5 down 4 to go:)

We had a wonderful visit from the always real Bruce and Jocelyn Hamsher, and their boys Micah, Ty, and Kade. It was really good to see them, and spend time speaking face to face about life, ministry, the future, and other "interesting" things. They have had an important role in our being in Hesston today. We also had Jeremy and Michele Paterson and Greta and Jude over for supper. Here's a crazy thought. All three of us couples are from Wayne and Holmes county Ohio. We didn't know the Hamshers until roughly 10 years ago. He became our pastor, and did our wedding. 3 years later he becomes the Paterson's pastor. 1 year ago the idea that we would know the Paterson's and be in Hesston, Kansas with the Hamsher's and the Paterson's wasn't even on the radar. It was a blessed visit for all.

My parents and Brianna and Brandon (My sister's children, and my children's cousins.) are on their way to Kansas for a weeks stay. Our girls are expecting Grandma and Pa with excitement, but they don't know yet that their cousin's are coming. It is going to be pure insanity when the 5 cousin's see each other. We are looking forward to a great visit with everybody.

Weatherly friends

Here is our weather, for those who want to know, you know who you are:) The weather has been more mild and more wet than usual, the long time locals tell us. We have had days were our backyard thermometer tells us it is over 100, but the official temperatures have only approached 100. It does get really hot, and it has been somewhat humid. We run the A/C more than we did in Ohio.

We are eagerly anticipating the visit of some special friends on Tuesday for the night. I'll give you a hint, the last name starts with "H" ends with "amsher". He has a blog. They are awesome, it will be way too quick, but great.

As they are leaving, another crew will be coming and staying for about a week. They will total 4. Two of them caused my body to be formed in a womb. The other two came from the womb of one that came from the same womb as I did. We all are looking forward to this with great excitement. Our girls are especially excited, although they don't realize it yet:) They know about the 2 people that are more mature, but will be surprised by the 2 younger ones.

We think about many of you from day to day. God bless you.

July 4th update

Last Sunday afternoon we went to King Park in Hesston with our Sunday School class to enjoy a picnic, play, and getting wet.
Monday Night was my overnighter at the hospital. It wasn't pretty. 3 deaths and 3 other tramas. I have had some internal processing to do with a couple situations at the hospital.
Tuesday involved a grocery shopping trip for the whole family.
Wednesday Alyssa had a t-ball game. She is really enjoying this, and so are her sisters.
Thursday we plan to go to some friends to watch them and their neighbors set off fireworks. That is what a lot of small towns do here in Kansas.
Friday the plan is to go to a state park for water fun and camping. The girls are so excited and we are too. I am looking forward to having some time off.
Saturday Alyssa has a birthday party of a friends to attend.
Sunday finds me at the hospital on Duty all day.

Still busy at CPE

The girls are enjoying swimming with Suzanne at the Wellness Center every Friday Afternoon.
We enjoy walks and rides to the Arboretum for fish and turtle feeding.
The girls enjoy the library and it's summer bug program.
We went to the McPherson Water Park for Alyssa's Birthday on Tuesday. We enjoyed the lazy river intertube ride, and Alyssa rode the water slide by herself, over and over and ...
CPE is still enjoyed by me, learning has been great.
Suzanne is doing a Baby shower for Michelle Patterson and Jude Eli this evening.
Suzanne is helping with food stuff for the South Central and Western District Mennonite Conference this weekend at Hesston College and Hesston Mennonite Church.
My next overnight is Monday Night.

Someone's Birthday coming soon

Somebodies having a birthday on Tuesday. They are really excited about it. There is family time planned, I am taking off the afternoon from CPE, and they think there will be a couple gifts. I can't believe she will be 7 year old!
Enough hints?

New look, and the non fairness of life

I decided to try a new look for this blog page. It feels a little cleaner and seems to allow more of the post to fit onto your screen.

My CPE overnighter last Saturday evening was so busy that I got two separate half hours of sleep for the whole 16 hour period. Not so last night. It was fairly busy till about 9pm. I did some charting and then went to bed around 10:30. The pager went off at 4:19am, and I was up till 6am. Then I rested, but didn't sleep till the shift change at 7:45am. I feel really good right now and I didn't get a nap today.

Alyssa and Courtney went to a friends house for the afternoon today, while Emberlynn was very sad to have to be with Mommy and Daddy. She really wanted to be with her sisters. After a couple other conversations with the girls in which they expressed their sense of unfair or unequal treatment or number of cookies, it provided a forum for which we could express to the girls the reality that sometimes life just isn't fair, and their isn't anything you can do about. That is a tough concept for a 2, 4, and 6 year old. Giving them perspective of how it makes others feel from the other side seems to make sense to them. I pray that our girls will turn out to be healthy empathetic adults in the end.

Does these posts still make sense

I read one of my recent posts and wondered if it was even that interesting.

Sunday was father's day. Happy Father's Day dad! The girls took me to the outdoor Hesston pool. It was in the mid 90's. A beautiful day for some fun in the sun with my hun and girls three.
In the evening we got together with Nate and Becca Stauffer, and a prospective PM couple and their youngest child, at Dave and Anita Greiser's house. The Greiser children Hope and Aaron were also there. It was fun to be together with some people and tell CPE stories and brag up Hesston's PM program to a prospective. I hope we didn't scare him away with our sensational stories of Trama. It looks like there will be a minimum of 5 new students in the program this coming fall, and possible 8. That is a large group. There are 5 of us returning students too.

On Monday afternoon, I had off from CPE, so I worked on completing some homework and spent some time with the family.

Today is Tuesday. The girls are growing so fast, doing fun things, getting along sometimes, and sometimes not. I feel so blessed to have my family to enjoy life with. Thank you God for my family.

vbs fuel pump rest of cpe

This week is Community Vacation Bible School. 4 churches in the area are involved and host different age groups. So, Alyssa is at one church and Courtney is at another. We try to keep straight who needs picked up when. I am glad to see a community where the churches work together.

Wednesday - Suzanne borrowed a van from some nice people here in Hesston and took her parents to the Airport. I am assuming they made it back to Ohio. I spent the evening replacing a fuel pump and fuel filter on our car. Emberlynn was a "big help" for about an hour, and I finished the test drive at midnight. Seems to be fixed now.

Thursday - Not too much happening except hearing about storms past, present, and future in the area.

Friday - We will be going to a fellow CPE'ers house towards Wichita after work. It will be fun to see each other in a social setting.

Saturday - Help with a fundraiser for a local family, and then go to the Hospital at 5pm to stay overnight as the on duty Chaplain. This will end at 8am, and then I'll hopefully be in the state of mind that I can go to church. Saturday nights are traditionally busy at Wesley Medical.

Sunday - Rest.

CPE is going well. I am learning and growing and knowing. Yet realizing that I don't always learn from the opportunities. I don't always grow as I'd prefer. And as you can imagine, I don't know it all.
Be a lifetime learner. Focus on relationships.

In-laws out of gas

Suzanne's parents are here for a week. We are having a good time catching up and doing things together. The girls are in their glory. I picked them at the airport on Wednesday afternoon, and it went like this:

Temperature was mid 90's and I was running the A/C in our only car. We drove through town just fine, but as we accelerated to 55mph outside of town, the motor sputtered and died. We coasted to a stop, and restarted the car and it drove fine for about 5 minutes and died again. By this time we have the A/C off and the windows down, it's hot. We drove the 33 miles home, coasting and restarting the car and sometimes driving at 30mph, sputtering all the way. Looks like I will be replacing the fuel pump in a day or two when it comes in.

Suzanne's parents have been walking alot of places with Suzanne and the girls. But that's not because the car doesn't run or because their are 6 of them for a 5 seat car. It's because that's how we get around in Hesston. We always bike or walk.

I'm still here

CPE is occupying most of my time. We leave Hesston around 7am each morning and get back to Hesston around 5:30pm.
Last Tuesday I had an overnight following a Chaplain around.
Last Friday I got my assigned day unit that I will visit every afternoon for 3-4 hours.
This Tuesday I had my overnight by myself. I was the chaplain for the whole hospital. All 7 buildings. 8 trama calls including two deaths. God gave the right words at the right time, and may my feeble attempts be construed as helpful.

I am a voice, a hand, a presence, a heart, a spectralink phone, a pad of paper, a prayer, a smile;
no more - no less.