Brad's Wedding

This past week, I had the incredible honor of being the best man in one of my closest friend's wedding.  It was so much fun.  I have known Brad for about six years now, and he is one of the men that has "spurred me along in my faith" the most.  Brad is one of those guys that is always only a phone call away and is quick to encourage, gently correct, teach, and just be an authentic guy.  Right now Brad is doing social work and taking seminary classes online with hopes of pastoring a church in the future.

I got to meet new people and build new friendships.  Getting to know the other groomsmen was a complete joy.  I think what made it the most fun was the fact that we all had very different personalities (outgoing and introvert, slap stick vs. dry humor), life goals (science, ministry, business, and adventure), interests (sports, fashion, authors), and geographies (Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Lansing, New York, and Chicago).  But we had one thing in common, a deep joy in our relationships in Christ.  This kept us up til all hours of the night discussing theology, the church, our roles as Christians within the church, and spilling our trials and triumphs with guys that we have known for about 6 hours. 

Because it would be too boring for me to recount the whole weekend (let's be honest, it's because I'm to lazy), I'm breaking it down into a list of highlights.

Highlights:

- Getting to spend a lot of time around Kevin DeYoung

- Eating ribs with the groomsmen until we were sick

Beautiful, isn't it?

- Enjoying great beer, great conversation, and better fellowship

- Doing what I do best, goof around!

Think I can pull off the cabby look?

- Standing next to Brad as he got married

One word, "Stud!"

- Dancing with my wifey

Ok, I know we aren't dancing, but isn't she pretty? Go Sparty!

- Meeting Ted Kluck (he wrote a book that Brittany and I really liked)

- Seeing old friends

The Dupuis', The Hass', The Imminks, and the Maronicks

- Hanging out with the Maronicks

- Giving the best man speech

Nailed it!

Congrats Brad and Steph!  We love you!

Work and Play

Recently we have had the opportunity to spend some time with my parents that has been really great!  I think we have to break down the time into two phases: work and play.

The work:

I think we can consider many things in our lives as both a blessing and a curse.  Houses (having a place to sleep vs. repairs), phones (having a place to play angry birds vs. phone contracts), jobs (making money vs. work), and the focus (this is a pun, hahaha) of this blog: cars.  In particular, my Ford Focus station wagon  (get the pun now?).  Normally, I'm used to getting a lot of comments about how my car is a babe magnet or how it oozes testosterone, but lately it's been aging a bit.  My car has been battling cancer, and I'm sad to say, it's not looking good.  My rear window motor quit working, so I have a road atlas jammed in it so that the window stays up. 

But the big problem was my front struts, the key component with the suspension.  So I called up Dad so that we could work on it ourselves and not take it to the shop.  I was told this should be an easy fix and save me some money.  It turned out to not be much of either.  Theoretically, the fix was easy.  Jack up the car, pull off the wheels, remove 5 bolts, and replace the part.  However, removing rusty bolts like being in a street fight (I'm in a ton of street fights, so I know from experience).  Things that you will encounter in both instances: anger, rolling on the ground, blood, bruises, dirt, frustration, and the satisfaction of knowing you kicked that nut's butt!  Literally took us hours to loose those bolts and nuts, broke a couple of tools in the process, including a Craftsman wrench (which are quality, guaranteed for life, American made tools).  Replacing these ourselves, probably saved us about $500!



My Beautiful new front struts :)

 However, this lead to getting my front tires replaced, which is where I found out my ball joint was shot.  So I took it into a shop, and when they were working on it, my controller arm disintegrated from rust  (re:cancer), so I had to get that replaced.  Then got an alignment done, and found out my rear struts were shot.  So we tried to fix that ourselves, and couldn't.  Brought it into the shop, got those replaced and new tires on the back.  So it was pretty cool to be able to spend the money that I saved so quickly (insert sarcasm).

Unsafe tires.  Notice the wearing on the left, yikes!!  My other front tire had wire showing...

Hundreds of dollars later, my car is back to being a blessing, except in my pocket. 
I'm sooo thankful for my Dad and the work that he did with me any my car :)

The Play:

Over Labor Day, we went out to the pines and had an awesome time!  We got to see my parents (of course), Grampa and Janet, and Matt, Christine, and Riley!  It was seriously so great so see all the fam!

We did a lot of hanging out, relaxing, did a ropes course, and had one of my favorite meals: a low country boil :)

Brittany striking a pose on the ropes course

Loooove playing with my little buddy Riley :)



Low Country Boil!!!  Hooray for Shrimp, Corn, and Sausage!!!