2nd Quarter Post

I really don't want these things to get so scarce as to be quarterly. Happy Father's Day, Daddy.

I've just returned from our church's family camp at Wesley Woods Camp in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. It was a fun time of volleyball, fishing, games, fellowship and worship. It's been a fun spring and summer. I attended Chicago's Celtic Fest in May with some friends, including Donna who was on her way back to Texas from Ireland. I found out that I'll have benefits and at least a half time job at the Northwestern University Library after the end of August (my current job situation is kind of complicated in that it's two separate half time jobs in the same department that combine to count as one full time position for benefits purposes; one of those jobs will definitely end in August, one won't). I had a fun trip down to Tennessee and Kentucky over Memorial Day. We took a group of youth to Moraine Hill State Park outside McHenry, Illinois for a day of hiking (were going to go to Starved Rock but the weather looked too prohibitive). I went with a team from my church to help rehab a house and serve dinner at a women's shelter through Roseland Christian Ministries on the South Side of Chicago (I learned to hang blinds). I started a Christian history book club group at my church and we've read Athanasius' On the Incarnation of the Word of God and an edition of the Apostolic Fathers (the first Christian writers in the era after the apostles). Now we're reading Augustine's Confessions.

Looking ahead for the summer I expect to make a trip to Minnesota over the fourth and my now traditional Labor Day swing through Tennessee and Kentucky to visit and to celebrate Cora and Cohen's birthdays. Otherwise I won't get to travel much because I just don't have much vacation time anymore. I also expect I'll get up to the Renaissance Faire some weekend and do some other fun stuff locally. There are movies to be seen (I'm way behind on my summer movie viewing), meats to grill, volleyballs to be bumped, set, spiked, served, blocked, and (more likely) whiffed; and of course there's lots of worship and praise yet to come.