In the Midwest…

I really stink at keeping this thing updated. So here’s a big pile of what we’ve been doing the past several weeks.

May 12 – Ken graduates from Denver Seminary. It only took a half-decade.

May 18 – Ken and Renee drive a moving truck, tow a car, and drive the other one to Lookout Mountain, GA, our new home.

May 21 – Ken and Renee hang out on campus at Covenant College and in Chattanooga with the staff we’ll be working with. Fun times were had by all.

May 22 – Ken and Renee make the 10 1/2 hour drive north to join our son at Grandma and Grandpa Brouwer’s in Grand Rapids, MI.

June 1 – After spending time in GR with friends and family for a week and a half (we had a great time relaxing, working on the Sushi restaurant and hanging out at a lake), we went off to Pella, Iowa for Renee’s grandpa’s 80th birthday party. It was fun hanging out with the extended fam, and Jonathan had a great time playing with all his (third?) cousins. Saturday night I went to my first stock car race at the Iowa Speedway. I enjoyed myself much more than I thought I would.

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June 4-7 – Sunday, the third, I left Iowa to head up to St. Paul, MN for the national ACSD (Association of Christians in Student Development) conference, while Renee and Jonathan traveled back to GR. The conference was great, primarily because I was able to spend a ton of time hanging out with the people I’ll be working with this year. I also was able to hear Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz) speak and go to several great workshops. While driving around downtown Minneapolis we saw Joakim Noah walking around…must have been working out for the Timberwolves that week. All in all, it was a very enjoyable conference, though I was anxious to get back with the family.

June 8 – I had driven down to Madison to spend the night with our good friends Kevin and Kelly. Kevin is a certified arborist in nursing school, and we climbed up a big white oak in his backyard with full climbing gear and rappelled down. It was pretty sweet being 45-50 feet up in the air and swaying back and forth with the breeze. I then made the drive through Chicago traffic to meet up with Renee, Jonathan and Renee’s parents at her grandparents place in Munster, Indiana, where we had dinner and then went over to our friends Doug and Kim’s house.

June 9-11 – We spent the rest of the weekend in Chicago hanging out with old friends and having a grand old time playing Bags and Ladder Ball (or Cornhole and Grandpa’s Balls to us…don’t ask) It is always so refreshing to reconnect with old friends and have it feel like nothing has changed.

June 12-24 – Up in America’s Dairyland. We had a fantastic time hanging out with my family and relaxing. We were able to go see our favorite musician (Andrew Peterson) while we were there and the concert was great. AP writes amazing songs that are brimming with truth and it is always a joy to see him play in concert. On Father’s Day Renee, Jonathan, Aunt Katie, Uncle Josh, Papa Phil and I went up to Appleton to watch the Brett Favre Celebrity Softball Classic…It was hot, but a lot of fun…some other celebrities were spotted there too (right around the 1 minute spot). Jonathan went to Lakeside Park with Nani and Papa Steve and went to the petting zoo and rode the train twice…that boy is obsessed with trains! We spent some time fishing, relaxing at Mom’s house on the lake, and had some Litscher family photos taken at Hobbs Woods.

June 25 – We’re back in Michigan for a few days now, getting some last minute family time in and then we head home–sounds strange to say that–on the 30th. The Midwest tour has been great, but we’re anxious to start this new phase of our life! Lookout Mountain, here we come!