Birthdays and Sundays

Evan and Crystal got together and planned a Saturday evening dinner for Sondra's birthday last night.  We went to a little steak place called the Cucamonga Brewing Co.  The location used to be the home of Omaha Jack's Steak House, but it's gone now.  Anyway, it was a fun time of all of us being together -- Evan and Callie, Shawn and Crystal and Bailey and Brynnlee!

After eating at the restaurant, we went over to Shawn and Crystal's house for birthday cake and the opening of gifts.  In addition to wathcing Sondra opening her birthday presents, Evan then showed some pictures from his trip to Hawaii, on the island of Maui.

Evan just returned from Hawaii this past Wednesday night (actually Thursday morning early by the time they drove back in from LAX).  Callie's family (dad and mom, grandmother and grandmother's sister, Callie's brother and wife, Callie's sister and friend) celebrated a week in Maui at a rented house on the beach.  Evan was invited to go as well.  It was Callie's dad's birthday that week.  Evan came back with a tan and good memories.  There are some more pictures from the week, but here are a couple of photos that Evan took with his cell phone camera.

Today was a great day at church.  We had three baptisms, all three being men with an addiction history now working at Coronado Stone and attending our church.   It was a time of spontaneous eruption of clapping, shouting and joy when the last of the three came up out of the baptismal waters!  I had a man who works at Coronado Stone (Michael Geiger) lead the Praise & Worship time, as I wanted to use all Coronado individuals in the worship hour.  Our guest speaker for the day was Pastor Michael Dotson, a man who came out of our church to start a new Vision Plus Church in Bakersfield.  Michael Dotson was previously a Coronado employee and part of the Sober Living Program there, who has now gone on to get his life on track serving the Lord.

This afternoon, I sat with two individuals (Gail Anderson and Jack Shelton) at lunch to talk about their upcoming wedding in our church on Sunday, March 25, immediately following the morning worship hour.  It will be a special day, indeed!