Less than six weeks!

Christy and I realized while we were in Colorado that we had less than six weeks to go before we leave Illinois for the next year. Madness. Packing has not started yet - but we are trying to get all of our final paper work done. This includes signing up for language school, getting the kids enrolled in their equivalent of school, getting on Latin America Mission's payroll, getting our taxes done, etc. Six weeks feels like a long time, but we will also be in Michigan and Richmond for a combined 2 weeks - so we really only have about four weeks left. Christy's parents have offered to watch the kids as much as needed for us starting in early March (after our trip to Richmond and Michigan) so that we can get all of our stuff packed up and leave the condo we are using in a state that they can have visitors stay here without tripping over kids toys and books.

In between getting forms filled out and finishing up my two classes at Covenant (I'm done with one and hope to be done with the other by this Friday, 6 credits out of 60 completed for the degree!) - we've been busy with the kids. They like to do various activities like riding in their laundry basket cars, work at the computer, and play racquetball with dad. I've posted a couple pictures for everyone's entertainment.

The first picture of Sammy I have titled 'Sammy MEYER' because this is one of the first pictures of him that I think he REALLY looks like a Meyer. Given the powder blue shirt (which was in style during the 70s and now is apparently again) - this could easily be a picture of my middle brother Jon. I think it looks very similar to many of his baby pictures. My mother also tells me often that he acts and looks alot like Jon did. Hmmm....oh well, I guess he didn't get my brains (everyone at Capital One is snickering because I was barely in the bottom tenth decile of smartest people there) but Jon is 3'' taller than me so maybe there is hope at baseball or some sport like that.

We bought Lizzy some 'computer games' last time we were at International Aid - a low cost store that missionaries can shop at. They are less games and more learning activities. The most interesting thing so far is that she can now type her name...well....LIZZY...on a computer keyboard. I've attached a picture that Christy took of her working away on a real computer. As neat as it is to see this as a parent - it is still a little crazy too. My 3.5 year old daughter using a computer. It still makes me have a 'WHEN I WAS A BOY...' moment as I think back to the 286 Packard Bell which we got when I was just entering middle school.

The last couple pictures are of Elizabeth and I playing in the Racquetball court. The picture of me is one that she proudly took. It took a couple shots but she managed to get my entire face in the picture. What I notice here is not so much the goofy face or the beard, but the wrinkles under my eyes. Mind you, not that I care, but it is a reminder that 30 is around the corner, kids make you age fast, and life is short. When I was recently looking at my passport photo that was taken right before Christy and I got married, I no longer say 'Hey, I look a little different' but rather think 'I hardly can tell its the same person'. I imagine these thoughts will accelerate between 30 and 40 and even more so between 40 and 50. C'est la vie. I've also included a picture of Elizabeth triumphantly holding a racquetball at the mercy of a racquet. All in all we've had just a wonderful time in Wheaton. We'll miss having our play time like you see in these pictures, but we are eager (if not a little nervous) about getting down to Costa Rica.

Its late and I promised Christy I would watch the kids tomorrow morning so she could sleep in (it is Valentines day you know) so I'm heading off to sleep.

Leaving you with a little racquetball...Elizabeth style...

Yet another medical call

We have been up in the mountains since Tuesday and overall having a great time. On Thursday afternoon one of my old friends from Capital One, Ben, came up from near Denver to spend the afternoon with me. Since neither of us had ever tried it before, we got some snow shoes and went on our way at about 2pm up the mountain. Our first mistake was deciding to hike by foot up the ski slope to ski lift that would take us higher up the mountain directly in front of a snowshoe / cross country ski park at Beaver Creek. This absolutely destroyed us, and toward the top we stripped off hats, gloves, and jacket layers because we were sweating to death. Instead of waiting a second and putting all of those things on, we jumped onto the ski lift to take us up. This may have been (probably was) the coldest 13 minutes of my life. My hands holding my metal poles and metal snow shoes, jacket unzipped, no hats on, sweat freezing on the head, in windy 15 degree temperature. By the time we got off the lift I could not feel my ears or two of my fingers - everything else just killed. Luckily, there was a little warming hut which we spent 10 minutes in before we went on our way. We ended up hiking to an overlook point which you can see a picture of to the right. I brought my camera with, but I admit to being to cold to ever use it. Ben however is much more tough (manly?) than I and took several pictures. All the pictures here were by him, and many I think are great quality. The birch trees were so amazing against the the snow as you can see to the left. As we were coming down the mountain (we had to hike all the way down as the ski lifts close at 3:30) - it was about 5:30 and the sun was just about set. We figured we were probably just 2 of maybe 10 or so people on the entire mountain. We speculated that someone might be nervous about us coming back at all, and sure enough my father-in-law was there to great us when we finally came into sight (he had been keeping an eye out for us). I'm not sure how far we hiked that day but it must have been several miles. It gave us a great time to catch up and just enjoy some of God's beautiful creation.


On Friday morning Christy and I both decided to try our hand at something new - snowboarding. Step one was simply learning how to put the boards on and navigate enough so that we could get off the ski lift without killing ourselves or others. Getting on the ski lift and debarking was a success. When we got to the top of the hill, we strapped the boards on and headed down the slopes. My first 150 feet involved me heading down the mountain doing 360s uncontrollably. I was not doing this on purpose or riding any 'edge', rather just free falling on the board down the hill. Christy and I both fell about the same time, and then realized another problem. Christy was expending so much energy trying to stand up while attached to the board, that it made learning how to snow board nearly impossible. After about 1.5 hours and 1/3 of the way down the mountain, my mother-in-law offered to take Christy to a place called 'Zack's Cabin' for lunch so she could recharge, while my brother-in-law Jonathan and I finished down the hill. I think we both thought it was fun, but agreed that we might need a few runs on the bunny hill before we tried another run on the full sized mountain.

Tonight (Saturday) we also had more excitement. Right after dinner Sammy got bit by one of his cousins on the cheek - he has a perfect welt on his face with 8 top teeth and 8 bottom teeth showing. Needless to say he was not thrilled. Shortly after that situation was calmed down, the kids were playing out in the family room. Lizzy was spinning with her cousin Luke (a common activity) and while doing circles, Lizzy tripped over a pillow and went head first into the floor. She started crying so I ran over to pick her up - however - when I did her eyes rolled back in her head and she started to throw-up. Christy's mom called 911 to get an ambulance...while she started talking though Lizzy came to and was coherent. I told her to wave off the ambulance (I figured we would just watch her for 20 or 30 minutes and she how she was reacting) but they said they would come free of charge just to make sure she was okay. Over the next 30 minutes we had a public safety officer, a fire man, 2 EMTs and one representative from the hotel come into our condo. I must say though, I'm so glad they came. The EMTs were GREAT and showed that they really cared about our little girl. They checked her head and spine, monitored her breathing, heart rate, circulation in her hands, eye function and other things to make sure she was okay. They stayed with us for 30 minutes to make sure things were okay - and offered to take her to a hospital if we would like. In the end, we elected not to have her taken to the hospital because she was acting very much like herself (laughing, playing, giving the EMT man a high five) - but we did keep her up for another 1.5 hours just to make sure she did not show any symptoms of head trauma. We will keep a close eye on her breathing and energy levels over the next day to make sure. Although it was really scary, praise God that she was okay.

We are hoping you are all doing well and your week has not involved any ER visits or ambulance calls! Christy and I we just saying last night how amazed we were that we are flying to Miami in 6 weeks and Costa Rica in 7 - crazy. Pray for us as we continue traveling quite a bit with the family (Virginia, Michigan and Baltimore) and gear up to go. Please do let us all know how you are doing.

Rocky Mountain High

It has been quite a crazy couple weeks to say the least. Last week I was in St Louis at Covenant Seminary where I was taking a Christian Education course during their residency period. The class was truly wonderful. There was a diverse group of folks ranging from full time MDiv students to retired military to business men and woman to....well...me. The class was very interactive and the teachers did a great job keeping the class interesting by actually using many of the different tactics/ideas they were teaching in their own lectures. I met many people that I will likely keep in touch with in the future. All that I have left to do now for the Christian Education course is to finish up the final project.

During that week I was gone, Christy took the kids up to Michigan to hang out with my mom. What started off with a fun filled Monday went down in flames quickly as Elizabeth, Christy, Sammy, my Mom and Dad all got sick. My mom took Lizzy to see the new Veggie Tales movie on Tuesday - and about half way through she said she wanted to go home. Later that evening, they were having dinner and she fell asleep on the floor underneath the chairs. Then, when she woke up as folks were finishing dinner - massive amounts of throw-up everywhere. As much as I felt bad that I was not there to help - I was very happy to be in St Louis for the remainder of the week :-)

I got home late Saturday night and Christy and I had about enough time to finish the laundry before we flew out of Chicago to Denver on Monday early afternoon. We stayed at Christy's sister's (Bekah) house on Monday night as I-70 (the highway to get up to the mountains) was shut down due to ice/snow/wind. This worked out okay though as Bekah and her family had just flown in from Ethiopia that day, and we had an opportunity to meet our new nephew (Miles) who they had just adopted.

We drove up to the mountains on Tuesday (the weather was much better) and made it to Bachelor's Gulch where we are staying. The first thing that caught my eye this year was a little slip of paper placed by the phone (you can see a picture of it to your left - simply click it to make it larger). It exposes a dichotomy that I have long been confused of. The cheaper a hotel is, the more you often get, and vs vr. For example, if you go to a Days Inn, you probably stay for about 30 to 40 bucks a night, get all your phone service paid for, get free Internet and I bet you might even get a continental breakfast. When you come to where we are staying, it is quite expensive, however, to make a local phone call costs one dollar. To make a long distance phone call is a $16 dollar connection charge, a prevailing per minute charge for sprint and a 99% surcharge on the bill. I just do not understand.....I guess the corporate philosophy is that you charge more simply because you can. However, I can think of very few industries where this model actually works. People get mad about payday loan lenders charger 100% interest....I think if you put this hotel's telephone fees into a APR, we'd be in the thousands!

Anyway, after musing over the phone bills for a while. we decided to explore the natural beauty that is Colorado. Actually, Sammy was watching TV (see to the left). The best part about that picture is that the shades are drawn....majestic mountains outside and we like dark rooms. The other fun thing we liked to do was play with the EXIT sign on the floor out in the hallway. Oh well, maybe we'll start working on exploring a little more than just the hallway and the room. I think I'm going to go snow shoeing tomorrow (which should be an amusing exercise in futility) and probably log in some skiing or snow boarding later this week.

I hope you all are doing well and we'll be in touch.

Quite an adventure

Well, another blog, another 2 weeks. I really do apologize for taking so long to update this in between updates. I wish I had a better excuse, but...even now I can not think of one. We have already had a pretty busy January. I was able to fly out to Phoenix and visit my long time friend Kenn who I went to UW-Madison with and have been close with every since. I flew out on Wed and got back Sunday morning. We did everything from eat out almost every meal, played pool, bowled (I managed to get into the 130's...not to shabby), solved Halo3, played alot of call to duty 4 and watched my beloved packers get to the 2nd largest game in the NFL. Quite alot accomplished by anyones standards. All in all, it was a great trip, however, I did lose my voice well out there due to a nasty cold that I think everyone in Christy's extended had since Christmas. Also, I think Christy got slightly less excited about me being out there every day I spoke to her on the phone. Needless to say, she was happy to have me home to help out with the kids when I flew in on Sunday afternoon. This week has been good as I've been spending time preparing for my residency down in St Louis at Covenant Seminary (writing papers and reading multiple text books) while Christy has spent her free time sewing everything from baby slings to cloth diapers. You do not have to cry for me yet; however, I am going to take the Amtrak (coach) from Chicago to St Louis on Monday morning. We'll have to see how this all turns out....I think it will involve me getting up at 6 to take a Metra downtown Chicago, and then taking a smelly, old, cramped Amtrak train for 5.5 hours down to St Louis - topped off with an overpriced cab ride to the hotel. I'm not holding out much hope...but, maybe it won't be as bad as I have it in my head. One interesting thing that has started happening is that the kids will pretend to have 'nap time' together. I'm not entirely sure where this has come from....at first I thought maybe Elizabeth had naps at preschool (which I would wonder why we pay them anything as she is only there for 4 hours a week) but Christy assured me this was not the case. I'm assuming this is just something that Elizabeth has come up with on her own - and Sam being the good sport he is goes along with it. Either way, they sure are cute when they play this way together. Even if it only lasts for about 3 minutes, it gives me hope that some day, maybe...just maybe, they will not hate each other. The jury is still out on that and we will have to wait and see.

Another exciting happening occurred this morning. There was a gentle cry...which turned into a big cry....from Elizabeth's bedroom. I hear Christy say....'Josh, you've gotta come here and see this - quick!' So, instead of coming quick I do the first thing any father would, grab the camera. I'm so glad I did, you can see to the left the problem Sam got himself into. In case you can not tell, that is legit the #2 that he managed to stick his hand into - so it is very stuck. We had to empty all the block pieces out of there, and get Vaseline all over his hand and the toy to pull it out. He looks just like me in this picture minus the vein running down each side of his forehead. As much as we wanted to comfort him, Christy and I were both laughing pretty hard this morning (and continue to do so when we see this picture). Ahhhh...the things you get to deal with when you have small children.

After the St Louis trip next week, our whole family will be going to Denver for about 10 days. It looks like our next trip after that will be Richmond, Virginia around February 20th - so hopefully we will get a chance to see all of you then.

Go Pack Go!

Happy New Y(ear)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! You would have thought with so much extra free time around the holidays I would have had more time to post - but it just was not the case. I found myself busy enough with kids, school work, and family activities. I hope you all had as nice of a time as we did over the last two weeks. We were able to spend Christmas morning with Christy's family (two sisters, brother in-laws, and the kids' three cousins) which was great. Then on Christmas day we drove up to Michigan to spend Christmas evening through Saturday with my family. During that time we were able to see my mom's parents and my brother and sister-in-law.

One of the gifts that Christy got (actually on her birthday on December 28th) is something I am most excited about. A couple weeks ago we played a game called Carcossonne with our small group from church and it was so much fun. I won't go too much into how to play it, but it is basically a tile based game that anywhere between 2 and 5 players can play. You use the tiles to build cities, roads and farmland - and based on the positioning of your men - you score points. One of the best parts is that as few as two players can go at it - I'm guessing that there will be some lonely nights in the first couple months of Costa Rica where Christy and I will tire of learning Spanish and will take a break playing this game. If you are ever looking for a fun but simple and quick strategy game, you should check this out. If you are familiar at all with 'Settlers' - it is similar but maybe a little more simple.

The most exciting thing that happened over the last two weeks was our adventure last night. On the left you can see a silly picture of Lizzy looking cute. However, if you were to pull back her hair you would see the aftermath of last night (see to the right). She was running around at Nana and Papa's and we think caught her foot on the rug and fell down next to their coffee table. Instead of a bump or a bruise, she managed to some how slice her ear about a half an inch at the end of her ear lobe, straight through. I assured Christy by saying, 'I think she is probably fine, I'm pretty sure we do not need to go to the ER' which translating Josh speak means - I have no idea how much the ER costs with blue cross blue shield, but I think Elizabeth's ear is not worth it. Luckily, Christy (clearly the smarter half) insisted that we go to the ER and I'm glad we did. (from Christy - Getting out the door and getting to the hospital was pretty chaotic with Lizzy crying and holding a paper towel fiercely to her ear...she was ready to bite off the head of anyone who tried to remove that paper towel hand for even a second. She helped break our tension a little bit, though, when she confided in me that her real worry about going to the hospital was that the doctor was going to take off her ear as a way to fix the problem. Once we assured her that they would not take her ear, she warmed up to the idea of getting some help.) Luckily they did not need to do any stitches (instead they were able just to glue it shut because the bleeding was not terrible), but the nurse and doctor said had we not come she likely would have had a pretty large scar across the bottom part of her ear. The one thing that hit me most yesterday while in the ER was the pain you feel as a parent when your daughter is squirming in pain. That has to be the single worst thing you can go through as a parent. I was almost feeling her pain and contorting with her - but still utterly helpless. Now...think how much worse it is for parents who have kids how are seriously ill, chronically sick, or worse yet end up passing away. I can hardly even fathom how hard that must be. My last thought before I fell asleep last night was, now think how hard that must have been for God to send his only Son. Certainly gives you pause, and makes you appreciative of the fact that we have a heavenly father who will stop at nothing to save his children here on earth.

On that note, its getting later here and I'm going to try and listen to a lecture for school or maybe get some more reading done. I hope your new years eve was relaxing and fun. We look forward to seeing many of you in the first quarter of this year before we head down to Costa Rica!

1915...

One thousand nine hundred and fifteen. That is how many pages (of books, not articles) I've read mostly for Covenant Seminary in the last two months (although some was for the missionary prepartion program at Wheaton Bible). Within the next 25 days that number needs to be two thousand seven hundred and seventy seven pages total. I guess for a normal person who reads a bit that is not really that much...say 30+ pages a day, but given that I went from reading very little (except presentations at work and also stuff online) - this has been a huge adjustment for me. Also, many of these books I would categorize into 'smelly old textbook' which can make them brutal to get through. The books on the list thus far are:

Introducing Christian Education*
Teaching for Reconciliation*
The Heart of Evangelism
The gospel and the New Spirituality*
Introducing Postmodernism
Evangelism in the early church
Chameleon Christianity
Let the Nations be Glad
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Becoming a contagious Christian

Clearly some are better than others but if I had to chose my favorite (I've read 70% so far - all but the ones starred) I would say it is 'The Heart of Evangelism'. Dr Barrs is the professor of the class (Apologetrics and Outreach) I'm taking at Covenant Seminary and I have learned a tremendous amount from him. I have to write a small reflection on many of these books so if you want some fantastic night time reading do let me know and I will send them along.

It is hard to believe that Christmas is only 7 days away. I think as a child you always spend a whole month gearing up for the big day so it takes forever to roll around. As with most things in life, the older you get the busier, and important days seem to sneak up on you. Luckily, I think our family is mostly done with Christmas shopping so the stress of the season should be at a minimum. That being said, all of us (Christy, Sammy, Elizabeth and I) have all had a little case of some sort of bug that we can not seem to shake fully. In conjuction with that, my Crohn's symptoms (for those of you that do not know - can not imagine who you would be - I have Crohn's disease) have been coming back. This is especially frustrating after I had been off any medicine for several months. Certainly a matter of prayer for the whole family getting back to a healthy, if not at least normal, state. That being said, staying up until 1:30am probably does not help so I am off to get some sleep...

A Window Into Kindness

So every other Wednesday a lady, Sophia, comes and cleans our apartment (one of the many perks of living in my in-laws condo unit!). I can not really communicate with her because she speaks Polish with only a few words of English (thank you, yes, okay, etc). Sammy is a little afraid of her and will usually get close then run away back to Christy or I. Elizabeth likes to peer in at her from the door frame and watch what she is doing. Even though we can not communicate, you can tell she is such a sweet lady. Every time she cleans Elizabeth's room she will make her bed (something we don't even do as she just has two blankets) and will arrange all of her stuffed animals in a row. I've also seen her cleaning the kids bibs if they happen to be in the sink. Those things are clearly not in her job description, but are little acts of kindness she does simply because she loves children.

I remember thinking weeks ago that Christy and I should buy her some type of gift with a nice card as small token of our appreciation beyond just the money she gets - but as usual - I totally forgot. This last week when she was cleaning, I put together a bag of oranges and grapefruits that we had sitting around (Christy's parents had bought us a big box from the rotary club) for her to take home...way to go me. Problem solved. I'm such an innovator. She said thank you very kindly. When she was leaving that day, she motioned us over and proceeded to bring out of a large bag toys for the kids, Polish candies for all of us and a very nice card. Everything was in Polish but given the Halo around two people over a manager on the card - I'm pretty sure it was for Christmas. First of all, how cool is that? Second, its such a reminder to me that you can be the nicest person in the world but if you do not move from 'nice ideas' or 'warm thoughts' to action - what good is it? I find that this is constantly true of me - I'm the king of great ideas with no action - and here is an example again with someone I hardly know and can not even talk to showing me what true actionable kindness looks like. I need to continue to work to push myself beyond thinking 'It would be great to...' and actually do it.

So this weekend my parents were in town - and I was able to put them to work as soon as they got here. My dad watched Lizzy and Sammy while my mom, Christy and I had a cookie making evening. We probably made 120+ cookies that we were planning on delivering and/or mailing to several people. One such cookie package was sent to my friend Dave down in Florida. He wrote me a note to say thank-you, and also to show me the state of package when it got there. So clearly, most normal people sending cookie tins will put them in a box - however - most normal people are not quite as lazy as I am. At the post office I saw large padded envelopes and thought, 'This is a great idea - the tins will be fine in there...' Well, if you look at the picture on the left you can see that is clearly not the case. As good as the hole by the return address and the packaging tape over the other hole in the upper right is - my favorite part is the big 'Fragile' stamped on the front. Can you imagine what would have happened if THAT wasn't there? Yikes....

Anyway, I hope the holiday shopping is not getting the best of everyone and you are enjoying the snowy (in Chicago) and cold (also in Chicago - I miss warm temperatures) days before Christmas. Make sure you keep the economy going...shop early and shop often.

Until next time...