Unless you’ve been tucked away in a hole the past week, you’ve likely heard (repeatedly) that Green Bay Packer quarterback Brett Favre has retired from the NFL. And unless you happened upon this post by random chance, you know that I am a die-hard cheesehead and, when cut, I bleed green and gold. As such, it’s been a sad week in the Litscher household.

I love football. LOVE it. Early on in my childhood baseball (and the Brewers) had a firm grip on my heart-but there was still plenty of room there for the Packers. After the baseball strike of 1994, it was all football. Nevertheless, I have many memories of the Packers, pre-Brett Favre.

I remember when the Packers where terrible. Awful. When they couldn’t beat anyone and Randy Wright was slinging the ball around.

I remember when we had the second pick in the 1989 draft and we selected a can’t miss prospect-Tony Mandarich from Michigan State. The Packers went on to a 10-6 record that year due to the combination of Coach Lindy Infante, Don Majkowski (The Majik Man!) and Sterling Sharpe.

I remember that all being a fluke. Mandarich did, in fact, miss. Lindy Infante was fine, but no genius. The Majik Man had no other Pro Bowl seasons. A new regime was coming.

I remember arguing with my neighbors about whether or not Sterling Sharpe was the best receiver in the NFL. He sure seemed like it with the new QB slinging him the ball. Some guy name Favre (but it was pronounced Farve). Had a rocket arm but threw a ton of interceptions. The Packers started winning though.

I remember the excitement when Reggie White joined the Packers. Perhaps the biggest free agent ever, it did a lot to show that the Packers were a team on the rise and that Green Bay was a good location for black NFL players. Others followed and the defense improved to match the offense. If only we could get past the Cowboys in the playoffs.

I remember Antonio Freeman’s amazing catch against the Vikings.

I remember the excitement when the Packers made it to Super Bowl, which they went on to win. My junior year of high school. We watched the playoffs at Brigitte’s dad’s house in Mayville. We watched the Super Bowl at ours. I remember going crazy when the Packers scored. I remember jumping up and down with my dad when they won. It was amazing.

I remember them flying through the season and the playoffs the next year. 11 1/2 point favorites over the Broncos. I worked at the movie theater the day of the Super Bowl. We had already indicated that we would be closed for the evening movies, but we had matin?e shows. Probably 50 people showed up that afternoon. You should realize, Titanic had opened 2 months earlier. I went to my girlfriends house to watch the game with all of our friends.

I remember Elway’s helicopter dive. And Holmgren letting them score so we could get the ball back. And us not scoring. And just like that, it was over and we lost. There was silence in that basement TV room for a good 10 minutes before we packed up and left.

I remember Holmgren leaving the next year and the forgettable Ray Rhodes season.

I remember living in Chicagoland during college and having to put up with Bear fans…and being thankful we had the Bear-slayer lining up behind center.

I remember when Favre’s dad died and he played the Oakland Raiders on Monday night the following day. I remember him slinging the ball like none other, just trusting that his receivers would bail him out (they did). I remember the Cardinals beating the Vikings while the Packers beat the Broncos on the last game of the season that year…sending the Packers to the playoffs. Mom and Dad and Kati and Josh were out for Christmas and we were screaming in the basement. It was destiny. We beat the Seahawks “We want the ball and we’re gonna score.” We were beating the Eagles…and then came 4th and 26.

I remember 4-12. And everyone saying Favre was done. Will he retire or won’t he?

I remember 8-8. And everyone saying Favre was done. Will he retire or won’t he?

I remember 13-3. And seeing vintage Favre. He wasn’t done. Not even close. I remember the records…they just kept coming. Wins. Touchdowns. Yards. Interceptions (fitting). He took the youngest team in the league and carried them when they couldn’t find an identity. And they carried him too. It was an amazing season. I remember being incredibly jealous that my dad was at the Snow Game against the Seahawks in the playoffs. The stumbling shovel pass. It was amazing.

And, I remember the next week too. The magic just wasn’t there. Favre didn’t come through when we needed him. It just didn’t happen. And that was that.

Everyone thought he’d come back, but I really didn’t. I was already preparing for LAF (Life After Favre) and while I was disappointed he retired, I wasn’t surprised. He just didn’t feel like he could live up to Brett Favre anymore. He felt like after this season, anything less than a Super Bowl win next year would be unsuccessful, and the pressure was too much. He just didn’t want to play anymore. I don’t blame him.

It was a great 16 years. I have had the privilege of watching one of the best NFL players of all time just about every week he played. And I’ll be thankful for that. This post has grown too long for everything I intended to say about him, so I’ll have to continue it in another one (this may be called “therapy” for some ). Anyway, though I’ve seen this all week, I’ll chime in myself.

Thanks for the memories, Brett.

Had a great weekend. I just barely made it into Chicago before a big snow storm hit…we tried to land three times before the pilot could see enough to put the plane on the ground. Thursday was spent on campus at Trinity Christian College (TCC) for an alumni event, Friday was day long meetings for the Alumni Association Board of Directors and then a banquet that night for the Alumni of the Year awards. Saturday was breakfast with a great friend, Jeremy Junkin and then hanging out all day with Doug and Kim (with whom I was staying) , Keith who flew up from Ft. Lauderdale (and waited a good 45 minutes to complain about the weather), Brian and Matt. Good times (and deep dish pizza) were had by all.

I made it back in time to watch the Super Bowl (I was hoping to see the Packers…grr). ‘Twas a great game and I was excited to see the Patriots choke in the end. After the game I went to ESPN.com to start reading all of the analysis, when I was greeted by a familiar face…in fact, one that I had seen all weekend in Chicago. The Trinity Christian College Troll. There, on the front page of ESPN.com, was the mascot of the school I had just returned from. Great free advertising for a small Christian school in the suburbs of Chicago. The article focused on great, weird, unknown team names for college basketball teams. Was pretty cool to see.

In other news, Renee and Jonathan are having a great time in Florida with her folks. Jonathan is being a good boy and yesterday they all went to Sea World in Orlando. He was so excited to tell me how “Shampoo” splashed the people at the show and Renee said that he was very upset Shampoo did that until he was told that they wanted to get wet. He carried around a Shampoo bag all day and told everyone he met about it. They are down there until next Sunday enjoying the lovely weather while I play bachelor again up here. So far so good, but I’m starting to wish they were around again. It’s okay. I’ll be tough.

Speaking of Covenant, this past weekend we took our staff (6 student RA’s, our Assistant RD Brandon and his wife Becky and the three of us) up to Crossville, TN for a brief refocusing retreat. We had two condos (thanks for the hookup Mom!) and access to a hot tub, pool, raquetball and movies. I whupped up on some folks playing raquetball (I was the only one who had played before) and took Jonathan in the hot tub, and the rest of the time was spent watching movies, playing games and hanging out together talking about this new semester. These folks are the best kind of people and we love spending time with them…it’s always fun and refreshing. They all do a great job serving the students in our building and in the apartments and are great people to be “forced” to work with. Below is our family Christmas card.

Thanks for all you do, guys!

Merry Christmas from the Litschers! Once again we wanted to send you all a Christmas greeting and update you on some of the happenings in our corner of the world. We hope and pray you and your family are healthy and well and enjoying this Christmas season.

This year has again been full of many changes for our family. The biggest being our move from Denver CO to Lookout Mountain GA in May!! Ken graduated from Seminary on May 12^th, and it was with bittersweet emotions we said goodbye to all of our wonderful friends in Denver and made our trek across the country to our new Southern home. Ken was offered a position as the Residence Director of Andreas Hall at Covenant College, a Christian college about the same size as Trinity. We live in a brand new Residence Hall that opened in August, and we are so grateful for the ways God has provided for our family through this major transition. Ken loves working with the students in our building and he works with a great group of people in the Residence Life department too. Covenant College actually sits right on top of Lookout Mountain, and we love seeing the many gorgeous sunsets over the Appalachian Mountains. We have also enjoyed watching the leaves change colors this fall… something that we really missed while living in Denver. Ken keeps very busy meeting with the Resident Assistants and various other student leaders in our building. His office is right outside of our apartment and it is nice to be able to have him around so much. He is also glad to be done with grad school, and has had more time to read for fun and play his guitar.

Jonathan is continuing to grow so quickly. He has adjusted very well to living in a college setting and enjoys being around the “big kids” any chance he can get. He also attends a program every Tuesday called Mother’s Day Out. It meets at a Presbyterian Church on the mountain and he absolutely loves it! He loves playing with the other kids his age and we often find him singing songs that he has learned at school. We have also kept busy mastering potty training this fall, and he still loves playing with trains and cars.

I enjoyed a much needed break from the NICU this summer and have actually just started back to work in October. I took a per diem position in a 6-bed Level II Special Care Nursery and am loving work again. I only work about 4 to 6 times on a 6 week schedule (mostly days), but have been picking up some extra shifts for people on top of that as I am able. I also get to attend deliveries and take care of the babies right after they are born (something we didn’t get to do at Children’s) and that has been really fun for me. My friend Kelli also moved to Chattanooga this fall after her husband bought a dental practice in the area, and it has been a such a wonderful blessing to have her so close by.

We also found out in August, just after our 5^th anniversary, that we are expecting another child! We found out just before Thanksgiving that it is another boy J and my due date is April 21^st. I am feeling good, and so far the baby looks healthy and well. We are so thankful to God for this little miracle and pray He continues to watch over us both for the remainder of this pregnancy.

We are looking forward to a trip home to the Midwest over Christmas… this will be the first time we have been home over the holidays since before we got married. We would love to hear from you and pray you will have a meaningful Christmas season with your loved ones as we celebrate the birth of Jesus!

With much love,

Ken, Renee, and Jonathan

The Rules:
1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules. (if you don’t have a blog, email me)
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don?t forget to leave them a comment telling them they?re tagged, and to read their blog.

8 random things:

1. I am generally not a neat person, but I have to have my towel folded jut properly on the towel bar.
2. The first song I learned to play on the guitar was “Yesterday” by the Beatles.
3. The last song I learned to play on the guitar was “If I Were” by Andy Gullahorn
4. I fathered the strangest 2 year old you will ever meet. Seriously.
5. I raised the strangest dog you will ever meet. I’m sensing a pattern.
6. I sleep defensively with a knee and an elbow out to keep Renee (and her body heat) on her side of the bed. I love my wife. She’s just too hot. No further comment.
7. If I could only listen to 3 CD’s for the rest of my life they would be: Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God, The Eagles’ The Very Best of the Eagles (I know that’s 2 discs but I’m making the rules here), and…hrmmm…let’s go Paul Simon’s Negotiations and Love Songs.
8. I pick my nose. It’s true…sometimes I fling ‘em. Well, I’m glad that’s out there. Stop judging me…I know you do it too.

Okay…so now, Ryan, Tuggy, Matt, Amanda, AP (I’ll give it a shot), ummm…why don’t more of my friends/family have a blog…Danny, Christiana, and Mike…you’re it.

I just wanted to say that I have every intention of sitting down and writing an update as to how our time down in TN/GA is going…however, we do not have internet access down at the place we are staying on campus until our apartment is finished. So, this will have to suffice for the next few weeks I’m afraid.

Upcoming news:

• Adjusting to life in the south
• Living with side-by-side toilets
• Ken’s new guitar
• Updates about Jonathan
• The new job!
• Ken’s Official Endorsements

1. Jonathan does not stop talking. It’s still mostly gibberish, though he knows mama, dada, papa, yeah, uh oh, and his favorite NO. Anyway, he’s still such a weird, fun kid and is always making us laugh.

2. I have started my LAST year (Lord willing) at Denver Seminary. We don’t know what’s next, but it will be nice to move on to the next step in our life.

3. Renee’s job is still going strong and she’s still a great nurse. Though her heart isn’t really in the NICU much anymore, she’s gutting it out for the next few months unless something else comes along.

Thanks so much for praying for us over the last few months. We’re obviously still going through a time of grieving, but the Lord and our friends and family have been good to us.

This post was written in the NEW Internet Explorer 7. I still prefer FireFox, but IE7 is a definite improvement over IE6. I’ll try to be a little more regular in my postings in the future!

There is really no way to describe the flood of emotions that come over you when you lose a child, before birth or after (I would assume). There is shock, disbelief, anger, grief all rolled into one. We had started the day like any other, and had planned on a routine Dr. appointment where we would hear the baby’s heartbeat and start guessing if it was a boy or a girl (supposedly girls have higher heart rates, so according to this method of gender guessing, Jonathan should have been a girl). Anyway, it was a devastating day and we are still in shock and reeling from this hurt.

Renee had to have a D&C (dilation and curettage) to remove our baby on Friday and has been feeling fairly decent until today, when she began having some painful cramping. Though we were unaware, somewhere between 10-25% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, and that statistic does not change much for people who have had a healthy baby before. The doctor said that Renee’s body looked fine and healthy and that he could see nothing that would prevent us from bringing another healthy baby to term in the future and that this was probably some random thing that happened that we would never know the cause for.

We did decide that we wished to name the baby though, and after tossing around a few gender neutral names we decided to go with the Hebrew word for covenant and name our baby Brit. Though we are hurting, and frankly a little upset at God right now, we still trust in His faithfulness in keeping His covenants with us. We are reminded of it whenever we see a rainbow and read of His promises in His word. Though we are devastated we look forward to the day that Brit gets to introduce us to Jesus and give us the grand tour of heaven. Please continue to keep us in your prayers, both for Renee’s physical health and as we continue to grieve the loss of Brit. We have seen God’s love towards us through the prayers and acts of mercy of our family and great friends. We have been encouraged through the words of our favorite songwriter Andrew Peterson when he wrote Lullaby. It’s been too hard to listen to since Thursday, but since our family is all too familiar with the loss of an unborn baby recently; the words are an encouragement as they float through our minds. Thanks for your love and prayers.

Ken, Renee and Jonathan

The plus side to all of this rain is that the rivers where very high, which made the three waterfalls near us especially big this late in the summer. We passed Copeland Falls on the way to our campsite and hiked to Calypso Cascades and Ouzel Falls in the rain on Sunday and in the sun on Monday. There’s a bunch of pictures here from the trip, including some where I pretended to be a photographer. Hope you all are doing well, things have been great here!

So, a couple hours before we left, Jonathan was playing with the cooler and slipped and fell and hit his mouth on it, cried, held his breath and had another seizure. This one only lasted about a minute and half, but he was pretty inconsolable for a couple hours afterwards. The doctor thinks we should have him see a pediatric neurologist just to make sure everything is okay, but feels like it won’t be a big deal. So after lunch we finally headed down for our trip.

The first night we were at the state park was very windy. We were in our tent and Jonathan was in his Pack ‘n Play and at about midnight he started whining. It was about 40? out and he was cold, so we brought him into bed with us. So he slept great and we did not. We woke up at 6:00 and our day was started. After eating breakfast and getting clean, we headed over to the Sand Dunes.

The Sand Dunes themselves where pretty cool. It’s amazing to see this huge beach in the middle of nowhere up against the mountains. They were really quite beautiful. We didn’t hike to the top with Jonathan, but we ventured out a little bit. It was cool, but it wasn’t like there was a ton of stuff to do. I mean there’s the Sand Dunes, and that’s about it. There were some trails in the mountains near there, but we needed to get back to try and get a nap for Jonathan. It didn’t really happen…to hot this time. So we hung out around our fabulous campsite and Jonathan played with the rocks. We grilled out later in the intermittent rain and then Jonathan had his first S’more. I think he liked it. It was really cold again that night, so we decided to pack up in the morning and head home early.

We went back to the Dunes in the morning, and then headed over to a place called Zapata Falls. We drove up the mountain a few miles and then got out to hike up the trail. We got to the river and had to hike through that to get to the falls. They were gorgeous, and we had a great time there. It was actually worth the whole trip, so if you are ever heading down that way, two pieces of advice: First, go see Zapata Falls and hang out there. Second, for the love of God and everything holy, please reserve a campsite early in the National Park and stay FAR FAR AWAY from San Luis State Park. Some more of our pictures from the trip are right here.

So the other day I’m walking from one building to the next, crankin’ U2 on the iPod and I start hearing this hissing noise…at first I thought something was going screwy with my earbuds, but that was not the case. The seminary’s new campus is built on an old farming property that butts up against the South Platte River, and the are quite a few snakes around the place. We saw a couple of garden snakes a few days before, but they didn’t hiss this loud. All I could think of was that there was a venomous Western Rattler around these parts, and I was about to step on it.

So I’m watching my step and looking for the snake, when out of the corner of my eye I saw something flash. I turned around and there was the local wildlife hissing at me…a daddy Candian Goose protecting his new family.

I laughed out loud until the dumb thing started flapping his wings at me and took a few hard steps. I prepared for battle by grabbing my window sponge and turning to face him. I think he could tell by the look in my eyes that I meant business and he slowly backed away. I still look over my shoulder when I’m walking that route though.

That night Renee was working and Jonathan and I went for a walk on the path by the river. We were about a mile and a half from home when some dark clouds started rolling in. We pulled a 180 and headed back towards campus, but, sure enough, we were caught in the rain. I put the little hood up on the stroller to try to shield it from him, but he kept sticking his hands and head out the side to feel it. So we just enjoyed the brief rainstorm and continued on our walk.

We’ve had quite a bit of these quick afternoon/evening rainstorms lately, and it’s actually how Denver weather used to be. The clouds come over the mountains and have a brief dump and move on. The problem recently has been urban sprawl. As the metro area gets bigger and traffic gets worse, Denver pollution has been pretty bad. This has caused a lot of these afternoon storms to produce nothing but virga. In recent years though, Denver’s pollution has begun to be a little more under control (the dirty brown cloud is now just yellow). Hopefully this means a little more time enjoying getting caught in the rain (maybe Renee and I will have the pina coladas after Jonathan goes to bed…just don’t ask us what we’re doing at midnight.)

Along with about a dozen other people, we have a garden plot in the new community garden here at the seminary. If you recall, it was after a garden meeting that Jonathan had a temper tantrum and seizure. We’re hoping we have better luck with the garden.

So we had about a dozen yards of planter’s dirt delivered, and we made our garden by putting cardboard over a 4ft x 8ft plot and putting about a foot of dirt on top of it…supposedly this will kill the grass underneath it…I’m still a little skeptical, but we’ll see! We’re planting tomatoes, green and red peppers, cucumbers, beans and sweet corn. There is also a space where community watermelons, zucchini, squash and pumpkins are grown for everyone. There’s some more pictures here of the garden area and Jonathan. We are all doing well after Jonathan’s ordeal, so thanks for keeping us in your prayers!