What I did on my summer vacation

Well I have taken the summer months off from writing on my blog. I spent more time reading blogs then writing them.

Figured now that the kids are back at school and things are getting back to normal I would get back into my routine of trying to write something once a week.

So anyway, just to get you up to speed on what my summer was like I figured I’d jot down a few highlights.

Church stuff - Most churches get kinda slow and sleepy during the summer months. At Orchards UMC we kinda jump into hyper speed. Our congregation runs a HUGE fireworks tent every year. It is a great fund raiser for us that allows us to do some wonderful things in the Vancouver community. Although it is a great fundraiser, and it is a lot of fun, it is hard work. We run over $130,000 worth of fireworks through the tent in 7 days. It takes an incredible amount of volunteer help from the congregation to pull it off. The folks at Orchards are great, and really rose to the occasion this year in making the tent a success. The money from our percentage of the profits funds our youth ministry, helps our general budget as well as allows us to give financial support to ministries in the community. Last year we gave a gift to Friends of the Carpenter, as well as helped to purchase some much needed supplies for the Winter Hospitality Overflow. It helps fund some special projects our congregation does as well. (Thanks Kevin for being an awesome manager of the tent for us you rock!) We also run a great Vacation Bible School at the church for a week. I just sent off thank you letters to all the people that volunteered to help show our kids and kids from our neighborhood that they are important and that we care about them. It was over 35 letters (My printer ran out of ink!). Our church also puts on a community picnic at Orchards Park just down the street from our church building. The idea behind it has always been that we would spend some time at the park meeting people and getting to know them. In past years we have set up a stage and had musicians play and cloggers dance and thrown water balloons at each other and played picnic game and had inflatable jumpers. This year we went on the low key side and just took a BBQ grill and made hamburgers and hot dogs and handed them out to anyone that wanted one. My favorite part of the whole thing is when you offer someone a free meal and they respond with “why?” and we say just “cause we want to”. I think most people aren’t used to someone offering things with out wanting something in return.

Weddings - Some people I love very much gathered with friends and family during the summer to make life long commitments to each other. I’ll try to go in order of their weddings so I don’t forget anyone. My friends Dusty and Mikaela had a wonderful ceremony at the beach at Long Beach. It was a cool ceremony. A light fog/mist kind of enveloped us as we gathered to witness it. I called it the wedding in the clouds. a few weeks later my friends Tim and Kimmy Tim & Kimmy exchanged vows at a ballroom in Portland it was a wonderful service and reception and Tim made us all cry. On 07/07/07 Dustin & Deidra were married at a farm outside Battle Ground Wa. It was a great day under a huge oak tree, then we danced in the barn till late. A couple weeks ago I had the privilege of officiating at my sister’s wedding as Nancy and Eric were married. It was a great day. Lots of friends and family from all over gathering to witness their vows and support them with our love presence there. This winter two more friends Russell and Tamara will exchange vows as well.

Vacation - My family and I got away for a week down on the Rogue River in Southern Oregon. the first night we were there the Perseids meteor shower was going on so we laid out on blankets and had a great view of the shower. Some of the meteors were so bright it lit up the ground around us. It was a good time (after I convinced my daughter that the meteors weren’t going to land on us)

So that's what I did in a nutshell for my summer vacation, so now you’re up to speed. Hope you all a great summer as well.