Three in the morning is a great time to post.

Season's Greetings friends and family. We are about to leave the Red Stick (Baton Rouge that is) and heading towards the Red Lake. I turned in my grades for my Calc class late last night. I can't believe the semester is over. We are hoping to get on the road very close to 4 AM central time. We will see many of you very soon and some of you even sooner. =P

We drive 14 to 18 hours today to get to my parents house in Eastern Iowa. Then we "sleep in" on Monday to continue north at 6 AM. I am excited about driving through Northern Iowa. We are meeting Lori Adams for breakfast. She has been a good friend of mine for over 10 years now. She was the coordinator for my mission trip to to Uganda back in 02 and she prayed at our wedding this summer. I am looking forward to some time that Lori and Rachel can get to know each other a bit.

So 9 hours or so of driving to spend Monday night in International Falls with Rachel's brother Sheldon and his family. Finally we ONLY have 6 hours of driving on Tuesday to arrive in Red Lake Ontario.

* Pray for safe travels. Pray that the 30 plus hours in the car would be a time the strengthens and deepens our marriage. And pray that the time over the next 3 weeks with friends and family would renew us both for the coming year.

Hope to post again soon.

It's snowing in Baton Rouge!!!!!

OK so Rachel made a comment on her latest post about not wearing pants while going uptown. And yes she meant shorts. (She'll think I'm not so tough, just because I'm in love with and up town girl, Ah Billy Joel).

So yesterday I had to go to campus. I was about to put some khaki pants on when Rachel said to me, "Say sweetie, it's not that cold out and I'm trying to get enough laundry done for the trip. Could you wear shorts to campus?" Eight hours later I am sitting in the math building and my lovely wife pops up on IM. She asks me, "Hey Dave how safe are you going to be driving home? They are predicting frezzing rain in parts of Mississippi and Louisiana." I didn't freeze here, but it was raining a bunch and in the lower forties upper thirties while I was walking down the hill to get to my car. In shorts that isn't fun. I made it home last night and I felt like a mathsicle.

So life isn't dull around here. We are putting in about 30 hours of driving in three days at the begining of next week. So pray for us. And we will see many of you in the great white north.

***********************************

Hey I just posted this blog and looked outside and there is about an inch of snow outside. In Baton Rouge!!!!

crazy stuff eh? =)

A shorter post that should make you want to read Rachel's longer post.

Hello all. It is September 9th. One month I have been a married man. Rachel has been doing most of the blogging from our neck of the woods. Although it has been less of a neck of the woods since Gustav knocked so many trees down.

Yes Rachel does get violent being cooped up inside. She also tends to start sentences and then shift into a totally different sentence before she finishes the other one. (she does bug me that I start sentences and then never finish them. But that's not quite as fun. =D ) She does it all the time and I need to be writing them down because they are stinking funny. One time we were driving and Rachel was flipping through the atlas. She said, "Why can't an atlas be more like google maps. You know so you can zoom in and out. It needs to be more Accu- whole picture." I'm still wondering what an accuwhole picture is.

Rachel did teach me how to play 10,000 and it has been so fun. Yes she beats me most of the time. However I want to mention that last night I won. It was great because it was all her fault. I had forgotten that 3 fives was 500 and not 150.

D: So on my first roll I got 150 and another 100 makes 250.
R: No it's not. That first roll was 500. So the next 100 makes 600.
D: Oh yeah, SWEET! I'll take 600 then. I was at 9400 added to 600 is 10,000. I WIN!
R: What??? No, you wouldn't have gotten that if I didn't remind you.
D: Yeah but I still win.

So that brings my win total to 2. Which is nice cause Rachel is like a dozen games up on me or something.

By the way we did get to Walmart on Sunday to get stuff to put the desk together. Yeah Saturday was crazy. A whole bunch of running around for very little bought. But it was worth it for one reason. OUR SPOON REST!!!! Really we got the sweetest spoon rest on Saturday. (That's the day Rachel blogged about when we couldn't find the bathroom. See I told you this post would make you want to read it.) Anyway having made my first french toast last week made me truly appreciate the need for a quality spoon rest. At the first Bed Bath and Beyond we found a nice looking metal spoon rest. But as Rachel mentioned we didn't get anything there. But at the second Bed Bath and Beyond we found a spoon rest at HALF the price that matches our new dishes perfectly. Now there is a win win situation if I ever heard of one.

I hope my story was a gift to you. I hope to blog a picture of our spoon rest soon.

Fourth of July weekend

It’s been a while since I have updated my blog. Part of the reason is that because I am living in Warsaw for just a few months this summer I decided not to hook up internet in my apartment and I still only have a desktop. So I am writing this from my Parents computer. I am actually burning some CDs to listen in the car on the way back to Warsaw. (Don't worry, they are Jon Piper sermons so it's legal) Right now it is really really late so I am not sure how amusing this blog post is going to turn out. =P

Thursday we decided to take a longer rout around Chicago to avoid the traffic. It made for a long drive but a gorgeous drive. At one point we actually saw a sun dog. They are extremely rare I nearly swerved off the road. Rachel advised me that I should try to make it home in one peice. For supper we had Jimmy Johns. Oh do I love Jimmy Johns. =)

Rachel was able to meet my Uncle Glen and Aunt Heather this weekend. They are heading over to Kazakhstan with their two younger boys in August. So there is a possibility that they might not make it to the Wedding. It was nice that Rachel could meet them before they left.

We spent the fourth of July at the house of my brother Jon. He and his wife Kari just bought the house in February. It was something else. I vividly remember the day when the guy was born and now he actually has his own house. Crazy.

So the Coralville fireworks can be seen from my brother’s back yard. But some of the trees were blocking the fireworks closer to the ground. So Rachel and I decided to walk down the hill to the park to get a better view. Afterwards we came back and roasted marshmallows in Jon’s fire pit.

Saturday we met up with Rachel’s friends Karla and Brain along with their two kids Titus and Kyle. We had lunch at Carlos O’Kelly’s and then walked around the Westdale mall. The evening was gorgeous. We had barbeque in my parents’ backyard. Then this evening I went with Rachel and my brother Alex to see Prince Caspian. I had been aching to see it for most of the summer. Fortunately the Collin’s Road Theatre was still showing it

Well my CDs just finished burning. I better get some sleep. We appreciate your prayers as the Wedding day approaches. I hope to blog again soon.

Whenever I see your smiling face, I have to smile myself

Just two more weeks. The last of the trig grades to post. The last of the Algebraic Geometry to work through. The last few hours in the math computer lab over in Pleasent Hall. And then ... AND THEN ... I'll be in my little blue car heading north to Indiana. Just two more weeks.

My favorite fish in the aquarium.

Catfish!!!

Oh man did I love those catfish. Sure the Atlanta aquarium had whales and sharks and penguins and things. But the highlight was definitely the catfish. Sorry I take that back, the highlight of the day was Rachel. The FISH highlight of the day was the Catfish. Those Catfish were huge. It's hard to get a frame of reference from the photo. But those fish were like the size of your head. And they had the Aquarium set up so that you could walk under neither the Tanks. So the fish were swimming right over your heads.

Rachel wanted to get to the bottom of why I was so excited about catfish.

R: Why in the world are you so excited about catfish?

D: Because of Galatians Chapter 2.

R: What do you mean?

D: Before certain men came from James he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived he began to draw back separate himself from the Gentiles, because he was afraid of those who belong to the circumcision group.

R: What in the world are you talking about?

D: Paul confronted Peter because he was afraid of eating with the Gentiles in front of the Jews! ... THE JEWS!

(pause)

R: I don't get it

(I point at the Catfish with a big grin.)

D: Catfish! Jews!!

(An even more awkward pause.)

D: Jews! CATFISH!!!!

It was a very funny moment.

So here is the point that I was SO excited about that I could not express to Rachel in an intelligible way. According to Old Testament law catfish are unclean animals. They are bottom feeders. Disgusting creatures that should not be eaten. That was the Law. But Paul says in Galatians “If righteousness could be obtained through the law then Christ died for nothing”. So when Peter was eating with the Gentiles the reason he was afraid of the Jews seeing him was because the Gentiles eat unclean food. LIKE CATFISH! So Paul was mad at Peter because Peter was taking the issue of food and making it more important then the Gospel, which is why Paul confronted him.

And it is an astounding thing really, that I am a Gentile. I’m an ethnic catfish, outside of the Jewish line. But Galatians say, “Consider Abraham: ‘He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’ Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”

And my thought is “Are you kidding me? Really? A slimy bottom feeding unclean Catfish Gentile like me can be considered righteous like Abraham?” Like the Syrophoenician Gentile woman in Matthew 15 saying “Even the dogs eat the crumbs under the master’s table”. And Jesus responds by praising her faith.

So yeah! =) Whenever I see a Catfish or I eat a Catfish I think YAY CATFISH! It reminds me that before I knew Christ I was a filthy catfish. But now through the Gospel I am righteous in the eyes of God.

Later on in the aquarium Rachel was showing me pictures of the sea nettles. They were really pretty sea nettle pictures. I in my random way I said out of the blue, “Say, can we go back and look at the catfish again?” She looked at me with a bizarre puzzled look. Then she smiled and said in here sweet voice. “Sorry Sweetie. I don’t want to take away from your catfish joy.” And said to her, “I don’t want to take away from your sea nettle joy either”. I was very funny.

So yeah Catfish.

YAY CATFISH!!!

A link

I tried to post a link on Matthew and Rhonda's blog and for some reason it didn't work. So I am going to post it here:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2002/109_The_Radical_Cost_of_Following_Jesus/

Do you get it? =D =D =D

Say Dave, what section of the Atlanta airport were you in?











Your Welcome! (badump-ching)

Phantom flights, cheese bagels and a guy who looked like Chuck Norris.

So I spent last weekend with Rachel at my Grandparents in Cincinnati. It was a great time. But what was absolutely insane was flying back to Louisiana from Indianapolis. Flying in on Thursday was pretty hectic too. I had eleven minutes in the Detroit to run through fifteen minutes worth of airport, gate B11 to gate A57 if I remember correctly. Then when I landed Rachel was having car problems so she wasn’t at the airport right away. After some time walking around the airport I spoke to an airport employee who told me where to page some one. After that didn’t work, I was able to use someone’s cell phone to call up Rachel. She had just got to the terminal when I called her. We had the car towed from Indy to Cincy and didn’t get there until 3AM.

But flying Sunday was much more crazy.

Noon in Ohio,
5PM in Indiana,
7PM in Michigan,.
10PM in Texas,
and Midnight in Louisiana.

So Rachel and I had lunch in Cincinnati with the guy who invented Always. We drove that afternoon to the Indy airport. We said goodbye (you know I’m getting tired of doing that) and I got on the plane.

So my plane gets in to Detroit airspace. The pilot comes on to say that the plane is in a holding pattern and we won’t be landing for another twenty minutes. I check my ticket stub and I turns out my flight to Houston is boarding two minutes after we land. If I have fifteen or twenty minutes of airport to run through then I am royally hosed! So I page the stewardess to let her know my situation. She says that they will probably wait for me in considering the circumstances.

The plane finally gets on the ground. I come bursting into the airport looking for a clock. They say be on board with in 15 minutes of take off. The plane takes off in less than 18 minutes. So I start bolting. Fortunately this time I was at A27 and needed to make it gate A10. That’s much less airport to run through. I make it there at the same time as half a dozen other people are converging to gate A10. Looked like they were all out of breath and also dealing with the same situation. But I did make my flight on time. When I made it to my seat all the overhead storage bins were full. So I asked a stewardess what to do. She said they would put the bag below and I could retrieve it in Houston. The plane was taking off soon so I made it my seat to attempt to catch my breath. So that was twice I spent less then twenty minutes in the Detroit airport. It is a really pretty airport. I’ve been there before. To bad I couldn’t have enjoyed it more.

So the plane lands in Houston. Looking at my ticket stub I said to myself, “Hey an hour and a half lay over. I can take my time this will be great.” I am exiting the plane and I ask the stewardess if I can have my carry-on. She says to pick it up at the in baggage claim. I ask, “Wait a minute, do you mean the New Orleans baggage claim?” Her jaw hits the floor, “You mean you have another flight to catch tonight.” My flight to New Orleans was at 10:50. She didn’t think any one would have a lay over that late. So I make it to the help desk inside the terminal and ask the attendant on duty. At first the attendant starts freaking out and she is hollering down to the baggage guys on her walkie-talkie. The she looks at my ticket and says, “Wait a minute. Your plane does take of until 10:50. You have plenty of time. Just head out to baggage claim in section A to pick up your carry on. Hop the underground train to section C to come back through security. Make your way over to section E to get your flight.” Yep the Houston airport is BIG!

I get my bag from baggage claim and head to the underground train. Then trains are these funny rickety slow moving things. I hop into the train car and there is just one other guy. He was kind of creepy looking. He had cowboy boots on and he kind of looked like Chuck Norris. I mean that was just kind of cool. Winding your way under the Houston airport in a wobbly train with a spooky looking guy who resembles Chuck Norris. I can die a happy man now.

So here I apply my skills of mathematical reasoning. I left from terminal A. The next stop the doors open and there are big signs that say terminal B. What would you do in this situation? The attendant said go to terminal C. So I decided to wait and get off at the very next stop. I get off the train and make my way towards the set of escalators. The fact that there was no big sign saying terminal C should have raised my suspicions. I was kind of confused that there weren’t signs with gate numbers or anything. At the top of the escalators was a very nice carpeted floor (not an airport norm), which was being vacuumed by a janitor. I asked him where would I go to find the flight to New Orleans. He was Latino and hardly knew a word of English.

I don’t know any Spanish, well at least nothing useful. I do know “?Permiten osos en la fuente?” and “El hombre De los moleculos” which mean, “Are bears allowed in the fountain?” and “The molecular man” respectively. Neither of those phrases would have been very helpful at the moment. But the janitor pointed upward to the top of the next set of escalators. I trustingly followed his directions and continued up. At this point I was clearly in a Hotel Lobby. A restaurant on one side, a gift shop on the other side and a ways down the middle was a check in desk. I haven’t a clue where I am or what is going on. The folks at the desk were clearly busy with customers. So I decided the gift shop would be the best place to determine if there was an airport hiding some place near by. No clue where I was but at least I had my carry on back in my possession. That was a happy thought. I ask the gift shop clerk where the I could find the flight to New Orleans. She said I got of at the wrong stop. The next stop was terminal C. I needed to go back down to the train.

I got back on the train. I no longer had the creepy feeling that someone who looked like Chuck Norris was glancing at me. I look at the wall of the train, which has big letters on it. Sure enough, the letters were A then B then H (for Hotel) and then C. I hadn’t remembered H being between B and C in the alphabet. I get off at terminal C and get through security.

I look up at the flight boards and my flight isn’t on the screen. It was like a phantom flight. This flight wasn’t on any of the monitors in New Orleans either, but I’ll get to that later. I ask an employee where the flight to New Orleans. He asked what airline and I said northwest. “Oh that would be over in terminal A” he said. “That’s where I just came from. The attendant said terminal E.” He told me to head towards the Continental desk a ways down the hall. As I was walking I saw a clock on the wall. It was 5 until 10. Where did that last half hour go? Oh yeah, creepy Chuck Norris dude, not know Spanish in a hotel and such. I remember now. I get to the Continental desk and they finally have the answer I have been looking for, “Gate E8”.

I didn’t get to eat in the Detroit airport so I am ready for anything. It was nearly 10 after 10 by the time I actually made it to terminal E. All the fast food places closed at 10. There was one smoothie place open which had a long line. Again everyone was in the same type of situation. I got a nice little ham and cheese bagel. It was super hot, but it was well worth it.

So I am walking of the plane in New Orleans. And I think to myself, “Yay my troubles are over.” Do you remember how I mentioned that Rachel wasn’t at the airport right away when I landed in Indy? Well my roommate Brian was going to pick me up in New Orleans. I come out into the terminal, no Brain. I go to get my suitcase from baggage, no Brian. I walk up stairs in the airport; I walk downstairs in the airport, No Brian! Finally I call one of those white phones and have them page Brian. And sigh of relief there is Brian.

Well here is what happened. The flights from northwest usually land in terminal A. My lovely phantom flight landed in terminal D. And none of the screens in the airport displayed the flight from Houston at all. Brain hadn’t a clue where to go. I hadn’t a clue where he would be. So for twenty minutes or so we were both wandering around the airport. Brian was upstairs when I was down stairs. Brian was down stairs while I was up stairs. Passing each other like sheep in the night. Do sheep pass in the night? Maybe they do that while sailing.

Any who, that’s my story. It got kind of long. But hey I’m making up for all those posted I didn’t make this last November.

Man that guy was creepy looking. But he did kind of look like Chuck Norris.

walking on the levy

I took some pictures the last weekend on the levy

1-my apartment
2-the levy
3-a boat on the Mississippi
4,5 & 6-some flowers along the levy

Leap Day can’t come soon enough.

Greeting bloggers. Yes Rachel and I are engaged. Ironically tomorrow is Valentines Day and we are going to be 18 hours a part like we are on most days. Well we weren’t on Ground hogs day. That’s the day I asked her to marry me. The next time we will see each other is the 29th, Leap day. You know I heard somewhere the leap day is the one day when it is kosher for a woman to propose to a man. I guess I’m glad I got to beat Rachel to the punch.

I wanted to share a bit about the engagement ring. The diamond was the original diamond in my Great Grandmother’s Engagement ring. My great Grandma Jenny. She was born Jane Hockaday and Became Jane Bennett when she married my Great Grandpa Leonard Bennett in 1921. They had two daughters, my Aunt Laraine and my Grandma Marybelle who later became Marybelle Chapman when she married my Grandpa Harold “Chappie” Chapman. Grandma Jenny and Grandpa Leonard were married for 61 years from July of 21 until December of 82 when Grandpa Leonard passed away. My brother Jon was 9 months old at the time, but I was four. I have vivid memories of both Grandma Jenny and Grandpa Leonard. Specifically I remember being at their 60th Wedding anniversary party the summer I turned three. I also remember opening Christmas presents on Grandpa Leonard’s lap very soon before he passed away. Grandma Jenny lived another 9 more years and passed away in 1991.

Fast-forward many years to early January of 2008. The LSU tigers had just beaten the Ohio State Buckeyes in the national championship. The next morning I had received a phone call from my Aunt Robyn (That’s Grandma Marybelle’s daughter). Both Robyn and her husband Ted are Ohio State fans so I thought that was what she was calling about. She had got wind of the fact that I had been thinking about asking Rachel to marry me. So she asked, “David would you like Grandma Jenny’s engagement ring”. My jaw hit the floor, “Yes!” I said “Absolutely, I am bit overwhelmed right now … in a good way”.

Because my Aunt is in Ohio she had it sent through secure mail. I was on campus during the day, so I had it sent to my friend’s Nick and Laura LiBassi. A rainy Friday afternoon Laura called to let me know it had arrived. I was just so excited. I bolted over there as soon as I could. The diamond was the original diamond as well as the setting, which was in platinum. While the ring itself was made of yellow gold and set sometime later. Laura said, “Dave the diamond and setting are so beautiful. Rachel is going to love it”. That was good to hear.

The ring was bigger then Rachel’s finger. I knew she liked white gold, but the question was when and how to reset it. I had called some places up in the Indiana area to see if there was a place Rachel and I could go together to set the ring after I proposed, but nothing seemed to be panning out. I was praying, “Lord I just want to give her the best ring possible”. Thursday January the 31st I went over to a jeweler down here in Baton Rouge named Robert Roth. That was the day before I left for Indiana to see Rachel. He said he could have the ring in it’s original setting set in white gold and to me by 4 PM that day. Wow! After class I was driving across town (again the rain) so excited to see the ring. Once I had it in hand I went out to my car and sat there looking at it. I was on the verge of tears. It was so beautiful. There couldn’t be a better ring in the whole world to give to this incredible woman.

I had thought that my Aunt Laraine would have received the ring after Grandma died. It turned out Grandma Marybelle did. She later gave it to Aunt Robyn. Last month Aunt Robyn gave it to me and at the being of this month I gave it to Rachel.

I’ve got some photos. The first is a picture of me sitting on Grandma Jenny’s lap back in the summer of 85. I would have been 7. The second is a picture of Grandma Jenny holding some flowers. The picture was from April of 76 which was a month before my parents were married. The next is a picture from last October of Rachel with my Grandma Marybelle and the last picture is of Rachel with my Aunt Robyn. Yes my Aunt is black. She was adopted.


Both Aunt Robyn and Grandma Marybelle are so excited that Rachel is wearing Grandma’s diamond.

And I am too.

Canuck in Cajin Country.

My favorite girl came down to Baton Rouge over the weekend. We got to walk around the LSU campus as well as visit downtown. I hadn't yet visited the capital building. Also Rachel got to experience the Baton Rouge specialty of Raising Canes chicken finger. Rachel's opinion, "Good, but heavy".