It all started a few months back with a conversation with a friend at church.  He’d said that he’d never seen the “Lord of the Rings” movies, didn’t plan on seeing them, and really had no desire to see them.  But I just knew that he’d appreciate the story if he would just take the time to watch even the first of the three movies.  Now, this friend is newly married, and I know that his wife appreciates a good story – and she likes LOTR.  So I convinced her to ask him as one of her Christmas presents, for them to come to our house and have dinner and watch the first of the movies (“Fellowship of the Ring”) with us.  He relented.  What else could he do, right?

Well, it’s taken a few months and having to re-do our plans at least once, but last night they arrived at 5:30pm with pizza in hand.  My job was to pick up some orders of chips and queso from Chili’s on the way home – oh, and a large half-Coke-half-diet Coke for my wife.  As I was leaving work around 4:50pm I called and asked if she could have our youngest son look for the movie in our collection so that if it wasn’t there I could pick it up somewhere on the way.  Response back was that he was sure that it was on NetFlix so we had no worries.

Made it to Chili’s, picked up the order, and headed home – would be there by 5:20pm (early, which is amazing).  I was literally five blocks from our street when I get a text from another of our sons: “Dad, I’m at so-and-so’s, can you pick me up so I won’t miss dinner?”  I had just passed that friends house on my way from work to Chili’s – why couldn’t that text have come 15 minutes ago?  Back into the heart of rush-hour traffic to get him, and then finally get back home 15 minutes late for our friends arrival.  Thankfully my wife was already home. Continue reading →