Keith Drury

I just discovered tonight that I am on Byron Gurnee’s blogroll!  I thought I would return the favor by linking to one of his posts that I found very interesting tonight.  The post has an article by Keith Drury, one of my favorite writers.  Click here to read it!

Snow!!

This is some of the gorgeous scenery here in East Tennessee.  It looks even prettier covered in snow!

 

New Years pictures

We had a very nice New Years this year!  We were graciously invited to David and Samantha’s (my brother and his wife’s) family celebration at Samantha’s parent’s, Joe and Edith Hutton’s, house.  After that we ended the day at my cousin Stephanie and Brian’s home.  Below are some of the pics:

 

This is Joe and Edith’s gorgeous home in Knoxville!

 

The entry foyer

 

This is a good picture of my sister-in-law, Samantha, and my Mom

 

This is Joe Hutton with his wife, Edith, in the background

 

These are most of the kids at my cousin, Stephanie and Brian’s, house.  I’m thinking they were playing Mario Kart on the Wii!

 

My  brother, David and wife, Samantha

 

We took a picture of the kids before they opened some of their belated Christmas gifts

 

Watching football (Ohio State and Oregon) are my cousins, Scott and Randy

 

Libby and my Mom

 

This is Stephanie and Brian’s boy, Andy, performing for us!

SNOW!!!

Earlier in the afternoon the snow started falling here in East Tennessee.  It was a long (due to all businesses dismissing work at the same time) and slippery trek that saw me home at 6:20pm.  I normally get home at 5:00pm.  From Oak Ridge to the beginning of my neighborhood the snow was pretty much clear because of the traffic.  On one of the secondary routes I skidded because my tires got into the snow at the edge a little.  The skidding was no big deal because I was only going about 0 – 5 mph at the time.  The trip was quite a bit slicker when I got to my neighborhood:

 

I was a little uncertain whether my car would make it up this hill, but I kept it in low gear and cruised up pretty straight at about 20 mph.

 

I tried to back into my garage.  This was quite a bit trickier than making it up the hill.  I slid back and forth but was able to park the car in the garage without hitting the house, the concrete slab (right next to the house on the left in the pic), or the house support beam inside the garage!

Christmas Day

For Christmas Day my Mom and I visit my brother and his family, David, Samantha, & Charles Harijot.  After we have Christmas in the morning with them, we travel to Ohio to see my Mom’s side of the family:  My grandmother Anna Lee Henson, & my Mom’s five sisters & one brother.  One sister wasn’t there, but the rest of the family was at my Aunt Donna’s and Uncle Ray’s house.  We had quite a houseful because besides all those mentioned above some of their children and grandchildren are there as well.  Below are a few pictures from this wonderful time:

 

    

This is at my brother’s house near Knoxville.  In the background is Samantha, my Mom, and Charles Harijot.  This was the big train set for Charles Harijot from all my Dad’s side of the family.

 

Charles Harijot playing with his train set!

 

More gifts for Charles Harijot

 

This was my gift to Charles Harijot:  big plush doggie.  I think he liked it!  My brother is in the background.

 

Charles Harijot was able to really enjoy opening gifts this year!

 

This is my sister-in-law Samantha.  I was meaning to get a better picture of her!

 

My Mom and Charles Harijot

 

 

One of my brother’s gifts was a compost tumbler

 

This is one of my gifts to David rofl!!

 

This is my cousin-once-removed Andy, my Aunt Jennie, & My Grandmother Anna Lee Henson

 

My Mom’s gift from my Grandmother

 

These are my two cousins, Josh (on the left) and Joel (on the right), with my Grandmother and Josh’s girlfriend.  Josh and Joel are the sons of my Mom’s only brother David.

 

My Mom and Joel

 

This is my Mom and my cousin Rachel’s baby!

 

My Mom and her family are awesome at cooking!!  This is the main course table.

 

This is one of the dessert tables (there was another candy table).  You can see the cookies in the plastic bin.  Part of the cookies are my Mom’s famous Chocolate Chip Cookies.  They’re so good, they’re practically a food group!

Christmas Eve with the family

We traveled to Lake City, Tennessee (one town up from ours) to enjoy our traditional Christmas Eve with the family at my Aunt Susie and Uncle Al’s home.  The kids open up some of their Christmas presents on this night and we celebrate two birthdays as well (yes, they were born on Christmas Eve)!!  Here are a few pics from the evening:

 

Susie does an excellent job with her tree every year!

 

This is one of the reasons I love Christmas:  FOOD!!

 

This is one of the birthdays we celebrated this evening.  My cousin Randy and Sonya’s boy, Silas, gets money for his birthday.

 

This is my nephew Charles Harijot tearing into his big Christmas gift!

 

  

This was his gift from the family:  Mountain Rail Adventure train set!

 

This was another gift Charles Harijot was quite fascinated with

 

This is Silas with a organizer handmade by his Uncle Steve!!

 

This is my cousin Andrea’s little boy PJ with his grandma Susie

 

I could have been nice and uploaded the normal picture of my cousin Stephanie’s boy Andy.  This is more quintessentially Andy though lol!!

 

This is my Stephanie’s other boy, Ryan, making the fashion statement with red and black socks!!

 

No get-together with the family is complete without a few rounds of rook!  This is my Mom and Aunt Susie (respectively).  Judging from their expressions, I believe my Mom has an awesome hand, but Susie is not quite as pleased with hers lol!!

 

Here is the link to see all my pictures from the evening:  facebook album

Applewood Farmhouse Restaurant, Sevierville, Tennessee

With our schedules being free on Friday, my Mom and I went to Dollywood.  Although it was raining the whole time when we got there, we still had a good time.  To start with we ate at the Applewood Farmhouse Restaurant in Sevierville.  If you go to the Smokies in Tennessee, I highly recommend going to this restaurant.  Just make sure you are very hungry because they bring quite large servings which include complimentary apple fritters (with apple butter), apple julep, & vegetable soup.  Your entree is served with mashed potatoes & a vegetable (I recommend the macaroni & cheese).  I had the Chicken & Dumplings which was awesome.  The Restaurant is on a larger complex that includes an ice cream shop, candy shop, country store, & a cider bar.  At the cider bar you can get hot (& cold) apple cider, apple fried pies, apple cinnamon donuts, & several other items.  I don’t take pictures in the rain, so just visit the link if you want pictures of the food.  Here is the Apple Barn’s website.

Friday Off!

At my job I enjoy having Fridays off (we are on a 4 – 10 schedule).  My mom was free yesterday also, so we spent the day together.  First we went to a Mexican Restaurant in my hometown of Clinton.

I had a  chicken chimichanga for lunch.  It was delish!

 

 

My mom had the chicken salad.

 

We went to see our dear friend Mary Hamilton to do some church work.  Later on, her husband, Jeff, got home from his job (did I mention I love 4-10’s?!). 

 

 

This picture is Jeff & Mary in their recently finished home.  It’s beautiful!

The picture above is characteristically Jeff.  He’s quite a jokester!  Mary is generally fairly serious, but you can see the sort of effect Jeff has on her!  Seriously, every church needs to have a Jeff & Mary Hamilton.  They always make people feel at home, and they take on all those very important little things that nobody notices but must be done.

 

Then, my Mom and I had dinner at Red Lobster.

  

I had the bacon wrapped scallops and bourbon BBQ shrimp!

Thanksgiving at Clinton First Wesleyan

Last Sunday was a big day at the Clinton First Wesleyan Church.  We had the Ladies Trio from Kentucky Mountain Bible College sing for us during the service.  This is one of the best groups from KMBC I’ve ever heard.  I enjoyed the song selection and the very nice harmony presented by the Ladies Trio.  I enjoyed seeing the trio and their PR guy.  I saw the trio this year at our Tennessee District Family Camp.  Their PR guy is Randy Huff whom I’ve known and have seen at various places including ayc, youth retreats, & camps.  It’s always a pleasure to see him!  After the service we had our annual Thanksgiving Meal.  Many of my most favorite dishes were there like my Mom’s Robert Redford Cake (tastes as good as the actor acts lol), and her sweet potato casserole.  Some other favorites were some good mashed potatoes, stuffing, some great, moist turkey, and egg rolls!  Oh, and the desserts were great!  I tasted a really good spicy pumpkin pie!

Below are a few pictures from the day:

KMBC Ladies Trio (l-r) Ruth, Shianne, & Deanna

 

This is Randy Huff the PR guy for KMBC.  It’s always a joy to see him!

 

Here are our church people in line at our Thanksgiving Meal

 

Here’s some of the outstanding desserts!  My Mom’s Robert Redford Cake is at the bottom left of this picture.  Mmm Mmm, good!

 

 

FUEL! Wesleyan Youth Leaders Initiative.

On Thursday through Saturday of this weekend I was privileged to travel with seven of the youth pastors and youth leaders from our district to the Wesleyan Youth Leaders Initiative:  FUEL!!  I really enjoyed every aspect of the conference.  I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with a great group of guys and one lady (no, she didn’t stay in the guy’s rooms – her husband and she stayed with family) from our district.  They did a very good job of keeping me laughing more often than not.  I enjoyed the worship music provided by Dustin & Miriam Ah Kuoi from our 12 Stone Wesleyan Church.  I absolutely loved the messages by all the session speakers including Kevin Myers, pastor of the 12 Stone Church, and Scott Simmons, General Director of Wesleyan Youth.  One of the special things this weekend was networking with so many different youth pastors & leaders from all types of backgrounds.  Our leaders were able to network with (these are the ones I can think of) Kevin Myers, Scott Simmons, Charlie Alcock (one of the most gifted veterans in the Wesleyan Church youth – writer, event specialist, media, professor at IWU), the middle school director at Kentwood Community Church, & Matt Leroy (another one of our gifted veterans of Wesleyan youth ministry and church planter).   All the breakout sessions were outstanding, particularly the one by Matt LeRoy which dealt with the topic “Accountability doesn’t work…”.  If you’re curious you’ll just have to watch the video in a later post.  I included some pictures from the trip below.  Stay tuned for video.

 

This is our Nashville First Wesleyan Church where Pastor Brian and I picked up some of the leaders.  They were playing on ps2 in this picture.

 

These are the youth leaders eating at Red Robin Restaurant.  From left to right is Pastor David Gould, Pastor Brian Taylor, Vince Sedman, Gene Schwartz, Josh Slaughter, & Kim Slaughter

 

This is me with the Red Robin mascot!

 

This is the youth pastor I work with, Brian Taylor.  He was always excited to get the monopoly pieces at McDonalds!

 

These were our youth leaders with the crowd at one of the general sessions

 

These were the worship leaders from 12 Stone church

 

Our youth pastors and leaders from our district

 

This is the exterior of the Wesleyan Church General Headquarters

 

This was a shot of Louisville on our way back from FUEL!

Video of Appalachian Youth Camp

For three years now I have been involved with an outstanding youth ministry called Appalachian Youth Camp, one of the organizations under Appalachian Youth Ministries.  It has been an exciting and fun-filled experience that somehow gets better every year!  For more information about this ministry visit http://www.aymonline.org.  There will be a link on this page to Appalachian Youth Camp.  Here is a message about Appalachian Youth Camp from the Camp President, Ray McCrary.

Since 1982, Appalachian Youth Camp has provided thousands of young people with the ultimate summer experience. Being with friends, playing sports and activities and being actively engaged in ministry are just a few of the highlights of this week-long event. AYC is also a place where many young people begin their spiritual journey. The staff and administration are firmly committed to making Appalachian Youth Camp a place where the spiritual, physical, social and mental needs of youth will be met.

Join us in Roxbury, PA for AYC 2009!

 

  Last year before this camp I had the distinct privilege of editing a video that was used on opening night of camp.  I hope you enjoy.

 

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