First Blog, and Merry Christmas

I sort of want to skip the awkward pleasantries about this being my first blog and get right to an actually decent subject. Maybe I'll do a more proper "First Blog" in a week, giving an overview about who I am and what to expect from this blog.

First off, Merry Christmas to any of my readers. I decided to jump the gun a bit here--I was originally planning on doing this somewhere around January 10 (more on why that's the case later), but I figured I might as well start now (Christmas Eve). As of right now, I'm in Maricopa, Arizona, where my Aunt Norma and Uncle Billy live--they were both originally from Texas. As far as Christmas goes, there isn't really much in the way of plans--if I were home in Tucson, I'd probably be at the Christmas Eve service at my church Grace to the Nations (that, or I might just attend the morning service). All I know for sure is that, for dinner, we're having burgers (not sure what we're having with it, though I'm having grilled onions and jalapeños on mine), and we might take a tour of the area looking at Christmas lights just did (say/think what you will--at least it's something). Christmas Day, I'm even more clueless. I doubt there'll be much presents due to the economy--not that I'm complaining much; these days I'm lucky if I can think of more than one thing I really want. Actually, we're celebrating Aunt Norma's birthday--we might open presents tonight (if we do, I'll post pictures of them in the next blog). On the 26th, I'm helping Billy over at the Food Bank--gathering food from the local stores, sorting them out, and the like.
The reason I mentioned January 10th was that, as I had originally hoped, I would be going with a couple of my friends from church (including Steve Peterson--someone I originally met back in Pima College--Spring 2010 semester) and some other from Minnesota on a Mission Trip to Hermosillo, Sonora--the capital of Sonora. The trip was cancelled not too long ago--same as the trip before--, but if we had gone, we would have been distributing clothes and feeding the locals, helping out at the local churches, evangelising, and a few other things. Part of what appealed to me about this trip, aside from getting to do at least some of that, was the fact that I've never been to Mexico--not Nogales, Rocky Point/Puerto Peñasco, or anything like that!--and I was really excited to be able to do that. And, before anyone asks, they've done this before. While there may be threats from Narcoterrorism, I have/had no fear about that (no one's died on any of these trips that I've heard of).

Well, that's all I can really think of for tonight that I can't just post in another blog.