Dear Jack: You Won 2nd Place in the Williamson County Lego Competition!

4 years, 8 months.

Dear Jack: You Won 2nd Place in the County Lego Competition!

Mommy and I are so proud of you! You had been confidently telling us, “Mommy… Daddy… I’m going to win.”

You were right.

Dear Jack: You Won 2nd Place in the County Lego Competition!

This past weekend as soon as we got in the doors of the Williamson County Fair, we headed straight over to the Lego tables to see how your entry did in the competition.

Right away, I blurted out to you and Mommy, “Jack, you won 2nd place!”

That means out of all the 4 to 8 year-olds in Williamson County who entered the competition, the judges thought your entry was the 2nd best. Seriously, that’s a huge deal!

I love the fact that you competed with kids who were nearly twice your age and still won.

One of the main things the judges were looking for was originality. I can solemnly testify the 3 “space vehicles” you created were completely your own.

Mommy and I had no part in helping you at all.

Building Legos is what you do. You’re constantly building new creations every day; only to tear them apart and come up with new ones by the end of the week.

I’ve actually seen you make more complicated Lego inventions than the ones you entered. The winning entry just happened to be the collection of the ones you made that particular week.

Mommy and I have been saying it for a while now… and your teacher Ms. Aimee has been saying it too…

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“We have a future engineer on our hands. What else would Jack possibly be?”

You love to make your own Lego inventions- and they always have to be symmetrical. No one taught you that stipulation, but it’s an unbreakable law in your code to building Legos.

With all that being said, you’re just as talented at building actual Lego sets with instructions. You recently spent some of your own money on a new set that was targeted for ages 8 to 14.

I barely helped you at all. Actually, I was relieved you pretty much took care of building it because I might have gotten too frustrated to finish it.

You and I made an unboxing video for the set: Legend of Chima: Eris’ Fire Eagle Flyer.

Your 2nd place Lego award is your first ever real award! Mommy and I just couldn’t be prouder of you!

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Oh yeah, and while we were at the fair, you also won your very first game prize. You popped balloons with darts and got to pick out an animal: You named her Libby the Lizard.

You’re a natural!

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We also had a lot of fun this week because we celebrated Mommy’s 34th birthday at Whole Foods, with vegan pizza and cake!

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And you even drew these really cool pictures for her!

Love,

Daddy

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My Christian Faith in a “Social Media Fearing” Society

If I ever ended up on a reality TV show, one where they had me living in a house with people of opposing beliefs and lifestyles and habits, I’m not sure there would be enough drama from me to make the episode controversial enough to be considered modern entertainment.

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There are 2 main reasons for this:

Here’s the 1st reason.

Despite me being concrete on what I believe in and stand for, as my Christian faith is the basis of my existence, my role is not to “convert” anyone who is close-minded to what I believe.

I will gladly share my faith with anyone who I believe is searching for hope; which is what I believe Jesus and His followers demonstrated in the New Testament.

But Jesus didn’t seem to argue with nonbelievers and skeptics.

The people He seemed to really have an issue with were the people of His day who believed they already had their golden ticket into Heaven, but who weren’t willing to truly surrender their hearts to God’s will for their lives; which typically involved simply loving their neighbors as themselves.

(Apparently though, it’s not that simple; otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this today.)

Therefore, I feel I have no business in arguing with a “non-believer” of Christ, the Messiah; whether it’s a person of a different religion, or a skeptic of religion, or someone who simply doesn’t participate in religion whatsoever.

I feel that if my faith is not evident through my attitude and actions, words alone definitely won’t help the situation.

From a secular (and marketing) perspective, what good is a professing Christian on a reality TV show if he or she isn’t willing to argue, lose their cool, and demonstrate the opposite of Jesus’s mentality? The hypocrisy of Christians sells.

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But if a Christian is actually helping others overseas to get access to clean water, that’s apparently not worth prime time advertising dollars.

I feel the media is quick to give pedestals to the most opinionated and argumentative professing Christians, which helps make the rest of us appear as fools.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I fully accept my title as “fool for Christ’s sake,” as the Apostle Paul puts it.

But what if there were more examples of… I guess I could simply say… level-headed, nonjudgmental Christians in the media?

I don’t think America is really accustomed to that.

Here’s the 2nd reason I don’t think I would make for a controversial enough episode in a reality TV show:

I would quickly and openly admit I am not perfect.

There’s a stereotype that Christians are the most judgmental people; that they think they are “holier than thou.”

If I was on a reality TV show, the 1st thing I would proclaim to the other people in the house was that I definitely, absolutely do not believe I am better than anyone else.

I would share with them that my understanding of the Christian faith is not that we are people who think we are perfect.

It’s quite the opposite. I know for a fact I am far from perfect and therefore have no right to judge anyone else. Instead, I depend on God’s grace not only for eternal salvation from my imperfect state of being, but also for constant salvation from my greedy, selfish mindset.

I believe we are all sinners in need of God’s grace. I’m simply in the same depraved state as everyone else.

Our society (on both sides of the fence) places so much value on the morality/immorality of homosexuality, as the controversial topic only further divides America in its own civil culture war.

I remain publicly mute on the topic, because I’d rather focus on the things listed in the Bible that I personally struggle with every day:

Like pride.

And greed.

And gossip.

(Those are items people tend to overlook in the New Testament the moment they see a reference of homosexuality; even when those things are listed together with homosexuality in the same verse.)

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Our society actually places a high value on gossip, in case you haven’t noticed.

What should be a shameful thing is instead worshiped.

Let me be clear: While our society is divided on homosexuality, we love gossip.

In actuality, gossip is condemned in the Bible; the whole way throughout the book.

But it’s easier for us to question the things in the Bible that only some people relate to, like homosexuality… while the more identifiable issues to the mainstream, like pride and greed and gossip, are virtually excused.

So if I was in a reality TV show, my role would be to help other people alongside me. For example, if I was placed in a house with self-proclaimed slobs, I would help them do their dishes every day before I would allow myself to lose my temper with them.

Granted, I would still fear my scenes could be edited to be taken out of context, packaged into bite-size morsels, so convenient to be blasted all over Twitter- making me out to be the judgmental character I most wished to disassociate myself from.

After all, I fear that in some regards, as we live in a time when the Internet has become the modern day Tower of Babel, we have learned to fear social media (and its potential backlash) more than God Himself.

At the same time, isn’t it safe to say that we as a culture even worship social media, as well?

It’s sad, but that concept helps me better understand the concept of both worshiping and fearing God; though at first it seems like a paradox.

In a reality TV show setting, I would consider myself as a “competitor” in a contest, whose agenda was to prove that Christianity is serving others; not judging them.

Christianity is about demonstrating love, by being patient and kind and understanding and forgiving.

If we dumb down Christianity to “heaven or hell” or “traditional marriage or gay marriage” or “Republican or Democrat”, then I feel we’re not talking about the same faith Jesus taught His followers.

It seems that would be a compromised and ultimately misleading version of the very Gospel we are called to share with our “neighbors”…

Now, the question is, would an American audience buy into a concept so revolutionary… that serving others, not judging them, is what faith in Jesus is all about?

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Dear Jack: 6 Months of Living in Our New House

4 years, 8 months.

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Dear Jack,

As they say… time flies when you’re having fun.

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That must be why it definitely doesn’t feel like we’ve been living in our new house for 6 months.

A week ago made 6 months that we began moving in our stuff and began sleeping there; but it took a solid week after that before it felt like we truly living there and not simply still moving in.

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As of today, I wanted to document what our house looked like at this point in history; so I walked around room to room, taking pictures.

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One of my proudest decisions in staging our house is that we purposely don’t have a TV downstairs in the living room. It’s important to me that conversation is not stolen in our house.

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If I could come up with a theme for our house, it would be this: Quality time.

That’s so important. We have to make the most of our time together despite our busy schedules as individuals.

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As you read this years from now, I want you to hear me say this once again:

We worked very hard to get into this house.

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It required paying off all our debts (including cars and student loans), then living by an extremely strict budget (including no smart phones), in order to start saving for the down payment on our house.

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Something that was very important to Mommy and me was to make sure we raise you (as well as any future siblings) in a good school system. To do that, we had to move to the “right” county: Williamson.

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We pour our lives into you. We want the best for you. Being able to live in this house makes me feel like our family is exactly where we need to be.

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Living in this house has truly made us happy, content, and at peace. Our quality of life has never been better.

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But again, this wasn’t handed to us.

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And it’s not simply about how much money you make, as much as it is how you manage the money you do make. We worked very hard to get here… and still do.

Love,

Daddy

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Dear Jack: Green Meanie’s Protein Conspiracy

4 years, 8 months. 

2015 Chevy Colorado Maxwell Air Force Base Road Trip

Dear Jack,

As of today, you are officially 4 years and 8 months old. At this point, you’re basically 5 as far as I’m concerned. But it’s not official until we’re celebrating in Destin, Florida; as we plan to do for your actual 5th birthday… still 4 months away.

This week I finally got to publish, “2015 Chevy Colorado Maxwell Air Force Base Road Trip,” which tells the whole story (with dozens of pictures and several custom videos I made) of us driving down to Montgomery to see your cousin Matt graduate boot camp and to celebrate your cousin Calla’s 4th birthday in Fort Payne, where I’m from.

2015 Chevy Colorado Maxwell Air Force Base Road Trip

(The pictures you see here are taken from that story.)

For the past several weeks, I’ve been sharing our newest Jack-Man webisodes with you in my letters.  (We’ve made 17 Jack-Man webisodes so far!) However, I’ve decided that you and I shall take a break from them for a while.

One reason is simply because it’s so hot outside right now. With my Green Meanie costume, it’s already hot enough, but then to be running around in the sun for an hour or more at a time with you… I say it’s just too much right now.

Another reason we’re taking a Jack-Man break for right now is to test out a theory: that perhaps I can get just as many hits on YouTube by playing as my Green Meanie character to make informative videos, which require much less editing on my part.

For example, each Jack-Man video is about 3 and a half minutes long, but requires at least one hour of editing for each of those minutes.

But I can shoot a Green Meanie video in about 3 minutes and it only takes 20 minutes to edit.

Therefore, I’ve now published 3 of these Green Meanie videos in the past week. First I did one where Green Meanie shares his “Vegan Protein Smoothie” with everyone by demonstrating with a blender.

Then yesterday I made one where Green Meanie explains what he calls “The Protein Conspiracy.” He points out that most Americans believe we are in serious danger of not consuming enough protein, when in reality, we’re consuming too much protein, which leads to cancer and disease.

He goes on to point out that, ironically, most people assume vegans (like Green Meanie) don’t get enough protein. Green Meanie responds by using himself as a living, human experiment.

Since he hasn’t consumed any meat, dairy, or eggs in over 2 years (and no meat a year before that), he in theory should be just skin and bones; lacking so much protein.

Green Meanie then simply explains the 6 sources of his daily protein:

Veggies, fruit, grains, beans, nuts, and seeds.

So we’ll see how the free market accepts my Green Meanie character’s videos. You never know what might happen as a resort of something so silly yet deliberately educational and entertaining…

Love,

Daddy

P.S.

At the same time, I am very excited that last week, Health & Medicine Magazine reached out to me regarding my “Vegan Life” page here on Family Friendly Daddy Blog.

They have offered me a one-page space in theirmagazine, where I can share my thoughts, recipes, experience, photos and the most popular posts I have.

Health & Medicine Magazine is a high quality healthy lifestyle print publication that will be distributed free of charge for our readers throughout Florida. They wish to inspire many more people to join the healthy life and are working on securing funding via the Kickstarter platform.

In Florida, there are not such healthy free publications. So Health & Medicine Magazine plans to fill that void with their beautiful, quality publication promoting healthy lifestyle (fitness, yoga, healthy food, actual trends in health, nutrition, beauty etc).

Their magazine is completely free of charge to its readers.

Anyone can visit their Kickstarter page to catch a glimpse of what their magazine looks like and is all about: http://kck.st/1SZZqgm

Dear Jack: I Could and Would Die for You

4 years, 5 months.

Dear Jack: I Could and Would Give My Life for You

Dear Jack,

Without any hesitation, I could and would give my life for you.

However, I believe there is nothing heroic or surprising about that statement whatsoever.

Instead, it’s simply common knowledge, I would assume; that a father would simply in a moment either risk his life or give his life if he saw his child in serious danger. Cue a relevant song:

The reason I recently gave this thought is because recently when we took our mini vacation to Pensacola, we walked out to the end of the long fishing pier at Casino Beach. Mommy and I took turns holding you up to the guard rail to let you see over into the water.

(We were all surprised to the see the man next to us catch a small shark; which he ultimately was required to throw back into the ocean.)

As we left the pier and walked back to the beach, you asked me this:

“Daddy, what would happen if another child’s daddy or mommy was holding them and they pretended like they were going to throw their child into the water, but then they really did, but they didn’t mean to?”

I was amazed at such a deep, hypothetical question from a 4 and a half year-old little boy.

My answer was this:

“They would do whatever it takes to get their child back. If it were you that fell in, I would immediately jump in after you.”

Granted, I’m not sure I would survive the hit of impact of the water (that pier is pretty high off of the water), or that the water would absolutely be deep enough to save my fall.

Either way, I would follow you, even to death. Cue another relevant song:

This reminds me of a scene on one of my favorite shows, Lost; during the final season one of the main characters gets trapped in a submarine, after a bomb explodes, causing water to rush in.

Spoiler alert! Even though Lost ended almost exactly 5 years ago:

Her legs are pinned down from the explosion, leaving her upper half out of the water, as her husband desperately tried to bend the steel bars in order to free her.

After several attempts, he realizes it’s impossible. Though he himself was free and could escape instead of drowning, he chooses to stay with his wife; dying with her in the flood.

It was one of the most touching moment in Lost for me.

But ultimately, it wasn’t heroic. You undoubtedly would die for the people you love the most; without hesitation.

So yes, it’s a dark thought to think about you falling in the water or that we would not spend many more decades together here on Earth.

I just want you to know- I can’t imagine living the rest of my life with you or Mommy. If I felt I was about to lose either of you, I would instantly throw my life in front whatever it was to try to prevent anything bad from happening to you two.

Not because I’m some great guy, but simply because you and Mommy are my life. What would life be without you?

Love,

Daddy