All Nighter

Tomorrow night I will be playing in an All Night softball tourney with my church team. As I begin to think about it, several things come to mind:

• I won't get any sleep at all
• I better take a nap tomorrow afternoon
• I am going to be REALLY tired on Saturday
• I am going to have so much fun playing softball with some great guys
• I hope I don't fall asleep in the middle of the night on the diamond
• I'm getting older and I don't like it

Our first game is at 9:00 and then the fun begins! I am really looking forward to it! Details of how it went will come in a post on Saturday.

Half Marathon Update

As many of you know, I committed to running a half-marathon with my fiance in early June. Let me update how things have been going. For the most part, I have felt pretty good in most of my runs. I ran 6 miles this past Saturday and felt horrible because of the humid air and not much food in my body. I just finished running four today. I have been averaging about 20-22 miles a week. My days off are usually Thursday and Sunday.
I ran cross country in high school and my longer runs bring back horrible memories of those days! My goal is just not to walk at all and not really care too much about my time. The race at the end of September will be a lot better because I will be running with my fiance, and some of my best friends, Marty and Mindy Graverson and Dan and Katie Weiss. I know my buddy Dan has been updating his marathon training daily and I hope to do the same. You can check out Dan's blog by clicking on his name on my page. With the hot and humid weather the past two days I have been running inside. I am hoping to get out tomorrow if it isn't too bad.

The longest I have ran is six miles.....right now I can't imagine running 13.1!

A Summer To Remember

Wow! It has been awhile since I have blogged. I am ready to get back into the swing of things now. This summer has been the best summer of my life! I can't believe it is almost August and that school is right around the corner. Here are some of the highlights from the past two months of my life:

CDAWG's June/July REWIND:

June:

• End of school (6th)


• Went on a mission trip to Washington, D.C. This was an amazing trip where God showed up!


• Went on vacation to South Haven, Michigan with my fiance and parents


• Spent several days with family and friends


• Lots of beach and pool days


• Lots of softball

July:

• Got engaged to the most beautiful girl in the world!!!!! God has blessed me with one awesome fiance!


• Spent the 4th of July with my fiance, parents, and some of my best friends


• Lots of pool and beach days


• Summer Camp. This by far was the best camp I have EVER been to in my life! I saw God move in so many ways with our students. I am so excited to see where our youth group goes this year and beyond


• Lots of fun time with friends


• Lots of softball

August is right around the corner (Friday) and it is coming quickly. I am headed to see the White Sox vs Red Sox on August 10 so that will be fun.

Summer Camp '08

July is always an exciting time of year for our students and ministry at NMC. Every July we have Summer Camp in Ohio. I have gone the past few years and it has been life changing every year! This year's theme is SEEK (Jeremiah 29:13)

We head out Friday morning and return on Tuesday night. The camp always has a lot of cool stuff that happens. Here are some things we look forward to:

• Celebration Times (I have seen God move big in these worship times...can't wait!)


• TAWG (Time Alone With God)


• Group Activities


• Paintball


• Cedar Point (Kids love it, I hate heights!!!!!)


• Tubing/Jet Ski


• Times to hangout with cottage group


• Good food

Please pray for us this week as we leave that God will move in amazing ways. Also pray for Derry and Brad as they will be speaking this week.

You can follow what is taking place over at Derry's website. Just click on Derry's name to the right of my blog.

Night at the Dunes

Yesterday was a fun day. We started to head to the beach, but it was really windy so we just stayed at the pool. It was a relaxing time.

We headed to Saugatuck to go on the dune rides. We rode the dune schooner. You can check out the pictures to see what one looks like. We rode up and down the dunes, went pretty fast, saw some really awesome views, and got some sand in our faces :) It was a blast actually!!!

We finished the night by heading over to one of our families childhood friends house in Holland to have some dessert.

Today is going to be a really fun time. My good friends Dan and Katie, Hanah and David Weiss and Derry and Janelle Prenkert and Katylynn are going to be spending the Fourth with us on the beach. I am really looking forward to it!

My Parents, Jill and I after our engagement

I want to thank my wonderful parents for helping me plan this awesome night! I had them help me plan the poster in the sand and making this a special night for Jill and I.

Wednesday In Rewind

Well, let's just say I am still on cloud 9 after my big engagement from last night. I was too excited to sleep much last night, but I hope I can sleep well tonight :)

Today was another fun-filled day here on Lake Michigan. Jill and I began our day by running four miles. We have run 4 miles every day this week. Jill has talked me into running in a half marathon in September in Ft. Wayne so we are training for that. Another really cool thing about the half marathon is that my buddy Dan and his wife Katie are also running in it. I am pretty nervous about it, but with Jill's help, I will do fine I think.

After we ran, we ate some breakfast before heading down to the beach. We got to the beach and it was super windy. It seemed like a sandstorm and it wouldn't have been a good day to stay down there. Since it was too windy to stay at the beach, we just headed to the pool where we are staying and had a good time anyway. It started to cloud up around 4 so we headed in to get ready for the evening. We then shopped around a little before having an awesome dinner at The Vineyard, which is a really good pizza place. We finished the night by getting some of our pictures developed that we have taken so far.

Thank you so much for all the comments and love from friends and family during this exciting time in our lives!

Here is a tentative schedule for tomorrow:

• 4 mile run


• Breakfast


• Beach


• Riding the Sand Dune Buggies in Saugatuck tomorrow night


• Supper in Saugatuck

One Amazing Sunset and Night

After supper we headed down to the beach to see the amazing sunsets on Lake Michigan. If you have never been here before, you really need to do that soon. Here is what the view looked like.

As we were walking down to look at the sunset, I looked for the proper rock to sit on to watch the sunset. Now, there was a reason why I wanted to sit at a specific rock. I have been planning for about a week now of proposing to my girlfriend on the beach. My parents are with us on the trip and I sent them to do a big job for me. Their job was to bury a poster for me. As we got closer, I walked by and started pulling out this poster from the sand. I was like, "What in the world is this?" You should have seen Jill's face when she first read this poster. By the way, the poster said, "Jill, will you marry me?" You should have seen the look on her face, it was classic. Well, she said YES and I was totally blown away.

I am so glad that is finished because I was so nervous the whole day. For you guys out there, you can probably relate to being nervous before you asked your significant others to marry you right?

I am so happy because God has brought an amazing woman of God to me. I have been praying that God would bring me a special person who I could spend my life with. God is so good!

Enjoy the pictures!

Lake Michigan

Finally! After a busy school year ended on June 6, I had one week off before I headed to Washington D.C. for a week on a mission trip with my church. There really hasn't been a lot of just "down time" of doing nothing since summer started for me. That is all changing this week!

I am currently on Lake Michigan for a week of vacation with my girlfriend and parents. We got here yesterday and it has been two really great days. The weather today was perfect! The high was about 81 and it was great beach weather. Had a lot of great laughs on the beach with some jart games, football throwing, swimming, and riding the waves. I love the beach and often wonder how awesome it would be to live near a big beach all the time.

Tonight we are headed to a really good fish place for supper and then enjoy the amazing sunsets that take place here on Lake Michigan. Last night looking at the sunset just reminds me how great God is and all that he has blessed me with. Just looking out at the miles and miles of water, the sunset, and just my surroundings this week.