back home again

walking out of airport customs to see your wife and daughter is an amazing thing. amy and sophi were standing there with a sign that said "welcome home daddy". now, i've been through lots of pick up points and have seen lots of signs for people that have never meant much to me... my guess is that most all of us have. strange how our livs can be filled with times of overlapping into others very special moments and there we are "extras". one thing that i walk away from these past few days in the Netherlands with is an extra appreciation for community. relationships pretty much make or break us. yeah i know we all know that, but walking down an airport hallway sure is different when you read the sign that says, "welcome home daddy" and your little girl and wife are the ones smiling there.

i wonder what life would be like if we really were able to live in a way that all the time we held out signs that read, "welcome home"?

i'll recap the trip...at some point. let's just say it was awesome.

Sophi does Mad City . . .

We're back (online that is . . . .and also from Madison). We're having Aaron's (Amy's brother) graduation party tomorrow so Mom has us all working hard on slicing, dicing, decorating and cleaning. That doesn't leave much time for blogging. But alas . . . Mom finally fell asleep. We're free, we're free!!! (Love you, Mom.)

Anyway, thought we'd tell a little about our big trip to Madison on Thursday. Mike (Amy's brother) needed a way to get back to Menasha for the big grad party so we decided to take a trip to visit him in and give him a ride back. Our traveling crew included (see photo) Sophi and I, Aaron and Bubba (Amy's brothers), and Marcus and Annali (family friends). We were lucky enough to find lodging at Mike's house where he lives with five other guys. Sleeping bags were required for this trip. You'll notice from the photo that even Sophi had to rough it as I made her a little "nest" on the floor. She slept like a baby (yes, pun was intended).

Some of the highlights of our 24 hour escapade included eating on the roof of a great Greek restaurant (see photo), bumming around up and down State St., and taking in the Wisconsin Cow Parade (http://wisconsin.cowparade.com/) that is on display in Madison right now (sorry, I don't know how to do those cool hyper links yet). The photo you see is of all of us posing with one of the 101 cows on display. This particular one is entitled "Bumper-cow". The whole thing is really a unique and enjoyable art exhibit.

Closing remarks? We're having a good time here but we sure miss you, Daddy! Please come home soon!

day 6 (Amsterdam!)

Amsterdam. this is a city a person could fall in love with. so much culture. so many people. so much to see and experience. let me say for the record that our guide Stephen did a fantabulicious job of keeping us clear of the stereotypical "Amsterdam" stuff. we walked by some coffee shops, legal pot shops, and one or two shops that you had to keep "your eyes upon the sparrow" as they say.

the canals were fantastic. the city is amazing. the leaning buildings that were built on wooden foundations that have begun to rot. the parrallel parking right up on a canal with no guard rail...are we good? too far? where did my car go? oh its in the water alright... do i still have to pay for parking down there?

bikes everywhere! it's the way to travel here. makes me feel very lazyu for hopping in the car to go get a gallon of milk just up the street. we are going to be going back into the city on monday for our free day so there will be more time to check things out.

its too much to try to download here so i won't even try. the service went very well. thestudents put together a quick worship set and did a few songs... they did a really good job, they are a talented bunch. then they had an icebreaker (summer trivia) a full worship set by their team and then Kent spoke. He also did a great job. I think the nationals really connected with him. the team from Teen Challenge (not what your thinking... more teen less rehab) are fantastic. God has really put together an amazing bunch of people who want to just love on that city. light for real in a pretty dark spot.

on to the food. lunch sandwiches (breakfast same stuff as all week) i "forgot" mine, actually i overslept and didn't have time to make anything, fortunately they gave me some of their sandwiches. a hearty mix of vegetables in a bun. (you could get used to it for sure). dinner was another variation on noodles, tomato sauce, meat and vegetables (i call it goulaash... but i of course don't know how to spell it)

got home around 11:30 or 23:30 for all you non Americans.

Kid's Fest tomorrow!

day 5

Lots of pics of student working hard. Saturday we are having Kids Fest at the church. It is going to be a crazy, fun, tons of kids party/carnival extravaganza. Hopefully. Anyway the team spent all day working on projects around the church getting things finished up and ready for the weekend. They are hard hard workers. I think we may have discovered the secret to getting teens to work... just have them do it thousands of miles away from their own homes. To bad there is no practical way to get htis to work back home.

Anyway on to good stuff... food. Dinner was a great salmon over pasta with spinach and tomato salad. Very very good. Lunch was packed sandwiches (cheese, peanut butter and ham... not all together. although that does sound... nevermind)

in the evening the whole team went down to hilversum's center square/ downtown to hand out flyers for the Kid's Fest event. Each student had twenty flyers to hand out and then they could spend some time looking around aka shopping. it went well for the most part. only a few were seens on the ground on our way out.

strange how you can be a place for such a short period of time and have things gain a balance. i imagine this has something to do with the team clicking so well. so here we are half way, we'll be on the planes home before we know it.

day 4

Food first: Last night we had some chicken, scalloped potatoes and salad.
Snacks (chips and such were a plenty at the game party)
breakfast ... missed it today. Sleep is good. But since i've had breakfast two days now, i have offically eaten more of them here than at Spencer Lake over my whole six year run at North Ridge. Once again... sleep is good and morning eating is overrated.

American automobileage at its best. The Chevy... gas guzzler at only $9 a gallon.

Yesterday was another day filled with working at the church and passing out flyers. Which led up to our evening event… Netherlands vs Argentina world cup game. We were not sure how this would go over, but there was a fantastic response. A sea of orange sitting in the sanctuary cheering on the home team. All the Americans were disappointed with the 0 – 0 tie. The nationals understood that this still earned one point and both teams were advancing anyway. Guess we have a bit to learn concerning football. 150 - 200 here (not so good at counting people...)

Today are continuing our work around the church… last day. The students have mad skills when it comes to manual labor. Painting, cleaning, sanding, making banners, scraping moss, mulching… now if there was only some way to harness this power back home. Chores? What mean chores? Zero complaining from the students, what a great team.

One thing I did learn… that if you hit a bike (even if it’s their fault… ) you get in big trouble. Don’t worry the biker is going to be alright… just kidding.

Pics will be coming a bit later... minor network troubles.

Oscar bets the farm . . .

Hello all! As promised, Sophi and I have some more exciting stories to share with you. Let's start with one about Oscar (our brittany spaniel):

Sophi, Mom and I went to visit my friend Shana (see last night's post) and her mom, Sherry. Shana has two little dogs (Shitzu breed, I believe) and they love other animals. So she asked us to bring Oscar out with us when we came. We did. Sherry lives out in the country. Long story short, when we got out of the car, Oscar and the two little dogs got pretty excited. The little ones started to chase Oscar who was happy to oblige by running from them at top speed. At first it was just around the yard. Before I knew it, Oscar had taken off down the country highway in the direction of a nearby farm, two little dogs trailing behind. Shana and I took off running after them (me in my flip flops), calling for them to come back. From previous experience, I knew full well that Oscar had no intentions of stopping or of turning around to come come back to me and his leash. He was living a dream . . .to run wild and free straight toward a whole farmyard of animals. We followed the three of them to the farm, where they, by the time we arrived, had already gotten in with the baby calves and were chasing them around their pen. The chickens were the next target. Oscar left the calves and started chasing them around the farmyard. I finally caught up with Oscar when he pounced onto one of the poor foul and had it in his mouth. I got Oscar to let go and the chicken just sat there, surrounded by a whirlwind of feathers in the air. Oscar got the beating of his life (not really, but I did whack him good) and I think the chicken eventually walked away from the scene of the accident -unharmed, for the most part, but with a lot fewer feathers. Oscar, needless to say, is exhausted (see image above).

The other image is one that confirms, once again, that Sophi is definitely her daddy's girl.
Name: Sophi
Age: 5 months
Soft drink of choice: Coke
(Thanks, Uncle Tim, for introducing it to her!)

day three

Day three

This evening HICC is hosting the Netherlands v Argentina World Cup game. The church is being converted (no pun intended) into a football hall. It should be a fantastic night. No strings, just come and watch the game.

Went to city center this afternoon in Hilversum. Quite a nice area. Very much European, reminded me a bit of Dublin, but you had to look the “correct” way before stepping out into traffic. Also, most things are written in Dutch, which only makes sense. Yesterday we scraped grass from in between the tiles all day. This may not sound exciting… it was. Well, maybe not, but it looks great now. “As unto the Lord…” Today is more work around the church and then the game of course.

Breakfast has been bread, spread with butter and jam (strawberry I believe). Last night was a great pork on a stick with spicy rice and cucumber salad (my wife loves cucumber salad, so I had some just for her). Lunch today was a Hawaiian garlic bread (bread, pineapple, ham and cheese). So needless to say, we are eating well.

Less than one week to go.

Pics – I used to own a Swift when I was in college (with a paint job you have to see).
- van I’ve been carting the team around with (only stalled a few times)

Another exciting day . . .

Sophi and I would like to apologize for the fact that part of this post is underlined. No clue on how that little option was activated. Okay, on to our day . . .

We started by taking a bath in the sink (just Sophi, not Amy). There's nothing like a good stainless steel sink to make a baby feel pampered.

Then we were off to my sister in law's house to have lunch with her and her son (cousin Liam). I sure am fortunate to have such a great friend in Wendy. Sophi and Liam seem to be developing a special friendship too (look, they're even holding hands!) Although, if they someday want to take a trip to Utah together, we might get a little nervous.


Sophi was able to get to know her Grandpa Ullmer a little better tonight as she witnessed a typical "Grandpa Project" being completed. There's nothing quite like watching my dad do a household project. As he himself would say, "I have my ways . . .". Sophi and I were lucky enough tonight to have courtside seats for the entire operation. We heard all about how the knobs were selected specifically to match the color of the DVD player. I love you, Dad.

We ended our evening with a quick trip to Starbucks to meet up with Shana, my best friend of 22 years. Shana and I enjoyed our drinks and Sophi enjoyed sucking on a blue elephant.. All three of us enjoyed each other's company.

Until tomorrow . . .

day... uh... jet lag

hello world. i'm sitting on the steps of an old reformed church in hilversom. it's lunch break and i'm eating a sweet cheese sandwhich. actually the cheese isn't sweet tasting, but the sandwhich sure is sweet. oh the rabbit trails...

so far this experience is fantabulicious. (work that word into your daily vocab for best social results) HICC is a very cool international church that is in its early stages here in hilversum. more on that later. the team is good. no one has gotten sick... so far. but we did have one casualty... one of the guys plugged a power strip into teh wall (using one transformer) and blew out all the power back at our lodge. poor poor power strip. it died so young.

cobblestone streets. cool little cars. very nice people. one purchased Netherlands world cup jersey. i got a name put on the back, but was a bit nervous because i thought the guy may have put a dutch curse word on it. his buddies were laughing as he put the letters on. talk about being uncertain. it could have been the thing that got me beat up in the airport.... but i asked one of teh nationals if this was alright and she said it was fine. it is tough being an american who grew up thinking "why should i ever learn a foriegn language? the world speaks english right?"

miss the fam, but sounds like they are having fun. and Brad if you are reading this... i waved when we flew over dublin. so close, yet so far away. Robbie says hello.

one last thing... so far the tape is holding on the camera... the wonder of tape and a little quick thinking.

Day #2 . . .

Sophi and I were busy today. Here are a few pictures from our most exciting activities . . . (a very relative term):

I went along with Bubba and Aaron (two of the five brothers) to the mall to help Bubba with some fashion choices (see photo below of the three of us crammed into Aaron's muffler-less car). Aaron and I put together some pretty sweet ensembles.

It was a beautiful, windy day so I hung Sophi's cute little clothes on the clothesline. There's just something about that"fresh from the clothesline" smell.

And Daddy, you'll be glad to know that Sophi had her "tummy time". We're working real hard at rolling over. Not yet, but soon . . .

Jet lag... i got some jet lag now...jet lag time for me.

Jason here: Got to the Netherlands alright. Landed with a small group from Wisconsin that met up with another group from Arizona. We are connecting with a church in Hilversom (SP) for the next few days. So i'll update that as we go. We are all pretty tired and in need of some sleep. I will post more over the next few days.

We miss you, Daddy . . .

Look out everyone . . . Amy is taking over the "upkeeping of the blog" for the next 10 days. Jason is in the Netherlands on a mission trip with several high school students from our youth group. While he's gone, Sophi and I are hangin' here in Appleton with my family. We'll be posting about all of our exciting adventures so that Daddy knows what we're up to. Here are a few highlights from today . . .

After receiving a frantic phone call from Jason this morning telling me that he had forgotten his Detroit Tiger's hat here in Appleton, I began the search to find it. I should have known that Sophi had taken it shortly before she fell asleep for her morning nap. Luckily, I was able to get it from her and meet up with Jason and the team in Oshkosh before they continued on to O"Hare. We're so glad that Daddy can now represent his favorite team while he's in the Netherlands!

Also, Sophi and I celebrated Father's Day with my family at a local Chinese restaurant this afternoon. Sophi had her first taste of sushi . . . okay, I'm kidding. But we still got a cute picture.

discovering new and exciting ways to lose

North Ridge Church 7
Neighborhood Bar 10

This loss wouldn't be so bad, except we had fans wait out a rain delay (no tarp, where's the ground crew?) and then still stick around until 10:30. right up until the very last out... which was made on a not so great call. pop fly, shallow left, outfielder running in, slide, ball hits the ground, snatched quickly, "out" should have been ruled a trap... but i think the ump had had enough. i know we had.

yet, out of no where, a one, mr scott shaw, charges the ump and yells, "bad call!" our whole bench was screaming, "throw him out! toss him!" which would have been the coolest thing ever. well, maybe not the coolest, but it would have been up there. ah, the competive spirit brought out so well by a simple game of softball

now opening for teirney...

up until five minutes ago, if you were to open my myspace page or whatever you would have been greeted by david gray's "the one i love". good song. gray will always remind amy and i of our first trip to ireland and the chance in a lifetime of seeing him live over there. great show by the way.

so anyway, you gotta love myspace. then again, i guess you don't have to love it. but where else would my buddy teirney get to follow up david gray? with the click of a mouse, "the one i love" by mr gray gets the boot. if that ain't power to the people i sure don't know what is.

i love "lost". i hate to say this, but i get a bit moist in the eyes anytime i listen to this song. mostly because it makes me wish that we were having a cup of coffee and hashing and rehashing the important things of life. not to mention that although we were never "lost in minnesota", we did get turned around on the way back to marshfield from a jeff weiss show over in wausaw. green bay? does that sound right? no?

life's best moments sometimes come in the midst of lostness.

us

Nothing deep to say, just wanted to post this pic.

A cow by any other name

They just don't grow 'em like this in central Wisconsin.

There really is no point to this, other than to say, "We miss you big guy and thanks for the memories."

Couldn't win one for the Gipper

North Ridge Church 5
Shallows Nursery 11

Tonight's game was a bit of a let down. We couldn't get the bats going and we had a few too many mental errors in the field. This is always a recipe for a big old loss.

We played our little hearts out, but it just wasn't enough. Which is beginning to be the story of our season. But hey, I went three for three with two doubles. But then there is of course no "I" in TEAM.

We may discover new ways of letting games slip through our fingers each week, but our uniforms do look good. And when it's all said and done, isn't it really about how you look?

transitions

"Life is made up of meetings and partings, that is the way of it."
Kermit the Frog
Muppet Christmas Carol

Amy and I are saddened by the official announcement of our moving on from Youth Ministry at NRC. Some of life's event catch us totally off guard and others slowly come about. I guess this is one of those both/either moments. Which is to say that it is complicated. But then what isn't?

So now what? Who knows? It sure would be nice to say that we are ending on date A here and starting on date C over there... but as of right now there is no "there". (if you would like to be "there" feel free to drop us a line) School is an option for the future. I plan on beginning a Master's program from Regent College in Vancuver. But no, we are not moving to British Columbia. It's a distance program. Which means we will be staying in the midwest.

Amy says that I tend to give too much information as a general rule... so I'll keep things short. We are not sure where we are going to land and that's going to have to be alright. If this faith stuff is as real as we say it is, then trusting God for tomorrow is really going to have to be enough for right now.

Sometimes you're Moses saying, "Let my people go." and then sometimes you're just floating in the river...

Something to try on a day off... or when you are just off

They sure smell good don't they? But i'll let you in on a little secret. It's the soap you use when you give them their bath. Which means two things... 1)they tend to smell a bit off before bath time (who wouldn't spit up and all) and 2)you can get roughly the same "baby" smell by washing you've favorite teddy bear, blanket, or shirt in said baby soap. Why a person could even bathe themself in soft foamy goodness...the danger in this practice would be that you would have people coming up all day and smelling you going, "Don't you just love the smell of babies."

Depending on your love language this would either be extremely awkward or very very comforting. Either way, it is an experiement that should only be attempted with extreme caution.