Mission Safari: The Next Chapter(s)

A Good Start To The Season

On a beautiful, sunny Saturday afternoon, Ben's football team, the Williamsburg Hornets, crushed their cross-town rivals, the James City Jaguars, 26-0. The boys started the season off with a 65 yard touchdown on the opening kick-off and they never looked back.
Ben, who was named a Captain for the second straight season, has moved from playing Center to playing Fullback on offense. He had a solid game on the offensive side carrying the ball 4 times for 15 yards. He also scored his first TD ever to put the team up 14-0. In addition, he scored two extra points on running plays.

On the defensive side, Ben played Defensive End. He made 6 tackles, 3 of which were sacks. He also made a fumble recovery.
After going 3-7 last year (one win being a forfeited game), it was nice for the boys to start off the season with a win. They definitely looked better today than they did in any game last year. It will be interesting to see how they do over the next couple of weeks as the competition gets stronger.
Way to go Ben! Way to go Hornets!

A Few Pics from STL

I wrote about our trip on the previous post.  I was able to download my pictures.  Here are some of my favorites.  

 

 

 
  

Back From St. Louis

Well, I am tired today.  I drove back  with Sarah, Sam, and the girls yesterday after a great visit with my parents.  Our trip took 15 hours and 1 min.  One minute over 15 hours.  Can you believe it?  Was it that last little potty break that put us over the top?  

Anyway, we had a great time.  We went to Cardinals' game as mentioned and suffered through a 6-3 loss; their 5th loss in a row.  But, they won Saturday and Sunday so they have righted the ship a bit.  Even so, we had a fun time at the game.  Check out the video below of Sam's Cardinals Dance. It is fun.

We also had a chance to take Sarah, Sam, and the girls to the St. Louis Zoo.  It was hot but we had a fun time.  All the kids, even the 65 year old Paw Paw really enjoyed the exhibits.  Our favorite was the penguins.  They really made us laugh. 

Saturday night we had a birthday party for my Dad.  He turns 65 tomorrow.  He doesn't look it or act it.  I really think he looks younger now than a few years ago.  I think his daily bike ride is really making a difference for him.

Although we had fun spending time with my parents and made lots of memories, I was sobered by a phone call I received from a friend.  His son recently moved out of the house unexpectedly to make it on his own.  He has already made several bad choices and is going from one lie to the next.  It was sad hearing the heartbreak in my friends voice.  My friend loves the Lord, has intentionally lived out his faith, and having one of his kids live in this kind of rebellion is devastating.  I was reminded how fragile life is and how powerful sin is.  I also reflected that God's grace is all that keeps me, or Marti, or the kids from making similar poor decisions and making a mess of our lives.

All in all, it was a great trip.  I am really surprised at how smoothly both 15 hour drives went.  This was mostly because Sarah did such an outstanding job helping out.  She is a real blessing.  It makes me sad to think that she is a rising Senior and will soon be going off to school...but that is a worry for another day!

Enjoy Sam's Cardinals Dance!

Out in Granite City

Well, we arrived safe and sound and pretty tired Tuesday night. After 15 hours 20 minutes and 3 pit stops (not including the 2 minute highway stop for Sam), I drove into my parents driveway with Sarah, Sam, and the little girls. The trip went remarkably well. But boy were we glad to get out of the car. Marti and Ben flew in yesterday afternoon so we are all here together now.

So far we have had a great visit. I have gone on two long bike rides with my dad. He took up biking several months ago and he rides about 12-18 miles a day 6 days a week. We have gone for rides of 14 and 22 miles. It has been fun. I have also been able to run three times this week for runs of 3, 5, and 12 miles. 

We have also enjoyed hanging out together. Wednesday evening we enjoyed the cooler weather and after eating Chinese at the house, walked down to Weather Vanes for my favorite local ice cream. The little girls really loved it! Then yesterday we had Grandmother over to the house. She is doing well for her 89 years but looks like she will have to have a total knee replacement done next month.

Tonight we are going over to Busch Stadium to see the Cardinals. They have lost 4 games in a row so we hope they end that nasty streak tonight. They need to; they are 3 games behind the first place Reds. 

More later. I hope to upload some pictures soon.

Quick Update

I'm tired.  I just finished working 8 twelve hour shifts in 9 days...most of them night shifts.  The upside is that I am off the next 10 days.  We are traveling to the St. Louis area this week.  I am driving Sarah, Sam, and the girls on Tuesday.  Marti and Ben fly out Thursday afternoon.  We will be there until Sunday.  We're looking forward to seeing my parents, grandmothers, and other assorted family.  We're also looking forward to going to the St. Louis Zoo as well as Busch Stadium to see the Cards play.

Since my last post, I have mostly been working.  Marti has mostly been surviving as a "single" parent.  I guess the biggest news is that our new Youth Ministries Director at church started last week.  We had a welcome pool party for her tonight (yes, our Youth Director is a young lady).  She is going to do a great job...the girls love her, and she earned her stripes tonight playing soccer with the boys (she played on the soccer team at Covenant College).

Hopefully I can get back to being a bit more regular on the blog now that I have gotten through this tough part of the schedule.

Peace.

Cherokee Mission 2010 Video

I just received this YouTube video from one of the guys from our church, Grace Covenant PCA, who participated in the Cherokee Mission Trip last month.  It is a great video and shows what the team did during their week in Cherokee.  I am really glad Ben was able to participate in the work there as they did VBS for the kids as well as painted a few houses.  Over 30 folks from our church, including 10 youth, served.  Praise God for the effort.

An Early August Update

Things have been typically busy around here the past couple of weeks.  I just finished off 5 night shifts in a row so haven't had time to update much.  Nights are hard anyway, but 5 in a row was an effort.  But, given how bad it could have been, I'm not complaining.  God is good in protecting us when we need a little breathing room.

Ben has started back to football this week.  He has been looking forward to it the past few weeks.  Fortunately the weather has been pretty good this week.  He did a decent job working out this summer so he hasn't done too bad in the first two practices which have mostly been conditioning work outs.  Tomorrow they put on pads for the first time so he may get to do a few tackling drills.  I think he is looking forward to this season.  He will be one of the older kids on the team (the league allows kids up to 14 to play) as well as one of the bigger kids.  If he hasn't quite passed 6 feet tall, he will by the end of the season.  He looks pretty thin too but weighs around 153 (and he'll probably be up to 158).  The rest of his team looks small but we will see how well they can play as August progresses.

The little girls continue to grow.  Kate's new thing is to get into EVERYTHING.  Today, I walked into the den and found half a box of Cheerios all over the place.  Jack was trying to eat them as fast as he could.  I ended up using the vacuum cleaner to clean them up...there were probably 300 Cheerios out.  

Amy's vocabulary is growing...she doesn't seem like a 2 year old anymore. A friend from work gave me some tomatoes from his garden.  One variety he likes to grow is yellow tomatoes.  I was eating one the other day and Amy, who loves tomatoes,  was watching me.  Finally she said, "Those are so strange."

Sam spent last week at Day Camp at the elementary school around the corner.  In the mornings we would bike over together and he'd lock his bike and go in.  He enjoyed meeting the other kids and playing a variety of indoor and outdoor games.  This week he has been reading a lot (mostly because we put him on TV restriction).  He enjoys reading when he reads, but he would rather sit in front of the TV.  He'll probably be on more TV restriction the rest of the summer.

Sarah has continued to enjoy the summer reading.  She has read several books including To Kill A Mockingbird, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Let Me Be a Woman, Brideshead Revisited, and is currently reading The Prodigal God. Tonight she is scrap booking with Marti.  She is working on her Utah trip while Marti is finishing up the book on our Europe trip.  And speaking of Sarah's Utah trip, below are a few of my favorite shots she took while there.