The Miracle On Landsdowne St.

That's right, we went to Game 1 of the World Series at FENWAY PARK! And if you didn't know how hard those tickets are to get your hands on, you're looking at paying at least four times the face value, but more often these tickets are going for thousands of dollars.

Well, it was our normal Wednesday date night and we started into one of our normal routines. That's right...Chili's and we got our normal chips and salsa while splitting the quesadillas. But to change things up we had decided that we would go by Fenway to take in some of the atmosphere of the World Series before the game started. For fun, we decided to make a sign that read "Need 2 Face Value - Not Scalped Tix for Our Daughters First Sox Game." There was then a little arrow pointing down to Joy. About an hour before the game we went to one of the busiest places around the park and I held the sign up while Joy sat there revealing here cute little belly and waiting for sympathy coupled with extra tickets. Well, we got plenty of sympathy, laughs, good lucks, and a few ahhhs...but 15-20 minutes after standing there, a "miracle," as the guy next to us put it, occurred.

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A man by the name of Dennis walks up looking at our sign and chuckles. He had got his hands on a bunch of tickets and brought 13 friends and family with him to the game. However he had several leftover that he had been selling for well over $300 each which was 4x the face value. Somewhat moved by compassion, he asked if we were willing to go any higher seemingly wanting to sell us the tickets but not take to big of a hit because he too had bought them at an inflated price. We told him that we couldn't go any higher, but if he had any problems selling them that we would be right there. After taking about three steps away he spun around and asked, "Are you guys ready to go in right now?" Joy and I immediately looked at each other in amazement, not really thinking that we were going to be going to Game One of the World Series and decided to go for it. He escorted us in to make sure that we were going to sell them for a few hundred bucks ourselves.

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The atmosphere was so much fun and so exciting. Our seats were in the right field bleachers and we cheered on the Sox to a 13-1 victory. Now that is changing up our date night! I also got to see Peter Gammons, Chris Berman, and John Kruk.

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Click here for more World Series pics.

College Retreat

WooHoo! There's nothing quite like powerfully experiencing the presence of God in an incredibly beautiful setting. The foliage was possibly the most beautiful and bright I have ever seen and the camp was set on a lake with a large foothill serving as the backdrop.

The Gulley family (Jonathan and Amy) came from the Antioch church plant in Wheaton, IL, to speak at our retreat which was October 19-21. They brought a clear message of friendship and intimacy with God resulting in walking in the Spirit or continually experiencing God's presence. The first night, as we arrived, the weather was very stormy with rain and high winds. The next day the clouds started to break with a mixture of clouds and sunshine. Finally on Sunday when we got up to head back to church there was a full measure of bright sunshine. We felt like the weather was parallelling what God was doing in our spirits. The Lord was moving us forward in Him as we responded to His initiation of going deeper in our faith and intimacy with Jesus.

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Not only were our worship and teaching times great, but we had a lot of fun together building friendships and making new ones. It was an exciting weekend...a fun weekend...and we continue to anticipate where God is going to take us coming out of our time together.

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Click here for more College Retreat pics.

Perseverance

Let me take you quickly back to March. . . "DISCIPLINE" the Lord says..."You need more of it in your life" (but in a much kinder way). I quickly agree with the Lord's assessment thinking I can read back through Proverbs and meditate on the verses about the sluggard, etc. Yet the Lord takes me on a bit of a different road, a long one...26.2 miles to be exact. Yep, active learning through much pain, some injury, and a lot of miles logged on three different pairs of shoes.

There were many mornings where excitement would be the opposite of the emotion I was sensing. However, it was sweet to see the mileage add up and the runs become easier through the weeks and months. I battled injury, running very little in September, but felt pretty good come October 13th for the Hartford Marathon. I was so thankful to have my brother, Bret, there from Texas. He was injured in his training and the doctor advised him not to run the marathon. However, he did run the first and last five miles of the race with me. The last five were a lifesaver as he was constantly encouraging me despite fighting his own knee pain. It was great having Joy and my parentst there to spur me on as well.

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Anyway, it is finished and I can truly say, "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

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Click here to see more marathon pics.

Anticipation

Less than two months...Its hard to believe that we will have a little baby in our arms in 8 short weeks. Excitement builds everyday anticipating what she will be like, who she will become, how we will be as parents. Joy's little belly continues to grow as well -- even though that's the only place sh is growing -- with more movement everyday. The doctors have all commented on the amount of kicking and movement going on from early stages. So it looks like we'll have a little bundle of energy. Life will surely be looking different, so we are attempting to enjoy these last weeks of it being 'just the two of us,' and dreaming of what our little addition will add and subtract (ie. sleep). We also been working on the nursery as seen behind Joy in the picture. We added the bead board and now have painted it white. We're excited about the way it turned out. It is so fun having so many anticipating this arrival with us. Sorry for the torture of withholding her name...but along with wanting to make sure we like what we've picked, we are going for the surprise element.