Saturday, November 22, 2008

Beginning And The End

So the big news of the day is that Dustin has gotten himself a job. Exciting stuff, huh? He'll be doing air emissions testing down in the Gainesville, FL area. Essentially just testing the emissions from different companies and entities to ensure that they're within environmental guidelines. He's excited about it, and we're excited that he's gotten himself this job. It'll be interesting to see how things go. He starts training on Monday up in Cleveland, OH which will last for a month before heading back down to Florida to stay there for good. Did I mention that he just got back from Japan?

I've spent the last two weeks running back and forth between my place and the parent's house as they both, along with Dustin, took a two week vacation to Japan to tour as well as see my Grandmother who lives over there in Tokyo. From what I've gathered in the past couple days (they got back Thursday evening) they had a great time, and got to experience a lot of fun things. My dad finally saw Mt. Fuji (it took 6 trips before they could see it), and Dustin thought that they saw the next Amazing Race filming going on at one of the locations they were at. He and my dad couldn't think of anything else that required teams of two to be followed everywhere by a camera-man while they frantically ran around a park and rowed in canoes out to a little island in the middle of a large pond. I never watch it, so I wouldn't have any idea if it shows up in the future...but if they have an episode based out of Japan in the future, my family saw it happening for real.


All the while, it has been busy elsewhere. A couple weekend's ago I went to the youth retreat for our church just to hang out with the kids and help in whatever way was needed. They have it at a little camp that is specifically set up for youth retreats just outside of pigeon forge/Gatlinburg in the Smokies. It was an intense weekend for everyone involved, and I really hadn't seen so much outpouring of emotion at one of these things before. Our youth minister really is doing a fantastic job with the kids. And it wasn't a "everyone get baptized" weekend or anything like that, but just really a weekend to push them spiritually from wherever they were, and encourage them to grow. Probably the most intense part came for the high schooler's where they had a feet washing ceremony where they were all allowed to choose people's feet to wash as a showing of their love for them and their desire to serve. It was really neat seeing how they all responded to that invitation. I hadn't seen anything like that done before, and it was really quite moving. All in all, a great weekend.

I also went with Mandi up to Nashville for a weekend while she was in class. I had told her I would go with her and drive her to give her a break from the practically constant driving to and from that she has to do, as well as just to allow her time to rest since she's pretty much been going non-stop since the start of October. It was a good weekend, as I had time to work on some church things that I had been asked to do (speaking of which...I need to get that to them...) as well as a few other things over the course of two days, all while allowing Mandi time to rest instead of driving. Something on Lipscomb campus that I found amusing (as it was incredibly similar to Harding) came on Friday when I was just wandering around the campus to see what it looked like since I'd not really had the time to do that before. I sat down in a kind of square with a clock to relax, and saw some students coming out of a building. I looked at the clock and saw that it was about 35 after and just assumed that classes all got out around that time. There were quite a few students coming out of this building and going on to the student center or dorms or whatever, so I didn't think anything of it. About 15 minutes later, the campus seemed to explode as all sorts of students began pouring out of the other buildings. I turned to the first building that had emptied, and laughed to myself as I saw that it was the business building that had gotten out early. I guess some things just don't change.

While Mandi wasn't in class, we were able to spend some quality time with the Boren's, who we stayed with, and who I grew up with and practically serve as my 2nd parents. I hadn't seem them in almost a year, so it was really great catching up with them. Mandi and I also went to the ICE! exhibit which is on display each year at the Gaylord Hotel and Convention center. They hire a whole bunch of sculpters, bring them to Nashville a month before-hand, and they carve an entire exhibit out of ice. It's absolutely incredible the detail that you can see when you get in there. I had never been before, but had heard about it, and figured that this was the perfect opportunity. If you're in the area, you should really check it out. This year's theme is the Grinch and Who-vill, along with a spectacular Nativity Scene on your last stop before the door. Be warned, though, that they keep the building at a balmy 9 degrees, so take gloves (and your camera). I think that I'm ready for the holidays now.

2 comments:

Josh M said...

good to see that you're still alive.

Josh M said...

your phone is broke.