SWING

I have to give a shout out to my ladies of SWING. For those of you new to acrostic lingo (DTS is full of them) it stands for Seminary Wives in Nurturing Groups. My group just started back last week and it was great fun to get together with my lady friends. Acutally, I am pleased to say I will be leading all of SWING this coming spring. Needless to say, I am really excited about serving the Lord in this way. Sometimes I wander what He sees in a wayward sinner like me, but it is awesome to be under His wing. I will keep you posted as to how this goes. (annie)

Hanging with Mercy Me

So this past weekend I had a rare privelige. My brother-in-law is the head of a men's ministry called "Conquering Heroes." (http://www.conqueringheroes.org/) He organized a men's conference in Alabama, and asked me to attend. As part of the conference, Mercy Me, a well known band in Christian circles, performed a concert Friday night. As I was there all day Friday with no other responsibilities, I got to spend the day hanging out with Mercy Me as they set up for the concert. We swapped stories, shared a meal, and collectively pondered what might be in "Chick-fil-A sauce." All in all, they were a bunch of down to earth, very nice guys who put on one heck of a concert.

As a random side note, later that same weekend, back in Dallas, we spotted one of the actors from "Hannah Montana" eating in the Northpark Mall Food Court. I guess he's pretty down to earth as well...

My New Job

As many of you know, Kris has been "paying the bills" (note the sarcastic use of quotes) by teaching at a community college. This semester, however, the classes they assigned to me didn't pan out, and so I had to get a new job. The teaching gig was good in many ways, but the comunte was long, and much of my "paycheck" (same quotes, same sarcasm) went to pay the gas I was using to drive there. All this to say that I now have a new job. And, it comes with a new title:

Pool Boy!

Yes, I have entered the wonderful world of pool cleaning. It is actually a really great situation. OK, a pretty good situation. OK, it is a job. But, as one of my friends says, "Wow, you are really getting tan." (Yes, mother, I wear sunscreen everyday).

The company I work for hires a lot of seminary students, and thus is sensitive to their schedules, which is nice. And where else can you have your pool cleaned by someone who can explain what "hypostatic union" means?

San Francisco

Our August was quite busy, which is one of the reasons our blog hasn't been updated in a while. At least, that provides a good excuse that helps me sleep...

One of the reasons it was so busy was because we took a family vacation. Our amazing friends in the San Fransico Bay Area footed us on an "all expenses paid" trip. Needless to say, we were quite humbled and overjoyed by the prospect.

While we were there we got to experience all that the city had to offer. We did all the typical tourist destinations there, and then took a couple of excursions out of the city. I don't know about you, but when we do family vacations, I always try to "feel out" the kids and see how much of the trip they might actually remember later. i can remember in my own childhood taking many wonderful family vacations, but my memories of each are just brief moments; those moments when you think, "Wow. Now I'm really having fun!"

In talking to the kids about their "takeaways" from this trip, it was interesting the things that they found to be the most enjoyable. To a person, the highlight of our trip was those things we saw that (if you'll let me) God created. It wasn't the Golden Gate Bridge (that just begs for you to spend a roll of film on), or anything that you might think.

Our favorites were the afternoon we spent at a tide pool, collecting and examining sea creatures and shells, and the day we spent at Muir Woods, surrounded by majestic redwoods. Something about being outside, communing with nature was so incredibly refreshing and worshipful. Those are the experiences that we'll treasure the most. Maybe we've been in the city too long...