Recently, I had a chance to spend some time with one of these people and run through some of my list of questions. It was probably annoying to that person, but it was awesome for me. One of my questions is “what is the most important thing that every person who is new to doing what you do, need to know?” In this case, it was a pastor. Since our conversation was not based on the pretext of me writing about it later, I’m not going to name this person, but they deserve credit for this. So here’s the question exactly as I asked it, then his response (paraphrased and hopefully not butchered too badly by me).

Question: What should every new or young pastor know about being a pastor?

Answer: The importance of relational priorities. Everyone [in church circles] talks about the order of priorities in relationships: God first, wife and family second, church third, work fourth etc. But I don’t know how often we live it. The best way to evaluate the priority of your relationships is to see what roles you are dispensable in and where you are indispensable. We are indispensable as the husband to our wives and the father to our children. We are indispensable in our relationship with God because only we can be who He called us to be and only we can be the child that He asks us to be. We are completely replaceable in our jobs. There is always someone more skilled that could do a better job than we are doing at our work. We are replaceable in many of the activities where we invest our time. When our time begins to become consumed with the activities where we are dispensable it’s time to make some adjustments. Balance in life is important, but we could all stand to invest more time in our indispensable roles.

This was a great reminder of something I thought I knew, but I know I can get off track in this area. Good stuff!

Having said all of that, The Faction has been completely neglected. I’m sorry. We’re finding a routine and I’m working out some of my priorities. But, I’m pleased to announce a new blog post coming sometime this week. I can say that with certainty, because it’s in process all ready. It might even be a multi-part series. Here’s a hint: it’s about a device that “fed the growing Renaissance of 14th – 17th centuries in Europe, greatly facilitated scientific publishing, and was a major catalyst for the scientific revolution” and what it can teach us today. I’m really excited about this.

In the meantime, there are new Landon pics in the Faction Galleries. Just click here to check them out. But don’t leave The Faction without watching this video of Danica. It doesn’t fit on this page well, but I’m too tired to get into editing it and really I can’t get enough of it (Watch out Beyonce).

It’s been a lot of fun around here just trying to find “the new normal”. I think we’re getting there. I’ve got one more week off work, so hopefully I can get some more material out to The Faction. But in the meantime, click here to check out some photos of Landon throughout his first week.

1. Having a baby changes your life. People who tell you otherwise are lying. But it changes your life in a good way. For us, our lives shifted with the change very naturally. Maybe because we really wanted to start our family and were “in” for whatever that brought with it. Change isn’t good or bad – it’s our responses to change that is good or bad. We looked at this change as a whole new set of adventures that would stretch us and take us places we wouldn’t get to otherwise go.

2. Having a baby costs money. So in this area, festing can be good. Personally, I take the responsibility of our family finances really seriously. I think that’s why I overreacted with the first baby. Looking back, all the things you need to keep a baby alive can be expensive. But, back to point #1 above. The rest of your life is changing too. Many of the things we used to do cost money. A lot of them went away or were greatly reduced in frequency with the baby, so the cost of them went away too. I’m not suggesting it’s a 1:1 substitution (it wasn’t for us), but the financial impact of having a baby wasn’t a complete “add” to our budget. I asked people for their wisdom so I could plan properly for a baby.

3. You’re not prepared and you can’t be prepared to be a parent. Sure, it’s possible to have many things ready to go for the baby (finances, shelter, food etc), but festing for me also included this great fear that I would mess Danica up. Turns out, she’s messed me up, not the other way around. She’s taught us how to be parents. They say babies don’t come with instruction books. That’s true. But our experience has been that God gives grace to be a parent. And with that grace comes all the ability and wisdom you need to be a good parent, if you’ll yield to what He’s trying to teach you.

4. The biggest thing I have learned about parenting is that it’s not about perfection, it’s about consistency. The second biggest thing I learned is that not every aspect of parenting is black and white. New parents get a lot of unsolicited advice. Listen and respect other opinions, but a lot of the advice won’t translate exactly to your family and your kids.

There’s more that I could share, but in respect for my own point #4, I’ll assume that a lot of what I’m saying may not be the same for you. The main point is this, if festing, raises your awareness of your responsibility then it’s good. Just don’t let it get the best of you.

Oh- almost forgot. It’s Landon Jonathan.

When we were expecting Danica, I went crazy. Well, looking back it was crazy, but in the moment it seemed ok. In fact it seemed natural, almost like an instinct. Having a baby is a really big deal and the first time around I didnt know if it was anxiety around the big event or the life change, but I just felt like I did not have our family prepared for a new addition. Even though I had checked and re-checked our budget before we decided to have kids, I felt like we would be broke when the baby came. We cut back our spending massively. I sold my truck to get a more economical vehicle to operate. Looking back, I now know I was just festing. Man, I miss that truck. I wish I’d have known about festing before I traded it in.

So if women go through ‘nesting’ to prepare for a baby, men go through festing (fatherly nesting) – thanks to the folks at Land O’Leary for putting a name to something we’ve both experience and talked each other through. And while I look back at how I responded to the instinct to fest and have some regrets, festing is important. And it’s more than just financial planning. It’s all encompassing around the responsibilities of being the head of the household and making sure things are in order. I don’t know if every dad to-be fests, but based on a limited sample size, it sure seems to be prevalent. So, fest away new dads.

Tomorrow I’ll share a few things I learned the first time around that are helping to control my festing instincts as we await the arrival of the new baby. By the way, the new baby has a name. Tune in tomorrow if you want to know it!

p.s. – sorry for the low resolution of the shots. Somehow a setting on the camera got adjusted.

Friday:
- Arrived at the Venetian and scoped out the hotel & pool. One word – opulent.
- High temp = 102 degrees F
- We walked to a neighboring casino and one of Las Vegas’ newest residents – The Wynn for dinner. On the way, we visited a Lamborghini dealership (inside the Palazzo casino). The Wynn has one of the best buffets in Vegas (so they say) and we wanted to experience it for ourselves. Here’s a picture of my first plate from the buffet (shamefully, I admit, I had 2 more plates throughout the evening just like this one).

- We finished off the evening by scouting out a few of the nearby hotels. We were pretty tired though from travelling and didn’t have a lot of energy to explore (if you’ve never been, Las Vegas Blvd – aka The Strip, is several miles long).

Saturday:
- Anniversary day! 5 years!
- We woke up early and took the 30 mile drive down to Hoover Dam. Trivia time. Does anyone know the original name for the project that would become known as the Hoover Dam?

- High temp = 102 degrees F
- When we got back to the hotel we spent some more time at the pool and rested up for dinner. We had reservation as Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill inside of Caesars Palace. I had high expectations. Bobby Flay is my FoodNetwork man crush. It was amazing. For starters we had Yucatan Chicken Tacos. We each selected different entrees. Lish chose the New Mexican Spice Rubbed Pork Tenderloin and I had the 22oz Chipotle Glazed Bone-in Ribeye. both were so good. Of course, pictures of each dish can be found at The Faction Galleries.

- After dinner, we explored more casinos and saw the sights. There is really great people watching in Vegas. Alicia was particularly intrigued with some folks whose job was to attract you to their ‘club’.

Sunday:
- We woke up and went our seperate ways on Sunday morning. Lish hit the spa and I hit the sportsbook looking for a place to watch the Steelers game. The sportsbook was a zoo since it was opening weekend for the NFL and tons of people were in line to place their bets. All I wanted was a spot near a TV to watch the game but that wasn’t happening so I went for a walk to watch the craps tables. I watched a guy who was down $6000 come the whole way back and then end up walking away. His hand were trembling with each bet. The hotel gave us $15 in gambling credits when we checked in. Free money? I’m in. I ‘invested’ all $15 in a slot machine that didn’t produce any earnings. I don’t know how people sit there all day and do that. After $15, I was completely spent on sitting at a machine.

- Tonight we hit the south end of The Strip. We had dinner reservations at Emeril’s New Orleans Fish House. Again, really great food. Unfortunately, I had eaten half of my dish before I remembered to take a photo or note the name of it.
- We finished off the rest of the day by exploring the remainder of the hotels that we hadn’t been to yet. I think my favorite is Mandalay Bay, but the MGM is cool too. There’s a live lion exhibit there. It doesn’t seem right that I’ve been to Africa twice and never seen a lion, but yet I can go to Vegas and get 3 feet from one.

Monday:
- Back to Pittsburgh to get D. We missed her a lot.

We had a great time. Vegas is neat. I left with a lot of deeper thoughts, but I’ll save them for some other time.