Formal Date

The next big thing we did was go on a really nice formal date; I got Bwige all dressed up and took her dancing! First, I took us to get private ballroom dancing lessons. We got 2 instructors all to ourselves for 2 hours. The guy was a really good dancer but I didn’t like what he was telling Bwige to do. It seemed like he was wanting to her not think and I didn’t like that.

Anyways…. Next we went to Bella Italia West, a SUPER nice restaurant. It specializes in exotic game (moose, caribou, elk....). I had the caribou and Bwige had the pheasant. Both were very tasty but Bwige’s was MUCH better than mine. I paid $35 stinkin dollars for my plate and I got like 2 freakin ounces of meat!!! What a rip off!!! The sides were a little mini-ice-cream scoop of collard greens and a mini-ice-cream scoop of rice. Geez… And the bread wasn’t very good either (the bread at olive garden is much better). Bwige got a lot more, she got 2 pheasant breasts covered with ham and cheese – they were VERY rich and VERY tasty!!!

The other thing about the restaurant was that they had lots of wall murals. We were sitting against one that had some war scene on it so I couldn’t see it very well. The one that was in my view was a full wall picture of naked ladies bathing. Why do restaurants do that? I know its supposed to be classical art, but seriously, guys have enough trouble keeping their mind in good places as it is…. large paintings of naked women don’t help! Arg.

After dinner we stopped at Braums for some very tasty ice cream. Then we headed for the ballroom dancing (where everyone was gathering to actually dance). So we get there and sat with our instructors which was nice. We got to dance a bit (the foxtrot) but I wasn’t very good at it so we mostly watched other people dance. Ballroom dancing is a lot like swing dancing…. if you were to take out all the fun parts of swing dancing like smiling, and being relaxed, looking into each other’s eyes, and enjoying it, then you would get ballroom dancing. In ballroom dancing, you have to stay absolutely rigid the whole time with your arms up in the air while your partner looks up and away from you in the most hoity-toity expression she can possibly muster. Yah.

All in all, there are 2 perspectives on the evening…

1) I really enjoyed the evening because my wife had a fabulous time. She really enjoyed the lessons, the meal, and the dancing. Therefore, it was a successful evening. (in the end, this is the perspective that actually matters).

2) This was probably the most ridiculous date I have ever been on. I literally spent our whole month’s fun & restaurant budget on this one date. I could have gone to KFC and paid $2 for 1 chicken breast with more meat than my $35 plate of caribou. Ballroom dancing is totally opposite of my style and I really didn’t enjoy Bwige’s rigidity during it.

But like I said, this night was for Bwige. I am ridiculously in love with her and am very glad that she enjoyed the evening. Marriage is all about pleasing the other person. And I would not have changed a thing about the evening because she got a formal fancy date like she wanted. She felt like a princess (which she is). Mission Accomplished.

Finals & Friends

Well, finals are finally over. I think I did pretty well in all my classes. Well, all except for Hebrew… but remember, D is for Diploma. I don’t like that, but languages just kick my butt! I am just happy to pass the class.

I am now taking the summer off. I am going to relax. Unfortunately, as I am finding out, I am not very good at that. I am so task oriented, that I feel guilty if I not being productive. The other thing is that I don’t have a lot of people to hang out with. So I am not sure what to do with my time when I try and relax… one thing I really enjoy doing is eating, but that takes a lot of money after a while. So I don’t know… I really wish I had more people to hang out with… but people are just so stinkin busy… I feel like its always my job to call people and that’s frustrating. I rarely having people call and want to hang out, its always me calling them. And its like… if you really value our friendship, you will call. And its been kinda nice cuz I have had 2 people call me lately that haven’t called me in quite a while but 2 or 3 times in the last 5 months isn’t very encouraging. Its just our stinkin culture that has people so busy… we value business when we should value relationships… oh well…

I need to find some more friends that I can actually hang out with on a regular basis.. problem is I’m not too good at just finding random people…

Spring Break

Well here is my long overdue posts (in multiple parts) - have fun!

First, spring break. (wow… has it really been that long… ). I went to Michigan for spring break and preached at a small church. I preached Sunday morning, and then Sunday night through Wednesday night (5 times total). Sunday morning I preached on who Christ is. I showed that he is superior and is worthy of our worship with shows itself through our actions and through our words.

Sunday night I talked about the fact that many of us see God as a nice cushy pretty God who is always interested in making us happy. I showed that this God is a fake God. The God of scripture primarily wants to bring glory to himself and to grow us into more mature believers whether or not that makes us comfortable. Then on Monday night I asked people to consider whether or not they were actually Christians. I said that they should not look inside their minds at what they ‘believe’ but at their actions. Scripture says that if you are a Christian you will show it by your actions (love, charity, studying scripture, worship, prayer, fasting….). If you don’t have those things, it doesn’t make you lose your salvation, but it probably shows that you are not a Christian.

Tuesday night I talked about prayer, and Wednesday night I did a first person narrative from the Old Testament. That was a lot of fun. I got dressed up and told a story. The kids in the audience seemed to enjoy that a lot.

I had fun the whole week playing in the snow and taking lots of pictures. After I was done preaching, Bwige and I drove up to Canada and played in the snow there. It was a BLAST!! Then we drove home through Green Bay and flew home. All in all, the trip was a lot of fun.

I'll post again soon...

ok, so life's been crazy, but I will post again soon. It will include a lot of info... but I'm still deciding whether to break it up or make it one long post... guess you'll just have to wait and see.