Vacation Day One

If you can't tell, Em is standing in front of the sea lions display at the American Museum of Natural History. She did not appreciate the comparison I made while she looked at this particular exhibit.

We went to the Natural History Museum our first full day in NY. Much better than I really expected. I actually wish we'd scheduled another hour or so. After the Museum, we wandered around Central Park, had Mediterranean food for dinner, and went to see Wicked.

( I'm going to try to choose one picture from each day. These are basically what I find entertaining. Since this isn't what most people find more interesting, I encourage you to look in our web albums. I'll be updating those over the next day or two.)

Update

OK, so it's been five weeks since I posted anything. That is less to do with opportunity or things to post and more to do with blatant laziness. I'll give you the bullet points for the last five weeks. I think I have already posted that we are moving to Belgium. Here's the updates.

• We went to MS for July 4. It was great to see family, eat fried catfish, etc. We left Isaac there with Mom and Dad. I left Em there. She went to TN for her little brother's wedding (Congratulations Zack and Mallory). I came back to Ft Hood and went to work.
• I've done a married soldier class, single soldier class, and an ASIST training class since my last post. I have a Strong Bonds retreat next weekend. After that, I begin clearing Ft Hood. For those not in the military, that's the 2-3 weeks of administrative red tape that I have to go through in order to move.
• Em has already cleared all red tape for herself and Isaac. In addition, she managed to get my passport, which was mailed to the wrong place. It seems very few people are able to say "no" to a pregnant woman.
• The first load of our house has been picked up for shipment to Europe. There are three different shipments for this move. The first is the furniture and household goods we are taking to Europe. The second is a very small shipment of things that we'll need very soon after we arrive. These are shipped next week. The last are the things that will go into storage here in the States. This means we are living in a mostly empty house.
• The van has been dropped off for shipment. This means we are sharing the Mustang for the next few weeks. Not much fun. (Speaking of the Mustang, it's for sale.)
• Em and I spent last week in New York City for vacation. Excellent trip. I'm going to try to post about it tomorrow. Most of our pictures should be uploaded into our web album tonight. We'd already made our reservation and bought all of our tickets before we found out we were moving, so we went.

Race

Last night, I ran a half marathon over in Temple. It was very different starting at 9:30 PM instead of early in the morning. It was still muggy and hot throughout the race. I actually ran up on a guy who had collapsed with a half mile to go. He was unresponsive, but breathing. One of the people in my group ran on to get the ambulance. He was stable when they left. I didn't even check my time when I got to the finish line. It'll probably turn out to be around 2:30. Stopping was the right thing to do, but it still annoyed me to see people standing around the finish line that I had passed at mile seven. I was on track to finish in 2:05. I wanted to make it in under 2 hours, but I paced myself poorly.

Changes

It's been an interesting week. I think I mentioned that my battalion commander was to change this week. Immediately after the change of command ceremony, my division chaplain walked up to me and said she'd heard from the board that was making chaplain assignments and asked what I thought of Belgium. I got the official orders today, so Em and I are frantically trying to get ready to move as soon as we can so we get moved before she hits the point in pregnancy where she can't travel anymore. She was less than excited on Wednesday night. The more friends she's talked to that have worked in Belgium or that are stationed in Germany, she seems to be a little more excited now. She has been amazing at figuring out how to navigate the paperwork and red tape necessary to move OCONUS.

As a side note, I owe a couple of my brothers apologies. I always rubbed it in that I don't normally react to poison ivy. Apparently Texas has a different type of poison ivy because my ankles and arms have broken out after a run through the woods last week. Sorry about that guys.

Pondering the future

No new pictures this week. That's probably because the last week allowed little time for pictures and this weekend was largely spent running errands. Last night, my outgoing battalion commander had the primary staff to his house for dinner. We enjoyed ourselves. Isaac thought it was great. He played in the sprinkler and got in the way of "yard ball." Emily is currently on the internet looking for "yard ball" or "ladder ball."

Today, we went to church. I had my weekly period of missing being a pastor. I actually have that thought more than weekly. Em & I are a few months from needing to know if God wants us to stay in our current ministry or go back to serving in the local church. As we pray about it, neither of us really feels a strong push either direction. Perhaps this is one of those places where God's will is broad. There are days when I truly enjoy the opportunity to share with soldiers and discuss faith with soldiers whom I probably would not meet as a pastor. I do love the ministry as a chaplain. There are just some things that infuriate me beyond what I ever experienced as a pastor or youth pastor. I don't think this is the format to get into those specifics.

Emily is looking forward to this week. Friday was her last day of school, so she's got her to-do list to work on this week. She's a little behind on her reading for vacation next month. We're planning to go to NYC for a week, and she wants to read a little about the city's history.