It's been a while

I know it has been a while since I have posted. Truthfully, I have had a lot of cool things happening and I don't find myself stopping to write about them. Instead, I find myself getting wrapped up in those moments. But, I blog because I like reflection. I hate to write in a journal, but typing always seems fun to me. I actually sat down to blog a couple weeks ago and my computer went all screwy. Okay... enough excuses, on with the entry. So many cool things have happened in the past month that I really don't know what all to share, but I will start recently then work my way back.

July 4th- Awesome time yesterday! My wife's twin sister and her husband came up for a visit. I love them so much. They are like our best friend's really. For some reason we have not found that in Quincy yet, but we will always have that with them. I am sure we will have best friend's here that are couples that we hang out with all the time. I have lots of good starts for that. Anyway, I grilled up a sweet rack of Baby Back Ribs. They turned out delicious, let me know if you want the recipe for my dry rub. It turned out better than I expected. Also did Kabobs, for some reason, you cannot ever top a Beef Kabob. They are even great reheated. Finally, we went down to the riverfront and saw the explosions. The finale was a great moment. I held my hand over my wife's stomach and felt our little one wiggling around like crazy. I bet she won't be gun-shy when she arrives. We have had four straight nights of fireworks now.

June 28th - Oh yeah, if you couldn't tell from above- we are going to have a little baby girl!!!! Our, well Nikki's really, ultrasound went really well. The baby looks like it is in good shape and they are pretty certain it will be a girl. That thrills me! Honestly, I always wanted a boy first, but after watching a friend of mine's cute little girl melt his heart, I am sold on girl.

June 12th-17th - Had one of the best weeks of church camp ever. It was a great week all around. I wouldn't know where to begin to describe it. We did close out the week dunking three kids, which was the highlight of the week.

May31-June4 - Took a trip to Colorado. It was truly great. It was everything I needed at that point. I was thrilled to think about driving across country with Gil and Pete. It would give me a chance to get to know Pete better and spend some time with my best buddy. It all turned out bueno. I honestly think that if Gil and I were trapped in a sewer we would still make a good time out of it. It is always amazing to me how God took a guy from Oregon and put him on the same campus as he put me in northern Missouri and began such a great friendship. I always use to hate it because I didn't have a vehicle in that first year of college, but it turned out to be great because I spent weekends there when a lot of kid's went home, and Gil spent the weekends there too. If I'd had a car, I would have missed out on building a great relationship. So, thanks God for the no car situation. I always think about how great it would be to go back and soak up every minute of that year of college. Wouldn't it be cool to have that all to do again?

Other random thoughts-

- Do you watch the "Real Gilligan's Island"? Well, I don't really, but I was a couple weeks ago. I was watching with my wife, when I suddenly saw someone on T.V. that looked familiar. It was really freaky. I was like, I know her. Then it came to me. I had this girl as a camper back in 1996 in church camp a couple weeks. She was on the show as Mary Anne Randi. Sure enough, Randi Silvers from KC. Talk about crazy. I was so proud, until I saw her actions. It was real nice when the showed the clip of her dropping the f-bomb. Yeah, that's right, real impact I made in her life.

- Just read an interview of Moby. It is truly a great article. If you could only have one magazine subscription in the world, I would recommend it be "Relevant Magazine". It is wonderful. The interview with Moby was so great. Sometimes you hear musicians talk about how God influences their writing and it goes something like, "yeah, I went to church when I was a kid". But with Moby, he knows the Scripture. He knows the character and person of Christ. It was so great to read his understandings of what it means to be Christian.

- Softball is fun. Playing three times a week and loving it. My old swing is back and my defense is improved. I attribute that to a couple things. One, my attitude. I am not letting the ball play me, instead I am playing the ball. All about confidence really. Secondly, losing some weight. Okay, you won't really notice it when I step on the scale but this diet I am doing really eliminates a lot of the junk that I don't need to eat. It makes me feel so much better.

- CIY is coming - it shall be a great week. I am really happy that it is almost here. I really want to pour myself into these teens this week. It always brings people closer together and have no doubt it will do it again.

- Half-Way - Today is the half-way point in the pregnancy. So, appropriate that it is in the half-way point in the baseball season. My wife and I planned that out perfectly :) It is totally crazy to think about it being half-over. I guess the easy part is done.

I am done.