Anti-Alliteration Assorted Artifacts, Articles, and Activities

Not to start the blog on a sad note, but for those who read this and weren't aware, Patrick's mom passed away last Friday morning after struggling for a long time with many health issues. The funeral was Tuesday morning in Pennsylvania, and a group of us from the church were able to make the drive in order to attend. The funeral went really well and the gospel was preached clearly, yet sensitively, in light of the fact that it was not clear whether or not Patrick's mom was a believer. Paige did an incredible job sharing some memories about her grandma on behalf of all the grandchildren. Here is a picture of Paige, Parker, their grandma, and her dog from their trip to see her a couple weeks ago:

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Change of subject, filling in for Pastor Bob on Sunday night went well. I spoke for 65 minutes on "The Spiritual Discipline of Corporate Worship." I find it difficult to evaluate my own speaking, but the feedback was encouraging and only a few people fell asleep (not lying).

Monday I was invited to go to the Tigers vs. Yankees game with a group from church. I went with the Owens family, minus Shannon, (I go over to their house almost every Tuesday night to watch American Idol.) and was able to take a few pics with my new camera that I bought with my birthday money. The old 3.2 megapixel camera just had to go.

[Ron, Trevor (busy at work), me, and Brooke. While the logo is
cropped out of the picture, it's important to notice that I'm wearing
my Iowa Hawkeyes hat. Gotta represent.]

[Brooke was really into the game! In fact,
this picture wasn't staged at all, more or less.]

[My view of the game, featuring the heads of Sarah and Chad Holmgren. I was suite mates with Chad in college, which is how I heard about this internship, and now he's a youth pastor at a local church a couple miles from Cornerstone.]

[I was experimenting with taking zoomed in pictures by pointing
my camera through the lens of a pair of binoculars. It worked
pretty well, all things considered.]

Lastly, oh yes, there's more. I've really been enjoying this new flavor of gum I discovered at Wal-Mart. It's like the Gushers of gum. So good.

P.S. I bought some cheap Strawberry scented air fresheners for my car, thinking that since I really like this gum, I would like what the smell did to my car. Now my car just smells like cough syrup. The down side is that my car smells like cough syrup. The plus side is that I haven't coughed in my car in 4 days. Nice.

[I'm curious how a piece of gum could be considered,
"Not a low calorie food," especially if it's sugar free,
but I will still be a faithful consumer.]