Ben and Jenelle DOT COM

I spent Friday evening and most of Saturday at Camp Timber-Lee, near East Troy, WI. I was there as a chaperone at the first ever ELCA Racine Cluster Confirmation Retreat. I got to do more than just watch over some young folks. I played in the worship band, which consisted of musicians from several churches in the cluster. All of them had lots of experience, and it was a joy to play with each of them. I also learned some new songs that might show up at a Wednesday night service at Our Savior’s in the near future. 🙂

A note to all of you folks who are going to be chaperones at a camping event with kids under 15: It is important to prepare mentally as well as physically for this type of activity. Your patience and your resolve will be tested. There were no major disasters at this particular retreat, or even minor ones — but I found out yesterday that the three boys in my cabin snuck out after I fell asleep. I’m very thankful that God was watching over them. They were walking around the camp sometime between 1 and 4 in the morning, and they didn’t get into any serious trouble. I’ve never been a heavy sleeper, but perhaps I was a bit exhausted from making sure they behaved earlier in the night.

Not much else is going on at the moment. I’m still exercising at least three times a week, and I’ll be hitting the fitness center later this afternoon. My new position at SCJ is going well, and I’m keeping up with the workload I’ve been assigned. Perhaps it’s time to ask for a little more.

Yup, gasoline prices are on the rise.

Anyway, here’s the last installment in the Boston trip journal:

Boston Trip, Days Three and Four – February 21-22

Every trip has a day during which you do practically nothing. Saturday was that day for us. We hung out at Sarah’s apartment, watching movies, playing cards, ordering Chinese food, and basically relaxing after a lot of walking on Friday. We watched the first Harry Potter movie and What About Bob? I taught Sarah and Jenelle how to play a card game called golf. No, not the one that comes with Windows machines. This is a game in the style of gin with only four cards to a person, and two of them are hidden until the player decides to exchange them. The last time I played that game, I was in Minocqua. Fun times.

We didn’t have time to do much on Sunday. We packed up and headed out to the airport. It was a great trip. Thanks to Sarah for showing us around and providing some quality hospitality for us.

My apologies for not promptly continuing the journal of the Boston trip. I’ll try and get back to that later this weekend.

It is currently hour #7 of the annual 30-hour famine, sponsored by WorldVision. Youth and chaperones (that’s Jenelle and me) will be gathering at church later tonight. I’ll be taking pictures, and of course I’ll share them with everyone after the event is over.

Since I’ll probably be busy tomorrow, I’ll say this one day early:

Happy Birthday, Dyan!

Check out photos from Boston here. I’ll share some details from the trip in the near future.

Valentine’s weekend was a blast. Jenelle and I went shopping on both Saturday and Sunday. We went to the Olive Garden for dinner on Saturday night. Wow, what a crowd. All things considered, we didn’t really have to wait that long. On Sunday evening, we had dinner with my parents at Cortese’s, a quaint Italian restaurant in Kenosha. That was also fun.

A story from our shopping trip. Jenelle and I were at Target purchasing clothing to donate to local school children in need. We found a lot of great items on sale, and we both felt great buying a cart full of things not for us. On our way to the checkout, we saw a shirt in the girls department. It was pink with pictures of cute baby chickens on it. Written below the pictures was the following phrase, punctuated exactly as I have it shown here:

CHICK’S RULE!

This is quite irritating for both Jenelle and me, since we both endeavor to use proper punctuation, spelling, and grammar in everything we do. I’m certainly not perfect, but how can we expect our kids to do any better when absolutely awful punctuation mistakes are printed ON A SHIRT? Just because something is plural does not mean that it gets an apostrophe. Argh.

I’m not really that bitter about it — but I hope you find this blog entry a bit more informative that my usual contributions.