The Hope video I've been working on.

Go here to see some of the other videos.

Big day for Ethan

Ethan's 1st Lost tooth

Ethan lost his first tooth and completed a 50 peice puzzle.

Ethan can do a puzzle all by my self

Debt Ski

Town Hall For Hope

Last night we had about 50 people come to Trinity last night (not bad, considering how well I promoted it) for the largest ever web simulcast Town Hall for Hope. It was great. Dave Ramsey spoke for about 30 minutes about the economy and put where we are in terms of history into context. It was fascinating having my understanding put into perspective. Then he took questions from people all over the country.

He ended with a call to action and gave everyone 3 things to do in dealing with the fear about recession.
1. Get up and Take Action
2. Stop Listening To Looser talk
3. Start Giving

The whole thing has been exciting when Trinity first signed up they were anticipating about 500 locations simulcasting the event.  By the first night of testing there were over 6000 locations (glad I wasn't one of the tech guys pulling this off!  (Praise God for the people that did!)). The first night of testing was full of bad lip sync, buffering and loosing the stream all together, but I guess when you provide10 times the number of streams you are going to have issues.  Well they got it all working and it was neat to see momentum pickig up for the event.  We were told early on that Fox Business Network was going to broadcast about 30 minutes of the program and if the webcast failed then that could be one of the many backups they provided.  Well as the response grew.  Fox Business decided to broadcast the full 1.5 hours commercial free! I'm glad we were able to participate.

The Latest Adventure

Well we went down to Alexandria to hang with Maw Maw and PawPaw. We planned a fishing trip on the Red River to catch catfish.... we ended up on a little island on the side and we did more adventuring than fishing. It was great fun.

My first Double

Jill and I have been "getting ready" for the Triathlon on May 3rd.  Jill has been doing more running.  I have been doing more swimming.  Our goal is just to finish.  

Today, I was excited though, because I did my first 'double'. At least that is what I heard it is called.  I rode my bike for 15 miles and then got off the bike and ran 3.  I know the bike took me an hour (no matter what I do my average speed is 15mph on the bike), but I didn't see how long the 3 miles took.  I am just excited I was able to do it.  

Ethan Russ House Visit

Ethan went to the Russ House Retirement home with his class to sing to the residents and then had an Easter Egg hunt.  Here are all the pictures from the whole class

Town Hall for Hope

Trinity is hosting this simulcast event. I am helping get this together since I lead all the FPU stuff at my church. I am really excited about doing this.  You need to check out if there is an site near you hosting this thing.

Caleb's Swim A Thon

Caleb Michael Murphy is turning into a little fish!  I was so proud of him tonight.  He got into that water and started swimming... and kept swimming.  He did 17 full laps!  That is over a mile (15 laps is a mile)!  That is much more than his Dad has ever done!

It was a fun night, they got to play and swim with these glow bracelets and eat pizza and gatoraid. Everyone was given 2 hours to swim and the coach set a goal of 15 laps for Caleb's group.  Caleb took the challenge head on!  He swam a bunch, got out for a minute ate a couple of cookies and jumped back in.

It has been great to watch him improve. Tonight he had the best swimming form he has had so far.  Pretty soon he is going to be lapping his Dad.

Thanks for everyone who donated to Caleb's swim a thon.  It was great fun and it sounds like they raised a great deal of money for the team.