a year has passed

well it has nearly been 1 year to the day since I last blogged. I can't believe it's been that long.

Right now we are filming our final quarters of the SuperStart curriculum. It has been quite a journey. There always seems to be some kind of obstacle that hinders these video shoots. Last year around this time when we were filming we had an ice storm that halted production. This summer while shooting we had a camera go down and lost one of our camera men. And this year, it's been great so far. We had snow the last two days and the office has been closed, but the production must go on.
I know it's not much, but that's all I have in me to blog today. See you in a year

well it has been a crazy coulpe of weeks here in this sleepy little town in this wild southwest corner of Missouri. We haven't been traveling much, which has been nice. I actually feel like I've had a normal scedule recently which has afforded me some luxuries which I have not enjoyed in a while (the main one going to church two weeks in a row). I know it's crazy!
The weather continues to be a mystery to me around here. It can be such opposites, and not just day to day or week to week, but from hour to hour. Sometimes the highs of the day are in the morning. That's right, the high for the day can be at 8:00 am. What is that all about? I just don't get it. It's not like that in California where I'm from.
We had an ice storm come through about a week and a half ago which knocked out power for, what I've heard, hundreds of thousands of people in our neck of the woods. Of course I was one of these such people. So were many of my friends. People were huddling together at the few lucky people's houses that did still have power. It was a big slumber party for a couple of days. Which was kind of a cool thing. Friends all hanging out, enjoying each others company. Here is an observation I have made. I'll give two examples; 1) "Hey we all need to hang out sometime! We should get together at my house on Friday night and we'll do something". 2) "I still don't have power at my house yet." "Oh you can come stay at my house, it will be fun"
Okay, in one way these are the same because the end result is people hanging out together enjoying each others company (hopefully). But they are totally different because of the way you get there, which causes a totally different dynamic.
In situation #1 there are certain expectations from both the host and the invited parties. There is an "entertainment factor" involved for the host and the invited doesn't necessarly feel like it's their responsiblity to make a decision on what everyone should do. Either way no one wants to decide what everyone is going to do becuase they don't want to be the reason why no one is having a good time. It can be a lot of pressure for the host and a difficult situation for the invited.
But when you come together because of reasons such as a lack of power, combined with the idea that you are spending the night, the "entertainment factor" for the host mysteriously disappears and the invited feels as if they are helping make a morgage payment and feels comfortable helping make a decisions. While the circumstanses in which you are all together in one house (all sharing the same bathroom) are some what unfortunate, it is really one of the best situations to be in. Friends are all together having a good time without a care in the world, just enjoying each other's company.
So this is my suggestion, any time you are going over to a friends house, go with the mindset that you have no power and you are going to be spending the night. The same goes for those having people over. Think of them as unfortunate souls that just need a warm place to stay and you don't have to entertain them. Giving them heat and hot water is comfort enough for them.
This is a picture of Teri's house. All the houses around here had power, but one of the branches from her tree in the back yard fell on her power line. That happened last monday and it finally got fixed yesterday! I was also without power from last Sunday till Monday. Because I got my power back before Teri, Harley, her cat, stayed at my house the other night because she needed a warm place to stay.
Needless to say the rules I mentioned above do not relate to cats! It was just about the worst night of sleep I have ever had (excluding the month my freshmen year of college that I had mono). If you don't know anything about cats, they spend most of their day sleeping and spend most of the night awake, walking around, playing, scratching their liter box, scratching ever wall, pulling down my Ohio State Flag, walking around on my bed, meowing, and just keeping me up. So thanks to Empire Electric for finally getting Teri's power back on because I had a great night of sleep last night, I hardly remember getting into bed.
One last thing, we had a successful video shoot for SuperStart last week. We were worried about no power and not having enough time and other factors. It didn't all happened the way we were planning on, but it happen probably better then we planned. We were done a couple days faster then we thought. It was amazing!

Alot has happened

It has been awhile since me last blog entry, and a lot has happened since then. We have finished out fall tour with SuperStart which all went very well. It is such an amazing program. I am constantly amazed at what our team comes up with. I am so blessed to be working with and being a part of the SuperStart staff, and the staff of CIY as a whole. The people here are just so amazing and I love coming to work everyday.

Also about a month ago my Uncle Curt died which was totally unexpected, but it was kind of a blessing also. Because of this our family was able to get together in Ohio (which is always fun when family gets together) and Teri was able to come with me and meet my family. They all just loved her and are so happy for us.

For Teri's birthday I made her a porch swing. Obviously from the picture, it is more of a bench at this point, but now that we are home and not traveling as much there is some more work to be done. Along with a lot of other things around the house that need to be improved.
And the last bit of information (which I saved the best for last) is that Teri and I got engaged a couple weeks ago. We were in Jacksonville, FL for SuperStart and on Saturday night after the event we went to the beach, we sat and talked, and walked, and slow danced down by the water, and I got down on my kneed and asked her to be my wife, and she said yes.

We had the Atlanta SuperStart the next weekend so we stayed out in Atlanta for the week and one day we went to downtown Atlanta and walked around Centennial Olympic Park, and had a nice dinner at Magianno's Little Itaily. It was a nice night out on the town.

And this last picture is the ring. We went to a jewlery place here in Joplin and designed our ring. It was really a very cool process. The dimonds are family dimonds. The center stone is from my grandma's old wedding ring, and the four side stones are from Teri's great Aunt's old wedding ring. So the ring has a lot of sentimental value. It's just really cool that we could get those dimonds and be able to design a ring for Teri that incorperates all of them. It means so much to us.
So that date is set. We are planning on getting married March 21st here in Joplin. It's a little less then four months away and we have a lot of planning to do. But we are so excited about it!

Hiking in Seqouia National Park

This last week I have been on vacation in California hiking in Seqouia National Park with my Dad, Uncle Eric, and cousin Ben. We left at 6:30am Sunday morning and hit the trial by 12:30pm. The plan was a six day hike to Kaweah Gap and back. A round trip of 42 miles. At first 42 miles doesn't seem too bad, but really it is! I weighted my pack before we left and it was 39 lbs. (obviously showing that I am a true amature) while my dad's (a pro) weighted 30 lbs. Nine pounds doesn't seem like a whole lot of difference, but when you're hiking 42 miles on rugged turane it makes a huge difference. That first day was a killer. My legs were so tired I just didn't feel like I could go on. The next day was even worse! My dad asked me last night if this was one of the most difficult physical things I have ever done and it definately was. I'm sitting at home right now writing this with two big blisters on my heals, calfs that are so sore it adds more to the tenderness of my walking, and thinking about looking into hip replacement. On Wednesday morning we slept by Little Five Lakes. Absolutely beautiful, with the Black Rock Pass looming above us, waiting to take one of us as a victim.

It was switchbacks for two hours, two hours of painful climbing up to and elevation of 11,600 ft. While feeling victorious once we reached the top we looked at the other side that we had to go down, and while downhill looked a whole lot more inviting, and knew it was going to be hard. Again, not really too bad, but with almost a 40 lbs pack it's killer. It took 2 hrs. to go down this mountian. This is where I was starting to think about hip replacement. This is also where the blisters started coming into play. But the scenary was amazing.

Thursday was a decently easy day compared to the previous ones. We traveled about 12 miles so that we would be in good position to only have to go about 8 miles on friday so we could be back to the car around 12pm and head home. Which everything worked out that way. We were moving about 2 miles an hour, which is suppose to be pretty decent. At this point in the trip all I am thinking about is what I want to do first once I reach civilization. One thing I was having visions of was a power sized Jamba Juice, which I ended up getting around 2:30 friday. Other top choices was a shower, which I hadn't had all week, a clean bathroom (specifically a toilet), and a nice clean, soft bed to sleep on.
Overall, looking back (even though it's 24 hrs. later) it was a great time. While I was hiking I was thinking, "This is how I chose to spend my vacation?", but I'm glad I went. I had a great time with the Foreman men and I got to see some of God's amazing creation. But I'm excited to be heading back home tomorrow (it's still kind of wierd to call Missouri home).

Religous Philosophy, Politics, and Jesus

I'm finally home from a long summer on the road. It was a great summer! It was long and tiring, but it's always worth it when you see on the final night all the kids that stand to say publicly that they made some kind of life changing decision. My last conference was in Oregon so there was the long drive from Oregon State back to Joplin that I was not looking forward too. The first day wasn't too bad, it went by fairly quickly and uneventfully. On Sunday morning our air conditioner went out while we still had all of Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri, in the middle of the summer, with all the heat and humidity. I know I'm having a god sweat when sweat is rolling down my legs. So Sunday I'm driving and need to stop to get something cool to drink and to re-fill our ice chest with ice that melted very quickly. This stop was perfect because it was at a Super Wal-Mart and there were tons of other trucks. It might as well have been an offical truck stop. I was pulling out of the lot and I turned on the CB radio and the truckers were having a political debate (debate might not be the correct word, but I'll give them some credit) It was very interesting and somewhat comical. They got to talking about how if there were no government we'd all end up killing eachother. So me, wanting to have some fun and join the conversation, thought I'd throw in some knowledge. My comment was this: "If we all loved Jesus the world would be a better place". This started a very humorous discussion about 1) if Jesus created Satan or not, 2) why Jesus lets bad things happen, and 3) if Jesus was a man or a woman. When something good was said I'd throw in an "Amen Brother" in the best trucker voice I could. It was really interesting to hear what some of these guys views were. Some of them were pretty messed up, but some of them were right on. And I was very excited that I started a religious debate at a truck stop. It was the highlight of my long, non-AC day in the truck. The religious discussion though didn't last too long and was quickly followed by a session of dirty joke telling. Which was also kind of funny.

Week Off

alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5086750604277095122" />This week I've had the chance to relax down here in So Cal, it's been so nice. Chase, Abbey and I went to a Dodger game on Saturday night. Then we went to Shepard of the Hills for church on Sunday and say Dusty speak and Byron and Tommy (guys in the Matt Bayless Worship Band) play in the band. Monday was a day to get some work done. We had a projector go out on us so I worked on sending that in and getting our staging all situated for Cal 2 & 3. Then we checked into our hotel a couple blocks from Disney and went to Downtown Disney and ate at the ESPN Zone. I had been craving some Fetticcini Alfrado and finally got some. It was pretty good.
Tuesday we met up with Grant and his fiance Danielle and Kelsey (Hope Reps from Colorado) and went to Disneyland. Kelsey used to work there so she got us some front of the line passes, so that was nice. Disneyland is a lot smaller then I remember it being. Maybe because I have been to DisneyWorld more recently and that's bigger, but the castle seemed so small and It's a Small World looked like a 4th grade class had craft time in there. It was clearly sub-par, from what I last remember anyways. Other then that, it was a fun time. We saw the fireworks show, which is one of the best I've seen, but that is to be expected from Disney. Oh, the other bad thing, I set my Jamba down for two seconds to take a picture, and a park worker picked it up the threw it away. Pretty much the down point of my entire day. But on the up side, that brings me to mention how well kept the park looks. You didn't see trash anywhere! So good job Disney, you get two thumbs up.

On Wednesday I got to hang out with my friends Matt and Valarie Crane. I went to school with Matt so it was great to hang out with them. We got onto a golf course called Robinson Ranch, which normally costs $117 a round, for free because Matt's brother works there. So we got 18 holes in before dusk which was awesome. I didn't shoot my best round, but I had a great time.
Thursday Matt and I played 25 holes of disc golf and we went out to eat at Pei Wai. It was a fun and relaxing day.
Today (friday) is the last day to relax so it's almost over, but my sister is coming up from San Diego on Sunday to visit and I haven't seen her in a long time, so I'm really excited about that.

Identity is a huge issue in the lives of these high schoolers. that's something I'm learning this summer. I have always know that. It seems like it was a long time ago when I was in high school (there is a myspace for our 10 year class reunion that is coming up next year) and I was struggling with the same thing. But when I see the masks, when you see the hurts and pains for these kids I realize some of them are stuggling with their Identity a lot more then I ever did. This has been a reminder that they struggle so much with life. High school can be a great time in a kids life, but it comes with so much crap they have to deal with. It's hard to go from hanging out with your friends, laughing and joking, to being back at home, alone, Isolated, trying to figure out who you are and why you're here.
It's powerful what the kids are going throught