Gidday
I am Michael Brandon from Auckland New Zealand. I am very happily married to Diane whom I married rather young, and had our first baby around her 21st birthday. Now 15 years later we have 5 wonderful children - Sarah, Emily, Jonathan, Elena and Esther.
Sarah has her first after school job at a butcher, Emily is our cheerleader extraordinaire, so many practices every week in preparation to go to a championships in Australia in several months. Jonathan loves computers and runescape. Elena loves the monkey bars. Esther is so cute, our 2 year old.
Craig Thompson invited me here to help out with the search engine optimization of RenewedReflections. Now I am looking after the newsletters, adding the header photos, SEO, and continued enhancement of the forum. Its a fun place to be around, and I certainly love it.
I am a rather passionate person. I love playing my flute and loving and worshiping Jesus, and telling others about him. We go to a local Baptist church that is big time into the community. Horticulture training, and training for troubled youth, budgeting, foodbank, kindergarten, a 200+ employee home help business, emergency housing, low cost housing initiatives with the Government, ... All very cool. Diane my wife helps in the toy library and kids "Mainly Music" toddler dance group.
At our weekly church group that meets at our home, we are going through the
Just walk across the room series by Bill Hybels. Talking to people about Jesus is my true passion, and its awesome to be studying a topic that I love so much.
My sister Sharon is a doctor and soon to be full time on the mission field as a Doctor in Papua New Guinea. Had a good yarn with her yesterday. Its good to have family. Maria is living in our home town Wanganui with her Jewish husband and their newborn.
Stephen is married and living in Glasgow Scotland with his wife and two darling children. He has been a missionary in Czech Republic for several years, and is currently working as a computer techy for
Operation Mobilisation (OM). Just had a skype yarn with him. Good to connect again.
My parents have a honey bee business in Wanganui New Zealand -
Canaan Honey.
Then there is me - my work passion is helping people be the best they can be on the search engines. I own the business SearchMasters
Search Engine Optimization Consultants. Part of the business is traveling around New Zealand taking seminars and teaching web developers how to do their business better
Lots of fun.
How about it. Thanks for having this introduction thread.
As far as the dressing alike thing, must of been a sign of the times. My mom used to do the same thing. I was the dark, curly haired one and my sister was the light brown straight haired one. Because of my weight, everyone assumed I was the older one.
) I was a figure skater for about 14 years and did not have a weight problem growing up but after being diagnosed with a thyroid problem when I was 18 the competitive nature in me kinda slowed as I lost my energy and gained a few pounds. My real weight problem stated when I was 20 , I had two surgeries in 9 months (1st minor, 2nd major) I was off my feet for several weeks and not able to skate or workout for 6 months, but I was still hungry / eating like an athlete and gained a fair bit of weight. With the weight gain came depression because I wasn't able to do what I loved, so I ate more and topped out at 220lbs. In 1998 I started my first year of an accounting program in college, and worked at small casino as a cashier after school. 10 months later I was hired as a full time supervisor, left school, and was transferred to a small casino London, Ontario (1999). This was the first time living on my own; it was so scary and wonderful at the same time. But I only knew the people that I worked with who had also transferred from Windsor, and we did a lot of restaurant eating as we got to know the city which = more weight gain. Finally when I reached 284lbs I joined Jenny Craig. I had some success in losing the weight and got down to 238lbs. I felt great but slowly moved away from the program because it became more expensive than my rent. I managed to keep most of the weight I had lost off until my father suddenly passed away from heart failure in 2003. It destroyed me.
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