Yesterday evening we had our annual Church Dinner and Church Conference. I decided to give my new camera a good workout and snap photo after photo during the dinner as I would visit with those who ate.

In the morning, during announcements, I announced that I would out-eat ANYONE in black olives (church dinners ALWAYS have an abundance of black olives – why is that?) I was challenged by Dan Freeman to an olive-eating-contest. Final score: Dan 30, Stevan 33. (I didn’t sleep too well last night!)

Before we ate supper, we had a prayer time for the meal and as I snapped photos of “praying heads”, I noticed one who was acting very similarly to a young Stevan. Bailey is quite the character!

It was a great time with our church family. Jess and I ended the evening with the Freemans, Irvines, and Bethany & Thomas @ Hacienda for a “before Survivor” snack!

Okay, so there was no “blank” vote, but I was correct in figuring the last 3, then 2, then Tom as the $1,000,000 winner!

Now on to how we ended up watching the finale..

We got home last night after 9:30PM. We had DVD-R’ed the finale 2-hour special (as advertised all week long on CBS) from 7-9.

At about 10 till 10 we turned on the television, fired up the DVD player and began to watch the finale.

Note to self: the “Surivor Finale” is approximately 3 HOURS long NOT just 2 HOURS.

The DVD “chapter” ended with the jury voting on the remaining Survivors and we had NO IDEA who had actually won the MILLION (we both hoped it was Tom, but didn’t have the confirmation)

My poor wife and I both had a hard time accepting the fact that we missed the entire LIVE reunion show, and especially the announcement of who won Surivor. Jess said, “get on the internet” – then we realized that I left my laptop at the church and my desktop is still “under the weather”, so I fired up the Dell Axim PDA and surfed the slow internet on a palm-top only to realize that in California, the live show hasn’t been aired, so the internet is NOT going to tell us.

At about 20 minutes till 12 (CST) we made a decision to call – even wake up if necessary – my folks in South Carolina.

Mom and Dad graciously stayed on the line until well after 1AM their time to give us the rundown of how things went on the finale!

It was QUITE the stressful evening!

4:27PM Prediction: Jennifer is the next one voted off, leaving Ian, Tom & Katie. Ian, out of the “goodness” of his heart (a.k.a. LOVE for Katie) can’t vote for Katie because of an earlier “promise”, puts a BLANK vote in and in-turn gets voted off himself, leaving Katie and Tom to fight over the million. Tom wins $1,000,000 by a jury vote.

WE SOON SHALL SEE.

Woke up late this morning, did some apartment-cleaning, and am now enjoying “Escape from Alcatraz” – one of my favorite Clint Eastwood flicks.

If I ever have to escape from prison this movie has definitely given me some GREAT ideas on how to do that!

Jess and I headed to Ft. Wayne last night after work – we headed to Kay Jewelers to get our rings inspected and cleaned (an every 6-month chore to keep our warranty up-to-date). After ring-cleaning and mall-walking, we ate at the Olive Garden. Yum.

When we got home, Jess and I finally got the chance to watch our taped Amazing Race finale. Uchenna & Joyce deserved to win for sure, though I really wanted Rob and Amber to win another million! Oh well.

Dr. Steve Lennox is our guest speaker tomorrow. I’m looking forward to that. Tomorrow night we have our annual church conference.