In my head...

Some of my guys (from youth group) put together this video last year. It's really not that smart. But I definitely laughed as I shook my head in amazement.

So i finally got my Europe pics online at Photobucket. If you want to check them out, go to this site: http://s81.photobucket.com/albums/j228/jshspr/

Enjoy!

So I slept in until about 11 today. I don't remember the last time I slept that long. I think I needed it. I've been staying up late with my youth group kids for the last couple days. On Wednesday, Tyler (the hopefully soon-to-be youth pastor at CCC) and I met up at Luke's baseball game (double header that Sioux Center obliterated the other team!) and talked with his parents for a while and then talked with Jenn and Tyler til the game got done. Then Ty came over to my place and we hung out til around midnight. Next day: Ty and I had lunch with 3 high school guys at Pizza Ranch. Then we decided to go to Pirates that night at midnight. That's a story in itself. So I finished work, took a nap to prepare for the midnight excursion. Then I called Tom Dykstra and talked to him for a bit. It was good to catch up with him for a while. And for those of you who hadn't heard, he took the job in Olympia! I was extremely excited to hear that. Check out his blog for details on that. :)

So the midnight excursion. Ty didn't want to come cuz he lives in Orange City and had been out late the last few nights with his wife, Mel. So it ended up being me and 6 high school guys going to this movie at 12:01. We got a #9, which included a large popcorn and 2 large drinks...all refillable. It was a very good thing. We sat in the second row, and they were definitely the loudest of all the people in the theatre. But it was a blast, and by the time they got done "ARGing" and watched the movie, we all had a great time. And I had my Steve shirt on. I think I confused some people. "But isn't everybody?" And i would definitely recommend seeing Pirates. It's worth it. But i won't say anything more than that.

Then, after 3.5 hours of sleep, i had breakfast with Uncle Ron at Hy-Vee and got offered the possibility of a workstudy with him next year! That's totally a God thing, because I've been really worried about the workstudy next year, especially since the Psych department turned me down and I was getting a hestitant "Maybe we'll be able to make room" from the music department. So if this goes through, I'll be helping to advise students with the humanities, working with them in finding classes, job information, and other stuff like that. I'm really pumped about it, and hope that it happens! Then we had a bonfire Friday night, and I got home and crashed. Until 11:00 this morning. Sleep is beautiful.

The last couple days have been fabulous! Yesterday, our church - Christ Community - had their service in the park, so we got to worship under the trees and feeling the breeze on our faces. And because my roommates are awesome (and 5/6 of us go to this church), we had my couch setting in the second row for the service. So much more comfy than any lawn chair!! After the service, we had a potluck grill-out - BYOM (bring your own meat). So we cooked burgers and hotdogs on the grill and had a potluck with beans and cold salads and deserts. Yeah, it was amazing.

So then...we played kickball. And the teams were a little slanted. We had 10 people aged about 18-24 playing against about the same amount of people aged 5-9. Can you guess who won? Yeah...we got our butts kicked. The younger kids won about 15 to 1. It was a lot of fun, but kinda embarrassing. (I guess I should probably mention that the older kids had to crabwalk everywhere...batting or in the field). I think we provided entertainment for everyone...we were entertaining ourselves - especially when the crabwalk turned into "any-kind-of-animal-walk" - we entertained the younger kids, and we definitely entertained the parents/other adults.

Then came the football. And the water. About 6 of us (later joined by 5 or 6 others) played football in the water with ultimate frisbee rules. That was succeeded by a grueling game of 500. Very intense! Finally, we took our golden-tan bodies- okay...maybe not quite golden-tan...more like fire-red - and dragged them into our cars and headed for home. All of the participants of yesterday's adventures are admitting slight amounts of stiffness and pain today.

But that didn't stop our last adventure. Derek and I took Matt Sieperda for his first rock climbing experience in the Blue Mounds outside of Luverne. He's a natural. Pretty much flew up the wall. We all climbed twice and commented on the value of Derek's decision to go in the morning. By the time we got done - about 1:30 - it was pretty warm and sticky. But McDonalds helped to quench that. Great times in the state of Iowa (and some in Minnesota). I look forward to more great times tomorrow with the fourth. Kinda bummed that I can't really go home since I work again the next morning, but it should still be a good night. Enjoy the 4th, everyone!