last wedding of the summer

Courtney's cousin got married on Saturday, which made the 3rd straight wedding this month, and the 6th since we got married. But this is the end for the summer.

The weirdest coincidences happen all the time. A groomsman in the wedding was Kevin Schmitt, the brother of Erik Schmitt, who died earlier this year. But I've known Kevin from church for over 10 years, and he happens to be best friends with Courtney's cousins new husband. I saw him this morning, again, at a post-wedding gift-opening time.

The other thing is that the groom, Levi Brockelman, is from Grinnel Kansas, a small town in Western Kansas. This wouldn't be a big deal, except, I have been to Grinnell and know someone from there. One of the first people I met at K-State was Greg Dickman, on the 9th floor of Haymaker. One time, a bunch of us went on a road trip to Grinnell, just to say that we went there. Anyway, the Brockelman's know Greg Dickman really well, and even told me that he got married recently.

Not much going on this week. I have a life-insurance medical exam on Tuesday evening, so I am not supposed to eat anything all day. I may have lunch with big sister Mo on Wednesday. And we'll be babysitting for Sophie on Aug 5.

Oh, yeah and we saved about $17 today, by use of coupons. Courtney is really alert and resourceful like that.

Last day of camp (for us)

We have the rehearsal dinner and wedding of Courtney's cousin (Laura Isenburg) this weekend, so Courtney is taking off from camp early. Plus, she is not at camp next week. So that made last night my last night at camp.

boxelder bugs

Hi there, it's another week at camp, and that means I am challenged for time. But mostly, I didn't feel like I had anything to write about, which was ridiculous, because there is always something happening.

We have lots of boxelder bugs outside our house. They escape the heat by seeking cooler places. They are harmless except they congregate (and naturally mate) on our front screen door. And they get inside the screen door somehow. Yesterday I used tape to block off the entrances. I don't know if it worked yet, because it's been a cool day, and they don't visit on cool days. Some of them get in the house, and I kill several a day. Courtney made a concoction with water and laundry detergent that seems to kill them in two sprays.

Then I fixed Courtney's parents' computer. NAV (norton anti-virus) had a pop-up every 2 seconds. On my first try the result was that I disabled https pages. So i went again and tried a different method, and it's working now.

softball

Did I write about softball yet? Courtney got two hits with 2 RBIs, and scored a run. She also caught a high pop-up, and then threw it to me at 2nd base to complete a double-play!

Monday night, we were hydration coordinators at camp. That is also called lemonade duty. The campers come from a long game in the woods, and we had prepared hundreds of cups of lemonade for them.

Then last night, there was a Code 1. Basically, "Code 1" comes over the radio (a nice walkie-talkie) , and every staff person runs like crazy down the hill to the dock. Basically, a teen got knocked in the head while blobbing, and had to lay down. He didn't suffer any injuries.

Courtney sang well

Courtney sang well in the wedding on Saturday. (And I played well too, but no one noticed) . This is a really huge deal. Imagine if you've never sung a solo in front of people, but then you sing your first one in front of 250 people at a wedding? She got a lot of good comments afterwards.

Then we saw a bunch of friends at the reception.

Leading worship was okay. All the high schoolers were gone to CHIC, so it felt kind of empty. But I'll Fly Away went well. No one understood my little intro about clapping on the off-beat. I'm sure it made no sense though. Oh well. I didn't get to introduce the new song, because the service went 30 minutes late.

worship leading

I am the guest worship leader at Community Covenant this week. It has actually been a good experience. Last night, we started practice 15 minutes late, and we got out 15 minutes early. And everyone thanked me for having such a quick practice. We're playing "I'll Fly Away" at the end, which I had some reservations about even though I chose the song. But it will be really fun. We're also singing a song named "Beautiful", written by a friend at camp. But when I chose the song, I didn't realize that he had wrote it. So we called him at camp, and he sang it to me over the phone, since I wasn't sure of the melody.

Courtney's been into doing sign language things on the computer, ever since I installed a $1 program onto it. She also found my old diary from high school and college. It's really strange to have someone read it, but it really was reserved for my wife someday.

Later,
Dan

Courtney's not at camp this week

Courtney's not at camp, but we're still busy.

Monday, softball was rained out so we went to my parents and practiced for the wedding. Courtney is singing, and I'm playing Canon in D.

Last night, my lawn mowing was rained out, so we went for a walk. I was supposed to pick worship songs for Sunday, but for some reason time flew by and I never got around to it.

Tonight is my new lawn mowing night, and we'll be vaccuuming cushions from our couch that had been in Courtney's parents' basement. And maybe we'll pick worship songs. And we'll practice a little more for the wedding.

Thursday is worship practice. Friday is a rehearsal dinner. Saturday we have the wedding. Sunday I'm worship leading.

ups and downs

Hey all,
I thought I was going to post every day....

then I had to work a lot. which is also tough, because Courtney lives 50 minutes away. I had to stay in town 2 nights this week. The 1st to mow the lawn and work. The 2nd for worship practice last night.

anyway, even though i could say more about ups and downs, i want to jump to camp highlights.

One day i went blobbing. That is where you jump off a platform onto a big thing filled with air. If you are on the end, and someone jumps, you get catapulted in the lake.

Anyway, there was a long line, and I got bumped off right away, so blobbing was kind of overrated for me. But that isn't this story.

The story is that I pack a bag of clothes every day. I drive into the camp, and usually get out of my car and eat dinner or whatever. Well, after the blobbing, I took a shower. When I got out of the shower, I realized that my clothes were still in my car about half a mile away! the only clothes I had were wet with lake water. I had the fan blowing on my shorts, and eventually had to go commando and retrieve the rest of my clothes.

I've played ultimate frisbee two Fridays in a row. This time I played barefoot, and my feet were so dirty!

Then I went to the Friday campfire for two Fridays in a row (Courtney is working with the volunteer teenagers, so I'm not talking about campers). Last week, a girl dislocated her shoulder while swing dancing right at the campfire before it started. So the nurse came by, and then Courtney left and went to the hospital with the girl. I, meanwhile, was still at the campfire, with people I didn't know, and it went on till the wee hours of the night.

I think those are the highlights.

pool party

Other new camp developments are walking 1/4 mile to my car every morning, since I can't just park in front of the cabin. (It takes away from the rustic feel for the campers). Watching the pool party for the campers - belly flop competition, and "jump or dive". Jump or Dive was changed into "make a letter of the alphabet" or "make an animal shape". So Nick Pick and the other guy were running this, and yelling out things like 'apostrophe S', 'tab', 'backspace'. And animals like 'wooly mammoth', 'Chuck Norris', and many other funny things. I stated that night that it was a blog-worthy event.

Note: Jon Philgreen got married, and we went to his local reception on Sunday.
Note2: Wedding pictures are great! We still need time to look at all 950, and then I'll be posting some!

long stretch at home

I have spent six nights in town, and I will be heading back to camp tonight. First, we had Mo's party, then a Friday wedding, then the weekend. Monday, Courtney was supposed to have a night off, but ended up being busy. I had to stay here and mow the lawn. Then last night was Courtney's new night off, so we stayed in town.

Saturday, we had Ben and Maris Deaver over at our house, and they brought their friend Daiki. We all went to Starbucks together as well.

Last night I got 7th place in my division and age group in the Mile Run of Corporate Challenge, gaining 2 points for StrategicOne!

Seeing people we know

We went to a wedding, and we saw Jeff Beruan. He happened to be the brother of the groom, but I had no idea. Jeff was an acquantance in high school but he went to a different school. Our barbershop quartet (the 4 C's) beat out his to win a comptetion. And we got to sing at the esteemed Kansas City Music Hall and get the attention of all the ladies. And then we both went to the Summer Choral Institute at KSU as high schoolers. He has the deepest singing voice of anyone I know. He sang 3 songs in Italian, and is is going to be an opera singer. He has long hair, and he's really smooth, but he used to be tall and lanky and not smooth.

Courtney knew him from YouthFront camp, from high school. It was really strange that we both knew him from different places, and that we went to the wedding of his brother.

Then we went to Sheridan's Frozen Yogurt after that was all done. A lady saw Courtney and said "Are you Courtney?". She didn't know her, but it happened to be the parents of a teenager in Courtney's ministry. the teenager was working at Sheridan's, and her parents came and embarrassed her incidentally.

Then I saw Dean Berrens(?) from KSU, and his wife Jenny, and a couple of other acquaintances from college. That was still at Sheridan's. They are interning at Christ Church here in town.

We saw some other acquaintances, but they weren't as random.

super party and seeing my nieces

Courtney and my sisters Michele and Mary and my mom threw a surprise party/shower for my other sister Monique. She got accepted into med school, and so will be financially stressed, so these ladies had it in their hearts to have a shower to provide for some of her needs. It made me happy to see the love in this event. A cousin and cousin-in-law and aunt and pastor's wife were there.

It was a ladies only thing, so I showed up later and got to see my 2 nieces. I saw Sophie first, who is looking more and more like her dad. She has a tight grip with her fingers and a good smile. We got to see her when she was a week old, so she has progressed a lot in the last 6 months!

Then I went to down to see Avery in the crib. She didn't spend much time with her uncle, except I unknowingly broke the baby strategy when I took her out of the crib. The strategy is that you leave them there so that they sleep. I didn't get to see her smile, as she was crying very loudly. But I got to sing to her and scratch her back, which calmed her down.

Earlier, Michele and Mary went to lunch with me, and they got to see my office. They expected it to be boring with the cubicles, but they found some nice people inside, and they were impressed with it all.

starting out with a tick

I found a tick on my body Wednesday morning. That is another thing that is new about living at a camp.

Since it was pouring down rain yesterday, I got to see a rainbow on my commute home. That was wonderful - I saw both ends of it.

Courtney made some gluten-free banana bread that is excellent. I ate some last night when I got "home" and said it doesn't get much better than this.

Then since staff from both camps were over at our camp, a few long games of dodgeball were played. I watched at first from the balcony, but then I joined in.

Memorial Day

We had a good memorial day. It was one of the only days off we've had together since we've been married. So we got a lot done in the house.

We managed to mow our lawn despite all the rain earlier in the day. We are starting to see the living room floor. We plugged in our microwave after getting a tiny extension cord. Courtney found places for all of the kitchen things. And we got to sleep in. So it was a successful day.

The Altar

We are staying in cabin 18 this summer. Courtney lobbied for us to get a room that has a bathroom attached. It has a skylight, so I can wake up easily on weekday mornings. Everyone at camp gets up early Saturdays, so it's no problem that it will wake me up then too. It actually doesn't wake me up, it just helps me to stay awake once I've woken up.

This weekend is the Altar. So kids, teenagers, adults, anyone can come and camp out in tents. There are worship and prayer times. There are mini-seminars. There are free times when people can explore trails.

I ran into my cousin Jon Taussig last night. He is a youth pastor in the area, but he didn't bring his students this time. He is embarking on a 40-day journey, like the wilderness journies of Moses and Jesus. This is a time when we can pray for him. But he also offered to pray for 1 thing for me. Just 1 thing, because otherwise the list will get too long. Courtney can get 1 thing too. He also said my cousin his brother Ben Taussig is getting back to the States on June 11. He's been in Uzbekistan seems like forever, but it's probably been 2 years.

I feel like I'm mooching off of the resources here, because I'm a spouse I don't have to pay for anything, and I get all priviledges including using this computer. But I convinced myself that I need to take grace and also dish it out sometimes.

I can't wait to tell people about this experience of living at camp. If people don't seem interested, I need to remember to not take it personally.

Time of my life

I'm having the time of my life.

Yesterday I played racquetball with my co-worker Adam for about an hour. We went the YMCA, where you are allowed 3 free visits as a guest. There aren't very many racquetball courts in town.

Then I went home to YouthFront Camp South. Courtney was there to tell me to get shoes on, because we were going for an ATV ride! It was my first time riding an ATV.

Then later on I got to participate in worship and listen to a speaker talk about campers. It's training week for the camp staff - cabin leaders, lifeguards, etc, who are mostly college students. I'm the resident spouse, so I leave early and get back late. The commute is about 45-50 minutes.

hanging out at Courtney's parents

Hey, I'm just hanging out at Courtney's parents. Courtney and her mom are in the basement getting some materials for some crafts, so I'm up here at the computer wondering if I can do something productive. But it's Mother's Day as well, which is why we are over here. We had breakfast with my mom, dad and sister at LaPeep at 7:45 this morning.

I was kind of upset this afternoon about something - just a personal problem that I'd rather not write about - and Courtney was able to console me. She is my best friend ever. She loves me so much more than anyone else. It's very nice to have a worldly picture of how much God must love me. I can definitely feel that in the fact that He's provided everything I/we need. But it's hard that you can't have a back and forth conversation.

Today's our 4 week anniversary. Tomorrow is our 1 month anniversary.

Things to do:
try out my new trimmer/edger
put winter clothes away in the attic (even though it's cold sometimes still - it's better than on the floor)
buy a bible, and read it (my old favorite split in two, so we just gave it away)
manage my (our) money in Quicken.

And that's all i can think of. Since I can't do any of that here, that is why I'm writing such a long post.

Sorry I dropped off the face of the earth there. I got married to Courtney, moved into our house. Courtney is pregnant. Just joking about being pregnant. We just got married 4 weeks ago. We went to Cancun to a beautiful resort. The weather is so nice down there.

Dumb and Dumber

I think i'd like to watch Dumb and Dumber here at my apartment on THURSDAY night. Then I can invite all my ushers and groomsmen. Courtney and I have been discussing how important it is to get good rest on Friday night. So I would not have people over. But my best man and I and one of my ushers can hang out and talk until I get tired.

American Deaths over the Last Three Years Put in Perspective:
• Auto Accidents: 120,000
• Falling Down: 45,000
• Poisoning: 27,000
• Drowning: 12,000
• War in Iraq: 2,300