There was a couple of things that I witnessed in the last week that triggered this thought. The more I thought about it, I started to see a pattern that crossed over many other areas of life. Some of the things I thought about were:

If only 100 babies were capable of being born every year, would we consider abortion?

If you only saw another person once a year, would you walk past them and not stop to talk?

When a painter, a musician or an actor dies. Their works of art all of sudden become valuable because we know there will never be anything new.

Why is the grass always greener on the other side?

The myth of how rare diamonds are and how that creates not only high prices but also an attitude of how we feel about them.

squirrels, armadillos, insects, little Florida lizards, they’re all over the place and when we see one dead, it’s not a big deal.

These are just some random thoughts that were going through my mind this past week that I wanted to share.  What do you think?  What in your everyday life are you abundantly blessed with, but maybe take for granted?

On Saturday I was thinking about one of my favorite things to do as a kid and I remembered what it was like to visit Toys “R” Us. I could spot a store a mile away and I’m pretty sure I begged us to stop for that entire mile and than some. Sometimes I got lucky, sometimes I didn’t.

I want my kids to experience that same excitement, so Amy shot across the street to the bank, grabbed a little bit of cash (in all singles of course) and we got in the car with the kids who had no idea where we were going. Here’s how it played out.

TARGET: South Beach Orlando Luxury Suites.

As you can see in the photos at that link, the South Beach Orlando Luxury Suites were once a beautiful destination for tourists to come to and enjoy a vacation.  In the last 2 years of living here in Central Florida I’ve passed by the resort a few times thinking, “How can this be?”

Exploring the resort was amazing and yet sad all at the same time.  Below is a few before and after photos.  The before photos were found online, the after photos were what we took when we were there.  For a list of ALL photos Visit www.gramsnack.com/#rundownresorts

To see ALL our photos, visit www.gramsnack.com/#rundownresorts

It started out with me and friends, Tim and Ryan and later my son traded places with Ryan. As soon as Ethan got on the boat we were 10-15 minutes away from a cloud cover that seemed to be exactly what made the fish start biting. Here’s some photos of our morning

My curiosity got the best of me a couple weeks ago, so I reached out to a local airport to see if we could meet. Today was that day.

He flies a yellow, 1975 Grumman Ag Cat, aka “Holy Smoke”. An old crop duster, the AG stands for Agriculture. Born and raised in Ohio he fell in love with flying, and at age 16, he started lessons. At 23 he bought his first plane and since then has owned 29 of them.

In the late 70′s he moved from Cleveland to Florida and kept flying as his hobby while working in the retail industry. It wasn’t until 13-14 years ago that flying began to lose his interest – he was ready to hang it up.

Spending his entire life as a follower of Jesus Christ he began to seek his purpose. He wanted God to use his talents in whatever way He saw fit. He prayed and listened until one day the answer was delivered. He referenced God’s answer to be as clear as the conversation we were having – God wanted Jerry Stevens to deliver messages in the sky.

Unsure if it was his imagination leading him down this path he asked for a sign. Once again his faith delivered an answer. During a visit to his church on a Monday he found a choir performing (which was untraditional). He picked up the bulletin and on one of the hymns it read “and fill the skies with His praises”.

Flying at 10,500 feet up in the air, messages like “God + U = ” or “Jesus Loves You” and many more span the sky. The messages themselves are 7 miles long!

While interviewing Jerry, there was not one moment he didn’t place Christ in front of everything. Honoring himself for doing what he does was like trying to honor the quill pen for writing the Declaration of Independence. He gives all credit for everything to Jesus Christ.

He has a variety of messages that are written in the sky, but the decision of what message will go up that day comes from the prayer he prays before taking off.

Before I left, he said something to me. He said, “You know, a lot of people make it difficult to keep ‘God’ in school and in other places. Now His messages are up in the sky for all to see. In one way or another, God will always find a way to share His message.”

It couldn’t have come at a better time than yesterday when I needed to take a walk and clear my mind of all that was racing through it. I downloaded Brae’s new album, “Another time and place”, to my iPhone and started to walk.

What was simply me wanting to get away and listen to a new album turned into the perfect outfit for the occasion. The feel of the album played into the story of a personal journey as the cars passing by me and the horizon in the distance gave way for my own music video. As my walk adjusted to the sounds, all work related stresses were left at the starting point. I was lost in my own soundtrack.

Brae’s album “Another time and place” debuts for sale on 1/28/12. To sample and download it visit http://braemusic.com/

Through this experience my son realized he had an audience that was willing to give him money for things they wanted.

My son has been knocking it out of the park with his grades.  Maintaining A’s in all his classes he makes it look effortless.  He has the unique ability to make people around him feel valued and he seems to gel well in just about every age group.

Last night while I was putting him to bed he tells me he wants to buy a box of candy and sell the candies individually. I’m not gonna lie, I was pretty impressed.

I’m not really sure if the school would have a problem with it, but to be honest, I’m not squashing his motivation. Fly young grasshopper, show me your wings!