February 2016

The first week of February was busy with my new photo-video project for a local resident in Morris. I would work on this almost daily after work on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the entire month. I saw it a blessing. On the 4th (Thursday), I would have to then quickly go to my local church for our monthly (every first Thursday) worship team practice (learning new songs for the month). I started the first weekend by getting "pumped" at Body Pump (fitness class) at the local gym. I then went to get my first fishing license in years to go ice fishing for the first time in my life...

...with a friend/co-worker (Paul J.) as another friend/co-worker couldn't make it. I brought various sporting equipment to make it more enjoyable as we waited for a bite (never got one-probably we made too much noise). It was fun to be out as it wasn't too cold (notice I was wearing my "fall" jacket only). It was like our pre-Super Bowl party!

On Thursday (11th), I went to the local elementary school to watch my first high school basketball game this season. I mainly went to give my support for the 2nd annual "Morris Special Olympic Fundraiser" (see pics). The game was actually fun to watch as the Tigers lost a "nail-biter" at the end.

The next day, my workplace would go to Clinton for the annual Valentine Dance. This was the first time I can remember we had above zero temps :)

We had President's Day (15th) off, so I took advantage of it to visit a friend (Cory) in a group home he was staying up north. I ended-up blessing him with some "healthy" grocery foods to promote "healthier" eating. I would be later blessed by winning a $30 dollar gift certificate from my pt-teaching job during a teacher's training meeting on the 22nd to a grocery store in Alexandria (where I bought the groceries from). Praise the Lord! On my way back to Morris, I stopped at Andes Tower Hills to do more snowboarding as they had a "holiday" discount :)

One of the parody songs that came to my mind earlier was the Ghostbusters and thought of "Bug" busters..

Music: Parody-“Bug Busters” (originally Ghost busters) by Crazy lil’ Sal

I went to the cities (St. Paul) for my monthly family-friend visit the 3rd weekend. I would spend some quality time with parents and my sister (e.g. went grocery shopping in our neighborhood) by sharing some pics I took from the past year.

I started a food blog recently and did one on French Toast..

Breakfast Starters: French Toast of Different Flavors

We have been having some newer students (e.g. Mexico, Brazil, etc..) for our weekly Wednesday ESL classes, which many of us happen to be at the monthly Community Meal the same time on Monday (29th).

January 2016

I started the "new year" at my parents' home after watching Sound of Music at the Ordway Theatre with family the night before. My mom would watch the Rose Bowl parade with me as we relaxed at home. The next day, I went with my brother and his family to watch Alysa's gymnastics performance at Farmington, Minnesota. It was a good 30+ minute drive through suburbs like Inver Grove Heights, etc.. She has really gone better since she started in various areas of the sport! I had to get back to Morris the following day, which was a nice drive back from the Cities.

It was our 1st day back at work on Monday (4th) and it was good to catch up with co-workers and friends on what we did during our long 1 1/2 week vacation. I had my ESL-GED classes on Wednesday (6th), but no ESL students. We just had G.E.D. students for the next 3 weeks.

On Monday (18th), we had MLK Holiday off from my ft-job (2nd year in a row!), which I would go to the annual Community Meal at Faith Lutheran Church after a workout at the RFC. The day started cold and it got a "little" warmer, so it was nice to be out and about. I spent most of the day catching-up on my current video project (St. Mary's Christmas Program from last month).

We had our first ESL student on the 20th (Wednesday), so it gave us hope with this community program. It took awhile to get back to the groove. I would start a new "multi-media" project on Thursday (21st) for a resident in town that a friend in the community referred me to. My friend was too busy, so he asked me if I was willing to help out this particular long-time resident. I would ended-up helping this individual for a longer term project (more than 10+ hours suggested), which I'm currently working on at this moment. It was actually a blessing!

On Saturday, I would start the day with continuing this recent "multi-media" project in the morning for 3 hours. I then attended the monthly R.E.A.L...

There were some encouraging words spoken by the R.E.A.L. member of the worship team, which was a great faith builder!

I would attend a former friend's funeral wake service :( the next day (24th) after church in Benson. It was a time to mourn and reflect, which was a blessing to chat with his immediate family members. He (David) played softball with us for our church (co-ed) team back in the days during our summer church league in Benson. I would ended up getting to know him more as his family became members of our local church. I got to know him more as he became my supervisor at the group home, which I joined "last minute" due to some unexpected emergency circumstances. It became a blessing (financially-Praise the Lord-Jehovah Jireh!) as I would work to this day at, but a different type of group home now.

On Thursday (28th), I would go to Andes Tower Hills with a friend-co-worker (Oray) of mine...

as a make-up day from last weekend (due to friend's funeral wake service). It was an pretty good day despite the icy conditions, which I fell several times and hurt myself. It was a good practice before going somewhere bigger this coming weekend (Lutsen).

I would first go to the cities to visit family on Friday (29th) and stay overnight before leaving early Saturday (30th) morning for a 4 hour drive to Lutsen. I would hangout and meet my younger brother's family...

It was actually an ideal almost perfect day (too hot) as it was sunny and really didn't need all my winter gear. It was such a blessing and a great time..

I thank God for this time to spend with my younger brother as part of his birthday and his family-friends. We would end up visiting our older sister in Pine City along the way back and did an outing at KFC there. After hanging out at her and James' apartment, I took the back roads through St. Cloud back to Morris. It was a blessed weekend!