Memorial Day 2008 (the lighter side)

While at the cemetary we were looking at the stones and discovered one of Dad's most unfortunate neighbors from long ago. Life must have been difficult for Lulu.

Memorial Day 2008

Brant's best Silly Grandpa imitation











We missed the California cousins. Would have loved to have you there too!

A Bearable Job

I discovered what my next job is going to be! These guys in Maine are in charge of bear monitoring. Here is a link to pictures. They might take a while to load, but I thought this would be pretty cool to do!

Festival of Faith and Writing

Calvin College and specifically the "Festival of Faith and Writing" made the Wall Street Journal the other day and was portrayed in a positive light even!

This article shed some wonderful light on how the Festival is making an impact even on the authors who come to speak and giving the world around us a much healthier view of Evangelical Christians. I really enjoyed the article (especially the last two paragraphs) and thought I'd share it.


"I'm an English major. You do the math."

New T-Shirts

Mental Floss just came out with two new t-shirt designs. I wouldn't wear it, but this one caught my eye:


They have some really cool t-shirts coming down the pike. Their teasers include...

'I'm an English major. You do the math.' (by Lisa Sims of Quinton, Alabama)

'The Adams Family', featuring John, Abigail & JQ Adams (by Aaron Crouch of Deer Park, Texas)

'The Constitution: I read it for the Articles' (by Colin Neagle of Tacoma, Washington)

'Palindromes are rasemordnilap' (by Ira Wray of Troy, Ohio)

'Apathy: I could take it or leave it' (by Roxanne Banks of Denver, Colorado)

'(front) I say tomato and you say tomato...(back) Doesn't make much sense when you read it' (by Shannon of Ladson, South Carolina)

Home Sweet Home

A mother robin has chosen our home this year to be her home. We've had fun watching little heads peeking up and new little wings being tested.

When I snapped these pictures I thought of all the space we think we need in our homes. Here is a mother and 3 or 4 babies all sharing this one nest...pretty impressive!

I'm curious to see how long it will be before they fly off on their own. My guess is it won't be too long!

Interpreter of Maladies

This morning my book club discussed Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. It is a series of short stories from Indian immigrants. I loved her writing and found the stories very captivating.

They impressed upon me the huge challenge of immigration that was experienced not that long ago by many in my family and in the Dutch culture I live in and that is still going on today in different ways and with different cultures.

Her stories aren't extremely hopeful. They call on the value of community, but that community isn't easily found in most of her characters. So there is a lot of sadness throughout her writing. Yet, the last story is a story of hope and joy. Perhaps that is her final message to her immigrant readers.

Over all, I enjoyed the book. It was short enough that I finished early and was able to read Into the Wild as well this month. That too is a book worth reading.

Next month's book: The Last Duel by Eric Jager

Hopeful...

The definition of "hopeful"...to be full of hope.

My son is full of hope...Hope College that is. He cheers for Hope every opportunity he gets. It didn't help that a young man from our church played for Hope for the last three years. His family has given Brant a Hope t-shirt that he wears proudly and has even taken him along to a Hope game.

Yesterday I come home to find out that another person in our congregation had very generously stopped by to give Brant a basketball signed by all of last year's Hope College basketball team. It is now proudly displayed in his bedroom.

Hope fan...Cubs fan...Bears fan...Bulls fan...

Whose son is he?