buying tents

So tonight was the first Kids Club of the year. I have to say that it went very well. We had 55 kids who showed up, and could have had more had we let in the five or so latecomers (they need to get there before 7 or else they would just show up whenever). It was a lot of fun to see all the kids brimming with excitement as they stood outside the door. Janine had installed a new format for running it, and I thought it was a great success. We were able to break up into small groups and spend time with the kids asking questions in their respective age categories. It was a lot of fun. I was with the 1-2 grades, which wouldn't have been my first choice, but I really enjoyed spending time with them. So much so that I signed up for the same group next week. It is just so nice to get back into the swing of things with Kids Club and with our small group meetings (which will start this Friday). I am often times frustrated by church and church related things, but when I see the kids who are just thirsting for attention and who are so excited to spend time at Kids Club, I am always refreshed. It was a good night. Thanks to Traci for watching the boys so I could go.

I ran the other day. Not to the fridge. Not to my favorite chair. No, I ran on the Jordan Parkway with my buddy Josh. I am realizing that if I don't put some sort of exercise into my life now, it will be very likely that I never will. So I told him that I would be interested in running with him when he goes out (he runs the SLC half-marathon every year). We started with the goal of a short distance of 2-3 miles...which is not my idea of a short distance. Short distance to me is more like the 50 yard dash that I ran in third grade...quick and to the point. His idea: 2-3 miles. So we ran. And ran. And ran. He let me set the pace, in his gracious nature, and I have no idea how to set a pace so I ran too fast. And became tired quickly. So we walked some and ran some more. It seemed very warm out, older folks were speeding by me, kids on tricycles, crawling babies, snails...everything. But in the end I ran about 3 miles and walked one. Josh's memory of the mile markers (they are different in every "city" that we enter and we were actually in two different cities) was a little off, so we ran a little more than he anticipated. It was good, though, even though I paid for it for the last day and a half; I was pretty sore. I will go again, but was "rescued" this week by my boss "needing" me to work. But I ran.

Work continues to roll along with me staying at the same place that I have been for the last 17 months. I am not complaining at all, though, as I continue to enjoy my time down there. It has been busier in the last couple of weeks, which has been very nice. There was some talk of us leaving at the end of August, but the end of August came and went and we remain there, biding our time, enjoying the autonomy that this job has offered. I certainly would love to stay in some aspect down there, but I am not sure how realistic that option is right now. We'll see what happens.

As Janine noted in her blog, we feel like we are settling in more and more as a family. I have truly felt recently that we have been able to hang out with people like we did pre-adoption again. I am not really sure how it has all worked out, if it is just my perception, or if it is a natural progression and adjustment that we have gone through, but it has just been very nice to hang out with people again as much as we have. Brad, Traci, Janine and I used to do so much together, and we did after Joel was born and when we came home from Colombia with our three kids, but recently we seem to have found our groove again, and some of that is very much attributed to the kids being able to play with each other, to go off to basements and monkey around while the 30 somethings discuss all sorts of things. As Kids Club has been refreshing, so has this, what I see as rejuvenated, hanging out time.

The Ducks won. So did Penn State. Other than that, I chuckle that Michigan lost and hope that all Utah teams lose this upcoming week. NFL starts this week, and like Jimmy cracking corn, I don't care.

There are times that I get really frustrated with lifestyle choices, that I think that our form of Christianity is so intertwined with western culture, with the idea of capitalism, consumerism, that I feel like the only true answer to it is to rebel against it. But in what form does this rebellion really make itself manifest? It is a question that we wrestle with daily, in all the choices we make, and it is not easy. I am often a romantic in my ideals, dreaming big of things that we could do, ways in which we could live that would be counter to the things that we feel are damaging to humanity and to the natural world, which in turn we feel that God is entrusting to the very humanity that pillages itself and the natural world. So we dream of alternate living. Some sort of off-the-grid thing. I still think about it a lot, think about in what ways we could live the life that we feel we are supposed to live, how to make that transition, where it will be, what it will look like. I am often confused and always tempted to just stay in comfort, to get cable and just watch sports or music, to ignore God's call to live in a certain way. It would be so much easier, but I just can't shake the feeling that we are supposed to somehow be different. To look different. To live differently. In that case, I guess this blog might just end abruptly someday when we move into our canvas tent...

...maybe I should go buy that tent...