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Ruthi said the cutest thing today. Brandi was at Wal-Mart waiting for new tires to get put on the Hyundai, and I called and asked that since she was in Wentzville would she mind picking up some White Castles on her way back in for us here at the office. She asked Ruthi what she thought, to which Ruthi replied, “I love my Sliders!”

It was the cutest thing ever, and also made her daddy very proud. Below are a few pics of us enjoying our sliders at the office. Sorry for the grainy quality, the pics were taken on my iphone.

I could hit a golf ball a long way, and straight too. Now? Not so much. We had a goofy idea to take the youth to the local driving range on Wednesday night and try to show our stuff. The girls were good sports and we all had a pretty great time. Here’s one particular shot of me showing my stuff, the bad and the good.

On the first shot, you might want to watch your head. Keith Benfield was doing the video and laughing so hard he could hardly hold the camera still. On the second one, I remembered to watch the ball.

Watch your head! from Eric Ebbinghaus on Vimeo.

My friend and boss, Pastor Ryan Akers has a personal blog site he uses to make church announcements, share devotionals, and post thoughts on church matters as well as controversial items. He recently received an email from a beloved parishioner about hymns in our service to which he crafted a lengthy reply. If you’re feeling randy, you can check it out here at his G3 Insider Blog.

Seriously though, it is long so pack a lunch.

I just officiated my 8th wedding this past Saturday! It was a memorable one too, probably the best I’ve ever been to and the best I’ve done. It was a wedding for two dear friends of mine. The bride I have known since she was 3 and the groom since he was about thirteen or so. Both have been in my youth ministry and both love the Lord mightily!

Anyway, we forgot our camera as we do so frequently at the reception where Ruthi boogied down hardcore on the dance floor, but we did get some fun video of her dancing at home on Friday night before we had our youth all-nighter. Ruthi is really good at doing these amazing cute things, jabbering on and on in her complete sentences (no joke!) and dancing until the camera comes on. It’s like she knows other people will be watching and doesn’t want to impress too much. The first one I did a great job of making a fool of myself, but the second one, she finally broke through.

Ruthi PBJ TIME! from Eric Ebbinghaus on Vimeo.

It’s funny because she’s a bit of a night owl like her parents, so when bedtime hits, she comes unglued!

Ruthi Bouncie Dance from Eric Ebbinghaus on Vimeo.

We can hardly believe that our baby girl is 2 years old! What an amazing addition and blessing to our family she has been. She is getting more fun, more inquisitive, more talkative, more rambunctious, and more beautiful every day!

This past Sunday, while celebrating Father’s Day, we also got to celebrate Ruthi’s 2nd Birthday! Ruthi and I enjoy watching Spongebob Squarepants together, and one day while eating a rice crispy treat, Ruthi referred to it as a “Spongebob Treat.” Needless to say, the name stuck. Brandi thought it would be a cool idea to make a “Spongebob Cake” for Ruthi’s 2nd birthday made out of rice crispy treat and… wait for it… ICING!

As you can see from the two photos below, Brandi REALLY outdid herself this time. I guess she did the icing while looking at one of Ruthi’s Spongebob dudes. Also, it was DELICIOUS! I think my brother-in-law James had like 7 pieces!

Special thanks to Mom and Dad and the family and the Benfields for hanging out with us on Ruthi’s big day!

Yep, my wife is pretty amazing. It was almost hard to eat it looked so nice! But we got over that pretty fast.

We got to spend Monday evening in St. Louis with Brandi’s mom, two brothers and her dad. It was actually a pretty special occasion, because it was the first time Ruthi and I got to meet her birth dad! Thanks again for dinner, Tony, and Stacey and Mikey, and Trev, we hope to see you guys again soon.

I don’t know if any of you out there are into podcasts at all, but since the inception of podcasts a few years ago (If you don’t know what a podcast is, click HERE for the total rundown), I have enjoyed tracking different interests and videos and episodes of sort.

I recently came across these podcasts on a website I like to use for youth resources and ideas called The Source For Youth Ministry. GREAT resources at the site and the podcast is cool, especially if you’re trying to get teens into the word every day/week.

Another podcast I listen to, for all you archery fans, is Bowcast. It’s been going for a little over a year now and has fantastic information and content. The guys (Anthony and Aneal) are a couple of thirty something archers who share their likes, dislikes and mistakes with the listener while bringing along many industry leaders and experts to share as well.

Both of these podcasts are available on itunes and can be found under searches for “A Lil’ Bit” and “Bowcast”.

I love wings. That might in fact be quite an understatement. Anyway, we recently had a Buffalo Wild Wings open just down the road from us in early April. I made a post a couple months ago about how Brandi and I waited in line at the opening and were able to each get 52 coupons good for a half dozen free wings each. On Tuesday evening we had our year end evaluation/look ahead meeting with Pastor Ryan, Jessica and me at B-Dubs. I had decided that it was about time I moved up to Blazin’ wing status as I’d been working my way to that point for a couple months now. I had had Wild level before so I ordered a half dozen Hot and a half dozen Blazin’. I ate the Blazin’s first, then the hot and they were oh so good, and stung the palate a bit too, but still WAY delish.

Ryan got a picture of me right before consumption. Notice the Blazin’ sticker on the left flanked by the WARNING: sticker on the right, it’s the white one (impossible to read I know!). It was a proud day in my belly.

P.S. Dan Ward, thank you for pushing myself to be greater at the wing game.

We had a belated birthday celebration for Eric at Emily and James’ house last night and Ruthi got a chance to play with the twins, Emerson and Stella, which she ALWAYS looks forward to. Anyway, Ruthi decided she wanted to test her reading skills on Stella and I managed to get a picture with the iPhone. It took about 6 tries because each of them were moving around so much and the pictures blurred with no flash, but I finally managed to get one!

This next one is of Ruthi enjoying our all-church camp out we had at the Huzzah Valley Resort the weekend after Memorial Day.

Still looking for a reason to move to Missouri? I thought so! Thought this was interesting on Yahoo’s front page this morning. The funny thing though? Is there really that much of a difference once you’re paying over 3.50 a gallon? Click HERE to see the whole story.

Totally ready to be finished, but we’ve still got a little ways to go with our move as we’re attempting to re-condition everything we move from the cottage (mini-parsonage) to the new (to us) townhouse. It’s a gradual process, but we did get our internet hooked up today and we also went and picked up our new sofa sectional at the furniture joint. It really is awesome! We’ll try to get some pics of us enjoying it before long.

Thanks for staying tuned!