Brian and Joelle

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas…it was another fantastic day at the Grove household.  As usual, the weather was absolutely gorgeous at about 70 degrees with no clouds.  Joelle and I spent the morning and early afternoon at Bart and Heidi’s in San Marcos after we drug ourselves out of bed from a midnight service.  This might’ve been our last year attending the midnight Christmas Eve service at our church for awhile.  I didn’t get her anything extravagant this year….our finances are tied up in the yard right now.  Dante, Beth, and our cute little niece Sierra are in from Miami and are staying at Bart & Heidi’s for the next couple weeks.  It was fun to spend Christmas together in their new house…although Dante was sick in bed for most of the day.  We spent the rest of the day at my parents house and my brother was sick all day.  Joelle and I later made a trip to the hospital because she was experiencing some funky pregnancy stuff and later my brother and Shannon took Zeke to childrens hospital in San Diego…..making it a truly eventful day.  But, we are all healthy and grateful to God for another year together. 

Is it just me or is it becoming more apparent that our nation wants nothing to do with Christ in Christmas and would much rather have a happy holiday….although there is no holiday to celebrate without the birth of Christ.  What is the holiday without Christ’s birth?  Happy shopping…..hope you find the best deal?  Happy ‘just another reason to drink’ holiday?  I think it is comical how our society is trying to change the focus of celebration from Christ to anything and everything else.  It seems people are threatened by the very mention of Christ or Jesus’ name these days.  Maybe they feel that the best way to remove the feeling of judgement or a guilty conscience is to remove the Judge.  Seems like a thin veil to me….like a child pulling a sheet over their head playing peek-a-boo with mom or dad.  Christ did come to this Earth that He created, He did live, He did die, He did rise again…and He is coming back again.  He stepped in and altered history entirely….we testify to this every time we write the date.  There is BC (before Chirst) and AD (ano domini) or after Christ’s birth, which of course is also offensive since it realtes to Christ so now they are trying to call it BCE (before common era) and CE (common era).  What exactly happened between BCE and CE to give cause for dividing history then?  Sorry for the little sidetrack here….I just don’t understand why people can’t let it be Christmas….

 God bless your all….

Can you believe there is only two months left before there is a little girl in our family??  Believe me….I can’t.  Joelle and I started  the Bradley method birthing classes last Tuesday and it is a whole new world.  There were about 6 other couples in our class that were just as clueless as we were so that was cool.  There is plenty of reading to do and some homework but I think it is worth it to be as prepared as humanly possible for the birth process….however long it may be.  Joelle’s desire is to have a natural birth with no meds and no C-section and this method teached you how to plan for that.  Like Mr. T says….I predict pain!  We switched doctors a couple weeks ago because Joelle really wanted to be able to trust the OB if he made the decision that she needed a C-section….not because he wanted to go home.  We met with him last week and I really like him.  He is very transparent and we’re told has the lowest C-section rate in San Diego County.  We will now deliver out of Scripps Encintas rather than Tri City Hospital. 

Sometime soon….maybe in January….we’ll need to get a game plan together for decorating the baby’s room.  Joelle wants to go with a lady bug theme which can be very cute.  Hopefully we can get my mom to airbrush some artwork and make it look neat-o.  Her baby-showers begin in January I think and I can gaurantee there will be no stupid ‘diaper’ games.

Our Christmas card came out pretty good this year….although I wanted Joelle to dress up like Santa Claus and she really wasn’t into it.  Maybe next year.

We’ve had rain now for the past two weekends in a row….must be a record.  While we enjoy the rain and certainly need the rain, it has put a damper on the yard work.  I don’t think I’ll have the yard done for Joelle by Christmas….which was my gift to her.  I did get the porch swing delivered on Ebay last week (from Lousiana)and I stained it over the weekend….hopefully I can install it soon. 

I picked up some wood (dried oak and eucalyptus) on Craigslist last weekend and it has been wonderful to have a fire burning in the house.  We’re actually surprised how well it heats up the place.  We printed our Christmas cards this weekend also so look for those in the mail soon.  Joelle is feeling good still…but gets pretty tired quick.  We start our Bradley-method classes this Tuesday night so I’ll be sure to post my thoughts on that.  Sorry this is so RANDOM.  Hope all is well with everybody….

Wow…..where has the time gone?  Christmas is here already, I’m still wondering where summer went, and my wife is another year older (but still looks like 22). 

So we went to Target last Friday night to get a Christmas tree and they refused to sell us one.  Their ‘logic’…..the trees were wet because it had been raining.  I asked the manager if she was serious….guess so.  So we went across the street to good ole Home Depot and bought a beautiful Noble Fir tree that was actually larger and cheaper than Target.  The best part is that there were two other couples buying trees…that’s it!  In-n-out in five minutes at HD…..forget about it!  Anyhow, our tree (and our house) is decorated masterfully by my beautiful wife (click here for the tree).
Joelle is feeling pretty good still aside from the pain in her hips and sparatic sleep.  AND….today is her BIRTHDAY!!!!  YEAY…but I don’t think she’s as happy about it as I am. 

May God Bless you during this special time of year.