Happy Birthday, Josh

We didn't really go all out for the little guy's 8th birthday...for a number of reasons...but I think Josh enjoyed himself yesterday as he "partied" with his two bestest friends, who happen to live right next door, in helping him celebrate his 8th birthday.

I know that I'm gonna sound like just another braggin' father here, but I really have to say how incredibly proud I am of my son. These past six months have been a very trying time for our family, and the little guy has been simply amazing through it all. I've always said that Josh is the type of kid who wears his heart on his sleeve...but he's also turned into quite a strong young man who is constantly looking out for not only his little sister, but his mother, whom he loves ever so much. Through it all, Josh is always concerned that everyone is always happy and well taken care of. The lil' guy is gonna make an awesome husband/dad one day...no doubt about it.

Outside of the DS that you so dearly wanted for your birthday, Josh...if there is one gift that I could give to you for your birthday it would be the courage to fight for things in your life that are most important....never take the easy way out, love your family and friends with all your heart, and keep your faith in Christ. Truth is, though, Josh tends to help me out with these things a whole lot more than I do for him. Happy Birthday son...I love ya so much!

Archbishop Hoban High School

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Class of 2013

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Our Admissions department will use this photo quite a bit this fall in various publications. Check out the gleaming smile of the cute one in the lower right hand corner of the photo...Ms. Marie's high school career has officially begun!

Summer Reading

Josh was assigned the “Herculean” task of reading 20 minutes each day of his summer break by his teacher on his last day of school. Looking around at the plethora of books in his room, I thought that maybe we could turn this into a little project that would have some meaning to it…as well as something that he will hopefully remember for a while. Around a couple of weeks ago, Josh had actually asked for a Bible for his birthday. He’s had a couple of prayer books and “favorite Bible stories” collections…but never did he own an actual kid’s Bible that contained both the Old and New Testaments.

So after a quick trip to Borders, I found this one that seemed to be perfect for the little guy, who is still honing in on his first grade reading skills. This Bible has around 550 pages, and contains the major OT and NT stories. What’s been most amazing to me is how much Josh actually knows about some of the OT characters- apparently from both his grade school as well as Sunday school classes. When we began the story about Jacob and Esau…he piped up…”Oh yeah, Dad, this is the one about the mean son who stole his brother’s birthmark”…”You mean, birth-right?” “Yeah, that’s it”…and so the summer reading continued...

To date, we’ve read through most of Exodus, and are getting ready to plow through Joshua and the Battle of Jericho this week…

Josh- my Josh that is…has read every word on every page so far. Only 452 pages to go!

Alive 2009

After what seemed like weeks of reading Guy's Facebook status of ..."don't forget to vote for Julie at http://www.alive.org/ "...things fell into place as Julie Hufstetler secured a top ten spot for this year's New Artist Talent Search at the Alive Music Festival in Canal Fulton.

In addition to the incredible vocals of Ms. Julie, our band consisted of Andrea Leibundgut- drums, Jayson Benn- electric guitar, Daniel Salmons- bass, Joey Garlando- keyboards, and yours truly on acoustic. We took the stage at noon today and played a 25 minute set in the Woods stage...complete with an encore of one of my favorite tunes from Julie's latest CD's, He Changes Everything.

The winner, as chosen by the judges at Alive 09, will represent Alive this fall at the Word Records New Artist Talent Search in Nashville, TN. There the winner will be showcased and compete against 16 other festival winners from across the country.

Then, as an added bonus, the winner will be also be able to perform at the 2010 Alive festival on the Main Stage.

This whole experience was something that I will treasure for a long time. I was truly flattered that Julie even asked me to play in the band, and I think we all were kind of pleasantly surprised how quickly and effortlessly things came together for today's performance. Anytime you want to take this gig on the road there, Ms. Julie...count me in! Regardless of the outcome of the competition, you are a phenomenal musical talent, and no doubt God has great things in store for you with your song writing/ music ministry...

Conquering the Magnum

The lil' guy helped me chaperone the annual Hoban High School 9th grade class trip to Cedar Point today. As what has become the norm, it rained the entire way up to Sandusky, but once we got inside the park, the rains ceased and we had a pretty decent day- albeit a bit chilly. But the upside to that was that the lines were almost non-existent...I don't think we waited for more than 10 minutes for any of the rides we tackled today, including the Magnum (after a little bit of encouragement by yours truly)

The Hoban kids were great- both on the bus ride to the park as well as their promptness getting back to the buses by 7:30 p.m.- it was 7:33 when the last kid boarded this evening...not too bad.

My fondest memory of the trip came when my son was playing the infamous guessing game- you know the one when the gal tries to guess either your weight, age, or birthdate. Not having seen the gal write down her guess on a piece of paper, she asked Josh when his birthday was...after replying that it was on June 27th, the worker said "December...take your prize young man." Perplexed, Josh looked at her and replied, " Didn't you just hear me....I said it was in June...you don't listen very well" Well, maybe you had to be there...I thought it was awfully funny.