Sunny San Diego

Yesterday (Monday) in the wee hours of the morning, Jack and I returned from a wonderful work/vacation trip to San Diego. I thought I'd share a little bit of our trip today, which will continue the tradition we have unwittingly started of blogging on Tuesdays. :) Also, this post will include our first photographs (which has now caused this post to actually go up on Wednesday).

San Diego has long been one of my favorite places to vacation. There are wonderful things to do, the weather is always beautiful, and it reminds me of Hawaii without having to cross the ocean on a plane. (I hate to fly.) Since my national conference was in San Diego this year, I convinced Jack to take a day off work and come with me. Here are some of the highlights.

One of the great things about this trip was getting to see some of our friends that we rarely see anymore. We spent Friday with one of them and took a break from the conference. Since all of us had been to San Diego before, we decided not to rent a car and instead we went to things we could walk to which began with a trip to Horton Plaza (a shopping mall). At Horton Plaza we learned the reason why Cinnabons are so good:

Yes, that yellow ball in the middle of the dough is butter. All butter. Paula Deen would be proud.

Another interesting site we saw while at Horton Plaza was the outdoor ice skating rink. Yes, I said outdoor ice skating in San Diego. It was a beautiful, and rather warm, 74 degrees when I took the picture of these people ice skating:

I taught them how to do that.

After Horton Plaza, we went to Petco Park and got a behind the scenes tour of the park. It was actually very interesting. We sat in luxury boxes and seats worth $43,000 for the season-- something we will never do again unless we pay another $9 each for a tour.

The rest of the weekend, we still got to see friends and I spent some time working. Sunday we packed up to come home. I think we could have both stayed another week and not complained. On the plane flight home we met a nice man our age who works at a gun store in Las Vegas. We spent some time talking to him about almost everything and before we parted company he gave us his phone number and said if we were ever in Vegas we could come by the store and he'd teach me how to use a machine gun. Those of you who know me are probably laughing out loud right now. :)

What did you say?

Something interesting has happened over the past 24 hours that makes me want to talk to you about the subject I study-- communication. Even if you haven't spent an unnatural amount of time in classes and the library learning about communication, there are probably a few things that you know about it. The thing I want to focus on today is precisely what I am doing now, communicating online. When you send e-mails, Facebook or MySpace messages, there is a HUGE amount of room for error. The other person's background, mood they are in when they read what you've written, and circumstances surrounding the message can have a large impact on how they interpret what you say.

So, my friends, be careful. Nonverbal cues like smiling, tone of voice, and gestures are not easily interpreted in written, electronic messages. I suppose that is why we invented emoticons. :) But even then, the possibility of being misinterpreted is still greater than in face-to-face communication. Think before you type and if you aren't sure how your message will be taken, hold onto it before you post/send it. Maybe later you will feel the need to make some modifications. Never use online communication as a substitute for things that need to be said face-to-face. Try to be sure you are clear in the message you are trying to get across. Jack is excellent at that as he usually will take extra time to reiterate his message and be sure it is coming out the way he means for it to. My business training causes me to lean towards brevity, although writing a 200 page dissertation did help me be more thorough and expansive... but I digress.

Technology is a great blessing, but it can also cause us to open up a can of worms. I hope as you continue to write e-mails, blogs, and Facebook posts that you think before you click send. And if you are on the misinterpreting end (as I was in the past 24 hours), take the time to clear it up with the person you misinterpreted. Thankfully, my friend did express what she really meant to me and I had the opportunity to explain why I reacted the way I did. Hopefully our relationship is not damaged. I also hope that your relationships are not damaged by something as simple as miscommunication.

Thanking the Veterans

This post really isn't about what's going on in the Mister & Doctor family, however more about what is going on today in our great country. Today as we all know is Veterans Day. The day that we salute and honor those men and women who were in the armed services.

While I (Jack) never was in the service I do know several people who were. And even though I would like to put their names on here to honor them, I am going to pass on that opportunity for privacy sake. However I encourage each and every one of you who know someone who was in the service to thank them for their willingness to serve.

May God continue to bless our country as He so richly has in the past and may He bless all of the men and women who lay their lives on the line for this country each and every day.

Singing

This weekend was really extraordinary. Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night, we attended a church event and spent hours in song. It really reminded me how much praising God in singing helps me feel close to Him. Here are some of my favorites:

For the Lord is a Righteous God
How Deep the Father's Love for Us
May My Steps Be Worship
Holy Ground
Above All
Can He Still Feel the Nails
Faithful Love
Mansion, Robe, and Crown
Good to Me
He Knows Just What I Need

This is a very short list in no particular order, but I wanted to share with you some of the songs that make me feel close to God and often uplift my spirits. I'm a big fan of Christian Contemporary Music too, but I'll save those favorites for another post. What are some of your favorite worship songs? Please share them with me in the comments.

Staying with Granny for the first time.

On Tuesday night Fran & I stayed with my mom's mom (i.e. my maternal grandmother or Granny H for those that are part of the family). Granny has been in…well…let's call it "fair" health for several years now. And like several people who are up there in their years, we have had to have someone stay with Granny during the day. However the last few years someone has had to stay with her at night as well. Because my grandparents were blessed enough (or crazy enough - you pick) to have six children, her children have been the ones to mainly stay with her at night. Lately because of other family member’s health issues, the ability of her children to stay at night has been limited to just a few of the kids.

Now that we are back in the heart of God's country, we are able to help out from time to time and stay with my grandmother. Last night was our first night to stay with her. To say that we were both a little nervous would be an understatement. Because what the heck would I do if something happened? How would I handle the situation? What if I didn't hear her in the middle of the night if she needed help? ALL of these questions, plus more, were running through both of our heads. So we thought, and prepared, and planned, and cooked, and researched, and prayed, and thought some more, and the day came. Tuesday. The day we elected a new president. The day we elected the country’s first non-caucasian president.

Now for those of you who don't know me very well I think of myself as a person who tries hard not to be prejudiced. However keep in mind my grandmother (who is almost 90 years old and not in the best health - mentally or physically) grew up in a time in which, well let's just say that she's 90 years old. And we stayed with her, on the night that we elected our first non-caucasian president.

To say the least it was interesting, I bet I heard the words “oh me” 27,000 times. Actually it wasn't that bad and neither was the evening. Wasn't nearly as bad as I thought that it might be (both regarding the election and staying with her in general). Fran made a wonderful potato soup for us (joined by my dad since Katie & mom decided that they needed to go shopping in a town about an hour away) and Granny enjoyed it so much she had a small second bowl. After dinner we spent most of the rest of the evening watching the election results. Granny slept through the whole night, and I know this for a fact since she snored 98% of the time, and in the morning she got up on her own, and gave us a kiss, and we left for work. Hopefully we will be able to stay with her some more in the future. I just hope that it's not on another election night! ;)

Love you Granny!