I wear plaid. I'm a blogger.

This most recent weekend I decided to test my mettle by mashing mightily with my brother-in-law Gregg. We signed up to compete in a sprint triathlon in Miamisburg, OH. The course consisted of canoeing 2.2 miles, running 3.1, and biking 10.6 miles. We had both been training individually and it seemed like we would be able to keep a pretty even pace with each other throughout each section of the race. The 8am start time seemed pretty reasonable when we signed up. It seemed reasonable. That is, until we realized it was a 60 minute drive from either of our houses. Until we read the email that we should be there 60-90 minutes prior to the race start time in order to register, get our boat, and put our bikes on the racks. And until we realized that I would need to leave my house by about 5am to drive over to his house in order to make it on time. And once we got there, we realized there are only 150 people signed up to compete in this thing anyways. It turns out that we got there as th...

As I sit here experiencing post Independence Day depression (as if that were a thing), I am realizing what my last week consisted of, and it is shocking. Within the span of 6 days I experienced a birth, an adoption, a funeral, and a wedding. It seems as though I came upon many stages of monumental life activity all within the past week. -Birth of young My sister-in-law (Katie's brother DJ and Alyssa) gave birth naturally to a beautiful baby girl on Sunday morning. She is a real beauty and makes Isaiah's first cousin on the Ryan side of our family. -Adoption of old My sister and brother-in-law (Katie and Gregg) officially adopted Zahara, a 14 year old African. They celebrated the event at the courthouse with their whole family. -Wedding of old I got back in town from Tennessee just in time to play for Janet's wedding. Janet and Wayne are getting married after having lost both of their previous spouses. They are late in life and early in love with one another. It was...

I spent this past month challenging myself to love my wife better. There was a wonderful opportunity to do so too. This month, Katie turned 30 on the 30th, so I decided to give her a card each day and try to give her a gift each day as well (my natural love language is not giving gifts, so this would be a challenge, I knew). The first week went very well. It was easy to write down the things I had meant to tell Katie all along and I was way overdue in paying her compliments. Gift ideas were also fairly easy, as long as I actually entered a store. As it turns out, I can be quite the little shopper as long as I am in a location where things are sold! Week 2 also went fairly well. I had to start planning more creative gifts and extravagant ways of saying happy birthday. Most fell flat but a few were pretty clever! On week 3 we were away at a week of CIY Move so I knew that I needed to plan ahead and pack cards and gifts ahead of time. I snuck them in my juggling bag (which I anticip...

The past two weeks I have spent at CIY Move, a high school conference designed to engage teens in a deeper walk with Christ. There have been some truly inspiring messages, worship moments, and devotional times and many teens have made commitments to Christ throughout both of these weeks. I love to be a part of things and learn what is "popular" among teen worship services and also to glean ideas from CIY. As I sit back and try to procure ideas, I find myself critiquing what they do more than I ought to. I have found that CIY does a great job at two things in particular: 1) Putting on a show. Technically speaking, these guys pull out all the stops. It is a rock concert gone Jesus! Smart light fixtures, moving color washes, triplewide environmental projection, on stage props, and IMAG up-tight camera shots. 2) Not putting on a show. All of the worship leaders do a great job of deflecting the cheers towards God after songs, speakers remain humble, and they make sure to put...

Psalm 8:2 says, " Through the praise of children and infants      you have established a stronghold against your enemies,      to silence the foe and the avenger." and Jesus quotes this verse during the triumphant entry in Matthew 21 . I have always liked the imagery of this verse--of kids giving God praise and of babies understanding an element of worship that adults don't get.  But just this past couple days, I have listened to Isaiah start to talk. Well, talk might not be the best word to describe it. Babble isn't quite it either. He speaks in jibberish. Baby jargon that no one can make heads or tails of. He is just talking to talk. And I love it! I love to hear his voice babbling away because it reminds me that he is made in my likeness and he is learning to express himself through speech.  And as I was listening to Isaiah "speak", I remembered Psalm 8. "From the lips of children and infants..." wait a minu...

A couple weekends ago I committed to run a half marathon (13.1 miles) which marks the farthest run I have ever completed by a long stretch. It was a strangely telling experience of much of my personality and the process of completing the race taught me a lesson or two along the way.  The telling part of my personality is that I do much better when I am in community with people than when I am by myself. In this case, I would not have finished the race in nearly the time I did (1:56:06) had I not been running with Brian who was coaching me the whole way and cheering me along with his presence. I think anyone who runs (or doesn't run) will gladly admit to you that running in community is much more enjoyable than running by yourself. I will testify to that. There were several times I wanted to stop. Specifically at mile 8 and 10, I could feel my legs really starting to weary themselves with the monotony of the repetitious movement of the run. As my legs told my brain that they...

Since the creation of facebook and twitter, funny stories that occur throughout the day are lost in 120 character posts that are buried underneath themselves. The following are a few highlights of the past couple weeks: -Today, I ran out of milk and only realized so after I boiled the mac and cheese. The logical thing to do? Just add water. The taste bud's response? Gross. -Had a great conversation with Zach Steever about wood today. -Took the top off of the MooMobile and found out that it looks like he is taking care of business, while taking care of business.... -Taught my son how to toss a ball. This one is not funny, but very sweet! :) -Aaaaaand, I'm sure there are more, but now it is time to finish preparing worship plans and get ready for tonight's softball game against Parkside #1