Confirmed in the Faith

Last Sunday, Abby and Emma were confirmed in the Faith.  Along with their classmates, they publicly confessed their belief in the one true God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  My parents, Sheri's father, and my sister (one of their godparents) were all present.  Now they take greater responsibility within the Church and are charged with continuing in the things they have learned and growing in faith in Christ, and love for God and their neighbor.

Last Day of School

Today is the last day of school - the last day of eighth grade - the last day of junior high.  I thought a photo might be a good idea to memorialize the moment:

And compare to the beginning of this school year:

On to high school!

Aria

Our eldest cat, Aria, died today.  Our best estimate is that she just reached her twentieth birthday - simply ancient for a cat.  She was the last of our first generation of animals - the generation we had before our girls were born.
Sheri found Aria - an abandoned kitten at Jackson State Community College in Jackson, TN.  The vet at the time estimated her age at about 9 weeks.  She was so tiny!  And she never really got very big.  She may have been the runt of her litter.  Aria was always a little different.  She liked to play fetch with rolled up pieces of paper.  She never liked to wrestle with the other cats - preferring to cuddle on someone's lap.  She was very shy around strangers - never coming out until the visitors had left.
During the last two years, her venerable age began catching up with her.  Her health declined steeply over the last couple of weeks.  And even more so during her last 48 hours.  So we made the difficult decision to put her down.
Aria left us full of wisdom and experience - having lived in 5 homes in three states.  But she will also leave a hole in this household.  She will be missed.

First Day of School - Eighth Grade Edition

Our traditional first day of school photograph:

Big difference from just a few years ago.

Top Ten Books

A member of my congregation is on staff at the local library.  And he asked me if I would be willing to supply a "top ten list" of books - my personal favorites.  They plan to post it somehow in the Friendswood Library.

I thought about it awhile and came up with the following:

1. Bible
2. The Lord of the Rings
3. Surprised by Hope - N.T. Wright
4. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
5. Creation and Fall, Temptation - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
6. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
8. Red Dwarf - Grant/Naylor
9. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
10. The Sun Also Rises - Earnest Hemmingway

Summer Vacation

About every other year, we try to get up to Jackson, TN, and St. Louis to see our respective parents.  We left right after VBS concluded at church for Jackson - or really, to Medina.  Sheri's parents sold their 5 bedroom house in Jackson for a smaller, 3 bedroom in Medina.  Medina is just north and a bit west of Jackson - serving as a kind of "bedroom community" just outside of the city.  That Sunday, June 28th, I had the opportunity to preach and preside at Concordia Lutheran Church in Jackson - the congregation which sent me to Seminary.  Their pastor was still at the Mid-South District Convention that Sunday, so the timing was perfect.
After a few days spent their, we took the 4 1/2 hour drive up to St. Louis to see my parents.  While there, we went to the zoo, at Ted Drewes twice, and watched fireworks on a very lovely night in Kirkwood Park.
On our return trip, we stopped in Martin, TN to visit an old professor friend of Sheri's, Dr. Michael Hernon.  We spend that night in Medina, and then made the long 11 1/2 hour drive back to Texas.
It was a good trip, and great chance to visit old homes and new homes, and a chance to see faces from the past.

Bartok

Our remaining dog, Bartok died today.  He was at least 15 years old.

Bartok was a stray that was found and then offered to us.  At the time, we already had Mercedes.  So we took her over to him to see how they would handle one another.  After a brief showdown, they came to some sort of agreement and were friends for life.

We named him Bartok after the composer and after a character from the animated movie "Anastasia."  His name was Sheri's idea.  The vet estimated his age as about the same as Mercedes, so that's what we went with.  He was definitely a mutt - some sort of mix between Chow and Pit Bull and maybe some other breeds.  He looked intimidating, but in reality, he was all about love.  He wasn't all that bright.  He usually just followed Mercedes' lead.  I would say he lived in the bliss of ignorance.

He liked to roll in the grass, bark at other dogs, and had a "happy howl" when he wanted some attention.  He lived in three states (Tennessee, Missouri, and Texas) and was a fixture in our household.

He was pretty healthy his whole life.  But during the last year he started developing arthritis issues, became nearly deaf, couldn't see very well, and started losing weight.  The last couple of weeks he took a steep downturn, so we made the difficult decision to put him down.

After almost 16 years of having a dog or dogs in the house, it is very weird not having him around. 

Some may ask, "How many animals have you had?"  We've had a number of them, but there is now only one left from the "1st generation" of animals we acquired before the girls were born.  That would be our female cat, Aria.  We have three other cats we rescued from the local shelter here within the past 2 1/2 years.  We expect this "second" generation (I call them the "Three Stooges") to be around for awhile.

Bartok will be terribly missed.