I do have some experiences coming up that I want to write about:

Spencer Art
Back On The Stage
ChandlerAge
Consequences Three+ Years Later
Settling Into Ohana
Breaking PR's
Summer Plans/Dreams

So...keep an eye out. I will be updating this a little more and making this a priority again. It is therapy for me and the fact that some of you keep reading and coming back to read some entries multiple times means a lot to me as a novice writer. So, thank you and keep an eye out for more entries in the near future.


My grace is sufficient for you...One Day At A Time!

Discussions by Candlelight Wrapped in a Bath Towel - Happy New Year

Spencer the Sheepdog in the Kids Christmas Musical

New Year's Eve. Throughout the past, I have celebrated this holiday with a spread of emotion from exuberance with fireworks to nights in the bed in tears fearing what the next year would bring. Quite the range, I know. There seems to be hope on the horizon for now. With a new home, celebrating Christmas in the Ohana and now facing a New Year, the excitement of heading to a New Year's Eve party with the MOB (the name of my Sunday School class that I attend quite inconsistently) with a quick stop over to some great friends, the Medley's, filled my heart. The last few New Year's have not been so joyous, so having one to look forward to turned into quite the blessing.

Talking on the phone with a good friend, the power jolted in my home. Even my cell phone dropped the call. My seven year old fears the dark more than the average first grader, so I quickly snagged the lighter to light some candles. He started to cry as I quickly created light to bring both sight and comfort to the little guy's mind. How do you explain to a child that has such a big fear of darkness that he is going to be just fine and not be eaten up by some unseen thing or worse that same darkness somehow swallow us whole and turn spit us out in some foreign place or other planet (not that he thinks this, but that would be kinda scary!).

I quickly thought of what I could do to keep him distracted. I own a battery operated atomic clock that sits on my night stand. All a person has to do is push it down and there is instant light showing the time with seconds ticking away with the date and current temperature. What a cool toy! Spencer became my stopwatch. I needed to get in a workout anyway, so why not get in 30 minutes on the bike trainer while he gives me the cues to slow down and speed up on the pedals or sit and stand out of the saddle?

Mark it down folks! It worked! For the next 35 minutes, I would tell him the time that he needed to watch for and give me the signal. I would then speed up or slow down or stand or sit or change gears, etc etc etc. Spencer, unknowingly, turned into a wonderful workout partner.

It also put us behind on schedule. I figured the power would pop back on during the workout. No wind. No storm. No rain. Nothing. Yet, the power just quit. As I cooled down for 15 minutes he was completely proud of himself for helping dad with his workout. Still no power after the cool down. I needed to shower. I carried the lit candle into the bathroom and placed it on the counter. I gave Spencer my clock and fired up another candle for him. I took a shower by candle light. When I snagged the towel and wrapped it around me, Spencer came into the bathroom.

Out of the blue, he asked a question about my mom. This was a first. I told him that my mom would have loved him and he would have loved her as well (my mom passed away in 1999). He said that he missed his mom. I told him that I understood and asked him if he remembered his mommy when she was here.

**Sidenote - I have been encouraged by professionals that when he initiates conversations like this to listen and ask questions that lead to open ended questions as well. 

He shook his head. I asked him what he did remember about his mommy being with us. He gave a shoulder shrug. So, I asked him whether his memories were good or bad of mommy being here. He said that they were good. I told that he needs those good memories. We talked about some memories. We laughed about some. We were saddened by others (mainly the ones that she has missed).

Needless to say, this was a breakthrough. A seven year old freely sharing like this is a great thing. I sat there in my dark closet with a towel wrapped around me for 20 minutes listening and talking with my little 7 year old in a way that I didn't think would happen for at least another 4 years from now. A window opened and I saw a smidgen of his heart, his memories, his sadness, his loss, and his current happiness.

We missed the chance to go to our friends, but made the MOB party. Spencer and I had a ball.

My grace is sufficient for you...One Day At A Time!