It’s really easy to forget what Christmas is all about, so the title is an extra reminder. We had a great Christmas, and while I got some really nice gifts, my dad had one of those moments again. He said, “we need to be thankful for friends and family, that’s what’s really important, not all the material stuff.” Don’t know if I can really expand on that too much, but I just want to take a moment to mention some of the ‘important’ things I’m thankful for before I post some pictures of all the presents and such. I’m thankful for my wife, and my parents, and my sister, and my cousins (all of them, even Afton…). I’m thankful for the little girl that’s on the way, and I’m thankful for my friends, at work, at church, and anywhere else. And I’m thankful for Scooter, Roo, and Oliver.

Now that I’ve gone all serious on you, there’s some completely unserious pictures and one of Amanda at seventeen weeks along (she’s in week twenty now) in the gallery.

It’s a girl! And not a puppy this time. As mentioned before, due in late May. The ‘awesome’ ultrasound machine was broken today, but we still got to see some pretty neat things. She was sucking on her fingers for a bit, and yawned several times. We got to see her little heart pumping away at 153 beats per minute, and even were able to see the four chambers of her heart.  It was incredible the amount of detail that could be seen, even with ‘old technology.’ The scanned images are over in the gallery.

A couple of my cousins posted their Christmas letters on their blogs, so I figured I’d follow suit, sort of. I actually put together a little photo collage that we sent out this year, but in case you didn’t get one (sorry), here it is:

For more details, you can of course read back through my blog posts for the year. The side project I started, God Impact, is going quite well also. I’ve only missed one day (except for yesterday, when I forgot to hit the publish button).

We’ve also had a lot of exciting things happening at our church, and there’s a little info over at www.glendiveag.org.

Seems a lot of my posts lately have been about stuff I’ve been doing at work. This one is going to follow in that tradition, even if it is Christmas. Maybe I’ll write something about Christmas later too…

At any rate, my assistant (not a secretary) left last week for greener (maybe bluer is proper here) pastures at Miles Community College. We’ll miss him dearly (I already do, it gets lonely on the IT Island). As such, we’re hiring. If you’re looking for a job working with computers, maybe this will be a Christmas present for you. If you’re interested, go to http://dawson.edu/faculty_staff/Employment.asp and send in the required application materials.

Sometimes my devotional life just plain stinks. Sometimes it isn’t too bad, and every once in a while, it reaches fantastic. More often than not, though, I skim through a chapter of the Bible each morning, eat my breakfast, and go to work without ever giving what I’ve read a second thought. Today, that changes, and I’m giving the world the opportunity to keep me accountable to this. I’m starting a spin off of my website called God Impact.

Here’s the plan: Every day, starting at the beginning (Genesis 1:1), I’ll read a small portion of the Bible. I find that if I try to read too much, I forget what I read at the beginning, or I rush through it, and don’t get anything out of what I’ve read.

Here’s the interesting part (hopefully). I’ll post what I’ve read, and then follow that up with some sort of commentary/insight into the passage. I’m not promising anything profound, but I’ll leave that up to God. If you like what I’ve written, or if it encourages you in any way, feel free to subscribe via the RSS feed. You can even leave comments on what you took away from the passage if you like.

For those of you on Facebook, Multiply, LiveJournal, or Blogger, I don’t intend to cross-post any of this to those sites, sorry. If you want to read it, you’ll have to visit http://godimpact.shanebishop.net. Of course, that all may change, but that’s the plan for now.

Some of you already know, and some of you have heard inklings trickling around the etherspace. Now, we can officially tell you… We’re having a baby! The first ultrasound was today, and according to the doctor the little one is eight weeks old today. After much finagling with the old scanner I bought this summer at a garage sale, I was able to scan the printout we got from the doctor. Somewhere around here, we also have profile pictures of Amanda, although she’s not showing yet, so I won’t bother posting any until she is. She might post them on her Facebook page if you’re lucky…

I was in such a rush the first time, I forgot a couple things I was going to mention. Our due date is May 25, and as you can see in the picture, the baby is 1.64 centimeters long, about the size of an olive. Amanda likes to call the baby ‘our little crustacean’ because of how it looks in the picture. We should know if it’s a boy or a girl by Christmas time, which will be nice timing.

Last month we went on vacation. We did lots of driving, as we went to Boise, Idaho, and then came back through Yellowstone National Park on our way back home. My sister-in-law got married (congrats).

We spent lots of time with family, including going paddle-boating at a rather neat park in Boise.

We saw all sorts of things in YNP. Words can’t even describe all the awesomeness.

Then we stopped at the Montana Grizzly Encounter. When we first pulled in, we were a bit afraid that it was going to be a dud, but we were amazingly wrong. The gal working there was really mindful of the visitors, and made sure we weren’t disappointed. The bears even answered to their names (Brutus and Sheena), and came ambling down when she threw them fruit (yes, bears are omnivores). Brutus was rescued from a bear breeder who was going to kill him because no one wanted to buy him. Sheena and her sister were kept in a very small cage, with no room to move for 15 years, so they don’t get along very well, and only one comes out into the main area at a time. We saw the cage, I can’t even imagine keeping any animal in there, let alone a large animal like a bear (2 of them even).

All in all, it was a great trip. Enjoy the pictures!

Last night, my dad said something inspiring. He was helping me pick rocks out of our flower garden, and as he went to leave, I thanked him again. And he said, “You’re welcome. I just want to try and be helpful like my dad (my grandpa).” As most people in our church know, my grandpa never passes up an opportunity to help. He’s had a quadruple bypass surgery, and has every right to take it easy, and relax. He’s just not wired that way. God has given him a servant’s heart, and to sit idly by and watch others do the work just doesn’t do it for him. Our pastor is moving in a few days, and I mentioned to his brother that I would probably come and help load up. He said, “Don’t feel like you have to. If you don’t, your grandpa will.”

My dad is always helping me around the house, and it seems he enjoys helping me more than going home and doing his own yardwork sometimes. Even when it’s just picking rocks out of the garden. I want to be like my dad (and my grandpa): helpful.

As many of you might have noticed, I’ve been sick lately. Normally, that’s not blog-worthy, even if it is a rare occassion. However, this morning was the first time I had been to church in three weeks. I was up front playing guitar with the worship team and started to sing along with one of the songs (sometimes I’m concentrating on the guitar too much to sing), and that’s when it struck me. I missed this. Yes, I missed church, and yes, I missed playing guitar for worship, but the thing I missed the most was just singing to God. My throat had been so raw for the last two weeks, that I hadn’t been able to sing (I tried once, and it was a pathetic sound).

Then something else struck me. I wasn’t the only one. God missed it too. The ruler of the universe; the creator of everything; the omnipotent God who controls everything. He missed my worship. God wants, desires, even longs for the worship and adoration of his treasured creation, mankind. And yes, I know, worship is more than just singing and music, but for me, that’s the way I worship God best. When I lose that, I feel like a part of me has died. This morning, though, it was revived, and wow, did that feel amazing. Yes, it even drove me to tears as all these thoughts came rushing at once. I just had to share that with all of you.

A bunch of my family members use Multiply for posting blogs, book reviews, photos, and links. It’s kind of like Facebook or Myspace, but slimmed down, and geared more towards blogging. Several of them have recently joined Facebook, and yesterday, my aunt asked me an interesting question. Is there any way to integrate the two sites? I knew there had to be, but it took me a while to think of how to do it.

So, here it is: On facebook, go to your Profile, and make sure you are on your Wall. Right below the ‘Write something…’ box, there is a Settings button. Click that, and the top section will say ‘Stories Posted by You’. As you can see, Multiply isn’t listed, but there is one called ‘Blog/RSS’. Click this, and it will ask you for the Public URL of your blog. For my Multiply site, it would be nosilver4u.multiply.com. Fill in yours, and click the Import button. Now it will automatically post anything from Multiply on your Facebook page. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is any way to go the other direction. This will also work for any other blogging site like blogspot, livejournal, or wordpress.com.