A Wonderful Christmas Season!

I started a job last Monday. I'm only working until this coming Saturday. Perfect. This is the exact position I was looking for. Valet=hardly any work. Also enough money to get me through the holidays. And I only have to work six days out of my five week break. I'm going to be in and out of employment with the restaurant before they even give me my first paycheck! Unfortunately, I did have to work Christmas Eve instead of enjoying a relaxing evening at my grandma's. It was really cool though, I wore a Santa hat to work and then I saw a homeless man who was dressed as Santa. Naturally, I ran over to him and told him that I liked his hat. We got to talking and he let me take a picture with him. He had a real Santa beard! He told me that I had some work to do. But his took five years to grow, so I've still got some catching up to do. I also have to work both New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. I'll get over it. Besides, there will be a firework show about two blocks away from the restaurant, so I should be able to watch while I "work."

In the meantime, I went skiing with David Wallisch at Eldora Ski Resort, just outside of Boulder, CO. I get my fix there. I get out to the slopes once or twice a year, and I enjoy going, but with how expensive it is once or twice is plenty for me. Although, this time around, my mom paid for my rentals, and David, bless his heart, got me a free lift ticket. How lucky am I?

Christmas Day came and went. I cannot believe 2010 is almost over. A saying that I picked up about life, can't remember where, "Life is like a roll of toilet paper: the more you go through, the faster it gets." There's a second half of the saying; if you're curious, you can ask me about it. I really didn't ask for much this year, but my parents decided to spoil us this year. Among other things, all of us kids (there are six) got an IPod Touch. I have so much. Apart from everything that I got for Christmas. God has given me so much - friends, family, food, shelter, I could go on. I had to part myself from the crowd on Christmas Day because I was so overwhelmed by it all.

On top of everything else, my parents decided that this year we are going on a family vacation...to JAMAICA! We have never been on a vacation like this before. Our family vacations have usually been to visit my mom's family in Canada (which is awesome) or we go camping over the summer for a week (which is also awesome) but this will be so much fun. A brand new experience. I'm sure I will be telling you about the trip after we get back home in mid-January.

Blessings upon Blessings

In my first week back in Arvada, well, it was yet another terrific week. I looked back on my writings over the course of the semester and realized that there was literally not one week that went by without something really awesome happening in my life. This week, that theme remained the same. The weekend started off early on Thursday night with a family dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown Denver. It was here that we came across the most entertaining balloon guy ever. I want to enjoy and have as much fun with my job when I get older as this guy does his. He makes even the seemingly worthless task of making balloon figures an awesome experience for everybody. After dinner, we made our way to the Miner's Alley Playhouse in Golden, CO. The play we saw was...alright. The acting and singing was really great, but the story line was just, a lot of the time, there was something happening on the stage and I wasn't really sure what was happening or why. An enjoyable time nonetheless.

On Friday, I had plans to drop off a friend, Ryan Klobossa, who is a seminarian, at St. Dominic's in Denver because he has a friend from college there who is a Dominican novitiate. My plan was to drop him off and then go about my day, getting some Christmas shopping done. Well, everyone knows what can happen when we make plans; they can be completely flipped turned upside down by what God's plan is, and in the end, God's idea is a lot better. The Dominican novitiate, Nathaniel Gee, whom I had met once before, invited me to join them for the day. Nathaniel is just a joy to be around. Full of energy, kind heart, wise, a million other affirmations. I spent the entire day with them, we even went out to lunch together, another novitiate joining us. Nathaniel commented multiple times on how the Holy Spirit had worked in order to make this day possible - mainly, he said that it was once in a blue moon that he and the other novitiates had a free day and so everything just worked out perfectly. In a short overview of my time with these men, it was so awesome to witness men who have such great conviction for the same faith that I do; the difference between us right now, is that they are better at articulating that faith, while I am just at a stage of life where I am just beginning to realize that I need to share my faith with others, so I am learning how to do that.

Saturday was the experience of a lifetime. I have been trying to make this trip happen for the past three years, and something has always come up that interferes. Well, this year, I did everything I could to make sure that didn't happen again. I won't keep you guessing...I went ice fishing this weekend! Up and out the door by 4 o'clock in the morning, and out on the ice before 7. When we got on the ice, it was 9 degrees. As the day drew on, it got a little warmer temperature wise, but the wind decided to pick up so it remained very cold. That is until we set up the pop-up hut (I don't know why we didn't do that from the very beginning, but I wasn't the expert there). The coolest thing about when we put the hut up was that the water was so clear, I could see all the way to the bottom. We watched as fish swam around our lures and struck the bait. I reeled in two decently sized fish that day. Not bad. I came back home and made a tutorial video about how to gut a fish. If you have a strong stomach, you can check it out on Youtube. The day was not over. My dad got tickets to the Denver Nuggets basketball game. I'm not a huge basketball fan, especially the NBA, but it was a fun opportunity to go out with my two brothers and one of my brother's friends. Nuggets win!

Sunday, I went on a men's retreat at the Denver Seminary. Now, at this point, I do not know what God's plans are for me. The main thing for me is that I would like to give my heart to him. I want to do his will. Whether my call is to the priesthood or married life, or single life for that matter, I do not know. All I know is that I do find true happiness when I listen to God's call. I met a really awesome guy there too. He went to a rival high school and we talked about how once we graduated and looked back on all of the trash talk, none of it mattered anymore. We both went to Catholic high schools and one of the things that he talked about was that he wanted to see our schools form a bond and work together. We both still want the competitive spirit when it comes to athletics, but we agreed that we would both want to foster respect and brotherhood between Holy Family and Bishop Machebeuf High School. Love it!

Final Weekend Before Break...

I got a great mix of fun and relaxation in this final weekend. Starting Thursday night (didn't have any finals on Friday) we had a few people over to the house. It was really awesome. We sat down at our dining room table with a couple of girls who, well I had met them both and spent some time with one on a service trip, but outside of that hadn't had much contact with either of them. We all talked for four hours! It was such an enjoyable evening. The whole group, the entire time was just so lively and fun.

Friday evening began with an E-Board meeting for my fraternity. Probably the last thing any of us wanted to do on the day that finals ended, but we did what we had to do. Afterwards, I went over to a new friend's house who I met at the Wednesday night FOCUS Mass. They had put on a guys' night, which I had missed a pretty powerful activity during which they prayed for the respect of women in outside a high-dollar strip club...pretty serious stuff. Awesome group of guys. Anyway, after that, they said that I was still welcome to come hang out at the house for some burgers and poker. What an awesome time. I stayed over there for a few hours, was welcomed with open arms (and a bun). I'm really excited to see a lot of them when we all come together for the FOCUS Conference in Denver in January. After I got back to the house, we had people over again, and had a slumber party! First time we've utilized the pull-out couch. We housed five extra people in our house on Friday night. One on the futon in the living room, two on the pull-out couch, and two more on the futon in the dining room. It was so awesome.

On Saturday, I stayed in my pajamas most of the day. I did change briefly because Nate, Josh, and I all went to Walgreen's to develop our Christmas card. That's right. 5120 Christmas card. You are lucky enough to be entitled to access to the top three pictures from the night. You can never have too much whipped cream!

Well, Sunday rolled around, and David Wallisch and I headed out for home. We broke up the drive into two days. We stopped and stayed with one of his roommates in Hays, Kansas; crashed on their furniture for the night and then finished the drive on Monday. Hard to believe I'm already home again. I feel like I just graduated high school yesterday, and all of a sudden, in the blink of an eye, I'm a second semester junior, president of a fraternity, with tremendous life experiences racking up faster than I could have ever imagined, and with so much more to come. Life has so much in store. People say that "these are the best years of your life." I sure hope not, obviously not because I am dissatisfied with my experiences thus far, but I know that I will continue to grow and learn life lessons all the way to my death bed. That's what's important in life; youthful years are certainly meant to be enjoyed and there are a lot of lessons to be learned, but they never stop, and that is what makes life such a joy!

Squeezing out the Fun

First of all, one of the greatest memories of spontaneity of all time. There were a bunch of Christmas decorations sitting in the Fishbowl for a few days that hadn't been put up yet. I was talking with a friend and we both had that tone of, "It would be awesome if...but we're not actually going to do it" but WE DID! We took the initiative and got a group of people together right then and there and decorated the Fishbowl with Christmas music blaring the entire time. Really got me and everyone in attendance into the spirit of the season.

Yet another fantastic weekend full of great memories. Thursday was one of the most exciting basketball games I have ever been to. I arrived at the beginning of the second half to find our Hawks down 23-20. Not a very active first half. The second half enthusiasm picked up quick as I joined a small group in the Hawks Nest. I inspired some excitement in the small crowd, and we brought the noise! The last few minutes looked bleak, as the Hawks fell behind by 10, but they came back and forced the game into overtime. It took two overtimes to decide the victor - unfortunately, Rockhurst was not quite able to pull it off, but played a great game.

On Saturday morning, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought some body paint...one thing led to another and...six of us lathered ourselves up, spelling out H-A-W-K-S-! We ran over to the Field House from my house about two blocks away. It was freezing! Once again, the Hawks were handed a disappointing loss, but it was so much fun being there with friends to support the guys.

Sunday. Football. David Wallisch and I scored some sweet tickets to the Chiefs v. Broncos game. Twenty six rows up from the field. Thank you, Chris Clark, O-lineman for the Broncos. Again, a disappointing loss, but I had a ton of fun with my friend David at the game. Happy Birthday, David!

Monday. (Side note, I have been blessed with such abundance). I woke up at 11 o'clock with every intention of studying for finals; however, I rolled over in my sheets and slept until noon. That pretty much set the tone for the remainder of the day. After I woke up for the second time, I watched a couple of hours of television. I shut off the TV, got my sorry behind off of the couch, having it in my mind that now I should study...three steps later the futon started calling my name. Quite irresistible. I may have fallen asleep, to be honest I can't really remember for sure. Well, I came to again and decided again that it was time that I should probably buckle down...or go for a mind-clearing bike ride to Loose Park. I weighed my options and the bike ride won out. Just what the doctor ordered. I sat underneath what has become my favorite tree at the park. After a while of thinking, I did something that I hadn't done in a while...I started climbing. I climbed pretty high. It was really cool to see the rest of the park from a whole new level. I climbed out onto limbs a little ways too, which was really uncomfortable, but so exhilarating. It was the perfect summit to my unplanned personal day off.

Whew! Tuesday. On Tuesday, in addition to finally getting some studying done, I went over to David's house. I got the honor of joining David for a very special occasion. David has served at St. James Food Pantry and Community Kitchen, which serves over 250 meals every night, every Wednesday for the past 2 1/2 years. For his 21st birthday, David started a fundraiser for St. James in which he was looking for 100 people to donate $21 each for $2,100. Also, he spent almost the whole day baking over 250 cupcakes for the less fortunate who find themselves at St. James on Wednesday. Shout out to you, David! Inspiring. By the way, if you feel moved to donate at all, you can find more information on his website, davidwallisch.com.

I cannot thank God enough for all of the blessings in my life. Prayers for all of those who are less fortunate during this Christmas season, especially all of those who count on and run St. James Place.