Family Times, pt. 2

Erin got in on Wednesday night around 9:30pm Central Time. Awesome. Yeah I know it’s Friday, but we’re just running down the events of Thanksgiving. You’re welcome.

Erin and I had to share a room at the Worley’s (Beth’s parent’s house), which was kind of fun because we got to talk a little bit. I told her she could use my computer if she wanted slash needed to. I woke the next morning to find her on it... looking at engagement rings.

Holy crap.

My little sister, the princess of my house growing up for as long as I could remember, the one who ran to me when boys were being mean, the one I taught to throw a football properly... looking at engagement rings. She said “I love you” to her boyfriend John on the phone when she was talking to him later on Thanksgiving Day. She’s been dating him for 10 months now. Erin has never dated a guy that long. Sheesh.

On top of all this, before Jake and I shot to the airport to get Erin I got to meet a lot of other friends and family from Beth’s side of the family. All of them were either engaged or married, many of them younger than me.

So of course, I started to get bummed out.

Then on Thanksgiving, I met even more young couples either engaged to be married or already married. This wasn’t all that big a deal, mainly because I was there to hang with Jake/Erin/Beth. We played football (Jake and I were on the same team, so of course we won. Boldin/Fitzgerald have nothing on us ;) ), ate ridiculous amounts of food, drank Dr. Pepper until we smelled like DP, and of course, watched football.

I got into bed last night and started thinking about my lack of a significant other. Bad idea.

After laying in bed for a while feeling sorry and stressed out, I just passed out. I was exhausted from being social, playing football, and being such a pathetic wreck on my own in my bed. Lame.

When i got up this morning, Nancy (Beth’s mother) had prepared two verses for Erin and I and wanted us to hear them. So I sat down with a cup of coffee around 11:00am and just listened. I knew something was up. I had gone to bed feeling miserable inside about how I was supposed to enjoy my relationship with the Lord while simultaneously not feeling jealousy towards my friends and family who were both satisfied in Him and their earthly companion.

Nancy gave me Ephesians 2:10. God... is too good to me, and too good to us on the whole I suppose.

“It is God Himself who has made you - and who has made you what you are - and given you a new life in Christ Jesus and long ages ago He planned that you should spend your life in helping others.”

If this gives you encouragement, awesome. If it doesn’t... well, don’t worry about it. The wisest words one can speak come from the Bible. Get into it, and let the Lord speak to you. If you’re lucky like me, maybe someone will speak those words to you and act as a medium for revelation. Or you could be that person to reveal something to someone in God’s name.

It might sound nerdy, but look at your Bible tonight and make some time to get into it.

Love.

Jake invited me to play basketball at a church with some guys (it actually turned out that half the guys in the pick up game where Asian, but they could drain 3 pointers like nobody's business haha), and we got to play like 5 games before Jake strained his quadriceps. Anyway.

We were in our 4th or 5th game and this really big guy joined the other team. He was probably 6'2" or 6'3", and could almost dunk. Well Jake's friend Corey was playing defense on him, and he was no bigger than I am. This guy was kicking Corey's butt, to the point where Corey wasn't even stepping out to defend him and just letting him shoot wide open shots.

I decided something needed to be done, so after the big guy shot and scored another wide open three, I told Corey he needed to step out on the guy and contest his shot so it wasn't so easy. This, apparently, was not the right thing to do. Corey got upset and started telling me that the guy would just run around him if he got close. So I offered to switch guys and defend the tall guy. This was also a bad idea.

Corey grabbed the basketball and threw it at me, so I caught the ball and told him to calm down. Another bad idea. Corey was walking at me and posturing like he needed to assert himself as the king of the court of something. I didn't back down, but just smiled and told him to take it easy. Jake got in between myself and his friend, and Corey started calling me an "asshole" and told Jake that he thought I was one of those several times.

When Jake told Corey that in reality, he was the one being the jerk, Corey couldn't believe it and walked off the court to get his stuff and go home. No one really knew what to do at that point because now we were down a player, and I was kind of embarassed because I had a part in setting him off.

Point is I guess... I didn't do anything aggressive towards this guy. I always talk about people talking smack and getting aggressive with me and how I would deal with it (with aggression and counter-smack), but I didn't. I just let things happen and didn't raise my hands. I don't know. Maybe God's doing more work on me than I'm capable of seeing. I kind of hope that's the case.

Family Times, pt.1

Just got to Dallas, TX last night. My brother Jake picked me up in his Kia sedan and proceeded to take me on a crazy trip through snaking highways and tollways. I'm pretty sure we hit 65 mph going through an automatic toll, which was bizarre to me because I'm used to stopping at a toll and dropping .50 cents in a bucket. Needless to say, it was a great ride from the airport. Lots of catching up, laughing, and goofing off. Grabbed some Cici's Pizza buffet as well. Per usual, Jake ate too much cheesy bread. Dude loves his cheese for sure.

We drove by his old apartment in creeperville before finally getting to his newer, nicer place to watch some Monday Night Football and goof off some more. Jake's wife Beth was out and about doing a photo shoot with a family. Beth had my nephew Shepherd with her, but as soon as she and Shep came in I got to see a side of Jake I had never seen before.

My brother is a lot of things to me. He's an athlete for one thing. Some of our conversation last night involved our athletic endeavors of the past couple of years. I told him about having played soccer on the professional pitch at Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Denver, and he told me about the last time he played tackle football and how sore he was as a result.

My brother is also a husband, having been married to his wife Beth since March of 2006. It wasn't even that weird to see him get married right before my teary eyes (yes, I cried at Jake's wedding, I'm a huge sissy). He and Beth go together great. I've gotten to hang out with Beth a few times, and I'm really glad she's part of my family.

I haven't ever known my brother as a dad though. When Shep came in, Jake was still hilarious. He just turned his attention to his son and Shep was happy to recieve it. I was so happy to see the interaction between a father and his son... it was just weird to see it with Jake. I'm glad he's got Shepherd and Beth in his life.

Shep did take a little while to warm up to me, but after I let him play with my phone and computer (which was probably not a great idea, somehow he almost shut it down by just pushing random buttons, and keep in mind he's only 15 months old). This morning he crawled into my lap while I was sitting on the floor and just sat there scratching my leg with his little baby fingernails. Hilarious.

One of these days... huh.

Erin (my younger sister) will be here Wednesday night. Jake and I are going to pick her up from the airport. Gah! I can't wait. I don't even remember the last time all three of us Dreyer kids were all together... probably Thanksgiving 2006 or something. My memory is terrible at the moment for some reason. Needless to say I'm stoked to be with Jake, Erin, Beth and her younger brother Ben for the next couple of days. People I love and haven't seen in a while.

I hope you're making the most of the time you're spending with family and friends right now.