School year

Afternoon. It is the middle of September and Christin and I have pretty busy the last month and a half. With two camping trips in August, a visit to Detroit for my parents 40th wedding anniversary, and the start of the new school year, alot has happened since July (time of our previous post).

We went camping in Wisconsin the first weekend of August with a bunch of people from church. Great group site in Kettle Moraine. It was an excellent weekend hanging out with friends and not being in the city. I looked up on Saturday night and saw more stars than I had in a couple of years. Chicago sucks with its light pollution.

The weekend after that found Christin, myself and all of our family/s at Warren Dunes State Park in Michigan. This is one of my families favorite camp grounds. It is a state run camp ground right on the west side of Michigan, on Lake Michigan. And yes, by the name, it does have dunes. Quite a few actually. The water, once it stopped raining and we could make it to the beach, was a ton of fun and we had a blast playing for a few hours on Saturday and more on Sunday in the waves. The red alert flag was up to warn everyone not to go in the water due to the strong under tow, but we went in anyway. It was just too nice to not be in that water. Mmmmmmm, Lake Michigan waves! (a few pics above)

Following our fun in Lake Michigan, Christin and I went to Minooka for our sister and brother-in-laws reaffirmation of their vows. This was an incredible celebration of their union and both Christin and I were honored to be there and witness it.

We had one weekend off and then we were off to Detroit for a quick trip to surprise my folks on their 40th wedding anniversary. They two were renewing their wedding vows, and again, it was an incredible celebration of their union and I was so proud to witness my mom and dad expressing their love for each other and their family the way that they did. Thanks mom and dad for providing the witness and example that you have. I love you guys.

The week before that, Christin started school. She is taking New Testament 1 this semester and is really enjoying it. I will let her post about her experience with it, but for now, we'll leave it with she is learning a ton. And I am extremely proud of my wife for wanting to tackle this class head on. It is an extremely challenging class and can be quite daunting, but she keeps plugging away.

As for me and school, I am taking another semester off, sort of. One of the things that I need to do is take the second semester of Greek, but to do this, I need to go through the first semester, which I have. Greek is offered in a year long, two semester structure (Greek 1 and Greek 2). Greek 1 is generally taken during the fall semester while Greek 2 is offered during the spring. And you can't take 2 without taking 1 first. Greek 1 covers the first half of the text book and 2 covers the second. And because it is a language, the second half builds on the first. Anyway, I have passed/completed the first half, Greek 1, but I still need to pass/complete the second half, Greek 2. I plan on doing this come February 2010, but I can't just go into class after not working with it for over a year. So in preparation to take Greek 2, I am informally auditing Greek 1. To audit a class, normally you would register to audit, which puts you on the class roster but you do not receive a grade. You go to class, do the work, take the quizzes if you want and the exams as well, but without the pressure of grades. Why would someone do this you might ask, well one example is a person like me who has taken the first half of a course, but it was some time ago and needs to prep for taking the second half. Or someone who wants to learn the info but doesn't necessarily need the credit. Since I have passed Greek 1 and audited it once (last fall), I am informally auditing this fall so that I can take Greek 2 in February. Informally means that I do the work, I meet with the teacher every few weeks, and I will take the final exam, but I don't have to go to class or take the weekly quizzes. That was a very long winded explanation of what I am doing, but it comes out of discussions that I have had with people lately asking just what it is that I am doing.

Christin and I are both working full time and the past few weeks has found us pretty busy. Christin just celebrated her 2 year anniversary with her office and November will see the same for me. It feels good to both of us that we have worked for the same companies consistently for that amount of time. At times, we may not be thrilled with our positions of employment and they are definitely not what we thought that we would have been doing had someone asked us 5 years ago. But we do appreciate our jobs and we do love parts of it and there are definitely more good days than bad.

So that is where Christin and I are at for now. Hope all is well with everyone out there on the interweb and we will update ya later.

J