Road Trip

Oh boy, I'm SLOW in recording our fun September weekends, but better slow than never, I guess.
I promised to quick rundown of our road trip to Levittown, PA September 18-22.

We had been looking forward to this trip for a long time. Why?
• Extended time with our buddies Bill and Verna Weber.
• Opportunity to see our grandson, Miles Johnson, perform with his high school marching band.
• Celebrate Miles's birthday Friday night and Saturday.
• Spend time with our whole family, Jen and Matt and Geoff and Lisa, in addition to Miles.
• Hear Matt preach and attend church at Levittown Christian Church.

And all of the above is exactly what we did.

Evelyn got home from teaching Thursday afternoon after 4:00. The Webers had arrived here some time before that (they drove here from Indy--this was a long day on the road for them), and soon after Evelyn rolled in, the four of us rolled out, on our way to PA. We chattered all the way to New Stanton, where we spent the night (after a nice dinner at--where else?--Cracker Barrel!).
We were on the road in good time Friday morning and made it to our hotel outside Newton, PA by 3:30 and to Jen's by about 5:00.

We stopped and got sandwiches and made it to the football stadium in plenty of time to get good seats for the whole evening. It was Homecoming, so we got to see floats and the king and queen and court.
But the main attraction was the marching band. (Oh yeah, the home team won the football game!)

Geoff and Lisa made the long and challenging trip to be there--Geoff drove with Frankie, and Lisa took  no planes but trains and automobiles to meet us there. I really appreciated their effort to join the party.

After the game we retreated to Jen and Matt's for wonderful birthday cake (four layers, cookies and cream cake--it was wonderful!).

The next day we met late in the morning to ride together to Philly, where Jen and Matt had picked a wonderful Chinese restaurant for a family birthday dinner to celebrate Miles's 16th birthday. We had wonderful food--just too much of it. Evelyn and I wished we had split a meal. We walked around the city--to the riverfront, to a festival--enjoying the sunshine and the company--and a stop at a favorite
tourist site to try Mr. Franklin's ice cream.
And then we crashed at Matt and Jen's place before supper.

Geoff and Lisa left for the trip home, and then the rest of us enjoyed sandwiches and salads for supper, followed by a bonfire and s'mores in their backyard. What a fun, fallish evening.

Sunday morning we enjoyed worship, including one of the best sermons preached anywhere in America that day, all about Gideon by Matt. Jen fixed a wonderful lunch (country ribs in the slow cooker!), and after lunch we went to a state (?) park for a nice long walk. Nikki enjoyed the walk and we enjoyed the scenery. For supper we went to the Johnsons' favorite Mexican restaurant, and Bill treated. (Thanks, Bill!) The evening was still young, though, so we decided a stop at their whippy-dip place (I'm writing this too long after the events; I'm forgetting the names of things!) would be the best way to end the day. Oh, it was good!

We stayed as late as we dared (Matt is an early-to-bed guy, and Miles had school the next day). Jen wanted us to hang on after the guys went to bed, but we had a long day of driving ahead of us Monday, so we said good-bye about 10:00. It was a weekend we'll always remember.

It's a long drive home from Philadelphia, but we made it in OK time (lots of bathroom stops for us oldsters, plus a nice lunch), and said farewell to Bill and Verna about 7:00 p.m., thanking them for the weekend of fellowship as they began two more hours on the road to their place in Indy.

A Weekend in August

We ate dinner Saturday night with Bill and Verna Weber, Donovan and Jocelyn and Ruby and Nora, and the Webers' friends from South Africa, Phil and Irene Hughes.
The Hugheses had been visiting the Webers as a part of their four-month visit to the U.S. this summer. We had wanted to connect with Webers--we hadn't seen them since a couple of brief hellos at the NACC. They suggested we meet them on their way out of town (they had come to visit with Donovan's family for the day) and back home to Indy. So we drove over to the Bob Evans on North Bend Road and enjoyed a nice early supper with them.

"Thanks for coming over here to eat dinner with us," Verna said as we were breaking up.
"Hey, this is the high spot of our weekend," I said.
"Oh, I hope not!" Bill replied.
Well, maybe it was. But the whole weekend has been pleasant.
Friday we had a big night out with a Groupon-discounted dinner at Mimi's followed by frame shopping at Hobby Lobby.
Saturday I spent a couple hours weeding, trimming, and watering outside. I decided to take some flower pictures while I was working.. The pictures look better than the yard. We haven't had rain for quite awhile, and the grass is pretty brown.

Then I got a good start on my final batch of notes to folks to tell them about the Alaska trip we're helping host next summer.
After we got home from supper, we watched the latest Muppets movie via Movies on Demand from Time Warner.
Evelyn and I worked the Welcome Center at church, and she and I each had meetings at church at noon.
I went to the grocery on the way home and bought a can of soup to eat for lunch. Then I finished my Alaska invitations and took 'em to the post office late in the afternoon.
We had a nice talk with Jen on the phone after supper.
A simple weekend. A pleasant weekend.

Busy Times, Fun Times, Inspiring Times

Here it is Tuesday, and I'm just now finding time to write a brief rundown of the weekend. This has been a busy week since then.
Jim and Diane and I have been busy with several new and out-of-the-ordinary tasks associated with the creation and introduction of the new Christian Standard app that we hope will be live on the Apple Newsstand in another week or two. It's very exciting, and once we get it established (learn how to use the interface and establish the print/digital integration), the month-by-month work on it will not be nearly as consuming as this journey up the learning curve.
But I really think it will create a digital version of the magazine that many will find attractive. We plan to push it at the NACC; I'm hoping for a slew of downloads during NACC.
Last night I met with Dales Reeves and a bunch of other members of the Christ's Church at Mason writers group he's formed. The church is planning an all-church study of Thom Rainer's book I Am a Church Member, and members of our group are writing devotions for all six weeks of the study. Dale runs a good meeting, we have a fun group, and I enjoyed the time with them.
Now about the weekend:
Friday night Evelyn and I mowed grass, and I did several lawn tasks. Then we ate pizza and salads from LaRosa's on the deck, enjoying a beautiful, sunny but cool evening.
Saturday I read the chapter in The Story for Sunday morning, paid bills, enjoyed breakfast, got the car washed, and went to the grocery. About 1:30 Bill and Verna Weber arrived from Indy, and before 2:00 we drove to Bill and Joni Baker's house for a pleasant meeting and picnic-style meal they had prepared.
The occasion was to hear a progress report, consider next steps, and pray for Victoria and Joshua Baah-Binney, Ghanaians studying here in preparation for ministry when they return home to Africa. We learned a lot, laughed a lot, ate a lot (!), and praised the Lord a lot for the Baah-Binney's commitment and his provision for all their needs. There will surely be more needs to come, though, and we will probably be involved in some way to help meet them.

 We left Bakers after 5:30 and drove to Riverbend to enjoy a concert by Cincinnati Pops. We sat on the
lawn (we'd brought our sling chairs) and visited in the hot sunshine till the program began at 8:00. (We were there when the gates opened at 6:30.)  After the sun set, I was actually chilly. But it was a fine program of orchestral spectaculars, finished off by the 1812 Overture and cannons, and then a wonderful fireworks display before we went home.
Webers spent the night, and we lingered over breakfast the next morning (Evelyn's raisin bread, granola, and fresh fruit). All of us left before 10:00; they for LifeSpring and we for CCM. We enjoyed visiting with friends in the lobby and snuck into the 10:30 service for inspiring singing and a wonderful sermon from Trevor, centering on the return of the Jews to Jerusalem and their failure to finish rebuilding the temple as God had commanded (Haggai and Ezra were the main texts).
Trevor painted the word "SURRENDER" in bold letters on a white flag on the floor as he began his sermon, but we didn't see what he'd written till he drove home his final point at the end: "The secret to a life with meaning is surrender. . . . The day I found freedom is the day I raised the white flag."
We grabbed lunch at Noodles and Company and then came home to tend to desk-type tasks, in between talking with Katie and Byron and later Geoff about our upcoming visit all together to New York. We're looking forward to a wonderful time together.

This Weekend, and Last

The road to blog oblivion is paved with good intentions. I have pictures for my blog, but I haven't been

Isn't this a beautiful pie Cindi made for us?

posting them or writing descriptions. Here's a little make-up with a rundown of last weekend and this weekend.
Last Friday we planned to go the Reds game; they were promoting a special buy-four ticket offer in addition to Friday night fireworks. But when we got closer to the day and realized we'd be sitting in about 55 degrees with a breeze, we decided we weren't that big of fans.
We had the plans with Dan and Cindi Cooper, but Cindi offered to bring dinner to our place, and Evelyn and she decided we'd rent Captain Phillips, the Tom Hanks movie about the ship boarded by pirates off the Somali coast. We had seen it at the theater, but the Coopers hadn't, and we were game to see it again.
Cindi brought a wonderful homemade chicken pot pie and a tasty apple salad, and Evelyn bought some Graeter's to go with her homemade cookies (peanut butter with mini Reese's cups melted inside).
What a nice evening, and I enjoyed the movie as much the second time a the first!
Saturday I got up early to get a haircut at 8:30, and then we met Bill and Verna Weber at 10:45 for brunch at Bob Evans. (They were in town celebrating Ruby Weber's birthday with Donovan and Jocelyn and Nora.) From there we drove to Hamersville, Ohio where we attended the memorial service for Tom Friskney at the Church of Christ there.
Mr. Friskney had been our professor at CBS in undergraduate school. I learned much of what I know about page layout from the yearbook class he led and I attended three semesters. His son Paul was Evelyn's supervisor and colleague all the years she taught English, and we're friends with Paul and his wife, Sev. It was a wonderful service. Jon Weatherly's tribute, as so often happens at funerals, taught us aspects of Professor Friskney's life we hadn't known and challenged us with his qualities that we had known but might have forgotten.
The Hamersville church building was packed (we stood at the back); at least half of the congregation were Hamersville locals who had known the Friskneys through the decades they've lived there. Perhaps the most memorable part of the service was the singing: "Wonderful Grace of Jesus" and Mr. Friskney's favorite hymn, "I Know Whom I Have Believed." The room reverberated with the voices of the enthusiastic singers. It's been awhile since I've been in congregational singing like that; it was thrilling.

 Saturday night we fired up the grill for the first time this year: chicken and vegetables, so good.

Sunday morning I heard the same sermon twice; Mark Sullivan preached it in the first service in the

Mark Sullivan preaching in the 9:00 service.

auditorium, and Trevor preached in the Classic service at 10:30. I was hosting there and chose to attend that whole service too. The message centering on the tragic lives of Rehoboam and Jeroboam told the story of the division of the kingdom of Israel. One quote to remember, referring to the effects of Solomon's sin toward the end of his life: "We make decisions, and those decisions turn around and make us."
This weekend on Friday we tried to eat dinner at Dewey's in West Chester, but by the time we got there at 6:10, they were already standing outside waiting to get a seat. So we slipped over to Friday's and had a nice meal splitting a side salad and sharing three small appetizers. We drove up to the outlet mall one exit north on 75 to pick up at item Evelyn needs and then back down to Kohl's to spend Kohl's cash, a $5 reward coupon, and to use a 20% discount coupon. We bought a couple of picture frames, and believe it or not, even with all those discounts, we still owed a little money.
Saturday was rainy much of the day. I paid bills and managed finances in the morning and then went to

the grocery store. Later in the afternoon, when the skies cleared, I drove to Home Depot for mulch and some bags of top soil (it was about the third trunkful of the week) and came home to spread the top soil and trim one of our hydrangea bushes before coming in to take a shower. I grilled a second time, a variation on the chicken and vegetables theme. This time the meat had a fajita marinade, and we ate it in soft tacos with grilled peppers and onions. It was very good!
Terry and Shirley arrived at our place about 8:30 to spend the night. They'd been on vacation all week at the Tulip Festival in Holland, Michigan (all their stories and descriptions and pictures made me want to go some year!). They brought us a pie they'd bought at a bakery up there: chocolate pecan. Oh my goodness!
We all rode to church together this morning (Trevor's challenging sermon to put our "issue" on the altar

and pray for God to consume it like he did with Elijah's offering), and then returned home to enjoy Mother's Day brunch together. I had said I would cook, but the longer Evelyn and I talked about it, the more we decided she should fix her favorite Amish Breakfast Casserole and her wonderful cinnamon biscuits. I made the fruit salad and poured the orange juice!
Terry and Shirley left early in the afternoon, and I spent much of the rest of the day spreading mulch in the courtyard in front of the house. Jennifer called in the middle of the work, which gave me a welcome break, and later I drove to Home Depot since I was about one bag short for completing that section. I got another trunkful (8 bags), which should take me around the side of the house whenever I get to that.
I took a shower and Evelyn made nachos for supper--we were still pretty full from lunch! Geoff called while we were eating. It's always a good day when we get to talk to both of the kids.
Two good weekends, too good to forget, which is why I wanted to make these notes while I could grab the moments to do so.

The tulips I planted in this pot last fall made a beautiful display on our deck this week.

A Nice Weekend

Pictures of the Day:
A highlight of the weekend was the concert by the Purdue Glee Club at Christ's Church at Mason Saturday night. More than 500 made a nice crowd in our auditorium to see the uniquely energetic and entertaining show/concert performed by this stage full of young men singing in tuxes. Their repertoire covered the gamut: sacred, classical, Broadway, gospel, pop, and patriotic. Always with strong voices, sometimes with complex harmonies, varying their stage presence from formal rows to seemingly unchoreographed interactions with each other and the audience, their performance was a joy to watch as well as hear.

We made an evening of the outing by inviting the Webers and the Friskneys to join us for supper at

The singers filled the aisles with song more than once, this time
to serenade ladies they chose from the audience.

5:00 and then go to the concert with us. We enjoyed the meal and the laughter at Mimi's and got to the church by 6:15 or 6:30 to get good seats for the 7:00 concert. Afterwards, Evelyn was one of the volunteers serving trays of homemade cookies to the crowd that lingered in the large lobby area outside the auditorium. Several of the singers had nice reunions with family members made more pleasurable by our church's hospitality.
Bill and Verna stayed overnight with us and left about 10:00 Sunday morning to worship at Lifespring Christian Church and spend the day with the Webers 2.0. We decided to go to second service at Mason Sunday morning; the net effect was two long, hashing-out-life visits with the Webers: Saturday night till almost midnight and then again over a leisurely breakfast Sunday morning. (Evelyn had made our favorite coffee cake--yum!)
Friday night was a typical Big Night Out for Evelyn and me: dinner out (Macaroni Grill --and that was special!) and a shopping trip at Costco's followed by Evelyn snagging this quarter's sale at the Clinique counter at Macy's.
Sunday we sat with our friend Alan Guttman in the Classic Service at 10:30, ate lunch quickly at McAllister's, and then returned home for a productive afternoon. Evelyn graded papers, and I worked a couple hours in the yard (trimmed all the rose bushes). It was a sunny 60-degree day, and I went with Evelyn on her walk after my yard work. Then I came in and did something I haven't done for a long time on a Sunday afternoon. I took a nap--a long nap! Evelyn was afraid I wouldn't sleep that night, but I managed to quit waking to see the alarm clock by about 11:00 p.m.

Quote of the Day:
"We think obedience is fine for kids and dogs. But we don't celebrate obedience in our culture. . . . Obedience puts us in our place. It's God's wisdom and strength we can't outgrow."
—Trevor DeVage in his excellent sermon in our The Story series, this week on King Saul's sorry pattern of disobedience.

Important Issues

Quote of the Day:
Remember, God’s will was for John to be exiled, Paul to be jailed, Jesus to be executed. Why do we assume God’s will for us is to have a great job, a happy wife, and a large bank account?
—Kevin A. Thompson in his February 20 blog post

Picture of the Day:
Bill and Verna Weber were with us today all day. Bill taught the "Perspectives" class last night in Dayton and tonight at the Cincinnati Vineyard. Evelyn enjoyed a leisurely breakfast with them this morning while I went to work. I joined them for lunch at Mimi's, and they treated! Mimi's serves not only a tasty lunch, but a well-presented lunch. Witness my choice of lobster bisque and harvest salad with fruit cup.
We had leftover vegetable soup and grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches for supper with Verna while Bill was off to his assignment.
It's always good to visit with them. We always find so much to talk about--beyond surface into important issues quickly and always.

No Lie!

Quote of the Day:
We lie when we claim we are more confident than we really are. The culture of pretending within Christianity seems almost at an epidemic level. Many of us feel the need to hide our doubts and questions. We feel compelled to act like our faith life is totally satisfying, when in fact it often feels limited, dry, cold or numb. I think we also believe that our "witness" will be less powerful if we reveal a less than "perfect" religious experience. The funny thing is that the opposite is often true. Non-Christians are often drawn to stories of an authentic and even struggling faith.
—Tony Kriz, "Seven Lies Christians Tell" at Leadership Journal

Follow the link to consider all seven lies.

Picture of the Day:

Ruby and Nora Weber came to visit us this evening, and I persuaded them to pose just before they left to go back home. They accompanied their mom and grandma, and all four of them joined us for vegetable soup and salad for dinner, followed by ice cream and strawberries and brownies for dessert. Bill and Verna Weber are staying with us tonight and tomorrow night while Bill teaches Perspectives classes in several locations not far from here. He dropped Verna off at Webers 2.0 earlier today, on his way to Dayton for his class. Jocelyn brought Verna and the girls to our house in time for supper. Bill will be back here after 10:00, when he can get here from Dayton. We're always glad to have them with us, and that's the truth!

Happy Birthday, Nora!

Pictures of the Day:

We were pleased to be invited to Nora Weber's birthday dinner last night, hosted by her parents,
Donovan and Jocelyn, enthusiastically joined by her sister, Ruby, and also attended by grandparents Verna and Bill Weber, good friends who moved away to Indianapolis more than a year ago.
Jocelyn had a wonderful supper featuring a new recipe for vegetable soup with homemade croutons, and the birthday cake was a tower of mini cupcakes adorned with candles and topped with the number announcing Nora's age.
It was great to reconnect with the Webers. We hadn't talked with Donovan and Jocelyn since they brought the girls to our house for dinner and trick-or-treating 'way back in October. He was anticipating a new ministry then and is settling into that ministry nicely now. And Jocelyn is serving in a new position, a counseling job at Oak Hills High School as part of a program sponsored by Children's Hospital, where she's been employed for some time.
I can't even remember when we saw the senior Webers last--sometime last fall, before the holidays. Bill just returned from an extended trip to Myanmar, accompanied by his grandson Noel Brooks, and it was great to hear about the trip as well as just generally catch up in our fine evening together.

Ruby (right) was eager to help Nora blow out the candles on her pyramid-of-cupcakes birthday cake.

Every time Evelyn and I are around parents of preschoolers, she remarks, "Now I know why God gives children to young parents. Today I'd never have the energy to keep up!" And when I see the patience and consistency of good parents like Donovan and Jocelyn, I'm reminded of how tired it must make God when I whine or cry to get my own way or resist what he tells me, as if I know better than he what I ought to eat or how I ought to act or when I ought to go to bed!

Quote of the Day:
"God's first word in his command to Abram was 'go.' And Jesus' last word in his command to his followers was 'go.' "
—Trevor DeVage in this morning's sermon at Christ's Church at Mason 

Makes you think God wants us to GO, doesn't it?

Happy Birthday, Evelyn!

We've been celebrating Evelyn's birthday since Wednesday night when the Coopers came for dinner and brought a gift for Evelyn and a candle for the chocolate chip cookies!

This morning we met Terry and Shirley at Half Day Cafe in Wyoming for a wonderful brunch.

Bill and Verna Weber are here tonight. Verna's been attending a conference in Cincinnati, and needs to go to Louisville for the NACC meeting Monday, so she's staying the weekend. We said, "Well, Bill should come over Saturday night, too, and we'll celebrate Evelyn's birthday." We've had a wonderful evening. They took us to dinner at Raja India in West Chester, and then we came home to have birthday cheesecake (from J. Annette's in Mason) and lots of laughs as well as serious talk about faith, the past, and the future. It's been great!

Weekends Are Made for This . . .

• Eating out (at a new Mexican place, Blue Agave beside LaRosa's in Tri-County for supper last night, [new for us, that is] and Bronte Bistro at Joseph-Beth Bookstore for brunch today).
• Running errands: Visits to Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's, the Apple Store, Staple's, and of course my favorite, Kroger's.
• Good times with friends: the Wuskes last night and Bill and Verna Weber and Paul and Sev Friskney today at brunch.
• Doing stuff we love: After Costco last night we picked up the Wuskes and drove to Newport on the Levee to hang out and see the fireworks after the Reds game. We stumbled into a big Oktoberfest celebration on the river bank below the stores at the Levee. We'd already eaten, so we passed up the goetta balls, brats with sauerkraut, and funnel cakes (although that last one really tempted me).
• Doing something on a lark: In addition to trying the Mexican restaurant when we'd really driven over there to eat at LaRosa's, we and the Wuskes decided to try the giant ferris wheel set up at the edge of Oktoberfest. It was a beautiful evening to see all the lights at the riverfront and feel the cool breeze.
• Laughing: with the Wuskes, and always with Sev Friskney and Verna Weber. The Webers, Friskneys, and Taylors used to get together every six weeks or so, but we hadn't been together since before school was out last spring. It was great to reconnect. And laugh. We sat at Bronte for at least 2 hours together.

On the way home, Evelyn and I decided just to stop at the Apple store and see what they're saying about iPhone 5s availability. The guy said a) they're getting new stock every evening, b) the online "order and pick up at the store" option had been disabled; maybe it would be reinstated this week, and c) if you show up at the store when they open, at 10 a.m. weekdays and Saturday, you'll have a pretty good chance of getting the phone you want. That's encouraging, because I thought with the hot interest in the new iPhones (9 million sold in the first weekend), maybe they'd be out of stock till next month or something. Also discouraging, though, because taking two hours on a work morning to drive down there, wait in line, and get the phones set up before driving back to work is almost impossible. We're thinking we'll be there when the store opens NEXT Saturday.

A Life Well Lived

We went to the memorial service for Verna Weber's mother, Mildred Holmes, this morning at 11:00. She passed away quietly earlier this week after being moved from the hospital to hospice care at Mason Christian Village on Monday. She had been sick all that weekend after suffering a small heart attack, stroke, and two different infections. "It took all that to finally get her down," her granddaughter, Miki Brooks said. Miki and her brother, Donovan, sang "Amazing Grace," and Bill Weber offered the eulogy. He was concerned that he wouldn't be able to get through it without breaking down, but he did a fine job. When his voice momentarily broke or his eyes watered, we all thought, Well of course! How could you not show some emotion about a person you loved so much? 
Mildred had just celebrated her 97th birthday. Her life story is too varied and full of adventure for me even to remember, let alone try to chronicle here. She overcame illness, obstacles, the deaths of husbands and children, and more with a firm commitment to Christ and the church in the midst of a lifetime of service. "Plucky." "Spunky." "Determined." All those words describe her.
It was our special pleasure to know her. We were in the habit of getting together with the Webers for various holidays, and often Mildred was with us. Sometimes we picked her up at her apartment at Mason Christian Village and took her to the party at the Webers' place in Price Hill. Sometimes some of the Webers brought her to our place.
Donovan and his wife, Jocelyn, asked Jennifer if she would write a history of Mildred's life and compile it in a book to give to the rest of the family several Christmases ago. The result contains all those details I can't remember. In the process of spending hours and hours with her taking notes for the project, Jennifer fell in love with Mildred, and it seemed the feeling was mutual.
In his talk this morning, Bill said his sister-in-law, Mildred's daughter-in-law, said, "All our memories of her are good and positive and happy."
That's not hard for me to believe. And one more legacy Mildred has left is the challenge to each of us to live so that those closest to us will say the same about us when we're gone.
Today's pictures are two I posted last December (search "Mildred Holmes" in the blog for the diary entries). The first is on Christmas Day as the Webers were getting ready to go home after our Christmas dinner and I snapped Mildred smiling with great granddaughters Nora and Ruby.
The second was taken a few days later when Jennifer was in town for the holiday and went to visit with Mildred at Mason Christian Village.

Weekend Update

"April prepares her green traffic light, and the world thinks Go." I heard that quote from Christopher Morley Sunday, and I knew it couldn't have been more perfect for the beautiful, sunny day we were having. This is the time of the year when every lawn is green, and the flowering trees surrounded by daffodils and forsythia make every turn, every suburban neighborhood, another garden show.
To recap the weekend:
Saturday we Skyped with Wendy, and I paid bills. We decided to mow the lawn (for the record: mowing number 3), and Evelyn and I finished it just in time to get our showers and meet Bill and Verna Weber

Sev had a greeting for us
as we arrived Saturday.

to drive over to Paul and Sev Friskney's for a late afternoon meal. I think we're getting together now that the Webers are out of town more than we ever did when they were here! But it's good for all of us, and Bill and Verna come regularly to see Verna's mother at Mason Christian Village. And Verna was teaching a parenting class at White Oak Christian Church Sunday, so it worked out well for them to be here.
Sunday I hosted at the 9:00 service and was blessed by the worship and the sermon. We spent a lot of time after church talking with friends in the hallway. John and Mary Jane Burgess were visiting, and so were Bill and Joni Baker. John and Heather Turner have decided to remake Christ's Church their church home, and we got to see them for a few minutes Sunday too.
We grabbed breakfast at Bob Evans and were home and at work by 12:30.
Evelyn graded papers; I read through/edited the 40 profiles for our July "40 Leaders Under 40" issue and took some stabs at improving an editorial/column draft that I had started Friday. All of it together took me more than 3 hours.
We took our walk, had a nice long phone visit with Jennifer, and ate leftover ham and bean soup while we watched TV. 
Today I was busy finishing up the copy for that "40 Under 40" section to hand off to a designer, dealing with some web issues/problems, approving/tweaking an e-mail that's going out to 344 churches tomorrow, writing an e-mail number 2 that's going to about 150 churches to invite them to a special web seminar this week, writing a letter to those I've recruited to join our group for our cruise/tour this summer, and a couple of other things.

I decided at lunchtime to try to snap a picture of the beautiful blooming trees in the courtyard formed by my office building and the one next to it.

A Fine Easter

We had a nice Easter dinner at about 5:00 with Bill and Verna, Donovan, Jocelyn, and Ruby and Nora Weber. They came about 3:30 and left around 7:00, and we had a fine time together. Evelyn had prepared way more food than we ate, so we called Dan and Cindi Cooper and invited them to come for supper tomorrow night to help us eat leftovers!

Evelyn and I went to church at 9:00 this morning--a packed house for one of six services at CCM. It was an excellently produced, very moving service with compelling use of video and a great sermon. 

We ate brunch at Panera's after that and then spent the rest of the afternoon finishing up preparations for company.

We were able to talk with Jennifer awhile after our company had left and all the dishes were done. Its been a good day.

 Evelyn saw the above idea on Shannon Penrod's Pinterest page:  Robin's egg "nests" made of Chinese noodles coated with melted butterscotch bits. We decorated the table with them; each person got one beside his dinner plate. Ruby and Nora opened Easter baskets from Grandma and Papa. Nora demonstrated her ability to make herself comfortable in a variety of positions on just about any piece of furniture. :-)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Easter

Once in awhile I go with a friend to the Honeybaked Ham store for lunch. They have great sandwiches and soup, and they're just five minutes from the office. But once or twice a year I go there to get a ham for a company dinner, and those two occasions are usually Christmas and Easter.
This year's no different. I stopped by on my way home from work today to get the meat for our Easter dinner. We're hosting Bill and Verna and Donovan and Jocelyn and Ruby and Nora Weber Sunday afternoon, and we're looking forward to the get-together.
I'm looking forward to a three-day weekend. I had a coupon for two free muffins from Mimi's, and I stopped there too, to snag a treat for our breakfast.
Today was a typical day-before-vacation day: a long list of tasks to accomplish. I achieved the most significant of them: read the proof for the May issue of Christian Standard, including checking a bunch of names among the 344 churches listed in that issue--it's our annual statistics issue. I had to write some late copy and change some copy for it as a part of the process. Also had an art-selection meeting with Scott Ryan and handled correspondence about Christian Standard-related activities at this summer's NACC.
I got there about 7:30 this morning and didn't leave till 5:30, and I was READY to depart by then!

This Saturday's Small Group

Today we had our get-together with the Friskneys and the Webers that we had planned for last Saturday. We were going to meet in Shelbyville last Saturday, but the snow kept us home. Today we used the gift certificates Friskneys gave us for Christmas to meet for lunch/dinner in Mason, since Webers were already in town this weekend to celebrate granddaughter Nora's 2nd birthday.
We sat at the restaurant (Applebee's) for probably a couple of hours and then adjourned to our house for birthday cake from Kroger's and decaf and ice cream. It was a belated celebration for Sev and Bill whose birthdays happened at the end of January.

We laughed and caught up on each other's family and talked about everything from our various work situations to why bars are better places for genuine bonding than what so many people experience through their churches. We decided that much of what people say SHOULD happen in a small group happens among longtime Christian friends like us--without programming or a curriculum.
We hope to meet again soon--we've put March 16 on our calendars (although I have a tentative trip that needs to happen sometime in March but isn't scheduled yet. We'll see.).

I snapped this picture of our table setting before we left for the
restaurant. We used some of the vintage plates that we had gathered
for Jennifer's wedding.

Stockin' Up

Evelyn and I both laughed out loud as I arranged our groceries
on the kitchen table so I could take a picture.

The weatherman says we're having one-to-three inches of snow tomorrow, a warning that has sent the whole city to the grocery store.
"You guys are pretty busy tonight," I said to the checkout gal when WE were at Kroger's after dinner, about 8:00.
"You should have seen it sooner," she said. "We had to open every checkout lane."
We probably have enough food in the house already to be snowed in for a day. But we bought the stuff to make a big pot of minestrone soup, using a new recipe Evelyn found. And if we're snowed in tomorrow, we're going to invite the neighbors to come share supper with us. Our PLAN, though, is to meet Bill and Verna Weber with Paul and Sev Friskney in Shelbyville. It is to be a reunion planned by Sev before Christmas, to help soften the good-bye to the Webers who moved to Indianapolis right after Christmas. We're really looking forward to seeing them, but if the trip seems risky, we'll put it off a week and make soup instead.

A Little Different, a Lot Nice

A nice Christmas--different, when I come to think about it--than any Christmas I can remember.
Evelyn and I were alone today, except for our fun dinner with all the Webers who were at our place from about 2:00 till maybe 5:30.
We had a nice, relaxed morning and spent a lot of the time getting ready for dinner. We had Honeybaked Ham, cheesy potatoes, fresh green beans, and applesauce Jello. Verna brought a tasty beverage for us to enjoy with our cheese ball and crackers, and Jocelyn brought wonderful Christmas cookies to add to ours  and the Graeter's ice cream we had for dessert. It was a respite from packing for them; they're still planning to load and move on Thursday. And if the snow will allow, we plan to go help them pack tomorrow afternoon.

Mildred Holmes, "Oma," had a pretty smile
while Nora and Ruby wiggled for my snapshot
just before they left this evening.

They're predicting 4+ inches for Butler County tomorrow, preceded by freezing rain, so we're hoping it's not as bad as they're expecting so we can get to Price Hill to help a little. Jen and Matt and the kids are planning to make the trek from Pennsylvania here tomorrow, and I'm nervous about the bad weather they may be facing.
After Webers left this evening, I got on line and bought tickets for the 7:00 showing of Les Miserables at the Rave. We got there by about 6:20 and waited in line behind 50 or 75 people till the theater was cleaned from the previous showing. We had great seats, high in the theater, right in the center of the row, for the best movie experience I can remember in a long time.
A hoard of my Facebook friends went to see the movie today. One of them said he started crying when it started and cried through the whole thing. He would have had good company with the young girl sitting beside me who sniffed and wiped her eyes intermittently throughout the film.
I was surprised to find myself moved to tears more than once during the musical. It was compelling, not so much because of the familiar music but more because of the remarkable portrayals, especially by Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman. Kudos should also go to Eddie Redmayne, Helena Bonham Carter, and Sacha Baron Cohen. Of the major players, I was least impressed with Russell Crowe, but he was sufficiently evil enough to make us want him to lose.
Evelyn and I came home and snacked on dinner leftovers, checked Facebook, and watched the threatening weather reports on the TV news to end the day.
It was a good Christmas, like I said, just a little different than most Christmases we can remember.

Christmas with Friends

"This is my favorite day of Christmas," Sev Friskney said when they arrived for dinner Sunday night. The day before the day before Christmas. It was a good--although a busy--day for us.

The choir wore their formals and tuxes to help lead
our Christmas Sunday worship service.

Evelyn and I did a brief narration as part of the worship services at 9:30 and 11:00 at church in the morning. (I had written it in response to an e-mail from Dave Lautzenheiser asking for ideas to connect two parts of the service.) And this was our Welcome Center Sunday too, so we got to church about 9:00 and stayed till almost 12:30.
John and Mary Jane Burgess came to worship with the church at Mason, and we had a nice visit with them as well as happy "Merry Christmas" greetings with many others in all the time we had to spend in the church lobby Sunday morning.
We grabbed lunch at LaRosa's and I took Evelyn home before heading out to run a couple of errands--last-minute grocery run and a visit to the Honey Baked Ham store.
Then I worked with Evelyn to complete preparations for the Christmas dinner we hosted with friends that evening: roast beef, green beans, Waldorf salad, twice baked potatoes; Evelyn's traditional cheese ball and fresh shrimp for appetizers, along with the cranberry apple hot punch we enjoy making at Christmastime. Since all our Christmas with family will be after "the day" this year, we decided to host this Christmas dinner on the weekend before Christmas.
Sev and Paul Friskney and Verna and Bill Weber came after 5:30 and stayed till almost 11:00. We laughed (even though Bill said it hurt to laugh after gall bladder surgery Thursday) and talked and snapped a couple of pictures before they left.