Rocky Top

I greatly apologize on my tardiness on the blog but I’ve been kind of busy with a whole bunch of stuff. I have several things that I want to write about so I need to get on the stick...

So here ya go…

Friday, late in the afternoon the boss man said “Yes or no, do you want tickets to the Tennessee game tomorrow?”

Me: “Give me a sec”…”How many?”

Boss: “Four”

A couple of phone calls and arm twisting later, it was on. Knoxville or bust to watch a team that I really don’t root for but who cares, I’ve never been to a college football game much less a SEC game.

So Amanda, Nay Nay, The Doche and I headed up at about 7am on Sat. morning. The drive to Knoxville was pretty chill and we got there about 20 minutes before game time. Of course, Amanda had to patronize a local bookstore and get all oranged out. Like I just said, I’ve never been to a college football game so going to one of the biggest stadiums in the country was incredible. The amount of orange that I saw that day will be forever be engrained into my brain. It was crazy. I can’t imagine what would have happened if I went to such a big school.

The game was awesome and we had great seats. Tennessee ended up putting a spank down on Arkansas so people were pretty pumped. After the game, we headed back South. On the way back, we watched about 10 episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia on my new toy…Covered in the next post…

Team Spirit

Ridiculous amounts of orange

More team spirit

Post game at a local watering hole

And Yet Another Reason why I enjoy my Church...

This was the opening song yesterday at Buckhead Church...Freakin' insane...And then Jeff Henderson gave one of the best messages I have ever heard and want to apply to my life...Listen to it here...It's called out of the Shadows...

B-Day Bash

Last Saturday I turned 28 years of old. I guess that's pretty cool right? Kind of on that downhill slide to the big 3-0. A bunch has happened these past 12 months and I would say almost all of them are pretty darn good. I was thinking about writing about all the things that took place and ponder on them but I figured that nobody would really care...

The day itself was pretty good though. During the day, the small group gang volunteered at an extremely well run women's shelter. It was a really fulfilling and great experience. Then, as you read in the previous post, I got to watch one of the little ones in my UpStreet group get baptized...It could have ended there and it would have been perfect...But...Since there were several of us that had B-Days around the same time we all went out to celebrate together. We first headed to an awesome restaurant called Tap. Great food with an extraordinary selection of imported beers. Afterwards we hit up Cosmo/Lave for some dancin' action...Great times, great friends...

Here's a few pics from the evening...

The Amandas looking hot...

The Brown Man in all his glory

The Boys...

My lover of my soul...

Not really a great Fantasy...

This is my first official year playing fantasy football and I have to be honest, I'm not very good. I thought I had a good team but Stephen Jackson went down, Anquan Boldin, Matt Leinart, Vince Young and now Marvin Harrison...Boo bears...

I thought that Daunte C. was going to be a horse for me but apparently I don't check out what's happening and both him and Harrison didn't play this past Sunday...Look at this weak performance...Zeros are no bueno in Fantasy Football.

Still in a 4 way tie for fifth...Got a chance for the playoffs...

Why I do what I do...

As many of you know, I teach Sunday school (UpStreet) at Buckhead Church. I've been doing this for almost two years and I absolutely love it. Of all the things during the week that I do, this is by far my favorite thing that I honestly look forward to. I get the opportunity to hang out with 15 third graders that I think are about the coolest kids ever.

Well on Saturday night, Buckhead Church had Family Celebration which is an event where they baptize the kids (k-8th) that have accepted Christ as their Savior and want to publicly profess it. Well, one of the little girls in my group, Maggie Leigh got baptized. The cool part about it is they film a short one minute clip of the kids of why they are here getting baptized. Their testimony basically. Maggie Leigh was absolutely adorable and did such an incredible job.

Also, to make the night even better, one of the girls in Amanda's 7th grade group got baptized as well. She did such an amazing job as well and had a great testimony of why Christ is her Savior.

All in all, 19 kids got baptized. Watching their videos made me realize how complicated I make things some times. Some of their videos just hit me right in the gut and were like "Duh Jonathon, why do you make this harder than it is?"

It was by far the best B-Day present I've ever gotten...