True Generosity

I am always amazed this time of year the acts of both selfishness and generosity that I see. It's almost like we see people's true spirit during the holiday season. For example, I overheard someone in the hallway at work the other day saying...

"well, it was nice that I got it from her, but I really have no use for it and now I have to figure out where it came from so I can get something I really want."

...not only was this person not thankful or grateful for the gift, but was almost annoyed that someone was thoughtful enough to get her a gift.

On the other hand, every year I am amazed at the generosity I witness, but also that I experience. This year definitely is one of the top experiences for me personally.

Being the guitar nerd that I am, I am part of guitar forums where nerds like me talk about all things guitar related. Over the past several months, I've become friends with a guy from my home state of Iowa. He's a very well off guy, and has a very large guitar collection. There is a particular guitar in his collection that I had been admiring for quite some time, and I had told him if he ever wanted to sell it to let me know, and if I could, I would buy it from him. Well about 3 weeks ago I got an e-mail from him that said something to this effect...

"Hi Andy - we're heading out for the holidays. I hope you and your family have a very Merry Christmas and travel safely. Sincerely, .....

p.s. I sent you something that will be arriving next week. Just remember to pay it forward when you can."

So, I didn't really think anything of it at the time and returned the e-mail wishing him a Merry Christmas as well, and so on and so forth. The following Wednesday, as very large box arrived at my door and low and behold....it was the EXACT guitar that I had been admiring! Inside the case was a note that read..."Andy - I hope you enjoy this guitar as much as I have. It is yours to keep. Just remember to do this for someone else when you can. Merry Christmas!!"



I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT!!! Here is a guy that I've never met face-to-face and he sent me this guitar no questions asked. What an amazing display of generosity!!

It's acts like this that remind me why we celebrate Christmas. For all of our generosity and gift giving, we will never match what God did for us those 2000+ years ago. He sent His ONLY son to take away EVERY sin that would ever be committed, no questions asked. All we have to do is ask Him to forgive us...now THAT is true generosity and I hope we all take the time to remember that this year.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Down on the farm!

Having been raised on a farm, I love to get to drive the big green machines every year, and I have missed getting to do that lately. So on a nice weekend this fall, Big G and I drove the 2 1/2 hours to my uncle's farm in southwest MN. He was right in the thick of combining corn for the fall and we got to ride along in the combine with him. Big G was a little nervous about climbing up into the big combine, but once I got him up there he didn't want to get down! Of course I didn't remember to take a picture of him riding along, but got a couple good pictures of him driving one of the old John Deere tractors.



I remember riding along on these older tractors when I was a little boy and it was such a lot of fun getting to take him along for the ride too.



It was a great day and it was a lot of fun to get to share the experience with Big G. Hopefully next year Little G will be ready to go along for a ride too!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!! I have so much to be thankful for this year, and really every year. What a blessing this year to have little G added to our family, and I'm so thankful for how big G has grown this year. Most of all, I am thankful for L. She is the best wife a man could ask for, and puts up with more than most!! I truly am blessed.




Happy Thanksgiving!!

Way to go Iowa Hawkeyes!!

Congratulations to the best team in the land on a great season. Finishing 10-2 and a possible BCS bowl bid....not bad for a team expected to finish in the middle of the pack at the beginning of the season. Now let's go win that bowl game!!

Halloween and the high chair

Hi again everyone!! I thought you'd like to see some pictures of our Halloween boys. Big G chose to go as his favorite Cars character, Lightning McQueen, and Little G decided he would be a Tootsie Roll. Strangely enough, it's the same costume Big G chose for his first Halloween. :-)



The other big news from the G Cubed household is that Little G has started to sit and eat in his high chair!! He loves it and it's been a nice break for L's arms too!



Of course one of Big G's favorite games now is to pull Little G around the kitchen in his high chair. These two could do this for hours...what a couple of goofs!!

Trip to the Apple Orchard

Hello again everyone! There is not a lot of new news in the G Cubed world. We made our annual trip to the local apple orchard. It's always a good time, but this year it was really windy and cold and wet. So wet that they weren't even doing the hay rides like they usually do. The G's were troopers though and Big G had a great time and got to pick some apples.





Here are the G's right before we left...





...and here are the G's with mom and dad...

Wayyyyy Overdue...

I apologize for being on hiatus for so long. This having two kids stuff takes up a lot of time!! So let's see...what have you missed?

L's parents were incredibly generous the last weekend of September and took both boys AND our trusty alarm system Jake...

...and we got a weekend all to ourselves! That hadn't happened since well before little G was born. So we did all the fun stuff that you do before kids!! (Don't worry, I'm keeping this G rated...get it...this is the G Cubed blog...keeping it G rated...oh nevermind!)

We visited the Minneapolis Institute of Art...

...it was our "cultural outing" for the year. It was actually really interesting and we saw a lot of very cool art, and a lot of art that my small brain will never understand. Later that day we ate at a great Greek restaurant called Santorini in Eden Prairie. I have really come to like Greek food, and this place is one of the best I've been to.

The next day we went with our friends, Sam and Britt, to Vino in the Valley! A friend of mine had recommend this place to me a couple years ago and I always wanted to take L there. It's in the middle of no where on a gravel road, but WOW...great food and a great place to take your significant other.

It's an outdoor restaurant and winery. They're only open on weekends in the summer at the restaurant, and we went on the last day that they were open. Lots of games to play and horse drawn wagon rides. It was a nice relaxing day after church.

Not much has gone on since then...other than school for big G. He's really liking it now and sings songs about his class and his teacher on a regular basis. He's such a goof!

We took the boys to pick out their Halloween pumpkins...

Big G was way more excited about this than little G. Give it a year, and I think he might change his mind.

Well that's it for this time, and I promise...not such a long break before the next update. Hope you're all doing well!!

PRS Guitars and Weekly Recap

Hi everyone! We've had a busy week with pre-school, friends visiting, and just living our lives. Before I get into our week though, I wanted to say hi to Sam and Britt!! Britt was kind enough to point out that one of my 3 G's should be for God...which is very true, but quite honestly I thought that was just implied. :-) Thanks Britt! You can check out their blog over at Sam and Britt's Blog. It's one of my favorite blogs, and it cracks me up every time their cat, Jack, guest blogs.

It was Big G's second week of preschool and it was L's first week of taking him on her own. The first day, Wednesday, was a little rough and Big G was not ready to leave his mom. He toughed it out though and by the time L picked him up he was a happy man. Friday went really well, and L had to say "love you!" as he was walking into the school. He's growing up so fast! Here's a pretty recent picture of these two goofballs! Little G is growing up fast and he's really started to like watching his big brother. Once he gets mobile, watch out!! These two are going to be TROUBLE!!

On Friday we went out to eat at a local dive called King's with our neighbors. It was Shelly's birthday, so we all went out and enjoyed some delicious King's burgers, fried green beans, and cheese curds...if you've never tried deep fried green beans, I HIGHLY recommend them!!

Since I haven't talked much about the third G, guitars, on here much I thought I would mention my current favorite guitar brand, Paul Reed Smith, or PRS guitars. I've had the pleasure of playing/borrowing a couple of these lately from a friend at work. Wow...I honestly can't remember the last time I was so impressed by an electric guitar. I own quite a few, but none like these. Here they are:

What's the difference you ask? Well, they are basically the same, but the one on the right has 2 extra frets which gives it 2 extra notes to work with per string, so 12 extra for the whole guitar. They sound a little different from each other as well, but if I went into any further explanation I would just be demonstrating why people call me "guitarded".

Why do I like this brand of guitar so much? Paul Reed Smith guitars are very well known for their attention to detail, and super high quality finishes on their guitars. Both of these guitars have what is called a "10 top" which means that they have the highest grade of maple top. Playing these compared to a $500 guitar...well, there really is no comparison. However, that's the downside...the price for these guitars would start anywhere from $1800 - $2200 a piece depending on condition, features, etc.

Well that's all for this entry. What's new in your world?

Labor Day and Birthday recap and Big G's first day of (pre) School

Hello again everyone! Sorry for the short hiatus, but we've been busy here the past week. We left last Friday to head to L's aunt and uncle's house on the lake for the weekend. We typically go down every Labor Day and have a great time. This year it became very clear that Big G LOVED beach life!! It was all we could do to get him to come in and eat with us. I think he would have stayed on the beach or on the boat the entire weekend if we didn't drag him inside. We had a great time with family. The unfortunate part is that we left our camera at home (I guess this is what happens when you go from 1 to 2 children...things get left behind!) I am waiting for pictures from others, and will post them as soon as I get them.

The other weekend event was my turning ANOTHER year older!! This is a disturbing trend that seems to happen on an annual basis. I'm doing some analysis to determine why this keeps happening, but I have yet to determine a root cause (other than being born).

Probably the BIGGEST event of the past week was Big G starting preschool!!!

I have to admit that I wasn't worried about it at all and L was having much more trouble with it than I was. However, once we actually got there and he had to go to the classroom, I was a little bothered by it. It was harder than I thought it would be to let him go without holding his hand. I understand a lot better now why this is so hard. Letting your child do something on their own is a hard thing to do. As the parent you never want to see your child uncomfortable, scared, nervous, or anything like that, but that's part of growing up. I was soooo proud of him though. He cried a little bit, but his teacher said he did great and that she has no doubt in a couple weeks he won't even notice that we're gone.

Well, that's it for now. No guitar updates this time although there is a contest coming up that I am one of three finalists for a VERY expensive guitar!! Hopefully I can report at the end of the month that I own the guitar...we'll see what happens though.

Pictures of the G's!

Now that I've officially blogged for the first time, here are a few pictures of the G's.

Big G on the right and Little G on the left:




And the third part of G Cubed...my guitars!!





Of course I have to include the most beautiful, loving, patient (especially with me), amazing woman in the world....L!

Seriously folks...if you know me, you know I'm a lot to take, so for a woman this beautiful to marry me...well, that's all the proof you should need that miracles still happen.

I'll post more soon...I can see this becoming very addicting!!

Our first post!!

Welcome to the first post of the G-Cubed blog!! I've named it G-Cubed in honor of my favorite 3 G's in the world....Gerrit, my oldest son, Gavin, my youngest son, and Guitars...an addiction of mine for many years now. This is the first of hopefully many posts.

I'd love to get comments and feedback on any and all posts. I'm sure I'll have lots to say, and who knows, we may even get a guest blog from my beautiful wife Laura some day!