Trip to England Update

So I lied. I decided not to do the mini-series on what I learned on my summer vacation after all. Instead I have come up with a much better idea. I have created a new blog entirely devoted to our vacation. It will have photos and descriptions of our trip. It's quite the undertaking so it will take me some time, but I should have it up soon. If you want to check it out, here is a handy little link for you: EnglandSite. Also I am including a link for it on the sidebar. Enjoy.

Breath of fresh air

On Wednesday night I had a long meeting to plan out Bible studies at Grand Canyon for this coming year. I am working with 7 other students to coordinate Bible studies and help provide them with direction. Half of the team is out of town but I and three of the girls met at Canyon for three hours to discuss our plans. It was one of the most spiritually encouraging times of my life.

In my long life of 20 years, I have found very few girls who are godly and seem to take their faith seriously. In fact, I could probably count the one's I've met on my fingers. But Wednesday night gave me encouragement that there are still some girls out there who truly love God and want to obey him with their lives.

Their speech and lives really reflected their passion for their savior. They weren't flirty or shallow but their actions and conversations showed that they had depth of character rarely found in men or women. I went away from the meeting just praising God with all my heart. I was so encouraged that he had brought such godly women to GCU. I hope that he uses them to encourage other women at GCU to develop that sort of depth and passion for Him. I really feel that this is going to be a banner year for GCU as far as spiritual growth.

Urban Squirrels Strike Back

For those of you looking forward to my mini-series on my recent vacation, you are going to have to wait a little longer. I'm about to leave again on vacation to Colorado to see my girlfriend. While I'm gone I will be doing a lot of writing, I hope and should have everything ready for next week. But unless I can find a way to connect to the net this will be the last post for a few days. Enjoy.

I'm back and better than ever

Wow! Two whole weeks flew by while I was in London. This is just a little happy note to say that I'm home and incredibly tired. Tomorrow you can look forward to the start of a mini-series titled, "What I Learned on My Summer Vacation to Britain". Oh ya, it will be a page turner for sure.

[after defeating Fezzik, who lays on the ground unconscious]
Westley: I do not envy you the headache you will have when you awake. But for now, rest well and dream of large women.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZ

One down, two to go...

MY SISTER IS GETTING MARRIED!!!

Yup, this news did actually come to light a while ago, but I just realized that I had yet to say anything about it. His name is Tom. He and I met through a discipleship group a couple of years ago and became friends. I introduced him to Laura. I got busy with college and lost track of him. Now he's going to be my new brother! Weird. Anyway, the wedding is in the middle of August and we are all so excited for them. Gratz Laura!

Dun-dun-dun. She's baaaaack

Emma's back from vacation. We have the next three days to really work hard on walking before I leave for England. She doesn't seem to have regressed too much by taking a week off, let's see what taking off three will do. The good news is while I'm gone she will be starting to work with an occupational therapist an hour or two a week as well as continuing her work with the other two women who are teaching her.

Once I come back, I will have about two weeks left of working with her before I head back to school. It seems like such a long time but I know it will go fast. I'm gonna miss working with her. She brings so much joy to my life and is such an interesting part of God's creation.

Her mom said that while on vacation, Emma said her own name once. Although I have yet to hear it, that is a pretty big deal for her. Before, she could recognize the spelling of her name and the sound of it and would pat her chest when she heard it. Her legs have lost some of their strength while she was gone, simply because she wasn't worked as hard. But she seems to be doing well. Hopefully we can make a little more progress with the walking before I leave, but the talking is a wonderful thing.

Next stop: ENGLAND

Wow. Our family vacation this summer is a biggy. The five of us, my parents, Matty, Laura and I, are going to England. It will be our first time traveling overseas. We leave Saturday morning a little before nine in the morning and fly to Orlando. From Orlando we fly all the way across the Atlantic (No stops!) and land in London. We will be there for about two weeks before flying home. But fear not faithful reader. I will make every effort to post at least once or twice while there to give small updates.

While on the island, we will be staying in the Lake District for a week before heading on to Wales for a couple of days and then London for a couple more. All in all we will be gone for 17 days. Although we will be doing some touristy stuff, we hope to mostly enjoy the scenery. We have a bunch of countryside hikes planned and have a couple of days for just relaxing and taking it all in. Of course, while in London, we will be doing the sight-seeing, annoying picture-taking, food-sampling stuff that tourists are supposed to do. We'll try not to enjoy it too much.