Thanksgiving Shenanigans

It seems kind of hectic around here.  The day I dropped Adela off at Hope I ended up having Titus Brown over for a couple nights.  He was moving his sister into her new place in the Battle Creek Area.  I joined him on a tour of the new Battle Creek Skate Park.  It's not in service yet, but it looks like it's getting close and it was fun to see a ministry that will serve people that run in the same circles as I did as a teenager.

I also played disc golf on a kind of cold, kind of rainy but not too bad afternoon.  Shot a +2.  My best at Begg Park.

Every couple years my Thanksgiving day plans lead me to new and different places.  I've been in California, Florida, and Michigan.  Within Michigan I've been to family, friends, and friends of friends for Thanksgiving.  I've been thankful for the amount of hospitality that has been shown to me by such a variety of folks.

This year I enjoyed sharing the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in Midland with Adela's family.  It was a big change going from my normal 2 to 3 people family gatherings to a house full of about 13 people.  The food was good, but I really enjoyed the time to hang out with Adela's family.  It's a house full of fun and noise and activity.

So I enjoyed flying the kite in a corn field, jumping on a trampoline, playing Head of the Herd, shopping on black Friday, eating tons of food, playing Monopoly Deal, visiting old friends from camp and new friends from Adela's family.  Mostly it was fun to hang out with Adela for such a long time.  Once I'm working it will be much more hard to spend 6 days coming and going with her.

Sorry for the lack of pictures.  Life is speeding up a little, but hopefully I'll get in the habit back.

Gotta Do This One More Time!

This was a week of one more time kind of things.  Last week at camp.  I plan to return fairly often, but we'll see what happens.  In the meantime I was a little sad and sentimental.  I had a last trip to and from Gaylord in Camp Barakel buses.  I attended church at Praxis one last time.  Last pick up basketball in Fairview.  And then work of course.  Painting and driving the Skytrak around and splitting some wood too.

White paint hand.

My last day was Wednesday and the Bakers invited me to dinner at their place.  I was pleasantly surprised to find a big banner at the entrance to the house.  I think Mike wanted me to run through it like a football player.  

A heartwarming goodbye.

The maintenance crew all came out to play some games, watch tv and enjoy some yummy treats.  It was such a good wrap up for my time there.  I sure will miss the people at Camp Barakel.

Brad and Randy spending quality time together.

The beautiful morning sky greeted me as I headed South.  One last time.

So now it's Battle Creek.  I enjoyed doing some traditional things, as well as some new stuff.  I spent most of the weekend with Mom and Adela.  We all went to the state volleyball championships to watch St Phil win again, then Adela and I walked the Arboretum and went to the Kingman Museum to check out the planetarium.  It had been a long time since I'd been in there and I don't ever remember going to a planetarium before.

After that we headed over to the Battle Creek Holiday Parade, followed by a quick trip to Pizza Sam's.  It was really a banner day.  I also saw the new Bond movie with the fantastic Moody's.  The movie was all right, but I wouldn't call it my favorite bond.  Finally playing drums at church is always fun.  Leaving camp is sad, but it's definitely exciting to think about all the Battle Creek stuff that I've been looking forward to going to.  

It's a time of change, but I trust that everything will get sorted out well.  I'm having fun and enjoying the new stuff.  Now I just need motivation to get myself really settled in to the groove of hometown living.

Getting Out of the House

So I moved most of my stuff into my Dad's van on Saturday afternoon.  I showed him around some of the stuff we'd been doing and snagged some pictures.

This is actually a couple weeks ago.  But we resurrected the burn pit for a day.

Dan did a fine job with the cultured stone face of the new fireplace.

Over last weekend some folks came out and mudded the drywall and we've been priming now.

Another garage door installed.  It's mostly done, but a little more is left on the inside.

The toilet tower.

That is kind of the wrap on last week.  It was nice to get out of the house for a bit.  A little cold.... but still nice.  Now it's just a couple more days of work, and I'll be rolling out to Battle Creek.  So if you're in that area I'll be looking to settle into my house, but also up for getting out and about the town.

New shoes!

One of my quirks is that I really like shoes.  I like every shoe to have its own little purpose.  Well these shoes have spent the last year and a half (or more) chilling in my room.  Moving around with me.  And this morning I realized I'd sent my nice shoes away with my dad, so I decided to bust these out.  Felt great to wear them!

Pictures of Summer

We are done with drywall.  Pretty much so at least.  We made sure that it was ready for the guys to come and mud it this weekend.  I haven't even made it back to check that out yet.  I spent the weekend with friends in Battle Creek watching a Tim Hawkins concert and showing them around town a little bit.  It was a blast, and a reminder of what home will be like soon.

I diddn't get any pictures, so here are some randoms from Brad's camera.  

Chapel in the Woods during training week.  Good to see Rob on that guitar.

I don't think I'm pouting.  But it's my pouting face.  It's hard to cram into a little ball like this.

My shorts look super short with the zipline pulling them up a little.  Just having a refresher course with summer staff.  

Jumping over to HIS week.  I enjoy my coloring time along with the campers. 

At Mackinaw.  Not sure where this face came from.  Just tired from the day?  It was a lot of fun.... I promise!

All you need at a baseball game is a frisbee and a  glove.  Be careful playing in the stands with the usher watching.

One of my many moments I wanted to momentarily pass out in Brad's truck.

Classic moments with Randy Harris.  I'm going to have to come back up a lot to catch up with him.

One picture from this weekend.  Good ole Sojouner Truth.  Right in downtown Battle Creek.

That's it for the week.  Only two weeks left at camp.