Gratitude:January 2013

I still continued what I left off last month-year with sharing pics of my recent trip to the Philippines with friends. If your interested in seeing it, feel free to contact me and I would love to present a short-long version of my slideshow either at your house or my house (I'll cook whatever you like-Filipino dishes?). I bought a 3-month membership to attend any fitness classes (e.g. Ultimate Fitness Challenge, Zumba, High Intensity Training, etc..) at the local gym, which I didn't even use it the whole month of December. I decided to use it as much in January with the "cold" winter month. It was worth paying the extra fee for the unlimited fitness classes within the 3 months because it has kept me physically active during this long winter month.

I hosted a movie night (Residential Evil) with a couple of close friends, which I took advantage of a coupon for a free Red Box rental. I know it's fiction ("fake"), but I'm alway skeptic about the closeness to "reality" (e.g. biological testing) this movie has in their plot. The following day, I would help videotape a friend's "Christening" (child's dedication to growing in faith in Christ) at my local church.

I started the 3rd "work" week by attending a special evening community meeting with Stevens Forward. I can't remember now what year I started volunteering with this county-wide group, but it's been an interesting journey. We talked about 5 "new" revamping Destiny Drivers or goals as a county-wide community at a local venue in Morris.

On the 18th of the month, I went to Andes Tower Hills Ski Resort for the 1st time this winter season. It was "ideal" weather as the high temp was around 40 Farenheit, so I "last minute" contacted a friend after no responses on my inviation on facebook to join me. Chris rented ski's while I brought my snowboard. It was awesome to finally snobwobard here for the 1st time since over 2 years since last year wasn't a "real" (hardly any snow) winter.

On Saturday (19th), I played several pick-up games of volleyball with my housemate/renter's friends at the local gym. I haven't played a game of this sport for a long time, which it was fun!

I attended the supper part of the annual "Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service" at a local church in town. It was great to see the current college students involved in the community...

I recorded on my calender that it reached around 30 below zero on the 22nd, which would become something we would be getting regularly throughout the winter.

The 23rd was "National Pie Day", so we were treated with homemade baked apple pie by my co-worker...

I went home the last weekend of the month. I went to get a movie rental from Red Box, which I got the recent "Bourne" movie. I got this movie because I've heard so much about this from my relatives when I was visiting the Philippines 3 months ago. About 1/3 (ending) of the movie is based on the Philippines, which was very inspiring to see after just visiting there recently. The following day (Saturday 26th), I would drive my mom and sister around to go shopping. In the afternoon, I brought my nephew to a special event celebrating a Filipino hero (Jose Rizal) at a church in Roseville, Minnesota. ...

We (nephew & I) "last minute" went to check the popular "Crash Ice" in downtown St. Paul. It was so cold, we stayed for only 15 minutes after it started as we waited close to 45 minutes prior in the cold by the St. Paul Cathedral. The next day after celebrating my younger bro's birthday early, I would have an adventerous drive back to Morris (a 2-hour trip to Alexnadria became a 3-hour: sleet, rain, snow- trip along I-94)...

Just like almost a repeat to the winter of 1997, I didn't have to come back to Morris this early taking the chances driving through the storm. My workplace ended up starting 2-hours late due to the dangerous weather. I'm just thankful to God that I didn't get into a car accident like back in 97', which there were many along the way (especially between Sauk Centre and Alexandria, which I was almost driving close to 70mph as it was raining. I thought it was ok, but I finally slowed down to almost 30mph when I started seeing all these cars that went off the highway). My workplace had their 1st "Snow Day" several days later (31st), which we had windchills close to 30 below zero weather.