my week in review
as we enter this weekend, let us pause and reflect on all that has happened since last friday.
so you saw some of the pics – some were a little grainy once they got uploaded – wierd. now let me fill in some of the 1000 words each.
last weekend was my daughter elsa’s baptism. as this is a big deal to God we figured it should be a big deal to us as well so we had ourselves a party. preparation including brewing baptismal beer (dunk day dunkelwiezen and a nut brown ale for what cures ya’), ordering tattoos, and inviting the greatest people in the world (who unlike jesus’ parable showed up, which was really nice or else we would’ve had to invite the poor people and you know those poor people! ew.) folks started showing up on friday, by saturday everyone was here. we filled up the battle lake motel, a congregation members house, a few places in fergus, and had people sleeping in our yard, in a camper and in every room of the house exept for the bathroom and kitchen. well done!!!
saturday night we played a bunch of music at the graystone. first the honest folk played which was a blast, than justin rimbo did a solo set, followed by the lost martyrs of martin marty which is a cover band that i get to play a bit in – we did a bunch of the band, stones, neil young etc… than micah taylor did a stellar set and finally welaware cleared the patio with their punky no-fi stylings.
sunday morning all the above musician and erin deboer-moran led the music for elsa’s baptism service. my dad was in town and did the actual baptism which was stellar, jodi preached, and the hymnastic jug band that we were tore up some new elw favorites. my favorite part was lydia singing ‘i was baptized’ for the offering. not a dry eye in the house (of God) following the service we had a nice little grill out at amor park. delicious.
my brother in law rod is a heckuva swimmer and my dad just got his scuba certification. i myself barely float, but am planning a sprint triathlon which includes swimming from our house to amor park (1/2 mile) (its water the whole way). so as our friends the abenths took off from our house the three of us hopped in their camper and got a ride down to the park where we jumped into ottertail and swam back to the house. lucky for me it was only chest deep. or else it would’ve been ‘hello davey jones’ our swell friends the kretzmanns stuck around for an extra day and we had a blast hanging out with them – the whole weekend was such a reminder of how much we love our friends and how excited i am to be able to see them back in the cities.
rambling aside – it’s really hard to let yourself be part of a new community for a year and then go back to where you were from. as we near the end of the internship i’m just starting to acclimate to our surroundings. and now we’re leaving. i’m confident know one at luther seminary gives a rat’s tooshy about what i have to say (no really, i’m confident) but the internship program is the most unfamily-friendly thing in the world. put us somewhere and let us stay there. zion of amor is an amazing congregation and it totally bites not to be in a postition where you can really let yourself be a part of it. i’m doubting this makes sense (hence the rambling aside preface) but i’ll sum it up. i love our internship site i hate the internship program.
about now you’re thinking, wow nate, super fun weeekend.
but wait, there’s more!
thursday the ms ride came through our area and stopped for lunch at beautiful amor park. the youth group was serving up brats and burgers and so me and the girls went to check things out. wow! 1200 bikers came through – some as young as 5 years old riding tandem. very fun and inspiring. and as if that weren’t enough, rachel kurtz came and did a concert at church that night. I opened for her and played along with her husband michael may for her set. i think its just about my dream gig. if i could put my family on a tour bus and do opening gigs for rachel kurtz and than play in her band i’d be a pretty happy guy. more happy than pretty, but you get the idea.
and that’s about it. oh, and i bought a new road bike from my friend and newbie dad, john okan. i took it out for a 20 mile ride this morning and have that heart-all-a-twitter i’m in love thing going on. my roots are all mountain biking and so i’m not sure if i’m selling out or expanding my pallete. but it doesn’t really matter, either way i’m happy.
and pretty.
i’d like to say the same for you. and someday i might.