Update May 17

It's been a while since I have written. Here's what's going on with the family.

Emma had her orientation at the middle school. We are going to have two daughters in middle school at the same time. Ready or not, here it comes.

Abby is getting more and more hardware added to her mouth. Now, along with the normal braces she has a pin acting as an anchor between two of the roots of her teeth; she has a bar going along the side of her teeth and a rubber band connecting things together. It looks painful, but she's not complaining too much.

Vacation is coming! Vacation is coming! In two days we will be heading to San Antonio. It's been nearly a year since we have been down there as a family. I have been suffering from vacationitus for the last couple of weeks. We are all looking forward to getting away for a while.

While we are in Texas, Kelly and I will be spending a night and a day in Austin - just the two of us. Austin is where we met and spent the first two years of marriage. We'll eat at great restaurants and stay in a fancy hotel. We are both super excited.

I've started running again - sort of. I am taking it really slow - trying to be gentle on my gimpy knee.

I went to a conference down at DTS a couple of weeks back. It was called "beyond the doors of the church". It was pretty good. Since we are rapidly turning into a "post-Christian" culture, the church in America will increasingly need to learn how to view and interact with culture the way missionaries interact with theirs. It sounds like an obvious statement to say that the church needs to see itself as group of missionaries to the culture in which they live. Most churches are far from that reality, however.

I finished The Lord of the Rings with Abby. She loved it. Her and I then watched The Fellowship of the Ring movie (the long version). She loved that too - pretty intense though. I think she is going to wait a while until she sees The Two Towers. Now I am reading through the Chronicles of Narnia with Emma. We are starting with The Magician's Nephew because chronologically, the events of that book predate all the others. We haven't gotten very far into the book - so far so good though. We are both enjoying it a lot.

It's been a glorious spring here in Kansas. It's been a long spring - it has taken a while to jump into summer. Our gardens are looking awesome. Flowers are blooming and the birds are singing.
That's about it.