Crazy fun weekend

This past weekend was very busy. On Thursday I got together with Christina for lunch. She is about one minute away from my work. We had a wonderful time catching up on life. It was great to hear how much she was enjoying school and how God was blessing her. I know that we will be having lunch again soon.

That night, Christina invited me to a pro soccer game. From my recollection, I have never watched a full game of soccer. I also had no clue about rules and basics about how to play. The fans were very intense. There were pre-written cheers and many of the fans stood up. Of the standing up fans, most stood on the bleacher seats! With less than fifteen minutes in the game, the elements let loose and we had to escape inside the stadium to avoid lightning. After a half an hour we were back on the bleachers. This time I joined the crazy fans and stood on the bleacher seat.

On Friday night, Camille, a friend of Camille's, and me went to see Ratatouille. It was excellent. The story moved along, all ages enjoyed, the main characters were likable, and I actually wanted to cook afterwards.

Moving on to Saturday. Camille and I went for a beautiful walk around Royal Lake. We both tried out our jogging course skills on the exercises around the lake.

The best day was Sunday. After church I went to brunch at Clydes with Opa, Oma, Uncle David, and Shea. It was wonderful to hang with family and eat great food. The climax of the day was going to see Phantom of the Opera at the Kennedy Center. The Kennedy Center has a fantastic view of DC from the terrace. Camille and I strolled the whole terrace before going to the opera.

a year of work

Wow! It has been a whole year of working in Virginia for me. There was hard times, but also rewarding times. I had trouble working with a few of my co-workers. One did not give me enough feedback in a timely manner. This caused a very horrible Friday, where my co-worker gave me to much feedback at one time. I started to cry. From this, I learned to keep persistently bothering my co-worker for feedback early on in my work. Getting my first project done was wonderful. To realize that I had a party with structural designing a small water tank in a country I will probably never visit.

Outside of work, my social life is slowing coming. I go many places and hang with many people from church. I also have taken short trips with my roommate. Overall, I have been blessed with new friendships as well as keeping up with old friends in AZ.

Summer is here and the bugs are biting

It reached the 90s today. In Phoenix, 90s are not to bad, but in Virginia the humidity makes the weather miserable. The rise in heat also brings my least favorite insect, the terrify, pain inducing, mosquitoes. I received my first bit yesterday. Unfortunately, the bite is on my foot. Itchy pain went with me each step I took today.

My Good Friend's Wedding

My good friend Deb is now happily married to her perfect match, Jonah. I was grateful to witness the wedding on the evening of June 8. Deb looked elegant, calm, and elated the whole day.
I realized at the wedding, that I have known Deb for over 10 years. We clicked the second time meeting and God blessed me with a wonderful friend in Deb. Watching her story unfold from the musicals, high school co-op, Coffee Talk, college, her meeting Jonah has been amazing. Through out the whole time Deb was God focused and a great listener. She contemplated a lot and her thoughts were always interesting and insightful. I look forward to watching Deb in this new stage of life.

Christianity a violent and aggressive religion?!?

Interesting article that causes great reflection. I disagree with the author about the religions that are non-aggressive. At the Smithsonian there is an exhibit on the history of Sikhism. The religion spread through "evangelism".

Confession in Caregroup

Confession of sins in Caregroup?!? Hmmm... how is this to work/look? Heather said that the AZ churches were strongly encouraging confessing your sins in member only caregroups, but didn't address discussing overcoming the sins. My brain immediately began processing all the information I have received through pamphlets and sermons on the topic of confessing sins. My view, which I am seeing demonstrated in my church here is logical and seems to be God focused. When members of my caregroup do confess sin, it is followed by an intense time in asking questions and bringing out scripture to help in disclosing the root of sin and God's instruction on overcoming the sin. The main thing I enjoy is the scripture that is shared. It is encouraging to me sometimes, even though I did not share my struggles. Scripture lets us know that we are to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel (1 Cor. 10:31) God's main route to speak to us is through scripture. I hope that that every one's caregroups see the importance of confession backed with scripture. We need God's word to know how to live and to see who God is. Without scripture, caregroup is merely a self help group that does nothing to move us forward in the race that is set before us. In Hebrews 12:1-3 it says: "Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." My conclusion about confession in caregroup is that it needs to point the attention and focus onto Jesus Christ and not allow us to wallow in or justify our sins/struggles. Ladies or any family member please post your thoughts, I realize that my brain is very small and my knowledge of scripture is not unending.

All Work and No Play

Work has finally picked up. This is due my big project getting back under way after being on hold for two months. (a side note about design engineering work, a project has phases. Most projects consist of a few different submissions of progress sets before final construction ready documents.) So, to continue my story, our last progress set was back in October for a 35% design set. The project was then put on hold mid-February, because some Admiral was reconsidering how the Navy should set up their housing for enlisted men. Fast forward to mid-April, my work gets a call to start back up the project with a due date for our 75% progress set on May 30th. Not bad, we were given six weeks to get the project from 35% to 75%. But fortunately or unfortunately, a week and a half ago, the contractor changed their minds. My project due date was moved up to May 14th. This new due date has required me to spend a few hours the past two Saturdays here:
It is very nice to being working hard for a change. I do not enjoy boredom.