"I Grew Up On VCR's. That Was My Time."

Fellow Readers,

Oh how it has been a while...Last post was in February! I cannot believe how the time has flown.  For those of you who are seasoned readers of mine, you know I like to catch you all up on anything exciting or weird that has gone on in my life since the last post.  I feel like it is safe to say that five months of catching up would just be ridiculous.  So, I will just talk a little about Father's Day and maybe a couple of big things that have happened.  Okay.  One thing I talked about last time was unsuccessfully breaking into a pool on campus after hours.  Well, we eventually did it!  It was magical.  We swam for a little bit, and even ended up with a canoe in it!  Totally worth it.  Another exciting thing to happen, is that my sister and I signed our lease on the apartment we will be living in next semester at school! I have also decided that I am switching my major from Math Teacher to either a History Teacher or a guidance counselor.  I can't decide yet. Other than that, I can't think of anything else worth mentioning that would keep you all on the edge of your seats here.  On to Father's Day.  If you are reading this and are, or have been, or are in the process of becoming a father, Happy Father's Day! I apologize for my tardiness.  Anyways, we celebrated our Pops by making him a feast of a breakfast filled with, not one, but two types of pancakes; french toast; bacon; sausage; eggs; and biscuits.  Mm mmm...it was so good.  Afterwards, we ventured into our past through home videos. This was not a planned event, nor even really related to Father's Day.  The truth is, we just recently acquired a VCR/DVD/Recorder/Copier machine from a grand of a yard sale.  After about a decade since our last one, we were extremely excited to be able to watch any of our plentiful, and dusty, VHS's-including home videos.   The adventure started two nights ago in the middle of the night with my sisters and me.  We were so pumped about our freshly purchased "time machine," so we decided we should hook it up and get the movies going.  Well, like I mentioned, it has been a while... We tried, for two hours, hooking that thing up.  We googled manuals for it and everything, but we just couldn't get the picture to work.  We must have had nine different combinations of cables and hook-ups before we gave up-completely deflated.  So then came yesterday, and Father.  We grudgingly explained our failures to him and he chuckled a little bit and said, "Let me look at it."  We laughed at that.  This is a guy who never follows any instructions, thinks he can fix everything, rarely fixes anything, and who's last resort is the ever-so-popular beating method-as if hitting the contraption will fix it.  So, he messes with it, and after a few minutes, has a video running in it and a picture on the screen.  We were flabbergasted.  Astonished, we tried to figure out how on Earth he got it so quickly, after our combined efforts on a piece of technology so simple compared to what we have nowadays failed.  And his response, "I know VCR's, man.  I grew up on VCR's.  That was my time.  Ever since '82."  He was thinking one thing...."Winning!!"  We were happy for him, though, and even happier for some home movies! We went from the marriage of the parentals, all the way up til about the time we reached that age where just watching us run around the back yard is exciting and new enough to want to capture it on film.  It was awesome.  We were all such dorks back then-and still are.  It ended up being one of the best Father's Days of recent memory.

Message:
After watching those videos yesterday, it just really made me think about family and friends, and how blessed I am to have such great people in my life and to have the opportunity to spend time with them whenever I want.  Looking back at our childhood(and I had known this already), our family was not made of money.  But, our parents worked hard for everything they got and gave everything they had and then some, to lavish us with presents and make us happy.  It made me so happy to look back and really understand how willing they were to sacrifice and how much they did.  It made me proud to call them my parents-not that I wasn't proud before, it just refreshed my mind about it.  "Where are you going with this Andrew?...." My point is:  seeing how happy it made me to see how happy and willing they were to sacrifice and just give and love us, made me think about how much Jesus loves us, and how much he sacrificed for us, and how willing he was through all of it.  And it just made me even happier and more excited, and brought me to tears.  To that point, how happy does it make you to think about that?  With it just being Father's Day, think about how much you love your dad and everything he gave you and how much he has loved you.  Now how much greater is that feeling to know that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us even more, and sacrifices and gives us even more?!!  I urge you to just take time and think about that and just say thanks to our Father.  Thank you for reading.  Signing off.