Tonight was opening night for “Christmas with the Murphy’s” our non-traditional comedy play that we’ve been preparing for over the last few months. Jess and I were to play a newly married couple with a new baby daughter (type-casting for sure).

Jess and Ella came down with the flu a few days ago and will not be able to attend any of the showings, therefore Jess will NOT be able to play my wife and deliver her lines. This is definitely a hard thing for her after all the preparation and excitement of being in this performance.

Thankfully Ms. McAfee will take Jess’ place and did a fantastic job tonight of delivering her lines after only a day of preparation!

Tonight’s performance went fairly well. One big mistake on my part went as follows:

My conversation with “Scooter” as supposed to go this way:

SCOOTER: “Where’s Sharon?”
ME: “She’s in the back feeding the baby.”
SCOOTER: “But where is she?”
ME: “She’s in one of the back bedrooms.”

Instead it went something like this:

SCOOTER: “Where’s Sharon?”
ME: “She’s in the bedroom feeding one of the babies.”

Where in the world I got “babies” from I will never know, but for some reason during last night’s dress rehearsal and tonight’s performance I have flubbed this line each time.

I will not mess it up tomorrow. (Positive reinforcement)

Jess & Ella are both feeling better and are free from most of their flu-symptoms, but we feel it best for them both to stay low and away from others as they recover from their illnesses. The doctor prescribed LOTS of fluids so this household is running freely with mucho Gatorade & Pedialite, water, and juices!

HURRAY! HURRAY! HURRAY!

You should see it!

Tonight I did my second-to-last message in a series called, “Going All In”.

I’ve been working closely with my youth pastor buddy, Jason Denniston as we are both preaching this series at the same time for our respective youth groups. We starting with merely the same topic and main idea and building two completely different messages each week, chatting as we prepare and phoning each other after we’ve taught the lesson.

It’s been going fairly well, though it’s definitely stretching my personal sermon-preparing skills and stamina. Next week will finish off the series and then we’ll enjoy a BOX Christmas Party on the following week.

Good times last night at the District Christmas Banquet.

Took some pictures. (of course)

Here’s a taste of the full photoset (available by clicking here)

Glen & Natalie Robinson chatting with Dr. Willis

the cutest baby in attendance

The Mossburg Strings – 4 brothers and a sister who all play the violin – they were incredible, really!

Ella putting the hurting on Hofer

Kevin Batman & Mrs. McCallum, pictured here without Teresa (Kevin’s wife & Joy’s daughter) who’s lifetime wish is to be featured on stevansheets.com – sadly she left early last night and didn’t get her photo taken by yours truly. Maybe next year?

Another stevansheets.com fan – Steve Colter who paid me $100 to put his picture online (I wish)

Dear Discovery Channel,

Your new show, Man vs. Wild is a joke. Yes, a joke. In your new show, “Bear” (is that even his real name?) goes to remote locations with a full camera crew attempting to show us survival skills.

What in the world inspired you to replace Survivorman with Man vs. Wild? I miss Stroud’s REAL-LIFE survival show where HE was the camera crew and HE was much more the “average” survivor. Bear is to “pretty” and skilled in all things wilderness to teach us “average” folks how to survive real-life situations.

So, I’m asking you to consider another season of Survivorman (if you’re already working on this, please let us know)!

Sincerely,

Stevan Sheets

PS – about that camera crew that follows Bear on “Man vs. Wild” – could you please give us some inside or “behind the scenes” to help qualm some of us who bicker over how many there must be and how they work with Bear?