Winter?

What happened to winter? Sad to say, we've hardly had it here in Virginia. We had some cold days, but almost no snow. Nada. Zilch. Less than one inch total all winter. Makes me very sad. I like snow. It is peaceful and beautiful and slows the world down a bit. I don't always like shoveling large volumes of it, but prefer that to none! Sigh. I am holding out hope that maybe February will bring one last vestige of winter, but I'm not holding my breath. Maybe next year.  :-(

Convention Day 1

Travel day to Tampa today (Friday), plus meeting with the Floor Committee to consider the feedback we received to our resolutions. The travel was smooth, and met in the afternoon for approx. 2.5 hours. But we didn't change any resolutions because of the feedback. This morning (Saturday) are the open hearings for the Floor Committees, where folks can come and speak to the group in person. Our chair doesn't expect there to be too many. We'll see.

The bad part of yesterday was not getting lunch. But kept busy, so didn't feel too hungry. The hotel we're at is very nice, and I have a vey nice view out my window. :-)  So, a few pictures for you:

Nice sunrise driving to the airport.

Cool clouds Ubering from the airport to the hotel.

A storm rolled in while we were eating dinner. Fortunately, we were able to finish and get back to the hotel before the deluge. You could tell right when it was about to hit and the temperature dropped about 10 degrees in a moment! Like a wall of cold air coming in. And then there was quite a show we got to see out our hotel window! 

Crazy Weather

OK, so how crazy is the weather in the DC area? Well, if you scroll down this blog, you'll see a screenshot of my phone which shows the temperature on Sunday, January 7th as 0 degrees. 0, as in zero, nada, zip, goose egg, no degrees at all, not even one.

Today? A mere five days later? Guess what the temperature is?

Crazy. Just crazy.

And tomorrow we'll be back down to freezing again.

[Sound of head shaking . . .]

Monday Morning Coffee

Well, time for an update . . .

Now that the Christmas season is past and Epiphany is upon us, time to reflect a little . . .  It seems like Christmas went by so fast this year. Maybe that's because we really didn't have a 4th week of Advent, but just a couple of hours! It was a good Christmas, though, and nice having the family together and in church together. I know that as my children keep growing and getting older, those times will start getting less frequent.

My father has been staying healthy of late. That's good! We had a nice little Christmas celebration with him on Christmas night. He couldn't open his presents by himself this year - needed help. But he appreciated having us all there for a little while. Then after Christmas we started decorating the white board we have in his room (which we update every day with the day and date, so he'll know) with pictures of the 12 Days of Christmas. Here's the final result:

What do you think? :-) Some of the artwork is mine, some my wife's, and some my sister's. We got a little inventive at times! But it was fun.

We've also had quite the cold snap here in Northern Virginia. Normally our temperatures here are like a roller coaster, but the past couple of weeks has just been cold. Here is a screen shot from my phone yesterday:

Yup, ZERO degrees. Now, I'm not sure it was really quite that cold where I was - it didn't feel like zero. And while I know that for you guys in Minnesota and Chicago and the like, this isn't that big a deal, it IS here in NoVA.

In other news, we got the good news that the permits have been received for the repairs on our church building and work should begin imminently. So if they don't take too long, we might be able to get back in soon! That would be great.

Finally, some pictures from Christmastime . . .

With Mrs. Peasant at "Zoo Lights" at the National Zoo. My daughter's chorus sang there that night. If we look cold, it's because we are!

Our tree this year.

My girls.

Family Photo after Divine Service on Christmas Day.

Storm Damage

Last night during the storms that blew through our area a tree came down onto the church building that we rent for use. So the building will be unusable for a time. Hopefully we will be able to get in today and move what we need out of our closet there. Please keep us in your prayers.

Symposia, Day 2

Sadly, meh. Again. Heard five papers yesterday, but the tendency has been to deliver ten minute papers in 60 minutes. Get to the point, please, and do some analysis, not just data collection and presentation. There were a couple of exceptions, papers worth listening to. Dr. Wenthe's actually ended too soon. He has a good ability to examine the culture and apply theology to it, but mid-paper was interrupted by a presentation - I wish one of the others had been interrupted instead! The second paper worth the price of admission was Dr. Rittgers. I have read his work before and he is very good and did not disappoint. He is an historian and has a good ability to deliver a tight, focused, and interesting paper. The others . . .

I did receive some good news yesterday. Modern Reformation Magazine is publishing my article in their March/April edition - an apologetic, of sorts, for the resurrection. I wrote it last year and hadn't heard much back from them, so wasn't sure. So glad my efforts there will be rewarded.

I've also been watching the winter storm moving into DC on Friday. I think I'll get home before most of it hits. Sadly, it is Ma Peasant's weekend to work, which means with the snow (if it comes as they say) we probably won't see her from Friday night until sometime on Sunday afternoon. :-(

Yes, It's Cold Here!

When I woke up this morning, it was 2 degrees outside. 2. Two. One plus one. Don't even need a whole hand of fingers to count the degrees. Now, some of you who live in northern Minnesota may be used to that kind of weather, but down here near DC, that's cold for us! Thank you Lord for my nice warm house and furnace that works.

An Interesting Week

Any week that begins with an earthquake and ends with a hurricane must qualify as an interesting week! The hurricane actually wasn't as bad as many expected here, as it stayed far enough east that it really only skirted us, just like many of the snow storms last winter. We got a bunch of rain and some hard winds, but not enough to cause any real damage. Some downed trees and branches, some folks without power. No flooding (to my knowledge) in the area. As for me and my family, we only lost power for approximately 1.5 seconds around midnight, just long enough to . . . yes, you guessed it . . . reset all the clocks in the house! A few more branches down around the church, but an easy clean up. We even had pretty good attendance today! More than I expected. I have good folks.

Next week will have trouble living up this this past week! One of the guys on the radio said that after an earthquake and a hurricane, the locusts should be on the way! :-) Next week, however, I do start school on Wednesday, and we kick off another year of campus ministry on Tuesday - hopefully we'll be able to qualify for RSO status this year. So lots of good stuff going on. AND football season is almost here! Yes! Go Eagles.

That's all for now. Have a great week, y'all.

End of a Long Week

Well, VBS is done and I've reached the end of a rather long week - but a good week! Many good things happened this week, the joy of the children's faces in VBS one of the best of them. Still have to finish getting ready for Sunday tomorrow, and finish up some things for my vacation, but it is coming up fast! I am really looking forward to the R&R with my family.

In other news . . . I have begun working on a Lenten series for next year based on the book of Lamentations. It has long been a tradition of the church to read Lamentations during Holy Week, so it seemed like a good series to do. I think it will work well. But did you know that the church fathers basically did not comment at all on the last chapter, chapter 5? It is a strange thing. Lots of writing through the first four chapters, then . . . nothing. A friend of mine, and a patristics scholar, Dr. Joel Elowsky, confirmed this for me, but I do not yet have a reason for it. Hopefully after vacation I'll be able to buckle down and get it figured out.

Finally, pray for some rain for us. We've had the hottest June ever (a whopping 6 full degrees above average!) and very little rain. Things are drying up. The water situation is fine - no rationing; but grass and plants are all brown and drying up. I'm trying to keep our lawn going (which we got sodded last year) and have been doing okay so far, but won't be able to water while we're on vacation (of course!). So I hope the rains will come.

Changin' Times

Monday: 6 inches of snow.

Tuesday: single digit temperatures.

Saturday: high temperature near 70!

Welcome to Virginia.

In Like a Lion

Well, March is here and it's coming in like a lion! Lots of snow here and all along the east coast. We have probably 6-7 inches on the ground. Schools closed. Very pretty outside.

I like snow, and like having a good snowstorm or two every winter. Yet last winter and this we have had next to no snow. :-( I was getting worried that I would miss out this year as well . . . until today. I'll have to go sledding with the kids later!