One Beer of the Root Coming Up!

One cold authentic A& W Root Beer going out to our good friends in Kampala, Uganda! They're the ones in the background behind the Root Beer. They'll soon be in Tanzania. No, they're not that white in real life.

Well, Brian might be. He's Dutch.

So guys, the beer is free, but the shipping and handling costs will be $200. Just pay us when you get back. I think in Dutchyland dollars, that's like $5,000 (because of interest). I've mentioned them before. We've been checking their blog daily around here, watching their progress through Africa. These are a couple Google Earth snapshots of where they currently are in Africa. Keep the reports rolling guys! We're loving the updates! Missing you guys out here in Western Canadiana!

In other news, some of you may be wondering why I don't report on Saskatchewan Roughriders Cribbage anymore. Well, sometimes it's good to report the news, but you have to realize when a story has run its course.

And yes, I've been losing. So the story is not worth mentioning. Hey, I'm writing the blog, right? If I can't rub a good winning streak in someone's face or even brag about being utterly dominant, is it really worth mentioning?

I don't think so. Whoever said classy winning was the way to go obviously has lost a lot. It's not about winning or losing. It's about making sure the loser know that you won. That's called sportsmanship.

So I had a crazy thing happen today - I enjoyed church. Not that I hate church (mostly), but my brain has been churning over different and artistic and inventive ways to do church - and I got some encouragement today. Our senior pastor wore jeans. I know that sounds pretty lame, and we're really an open church, but the senior mostly had to get over his own fears, and he did that today! Pretty stoked about that, and that flavored the entire morning. It was almost like a return to realness and courage in that. I dig that. So it was pretty refreshing that Dave (our senior) spoke on the exact same thing I did last week, just from a different angle (Religion vs. relationship). I'm finding great freedom in my job because of that. The boundaries that I thought might potentially exist here are definitely a lot further than I thought. That's pretty refreshing.

In fact, we were at a family's house tonight, and they mentioned that they viewed me as a bit of a rebel, which I take as a high compliment. But it was nice the way they put it. It didn't fit into the "you're a rebel-extremist" camp, but instead into the "you do things differently" camp. Good place to exist. I'm continually being surprised by the authenticity of this community of people. Makes you excited just to be around them.

So in my last (possibly) seemingly random rambling, Kaelyn has been missing Tristan a little bit around here. There'll be times when she'll stop and say, "Where's Chistee? Where's Chistee?" And then we have to tell her that Tristy went home. So it'll be nice when the wee cousins get together and have some more time to play.

So with that, that's my ramblings for today! Here's some older pictures for you once again, and hope everyone is having a fantastic week! One picture is from hiking last spring with Grandma and Grandpa Smith, one from the Oiler's playoff drive, and one with Kaelyn and one of her favorite uncles - Uncle Lea! And now, I'm off to read another really great book by James Patterson, and my favorite time of the week is here - my day off! Cheers!