Closing Time

This website has taken on many looks over the years. It has been a blog, a photo site, a blog/photo site and now back to a blog. It is where we posted the pictures the day Alexis was born.

SIDE NOTE: A fact that no one really knows, is back in 1998 I worked on creating a website that would allow people to search for baseball card shops by state and then by city. I had it built out, but I realized at the time that to make money (before Google Ads), I needed the shops to pay me to list on the site. Logistically impossible. But that was the 1st version of mikepeery.com.

Blogging is hard when all you really have to talk about is you and your life. You wonder if people really want to hear about you. Your triumphs. Your struggles. You don't want to let too many people in to all your hard times and you don't want to give away too much of what you fight hard to protect.

Then I think that maybe all my time and effort I put into it isn't really worth it. After all, it is my blog that I used as an outlet for my thoughts and a way to keep family updated on our lives. I felt like I ended up trying to make sure to be politically correct, include everything and everyone and it ended up not being an accurate representation of me. And it took time. Something that I seem to have less and less of these days.

I have seen a lot of blogs come and go over the years. I know I am not the only "frustrated blogger" out there. People start blogs and quit blogs for reasons all their own. Some of the reasons no one ever really knows.

That being said, I have decided that with Facebook and Twitter that there are plenty of ways for people to follow in our lives. Heather, Alexis and myself each have a page on both networking sites and a YouTube page for videos. Heck, Alexis even has TWO Twitter pages (@TheMunchkin and @AlexisPeery).

So as of today mikepeery.com will go silent and one day soon, dark. I have always owned this domain and will continue to as long as I am Mike Peery. I might do something else with it down the road, but for the time being this will be the last post.

I strongly encourage you to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. That is where we post all our pictures and updates on what we are doing.

If you dont follow us on either of the sites yet, I have included them ALL below. I want to thank all of you for following along with me over the years. It has been a lot of fun!

I speak for Heather and Alexis when I wish you all nothing but the best.

Mike

Facebook:
fb.com/mnpeery
fb.com/peeryhd
fb.com/alexispeery

Twitter:
@mike_peery
@peeryhd
@themunchkin
@alexispeery
@thepeerygirls
@teampeery

YouTube:
youtube.com/mikenpeery

Every new beginning is some other beginning's end...

My Valentines

On this Valentines Day 2012 I wanted to take a moment and recognize my Valentine's!  There have been a  lot of ups and downs over the past year, but they have always been there.  I am beyond thankful for them and love them each more than they will ever know!!

Peery Christmas 2011

Christmas 2011 has come and gone so I thought I would share with you how our Christmas went.

This Christmas was different for us on a lot of levels.  We did things we normally do, mixed them in with things we have never done in the past and had a great time.

I guess you can’t start any Christmas story off without talking about the tree.  When Christmas 2010 was over, we decided that we were going to get rid of our tree.  Now we had said this in the past but we never did.  I figured the only way that we would get a new tree is if we didn't have one at all.  So last year when Christmas was over, we threw away our tree.  This sounded like a GREAT idea at the time.

So Christmas time rolls around this year and we realize we have no tree.  Now that we are in an apartment, having a big/tall tree just isn’t an option.  But we still needed a tree!  We checked out the Black Friday ads and found a nice, small, cheap tree at Lowes.  We think it did a great job!

Moving on to the Christmas cards.  We always do a family picture card and it became quickly apparent that for some reason we only had one picture taken of the 3 of us in the past year to use on our card.  Being that we needed to get them ordered and mailed we didn't really have time to get a picture taken, so we used one that our friend Katie took of us.  Even though it was not my first choice, Heather thought it summed us up well since it was taken at the Ballpark.  Looking back on it, she was right.

Now the budget this year was a lot tighter than in years past.  The only thing Alexis wanted from Santa was a Barbie Dream House so we saved some money, shopped around and were able to locate one at a good price.  But since I was a tad more than we wanted to spend, we were thankful that was all she really wanted.

We decided that we were going to do photo books for the family.  They were “cost effective” and people always seem to like them.  So we go through all the pictures, find the best ones and make the books.  We confirmed our order and sent it off.  We were pretty excited and couldn’t wait to get them.

When they did come, they came in one small box.  I really was expecting something a tad bigger.  But once we opened the box, we saw why all 9 were in a small box...because they were SMALL!  They were about the size of a business card!!  This was bad!  How could we wrap these up and give them as gifts?  Well, we couldn’t so we went with the not as creative Plan B.  Problem solved.

One of the things that we did different this year was spending the night at my Dad’s and doing Christmas morning with him and my step mom.  Looking back on it, I haven’t woke up on Christmas morning in the same house as my dad in almost 20 years.  It was kind of nice!  

On Christmas Eve, we opened presents with my brother, step-sisters, their husbands and our nephews.  We had a great time!  Thanks to my Dad and Beth, we all have waffle makers and Alexis has a very cool toy box!

However, we had a long night and a early morning.  Santa stayed up until almost 1 putting a Dream House together.  And then Lex woke up at 4 ready to get up.  We fought with her off and on until about 5 when she fell back asleep with her and Heather in one room and me in another.  Not quite the way we drew it up!  But I never really did go back to sleep, so I was not off to a good start!

One Alexis woke up, we were eager for her to see what Santa had left her.  I had placed a video camera inside her Dream House hoping to catch her reaction that would be a YouTube video hit.  Instead this is what we got:

Yep, she had no interest in it what so ever.  It took her almost 5 minutes to wake up and get in the spirit of the day I guess.  But once she did, she loved it and had a blast.

For Heather, I was thankful that I had shopped for her back in July otherwise with our budget I wouldn't have been able to get what I got her.  She loves Michael Young and I have gotten her a couple of his All-Star jerseys.  As you can see, I was able to surprise her this year!

I was pretty easy.  I didn’t want too much, but one thing I did want was Star Wars on Blu-Ray.  So between Heather and my step sister I was able to get it!  Heather also got me a nice pair of tennis shoes and renewed my SiriusXM radio in my car, which I love so that might have been the best gift!

We had breakfast, help clean up and headed back home to get some rest before dinner.  We went back over to Dad’s around 4:30 for a great dinner!  From there we went to Heather’s Grandmothers house and then over to our friends house for “drinks and desserts” at 7.

Now by this time in the day we were all pretty beat, but we thought Lex and Macie would have fun playing together for a bit.  On the way to their house we had agreed that we would leave around 8:30 with a goal of being in our bed by like 9:30.  We had a plan!!  Well, the plan was shot out of the water pretty early on!  We got over there, had a few drinks and some laughs and next thing you know it is 11:30.  Whoops.

Getting Lex to leave her friend Macie at 11:30 after a LONG day with no nap just wasn’t an option so they were nice enough to let her spend the night.

We got home and crashed!!  Looking back on it now that the Christmas is put away and New Years is around the corner, it really was a great couple of days.  We had a lot of fun and Lex loved it.  Everything we did, new and old, was a lot of fun!

As 2011 wraps up and the calendar turns to 2012, Heather, Lex and myself just wanted to take a second and wish all of our friends and family a Happy New Year.  We hope that it is filled with many laughs and successes!

Waiting

Probably one of the worst kept secrets in the world is I do not like to wait.  I am not a huge fan of it.  I don't like to stand in line at amusement parks (or ride the rides, but that is another blog), not a fan of long waits at restaurants, and if the drive through line is too long I will just go in.

DISCLAIMER: I have stood in line for 2 iPhones (below) and loved every minute of it.

I handle waiting better than most, I would like to think.  I don't drive 100mph to go 10 miles.  I don't huff and puff if I do get stuck in a long line.  I don't berate people if dinner takes a little longer than it should to be served.  But I know I should handle waiting better than I do.

But it seems here lately waiting is all I am doing.  Not sure if this is God’s way of testing me or if I am just running through a stretch in life that requires waiting or both.  

As I write this, I am currently waiting on carpet cleaners to call.  In the past few days I have waited for possible interviews, for the State to respond to applications, people to get back with me and I even got stuck in an ungodly line at Starbucks that I couldn't get out of.  

And almost on queue, I read an article this morning from a friend about taking things one step at a time and that a lot of the great things in life do require waiting.  He talked about (and reminded me) that the design for the iPhone OS was actually created on the iPad.  And for those of you that know about these products, the iPhone was released to the public 3 years BEFORE the iPad.  But they waited until the time was right to release the iPad.  Keyword...waited.

Side note: I strongly encourage you to subscribe to his blog

So whatever this is in my life right now, I accept the challenge and will keep waiting because eventually what I am waiting for has to show up...right?

Life and Perspective

To say that life has been challenging over the past few years would be an understatement.  It seems that every turn we have made there is something there to set us back.

I don’t say that to imply that there haven’t been good times or that we have it bad, because that is far from the truth.  No matter what obstacles we face we are quickly reminded that there is someone that has greater obstacles.  However, the struggles are always more grand in scale than the successes.   And that becomes hard to face on a daily basis.  Kind of like “what’s next?”.

But last night I realized something.  I realized that maybe all the bad things that I thought were bad really weren’t.  And that for every 10 things that I thought were bad, maybe only a handful are truly “bad”. 

I think that we have been hit upside the head with one thing after another that our perspective has become skewed.  Somewhere along the way I lost confidence in myself and that has lead to this assumption that everything is “bad”.

Last night we met with some friends of ours that are working to start a church in New York.  And as they are laying out their vision for the church and their future for their family, Heather and I were both struck by the passion that they have for this.

The reality of it is that churches in New York do not succeed.  There is a list of reasons a mile long.  Space, time, money, effort…the list goes on and on.

But this is when I realized MY perspective was off, not theirs…

Them:  48 people visited our website to get information on our Bible Study!!

Me:  Why did only 48 people visit my website?

Them:  We had someone from Russia check out our site!!!

Me:  Why is someone from Russia even reading my blog?

Them:  We sold a “brochure” to help us out and in turn there was a company that provided clean water to 29 people for an entire year!!!

Me:  Just 29?  There are 29 people at Starbucks…in the drive thru.

You get the picture?

But this is what astounded me the most…at the beginning of every month; they only have enough money that just 70% of their bills are paid.  Think about that… on the first of every month they have NO IDEA how 30% of their bills will be paid.

This isn’t just a husband and wife. “winging it” through life like in the 60’s.  They have an amazing daughter and another son/daughter on the way.  This is a family.

I look at Team Peery and in the 10 years of our marriage we can count on one hand how many months this was an issue for us.  And they are going through life monthly wondering where the other 30% will come from.

I am pretty sure you are thinking “that must suck” or looking down on them with pity.  But here is the thing…they were EXCITED that 70% of their bills were paid.

There are 33 “individuals” and 5 churches that help them along the way, as well as an organization that “matches” donations to them.  How cool is that?

Again, my perspective was way off!

Them:  We have 33 “individuals” and 5 churches that help us along the way, as well as an organization that “matches” donations made to us!! 

Me:  Only 33?

That is when it hit me. Yeah, life has been tough.  It has dealt us some crappy cards here lately.  Not going to lie. 

But here is a family that moved from Dallas/Fort Worth to Annapolis, Maryland to work towards starting a church in Manhattan where just 3% of the 1.7 MILLION people are Christians. 

They are excited about reaching 48 people.  They are excited about reaching someone from Russia.  They are excited about 29 people having clean water for a year.  And they are excited that 70% of their bills are paid.

Would they like to reach a thousand people in a thousand countries?  You bet!  Have 100% of their bills paid and provide clean water to a thousand people for a thousand years?  Of course!  It is all about perspective. 

Heather and I learned a lot last night.  And I can promise you that our friends had no intention of teaching us what they did.  Until they read this, they really have no idea.  But “thanks” for helping us!

In closing, I would ask that you check out their sites and keep them in your thoughts and prayers on their journey.

Eikon New York

Echoes Of Redemption

And in the mean time, since we all need a reminder now and then, here is our perspective:

20 Years Ago

I always enjoy this time of the year.  We have the baseball playoffs, my birthday, Halloween, the State Fair of Texas and the weather finally cools down!!

But one of the little known facts about why I like this time of the year is that it marks the time of the year when Heather and I first started dating our Sophomore year of High School…and this year it has been 20 years!

You can all read the entire story here, but it basically breaks down to two weekends in October of 1991.

The first weekend, we went to the State Fair with Heather’s Future Homemakers of America class.  She invited me, so I went.  We spent the day running around the Fair flirting and being 15.  We had a great time and she slept on my shoulder all the way home. 

Now I am notorious for remembering really small details about things and one thing that I remember is when her mom picked us up was the song that was playing was “Life is a Highway” by Tom Cochrane.  I have no idea why I remember that, but I did and our life together has been a highway just like the song...kind of ironic. 

The next weekend was a Friday before a football game.  It was after school, we were talking on the phone and Heather was getting ready to head back up to school for Band.  Right before we hung up I asked her to be my girlfriend and she said “yes”.

I remember thinking “Great!  Now what?”.  But I went to the game and after the game we went and got pizza with rest of the band and our relationship went on from there.

This picture was taken around that time as well.  This was our first date as boyfriend/girlfriend…granted it was with my parents at my birthday dinner, but still.

Now I am pretty sure that you are thinking the exact same thing I am…what in the heck did she see in you?  Believe me, I wonder the same thing.  This is our first “date” and this is what I am wearing?

You can tell from Day 1 that I “married up” and this is the proof!!

While we were friends long before we ever started dating, those two weeks in October are two that I will never forget.  It has lead us to where we are today and I couldn’t be more happy to have her by my side after all these years.

Love you babe!!!!

My 2011 MLB Postseason Picks

My favorite time of the year is finally here…Major League Baseball Postseason!  There is really nothing like it!  If you say you love baseball, but you aren’t stoked about this postseason then you really don’t love baseball!

Now I get not all the games are dramatic!  They don’t all have the bloody sock, Gibson’s blast, Luis Gonzales’ blooper, The Catch or The Shot Heard 'Round The World and I get that.  But each game has the potential to be something that you will always talk about.

For me, it was attending Game 3 of the World Series last year…the only game of the series we won.  The Cobra dealt and Mitch Moreland had the big home run!  I honestly will never forget that game or anything about it.

Me, Heather and my Mom. Upper Homerun Porch.

Me and my sexy better half!

Every year I do this.  I sit here and type who I think will win each series and ultimately win the World Series and each year it goes about as well as my Final Four bracket…not well!

So without further adieu, here are my picks:

ALDS

Rangers vs. Rays (Rangers pitching/offense is just too much)

Tigers vs. Yankees (Verlander 2 times is plenty)

ALCS

Rangers vs. Tigers  (Rangers have 7 games worth of pitching.)

NLDS

Diamondbacks vs. Brewers (Dbacks have slightly better arms)

Cardinals vs. Phillies (Phills have pitching, Cards dont.)

NLCS

Diamondbacks vs. Phillies  (Phillies are just too much)

Word Series

Rangers vs. Phillies   

(Goes 7 games…CJ vs Lee in Game 7 and Hamilton has the big hit)

Winner:

TEXAS RANGERS

Now I get that it might be a “homer” pick…and you are right!  But I think they have a great shot to make it!

So there you go.  There are my picks!  Who do you think will win?  Leave a comment below and lets have some fun! 

PLAY BALL!