Swim time

The summer in AZ means lots of time logged in the pool. The kids are getting quite good at it. Kate has the freestyle stroke and back stroke down and is working on the butterfly and breast stroke at lessons. Here's some videos that I took today while Rachelle worked.

YL Staff

Rachelle and I met last week with John Irwin, the regional director with YL in the area and decided that our family would join staff on a prt-time basis to help get ministry going in the Surprise area.

We will officially be moving as soon as we find a house in Surprise and can close on it. Please pray for that process, as we have a home that we LOVE, but so do many others, so we are in a multiple offer situation with a forclosure.

We are very excited to get going and begin reaching out to kids in the Surprise area.

Vacation

A couple of weeks ago, our family went separate ways for vacation time.

I took 3 boys from Surprise (our new ministry area) and went with the 90 or so others from the Northwest Valley on an 18 hour bus ride to northern California and YL's Woodleaf.

It was a great time for many of these kids who had never experienced YL before, seeing them go from not so sure about this stuff to going all out in participation. From the mud obstacle wars to the mud wars, high ropes course, tower of terror and ridge runners, these boys ran full-on into their fears while learning to trust in their leaders and trust in God. Each day we had time (or two) to sit in small groups and discuss what all of this "God stuff" was about. I was blessed by all of the open and honest feelings that were shared along with difficult stories about life and what really happens.

There were about 300 kids from parts of CA, ID and AZ, and I would estimate that 50-75 stood up at the "say-so" and dedicated their life to Christ (still causes chills). What a blessing.

I hope to get Rachelle to write soon about her trip to TX with the kids. Here's one of my favorite pics from the trip.

Separate ways

Rachelle and I are heading separate ways tomorrow.

I head off for a week at Young Life outreach camp north of Sacramento and Rachelle and the kids go to visit the cousins in Dallas, even Rachelle's parents head off to Lake Tahoe.

I am dreading the 17 hours on the bus, but looking forward to bringing kids to the foot of the cross to check this Jesus guy out. Please pray for the time that we are up there. Pray especially for safe travels. The school that we do ministry at suffered the loss of 3 classmates during a charter bus accident over winter break, so there are some fragile nerves getting onto the charter bus to travel over night through CA.

Also, pray for safety and smooth sailing for Rachelle and the kids, it's never easy to travel with two ornery kids alone. Last trip home took 14 hours because of lovely TX weather.

Thanks for the prayers.

R.I.P. Fluffinator Baker ????-5/14/08

Yesterday we noticed flies around Fluffs cage, which we attributed to the warm weather and rabbit smell.

Turns out Fluff had an infection on his backside, complete with maggots and fly eggs.

They wanted $178 to attempt to clean the wound and there wasn't any promise of a full recovery.

R.I.P. Fluff

Kate handled it well, considering everything (did not know anything of this until 5 pm). So she lost her rabbit quickly! She went to the vet with Rachelle- we figured we would have him put down so wanted her to be able to say good bye and have closure on it. We are proud of her

Catch and Release

So appearantly ducks poop a LOT, so it was only about a week into their little lives that we decided that it was time for Peg and the gang to move to the big urban pond just around the corner from our house.

Here's some of the exciting footage

Here's me capturing mama duck first

If you ever need ducklings caught, just call Kate.

We now got to visit at the release site daily, and happy to report that Jack appears to be a very good and protective daddy and the family (well 5 of the 8 ducklings have made it) seem to be enjoying life in the pond.

I fought the hills and the hills won....

Today was the Whiskey Row Half Marathon in Prescott, AZ. The elevation change was rolly and went from 5,500 to 6,600 ft elevation.

I thought that the elevation would kick my little behind, but it turns out that the hills beat the elevation to the punch.

I think me being sick and tossing my cookies on Thursday night didn't help me being ready (I didn't have much of an appetite to carbo-load) so I was a bit dissapointed with the time, but I finished without pain.

I took 58/209 men and 9th in my age division. I was only beat by about 25 of the 228 women and I wooped the 12 year old! (something I have not always been able to say)