Updates, Down Dates, Diagonal Dates

Summer, or at least the stay at home and not have to go to school type of summer, is coming to a close. Melissa started back to work after nine years as a stay-at-home mom. Conner is in 3rd grade and Carter started kindergarten (with some anxiety.) I had my first cross-country meet of the season yesterday and, well, let's just say there's lots of room for improvement. I start back to school this Friday (teacher's first day) but don't have students until next Tues. (9/1). I think our family can officially be classified as "Hoosiers" because we now have a basketball goal in our drive. (Well, the base anyway until tomorrow.) Pastor Kris, Tammy, and Shelby stopped by while out for a walk this evening and PK took part in a swashbuckling sword fight with the boys. Shelby came to his rescue after he took a couple of viscious hits.

What did you do this summer? We had several adventures and jaunts: Indy Children's Museum, Drive-in, water park, Bear Creek Farms, Disney World & Downtown Disney, the beach (in Florida), flew to FL, went bowling (several times), went fishing, vacation Bible school, Cub Scout day camp, putt-putting (I didn't get to go), Parker Fair, "Great" Darke County Fair (OH), bike rides, swimming (a few times). No surprise to anyone, I'm sure, that I ran a lot this summer and did two triathlons (canoe, run, bike).

We, the Blessed

Haven't posted in almost a month because, well, not sure why. Today we celebrated Conner's 9th birthday! (Although his birthday isn't actually until Monday.) Wow, nine years old already and about to start the third grade!!! The cliche about time flying is certainly true. I'm leaving tomorrow after church for Ashland Univ. for a week of classes on the Civil War and Reconstruction. Should be pretty interesting, especially once I figure out what spin or angle the professors are trying to get us to buy. Had a heart-to-heart with Conner tonight about how blessed we are, both as people of God and as citizens of this rich, powerful (and hugely in debt) country. He was disappointed that he only got six presents for his birthday (plus $75). Melissa and I both talked with him about the importance of being thankful and tried to impress upon him that, while it's not unusual to get quite a bit for a birthday in America, it's extremely rare compared to the rest of the world. It's easy to see, looking around my cluttered part of the house, that we have a LOT of stuff. We went to the drive-in last night and watched "Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs." We're flying to Disney World in Orlando in just over a week. God has been very, very good to use!

70 Years!

As it is now past midnight, I'll begin with ~ "Yesterday (Sun.), June 21st, was my grandparents 70th Wedding Anniversary!!!" Can you believe that? 70 YEARS! A lot of married couples (about half) are lucky to make it to 7 or 10 years, so 70 years is incredible!!! Now, I know what some of you are thinking -- if you read in the Old Testament of the Bible you'll discover couples that were married a LOT longer than that. I think it was all the goats milk and warm, dry climate that helped them. ;) Melissa and I get along really well (as long as I do what she says!), but it's hard to fathom being married to each other for 70 years, especially since we're only at 12.5 years. If I had to guess at the reason for the longevity of my grandparents marriage it would be four mutual things: an enjoyment of sports, a love for fishing, eating a LOT of the fish they caught, and turning their hearing aids down or completely off. (Plus the TV up really loud!)

TRIATHLON

Completed my first triathlon yesterday that involved canoing. The way it works is you team up with a partner, then canoe, run, and bike. You and your partners' times are added together to get your overall team time to figure out how you placed. We finished the canoe portion (4 miles) in 41 min. I finished the run (little over 5 miles) in 36 min. The last part, biking 17 miles, I finished in about 55 min. My overall individual time was 2 hr.-12 min.-50 sec. I'm pretty pleased for my first tri of this type. We're doing another one in July!!! (Gluttons for pain!)

There & Back Again

After teaching my summer school class this morning Jason(my racing partner) and I went to the Stillwater River in West Milton, OH, and canoed the four miles of the course that we'll be racing on Sat. Then we ran the five miles back to W. Milton that we'll also be racing on Sat. The only thing we didn't do is the seventeen miles of biking. Should be an interesting triathlon!!!