Vacation | jonathancliff.com

Tag Archive - vacation

Hello. It’s me again.

September 2, 2011 in Personal with 2 Comments

After a few weeks of looking, I’ve finally found that blog that I had misplaced. Seems it got thrown out with the garbage, and there I was in the alley with a flashlight at 10pm looking for jonathancliff.com. Or maybe I lost it somewhere in a couch cushion, or maybe my toddler hid it in a pair of shoes that I never wear, or maybe my wife had left it in one of the suitcases from vacation and it was in the attic, or maybe my kids loaned it to a neighbor kid that never brought it back, or maybe I just got super busy and took a blog vacation with no formal announcement. You know, let’s go with that last one.

As I get ready to post thoughts and teachings from my life over the past few weeks (and I promise it’s coming), I wanted to kick things off with an official “Friday Bag” of goodies:

I got to spend an entire week with good friend Sam Luce and discovered that New York has it’s own special blend of rednecks. And they use the word, “wicked” way more than a person should. Seriously it was a highlight of my summer to spend time with Sam, and speak to his middle schoolers. I left more impressed with Sam than I was before, and excited for the great team he has working with him there at Reedemer Church. (I also can attest to the existence of his family, and the greatness of his wife’s Italian cooking.)

Speaking of New York, I felt like I was in an episode of Candid Camera as I travelled back home to Lubbock last week. I took the strange route of Albany, NY to Detroit, MI to Pittsburgh,PA to Memphis,TN to Lubbock. One word to describe that day of flights: KILLER.

I also got to spend a weekend with Kenny, Matt, and Sam at the Illuminate Conference in Birmingham, AL. It was so encouraging to spend time with leaders and volunteers that work in Children’s Ministry. There are some great leaders in the Birmingham area, and was so impressed with the team from Gateway Church in Austin and Westwood Church in Alabama. Great, great leaders!

The kids started school last week, and for the first time in my life all three of my kids are at school at the same time. I’ll no longer have a kid home with me on my day off work. Except for the fact that we currently have an 18-month old fostering with us. There is that one thing.

We are beginning to get seriously amped up for the Forever Remember 9/11 event that Trinity Church is hosting at the United Spirit Arena on September 11th. It’s going to be a great city-wide memorial service and a great chance to honor first responders. With all that the morning service will be, it’s going to be a fun family event afterwards on our church campus. Trinity Church is a church that loves it’s city!

Family Fun with Spotify

August 5, 2011 in Personal with 4 Comments

Last week the family and I took a Texas vacation (aren’t those the best) in which we visited Dallas for a couple of nights, spent a week on Surfside Beach, and then trolled through Austin for a night before returning home. All the travel made for 20+ hours of being in the car. Have I mentioned we have 3 kids? To top it all off the DVD player we’ve used for 9 years in the car finally breathed it’s last breathe last month. How did we survive? Besides the sharing of two Nintendo DS’s, we used Spotify.

I’m going to hope that you’ve spent time reading online about the greatness of Spotify. It’s basically a music service that puts the value on accessibility of music over the ownership of music. Simply put, you listen to whatever you want whenever you want. For $9.99/a month you get the music on your iPhone. After purchasing a iPod compatible stereo in the car this year, we had a Spotify car-trip for vacation. Besides introducing my kids to tons of music they’ve never heard, we made up a few games too.

We started a Summer 2011 playlist. (You can go listen to it HERE.) Throughout all our travels the kids and parents, could choose to add a song we liked to the “Official Summer Playlist.” If you got look at the playlist, you’ll see the absurdity of the collection. It’s truly a Cliff family invention.
We played a bunch of “name that movie” games with movie songs. The kids thought this was a blast, and were pretty good at naming the movies the music came from. Probably the most fun thing we did in the car with Spotify.
Starr and I played a game where one of us chooses a song, then the next song has to be related in some way to the song just played. It could be a shared word in the title, or same state mentioned in the lyrics, or anything else debatable that connects the two songs.

If you aren’t yet a user of Spotify, then go check it out today. And make the investment to hear the music in your car! It’s changing family road trips for the better!

Vacation Relaxation

July 22, 2011 in Personal with 6 Comments

This weekend the family and I head out to Surfside Beach, TX for what is becoming an annual family vacation. It’s a great time of sitting on the beach, playing games, watching movies, and eating food together as a family. We’ve all been counting down the days to our “beach vacation” and now it sits squarely within view.

As I look forward to separating from what has become a stressful time in my life, I’m trying to figure out what it looks like to unplug; yet still enjoy my time away. Here is a list of things I’ve decided to do (and hope my wife follows alongside with):

Throw out the calendar. I promise to not once look at iCal, or my iPhone calendar. I’m a calendar snob, but part of getting away though will require me to distance from this normal part of my life.
Only enjoy the Internet, not work it. That means I’ll read news, follow some box scores, and see what’s up in the world at large. However, there will be no emailing, facebooking, or blogging. (I’ve even warned my staff that I’ll only return a call after the third voicemail left for me!)
Social Networking stops. I often feel like I’m missing the meaning of being with my family when I take myself away from them to put a picture of my time with them on the Internet for a majority of strangers to see. For this week it stops.
Stay up late. This isn’t much different from the normal life, but this time I can give myself time to recover with an afternoon nap or by sleeping in later!
I will not do things that take me away from my family, for the benefit of being with other people. That includes texting friends, checking twitter (mentioned above), talking on the phone, words with friends, and anything else that diverts my attention from being with my family. I expect this to be hard, but I’m working to eliminate the distractions.
Nothing deep. I’m there to have fun with my family. I’m not there to have long prolonged discussions about our future, our present, and what God may or may not be leading me to do. It’s not the time. It’s relax and fun time.
Lighten up. When it comes to the kids, I promise to try my very hardest to lighten up on how I parent. Respect and obedience will be required, but I’m going to work to not sweat the small stuff.
Read for fun. For this trip, I put all non-fiction reading on the shelf. With the only exception being the Bible, I will be working through The Help, and the Game of Thrones. Thank you Amazon Kindle for making reading so much fun!

My Friday Bag

July 24, 2009 in Links, Personal with 0 Comments

This Friday I have a big, fat bag of nothing. But somehow I’ve come up with this!

Have you been reading little Sammy Luce’s recent Family and Parenting Skills blog posts? You haven’t? Well go there NOW! If you are offended by the recent Willie Wonka remake a few years ago, then be prepared to be offended by the awesome tie-in.

I’ve read this post on Church Crunch about how to make my blog more iPhone and mobile friendly, but the “how-to” still alludes me. I just can’t figure it out…

For the record. I still love my Macbook. In case you were wondering. I like to think of it as my 4th child…the one I don’t have health insurance for. (Does Applecare count?)

I’m really excited about two new hires I’ve made on my Children’s Ministry team over the past week. I’ve got a great new assistant, that is proving to be a fast learner; and was able to hire for a newly created Part-Time Elementary Ministry person. A real-life doing ministry in front of kids position! This is huge for Trinity Church and for my life…especially as it relates to Saturday Night services.

I’ve noticed the RT’s and twitter replies have been getting less and less for the past month. Anyone else worried that twitter mania has come and gone? By the way, you can visit my twitter page at http://www.twitter.com/mostawesomepersonontwitter

I’m leaving for a week long vacation on Saturday. Gonna hang out with some new and old friends, and a visit a ton of family for the entire week. The kids are real excited about swinging through Dallas on our way back to catch a Texas Ranger game, but I’m worried that my 3 year old thinks I’m playing in the game. Since I hit a baseball topic, I’d also like to throw in a little “Yankees Suck” reference. Ok, I feel better.

I’ve been reading the John Adams Biography referenced on my blog sidebar for over 3 months. I’m still on chapter 2, but it’s a really great book…promise!

If my intentions for reading books ever proved to be the books I actually read then I would be the smartest person in the world. Does that count for something?

I took a group of 100 kids to Amarillo for a fun (nothing-spiritual) getaway day. It was a great success, hanging out at Wonderland Amusement Park and the wonderfully FREE Amarillo Zoo. By a great success I’m not counting the adult that was puked on by a 4th grader on the way home. And by puked on, I mean a kid stood up on the bus and blew chunks into the back of his head. And by back of his head, I mean GROSS!

I’m real excited about implementing some new child dedication steps at Trinity over the next few months. It’s going to be a fun ride. And the baptism procedures have been tweaked as well…When @jabberfrog sees them, she’s going to totally know where I stole them from. And by stealing them, I mean I was inspired by the things she uses at lifechurch.tv…

See? There really was a big bag of nothing this Friday, huh?

HT: And like most things I do, I stole the “Bag of Nothing” reference from a good friend. You should check out his totally time-wasting site at www.bagofnothing.com

What I Learned on Vacation

June 29, 2009 in Personal with 3 Comments

Things I Learned on Vacation:

It’s a lot more fulfilling to drive into the Mountain timezone that to drive out of it.
It’s a wonderful thing to hear your kids say, “That’s beautiful!” from the back of the car.
My oldest son has a proneness to Altitude sickness. I have a proneness to other people having altitude sickness making me sick.
Rain can really spoil your vacation, if you don’t have a place with an indoor pool.
No, I did not wear floaties.
When you have an indoor pool be prepared to swim for a minimum of 2 hours each time.
A family of 5 sharing one bathroom is an adventure.
My kids hate walking around Wal-Mart in Ruidoso as much as they hate walking around Wal-Mart in Lubbock.
Redbox has changed the way we travel as a family.
Driving up the mountian to Monjeau Lookout is the coolest thing to do when in Ruidoso.
We're all shivering while a stranger was taking our picture at Monjeau Lookout.
When visiting Monjeau Lookout in the evening, wear a jacket. It was freezing cold!
Visiting Bonita Lake is the stupidest thing to do when in Ruidoso.
Seriously? It's a lake and you can't swim or picnic?
“You are in Bear Country” signs can really freak out a 7 year old boy.
We never saw any bears, but saw a few dozen deer.
It’s all right to eat popsicles as an after-breakfast treat.
I will never actually read the books I take with me on a family vacation. I’m beginning to think it’s a urban legend that adults get to read books while vacationing…
My kids like to stare at strange looking people when they get into a swimming pool. (Embarassing…)
My wife enjoys having in a iPhone on vacation. (Yet, she still asks me for directions while holding it in her hand.)
Having wi-fi where your staying is much preferable to not having wi-fi.
Almost nothing rivals playing in a cold stream.
Ryan would later fall in this very stream, and get a bad case of wet pants!
Tripadvisor.com is a real lifesaver, and I’ve found most of their online reviews to be spot-on!
It is ALWAYS better to rent a condo than to stay in a hotel room. Trust me, I’ve done both.
- It’s better even if the condo has a few bugs crawling around.
Those roaches in the condo, will try and sneak home in your bags. Trust me, I’ve seen it firsthand.

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