We had a very
nice Easter with family at our house after our Sonrise service, church
breakfast, and Easter Worship. He is risen indeed!
We’ve started
doing some testing on Windows10 at work. So far I like what I see,
although we aren’t yet to where we are using it every day. The test
results have all come out passing, so we should be able to start moving people
over to it later this year.
God is very
gracious to us. Here’s proof: This year, Krista and I didn’t work
with our Journey teens (Awana’s program for 9th – 12th graders). Their
leaders were Scott Anderson, Jon Burghardt, and our daughter, Abigail.
However, we wanted our whole family to join them for Summit, the annual
national competition, because Krista and Amelia had earned their Citation
Awards for completing all of the Awana books from 3rd – 12th grade, and we
wanted to be there to see them get that award. Since the Journey team was
small this year, we offered to take everyone in our van.
Jon was in
Michigan on business and planned to meet us there. The night before we
were to leave, Scott came down with fever, chills, and vomiting. He is in
remission right now for leukemia and so is on immune suppressant medication, so
when he gets something like this, it is a big deal. He ended up going to
the hospital with a bacterial blood infection, and was in the hospital the
whole time we were gone. God’s grace #1: Scott is doing much better
now, and is back serving at our church again.
Krista and I
had been to Summit several times before, so we knew the routine, pretty
much. We made the trip to Vienna, Virginia (near Washington DC), without
incident (God’s grace #2), and got the teens all registered for their
events. The teens with us were our son, Zach, and Ben and Hannah
Holcomb. Scott was the coach for their quiz team, but Jon had taught them
the lessons, so we thought he could coach since Scott couldn’t make it.
Abigail had been at the quiz practices, but hadn’t really worked with the material
other than doing it herself several years ago.
The next
crisis was when we found out Jon’s project was taking longer than
expected. It turned out he wasn’t released until Saturday, which was the
last day of Summit, so he couldn’t come at all. So, Abigail was thrown in
last minute as the quiz coach, being the only leader who had been with the
teens at all. But she did a great job (God’s grace #3) coaching them, and
the team did very well, making it to the Gold round before being eliminated.
They also participated in volleyball and Awana Games with other churches, and
they had a lot of fun meeting those teens.
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| Pennsylvania Welcome Center on the way down |
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| Studying with the team from Syracuse |
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| More studying |
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| Volleyball |
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| Chatting before quizzing |
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| Ready to quiz |
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| Coach Abigail |
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| Crushing the multiple choice questions |
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| Ben correctly answering a speed question |
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| Former teammate, now opponent, Lissa Phillips, answering a speed question |
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| Hannah correctly answering a speed question |
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| Gold medal round awards |
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| Yes, they're real! |
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| Awana Games basketball relay |
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| Hannah slides in for the win! |
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| Ben rounds the last corner in the agility race |
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| That blur is Zach |
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| Balloon relay |
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| The Games team |
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| The Goofy team |
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| Krista Matthews, Citation Achiever |
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| Amelia and Krista Matthews, Citation Achievers |
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| All the Citation Achievers |
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| At the Washington Monument (OK, not really) |
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| Amelia loves George |
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| The Holcombs at the White House (again, not really) |
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| More White House silliness |
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| Doing the Lovell, a Summit tradition (ref. Apollo 13) |
We spent
Sunday morning at the Udvar-Hazy Center Smithsonian Air and Space Museum near
Dulles Airport. It was a fascinating museum with lots of great exhibits
and fun things to do. When we were finished there, we made our way home.
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| The team in front of the Space Shuttle |
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| Amelia and Amelia (Earhart and Matthews) |
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| In the observation tower |
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| Digging the glasses! |
God smoothed
things out for us this whole weekend (God’s grace #’s 4 and following), from
the hotel reservation, traveling, registration, making connections with people
we needed to find, and on and on. We are so thankful to Him for caring so
wonderfully for us. He even had our hotel be within a couple of blocks of
a Chick-Fil-A! As I said, God is very gracious to us!
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| Chick-Fil-A! |
To finish
this month’s adventures, this past weekend, Zach and I went with our Civil Air
Patrol squadron to Wright Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, to visit
their museum. It was a lot like the Udvar-Hazy Center with cool displays
and fun things to do.
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| Getting ready to leave for Wright-Patterson AFB Museum |
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| Pictures we had taken at the WPAFB Museum, this one with B2 Stealth Bomber and F22 (?) Raptor |
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| With Air Force One |
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| With SR71 Blackbird |
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| We went bowling on base after the museum tour |
Now I get to
stay home for a while (whew!). I’m looking forward to a normal week of
work followed by a normal weekend of family and worship.
Talk to you
in May!
