I Have A Blog???

Oops. Sorry. Time for a marathon of updates.

Friday morning and afternoon was spent mostly in airports. I've never felt like O'hare is a familiar place, because it is so huge. However, Laguardia airport seems quite common now.

Here's where you get food before the shops close for the night, and you're stuck in the airport


Here's the bedroom. That guy has NO respect for Ashley's old bed.



Our friends, Jeff and Lisa, waited over an hour late for their flight to arrive and begin boarding. Not an encouraging sign for your flight, to the same place, scheduled an hour later. But everything worked out fine.





Connie and Elke are no longer allowed to sit within earshot of each other.





We had the opportunity to embarrass Sarah once more with a public singing of Happy Birthday in the Peoria airport. Random folks from the terminal were more than willing to join in.



Elisabeth and Charly were quite content with their present too.


After getting home (updates on on New York are coming). I should have taken a nap...but no. Homemade Ice cream at Hornbrooks drew me in...drawed me...drug...dragged...I had ice cream.

We all got to shake Kimberly's hand. The hand that shook the president's hand! Ironically, Pastor Ritch was asked to give the opening prayer at Aaron Schock's fundraiser (President Bush attending), but had already made a previous commitment. So, Kimberly ate his $500 plate of food, for free.





One of our missionaries from South Africa, Carol, is back in town. II Peter was ready for the pose. He's getting good at it.





Alright look. I know it's a two and a half hour movie, but I was gonna see the last 15 minutes (missed the first time) if it killed me! It was worth it. After the first viewing of Batman - Dark Knight, I thought all this movie was going to do was feed the folks with already depressed, angry, suicidal rage building up inside them to become psycho killers. But in the end (the part I missed), there was at least an effort to encourage people to overcome the desire to react to this world's brokenness with more brokenness. Close enough...moving on.


Saturday
First thing in the morning was rain make-up Softball games. I was totally shafted, attending the game on a baby watching premise...oh well

I left the house with camera in hand, and battery in wall...so all we have are horrible camera phone pictures.




This blur is Dave up to bat.








This one is Josh.







Tyler did his duty, transporting as much gravel as possible from the playground to the playhouse despite the incessant nagging by his daddy to stop.




Both Monday night teams lost :-( But later that night. Steve's Tuesday night team won, securing the #2 spot in the tournament.

Congratulations to Jerry Randall and his United Presbyterian team. They finally overcame their fear of swinging at imperfect pitches, were able to enjoy a game since it ended in a victory, and expanded their four letter word vocabulary. Some folks have not yet mastered the skill of simply enjoying church league softball...but we trust they'll get there some day.

Luau!

Saturday was the...6th annual (no clue) Career Impact Luau.

Pre-Luau activities:

- Make plenty of ammo.


- Place the food...mmmmm food.


- Decorate (ok, that was already done)


- Setup the games.


Almost there


Emmmmmmbarasing.








"Oooooo, look at us, wearing cool shades... meemeemee"












This is called water balloon volleyball. Very interesting. (picture shamelessly swiped from Sarah's camera)














How things digress when you don't have anything planned for the rest of the water balloons. (picture also shamelessly swiped from Sarah's camera)






Must have been when that three-headed bird flew overhead.

Votes for a better joke can be submitted as comments.

This is called making a whirlpool and it kept this group entertained for quite a while.


Happy Brithday....AGAIN!

The Show DID Go On!

Did you think we would miss posting about men's Bible study just because I'm a little busy? Heck no!

Even without Joe, Butch and myself to inhale the good stuff, the guys managed to make serious business of Ryan's "home cookin'".


We had to blur out Peter because he's too good lookin'. And Mike too, for no good reason.



I did not plan to be gone for another awkward topic week. The boys learned how to be ewwey gooey romantic with their spouses, should they ever have one. Remember folks, Bible study breeds married men. I'm just hangin' back since someone's gotta facilitate Bible study... I could have a girlfriend...if I wanted to...really! Why are you laughing!?!

Ryan, thanks for hosting at taking the pics!

Still Going Strong

Congratulations to the Bethany softball teams this week. BW had a bye, but Joey's Bethany East pulled off a win, as well as Steve and Elise's Tuesday night team. Nice of Steve's team to finally play a game and to see that they haven't forgotten how to swing a bat after so many rain outs.

NYC Day 4 - Tuesday

Once again, it is too late to complete a post on our day's activities. Please check the Picasa album for the wordless pictures, and see the updated Day 3 posts.

Pictures

NYC Day 3 - Monday

Sorry for the late post. We had a late (but good) night on the town Monday evening.

Check out the blog and pics!

NYC Day 3 - Monday

Day 3 Pictures

Here's a neat vid of the subway station below Times Square. Almost as busy as the Port Authority station where prayer stations are setup.

NYC Day 2 - Sunday

Once again, it is too late to have some extra fun on this page with today's pictures. And, unfortunately, I did find that the wireless internet is accessible from my room. (sigh)

However, you can check out our team blog and picasa page for today!

NYC Day 2 - Sunday

Day 2 Pictures

Here's a clip of a song the Bethany choir will be singing next year. Fred may not know it yet though. :-)

NYC Day 1 - Saturday

We made it to New York without incident. I do not have time to write up an adendum to the official New York Blog post tonight as we have curfew coming up, and I don't have internet from the room. Please check out the New York blog and Picasa site for the goods.

NYC Day 1 - Saturday Post

Day 1 Pictures



This post is a work in progress during breaks throughout the day.

Flights from Peoria never get to land at a gate with a walkway to the terminal. What Sarah doesn't know is that while we were waiting for them to get her off the plane, some lady plopped down in her wheelchair thinking that it was brought for her. It took the airline folks five minutes to convince her that she needed to walk.








Oooo, pretty lights.










After going to Slovenia and Thailand, I find these charts much more interesting than before.

KEEP CHECKING!

Don't forget to check the New York City mission trip blog from Saturday July 19th through Friday July 25th. This is where I will be, and where I will be posting the most. However, I'll still post here too. So keep checking here as well. Over...and over...and over again.

http://nycmissiontrip2008.blogspot.com/

See you in an hour when you check again.


PS. I will start packing as soon as I post this. Five and a half hours before our flight leaves...

No Sweat

30 hours 'til New York, and I haven't even thought about packing.

I can't wait to reenact my favorite part of the movie, "Enchanted".


If you do not have flash player installed, you just missed the "How does She Know" scene.

Easy part - finding the same location in Central Park. I recognized a couple shots.
Hard part - getting my team to dress up in wedding dresses, tuxes, jump suits and other various carnival outfits, as well as finding a couple of trained doves.

I can't wait for Enchanted 2 and the song "How In The World Is He Supposed To Know"...



My buddy Ryan cooked dinner for me tonight as an excuse to show off his tiny apartment and huge TV.





I use the term "cooked" very loosely.




This is his idea of a candle lit dinner...Jacquelyn, what have you gotten yourself in to?




Later, filled in at the Rescue mission for the singin' part. Pretty fun. These guys totally got jipped by having me there though. I swear they were just trying to pick random hymns I didn't know :-)

Joel spoke on Cololsians 1:13-20

Mmmm Butter (updated)

Wednesday = Men's Bible Study

Fay boy hosted and cooked for the study this week. The man is a good cook.





All a guy needs is a pot full of butter.





Josh slaved away in the kitchen to prepare a decent meal for us. And decent it was.






While Josh was slaving away, I stole his sunglasses. Shhh, he doesn't know.









Tonight's lesson was really good, but we'll all have to remind ourselves of it often later on in life. It was the second week regarding "The Art Of Conflict" and here is a list of points he mentioned which couples should consider in conflict. It's incomplete until I review the book tonight.

1. Never speak rashly
2. Never confront your spouse publicly – never humiliate
3. Never confront your spouse in front of your children
4. Never use your children in the conflict
5. Never resort to name calling
6. Never say "Never" or "Always"
7. Never get historical
8. Never raise your voice in anger
9. Never be condescending
10. Never allow an argument to begin if you are hungry – angry – lonely – tired
11. Never stomp out of the room – unresolved anger heightens an already bad situation
12. Never demean – much truth in our world never needs to be said
13. Never bring family into it unless they are a direct part of the problem.
14. Never out-argue
15. Never accuse with "you" statements.
And LISTEN!

This is a week without an attendance-revealing picture. Ladies, just ask me and I'll tell you if the guy you're interested is going Bible study :-)

Cheese Rolls!

Yes, I'm still blogging about things two days old. I'm worried too, but we'll get through it.



For a combined birthday outing, Mom and Eric took Dad and me out to dinner at Red Lobster. July 15th is traditionally the family celebration of our birthdays since mine is the 14th and Dad's is the 16th.




Dad and I always order the same thing. A combo platter of some sort. But why we really go is the cheesy biscuits.







Some cake back at at home. I really want to make old jokes here, but I can't since Mom's older than Dad, and I still want free food.










Got a DVD of one of my favorite Christian speakers (and author), Frank Peretti.






Next on the agenda was a meeting with the Sunday school class events committee. Yes, it takes a committee of normal people to do what Kari used to do by herself.

I lasted about 4 minutes before A.D.D. kicked in. Here's the proof.





This one proves I have A.D.D. AND can't aim a camera phone without my glasses on.

71481

P-schell took me out to lunch on Monday. Dunno why. Probably some stupid reason. :-) Thanks man!



The marked difference between the healthiness of the food we loaded up with this time was slightly less with the gobs of whipped cream he loaded onto his fruit.


I had a little break between work and evening activities, which Maya ruined. Bad Dog! Alarmed at the combination of death-screams and barking in the house, I raced down the stairs as quickly as possible, falling down most of them...twice. I'm not really sure what happened to my ankle, but walking is still a chore today.

After dropping Maya off at the pound to be put down (juuuust kidding...) It was time for the clash of the Bethanys...Bethanies...Bethany's....whatever.



B.W.

vs.

B.E.


Joey's Bethany East came out on top last time by 7 runs. The game was much closer this time with alot more excitement...but East Coast is now 2-0 against it's own.


Dave, BW's homerunner. They dress weird at Living Hope. Nice shorts stud.






Joey, BE's almost homerunner.






Amidst the myriad of Happy Birthday wishes in texts and facebook posts, I told Andrew that all I really wanted was a hug from Doug. Doug did not approve.....(sigh).



Go John Go!


Go Kari go!


Go Mike go!


Stop Josh stop!



Thanks to my uncanny ability to be easily zoned and distracted, I didn't notice that 20 people had circled around me until Joey burst into the Birthday song. Nice.




OMM NOM!




THANK YOU!!





After the game and surprise, the NYC team had one final get together just to hang and spend some time praying about the opportunities, challenges, fun and surprises to be had next week in New York.







Speaking of surprises....





While we were praying, Elisabeth (with an 'S'!!) was getting a cake ready for another birthday surprise. Thanks guys!


At the end of two days, I have Julie, Nancy, Kari, Mom, the NYC team and Joyous to thank for making me fatter with cupcakes, brownies, cakes, ice cream and cobbler...sheesh! Did I miss anything?

Topped the night off by watching Scrubs with Maya and Andrew.

Clearly, Maya couldn't stay on my bad side for long.