Going Home Part 2

Sorry it's taken so long to get the much awaited part 2 on the blog...the rain made me sleepy. Anyways, the 2nd part of our trip was spent with Lucas' family. With the exception of his parents, we hadn't seen some of his family since my graduation and most of his family since the Christmas before last, so it had been a while. This part of the trip was much more relaxing. We spent a few days in Rogers City (and since there were fewer people to see there than in Hillsdale, we got to sleep in and hang out and relax) and then we went downstate for Logan's graduation and Denise and Dan's 50th birthday party. Biggest Highlights: GRANDMA"S HOMEMADE BREAD and gleasons, Denise's cookies (which are the best in the universe according to a very reliable source), seeing Rogers City friends, Logan's graduation (which was very efficient and over in an hour), the partay, playing cards (and occasionally winning) and being surrounded by family Random funny thing: it really isn't a funny thing, it's a funny person. Lucas' aunt Debbie is one of the funniest people I have ever been around. Aunt Debbie, I still randomly picture you singing "all things are possible"!!! The thing I'm still bitter about: In general, I stink at anything that requires hand-eye coordination, but I was hoping that just once I would have the amazing ability to bowl a decent game at Logan's graduation reception (at the bowling alley where he works). It was not to be. I bowled a fabulous game of 58 and followed it with a game of 63. I did however have the distinction of throwing the most gutter balls...

State of Emergency

We have had 6 straight days of rain and will continue to have rain until this weekend. Our apt. building has only one entrance/exit and that road is under a couple of feet of water cutting us off from the rest of the world. So, Kim and I are home today and maybe home tomorrow as well. Gov. Romney has declared a state of emergency for our area. We're hearing that there have been all sorts of weather records have been broken. Pictures are from our campus.

Our trip: Going Home Part 1

We are back from our trip to MI. 10 days sounds so long, but it was too short. We did cram a lot into those days though. Especially considering we drove...(I, Kim, got a little crazy by the end of New York on the way home...too many hours in the car). Since we crammed so much in, we decided to divide the blog postings into the different parts of our trip. We spent the first couple of days in Hillsdale. It was amazing to me how natural it felt to be there. It reminded me a lot of going home, things changed but so much was familiar and it felt so good to be there. Our main goal was to visit friends and professors and our church and our youth group and my brother. It was so amazing to see so many people we love and miss, but in the end we did a lot of "hit and run" hellos. I know we wanted to really spend time with people and catch up, but it got to the point that if we bumped into someone on the sidewalk and gave them a quick hug, we crossed them off of the "to see" list because there just wasn't enough time. The biggest highlights of the trip: staying with the Lantis family, getting an official admissions tour of the new Hillsdale buildings, seeing our PFers, hanging out with my little bro, and Lucas seeing the Greys and their new baby while I attended SAI senior farewell. Random funny thing: We were with a few of the kids from our youth group and the Cheers Bar came up. Lucas said, "We've been there. I was a little disappointed ,though, they didn't all know my name," and Lucas and I cracked up while all of the kids gave us blank looks. One girl finally said, "Is that their thing? They, like, call people by their names? Do they give you name tags?" That is the first time that I've felt a strong generation gap between me and high schoolers. Who doesn't know that sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name??? The thing we're still bitter about: our first home as a married couple was torn down for 10 measely parking spaces that they didn't even pave...

End of Semester Hiatus

Our apologies. Papers and Exams have been my life of late. But in between those two things, we have been able to fit in a murder mystery party, a BBQ where we had a slam dunk contest "Monsterball Style" (see picture). I only beat one person out of 15, but I was the guy grillin' so my focus was on the meat, otherwise... Kim and I are driving to Hillsdale, MI tomorrow at 5 am and we will return to Mass May 8. We will also spend sometime in Rogers City, my hometown, and celebrate my brother's college graduation and both of my parent's 50th birthday. So we will hopefully have a lot to say and write. I should mention that Joel left a great link in the comments section of the post below. And just so you know that I have not been slacking, here is a paragraph from my exegesis paper on 1 Tim 3:17 (under the picture), which is about the qualifications for an overseer/pastor (the strange words are actually Greek text, which are not accepted by Blogger and are crudely transliterated: This is the only occurrence of neo,futoj in the New Testament. In the LXX neo,futoj has the meaning of a newly planted plant (Ps 128:3, Job 14:9). tufwqei.j literally means "to wrap in smoke," but "the New Testament always used metaphorically in the passive in the sense of being ‘puffed up’ with pride."1 tou/ diabo,lou, here in the singular with the article, refers specifically to the devil and not to some slanderous person in the church (cf. 2 Tim 2:26).2 tou/ diabo,lou could be either a subjective or an objective genitive. If it is subjective, then it is the devil who is passing judgment on the new convert, but if it is objective, then the convert is coming under the same condemnation that God passed on the devil. More than likely this should be understood as an objective genitive because throughout the Bible it is God who passes judgments, not Satan, who can only accuse us before God. In this case, the prideful new convert will be humbled. The verse should be viewed as a temporal punishment and not necessarily viewed as eternal punishment.

He is Risen!

Mark 16:1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?" 4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 6 "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.

Happy Birthday Laura Jane!!!

Our precious little neighbor girl, who has been mentioned in many posts, turned 1 year old yesterday. For those who have visited us and met Laura Jane, you know how cute she is, but with each day and each new developement she gets even more adorable. Currently, she is trying to say "Lukey" and "Kimmy" and we hope to be the first non-family names added to her vocabulary. I (Kim) hate to say it, but I think Lukey might be her favorite of the two of us. I would like to say that he has an unfair advantage because I come home shortly before her bedtime and he has more daytime hours for games of peek-a-boo. However, they had a bonding experience recently when I got stuck at work and Lukey had to babysit. Despite the fact that within 15 minutes she got a bloody lip on the toy box and fell off the couch, when I got there she wouldn't come to me at all and Lukey had to feed her and rock her to sleep. She is a little girl after our own heart as her favorite toys are books, and we can only hope our children have as extensive of a library as she has. She also loves cows and often moos (the cutest thing EVER!!!) Can you tell we're a little infatuated with this little girl??? Her 1st birthday party was a blast (as you can see from the pictures). Surprisingly, she wasn't a fan of her cake, although she dove into it as if she were in a pie eating contest - hands back, head first. She did seem to like the whip cream frosting though. Tell me, how could you not be absolutely in love with this little girl??

Tourney Troubles

For most of us, the NCAA tournament ended a long time ago, at least as far as our brackets are concerned. By far this was my worst year. Out of the 65 people in my tournament group, "Where's Grandma?" I beat only 4 people and one of them was an infant. Congratulations go out to Rev. Matt Schramm who won our pool by 40 points and beat 97.9% of the 3 million entries at ESPN.com. The frustrating thing about this horrific showing on my part is that it will affect how I choose next year. I will remember which teams let me down (You know who you are Iowa and Pitt!) and will punish them with 1st or 2nd round losses when I fill out my 2007 brackets. Can't wait for Selection Sunday '07!