the other family

by saturday evening we had spent so much time with my family, it was time to see dianas! so we headed over to see her parents. we went to her mom and step-dad's place and checked out the new garage they are in the process of building- its looking good! diana's sister barbara and her boyfriend nick came soon after, so we sat down and had some pizza. we chatted about the wedding, thanksgiving, and the christmas plans. they live right on a lake and told us that they had taken their boat for one last ride the night before- yikes! i'm a bit surprised they didn't have any frostbite!

after a couple hours of catching up with them, it was time to go. we stopped by diana's dad too. he had been watching poco, so we picked him up and wished her dad a happy thanksgiving.

rockford

saturday my family got to introduce diana to another of our favorite places: rockford! its a little town about twenty minutes just north of grand rapids. its a quaint little town with a bunch of fun little shops and the corner bar, a restaurant that makes the best chili dogs on earth! the kids were with us, so we stopped at a couple shops that had kid stuff and toys. they had a great time poking around at the different things. one of the stores had some big stuffed animals which initially terrified aves! tim worked his daddy magic, and soon she was willing to pet them with a smile on her face.
afterwards, we went to bed bath and beyond with my sister to work on our wedding registry. she had seen what we registered for and told us that it was pathetic (she used much nicer words, though). so we went there with her and she helped up find a bunch more stuff that we could use and stuff we would need that we didnt realize we needed. she, having gone through this and knowing what a married couple needs, was more than willing to help us!
(more pics: 1, 2, 3)

camp rock

friday night adam had a get together for the premier of his latest work: camp rock. now, if you are not familiar with 'camp rock', then you obviously don't spend every day around middle schoolers like me... 'camp rock' is a disney made-for-tv movie that stars one of the jonas brothers. it has been a big hit for disney along the lines of 'high school musical'. with the recent disney movies they have been making a 'what's what' edition that they show on their channel. this particular edition is kind of like those old vh1 pop up videos, only its for the whole movie. the company adam works for has been in charge of these pop-up versions of the films, and adam is actually one of the guys who writes the bubbles that appear on screen!

he has done five pop-up movies so far, and this was his sixth. it premiered on the disney channel on friday, so he had a bunch of us over to watch it with him. as we watched we would read the bubbles, and then adam would tell us what they really wanted to say or some other stories that were a bit too fun to include on the movie itself. it was a terrible movie, but a ton of fun to hear adams take on things!

after the movie we hung out and talked with everyone for a long time. lindsey, by request, quick ran home and brought back the florida video! diana and jeffry lee hadn't seen it yet, so we went through and watched the special music video as well as the 50 minute highlight reel. diana loved it! also, begrudgingly, she admitted that my long hair actually looked good (as i had always suspected...) we had some great heart to heart conversations and really got to talk through a ton of stuff. finally, around 2:30am we realized how late it was and headed back to my parents.

(more pics: 1, 2)

the sennekers

before diana and i met up with my parents for dinner we stopped by dusty and carrie's to say hi. diana hadn't met carrie yet, so i wanted to introduce her, and to see their little guy, gavin! he is getting really big! he's crawling around and making tons of noise- good for him, but i'm sure its a challenge to his parents! hes adorable, and it was great to see them again- it had been far too long!

a movie, a game, and a hall

friday was another busy day- we got up on time and got ready. around 11:00 we had some leftovers, and then the day began! papa, tim, and i went to go see 'quantum of solace', and the girls went shopping! after the movie tim and i went to gamestop to see how much it would be to get a game boy advance or ds for jackson for christmas (hes starting to read, but i dont think i have to worry about him reading this...). after checking them out, and tim getting a little something for himself, we went back to tim and jills house. we got to talk for a bit, and tim tried out his new game. we caught a ride home with mom and stopped by the reception hall we have booked for the wedding. no reason, we just wanted to see it again as continue making wedding plans.
(more pics)

the after party

after the meal we cleaned up and went back up to the living room and played with the kids for the rest of the night! by now papa and tim had given up on any of the football games being any good, so they didnt mind us crashing the tv room. jackson's birthday is coming up and diana and i arent going to be able to make it up for the party, so we gave him our gift while we were there. he loved it and wanted to watch it right then! the kids always love to play with my phone camera and take pictures so i let them.

diana and i had a great time just hanging out with the family and enjoying our time together. we are certainly giving thanks for them!

(more pics: 1, 2, 3, 4, and some videos!)

thanksgiving feast

around 6:00pm my sister, bro-in-law, and the kids came over. we played with them for a bit, then it was feast time! like we did last year, we had our meal down in the basement. we set up a couple tables and all gathered around for dinner. before we began, jackson wanted to read (thats right, hes old enough to start reading! crazy...) us the thanksgiving day story. he got up by the steps with his mom to help him. then he got nervous. he gets nervous some times and then he acts like a little baby: hiding his face, whispering, and talking like a baby. after about 10 minutes of trying to get him to read it, we gave up, prayed, and started the meal. it was a Delicious assortment of great food my mom and sister had prepared for us- everything from turkey to sweet potatoes, to beer-battered bread and dip! a treat for the senses! eventually jackson got up the courage, and used his 'big boy' voice and read the story for us, it was cute despite all the frustration of getting him to say it.

(more pics)

poker face

happy thanksgiving! this morning i got to sleep in a bit. when i rolled out of bed around 9:30 i was surprised to find that diana had already gotten up and showered! we went downstairs and spend some time talking with my parents and paging through the newspaper. around noon we had lunch, just the four of us. mom made some egg casserole and monkey bread! yum. after lunch diana and i ran a couple errands. we got tickets for my dad, bro-in-law, and i to see the new bond, and we went to meijers to get a few missing things for thanksgiving dinner. diana was thinking and we also got some squippies for her feet so she could stay warm in my parents frigid house.
after we got back, my grandma stopped by and we played phase 10 with my mom. diana totally destroyed us in the game leaving me and my mom in the triple digit negatives! yeesh

the carver

my parents really love thanksgiving dinner, but for some reason they both hate carving the turkey! this isn't a problem at all considering i LOVE to carve the turkey! last year my mom had the turkey sitting out for me to take care of as soon as i arrived for the weekend, and this year was no different. diana and i got home around 10:45pm, she went to bed, and i stayed up for a bit longer and took care of the bird!

(more pics)

thanksgiving eve

diana and i headed up to grand rapids on wednesday for the thanksgiving weekend. we had originally planed to do something with jeffry lee, but that was going to go until too late at night, so we made other plans with the guys. we headed straight over to fridays (no, the fancy one over by woodland!) and met up with aaron, adam and dusty! it was really great to see the guys again, adam and dusty i hadn't seen in months, and diana hadn't ever met them! it was a ton of fun catching up with the guys, everyone had some new and exciting news to share- births, pregnant siblings, and even a new love! diana had a great time meeting adam and dusty, and the guys gave me a thumbs up on her, so all went well!

it was great to see everyone, but by 10:30pm diana and i were pooped out and parted ways with the guys- we had a long day ahead and were looking forward to some sleep!

(more pics)

quality poco time

last time i went to see diana on sunday i offered to take poco for the week. i knew i was going to be coming back to pick her up for thanksgiving on wednesday, so i offered to take him until then. i'm glad i did because we had a great time, just us guys. we went on a walk each day and i sat around and petted poco each night, which he loved! diana said she got a little lonely, but we had a great time living up the bachelor lifestyle.

finally, wednesday after school i drove him over to diana's dads house so he could watch him over the weekend while we went up to grand rapids to spend thanksgiving with my family.

(more pics)

construction part 4

saturday morning we were up bright and early, ready to face the cold! we got out there around eight in the morning. all bundled up, we got to work putting the exterior in the walls. all went well, papa's policy of 'measure twice, cut once' payed off again. we (please note: most of the time when i say 'we', i really mean 'dad'. i tried to help as much as i could, but he's the pro) put up the walls without much problem. in fact, papa kept saying how he was impressed with how easy everything was going; everything was matching up and going on even and square.

next came the roof. papa had built the trusses ahead of time at home, so we were able to skip right through about four hours worth of work! after a brief break for lunch (what did we eat? you guessed it: schoops burgers!) papa brought a ladder, but i unfortunately dont have one of my own. this was a bit of a problem considering we would need two to do this job! i went out front and was lucky enough to have a neighbor out raking his lawn. i walked over to him and asked if i could borrow his ladder. he was nice enough to oblige, so we got right back to work. we put the trusses up on the roof one at a time, carefully measuring each one so that the roof would be straight.

next was some edging, after a few minor hiccups, we were able to complete that step too! then we put the plywood over the trusses- now we have a roof! after that we cut the gables to fill in the side walls. i made a few bad cuts and we almost ran out of good wood to use! it was a close one, but we managed to do it without having to make a return trip to menards. papa wanted to install the door next so we caulked that up and screwed it in. getting that square took a bit of work, but papa was able to do it thanks to those wonderful things called shims.

we took care of the rain guards next, making sure each of them interconnected with the rest of them. before we knew it, it was time to start shingling. i brought them out and threw them up on the roof, then it was papas time to relive his youth. he used to shingle roofs as a side job for a couple years- im sure this brought back a few of those memories! unfortunately, the sun was quickly fading, so papa made the call and we had to face the fact that we were not going to be able to finish it this weekend. as dad picked up his tools, which are many, i drove back to menards for a door knob for the shed door. we installed the handle as darkness overtook the evening. i had to pull out some flashlights in order to finish the job!

bruised but not beaten, we will soon return to complete the rest of the roof and trim. the end is in sight!

(a lot more pics: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

chillin' with papa

papa and i tried to figure out what we should have for dinner. when i told him there was a long john silvers close by, it was a short conversation! i headed out and picked up some fish and a movie. when i got back papa and i ate our meal and watched the last bond movie: 'casino royale'. we had both seen it a couple years ago when it was first in theaters, but we are planning to see the new one next weekend and wanted to see it again before we went.

it was really fun to just be able to relax with papa, i get to do that when ever i go home to see the family, but it was a nice treat to be able to do it at my place. after the movie (which is a lot longer than i remembered it) papa was exhausted, so he went to bed. since i knew he was coming i got a nice new twin air mattress. i was willing to give him my bed and sleep on the air mattress, but he refused and slept on it instead. in the morning he said it slept alright, but the noisy trains that go by in my backyard were not alright at all...

lumber yard

in order to get further on the shed we needed some more supplies. we headed over to menards and checked out what we needed. we loaded the truck with wood for the walls and then headed back into the lumber yard. we found the wood we needed eventually, got a few pieces cut to the right size, then headed home, where it was warm.

construction part 3

time to get some more work done on the shed! friday afternoon my dad came down from michigan again to work on my shed. last time we worked on it we got the floor done. now its time for the walls! papa came down while i was still at work and got busy. by the time i got home he had designed, cut, and assembled all the walls. they were spread out on the ground ready to be put up. i suited up (it was 35 degrees after all, i figured i should put on some snow pants and gloves), and got right to work. it didnt take too long to raise the walls, but its pretty cool to see the shed start to take shape.

(more pics)

lazy sunday

i got back from michigan saturday night and sunday diana came with me to church. we havent been able to work that out very often, so it was nice to have here there with me this week. pastor randy finished his sermon series this week on the philip yancey book 'prayer'. he's an author i really love, so i enjoyed the series a lot. after church we got to go home and just hang out. it gave me a little glimpse into what our lives will be like, falling into a wonderfully comfortable routine (i mean that in a very good way). it made me feel like an adult! we got home, she snuggled up on the couch, i thumbed through the paper, we chatted about little things. it was great! i've got to say, i am really looking forward to the married life...

two trees

i had a rather strange phenomenon in my front yard this fall. i have two trees in front of my place, and once autumn hit one of the trees dropped its leaves immediately, but the other one has taken a couple more weeks for the leaves to even change color. strange...

uncle Al

the real reason i went up to michigan this weekend was to see my great uncle. i have some great memories of my cousin and i, back when we were around 10, going with my grampa to visit his brother. we always called him uncle al, he was actually our great uncle, but we always had so much fun with him that we just called him uncle.

well, this past saturday he turned 90 years old. wow! its amazing to think about all the things he was around for- he was actually born four days after world war 1 ended! now that has been a while... his family threw him a big party to celebrate, and everyone who knows him was invited. i havent seen him in almost twenty years, but i knew i wanted to be there to celebrate him. hes getting a bit forgetful, but hes doing surprisingly well for 90. while there i got to sit and chat with him for a while, and talk with my gramma, two aunts, and one of my uncles. its a long drive, but i am glad i got to be there to honor uncle al!

(more pics)

*update* some sad news: thanksgiving day uncle al went to be with our Lord. he took a fall earlier in the week and just didnt recover. we take comfort in the fact that right before he left us he got a chance to see everyone he loved one last time. we look forward to seeing him again in glory. he will be missed.

the gas conspiracy

i was so excited about the low gas price i got saturday that i had to take a picture! a buck seventy five? are you kidding me? awesome!
but i recently watched an interview with an economist and he had a good point: he said that the gas companies are just toying with us. they raise the prices really high, and once we start talking about alternative fuels, they drop it down and we forget about finding another option. that way they keep the addiction going. it happened after the gas crisis in the 70's, and its happening again. not sure if i totally buy it, i mean the economy has be mostly responsible for the price drop, but its an interesting theory to say the least...

the handyman

my dad can't sit still for very long (not a trait i acquired from him, unfortunately...), hes always got to be doing something. in the summer that means playing golf, and in the winter that means projects! hes always got a project or two to work on. just in the past few years he has replaced all the doors and frames in their house, refinished the basement, finished the laundry room, built a shed at sandy pines, and a huge deck at the trailer! he's even come down here the for two weekends to work on projects for me, and will be down again this coming weekend. hes a machine! while i was home this weekend i got to see his latest works: hes refinishing the vanity and cupboards in the upstairs bathroom. so far he has sanded down all the wood and took the doors off to refinish them. it looks good so far, and i know my mom will be really happy with the new look.
(check out the project he just finished before this one here)

what to do?

i was planning on going up to grand rapids friday night. then i wasnt. then i was. then i didnt know. ends up that i went, and i had a great time. i got there around 9:00pm and it didnt work out to hang with the guys friday night, so i spent the night hanging out with my parents, and playing on their fancy new computer (that 22 inch screen is amazing!). saturday morning i got up around 10 and got started with the day. around noon we went over to tim and jills house to see the kids. my dad went over to fix a couple things around the house for them, tim cleaned the garage and packed away the last of the kids summer toys. mom came soon after with some lunch for us- yum, i love taco bell! after we ate we spent a couple hours playing with the kids. we had a great time looking through books, running around, and playing a little wii. mom and papa eventually packed it in and headed off back home. after a while both tim and jill tucked in for a nap. soon after, i figured perhaps i should leave too...

(more pics 1, 2. 3, 4)

for they will be filled

this year i have given my students a big challenge: they have to learn one verse of scripture a day. that might not sound so tough at first, but the challenge is this: each day the verse is added. so, that means day one they have to say one verse, day two, two verses. this gets pretty hard when its day thirty and they have to recite from memory thirty verses! so far i have been really impressed with the 8th graders, they have to learn all of jesus' sermon on the mount. we are taking it chapter by chapter, but still, this past week they had to recite from memory all 48 verses of matthew chapter 5! much to my surprise, most of them were able to do it! wow! when we were done with the chapter, one of my students, cub (he wanted to give a stern face for the picture), asked if he could bring in a cake to celebrate such an impressive achievement. who am i to turn down free cake, huh? so thursday he brought in a cake for the class to share. the best part is that he used some witty creativity: he wrote part of their memory work on the cake 'blessed are those who hunger...'

selling movies

as i slowly (very slowly) clean up the second bedroom of my place, i come across things that i can get rid of. in a bid to make more room on my shelves, i culled through my dvds and found a bunch of them that i can easily do without. so i rounded them up and brought them to a used dvd shop. they bought some of them, but for some reason they didnt seem to want all of them. really? they passed on 'jiminy glick in la la wood'?!? i cant imagine why...

cheese!

as the date draws near, wedding stuff is starting to fall into place. we have the church, the reception hall, and the honeymoon taken care of. there are just a few more big thing to take care of, namely the photographer! a couple weeks ago we went up to grand rapids to see my family and meet with a couple photographers. one of them was the people who did sara's wedding, and another one was a girl that my mom and sister suggested. we met with both of them and were impressed.
but after talking it over, diana and i decided that we wanted to go with the girl my mom and sister suggested. her name is kerry siereveld and her photos are amazing! her company is called 'images of essence' and she has a website here. be sure to check out all the photos on her blog, they are so bright and vivid! diana and i are really looking forward to her skill and creativity in our wedding photos.

a night in

diana had saturday off, so i went over there and we got to spend the whole day together! we had been planning on her and her parents coming to see me as we worked on the shed, but due to bad weather, we had to change plans. since we had invited her parents to come, we felt that we should still do something with them. we went over to their place and met up with them. we got to check out the crazy big new garage that they are having built on their place, then we went out to eat at 'bob's 19th hole'. we had a great time catching up and chatting with them about wedding stuff and hearing david's stories. after dinner we said our goodbyes and headed over to the mall. we didnt really have a purpose, we just wanted to wander around. diana had been looking for a new winter coat, her old one is way too big for her now. we checked out all the stores and settled on the one above, which looks really cute on her! afterward we headed back out to the car. we were thinking of going to see a movie and go out for dinner, but neither of us were all that excited about it. so as a way to save some money, we instead decided to stop at walmart and get a cheap movie and some frozen pizza for dinner and head back to her place. we had a great time, we rarely stay in so it was a nice change for us. we popped the pizza in the oven and watched 'love actually'. we had both seen it before, but were kind of in the mood for a romantic movie. after we had the pizza we even had some of the cookies that had been baked earlier. yum! it was dark and rainy all day, the perfect weather to cuddle up together and enjoy good food and a cute movie. i early await the days were we can do this regularly!
(more pics)

construction, part 2

this weekend we had a perfect plan: papa and tim would come down and continue working on my shed friday, saturday my mom would join us, as well as diana and her parents! it would have been so much fun- i had friday off of school because of conferences, so i could have helped out all day, diana had off saturday so she could have come, her parents haven't seen my place yet, so i would have been the perfect opportunity to see it with my parent there, and her step-dad david was looking forward to helping out with the shed too. all would have been great, except for the blasted weather! everything fell apart because of the forecast. the cold doesnt matter, but any rain would ruin the wood and the tools we needed to build it. shoot.

well, my dad and tim had already planned to take friday off, so they came down anyway. instead of building the shed, we replaced my front door! it was needed: the door frame had been broken a while ago because i had been locked out of the house and there was no other way to get it. also, the door seal was really bad and let in tons of cold air. well, they came down friday morning and we got to work replacing the door. it was a pretty simple task (i say that as if i actually did anything- it was all papa and tim!). we got the door and trim from lowe's and got to work. as my dad was cutting the trim he must have hit a knot in the wood, because it jumped up when the saw hit it and ruined the wood. i went and got us a new piece and a few other things we needed, and finished up the job. after we were done we headed out to schoops for lunch. we got back and put all the finishing touches on the door. soon after, papa and tim headed back up. we are hoping to take care of the shed this coming weekend, weather permitting...

(more pics: 1, 2, 3)

reformation day

this past friday was reformation day, the day martin luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church, there by beginning the christian reformation. in celebration of the event, our church had a combined evening service this past sunday with a bunch of other local churches at bethel. i was invited to participate. there were five pastors who each went up and talked for a few minutes on each of the five points of calvinism, and i was asked to make a drawing for each of the points. i sat at the sound booth with a camera above my paper, and as they explained the theological doctrine, i drew out a representation on the projection screens. they arent that great of pictures, but the fun was watching as they were being drawn. the original points make the word TULIP, but a new acronym has been created forming the word FAITH.
here are the pictures, and a brief description i was given of each from the service:
F: fallen humankind
A: adopted by God
I: intentional atonement
T: transformed by the spirit
H: Held by God

construction, part 1

for a long time my dad and i have talked about how it would be cool to build a shed in my backyard. ive always thought that i could use the extra space, and my dad is always interested in another excuse to use his tools. now with the reality that diana will be moving in soon, i really need to get some of my junk out of the house. a bunch of it im going through to throw away, but i sure could use a shed for the rest of it! well, it just so happened that dad and i finally found a time that would work for us to build that shed we had always talked about. so this past saturday my dad came down and we started building it! he knew that it would take a couple days, so he came down saturday to get started on it, and will be coming this weekend to finish it.

he came around 8:00am, so it was an early start. we got right to it and unloaded the truck. first on the agenda was to go and get the wood we would need to make the floor of the shed. off we went to home depot. we carefully selected some good lumber and packed it into the back of the truck. we got back and made a decision about where it should be located in the backyard. then it was time to get to work: i grabbed the shovel and dug out the grass in the places where we needed the cement bricks for its foundation. after a lot of careful leveling and placement, we moved onto the next brick. finally, all 12 bricks were in place. dad took time to measure each one carefully, and took special joy in using the pythagorean theorem in figuring out the angles.

once we finished leveling the bricks, we decided to take a break and get some food. we went to eat over at schoops, an old school burger joint that my dad really loves. we got a few more things from menards, and then the fun stuff started: using the tools! dad cut up the 2x4s and 4x4s to get them just right. once we had everything square, then it was time for the nail gun! dad has a compressor and nail gun, so the assembly of the floor was a breeze! to be honest, my dad did all the work, i just tried to be as usefull as i could, and stay out of his way. even though i didnt do much, i watched like a hawk, trying to pick up as many tips and tricks as i could. i figured someday, when i'm the man of my own family, i can be mr. fix-it and be as cool as him.

(more pics: 1, 2, 3, 4)

my mortal enemy

if i were pressed to say what the one thing in this world is that i hate the most, i would definitely have to go with yard work. ive never liked it. my dad used to make me mow the lawn regularly and i would dread it every week. when i moved off to college and then into an apartment, one of the best parts of renting was the fact that i didnt have to do any lawn work! but now that i have my own place ive been responsible to take care of it. for the past couple years ive delegated it and actually payed a neighbor boy to do it for me over the summers. unfortunately, he and his family moved out recently. that means that i have no one else to pawn it off on. shoot.

with the beautiful weather, and knowing that my dad would be coming this past weekend, i finally bit the bullet and pulled out my lawnmower. i had to make a little pitstop at the gas station to get some gas for it, but then it was finally time to face the facts: i had to mow the lawn. it turned out to be not that bad, but im certainly glad that its the last time it will need to be done until spring...

(more pics)

hi-fi halloween

last week diana had friday off, so she came to see me. we didnt have anything planned, so we figured we would just chill out and hand out candy to any kids that came by. i was unprepared, so we went out to get some candy. while we were there we realized we were hungry, so we went out to grab a bite. we went to this really cool place called hi-fi roadhouse. its a new restaurant that just opened up, so we figured we would check it out. the place was really rad! the decor was cool, and the food was amazing! we will definitely be going back there again soon! the only problem was that when we got back home there werent any trick-or-treaters left. oh well, i guess we got ourselves some candy!
(more pics)