Dave Kurt's Blog

Nate's team had a playoff game on Tuesday night. It was freezing cold, snowing at one point, but the best game of the year. They played one of the other teams in the Panther organization in their division (3 divisions - Fresman, JV, Varsity x 5 Teams per division). They played great, but lost 13-14, really giving it away with a couple of turn-overs and a pretty bad call by a ref.

I am normally the guy taking pictures, but it was really too dark, so I brought out my video camera. I happened to capture this video of Nate making a touch-down saving tackle. He's #20 in this video coming up the sideline to make the tackle after the guy in front of him misses.

This was a great season. Nate grew and learned a ton. He improved his knowledge and skills in football and learned more and more about what it means to be a part of a team, something larger than himself. He learned about commitment, learned to love the game of football even more, he learned about leadership and helping the younger guys on the team. I'm so proud of Nate and the effort and talent he showed this year.

Emily rearranged things on our fridge and thought this was the
funniest thing she'd ever seen.

Over the past couple of weeks, Maddie has been secretly leaving
choclates and notes on mine and Cathie's pillows. Last night we struck
gold with me getting a full size Hershey Bar and Cathie gettig a full
size Twix. She never called attention to it, just doing it quietly
behind-the-scenes.

My Mom used to leave mints on Cathies pillow from the Grand Hotel when
we would stay at their house.

We had Nate's Football banquet on Sunday. There were a zillion people there with such a huge team. The coaches spoke and they handed out trophies to kids.

This was such a cool year for Nate in football. Last year was learning everything from scratch. Being a new guy last year and one of younger guys, he would play rarely, and even then only at cornerback. This year, Nate went in to the season in fantastic shape with a lot of the skills already down, including blocking and tackling. He played with such a great intensity and we even saw a positive impact from his ADD meds on him from a team sports standpoint.

He moves up to Varsity next year, with the 7th and 8th graders. I think the running back weight limit was 140 and the lineman limit was 160 lb in the JV league Nate plays in. (Nate weighs 73 lbs). Next year, the guys are huge. Seriously, huge and fast. Nate's just hoping he hits a growth spurt. I remember wrestling in the 82 lb weight class in 7th grade, so hopefully it's not dependent on my genes.

Nate's team had their last regular season game on Saturday evening. The game was during the MSU/U of M game, which stunk, not to mention the fact that it started an hour late. I was able to sit in my car listening to the game on the radio while trying to figure out how to listen to the game live via my iPhone. I ended up not listening to the 2nd half of the game and plugged my ears every time they announced the score.

Nate had a huge game this week. He had some huge tackles and blocks (as you can see #20 in the above two pictures) not to mention his big reception in the 4th quarter. To understand why making a big catch is a big deal in this league, you have to understand that the passing game is almost non-existent, much like field goals and kicked PATs (point after touchdown). Most of the completions are quick slants without too many big passes or many YACs (yards after catch). Nate caught a huge catch with a great run afterwards which just made the game for him. When they annoucned his name for the reception, all of the parents sitting with me went nuts, not to mention his coaches and teammates ont he sidelines afterwards. I was beaming!

I'm proud of Nate and his contribution on the team no matter what, but this was just one of those big, beaming, proud Dad moments that I savored. Did I get any pictures of it? Unfortunately, no. The lighting stunk in the Hartland stadium so I didn't get any pictures in the second half.

Nate's team finished the season with only one win. Not good by any means, but not as horrible when you think that they had 31 kids (a huge team to manage), 11 of whom had never played before and 20 of the 31 are in 5th grade. It'll be a great team next year as Nate moves up into Varsity.

Maddie's cheer/pom squad did a great job, with their last game of the year. In the picture on the right, they were doing a cheer and go the crowd into it, which they loved. They're never quite sure what to do when the crowd starts cheering back, so typically they stay on with the same cheer over and over, until the play starts again. In the whole season, Maddie never complaiend about practice, cheering or the games. She really loved it, which might be explained by her love of performing in front of any group of people.

We carved the pumpkins tonight that my Dad and Judy brought us. Nate decided that he really wanted nothing to do with the whole slimy process, so Maddie, Em, Cathie and I dug in. Maddie and Em cleaned out the pumpkin seeds and then Cathie scraped the pumpkins clean enough so you could perform surgery on them.

Not really sure what Maddie's doing here. We debated for a while whether Maddie looked more like Gollum (from Lord of the Rings) or Darby the House Elf (from Harry Potter) in the picture on the right.

Things got dirty after a bit as we started playing with the pumpkin guts. Cathie and Maddie started tossing them around and it turned into a full-on pumpkin gut throwing contest.

I'm not sure if anyone really wins in one of these battles - except for me, who took the pictures. This one is worth a thousand words.

I got a message on Facebook from a kid in a youth group I worked with Mike Thompson at Everett High School in Lansing back in 1993 from a kid named Shane. The message read:

Do you remember talking to me with Mike about my Christian walk? You told me I needed to get things straight with God or I was going to have a difficult time in college....well, you were right Dave. Now, I am a middle school teacher, and lead a Christian youth group before school. I give talks like the one you gave me all the time. Thanks for making a difference in my life. I know, you probably thought I wasn't really listening. but I got your message, sometimes, it just takes a long time to sink in.

The talk he's referring to was one that my friend Mike and I gave him one night on one of our Florida trips. It was a very frank (to put it lightly) talk that I was pretty sure went right over his head. It was three chairs and a bright light, kind of a mafia style interrogation.

Working in youth ministry I've come to learn that it's all about taking a big picture view, especially with junior high kids. I'm constantly amazed at the impact that stuff we did 10 or 12 years ago has had on kids today. You never know, one of those kids who griped about going to your youth group may just end up the wife of the youth pastor at your church (Kasey).

We did something tonight that we haven't done in a while. We went over to Bob's to play cards. Bob's basement is nick-named the club-house, because it's the greatest basement known to man. He's got full-size arcade games, actual vegas slot-machines, beautiful big-screen TV, a full-service tequila bar and a fully stocked cabana outside for when we get bored.

We hung out and played cards, and at one point we all tried on Joe's Halloween costume. If you look at any of the rest of the guys, you'd know immediately that he's going as Slash, the guitarist from Gun's and Roses. If you looked at Will, you'd think he was going as Hagrid from Harry Potter.

We hung out and played cards, listened to music and caught up on life. The illustrious William Brown made the trek from all the way from Lansing to see his posse (Will grew up in Sexton, so everything for him is very much a Boys 'n the Hood movie).

I went on early in the first round of poker so I could catch up with Will, only to DESTROY Eli and Jeff in the second round - taking them BOTH out in one fell swoop. They explained to me that my final hand was the stuff that legends are made of - Chris Moneymaker style. They both committed to writing a ballad about my victory, though I'm doubtful it will ever really happen. Eli and Jeff both play a lot of poker, so to beat them so harshly was kind of awkward for me. They tell me on a regular basis how good they are, so I felt bad to publicly embarrass them both like this. I think I learned a valuable lesson in all of this. Never underestimate how much better I am in cards than Eli.

Yesterday was the last day of Panthers practice. Since the end of June we've been going non-stop and Thursday was the end of practice. We've got a game on Saturday and the league tournament next week. If we win Tuesday, we keep playing.

Tomorrow's game takes place during the MSU/U of M game. I'm Tivo'ing the game, but I know I'll end up finding out the score somehow. I guess I know that I'm a Dad when I rather be watching my son play football and my daughter cheer than see MSU destroy U of M.


After practice, the guys went out to McDonalds to hang out. I'm impressed with what a great group of guys they are and what a nice set of parents they have. I ended up sitting at the "Mom Table" hanging out and talking Mom talk with the other Panther Moms as the fellas ate their burgers.

I read a quote from Mike Hart, Michigan's running back that epitomizes the additude of just about every Michigan grad and Michigan fan I know. Hart's arrogance is representative of the whole Michigan ethos and snobbery. Hart is quoted today as saying about MSU:

"They'll always be second to us whether they beat us or not. They're always going to have to fight that they're not Michigan. They're always going to be in Michigan's shadow. As far as ann Arbor goes, compared to East Lansing, Michigan compared to Michigan State, Michigan is the better school, and that's just not me talking."

This is a large part of the reason I never hire Michigan grads. They all walk around with this chip on their shoulder, believing they are better than anyone else. This is also part of the reason why most state fans I know not only want to see Michigan State win, but see Michigan lose, and humiliate themselves, as they're doing this season.

I'm simultaneously re-reading two of Dallas Willard's books, Renovation of the Heart and Hearing God for the third time and Richard Foster's book Celebration of Discipline for the second time. I switch between these during the time I set aside first thing in the morning to pray, study and read. All three of these books have had a huge impact on me in terms of understanding how I am, how I'm created, how to connect with God and follow Jesus as his disciple.


I'm almost finished with the fourth book in the twilight series called Breaking Dawn. It's the hottest books among the emo crowd, mostly girls really. It's a good series, very clean really, about teenage vampires and wearwolves.

I just finished Brisingr the third part in the Inheritance series that started with the book Eragon. The second book was a little slow, but third book is fantastic. Other than The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I don't normally read this type of fantasy stuff, but these books are great.

I started a while back reading the book Ender's Game and I've been hooked on this author, Orson Scott Card, ever since. I'm reading Shadow of the Hegemon next which is the 7th or eigth in this extensive series of books. Again, I don't normally read the sci-fi genre, but these have been awesome.

Any good recommendations of what to read next?

We had Nate's first conferences of his Middle School career where we received Nate's report card today. His report card consisted of all As and the teachers comments were phenomenal. Nate's conferences were even better than the report card. Each of the teachers talked about how Nate contributes and how he is a model student academically and behaviorally. We sat in line at conferences behind parents who were yelling at the teachers or crying or shaking their head at what they were hearing. One teacher even told us what a great day we would have as we went around and talked to each of Nate's teachers.

(Nate gave me his permission to share the following)What makes this even better is that his elementary school school career was not marked by such glowing feedback. Conferences used to be quite a bit more painful, marked by mid-marking period follow up meetings. The feedback we would get over and over would be that he couldn't stay focused, he didn't take his time on his work, he was disorganized, distracted and he made lots of mistakes because he flew through the work and the teacher's could read his hand writing. Behaviorally, he was constantly distracted and a distraction to others as he couldn't keep his hands to himself. All of the teachers said that he was smart and got the material, he just had all of these other challenges. We worked with Nate for years on organization, focus, slowing down and being more methodical. We saw improvement, but minimal.

About two years ago, I decided that I would try and get a handle on how my ADD impacted me in my life. I was diagnosed when I was 18 with ADD, before it was cool to have, but I was never treated for it. I had challenges around staying focused, goofing off and general concentration amongst other things. I struggled through all of school with it, but like Nate, was smart enough to get by. I figured out ways around it and sometimes was able to use it to my advantage in terms of multi-tasking. I knew my ADD was hindering me, I just didn't know how much.

I went to my doctor and started trying various drugs. I've gone through six different drugs, trying to find the right one that works. I'm finally on Adderall, basically a time released version of Ritalin that I take every morning. I've seen a huge difference in terms of my focus and how much less it drains me to have to stay focused throughout my work day.

Cathie and I talked long and hard about treating Nate's ADD with med's. On one hand, I learned how to cope with it, but I wrestled with wanting Nate to have to go through the same pain I did. I wondered how much we were hindering him by not doing anything about it. In April, we had Nate assessed. They basically try and figure out what your potential is and then how you're doing relative to that potential. They did IQ tests (Nate scored very high, 120+) and other tests to see where he was at developmentally and behaviorally. The Doctor saw the impact of Nate's ADD during these tests and diagnosed him with middle-of-the-road severity ADD. We then worked with his doctor on his medication. He's currently taking Concerta, basically a time-released version of Ritalin like I'm on.

The difference with Nate is night and day without any real side effects. Nate's report card and conferences were a testament to that, not to mention the level of focus and intensity we've seen in football. The most significant side effect is the decreased appetite that results from the drugs, and we offset that by being very aware of how much and when he's eating. I know that Ritalin is not a care for everyone and everything and that it's probably over prescribed for kids. If you were to ask Nate, he'd tell you it's making a huge difference and he wouldn't go back.

It's time again for my company's benefits enrollment. It is amazing to me how much I pay for Health Care costs. Each year I compare my costs from the previous year and try and figure out which plan to choose and how much to set aside in my health care flexible spending account. My company gives me a number of options and this past year we chose one with co-pays instead of deductibles. The downside was that it was more expensive, but it meant we weren't having to manage the deductibles and having to pay so much out of pocket each visit. This past year I paid $9,000 in medical benefits OUT OF POCKET. My insurance was about $3,500 (about $300+ month out of pocket) combined with about $5,000 that I set aside (pre-tax, thankfully) to cover other medical expenses including co-pays, optical, dental and prescription costs. All up, about $8,000 AFTER my company contributes on their end.

I talk to teachers who get great benefits, even though they complain about their low salaries and having to take the summers off. The good news it that I have insurance and can afford it. On the other hand, I don't think a privatized health care system will be cheap or well run if the government gets it's hands on it.

No real point to this post. Just me griping, really.

Me: "Did you see that Jennifer Granholm (Michigan's Governor) ran the Detroit Half Marathon in about the same time I did?"
Cathie: "Does that mean you run like a girl?"
Me: "Maybe. What does that mean you run like?"
Emily: "Mom runs like a Hurl."
Me: "A Hurl?"
Emily: "Yeah. A Half horse, half girl. They're really fast."

I thought Sarah Palin was a good sport with this SNL clip:

Silas the praying mantis is dead. She laid her eggs (the pile of goo
in the corner) and died.

I was in West Palm Beach with a friend last week and after dinner we decided to go out and grab a beer at a nearby bar. As we headed into the bar, the bouncer and I had this conversation:

Bouncer: "Are you here for ladies night or guy's night"?
Me: (Thinking of guy's night when I get together with my buddies to watch the football game or play poker): "Um.. I'm not sure I get the question."
Bouncer: (Thinking I'm an idiot) "Are you here for guy's night or ladies night?"
Me: "Um... Uh... Well, I'm a guy and I like ladies? You tell me."
Bouncer: "Go that way" (pointing to the left)

My friend and I headed the way he pointed and grabbed a beer. As we were talking to the bartender, things cleared up a bit:

Me: "For being ladies night, there aren't a lot of ladies here."
Bartender: "Oh they're here, they're over on the other side of the bar."
Me: "Wait, did I choose the wrong side?"
Bartender: "Maybe. The ladies are all over on the other side of bar dancing with the gay guys."
Me: "Nope. I chose correctly."

I like Mark Wahlberg, especially in movies like Four Brothers. The best line from this clip of Mark Walhberg on Jimmy Kimmel's show is Jimmy saying at the end, "That's just how Jesus would have done it."



He made a cameo on Saturday Night Live this past Saturday, joking about punching Andy Sandberg in face. You can see the clip here.

Nate's team played Fowlerville on Saturday and had their first win with a 13-0 victory! The parents and coaches were as excited as the kids. Everyone on the team played a great game. They have one game left next week and then they have a play-off against the other 4 JV teams in the Panthers, which should be fun. Lots of betting amongst the other Dad's, I'm sure. At least there will be with this one.

Here's a picture of Nate making a tackle

We've gotten over some of the cuteness of our new puppy and started to remember what a pain a puppy can be. Much like a baby, you have to watch them all the time. We came back Friday night from a nice, very romantic night out to a wedding, only to have the mood crushed by cleaning up puppy diarrhea. Fun stuff. The dog got a bath and the carpet got shampooed at 11:30 at night.

Neither of the other pets (Riley our dog and Rascal our Cat) are all that crazy about the puppy either. Her one saving grace is that she is very, very cute.

When I first starting running this year I would follow the same path that I had mapped out with my bike odometer so that I knew how far and how fast I was running. This got dull pretty quickly. I then started using mapmyrun.com before a run but it was kind of a pain and it wasn't all that accurate. A while back I got the RunKeeper app for my iPhone. The app uses the iPhone's GPS to track my run and give me an instant read out on my speed, distance, time, etc. At the end of my run, it uploads the data to their web site and aligns it with Google Maps. I can then see not only the course I ran, but the bottom part shows me the speed and elevation throughout my route. You can see from the above map how the elevation (green) corresponds with the white line (speed), basically me dogging as I'm running up hills.

The only downside of the app is found in the iPhone. If I'm running in areas that I heavily tree covered, I don't get a GPS signal. There are a couple places at Kensington Park that have this, but the route that I ran above was fine.

I went running today, doing about an eight mile loop around the town. I started on the rail road path and then cut off onto some of the tree-lined dirt roads. It was a beautiful day for a run and it felt great. I had a pretty laid back pace and just enjoyed the beauty and the run. I turned off my iPod after a while and was quiet. I looked around and saw these amazing sights and these words came to mind:

When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

The best part of the run was not being out on the perfect day, but the time where I shut off the music and was quiet. I'm always amazed at the way God shows up in those moments, and equally amazed at how rarely I arrange my world for that kind of quiet. Quiet is not my thing for the most part and the more I work to discipline myself to have those times of quiet in my car, on my runs, in the morning, the more centered I am and the more connected I am to God.

Me: "What are you going to be for halloween Nate?"
Nate: "I'm going to be a Mexican."
Me: "A Mexican? Um.. I'm not sure I understand. What do you mean by "being a mexican?"
Nate: "I'll wear a sombraro, a mustache, a poncho and then have bullets across my chest."
Me: "A bandito?"
Nate: "Yeah. A mexican bandito. Same thing."
Me: "Not sure about that, but in the future, let's call it a Bandito instead."

Emily: "Dad, when are the girls going to be back from taking Lola for a walk?"
Me: "Gee, let me check my crystal ball."
Emily: "You want me to lick the wall? Ok." (Proceeds to lick the wall)

Conversation between Maddie and I:
Maddie: "Dad, can I borrow your phone to call my friend?"
Me: "Sure, here you go." (Dialing phone)
Me: "Oh, turn off the spanish translation feature. Otherwise when you call Maddie all she's hear is Spanish."
Maddie: "Ok. How do I turn it off?"
Me: "Hit the spanish translation button and turn it to english"
Maddie: (panicked): "I can't find it Dad. Hurry, she's going to answer!" (hangs up call)
Me: "That's okay. I can translate back if she speaks in spanish to you."
Maddie: "Dad!"
Me: "I'm kidding. I'm kidding. It does none of that."
Maddie: "Oh."

My day started with me rolling over, looking at my hotel-room clock and noticing that it was 6:15AM, while my alarm was set for 5:45. PM. Cripes. I jumped out of bed to find that I'd left half of my shower kit at home, so I had no razor or tooth brush. I got one from the front desk, showered and ran out the door. I had put together a meeting with a customer at 7:30 AM. I never want to be THAT GUY who schedules the early meeting and then doesn't show.

I was able to meet up with a good friend of mine, Matt, who's down here for meetings nearby. Matt used to work at Xerox as a sales rep and he and I worked on a project together for about four years and were a great team. Matt is a master sales person who helped me make the transition from being a technical guy with lots of answers to a sales guy who asks more questions. We became great friends and have stayed in touch even after he left Xerox. Matt owns more shoes and more clothes than any guy I know and is almost as good of a negotiator as Bob Rays. He is the guy that will call me and say, "Dave, you take a 44 long jacket, right? I found one in a style that'd be perfect for you and it's only $100." and I'd have him buy it for me sight unseen. We got harassed pretty heavily by the project teams for our metro-sexual shopping trips, but I'm sure they envied our bargains secretly.

I went out last night to take the puppy out to the bathroom and saw this amazing skyline. The full-moon was reflecting off the clouds behind our giant tire-swing oak-tree in a way that looked very cool. I stayed out for about a half hour trying to capture it, but these pictures don't really do it justice in terms of the color and lights.

Maddie and I were talking last night at bed time and she was telling me about what she was learning about at church. They're going through the book of Genesis. We started talking about Adam and Eve and had a conversation that I thought was very cool:

Me: "So why did God create us with the choice to go disobey him in the beginning? Why didn't he create us to just obey?"
Maddie: "Because then we'd be robots Dad. If you don't have a choice to love, it's not really love."
Me: "Well then why didn't God come down with all his power and might and tell us to bow down before him?"
Maddie: "Because fear isn't the same as love, Dad. How would God know if we really loved him, or if we were just afraid of him?"

Maddie gets things in her faith at the age of ten that I didn't get until I was much older. She's a wise little kid in a lot of ways. She understands why God's love for us compelled Jesus to come to earth as a carpenter and not as a king in ways that I never did until I was much older. The conversation reminded me of the the story of story of "The King and the Maiden" by Søren Kierkegaard:

Suppose there was a king who loved a humble maiden. The king was like no other king. Every statesman trembled before his power. No one dared breathe a word against him, for he had strength to crush all opponents. And yet, this mighty king was melted by love for a humble maiden. How could he declare his love for her? If he brought her to the palace and crowned her head with jewels and clothed her body in royal robes, she would surely not resist -- no one dared resist him. But would she love him?

She would say she loved him, of course, but would she truly? Or would she live with him in fear, nursing a private grief for the life she had left behind? Would she be happy at this side? How could he know? If he rode to her forest cottage in his royal carriage, with an armed escort waving bright banners, that too would overwhelm her. He did not want a cringing subject. He wanted a lover, an equal. He wanted her to forget that he was a king and she a humble maiden and to let shared love cross the gulf between them. For it is only in love that an unequal can be made equal.

We're starting to adjust to having a puppy. We've ever decided on a name. At Brad's advice, we agreed to wait a bit to see the personality of the dog before deciding on a name. We all had ideas and we narrowed it down to a few different names that we all agreed on. The end result was "Lola" as in the showgirl, as in L-O-L-A Lola.

We're crate training her and it's been tough listening to her cry at night. It's getting better, though, as the week wears on. We're working on house-breaking her. I think Lola's got it all backwards. We take her outside, she walks around for a while and then comes back in and immediately poops inside. She's so darn cute, as I guess all puppies are that it's tough to get too mad at her when she has accidents.

On Sunday Maddie had her first Panthers Cheer/Pom competition. She had to be there at 11 and it finished up at 5. Maddie's team competed with a pom routine and a cheer routine with her team getting a gold in both.

The team did a great job with their routines that they've been practicing all year. They're coached by girls from the high school cheer and pom squad and they did very well. We were right there in the front row cheering for Maddie as she cheered. In between, Mark Kohne and I followed the Lions game via our iPods and swapped iPod apps.

We have friends who had kids in both the Freshman Squad (started at 7am) and in the JV Squad (ended at 9pm).

My Dad, Judy, Jon, Beth, Libby and Reagan all came down to see Nate play and Maddie cheer on Saturday. They played Brighton and got crushed again. Nate was playing outside linebacker and tight end. He lined up against a guy who was 140 and about 6'1. Not bad for a sixth grader, let alone a high school senior. Nate is about 74 lbs soaking wet.

The kid was huge, and gravity just wasn't working in Nate's favor here. I was so proud to watch him go up against this guy who had him beat with size, but not with heart. Nate kept coming back to this guy and hitting him as hard as he could.

Nate had some great plays, including a strip and a fumble recovery.

Maddie's team did a great job cheering, doing some of their routine for Sunday's competition.

This is what happens when a co-worker who reads your blog is not amused by repeated uses of his name in said blog. As you can see from his comment, he loves the name choices, so I'm confused as to why he would send this PowerPoint slide out to my co-workers. He also made it a point to tell me how dull my blog is getting lately. I see a direct correlation with my references to him and my blog getting dull.

This is a very interesting article from the Wall Street Journal that looks at the overall impact on the people go go on the trip and the recipients of the service - kind of a spiritual business case, around short-term mission trips - The 'Great Comission' or Glorified Sightseeing?

Calvin College sociologist Kurt Ver Beek surveyed U.S. missionaries who built homes in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch in 1998. After coming down from a post-trip "high," the short-termers did not evince much change in their lives. Only 16% reported "significant positive impact," including in prayer, friendships and financial giving. Then Mr. Ver Beek surveyed those whose homes were rebuilt by missionaries and those whose homes were rebuilt by local nongovernmental organizations. He found that there was "little or no difference" in the spiritual response of the beneficiaries.

The business case says this:

Indeed, if you were to ask an economist about short-term missions, many of which involve such manual-labor projects, he would have a simple answer: Ditch the traveling team members and send a check. A career missionary knows better what manual labor needs to be done on-site, and he can hire local laborers for much less money than what flying in unskilled Americans requires. Using local labor contributes to the local economy and avoids perpetuating a culture of dependency and powerlessness. A career missionary is also fluent in the local language and culturally aware, so he can be more effective at evangelism, discipleship and social-justice ministries.

Anyone ever been on a trip like this? Do you agree?

We haven't decided on a name yet for the puppy yet. These are our choices right now that we all agree on:

1. Chloe
2. Lola
3. Maggie

Cathie, Maddie and Em like Sadie. Nate and I like Juno and Delilah. What's your vote?

We picked up the puppy today from the airport. We took Em out of school to get the puppy with us because of her unbelievable love for animals and excitement about this event. The puppy was shipped from Missouri and got here without a problem. American Airlines had a very cool site that I could track it each step of the way and even notified me when it had arrived at the cargo center, all via my beloved iPhone.

We played on the lawn for a while when we got home. The puppy seems to be adjusting pretty quickly. Running around, licking and cuddling. We haven't heard it bark yet. I'm taking it to the vet today to get it checked out.

We haven't decided on a name yet. The name Silas was already used for our Praying Mantis, otherwise it would be the perfect name for a female dog.

We found Silas the Praying Mantis outside of our front door. He's huge. I walked in the door and quietly told Cathie, "I found this praying mantis", only to hear Emily from upstairs shouting, "What! You found a praying Mantis? Can I keep it?" The girl is near-deaf at all other times when we call her to dinner, bed-time or room cleaning. Amazing what selective hearing can do.

Silas is huge. In a creepy way. He turns his head to follow your motions. He's a rather cool pet. Too bad he'll die soon. Apparently praying mantis's don't live through the winter. They're also pretty grusome creatures, hence the name Silas. The females kill the males after mating and their young eat their siblings. Wild.

We went to the pet store last night and bought some crickets to feed him. The pet store owner was telling me that we can hand feed Silas. He'll basically take the cricket from your hand and devour him live, right in front of you.

Our cat has been mesmerized by Silas. It sits next to it's cage all day long watching him. I'd like to let 'em fight it out. Maybe I'll add poison to Silas's claws to make it a little more fair. Emily took him into school today to show the class. We'll see how long it takes for Silas to die. Meanwhile, I'm hoping to get some video of him eating a cricket.

I get a life-size Lego replica made of me, for $60k.

This morning's workout involved giant tractor tires and throwing them back and forth. Sitting on one side of the tire you would decelerate the tire down and press it back to the other guy. There's something about a 250lb tire falling on your that puts a little umph in your press as you heave it back up to the other guy. It's also a great dynamic motion, since the tire doesn't fall in a straight line at you.

Nate: "Mom, why did you wash my football pants?"
Cathie: "Nate, they were covered in mud so I figured they needed to be washed."
Nate: "Mom, I like them muddy, plus they had blood on them."
Cathie: "Blood?"
Nate: "Yeah! Someone else's blood"
Me: "Someone else's blood? Cool. How'd that get there?"
Nate: "I hit a guy so hard in practice that he bled on me."
Me: "Nice."
Nate: "Yeah. Cool, huh?"

Madeline was making Macaroni and Cheese tonight. She forgot to drain the water before she poured the cheese in and it ended up being pretty nasty. Cathie tried to feed it to Emily with the following result:

"I can't eat this. It doesn't have any cheese. It's not Mac and Cheese. It's just Mac and."