Category: family

It was a windy and warm day 9 years ago that Kristen and I got married. We seemed old enough, so mature, and so ready to handle anything that came our way.

I guess we weren’t wrong. It was the right time with the right person and the last 9 years have been fantastic.

So many people talk about the "difficulties of marriage" and I can only nod my head to try to empathize because I’ve really never felt marriage to Kristen has ever been difficult. It’s just been joy.

Highlights? How do you narrow down 9 years to a highlight real? Things that jump out immediately about Kristen are her sense of adventure. One of us will come up with a crazy idea and she’ll be the one saying, "Come on, let’s do it!" I like that about Kristen.

Kristen always suprises me with the impractical. Maybe that’s her sense of adventure. But every couple of weeks Kristen will have this perfectly impractical idea we should chase after. Maybe it’s driving 60 miles to go out to eat "just because I read a good review." Maybe buying a massive piece of furniture for our first apartment that measured less than 600 square feet. The list goes on and on. I like that about my wife.

Kristen is brave. Over the years I think I’ve made some wild decisions. We’ve lived some weird places. We’ve gone on some crazy trips. We’ve quit our "safe jobs" and jumped into working for churches. We’ve moved 3000 miles to California and bravely admitted our mistake, just to move further east than we started one year later. I remember driving from Chicago to the Upper Penisula of Michigan and Kristen talked the whole way about "I hope we see a bear." While she was brave, I was terrified that we’d see a bear!

Of course, five years ago Kristen stopped being just my wife and became a mom. I am sure that she probably defines herself more as mommy now than as Adam’s wife… but I really just think of her as my wife. I adore the way the children flock to her after church. I can’t wait to come home and see what type of adventure she’s gotten Megan and Paul into while I was at work. I have no idea how she’s managed to hold down the fort while I’m off doing "something for God." While we both foundly remember those pre-kid years as "the single life" I can’t imagine making a better decision than choosing to have kids. In fact, let’s look back at a journal entry from November 13, 2000 so we can all enjoy what was going through my mind.

So, now I am a daddy in waiting. There are
thousands of questions floating through my mind that will take the next several
months to sort out. Right now you are barely 4 inches long in mom’s tummy. She
is just starting to show that she is pregnant. All the morning sickness has
gone away and she is starting to act like my wife again. Will she ever be the
same carefree girl that I met back at Moody? I’ll just have to wait to find
out. Yet mostly I am anxious to meet you. If you didn’t know, we have been
talking a lot about you while you grow in there. Are you a girl or a boy? Are
you healthy? What’s it like to swim around in there? Can you hear us? Who will
you look like? What color eyes will you have? Will you have curly brown hair
like mom? Will you be as stubborn as mom or as sensible as me? How will we take
care of you? I guess I’ll just have to suffer and wait. There are bigger
questions too. Like, will you want to follow the Lord Jesus when you grow up?
Will you be incredibly smart and charming like your parents? Will you play
sports or sing in the choir or play an instrument or WHAT? But the most
important thing is first. Mom and I want to raise you to be a lover of God. We
would love to pass along our love for God to you, but it is ultimately your
decision to make. Well, like you can tell, I have a lot of things going on in my
mind. But as I sit in the Moody library and type all the incessant questions I
am comforted by God’s Spirit. Everything
is going to be just fine? You are going to be perfect.

Nine years ago was the best day of my life. As we’ve joked, nine years and no one has killed anyone, must be pretty good.

Kid’s Kamp started today. (Lots of kids, that’s fun) Then afterwards we rushed over to McDonald’s and then to the theater to see Cars.

It was a good movie… of course since I love Larry the Cable guy it was perfect for me.

The story here wasn’t with the movie. It was that we all were konking out during the movie. Paul made it about 30 minutes into the movie. Megan climbed on my lap shortly later but managed to stay away. If it wasn’t for her on my lap… I wouldn’t have made it.

It’s been a great 10-14 days for us here… but we’re ready for some REST.

I am very excited about Andrea’s party tomorrow.

Not sure how to explain it, but hosting her party has really turned into a big honor for us. Doing all kinds of yard work and all that stuff has been pleasurable knowing that so many people will be here to celebrate her life and this step.

Think about it. When is the next time Andrea is likely to have a party like this? College graduation. Probably not…  Engagement/wedding? Well, maybe… but even that isn’t about just her life as it’s about the couple. Big birthday? Maybe.

Maybe I’m over-thinking this… but we’re looking at this as a great opportunity to bless a young woman we really have learned to love. It’s not like she (OK, and LisaB) is one of our own… she is one of our own.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately… it’s especially important as our "tenure" at Romeo continues. Graduation is not the end of the relationship. That may seem simple, but it isn’t. I hope/pray/say/repeat that as graduates leave Light Force that they really know that Kristen and I will always want to be a part of their lives. We want to celebrate with them. We want to be there when the crap hits the fan. We want to continue to hear their dreams. We want to continue to share their disappointments. On and on and on. Life on life stuff rarely experiences "the end."

I’ve said this over and over and it applies tomorrow as well. This isn’t the end, it’s just the beginning.

If you see my wife, Kristen Elisabeth, today. Wish her a happy birthday. I don’t have a birthday party scheduled for her… so if you didn’t get invited… that’s why. Since we have company in town now and we have oodles of graduation parties this weekend… we’ll just celebrate next week.

In typical Michigan form, it got hot in an instant. Last week was very mild and I think I even wore long sleeves on Monday to mow the yard. Today, I’m having to stop and take water breaks!

Today’s high is expected to be about 93. That’s quite unseasonable for these parts. Generally, we don’t see temps like that until late June. I hope it’s just a fluke and that we get back into the 70s for the rest of the summer.

Apparently Memorial Day means work. While I’ve taken on some serious yard duties… Kristen is hard at work cleaning upstairs. We’ve still got some work to do on the Aloha Suite (our guest room) before Dave comes at the end of June. Obviously, we have to buy all the furniture but we also have to finish stripping woodwork and painting before we can get the furniture in there. 30 days and counting!

Maybe a condo wasn’t such a bad thing afterall?

Five years ago today Megan entered our life. It was an amazing day, with amazing memories. These last 5 years have gone by as fast as everyone said they would. It’s been like holding on to sand… you try so hard but time slips away.

May 12th 2001, Kristen and I lived in a different universe altogether. On May 11th, we went out to eat with Bambi and Jason to an Indian Restaraunt. Kristen was 2 weeks overdue at that point and feeling quite uncomfortable. It was the last time we’d both go out as DINK’s.

Saturday morning I went to work at 4 just like normal. The morning was jovial but problematic. I remember working on a piece of equipment when the phone rang. I recognized the called ID and picked up. "Adam, my water broke."

As Kristen talked to me about how the water had broken I was left staring at my work. "How could I leave right now? This machine is in 100 pieces… I have to get it working before I go." I told Kristen I’d be home in 30 minutes.

I slapped all the bits of equipment together, pressed go and was amazed that the machine roared to life! As I flew out the door to my car I stopped only briefly to tell my employees where I was going.

My mind raced as I drove down the Eisenhower Expressway. I came home to find Kristen, relaxed and pain free. In classic form she was "almost ready" to go. She gathered the last few things and we headed to Northwestern Hospital in the heart of the city.

We checked in and got situated in our room. Kristen put on a very handsome gown and I took my position in the lounge chair. I put on music and we relaxed for a while. Afterall, it was barely 10:00 AM.

Hours went by. The pain increased and the drugs came. Our doctor was mostly absent and the nurses pretty much ran the show. I kept myself busy with trips to the first floor lobby where I could use my phone and with watching the monitors as all the other labors progressed on one computer screen.

Finally, things got serious and the pushing began. Maybe an hour or so later… out came Megan. (OK, it wasn’t as simple as I made it sound… but it’s a birthday story!) As the staff whisked her away to get cleaned up I looked at Kristen and told her how great it was to have Paul in our lives and how proud I was of her. That’s right, I said "Paul."

We didn’t know Megan was a girl right away. We’d had a few ultrasounds that very confidently told us we were having a boy. So the staff didn’t even announce "It’s a girl!" to us when she was born. It wasn’t for a few minutes… until I had the video camera out and had to triple check…

I went to Kristen and said "Our boy doesn’t have a peice" and that is how Kristen found out it was Megan and not Paul. (Paul came 26 months later)

The next hours were a blur of happiness. New grandparents came, phone calls were made, lots of pictures were taken, and mom fell asleep.

That first night Megan and I really bonded. I was absolutely wired and couldn’t imagine sleeping so soon after the baby was born. So while Kristen slept in the room I took Megan to the nursery and we just hung out. She stared at me and I stared at her. We talked, she slept, and I fell in love with her little hands, feet, eyes, and all the noises she made and things that she did. It was the beginning of a special relationship that will last the rest of my life. We can still look at each other like that.

Five years? Oh, the things she can do now. She has steadily changed from a little baby girl to my big girl to now… a kid who climbs stuff and has lots of friends and is learning how to ride a bike. As I think about this year and the 5 years to come I wonder about what she’ll be like at 10 years old. There are so many things I can’t wait to see… but like every other parent… I just want to hold on.

After hemming and hawing around the subject for a while I registered for 2 courses today. This summer I’ll be taking Leadership Movements in Youth Ministry and later in the fall I’ll be enrolled in Thinking Theologically in Youth Ministry.

Both are still with Huntington but are in their new Masters in Youth Ministry Leadership program. I’ve jumped ship on their more traditional coursework to hit this cutting edge method. The brilliance of it is that it incorporates the strength of Huntington’s program with the best professors on the undergraduate level who teach adjunctly in the graduate school. Also new for the second course is meeting at the National Youth Workers Convention. We’ll be spending two days in the classroom with the third day using the people at the convention as our labratory.

This is Megan’s new bike. But don’t tell her because her birthday isn’t for a couple more days. I learned another lesson about "the difference between Kristen and Adam." There are some people in this world who are bike shop people and there are people who are toy store people. I’m always willing to pay more for a better product and great customer service. I think Kristen was looking for the less personal approach in the toy aisle. The most important thing is that our 5 year old now has a great looking bike that will last for a few years.

This week I have double duty as we have our normal Light Force tonight and I’m filling in for Bob on Sunday morning. So tonight we are talking about Noah and Jesus’ apocalypse (Luke 21) and Sunday morning we’re asking the question "Are we worth following?" (Phil 2)

It’s been an interesting week for me in the office. We had a very difficult message to hear from the Bible on Sunday and I’ve had the pleasure of talking to several people who’ve come to me with their concerns. My experience (personally) with the Spirit’s moving in people’s heart is at first it is difficult to deal with the truth encountered, even painful. But when we respond to the Spirit’s leading it is entirely exciting. I keep saying over and over again "Praise God for leaders who lead the people."

There were any number of projects completed yesterday outside. More plants planted, some pavers not quite installed, a brush pile burned, and the kids play fort.

Fort McLane
Late yesterday evening I buried the two posts that will hold the swing set still for the next decade or so. That’s pretty simple, but getting to that point wasn’t simple. I had determined that I wouldn’t call for help unless I really, really needed it.

One of the cool things about working at a church is that the people are always happy to help. One of the problems with that is when I do call for help, I don’t often get help so much as I get people who come and do the job and allow me to just stand by or "hold stuff." I’m not whining about that, but it’s just nice to do things for yourself sometimes.

The big challenge was getting the fort level. Since we got a "used fort" some of the boards were pretty badly warped and this makes getting it level hard. Put that together with the bumpy place we decided to place the fort and it’s no wonder we struggled.

Since we had cut off the swing set arm to get it on the trailer I had to rejoin everything at the new location. First I used a joist hanger to mount the old 4×6 post where we cut it off. But to make it stronger, I had to marry a new 2×6 onto the old post. With the swing set a little high and the edge of the fort a little low, we had quite a predictament. Kristen and Andrea would move the posts out a little, then in a little. To the right, to the left… but with little net change. Finally we decided to jack up the middle of the fort a little bit to see if that would help.

Bingo! From that point on it was gravy. I just have a few more things to do and Fort McLane will officially be open for business. In a few weeks we’ll be adding a slide or climbing wall… but for now it’s just fine.

It all started Friday evening. I drove down to Kristen’s folks house to have dinner and pick up Kristen and the kids. While I’m not a natural "big family" guy I really enjoy having Megan and Paul around their cousins and grandparents. So Friday night went in a blur.

Saturday we got the play structure. Overall it was a yard day as we added yet more flowers to the yard and I got the front yard mowed and cleaned up. I’m having a general frustration with my gas blower/vacuum thing… I must have pulled that starter 250 times and it never got started well enough to actually work for me. Annoying!

Sunday, obviously is "church day." With Bob out of town I had a couple more things to do than normal but not an obnoxious amount. After church I was in charge of running the last name change meeting. I tried my best to answer questions and keep everyone united through the discussion. (I mean that in an emotional way since there are obviously good people on both sides of the name change discussion.) I left church at roughly 2:00 and then went out to lunch with a church family. I finally got home from church at about 3:30 PM. Long day, stay home right? Of course not.

The "big meet" was last night. I went over to YMX member, Bryan the madposter’s, house for dinner with Todd, Kim, and their friends. Also present was Chicago YMXer Cathy. I just kind of hung out and didn’t say a whole lot. But it was a lot of fun to hang out with Todd, Kim, Bryan, Cathy, Mary, Matt, Chris, and a few "non-YMX" folks.