Home

Well, we are home. Got in last night about 11 PM. Here's a shot of the sun going down just past Sheridan, Wyoming, about 9 PM last night. Those are the Bighorn mountains in the background, as we are driving into Montana on I-90. Sure is beautiful country...

Shower Races

So we are staying in the "Econo-Lodge" in LaCrosse Wisconsin (not too bad either - the beds were comfy, or else we were all just too tired to notice). Worst thing about them: no coffee pots in the room (ouch). Funniest thing this morning - shower races! Christian lathered, shampooed, and rinsed his way through his morning shower in 42.6 seconds. Malachi took 27.7 secs. And Micah (drum roll please), took a mere 13.8 secs. Wow. My response? Did you REALLY lather and shampoo everything??? I guess we'll find out this afternoon, by seeing who starts to stink first.

As for this blog post? 3.25 secs. Bam. Gotta run.

Packing in Earnest

So here we are - packing in earnest. Friday night was our official "End of School Party" (with some 35 friends from school, church, and coffee shops, the evening was highly successful - the last folks left at 4 AM). And then Saturday night we went to a party at Nan's (she's a fellow student, and it too was a wonderful time). But tonight, it's Sunday, and that means it's high time to be packing (if anyone wants a decent hideabed, it's sitting on the curb in front of our house!).

Next up - graduation on Thursday afternoon, loading the truck that evening, and on into Friday morning, and then hopefully by late afternoon we'll be hopping into the car and heading west. If blogging is light over the next week, you'll know why!

If anyone wants to say goodbye before we leave, just stop on over on Thursday evening or Friday morning - we'll have plenty of time to chat (just bring a pair of work gloves ;-)

Bookstore Binge

So the good folks at the Westminster Bookstore do something special every spring for graduating students - they offer a one time 20% discount off everything in the store (and that's on top of their regular prices, which are already discounted up to 30% on list). So it's basically a really great time to buy all those books you are going to need for future ministry.

Of course one of the things pastors rely on are commentaries. Now, there are 66 books in the Bible, and each commentary generally runs anywhere from $35 (on the low end) to $70+ (on the upper end). You can do the math - it ain't cheap to stock a good library! At any rate, I've been saving book money this past year in anticipation of this event, and then for a graduation present my folks added a sizeable chunk to the kitty (thankyou!!!) - so yesterday afternoon, I walked into the WTS bookstore knowing I could spend $1000 on books.

And 66 commentaries later (isn't THAT ironic - I didn't know this was how many I bought until I counted them up this morning), the total bill rang up at $1501 (that's after the discount). Ouch! Now on the plus side, this is a great bargain, probably worth almost double what I was being billed for it. On the down side, it was $500 more than I had budgeted. Hmmm.... what to do? Bite the bullet or put books back? Hmmm...

Well, as you can tell from the receipt up above, I bit the bullet. It will probably be a long time before I have the opportunity to splurge like this again, and I can definitely use these sooner rather than later. Mark Traphegan told me later this was the largest sale he personally has rung up yet (although I know they've had bigger ones).

Now here's where this all get's humorous. I think both Marilyn and I were wondering how we were going to actually pay for this. Then last night about 11 PM we had a call from a woman whom we hadn't seen in years. She had stayed in our house a couple of summers ago, and had ended up not having enough money to pay all the utilities, etc. And she was calling last night to say that she had not forgotten, and a check for $317 was in the mail (which was actually more than she had owed). Not that we expected her to pay. She was in a tight spot when she left, and we were more than happy to help her out. But here she was, nearly two years later, calling to say hi, and thanks, and to settle up.

That says a lot about her, I think. And it says even more about God. He really is good, he really does provide for our needs. It's going to be exciting to see where he leads us next...

Cutting Board

Last night we went over to a Taehoo's house to have dinner and say goodbye. (You may recall that Taehoo visited us in Montana last summer). At any rate, Taehoo, being the man of many talents that he is, has taken up wood working, and he presented us with this very fine going away present: a hand-crafted cutting board!

It is simply stunning - the woods, from the outside in to the center, are: Wenge, Cherry, Cocobolo, Purple Heart, Black Walnut, Curly Maple, and Bubinga. It's absolutely stunning - the picture doesn't really do us justice. It was kind of funny last night - Micah and I both sat there and simply drolled over the wood for a good half hour or so, eventually deciding that we want to try and make a chess board this summer. So we'll see. In the meantime, I just wanted to share this fine picture of Taehoo's craftsmanship! Thanks Taehoo!

Happy Birthday Micah!

And Monday, May 15th was Micah's Birthday! (This piocture was actually taken on Saturday, when Marilyn's folks came down for lunch to celebrate with us!). Can you believe I now have 2 teenagers in the house? Wierd...

Happy Birthday Marilyn!

So Sunday, May 7 was Marilyn's birthday! We all got up and made her eggs and toast for breakfast! :-)

New Plates

Our new plates came in the mail today - and Janine actually came over for breakfast this morning to try out some of Marilyn's Sourdough FlapJacks. Then I spent the rest of the day doing household maintenance - fixing up some minor things that need to get done before we can close on the house. I replaced two toilet seals (loads of fun), fixing a leaking shower faucet, and (hopefully) will get the bathtub fixed tomorrow. But my first final is on Thursday, so I need to start studying soon...

End of School Party

Well, here we are - it's May 5th, and today is the last day of class in my seminary experience. It's kind of weird to be nearing the end of this 4 year journey, and it's kind of surprising how quickly everything accelerates at the end. The realization really begins to sink in when you stop to consider how many people - friends and acquaintances from class, from coffee shops - how many of these folks you may never see again.

It's kind of sad (to say the least). SO... what we'd like to do is have a party before we leave. If you read this blog and live within driving distance of Philly, you are hereby cordially invited to a one last party at our house, on Friday May 19, before we head back to Montana for good. This will be a stay-as-late-as-you'd-like kind of affair, with good food and drink and lots of opportunities to reminisce.

I'll be sending out an announcement to the cryder-friends list as well. We still need to figure out the details, but for starters, please reserve the date on your calendar and let us know if you'd like to come...