Finally, an update

Well this has been an interesting summer.

We went camping with friends, Greg and Rebecca - a week or so after the International Youth Convention. We ended up buying their camper, since they were trying to get rid of it, and we borrowed it for the trip. The kids fished and caught a lot of trout, which we ate after cooking them over a fire. The whole trip was great and we enjoyed spending time with our friends.

Last week Dan and Bill came out again for a weekend of shooting in Nebraska. We had a great time and the camper saved us from a rainy weekend.

This past Thursday, we got a call letting us know that Nancy's grandfather, Paul Furbeck - had died suddenly. We were both obviously very sad as Paul has become a very important person to us both. We went to Kansas on Friday after Emma finished school, and stayed all weekend.

It was great to celebrate Paul's life and legacy with family. I miss him - it is hard going to visit family in Kansas without Paul to be able to sit and talk with.

I was asked to go through his belongings and sort out all the firearms-related things so Nancy's dad could take them home. It was sobering going through his things and pulling out guns, ammo, cleaning supplies, etc. that he and I had looked at together in the past. I was glad to be able to do something meaningful to sort of put him to rest, though. I didn't have any other official responsibilities this weekend so this small thing was important to me.

While we were there, we did have a good chance to reconnect with family, which was really nice. We ate a lot of great food provided by friends of the family and we stayed in a beautiful home that was basically handed to us for the weekend. The folks in Abilene, Kansas really know how to put their arms around people in need.

We're home now. Corben went to his first day of preschool today. Emma missed school yesterday so we could attend the inurnment, she started first grade last week.

I'll update more frequently moving forward. I've reorganized my life a little to help us deal with our busy schedules. I am going to start drawing again and am sacrificing playing guitar on Sundays. We've moved youth group meetings to the weekend and the church services Sunday morning will start an hour later so hopefully things will be a little more manageable.

I know this is scattered, but I wanted to update anyone who happens to check this instead of letting is sit for another week.