I was thinking about our impending move to Tennessee tonight as I spoke to the youth group. We kicked off the summer with a pool party welcoming our interns. I'm going to miss so many things about San Antonio: driving down Broadway to Starbucks or Broadway Daily Bread for a morning muffin or cinnamon roll, walking to work, running in our neighborhood, our house, the Spurs, the Riverwalk, the Quarry, Mexican food, but most of all, the people. We have so many good friends and will always miss everyone at Sunset Ridge. I hope to soak up every day this summer with my youth group and everyone at church.

Things I won't miss: construction on I-10, 410, 281, and all the potholes in-between.

Happy Birthday

Well, today was my birthday & turned 29. One more year in my twenties. We went to eat tonight at Red Robbin, a hamburger joint that's great for kids because it's loud with lots of music and balloons...Meredith could yell and carry on all she wanted. I even got a free ice cream sunday; what a deal. Kristen's birthday is saturday, so it's a party for a few days in May. Meredith will be two years old on June 13; we're all pretty close together.

Overall it's been a great day. I'm ready for the weekend and ready for the summer. Kristen found a house in Knoxville on their visit last week, so we now have a place to land when we move at the end of the summer.

I think the city has gotten over the Spurs loss the other night. Sports radio has become less interesting and people feel like they can close the basketball notebook for another year (unless you want to root for any of the final four). As such, the summer can begin a few weeks early instead of waiting until June for the heart pounding games to come to a close.

Looking Out

Kristen and I had a wonderful time in New York, though it seems like months ago now. Here we are at the top of the Empire State Building. It was fun to gaze over New York City, but it wasn't fun getting to the top-it took forever. Well, not really forever, but we stood in about 10 different lines, and it wasn't even a busy time of year-I saw tons of empty aisles of those ropes like at theme parks.

What else did we do? We took the double decker city tour through downtown and uptown, saw Ground Zero, which is completely fenced off and looks more like a construction zone than the devestation that occured there. We walked around Times Sqare and along Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty. We saw the musical The Pajama Game featuring Harry Connick Jr., which was fabulous! We went to Cafe Lalo on the upper west side and had dessert-this is the same cafe where Meg Ryan met Tom Hanks in You've Got Mail. We rode the subway a lot. In fact, one night, we were coming back from Brooklyn, visiting the Hays, and we were traveling under the East River, when the driver for some reason kept accelerating. Seriously, we were going so fast, we were getting a little nervous, rocking back and forth on this speeding bullet of a subway train underneath a river-it felt like we were going 100 mph! Then, we come to a stop, not at a station, but still underneath either the river or the ground, I'm sure because we were waiting on the current train at the station to depart since we arrived so early at break neck speed! Luckily, we didn't derail. We also went to the Regis and Kelly morning show; that was fun, but Kelly was off that day and Kristen really wanted to see her, but the show was still funny. One of the best things we did was eat pizza most every day. If you ever go to NYC, be sure to visit Joe's Pizza down by NYU at 6th Ave & Bleeker-apparently it's the best in the city, we loved it.

P.S. It was fun, but I don't see how people enjoy living with a million & a half other people in such tight quarters.

Summer's Coming

This summer will be special and sad for me since it will be my last summer with my youth group and our last few months in San Antonio. It's so hard to believe that we will be packing everything up and heading to Tennessee at the end of July or the first week in August. In fact, Kristen and Meredith are in Knoxville right now looking for a place for us to live. Hopefully they will have success.

Meredith is growing up so fast; she will be two in just a few short weeks. She is in constant motion. She jabbers all the time, going through her list of words: mama, dada, dogggggg; no, papa, kk, baaaaaabyyyyy. She knows many more words, but they don't always sound like the object she is pointing to like banana: baaaaaanaaaa. Or "please" comes out like: pblup. And thank you is: ayyy. ? I don't know. But one that she has down pat is amen: aaaaaaamin.

W

Click here to watch a brief video from Fox News that shows President Bush speaking at a banquet while his "stunt double" says aloud what Bush is really thinking. Pretty funny. Maybe his alter ego will make an appearance tonight as he speaks to the nation about immigration.

I'll be cheering on the Spurs tonight to see if they can even the series with the Mavs in the NBA playoffs. It's a must win...for the Spurs...not for me, really...anyway...Go Spurs Go!

Don't Forget Mother's Day

Have you gotten your mother a Mother's Day card yet? What about a gift? I keep hearing all kinds of reminders on the radio. Of course, there is the original gift of flowers, just call 1-800-flowers, right? A different, rather unusual idea is called pajamagram.com whereby you can send your mother pajamas for her special day...huh? That's a little weird. If you're old enough to listen to sports talk radio where they are advertising this product, I don't think you should be buying your mother pajamas...I mean, I don't want to know what my mom wears to bed? And then there is the ever popular (really?) Vermont Teddy Bear--what in the world? For the product that suggests: "Send the creative altervative to flowers" Yeah Right! What mother would rather have a $75 stuffed bear than something that she could really use...or at least, something she would really like? I know for Kristen, who is also a wonderful mom, she would be thinking, "I could buy a really nice pair of shoes with that money!"

Well, whatever you do, don't forget to do something. At least, make that phone call this Sunday.

Good Luck.

p.s. Just heard the Vermont Bear commercial for the 5th time this morning. I caught the number this time, so you can call 1-800-829-BEAR. And of course, one of the most popular items is the "Mamma's Bear." Order Now!

Home at Last

Well, it's great to be home. We've been on the road for the past 2 weeks. We were at the Pepperdine Lectures this past week in Malibu, and we had a great time. The weather was nice and cool and the campus was as beautiful as ever. The program was very good, and overall the week was very refreshing. I feel like I can tackle the summer schedule with a revived energy. See here for more opinions on the week.

I have recently announced to my congregation that I will be departing after the summer. I have been accepted to a Ph.d. program in communications at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville to begin in August. I was offered a Teaching Assistantship that covers my full tuition for the entire program, and provides a stipend for teaching in the School of Communication Studies. I couldn't turn in down. I'll be joining Jim Miller (of Harding) who is also at UTK in the College of Communication Ph.d. program. We'll be moving at the end of the summer. We are very excited but also very sad to leave Sunset Ridge, our home for 4 years. My course work will take about 2 1/2 years, and then of course, I'll have several hours of dissertation research and writing.

Most importantly, I hope to get to see at least one football game at one of the largest college stadiums in the country!