It has been six months since I've written for my blog. I'm rather ashamed of that, actually. This is something I need to do, both for my own spirit and hopefully for the benefit of someone else who may be encouraged by something I write. As I sat down to write this, I realized what an amazing life I get to live! Look at what's happened in the past six months!
* My son Jon graduated from high school. His final days of high school were quite exciting, between the baseball team making it to the regional finals, our church's senior banquet, and the opportunities he had to perform his songs publicly at a couple venues in Frederick.
* Tim had an outstanding junior tennis season, losing only 3 times.
* We had a long awaited and wonderful 9-day vacation to Colorado. We stayed in a beautiful rental house near Durango. We ate like kings, hiked in the mountains, white-water rafted, sang with cheesy cowboys, rode horses, sat in the hot tub, and spent time with family and old friends. I wish I could live in those moments every day!
* We came home from that vacation to our newly-remodeled kitchen. It's amazing, and it was definitely time! Our old kitchen (original to a 50-year-old house) was literally falling off the walls.
* Jon and I went to Ecuador on a mission trip for 10 days. It was a phenomenal experience and something we would like to do again. We met many wonderful people and saw God do amazing things.
* Thomas and Tim went on mission trips to Pittsburgh and Portland, Maine, respectively. They both had marvelous times.
* We spent a few days at Rehoboth Beach.
* We survived dropping Jon off at Grove City College. It would have made a good blog, for sure!
* Tim is in college-mode now. We have some decisions to make. We are actually having a family meeting tonight to talk about it.
* Thomas made his 8th grade travel basketball team.
* Thomas and I celebrated his "coming of age" with a surprise trip to see Switchfoot in concert, complete with backstage passes and some awkward talks about, you know, man stuff.
* Karen is back to teaching 4th grade for another year. She is an amazing person. I get to see her a few times a week.
* We had an 80th birthday party for my father. It was a sweet time, although my aunt, his sister, passed away shortly afterwards.
* I kicked off another year of youth ministry at MVCC. Highlights so far this year include a ridiculous number of kids each week at our middle school meetings, and over a dozen decisions for the Lord including nine just this past weekend at our annual fall retreat.
I'm sure I missed a few things as well. So what this tells me is that 1) I need to make time for writing this blog, because it's not going to happen without discipline, and 2) I have so much to write about, I have no excuses.
So here's my promise to myself, and perhaps to you, to write at least twice a month.