So I'm famous now.  I made it on youtube http://www.youtube.com/cj6161
The moral of the story is that if someone is pointing a camera at you, they may be taking a video.

I got a lot of compliments last week on the blossoming cherry tree in my front yard, one even said it was the "finest cherry tree in Grand Rapids".  So here it is for all to enjoy and yes this counts as a post.

The End of an Era

Today was a monumentous occasion.  I am no longer undefeated in face to face chess (I've lost online before).  I walked right into checkmate during the second game I played with Mom.  Here's a chess lesson for all of you.  When your opponent is threatening checkmate, make sure to look twice before making a move.  Such a beautiful attack I had planned all for naught because I'm an idiot.

In other news, I just got back from a trip to Maine where I was a co-"leader" for the college group.  I say "leader" because they are plenty capable of leading themselves, maybe more of a co-facilitator?  They are such a great group of people, I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with them.  During the trip we went through the aspects of the Sabbath from the book "Keeping the Sabbath Wholly", ceasing, resting, embracing, and feasting.  It was cool because it was very intentional, a day was allocated toward each aspect of the Sabbath.  It was a very restful trip and I came back quite refreshed, spiritually, mentally, and physically.

Here's a picture of the mountain (Katahdin) I climbed up.  Two other guys and I climbed up to Baxter peak (it is in the clouds), which is the highest point in Maine and also the northernmost point of the Appalachian trail.  On the way up we shared our life stories.  It was a great encouragement to hear how God had worked and is working in their lives.

We had already climbed up a ways when we got to the pond (Chimney Pond), but it was after this point that the climbing really began.  It was pretty much boulder climbing most of the way up.

Here's a picture of us at the top and also a picture of me standing next to the sign.

It was cloudy at the top at first, but we took a while up at the top to do our devotionals, despite the threat of a storm and God rewarded us with a clear sky.  Here's a few pictures from the top, the first one is looking down on the pond from the first picture.

This one is cool because it is looking down on the clouds.

I have lots more pictures and stories from the trip, but the hike up Katahdin was definitely the highlight.  Well, I've written my alotment for the next few months, so I'm signing off.

Oh, here's one last picture of my small group that we took when we got back.  The whole group was split up into three small groups that joined together towards the end of the trip.

Could it be? An update!

So I've decided to update my xanga, because I believe I have the most stale xanga out of all the van clan.  2 e-props to myself for being lazy.  As some of you know I went to Texas last week, although I really didn't visit Texas.  I pretty much saw the airport, my hotel, the place I was working, and a few miscellaneous restaurants.  Despite the complete lack of free time to do anything but work, eat, and sleep, it was fairly relaxing because all I had to be responsible for was working, eating, and sleeping.  It was a fairly productive week, so I suppose there is a bit of a rosy tint to the whole affair. 

Went to Dad's house today to help with stuff and move rocks.  For some reason they decided to move the hot tub.  It actually wasn't too bad once we got going.  This random though really has little to do with moving the hot tub, but it seems to me that Dad always has to have some project to work on.  I can't imagine what project he will undertake if he ever retires.  I think I missed out on that gene.  I'm a thinker not a doer, or at least that's my excuse.  However, with Dad's help I did manage to move a ton of rocks (literally) to my house to landscape the side of my house.  So some time in the future when I have some free time, I'll transplant some grass, dig up some dirt, put down some landscaping cloth, and move some rocks.  Baby steps.

So yesterday was the weekly game night at my house.  I've talked about substituting game nights for Survivor once the season is over, but I actually followed through this time.  So last night played the "drawing game".  The game is basically a combination of pictionary and telephone.  I'll try and explain the game in steps so everybody follows, although I failed to sufficiently explain it in person yesterday, so we'll see how it goes.

1.  Everybody gets n pieces of paper where n equals the number of people playing.

2.  Pick a topic.

3.  Everybody writes something for the next person to draw and hands their stack of paper to the next person.  For example: A snowball fight.

4.  Everybody reads what the last person wrote, places that piece of paper on the bottom of the stack, draws what they wrote on the next piece of paper, then hands the whole stack to the next person.

5.  Everybody looks at what the last person drew, places that piece of paper on the bottom of the stack, writes what they think they drew on the next piece of paper, then hands the whole stack to the next person.

6.  Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you receive your own stack back.

The best part is at the end when you get to see what everybody wrote/drew.  I included a couple of my favorites from last night.  They weren't the most interesting ones, I like them mostly just for specific pictures/interpretations.

I like this one because of Dan's picture of the seal playing mini-golf.

This one is kind of funny because Kim interpreted "A man dog-sledding"  as "A man-dog sledding".

I put this one in just because of my beautiful picture of two dogs playing chess (first picture).

Ok, I'm reposting them closer up because Xanga resized them.

I'm so going to exceed my picture posting limit.