Eddie Ray Fisher

This is so weird. I just found out that a friend of ours from back in the Ocean Hills days named Eddie is in a huge and famous band called OneRepublic. They are the band that sings that song "Apologize" with Timbaland that you have probably heard if you watch any tv shows or listen to the radio. It's everywhere right now. They have over 15 million hits on their MySpace. They are big-time.

Eddie is the coolest guy too. I'm so happy for him. He is the second from the left in the photo. He actually played djembe in our wedding and we used to rock out with the Jr Highers together. I was involved with his wedding too. He's just a nice guy. He used to play in a band with another friend of mine and it didn't work out. I'm super stoked for him and I know that people in the "rock n roll" world are having more fun because Eddie is with them. I haven't seen him since I came to Calvary almost 7 years ago so it's been a while, but I'm still stoked.

Welcome Matt Davis...

to the blog world. He has kept a private blog journal for a while now and he put all those posts on this blog. I have a feeling his blog will be good. Hourglass Entries is the name of the blog. Find it here.

Happy Hanukkah!!

Last night we celebrated the fourth night of Hanukkah and Shabbat with some great friends. Some good friends of ours are Jewish and I love sharing the Jewish traditions with them and with our children. It seems to me that most Christians forget that everything we believe about God has been through him working through His chosen people, the Israelites or Hebrews or Jews.

First Marilee lit the candles of Shabbat or Sabbath because it was Friday and shared a prayer and we broke Challah break and passed it around and drank the fruit of the vine. They do an incredible job of bringing Christ into the Jewish traditions and rituals. It's almost hard not to bring Christ into it because it's so obviously pointing straight towards Him.

Then Matt shared the Hanukkah story with all of us, including the 10 kids present. Then they lit the servant candle representing Christ who then lights the other four candles which represents sharing the Light of the World with others. Then we enjoyed some tasty latkes and other great food. We also learned about and played some dreidel games. Hanukkah is a great story of God's faithfulness to His people and to preserving the line of Christ who is the Light of the World. Awesome. I love that myself and my family have friends like this with whom we can celebrate the richness of this tradition.

See Erin's blog for pictures of the kids. She took the pictures in this post.

Fire Hit Home

The fires are crazy in Southern California right now. The really sad thing is what happened to our friends Tim and Natalie Nellis. Their church, Rancho Bernardo Baptist, got burned down in the fire in San Diego county. Several of their students lost their houses too. Please be praying for them.

PAELLA!!

Last Saturday night my friend Jason made me an amazing dinner for my birthday. I was thinking about going to Black Sheep Bistro for paella, but Jason said he would make it. The guy is an incredible cook and the paella was excellent. There was the saffron Valencia rice, shrimp, swordfish, i think halibut, different types of spanish sausages, chicken, and mussels. DELICIOUS!! It was a very good night. Here are some pictures.

The Draft

We had our Fantasy Football Draft tonight. 6 of the 12 met at Tustin Brewing Company and had some appetizers and sodas and had an awesome time drafting. The rest of the crew was online at other spots. Here is a picture of those of us who actually had fun - without me in it because I took it. J-Lo, Greg, Doan, Peter, and Brent are looking good.

Six laptops on a table at a sports bar is kind of dorky, but really fun! Sorry Victor. Don't hate me. It was a blatantly wrong decision on my part. I'm sorry.

Here is my team. There are 12 teams and we start 2 QBs every week.
QB - Phillip Rivers
QB - Chad Pennington
RB - Willie Parker
RB - Willis McGahee
WR - Roy Williams
WR - Braylon Edwards
WR - Chris Chambers
TE - Jason Witten
K - Jason Elam
Def/ST - San Diego
Bench - Clinton Portis
Bench - Wes Welker
Bench - Eric Parker
Bench - Najeh Davenport
Bench - Charlie Frye
Bench - Josh McCown
Bench - Kevin Jones

We'll see how the Wakebirds do. Hopefully pretty well. I play Matt Doan in the first week so it should be an easy win.

Cupcakes

A couple of Bea's friends from work, Becca and Evi, came over tonight and made dinner for us. Evi brought some cupcakes from Sprinkles. This is the uber-trendy cupcake place that always has a line out the door for cupcakes that cost a pretty penny. They are quite tasty.

We had four cupcakes and cut them into four pieces each and we got to try all of them. There was a Chocolate Coconut, Ginger Lemon, Strawberry Banana, and a Red Velvet. Our rule was that we couldn't just eat them. We had to take a bite, savor it, and then discuss. My favorite was the Red Velvet - smooth, sweet, but not too rich. The Strawberry Banana was next, then Ginger Lemon, and finally the chocolate coconut. The chocolate one was really dry. Overall, the cupcakes were a bit more dry than usual.

Tonight, it was kind of like I was one of the girls at a slumber party or something. I guess that's my life now with having a wife and two daughters!! I don't mind. I'm glad that Bea has awesome friends who love her tons.

Josh Simpson - HERO!

Look at this from the Chicago Tribune.
Teen's heroism told after lake drowning
By Lisa Black and Ruth Fuller, Chicago Tribune
Published June 9, 2007

Bryan Eatmon can't believe how fast it happened: One minute, eight teens were goofing around in Lake Michigan,cooling off on a steamy day. The next, they were gasping for air,dragged underwater by a fierce undercurrent.
The waves at the Waukegan Beach on Thursday battered Eatmon like fists throwing punches, hard and relentless.
His friend Joshua Lamar Simpson, 19, tugged on Eatmon's arm, drawing him closer to shore and giving Eatmon time to regain footing and catch his breath. I was giving up," said Eatmon, 19. "I saw him -- he was right in front of me. He told me I was going to be all right.

Our Josh Simpson is a hero too. He is the best Jr High Pastor I have ever met. You might not hear him speak at a YS Conference or at a huge rally, but he ministers to Jr High students in a way that connects with students in a powerful way. I love you Josh Simpson!! Read his blog here.

Check him out here ladies! He is single!!

Congrats to Kim and Victor

Victor and Kim had their baby yesterday and we are so happy for them!! They are awesome people and Matthew is an amazing little boy. Rachel will be a great addition to their wonderful growing family. I heard that Victor wants to have something like ten kids. His catholic roots are going to cost them a lot of cash and Kim a lot of pain. Check out the pictures at Vic's blog thewonderfulnoise.com. The only wonderful noise in their house will be crying at 2am for the next few months. Our baby is due July 1 so I'm getting ready for the wonderful noise too.

Fatburger and Becky

My friend Becky is sad that I didn't post about a game night we had on Friday with my friends from Cal State Fullerton - Scott, Becky, Shannon and her husband Steve and kids, and my family. We had a great time eating pizza, watching the USC/UNC game, and playing some Cranium.

Becky was upset that I posted about burgers and not this game night. However, I was thinking of them when I posted Fatburger as the #1 burger because they introduced me to the delicious King Burger with bacon, cheese, and a fried egg on top.

Also, about burgers. I do love the A's Burger joint. It tastes a lot like In-n-Out. They also have really good breakfast burritos. All my previous in-n-out comments were just to make people mad. It really would be my number one.

Are you happy Becky?

Mozza

We went to Pizzeria Mozza last night for dinner with our friends Jason and Erin. Mozza is a restaurant in LA owned and operated by Mario Batali (Food Network, Babbo, Lupa, etc) and Nancy Silverton (La Brea Bakery, Campanile). We have all eaten separately at Babbo and Lupa in New York and so we were excited to go to a Batali restaurant together right here in SoCal. I blogged about this place in January here. It was cool because Nancy Silverton was actually there prepping food to be served and talking with people in the dining room. I saw her air kissing people she knew. So hollywood.

I loved this place. The ambiance is fun, loud, and crowded. It's definitely not a quiet meal and it's not super comfortable. It is a major hotspot. Scarlett Johansson and two friends were sitting at the table next to us and were trying to leave when we left and there was a paparazzi trying to take pictures of her outside and she was trying to hide out and escape. It was fun to watch. I joked that I always had a hard time with the paparazzi and then told the guy he could take my picture and he did. It was hilarious. Paul Reiser was also there and a couple others we thought we recognized.

The food was awesome. We started with an incredible Winter Caprese which was a buttery bufala mozzarella with pesto and chopped basil with roasted cherry-like tomatoes on the vine. Then we had this white bean and garlic bruschetta which was delicious. There's a picture of it below. Next was a salumi platter (prosciutto di parma, salami, sopressata, and speck) with this bread that I can't even describe in words. It was a thick slice of piping hot toasty bread that was soft inside and crunchy outside that had one of the best olive oils drizzled all over it with a good amount of sea salt that made the flavors pop in your mouth. That bread was potentially my favorite item.

We shared four pizzas. The first was goat cheese, bacon, and roasted garlic. The second was guanciale (pig jowl), radicchio, mozzarella, and an egg cracked on top. Picture below. The bummer was that one also had some weird anchovy paste that I did NOT LIKE. The third was fennel sausage, panna cheese, and sweet red onion. The fourth was a bianco pizza with four different amazing cheeses. One cheese had truffles in it. It also had crispy whole sage leaves on it that I could have eaten like chips.

For dessert we had their butterscotch pudding which had chunks of sea salt on top that were one of the most delicious combinations I have ever tasted in a dessert. We also shared a cassis sorbet, a blood orange sorbet, espresso gelato, stracciatella gelato, and banana gelato.

It was a fun night with lots of good food, good conversation, and fun celebrity sightings. The perfect night up in the city.

Here are some pictures from the Times article that were actual items we ate.