SPlog

This past week, Feb 5-7 Abigail and I had a speech and debate tournament in Jefferson City, MO. Abigail, my mom, and I left Wednesday afternoon the 4th, and traveled to Columbia to visit Ben and Ana, and baby Elijah. We attended their church services and got to hear Ben sing a special. Later that night Ben let me drive his car, which is a stick shift. I got to see my nephew for the first time. He is so cute. We took a lot of pictures.

We left early the next morning to start the speech tournament. The speech categories I was entered in were Expository, Impromptu, Persuasive, and Apologetics. Each of these I had three rounds, then I had semi-finals for Apologetics, and Finals for Expository.

There I met new friends, and old friends from last year. My speech and debate team did wonderful. I was able to see a lot of their speeches. I passed to go to the regional tournament with Expository (I got 5th place), and Apologetics.

Abigail also did real well. She got 5th place for her Dramatic Interpretation. So now we’re ready for the next tournament in St. Louis.

Wednesday Jan. 28, my family started traveling home from Ben and Ana’s. I went to my friends’ house to play some games. Silas, Moses, and I played 007 a couple of times, then we were to go sledding. I picked Abigail up, and met the others at our church, where a big hill is; great for sledding. We went down it a couple of times then decited to try our luck on a man made hill.

Our church is building a new building, and they have a big pile of dirt behind the church. This was covered in snow, and very steep, so naturally as a guy, I wanted to clime it and sled down. I had to be careful not to hit the huge rocks that were mixed in the dirt. But it turned out to be quite fun. I had a great time with my friends.

After we were done, we went to my youth pastor’s house. His wife had hot chocolate waiting for us. There we warmed up again and then got ready to go home.

Every day bring new life into this world, and on Monday night Jan. 26, a new life was born into the Paasch Family. Elijah Paasch was born at 6:48 pm. He was 6lb 8oz and 19 3/4inches.

My mom, dad, and sister went up Sunday night to be with the new parents. I stayed behind at home, I had a lot of things to do that week. While they were gone, we had an ice storm.

On Monday I went to teach piano lessons, then take my woodworking lessons also. While I was out at lessons, it started to rain. It rained and froze creating a thin clear layer of ice all over the roads. You couldn’t tell if you were driving on wet roads or frozen roads until you made a turn or applied the brakes. And if the roads were frozen, you prayed while you turned..lol. Anyway, I started home and passed 5 car accidents that were caused by the ice. I had a hard time getting into my own driveway. So needless to say, I stayed home for the rest of the day. I ended up watching Jurrassic Park.

That night Elijah was born, so I was kept up to date with how things were going. It was nice.

January the 18th, the teen class at Hillside Baptist had a youth all-nighter. After the Birthday and Anniversary fellowship Sunday night, the teens stayed afterwards and cleaned up, then got right in to playing games. We played basketball, and other outside sports first.

After a while of that we all went back inside and played some games like cops and robbers (a flashlight tag game where 1 or 2 use the flashlight to find everyone else.) We played this game downstairs in all the classrooms.

At Midnight we went to taco bell to get some food. After ordering our food, we then went back to the church and watched a movie while we ate. The movie we watched was Time Changer. After the movie the girls left to go the my youth pastor’s house, up the hill. And the guys stayed and played several rounds of pingpong.

We played cops and robbers for the rest of the early morning, until it was time to clean up. The girls came back over and made breakfast, then everyone got ready to go home. It was a fun night.

Sorry this is late… I’ve been busy.

This year, Christmas was a blast. My mom and dad, Abigail, and I celebrated Christmas the evening before. It was nice. I got Abigail a MP3 player, and she got me a gaming chair and Oceans Thirteen Movie. Both Abigail and I got a digital camera for also. We were so excited.

My whole direct family was at my house for Christmas Morning. We played a Christmas exchange game, and then exchanged our regular gifts to each other. It was nice.

I got to spend the whole day with family, including my niece and nephew. Here is a picture of me helping my nephew unwrap a gift.