Jennilyn and I had been dreaming of going to China since we’ve been married. I had an opportunity to visit China with my family in 2005, but I declined because Jennilyn had returned from Japan fairly ill. While I had no regrets in staying behind while my brother and parents had a great time in China, I looked forward to the day I would return to China.
Perhaps an over-spiritualization of the situation, but we got to bed around 1:30 AM after organizing and facilitating the Portland Swing Dance Club’s Spring Swing weekend. It had been a long day and we had no trouble falling asleep.
We woke up to a drum pattern rattling outside. Then it was a full on Mariachi band playing somewhere near the outside of our apartment at 5:30 in the morning. They played loud and proud. At an hour, possibly six hours from that point, we might have happily walked outside to enjoy the live music. At that hour of the morning, we were groaning at who would be so inconsiderate!
Jenni popped in her earplugs. They finished their song. The next drum beat started and we groaned. Then I prayed to God half-asleep, something along these lines:
Dear Lord,
Should I not be praying for the leaders in our congregation, our city, our country? Am I not to ask you to increase our faith? Why am I praying to you, oh God of the Universe, about silencing a Mariachi band outside our apartment? Please stop them from playing more music. We would like some sleep!
Thanks Lord. Amen.
After three lovely songs, I heard some shuffling from nearby apartments. The band stopped playing and we returned to sleep. I’m thankful that God answers prayers, and no prayer is too small—or too strange.
Our second year of marriage has strengthened our relationship with each other and with God. By now, we know each other’s faults and tendencies fairly well, but we both put effort to always think the best of each other. We’ve been committed to forgive and love as the Lord does for us. Sometimes it’s hard, but our closeness has been worth the effort.
When I visited Jennilyn twice a week during our courtship, I always had a fun time photographing her cat. She is the loudest purring machine I have ever met. As we visited her folks for the weekend, I couldn’t resist taking a few new snapshots of our favorite feline.
Coming up with my high school 10 year reunion, I wanted to see how the school has changed. The Benson Tech Show is a huge open house for the school. It’s an opportunity for the family and community see what makes Benson unique as a technical school.
I incorporated my father-in-law’s birthday gift certificate to Black Angus Steakhouse into his birthday card and wanted to share the final product.
The idea of going to my 10 year high school reunion seems foreign to me. While I’m excited to see where friends and classmates have gone since graduation, the idea that we’ve been out of high school for 10 years eclipses all that excitement.
I hadn’t explored my photography hobby for a while since we’ve got our new computer. I’ve noticed a pattern in my behavior that after I get a new computer, I’m into a season of video games.
On Saturday, Jenni, Jack, and I lugged computers over to Clark’s house for some video gaming to celebrate Clark’s and my birthdays. January 20th was a good midpoint between our birthdays.
I had recently put together a new computer and there’s no better way to ‘test out’ a new computer than playing video games. And the new computer was glorious to play games on.
Several of Clark’s groomsmen were present and they played Rune while Jack, Jenni, and I played Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Later, Jenni and Mary played Battle for Middle Earth 2 while Jack and I joined in on Rune. The amount of mouse clicking was insane as we played Rune for an hour.
We played a big game of Battle for Middle Earth 2 with five human players against three computer players toward the end of the gaming party. The computer team didn’t pose much of a challenge the first game, but they almost took me out in our second game. Fortunately, everyone came to bail me out, I recovered from my loss, and we had a very satisfying victory.
Sunday, we went to church and quickly got back to our apartment for a big family gathering celebrating Travis’ birthday. We had 13 people in our small apartment. There was great food and lots of laughs, but the best laugh came during the group picture:
There’s nothing like watching dance videos to get inspired about dancing. So I couldn’t think of any better way to celebrate but to have a birthday party for my friends and I to watch Mary’s new US Open 2005 DVDs.