Special Guest Speaker

What a privilege to be able to sit and listen to my son, Jordan, teach yesterday. He was the guest speaker at our church for Sunday morning worship and he did a terrific job. I am so proud of him!

Jordan will be starting his fourth year at the University of Northwestern, St. Paul, this fall where he majors in Sports Management with minors in coaching and Bible. If you want to listen to his message, it will be posted tomorrow on our church's web site - firstprespinecity.org.

Back to School

Hard to believe that summer is over already and the kids are back in school. Now we have both Jordan and Jonah in junior high and both in sports (Jonah in cross country and Jordan in football). Such great boys - we're so proud of them!

Jordan's Speech Meet

Jordan competed in speech this year in the category of Great Speeches. He gave Robert F. Kennedy's speech in Indianapolis following Martin Luther King's assassination. The speech included commentary that Jordan had researched about the speech. He did an awesome job, placing 6th in the category. The Pine City Junior High Speech group placed 2nd overall!

Great work, everyone! Here is a picture of the team with their trophy. (You can see Jordan's head in the back row, just to the right of center, above the kid with the baseball cap on.)

Now we're parents of a teenager

Hard to believe, but Jordan turned 13 yesterday! I can't believe we're now parents of an honest-to-goodness teenager! (If only we had some experience dealing with teens...) We had a nice day, celebrating together as a family.

Seems like only yesterday that Jonah turned 12 (although it was only a couple of months ago!) Here's one from his birthday in September:

I'll have to get some more pictures on my Facebook page, too.

Award-Winning Students

It's the last day of school for Pine City and Rosalie and I were able to attend the academic award ceremonies this morning at the elementary school. Jordan received the Presidential Academic Excellence Award and several other awards. Jonah received an academic excellence award and a citizenship award.

Several of our incoming 7th grade students received awards and our future youth group students (current 5th graders) were well-represented, as well. I'm so excited to have these kids coming into youth group! It's going to be a blast. (Actually, as of today, the incoming 7th grade students are now part of Ignite!)

Enjoy the pictures and congratulations to these students for their great work throughout the year!

Super-size Weekend

Wow, what a great weekend! It's going to be a bit longer as Pine City students have Monday off of school, so having the boys at home just makes the weekend seem that much longer.

We kicked off the weekend on Friday as we celebrated Jordan's 12th birthday together. He didn't want a party, he just wanted to go out to Pizza Hut for some stuffed crust pizza. It was a nice family outing. Back at home a bit later we enjoyed his chocolate birthday cake and then sat down to watch a Survivor episode from the night before. (Survivor and Kid Nation are the only two shows our whole family enjoys watching together.) The boys and I stayed up later for Stargate: Atlantis and then I headed to bed while Jordan and Jonah stayed up for an 'all nighter' (wherein they stay up until they get too tired to be awake any longer - usually around 1 or 2 a.m. Practicing for being teenagers, no doubt).

Saturday was spent packing. Ick. I don't mind moving - that is to say I don't mind living somewhere new. What I hate is packing (and unpacking, and physically transporting all they boxes and furniture and stuff - the actual moving part of moving!) Fortunately several people have helped by providing boxes so we are okay on that front so far. The boys' trampoline got packed up in the early afternoon as it was a gorgeous day - perhaps one of our last for a while, what with snow and stuff in the forecast for early next week. I also packed up five bookshelves full of books. Rosalie worked on the boys' rooms and got them packed up. Less than two weeks now until the big move, but if we keep going like that we'll be ready, no problem.

Today Journey North Church held a 'come back event' at the Pizza Pub where we all had a fabulous time together. Great food and a great turnout. I thought we would be way down in attendance with all of the hunters out hunting, but we nearly matched our turnout from the last Pizza Pub event and easily filled the restaurant. Wonderful worship, plus we heard from Holly Larson, a missionary we are supporting from Pine City through Wycliffe Bible Translators. All in all just a terrific morning.

Now we're getting ready for the CONNECT small group meeting tonight at our house. We may have kids stay longer as there is no school tomorrow! It's such a fun group of students and sponsors. We always look forward to gathering together!

A Chip off the Old Foot

We're bummed. We just got back from the doctor's office where we found out Jordan chipped (fractured) a bone in his foot at football practice last night. He's in a 'boot' and will have crutches as well for a couple of days. The boot stays on for 4-6 weeks, which means football season is over for him. He's happy he'll be able to use the elevator at school (his class is on the 3d floor) but is also realizing it's going to be a bummer trying to get around.

It would be one thing if he hadn't enjoyed football, but he was really liking it (especially the games - the practices not so much). At least he had one game. He played tight end and got to run the plays in to the huddle so he played every other offensive play.

We'll still be in Forest Lake every Saturday for the next month and a half watching Jonah play and cheering on Jordan's 6th grade team, but Jordan's season is done.