Archives For December 2004

Yesterday, while traveling from the hotel in Kentucky to our home in Warsaw, I saw TWO MORE trucks being towed!

This time Jess WAS asleep, but I just couldn’t do what I had DREAMED of doing – pulling in behind the truck and slamming on the brake, screaming, and honking the horn.

I’m such a wimp.


truck 1
Can’t you just imagine the hysterical response?

truck 2
Cool picture.

Mat Kearney - BulletPicked up the debut album “Bullet” by Mat Kearney today off of iTunes. I got the tip that this was a worthy album from my buddy Erik Fisher’s blog.

The album rocks! I downloaded the free track, “Bullet” first from www.matkearney.com – and liked it enough to sample the other tracks on iTunes and then spent the $9.99 and get the whole thing!

Erik described it as a mix of Cold Play’s Chris Martin and some hip-hop star!

That’s nearly a perfect description. There’s enough musical greatness to make this a non-hip-hop album, and enough rap-style-lyrics to make this an incredible colaboration.

If you like Paul Wright, you’ll LOVE Mat Kearney! Check it out.

SAFE AND SOUND

12.31.2004 — 2 Comments

As we pulled back in to Warsaw last night, it was a “good” feeling to be home!

Sure we weren’t so excited about unpacking, taking down Christmas, and immersing ourselves in our 800-square-foot apartment again, but it really was good to be home.

We made it to Indy from our hotel in Kentucky in 3-hours, so we called my buddy Kory and had lunch with him @ Chili’s. Good times!

We said goodbye to Kory and finished the trek to Warsaw. We were in town by 4PM. We delivered the car back to Momma Sweeny and said our goodbye’s to the Impala, too!

Next stop – Helfrich’s. Good times visiting with our friends and then a trip to WalMart with Craig and then we met up with Jess at Owen’s (grocery store) to do some New Year’s Eve party supplies! We’re going to have a BLAST tonight.

I go to WalMart @ 12:30 to try on my contacts this afternoon!

I’m pretty sure I didn’t get the memo about the office being closed today.

No one is here and it’s after 9AM. Oh well, good to get some work done and play “catch up”.

Finally, a picture update here on StevanSheets.com

You’re welcome!



Our trip South challenged us with roads like this. Thankfully we had this “JEVIC” truck in front of us – leading the way and giving us the “signals” when trouble was coming up!


During one part of the trip, we were actually motionless for 2-hours! My ADD kicked in and I had to get out of the car. I tried to throw snowballs at oncoming traffic (it was actually moving), but it was too far across the median.


The traffic was MILES long – this made it impossible for us to finish our trip to South Carolina like originally planned, so we had to get a hotel.


Gross Hotel Picture #1


Gross Hotel Picture #2


Gross Hotel Picture #3


In the morning, THIS is what we saw as we jumped back onto the Interstate! A beautiful ice-covered landscape.


Ice-covered landscape, take 2.


More ice.


What would a trip through Knoxville, TN be without stopping at BIG DADDY FIREWORKS?


I own these now.


Jess graciously posed for this photo, though for some reason she didn’t want what she was holding as much as I did!


When we finally arrived in SC, we DID have Christmas dinner on Christmas day – this was the scene at the table.


The following day was Sunday and I spoke at Open Door. Following the service, I spent some “catch up time” with my buddy Andrew!


What a guy!


Dad is “Pa-Da-Da-Da” to Andrew and Andrew LOVES my Dad!


After this photo was snapped, Andrew took Dad to the ground and put him in a head-lock. (not really, but you could imagine!)


On Tuesday we headed to North Carolina to my Grandparents’ – I got to play Santa as we distributed the gifts.


My 93-year-old Great-Grandma was with us and boy was she sharp as a tack!


Uncle David modeling his Joe Boxer pillow cases – given by my parents.


The trip back to Indiana is underway and this photo HAD to be snapped – obviously a truck in-tow, but if only Jess was sleeping before I pulled in behind this truck – I could have had quite the fun time waking her up with a slam-on-the brake, and a yell!


We’re finally here in our hotel – a Holiday Inn Express – and what do we see in the lobby? An EcoQuest air purifier. (Mom, this photo is for YOU!)


Our room – a King Suite … with a …


JACUZZI!

We’ll finish the trip tomorrow morning. We’re enjoying our room and are heading out for dinner at O’Charlies!

This has been some vacation!

Wow, today was a full-day!

This morning we woke up at 7AM and headed to breakfast with Dad at 9. Mom was still feeling pretty bad this morning.

We headed to a breakfast buffet that was closed, so we drove to the “other” breakfast buffet in town and it, too was closed.

We settled for Denny’s. It was great!

After Denny’s it was back to the homestead to relax for a bit before leaving for Downtown Greenville. We arrived downtown and quickly found the West End Spa and found a place to park in the historic downtown area. Jess and I walked down the street a ways and found a coffee shop and grabbed some drinks. We sat for a bit and when it was time, headed back to the Spa.

I left Jess at 2PM and walked right back towards that coffee shop because in between the coffee shop and the Spa was an ARMY NAVY SURPLUS store – every guys FAVORITE store to “shop” in.

I bought nothing.

I saw TONS of interesting, MUST HAVE items, but bought nothing.

That’s called discipline!

Afterwards, I jumped in the car and headed to Audio Solutions, USA – an audio/video supply company that my buddy John Radford works for. I spent the next 2+ hours chatting and hanging with John and the other guys at the company! It was a great reunion for sure. I don’t think I had seen John in almost 2 years!

It was time to pick Jess up just after 5, so I arrived at the Spa and met my now GLOWING wife. She was puddy in my arms.

She went on and on about how awesome the spa was and how I was the greatest man in the world. More about the first thing than the second, however…

On the way back to Spartanburg, we stopped and met the OTHER Radford brother – James and his parents – a family that I was VERY close to while growing up in the Chesnee/Mayo area. James is now a Youth Pastor at the Missionary Wesleyan Church in North Carolina – about 15 miles from his house.

We took a quick trip up to his church to see the place and see atleast WHERE James’ ministry takes place. It was just great. It’s awesome to think that this guy – who I grew up with has felt the same call upon his life to enter into full-time Christian ministry. It’s even cooler to think that his Senior Pastor is our former Youth Pastor!

Wow. God sure does work!

We dropped him off back at his home and came home for some oyster stew and homemade pizzas. Dad was tonight’s chef – he did a great job.

We finished our meal and spent some great time just chatting. Dad eventually brought out his sleep apnea machine. I tried it on! I looked kinda like this.

Just plain weird.

We’re planning on hitting the road tomorrow morning after we pack everything up and make a couple stops. We’ll make it as far as Richmond, KY tomorrow night where we have reserved a room at the Holiday Inn!