25 Random facts about Tim

This is something that people are doing in Facebook, so I thought I post it here, too. Just for fun. Also, there has not been a post in a while and I don't have any picture of Jackson with me, so this will have to do for now.

I was born in Spencer, Iowa, but moved away after 1 year.

I spent half my life in Denver, Colorado, but have only skied in Colorado 3 times.

I still love the Denver Broncos. One of the best moments of my life was when they beat Green Bay for their first Super Bowl win.

I have had stitches in my head on 4 separate occasions and fractured a bone in my right hand on 3 separate occasions.

In high school I got pulled over by the police 4 times and never got a ticket. In the first two years after college, I got 3 speeding tickets. I have not gotten one since.

I have been to 49 states. Alaska is the one I have yet to visit.

I played 2 seasons of Jr. High basketball at a tiny school called Aurora Christian Academy. I only took one shot in those 2 seasons, but I made it. Sadly, it was in the game against Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind, who had beaten us earlier in the year. True story.

In college I played on an intramural basketball team named Elky Pro, after the urinal mat. The requirement to be on the team was being horrible at basketball. We lost every game by an average of almost 100 points. We designed trick plays and had fans with signs and wore funny clothes. It was incredibly fun.

God gave me a highly competitive nature but very little athletic ability. Not a good combination.

I got Varsity Letters in Speech and Track my Senior year of high school. In Track it was a Senior letter but I was still happy with it.

I might be the only person in the history of Bethel University to participate in a Track meet and a theater production in the same day.

My first girlfriend, when I was 17, broke up with me after 2 and a half weeks.

My second girlfriend, when I was 20, broke up with me after 2 and a half weeks. That was when she told me that she already had a boyfriend in another state.

The first girlfriend, Holly, and I remained friends and her cousin, Heather Whitestone, became Miss America in 1995. We all hung out once and Holly told me that Heather would have gone out with me if I had asked her. Maybe she was saying that to be nice but it sure felt good.

I am an ordained, but not licensed, pastor in West Virginia. Only in West Virginia.

I ran my first Cross Country race in college with my shorts on backward. A girl that I liked at the time pointed it out to me after the race.

I spent the summer of 1994 doing ministry with gang kids in San Francisco. Part of my heart is still there.

I bear a striking resemblance to General George Custer. When I would travel to the Pine Ridge Reservation for work, I often wondered how many people realized that. (For the record, I am not a fan of George Custer. He was a bad man.)

I met my wife, Heidi, on a blind date. Chris Heng, my best friend, convinced us to meet. We were married 15 months after we met.

I worked for 6+ years at YouthWorks! Inc., leading mission trips. It is the favorite of the different jobs I have held in my life.

Heidi pierced my ear with a piercing stud and an old apple. She finally pushed it through on the 5th try. It hurt a lot. All to save a few bucks by not getting it done at the mall.

My mother cried when she saw my tattoo. I was 28 years old at the time.

My wedding day is one of the happiest days of my life. Getting married to Heidi was one of the best decisions I have ever made. She’s awesome and I love her a lot. If I had known how much fun marriage is, I would have done it years ago. Of course, Heidi would only have been in high school, so that doesn’t really work.

The birth of my son, Jackson, was amazing. I love the little guy so much. When we had to take him to the ER a few days after he was born, I cried for the first time in 20 years.

I have been a Christian my whole life. My faith means everything to me. If I am known as someone who brought glory to God and loved his family and friends, I cannot think of anything better.

three weeks today and counting

well, we are at 3 weeks old and counting. i am pretty much a total zombie, not really ready to get back to the real world yet. it's great to have Tim home on the weekends though. but i think we are managing ok during the week....sort of... me and Jackson are both still alive, so that's good news :) Tim and I even made it out for our 4th anniversary with the mini.

can't wait till he starts to smile when he's awake

ready for his first appearance at church, he was a big hit of course

"Everything changes now" and other thoughts

A few days after Jackson was born, I (Tim) talked to some friends and they all said “everything changes now.” I knew things would change with a baby but I did not really understand it. Slowly but surely I am beginning to comprehend. I must clarify that these changes are good. There is a sense of responsibility and a depth of love that seem at times to overwhelm me. The absolute, gigantic responsibility to take care of a completely helpless human being is sobering and humbling but, most of all, exciting. I picture myself with an adult Jackson who loves God and is well liked by the people in his life and I can think of no greater accomplishment. Winning a Super Bowl for the Broncos could not compare in any way to raising Jackson from cute baby to strong man. Also, I have loved my family, friends, and the Heidster, (and my cat, Sinbad, in my youth) but the love of a father for his son is altogether different. Even though I have only known the little guy for less than 3 weeks, I love him so much. What a tremendous gift from God Heidi and I have received. We are so grateful.

Last night Heidi and I took Jackson and had dinner to celebrate our 4th anniversary. The last four years have been great and love the Heidster more now than 4 years ago. We had a great dinner and enjoyed our time as a family. I think Jackson was eyeing my shrimp but he had to settle more milk. Poor kid.

Alas, this will probably be my last football post for a while. In case you missed it, my Denver Broncos completed the most humiliating collapse in NFL history by losing three straight games at the end of the season and missing the playoffs. That included a 52-21 drubbing by San Diego the last game of the season. The Broncos coach was promptly fired and soon replaced by a 32 year old prodigy who will hopefully lead my team to glory. The defense will be completely rebuilt, which is good since it was one of the worst defenses in the league last year and set an NFL record for least amount of takeaways in a season. There is no where to go but up on defense. Even if they are in the middle of the pack next year, it will be a huge improvement. In an earlier blog post I said I would use my Elway jersey as toilet paper if the Broncos lost. I decided to instead just not wear it for a while. The pain is just too great. My fellow football fans understand.

every day he looks older....

look how cute i am!

right after the birth

check out my cheeks!

a few more pics for his public, including one of his sad little IV. what a little trooper he was in the hospital. our little champ! had to get blood draw every 4 hours :(

Yay for pictures!!

Did we catch everyone?

For anyone that has missed the details on our sweet little boy, I am copying the notice I posted on our facebook pages to give a little summary of our weekend:

A few of you have asked why we are here (Children's Hospital) and we haven't gotten to notify everyone yet. Early Friday morning Jackson had a fever of 102.6 so we took him to the ER at about 5am. He didn't have the fever anymore when we got there, but they did a full sepsis work-up with blood work, urine sample and a spinal tap. It was pretty brutal to witness, we had to leave the room for the spinal tap. We had only had him home about 36 hours from Abbott before we were re-admitted to Children's for about 4 days :) Not a great way to start off parenthood, but we are managing ok now. That last couple days have been pretty rough, but God has been gracious to us and Jackson is in good health. We go home today, Monday, and look forward to going back to basics and establishing a family routine that does NOT include hospitals. Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us, we REALLY appreciate it. God is good.

*I keep forgetting to mention what was the matter with our little guy since the tests were negative. Basically, we got some really bad nursing advice at the hospital and he ended up severely dehydrated with a fever. Since we didn't really know what to look for with the dehydration, it got pretty bad pretty fast. But now he is eating like a champ! I am biased of course, but he is also pretty darn cute. One of these days we will fix our camera and you can all see it for yourself :)

I know I keep saying this, but more pictures coming soon, either tonight or tomorrow and our computer is getting fixed this weekend, yay!

Pictures....?

Sorry friends, the wait continues. We are obviously still having some trouble with our camera. We are waiting for an email with some pics someone else took and also waiting to get our laptop reformatted, then I promise lots of pictures of our little sweetie. Gosh, what did we do before the internet??? At least I get to look at his darling little face all day :) heehee We are doing well, Tim is back to work today and Jackson and I are settling into a routine. So far so good, although we miss daddy a whole lot already. It was nice to have 2 days with the three of us at home without being at a hospital. I am still recovering, our stint at Children's seems to have delayed that a bit, but I am doing ok overall, feeling MUCH better than last week. Turns out this delivery was a little traumatic. I guess it's not really normal to not be able to stand up straight for 3 days! Oh well, I didn't know any different!

Jackson Oliver Chase

Introducing Jackson Oliver Chase. Born on December 29, 2008 at 9:44 pm. He weighed 8 pounds and 12 oz and is 21 inches long. We are so happy he is here with us.