What's up?

Hello, hello! Time for a little catch-up I believe. The map you see is a GPS overlay that my friend Lloyd produced from our Saturday ride. He mounted the GPS on his bike and got what looks to be a really accurate representation of the ride. It turned out to be around 67 miles and what a beautiful day it was. We rode with fellow teammate Pete Kresmery. Pete works with Lloyd and he’s a strong rider. Pete actually rode to Lloyd’s house in the morning and logged about 8 more miles than Lloyd and myself. It took approximately 6 hours to complete. We are racing in a 42 mile marathon on Saturday the 1st at Stony Creek. I’ll be racing against Lloyd and Pete that day (this puts me in at least 3rd!). I don’t plan on finishing anywhere near the front of the pack but Lloyd and Pete do have a good chance.

Sunday turned out to be quite a whirlwind day too. Sunday morning I drove to Detroit and was given the opportunity to lead worship in a church/mission/homeless shelter. (If you follow my link to “the core” you can see some photos posted by Pastor Ed). Several Wesleyan churches have adopted the work and are having a 5 day youth mission trip there. So we had a nice crowd and a very good time of music and preaching. I really enjoyed it. I did however lose my voice. I haven’t been singing at all since Easter Sunday and I really gave it all yesterday. On top of that I went to see Nine Inch Nails at Pine Knob (DTE energy) last night and spent the rest of my voice trying to talk over the music and probably screaming a little. I went with Naomi and her friends Jeff and Aaron. I really didn’t know too much about NIN but I do now. They rock very hard. I liked it a lot. I’ve been in a hard rock kind of mood the last few months for whatever reason.

Last weekend was awesome too. Veronica and I went to Petoskey and did some riding and paddling. It’s probably too long a story to elaborate on here so I’ll simply state we had a VERY nice weekend. We rode our bikes on the Boyne Mountain trails and the Little Traverse Wheelway. We put the kayaks in Lake Michigan for a bit and then drove over to a launch on the Jordan River. We paddled upstream and then back down. I do not recommend this! The Jordan has a stiff current and we worked our butts off getting up it.

That’s a small slice of what we’ve been up to lately.

Nathaniel and Val went to see Chad and Regan in Manhattan over the weekend. Haven’t heard from him yet but I’m sure they had a blast. Chad and Regan are great hosts and I’m sure there was never a dull moment. Naomi stayed at Nathaniel’s house for a couple of day and watched their cat. Katie is working long hours on the weekends but has weekdays and weekday evenings off. Ben is glued to the laptop.

Quick pics from Sunday

This is our second trip to Proud Lake recreation area with Jim and Deanna. Last time out we paddled downstream and then back up. This trip we did in reverse and saw a different part of the river. The weather was A+ and the company was great. We really enjoyed the day. We loaded the boats and gear Saturday night and headed out to Brightmoor Church at 7:30am which is pretty early for us. After the 9am church service we had some lunch at Jim and Deanna's then hit the water. It was followed by Bison and Lamb burgers over an open wood fire. It's rough...but this is how I choose to live! God is a master at capturing our attention with his creations. A day like yesterday keeps the trials of life at bay long enough to clear your head; and God knows my head needs constant clearing. Next weekend we go to Petoskey and do it all over again. We found an Inn overlooking the bay that just so happened to have an opening do to a cancellation this weekend...pity eh? We plan on biking mostly; off-road at Boyne Mountain, The Mackanac trail between Petoskey & Charlevoix and then over and around Mackinac Island. If all goes to plan we can do some paddleing on the bay one evening.

Peace

I'm back!

I haven't had time to blog lately for many reasons...they're called excuses, so I'll spare the planet from mine for now.

We finally replaced the computer at home so it's easier to hop on the information superhighway from here now. We decided to give Ben a laptop for his 17th birthday (June 2) and in doing so knew we would have to install the wireless router thats been sitting around here collecting dust. So as the ball got rolling and the reality of my current (5 year old) computer state set-in, we had to do it. So two new computers later our home is now a broadband wi-fi hotspot. This has come to the attention of Katie and Noami's friends and we have had even more frequent visits by various laptop carrying americans. Veronica seem a little more interested in all-things computer too and that's progress folks.

We didn't actually buy a laptop for Ben's birthday specifically, it's part of a "Headstart" program we instituted a few years back. Each of them over the course of their teen years is alloted a certain sum of money to use towards things like cars, etc. For Ben...it's a computer. He's showing promise with his FlashMX skills and hopefully this can help catapult him in a positive direction.

So a few days of last week were spent tweaking the PC and all that kind of stuff.

Nathaniel and I just got back from Toronto this afternoon. We scored tickets to Radiohead about a month ago and saw them Thursday night. The North by Northeast music festival was going on at the same time so we stayed an extra night and caught a few indedpendent Canadian bands as well, 400 of them were in town at 33 venues. We had a great time together. We laughed ourselves to tears a few times on the way home listening to blue-collar comedy on sirius satellite.

Veronica and I are going to Brightmoor Tabernacle in Novi tommorrow to visit her sister and see Jim play in the band there. I haven't been to a pentecostal service in years; it should be fun. Afterwords we are going kayaking with them on the Huron river. It'll be a full day.

Next weekend I'm taking Veronica mountain biking on the trails at Boyne mountain:) She's gunna hate me! But I'll make it up to her somehow. We'll ride there for a while and then ride the paved trail that runs between Charlevoix and Petosky. The next day we will ride Mackinac Island and finish with some Lake Michigan kayaking. It should be a full weekend. We are lovin' the (almost) empty nest. Believe it or not by September...3 of the 4 kids will be in their 20's. Seems like only yesterday.

Other than that not much is going on.