I love fall!!

Its been 4 years since I had a good fall.....I remember now why it is my favorite season of the year.

There are two amazing trees in "the quad" at Covenant. They turned this awesome red and now are slowly fading to orange and falling.
If you click on thepicture above you'll get a bigger view and you can see the veins of the leaf illuminated by the setting sun. Its pretty cool if I do say so myself.

This is the view from my porch swing. Its a great swing for contemplating life.......not so great for studying, unfortunately.

But not to fear, studying is getting done. I have a big week of papers and assignments coming up which I am looking forward to completing. After that it is T-giving with the family.

Yeah turkey!

can life get better?

This weekend we took a road trip up to the colorful state of Michigan and frankly, it was awesome! We took a leisurely drive up to Grand Rapids, stopping to play some frisbee at a rest stop and to dip our toes in Lake Michigan. The trees were a riot of color and it was great to be able to really slow down and enjoy the changing seasons.

Our motivation in going to Grand Rapids was two fold. 1. Diana came to visit me in Nicaragua and helped me move back by dragging a 50 pound bag of luggage back on to the plane with her when she left. I haven't seen the bag since. So this weekend was a recovery mission of my semi-lost posessions. And 2. Diana got engaged! Lindsey and I hadn't met Mr. Matthew Burns yet and so this was our chance to get to know him before they tied the knot.

Matthew and Diana took us to a Dordt vs Calvin hockey game and I just about got booed out of the arena for being the one vocal Dordt supporter. But I give as good as I get :)
We also had the chance to reconnect with another former college roommate Lydia. We had a great night filled with memories and belly laughs.

When we arrived in Grand Rapids Diana introduced us to Matthew and he immediately cooked a meal for us - it was amazing. I know they say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but I think the same holds true for women......or maybe just me. We could tell right off the bat that they are truely meant to be together and it was a joy to get to know him through out the weekend.

(Sorry, these pics are a bit out of order)

On our drive north, we stopped by Lake Michigan and frolicked (did I spell it right?) on the beach for a while, played some baseball with a stick and rock and were pretty much just glad to be free of the car.

But even before the lake stop, we had to take a potty break and got all sweaty and gross playing frisbee at a rest stop. It was so great to just take a easy trip without the pressure of a time table.

Thank you to Diana and Matthew for being wonderful hosts and thanks to Kirk and Matt for putting up with us for 16ish hours in the car. Smell ya'll later, literallly ;)

ponch on a train

I took a train this weekend. It was a lot of fun, I would recommend it to anyone. In fact it beats any plane ride you'd ever take. Here are some of my views.

So romantic...

The reason I took a train was to see the one....the only....BRIAN REGAN!!! He looked a lot like an angel, or Jesus, if you will.

Joshua wore a little bear coat the whole weekend - it was adorable!

This is a self portrait. Or at least my attempt at one.

I think I'd like to take the train again. Lots of time to think, read, plenty of leg room and, the best part, no security. Awesome!

Go Cards!

Went to a Cardnails game for the second time in my life (I don't remember the first, but my parents tell me that I was there). We sat in the nose bleed section for the first 5 innings and the Cards did awesome - 6-0 lead. Then decided to try and find some seats closer to the field. We stood around for about 15 minutes and then a guy gave us his front row tickets because they had to leave - awesome! So then we sat in the front row and the Cards started to fall apart at the seams. I am not saying that there was a correlation between our distance from the field and the Cards ability to play, I am just stating the facts.

They ended up loosing 6-12 to the Brewers. Poor guys.
Lots of red in the stands. I felt like I was at a Northwestern game :) Looks like the Cards will make it to the Worldserise. I doubt I'll make it to one of those games, but who knows?

in the swing of things

so i am getting used to this life style and culture. life is still an adventure, but i am mentally adjusting to the pace of the north american mindset.

just don't ask me to drive.

Schlafy's beer is also helping the adjustment phase ;) we took a tour last weekend - it was fun and informative. those strange people in the picture with me are fellow seminarians. their pretty cool, i guess.
frisbee is also helping me adjust. maybe the biggest adjustment with frisbee is playing on grass that i am not scared to dive on. i think i have fallen down a few times and i don't have bloody knees! amazing!

Fiddy-Cent and G-Love came to visit Zee-Dawg (aka Special Sauce aka Lindsey) and they took us out for dinner. it was great to have parental units here to share their love and wisdom with us. thanks!

they took us to TGIFriday's. its ironic because that is the one north american resturaunt chain we had in Mangua and we went there ALL the time. which one was better you may ask? all i have to say is that Lindsey got moldy bread and our waitress wasn't wearing nearly enough flair. that never happened in Nicaragua. i think i've made my point.

my family photo

Aren't they beautiful?

Balloon Glow

Tonight was really cool. I have always admired hot air balloons from a distance, usually as they drift above me at 1000 feet, but tonight I got to see them close up - it was awesome!

Our Sunday frisbee field was filled with hot air balloons all sitting on the ground and lit up. There were probably about 20 in total balloons all different shapes and sizes. Tomorrow they are going to have a race led by the Energizer Bunny. Go figure.
About every 5 or 8 minutes an air horn would blow and all the balloons would fire up the burners and they would all glow at the same time. I took about 25 pictures but these are the ones that turned out the best. And of course, pictures never do justice to the real thing.

I love that you can see the flame in this one - so cool!

There is lots to do in the big city and thankfully a lot of it is free!

Until next time...