Dad and Judy

My Dad and Judy have been seeing each other since late last year and "going steady" (their words, not mine) for the past couple of months. Yesterday was Judy's first experience of the whole family (minus the Memphis Kurt's) and earlier in the week my Dad had taken Judy to meet his siblings out in Iowa and Illinois. To put this into perspective, we never took our spouses to meet our Iowa relatives until we'd been married to them for 5 years.

When we walked in the door yesterday at my Dad's house, my Dad and Judy decided to show us that they truly are going steady (as defined in the 1950s apparently) by wearing each others rings. My Dad had Judy's ring on a bright green piece of yarn (that he'd pulled off of a near-by plant, I believe) and Judy had my Dad's class ring on her finger. If you think all of this a bit odd, I'm with you, but you have to understand the sense of humor in our family.

I suggested that my Dad and Judy get purity rings to show their promise of chastity until marriage, similar to the one that my Dad gave my sister as a teenager (but never any of his sons, which is odd now that I think about it).

We had a nice time hanging out. Judy's daughter, son-in-law and grandson came by as well. They'll never truly get the full "Kurt Family Experience" until they come to a Kurt family gathering full of tequila shooters, viking horns, slingshots and Jon mooning people.

I was saddened that my Dad doesn't consider Wilaca or Bill and Sherry to truly be a part of the family enough to invite them to this event. Maybe Sherry's been right all along.

You may be wondering to yourself if the whole idea of my Dad dating is odd to me. The short answer is "yes".

Last Night

After six months of talking about it, we started our guys small group up last night. There are seven of us - friends of mine that I've known for between three to fifteen years. We in the Ray's basement and hung out afterward and watched MSU get spanked. At half time, Bob, Chris and I rocked out on Rock Band - with Bob on guitar, me on bass and Billy on drums. The timing on Rock Band is a little different than guitar hero, but once I figured it out I was alright. It's a fun dynamic having all the pieces together.

Boxes of Crap

I'd mentioned earlier how I'm trying to figure out this whole spiritual discipline of simplicity, so here's the latest. I'm almost done with my 30 day fast from buying stuff - which has been tough and insightful. I've learned that a buy a lot of crap, and in the end I really don't need it for the most part. I buy stuff when I'm bored or feeling down, and there are times I just feel compelled to buy stuff, with part of me believing that I really need what it is to be happy. It hasn't been as hard as I thought it would and I think that in doing this fast along with other stuff, I'm breaking the bond of my addiction to stuff a bit. Time will tell I guess.

I've also come to the realization that I have a lot of stuff. Ok, dumb thing to say. I knew that I had a lot of stuff, but at the same time, I think I'd gotten used to it. I'm seeing more and more clearly the reality of the statement, "The stuff you own can end up owning you." As part of this whole thing, I'm trying to get rid of some of my stuff. I'm trying to fill a big big full of crap every week to either toss, sell or give away (No Dan, you can't have my TV). Yes, I realize that if I do this infinitely, I will eventually have nothing left, so I've decided I won't do it forever. That big black trash bag and the nest of cables piled next to it is something I've been working on for about 18 years and it was tough to get rid of. The big bin is full of books I've haven't read in a while and probably won't read in the next year.

For the record, the cleaning out of this stuff was in no way tied to a giant rat infestation, as some people have experienced lately.

Mostly for Jess (ok, really for Rob Bell and Jesus) I'm recycling all the boxes of the crap I'm getting rid of.

Em and I

The unwritten code in Michigan weather says that just when you're starting to enjoy spring like weather, it needs to snow a bit. Or a lot. Today was no different. Em and I went out to enjoy the hot tub during the big snow tonight. We hung out in the hot tub and played "Animal 20 Questions", which she's gotten to be very good at - but I'm better. The ultimate in our family 20 questions is when you can guess it on the first try, which I did with a brilliant guess of "Koala Bear".

The kids have been off school all week on Spring Break, so they've had friends over to spend the night, to play and have been at different houses throughout the week. I've been working about 60% this week and off completely tomorrow to hang out. As a family, we're going to do a "Salvation Army Fashion Show" tomorrow where Nate and I get to pick out a $3 outfit for Maddie and Em, and the girls get to do the same for Nate. It's a game inspired by Jess Shinn's everyday fashion sense. Should be fun.

Someone should invent this...

Someone should invent quiet Captain Crunch cereal that you can eat while you're watching TV.

Good Kids

When Nate and Maddie left for school this morning, Em wasn't feeling well. She perked up later and Cathie sent her, but Nate and Maddie weren't aware that she was at school. They had a book exchange at school today, and each of the three kids had brought in ten books earlier in the week to swap out. When Nate and Maddie came home today, they both gave Emily books that they had picked out for her at the book exchange. Nate and Maddie had no idea that Em was a school or that that and each used half of their book credits to get Em books. She went as well and made out like a bandit. If she wasn't a third child, I'd assume she'd of planned this all out.

Smack you in the face..

I'm in Kansas City and I took a customer out to dinner tonight at a Brazilian Steak house, one where they come by with skewers of meat and feed you until you burst. The waiter was explaining to us how the restaurant worked and he used the phrase, "We smack you in the face with our meat until you can't take any more."

Seemed odd to me.

Monkey Party

I was sitting at the hotel bar after dinner and got to talking to the bartender (hotel bartenders are notorious for having all of the great stories). He told me a great story about a monkey party that took place a couple years back. Yep, a MONKEY PARTY. Apparently one of the guests had brought a monkey to the hotel and a number Kansas City residents brought their own monkeys to the hotel to celebrate, including a big old orangutan. The bartender said that he looked down and saw a giant, hairy hand on the bar, attached to a big 'ol orangutan. The owner of the orangutan asked the bartender to give the monkey the bottle of jack from behind the bar, since another bartender at another bar would do the same thing. Nothing like a bunch of drunken monkeys. The monkeys apparently trashed the room with the birthday cake, smearing it all over the place.

Toothbrush gone bad?

I pulled my toothbrush out of my travel case and it smelled like belly-button, in a bad way. Not sure what's going on there, or if I should of used it - but I did. If I wind up dead, you'll know why.

Spiritual Formation

I've been reading Richard Foster's book The Celebration of the Disciplines. It's a book that talks through various spiritual disciplines, defined as "any activity within our power that we engage in to enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort." The obvious ones are fasting, but others are things like meditation, simplicity, prayer, silence (yikes!), solitude (even scarier to me) confession and serving to name a few. These things have been around forever and in the most spiritually mature people I know that have the kind of faith that I want, these things are a staple in their lives.

I've been trying to incorporate different aspects of these disciplines into my life over the past few months and I've seen changes in me and been challenged by what comes to the surface. I'm currently trying to fast from buying stuff for myself for 30 days. As a result, I've been having to battle my addiction to stuff, dealing with why I buy stuff, how stuff placates me and the deeper issue of how I find contentment along with what simplicity looks like for me. I'm amazed at how frequently I buy things and what it is I actually buy and how I justify it. It's impressive the way I will try and justify things things to myself and why I need these things, and it's only been about a week. Anyways, I haven't got this stuff figured out yet, but in some mysterious way, these different disciplines have been changing me inside and in turn changing me on the outside. I love the results.

Old People

Every month or so, our church puts on an abbreviated service with signing and a quick teaching at the South Lyon Gardens old folks home (the sign doesn't say "old folks home", but I can't remember the proper term). The kids in our youth group have taken this over as a service activity and we had this yesterday. We've been talking over the past couple of weeks on Matthew 25 on what it looks like to serve the least of these, so this activity fit in well. Cathie was in Lansing, so I brought Nate, Maddie and Em along with me.

The people are in various stages of life - some just moderately immobile, some with Alzheimer's and some just completely out of it. The event involves going up and down the halls and finding out who wants to go to the service and then rolling their wheelchairs into the sanctuary area for church. Once the service begins, our very own Katie Green plays guitar and one of our other members plays the keyboard and sings some songs, followed by a message from Joe. Afterwords, we host an ice cream social.

I used to hate nursing homes (just remembered the right term). The smell, the people in their near death states and just about everything else about the places - plus I didn't know how to relate to some of the people in them. Having my Grandma live in one over the past couple of years has changed my comfort level (plus this particular place we were at yesterday doesn't smell like old people and pee). After having my Grandma there and in a similar state at the end, the residents seem less scary.

So anyways, enough background. The kids and I got there yesterday and Nate went with Joanne Muzzi to roll people in and the girls and I connected up with a very sweet lady named Helen. I didn't quite realize it for a few minutes, but Helen had Alzheimer's. Maddie and I rolled her in and then sat next to her talking while we waited for the service to begin. I introduced her to the kids, and 30 seconds later she asked the same questions again. It didn't take me more than another five minutes to pick-up on the fact that her memory wasn't the best. I'm quick that way. Hanging with this woman really did something for me. To sing with her (she sung worse than me believe it or not), to smile and listen was very cool. To see her as a real person, like my Grandma who had lived a real life, even though her body and mind were failing her in the end instead of a scary, smelly shell of a person was cool. Hanging with her did way more for me than my wonderfully melodic singing did for her.

I was really proud of the kids from our youth group - a group of 5th and 6th grade boys. They had the choice to not come - to sit on their couches at home or to go serve others - and they showed up and were sheep, taking care of the overlooked and ignored. Their job was to roll people in and out and to help people turn the pages of their song sheets. You could tell it wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world for them, but I was so proud that they showed up and just did it. Nate was really great with the people. He seemed to genuinely like them and talked really easily with them, giving them a big 'ol smile. I was proud of all three of my kids, plus my kids from Fusion.

Start spreading the news

Cathie and I are going for a 3 day getaway to New York City at the end of April. New York City is one of the most amazing places on earth. I spend a fair amount of time there, and every time I go I have the conversation with Cathie about how much I want to experience it with her. I know it sounds sappy and I've said this before, but I can't completely enjoy a place without having her there to experience it with me.

I'm going to be working out there mid-week and Cathie's going to fly in and meet me at LaGuardia airport and we'll cab it into the city, staying in Mid-Town Manhattan right in Times Square. We're going to do all of the typical tourist things along with hitting a couple of great restaurants (my favorite Brazilian restaurant and a Bobby Flay's restaurant called Mesa Grill). I can't wait to be with Cathie to experience New York City for the first time: Seeing Times Square, Broadway, Central Park, The Statue of Liberty and all of the great New York City landmarks like the Carnegie Deli, The Soup Nazi Kitchen, The Today Show and everything else. Not sure which shows we're going to see, between Wicked, Lion King and Les Miserables. Les Miz is both of our favorites, but we've both seen it a few times, so not sure which we'll do.

My Dad was kind enough to come down and stay with the kids and they can't wait.

Never thought of it that way...

Cathie took the girls to see the movie Horton Hears a Hoo tonight. There's a scene in the movie from the book where the vulture steals the flower with the Hoos and drops it into a giant flower patch. The next scene is Horton picking every flower in the patch and throwing them into a pile. During this scene, Emily leaned over and whispered to Cathie:

Mom, why is he picking all of the flowers? He should just look for the one flower that isn't picked because that's the one with the Hoos on it.

I've read the book a zillion times and never thought of it that way. Not bad for a third child.

Em

Em came home from school the other day and told Cathie about a girl that was being mean to one of Emily's friends. Cathie her why the girl was being mean and Em proceeded to tell her:

“Mom, I have no idea. I guess she was just born to be mean. When God made her, he forgot her nice parts, I guess."

Playing Possum

The motion sensor light on our porch flipped on tonight to introduce us to our newest guest ( in addition to his friend the gopher). This thing was huge - bigger than our cat and could have probably taken our our dog. Nate thought we should try and catch it and make it our pet, but I'm thinking we'll stick with a dog and cat.

I am a tiny man

You're A Prayer for Owen Meany!

by John Irving

Despite humble and perhaps literally small beginnings, you inspire faith in almost everyone you know. You are an agent of higher powers, and you manifest this fact in mysterious and loud ways. A sense of desthttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifiny pervades your every waking moment, and you prepare with great detail for destiny fulfilled. When you speak, IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS!

Take the Book Quiz

Good thing I've read the book.... Much sadder than the movie which is based on this book.

Whirley Ball

We took the youth group to play Whirley Ball tonight. This may just be a Michigan phenomenon, but it's a cross between bumper cars and lacrosse. I focused less on scoring and more on hitting kids hard with my car.

Maddie and Em watching Nate's last BBall Game

My friend Will loves his Hot Nuts

Detroit Basketball

The Niemi's invited us to go to the Piston's game tonight against the Spurs. We met up with the Girard's at the South Lyon hotel for dinner and then went to the game. I kinda rear ended a guy when I slid in and he slamed on he brakes when a car in front of him did the same. No harm, no death, no damage, no ticket. We had fantastic seats and it was a great, close game with the Pistons pulling it out in the end. I was hoping to see Eve Longoria (Tony Parker's wife) and saw no one more famous than Cathie.

Shopping

I'm a little embarassed to admit that I have a personal fashion consultant - my friend Matt in Kansas City. Matt and I worked with on a project for about 2 years and during that time he gradually helped me clean up my wardrobe and understand the value of a good pair shoes. To add to that, Matt loves a good deal as much or more than any Kurt.

Matt's the only guy who could find a good deal on a suit, call me up, know my size (44L) and the style I'm looking for (black pin-striped) and buy it for me. He called me yesterday and he'd picked up a $900 suit for me for $200. Gotta love that.

New Garage Door Opener

The Schultz's came over last night and Eli and I spent the evening installing my new garage door opener. After 15 years, the original one died and the replacement wasn't as easy as I'd hoped. My original one was a chain drive and the guy at Lowe's convinced me that the screw-drive was far superior and quieter. Normally, I'd pay someone to install it for me, but Brad explained to me that he had done it himself in his garage - and Brad's the kind of guy who throws money at everything like this.

We learned a few things in the process:

1. I need a socket attachment for my cordless drill. Would have been waaaay easier and quicker than doing everyting with a socket wrench.
2. It's cold in the winter, even in the garage, too cold to even drink beer as we do the work. These kind of jobs are way better in the spring.
3. Screw drive door openers are no more quiet than chain drives.
4. If both guys are in their slippers doing the work, their feet will get cold
5. If you're going to be in the garage doing this stuff all evening, try and time it so that the women have the kids in bed by the time you come in.
   

Getting a new garage door opener isnt' like getting a new iPod or TV. There just aren't any cool new features to make this exciting at all. It opens the door and closes it. Big whoop.

Sheepsicle

For the past two weeks we've been talking about discipleship and what it means to follow Jesus. We've been looking at Jesus references to himself as a good shepard and to us as sheep. We spent a lot of time looking at what a good shepard would do versus a bad shepard. My friend (we'll refer to him as Mr. Inappropriate ) is a vet and used to raise sheep, so he joined us last week to talk about sheep and shepherding.

Mr. Inappropriate explained how when sheep have babies, if they have more than one the mother will often time reject the other babies and in the winter time they often die. He told the story of how one night he got a call from his wife to find that one of their sheep had had a couple lambs and the Mom had rejected one of them. Mr. Inappropriate told his wife to euthanize one of them by hitting it on the head quickly, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. When he got home that night he found that his wife had euthanize the sheep, but had done it by drowning it in a bucket. Being winter time, the water in the bucket froze with two lamb legs sticking out of the top - hence the sheepsicle. I used this story as an example of how Jesus would drown you if you were bad. I'm kidding. As you can imagine, Mr. Inappropriate was an example of the bad shepard.

I decided to make my own sheepsicle and bring it in for the kids as part two of the conversation on the good shepard. Today we looked at Matthew 25 where Jesus talks about separating the sheep from the goats. We looked at the characteristics of the two types of people described, and what it looks like in our worlds to take care of the overlooked and ignored and how in some mysterious way, everytime we do something for them, we are doing it for Jesus. We talked about who the overlooked and ignored are in our schools and community. We're going next week to the old-folks-home in town and putting on a church service followed by an ice cream social for them.

Wake up little Bethie

After a late night pre-wedding outing with Will, Jon and Kevin last week, I desparately needed a nap the next day. In a few minutes of down time, I was able to kick back and get a nap in. In the Kurt family, we respect the nap deeply - it's an art form. During family gatherings, it's not uncommon for the men to hide in closets, under beds and behind couches if they don't have a kid small enough to have to lay down with for a nap.

Back to me taking a nap. As I laid down, my sister-in-law Beth came running in, shook me awake and announced that Nate might have sickle cell anemia. Being the concerned father I am, I woke up, looked at her and asked her if he would die today from it. She responded "No", so I went back to sleep. She believed that my nap was worth interrupting for this info.

I called Beth a few minutes ago to let her know what was wrong with her notebook. Sure it was 12:15am and there was nothing the information could do to benefit her in that moment, but I thought it was important that she realize this at this time. Deep down, I think she appreciated it.

If the eye is full of darkness...

Cathie had been looking forward to getting her Lasik procedure for a long time and today was supposed to be the day. She went in this morning at 8am for the procedure and after more detailed work, they determined that her corneas are too thin for the procedure. Needless to say, she was bummed.

Besides the bad news about the eyes, we now have $3,500 set aside in our healthcare spending account that we had allocated for the Lasik surgery. The great news about these accounts is that they give you tax free dollars to spend on medical expenses. The bad news is that you have to spend it all in this year or lose it. A friend at work had a similar situation occur when his son decided not to get braces. He tried to convince his wife that she should get a boob job or liposuction.

If you see Cathie looking a little chestier than usual, you'll know what she chose. Maybe I can use the money to have my ear hair permanently removed.

PageOnce

I started using a cool new site called PageOnce.com It's a portal that allows you access into just about every possible service on the web. It's kind of a status aggregator. I have it connected to about twenty services: 2 banks, a credit card, cell phone, utilities, satellite, netflix, vonage, facebook, myspace, plaxo, linkedin, amazon, flickr, myspace, youtube, northwest, hilton, etc. It's like a google reader/bloglines for all of your accounts. It has just about every possible service you can think of and the ability to add new services, like my local library account.

The great news and the biggest risk that I see in the service is that it gives you a single view into your whole world and the ability to easily login with a single-sign-on.

Twins

Em: "Mom, will I look like you when I get older?"
Cathie: "Maybe. You look a lot like I did when I was your age."
Em: "Really?"
Cathie: "Yep. I had curly hair just like you"
Em: "Wow! Do you have blue eyes?"
Cathie: "Yep. I do."
Em: "Wow Mom! We're like twins, but you're older. Wait, were you ever in a wedding?"
Cathie: "I don't think I was."
Em: "Oh, then maybe we're not twins."

Three Blind Mice

Cathie is having Lasik eye surgery tomorrow, hence this conversation:

Em's Friend (to Cathie): "You got glasses, Mrs. Kurt"
Emily: "She's getting her eyes fixed tomorrow so she never has to wear glasses again. But she might never have to wear glasses again because she might end up blind."

Em

Our garage door opener died and Emily was helping me assemble the new one. This was the conversation:

Me: "Wow Emily, you're good at putting this together. Where did you learn so much about garage door openers?"
Emily: "In Ms. Brainard's class"
Me: "Really? Ms. Brainard taught you guys about putting together garage door openers?"
Emily: "Well, I think so."

Snow Angel

The kids had no school today, so Em came out with me this morning to play. The snow was untouched and the sun was hitting it in such a way that it looked awesome all around. She and I started following some rabbit footprints and ended up in the woods behind our house.

After the driveway, Maddie and I went out for breakfast together. I was so impressed at the way she can hold a conversation. She asks great questions and then actually listens to the answers, and asks great follow up questions. She was asking me about my job and my customers, and it was really impressive. It was so nice to have a solid chunk of time to hang with just her.

Love your neighbor

This is kind of embarrassing (and potentially longer than Rudi's one way street letter), but I want to share it because I think it represents some bigger things happening inside of me.

First, some background: We've lived in the same house for almost 9 years. One of neighbors is an older man who is very meticulous with his home and landscaping. I am not quite as diligent. For the first bunch of years, we got along great. Over the course of time, I think a lot of little things built up that I was doing and was unaware of (I've been told I can be oblivious at times) that created some tension.

One example: Our mail lady will not deliver our mail if the mailbox is blocked by a car. For whatever reason, lots of people like to park in front of mailbox. My neighbors mailbox happened to be attached to my ours, and he wouldn't get mail either. I came home one day and found his mailbox cut off and moved to the other side of my drive way. Little things like this built up until one day after sealing my driveway, I took a piece of masking tape and stretched it from my mailbox to my neighbors to prevent people from driving on it. I looked out the window later and saw my neighbor run out and angrily tear the tape off of his mailbox. For some dumb reason, I got angry as well and went out to put it back on. This ended with him and I yelling at each other. Stupid, right? Great example of loving my neighbor, right? Yeah. Right.

On side note, my neighbors mailbox just happened to be in a spot that would be very easy to hit when one backed out of my driveway. One day when the DHL delivery guy was over, he backed out of my driveway and crushed my neighbors mailbox. Probably didn't help things.

Anyways, the bad feelings built from there, I think. It got to the point that neither of us would look at each other when the other was outside, and just kind of an ugly tension. Most of the time, I felt certain self-righteous anger inside of me, but there was another part of me that I knew I was being an ass. I would hear Jesus' words Love your neighbor and I would think to myself that I didn't even love my next door neighbor, let alone neighbors the way Jesus describes. Even recently, I would read in 1 John asking how we can say we love God who we can see, when we can't even love the people around us we can see. I got to a point where I wanted to fix things, but didn't know how. I talked to Cathie about maybe going over and just apologizing for being such an ass, but never did.

So today, I was outside shoveling our driveway and sidewalks. If you have a house, you know that there's a weird deal in terms of shoveling sidewalks and how far to shovel. Normally, I wouldn't of touched his sidewalk. Today, I shoveled the whole thing for him. As I was finishing my driveway, he came home, got out his snow blower and came over to my driveway and cleared out a huge portion that was covered from the snow plow without saying a thing. Afterwards, I waved and said Thank You. Sounds small, but it was a big deal towards loving my neighbor and making things right.

You're probably thinking that for me to say all of that just to say that I shoveled someones sidewalk seems sillier than trying to write a letter that claims paternity of every child on your block just to get a one-way street. To me, it's a bigger thing about what's happening in my heart. There's a bigger change going on side of me that I'll share at some point. God is doing phenomenal things to who I am and this is just a small outward sign of a bigger transformation.

Buffett on Happiness

I just got done reading this interview with Warren Buffett by a student at UT Austin. Warren Buffett is one of the richest men in the world at roughly $50 billion dollars, with a plan to give it all away. He's got a very unique view around distribution of wealth, corporate philanthropy and happiness, as you'll see from his answer to the question below of how he defines happiness:

I enjoy what I do, I tap dance to work every day. I work with people I love, doing what I love. The only thing I would pay to get rid of is firing people. I spend my time thinking about the future, not the past. The future is exciting. As Bertrand Russell says, “Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get.” I won the ovarian lottery the day I was born and so did all of you. We’re all successful, intelligent, educated. To focus on what you don’t have is a terrible mistake. With the gifts all of us have, if you are unhappy, it’s your own fault.

I know a woman in her 80’s, a Polish Jew woman forced into a concentration camp with her family but not all of them came out. She says, “I am slow to make friends because when I look at people, I have one question in mind; would they hide me?” If you get to be my age, or younger for that matter, and have a lot of people that would hide you, then you can feel pretty good about how you’ve lived your life. I know people on the Forbes 400 list whose children would not hide them. “He’s in the attic, he’s in the attic.” Some of them keep compensating by joining board seats or getting honorary degrees, but it doesn’t change the fact that no one will give a damn when they are gone. The most powerful force in the world is unconditional love. To horde it is a terrible mistake in life. The more you try to give it away, the more you get it back. At an individual level, it’s important to make sure that for the people that count to you, you count to them.

Kwiry Service

I've been using a text messaging service called Kwiry. So far, I like it and it works well. It gives you the ability to text a message as to yourself for future reference. It's basically a quick and dirty way to take notes or quick thoughts and manage them down the road. I use Jott to do theme thing with voice calls and gopingme.com to send text/e-mail based reminders to myself.

I could do lots of this using my phone's existing task and calendaring system, but I like these systems better. So far.

-UCK in the Hat

Yesterday the first grade at Emily's school had a cat in the hat day. They had crafts, games and stories all centered around the Cat in the Hat stories. As one of the exercises, they put had to take a word chunk and see what word they could make by adding letters.

Emily got the phrase UCK. As you can see from her hat, she made a number of words, but wow, could this have gone wrong.

The Master Negotiator

Em has always been the master negotiator in our family. She's never satisfied with just playing one game of cards - she'll always ask for five, knowing she can probably get to three.

After a long day of wedding and reception, she finally crashed in her Aunt Kris's arms. The only problem was that we hadn't gotten a family picture yet. Knowing that my whole family probably won't be dressed in tuxes and gowns, I figured this was our big chance. The challenge was that a volatile sleeping child being wakened doesn't has a very high probability of ending up ruining the same once-in-a-lifetime picture that I wanted. The amazing thing about Emily is that even waking up from a dead sleep, she knew exactly where her negotiating position stood.

I woke her up, asked her to take the picture and she said she was too tired, which was fair. I quickly pulled out my trump card - buying her a Webkinz, her favorite stuffed animal. She quickly came to life with the response, "How about two Webkinz?" To be in a good negotiating position, you have to be willing to walk away from the deal. Emily inherently knew that I wasn't, and that she had me over a barrel. Normally, I'd stand my ground, but this time, I took the safe route and went with the two Webkinz route. We got the picture - so I figure it was worth the extra $12.

Glory Glory Hallelujah

After fifteen years of attending Crossroads Church in high schools, middle schools and elementary schools, we've finally got our own building. We had our first service on Sunday and it was fantastic! We've been looking forward to this for so long and it was awesome to finally be in it, and not have to move things afterwards. Even better is the fact that we can now have our youth group meetings in the building, with huge spaces to run around in. A ton of people have worked very hard to make this building a reality.

Post Party

We closed down the wedding and then headed over to the Marriott in East Lansing for our post-party with the Kohnes, Schultz's, Jeffreys and Haase's. The picture above was taken in the parking garage. My smile is in anticipation of the rest of the evening awaiting me.

We hung out our room for the post-party until about 3:30am.


Even though Ted was a grumpy bastard, I was still glad to see him. Eli and I tried to rouse him out of his anger by body-slamming him a couple of times. His wife Sherry's fun-ness more than made up for it. I thought it might help to keep reminding him of the Vegas Vodka Debacle so Eli, Mark, Brad and I kept asking Ted if he had bought a gift for Will and Monaca and expected us to all kick in $50.

This picture of butts is after someone spotted a couple making out in the room across the parking lot.

We woke up the next morning around 10:30 and headed out to breakfast with Willaca prior to their heading out for their honeymoon.

The Willaca Wedding Reception

Ahhhh - the reception! I've been anticipating this party since the beginning of the engagement and it didn't disappoint! The food was good, the beer fantastic and the party was even better. It was this fantastic intersection of all of these circles of friends - my friends from church, my friends from Xerox, and the friends from other aspects of my life - all intersecting with Will. I also got the chance to spend time with Will's family, including his Dad and step-Mom, brother Tom and wife Brandi (who was also the photographer).


We did lots of dancing at the wedding and Cathie and I even cut in on Monaca and Will for a quick dance, where I tried not to step on Monaca's toes.

As Noel explains here, he took the opportunity to wear this goofy tie that Dan brought him back from Korea (a place Dan loves almost as much as Noel does).

Weddings are one of the few places you'll see Kurt's dancing, and dance we did.


There were two celebrity sightings at the wedding - Napoleon Dynamite (Brandon the Riverview Mandolin Player) and Thor Strong. Yes - THE Thor Strong. Thor and his wife Brenda (she introduced herself to me as Electra, since it sounds more like the name of someone married to Thor) were Will and Monaca's pre-marriage counselors at Riverview. I pictured Thor to be slightly bigger (6'3") and wearing viking horns.

The Willaca Wedding Ceremony

It's a done deal! Will and Monaca Brown have now been pronounced husband and wife! Friday was an amazing day. They were married in the same MSU Alumni Chapel where Cathie and I were married. It was such a cool experience and great honor to stand up at the front of the church and watch Monaca walk down the aisle from Will's perspective. It reminded me of seeing Cathie walk down the aisle. I think I had almost as big of a smile seeing these two come together. I also had a front row seat to seeing my amazingly beautiful wife stand at the altar as Monaca's matron of honor - and it was tough to take my eyes off of my wife to watch the ceremony. Maddie was a junior bridesmaid and Em was a flower girl, all looking beautiful.

Nate was the junior groomsman who also presented the rings. Asking Nate to stand still through the ceremony was apparently a little taller task than you would think as he squirmed and climbed throughout the ceremony. Brad was supposed to be my wing man helping keep Nate still but apparently the job was bigger than the two of us.

Noel did a great job with the whole service and the "preaching" (as Nate put it). Noel and I have known Will for 12 years and had the privilege of being able to play a role in finding Jesus (for the record, Jesus wasn't the one who was lost).

The wedding went off flawlessly, short of minor technical glitch - mine. I had turned my cell phone to silent mode and placed it in my breast pocket. What I didn't realize is that "silent" doesn't really mean silent. At a key moment in the service, my arm hit a button on the phone and it yelled loudly, "Say a command", followed seconds later by "Please say a command." I tried to brush the first one off as an accident and look over at Brad, hoping to redirect to him. Didn't work once the second "Please say a command" came out of my cell phone.

I've been hoping and praying for this moment for Will for ten years. To see Will married to a woman like Monaca was a dream come true.

What made it even more of an honor was to have my whole family involved. Noel kicked off the ceremony talking for a minute about my Mom and her role with Will and Monaca. Two days before my Mom died, my Mom called Will and Monaca into her bedroom and kicked us out. As we listened with ears at the door, my Mom point blank asked them if they were going to be married, and that she thought they were perfect for each other. Her ask was that they place a rose on the altar in her memory, which they did.

Cathie, myself and our three kids were in the wedding party, and my Dad spoke at the end of the ceremony about what makes a strong marriage and prayed a blessing over them. I think it's fair to say that my whole family was as excited for this as wedding as we were for any of our family members' weddings. Jon and Beth and the girls flew in from Memphis, not wanting to miss it for the whole world.