Week 6

This week the Company of New Pastors headed south for a conference in Louisville, Kentucky - the "Mecca" of Presbyterianism. And since coffee consumption is one of the Presbyterian sacraments, we couldn't hit the road without a quick Starbucks stop. Notice that Matt is our token double-fisted drinker.

We stopped to have lunch at the culinary utopia that is Arby's. You can see that nearly all of us broke bread together, except for...

Gary who decided to form his own leper colony. Actually, he was on the phone with his wife and didn't think that our presence would add any value to that conversation. I can't imagine why.

Somewhere in the middle of Indiana, traffic came to a grinding halt because of construction work. So we killed 15 minutes watching this maverick construction barrel roll all over the highway between cars in a live-action game of construction barrel "Frogger". The excitement was palpable.

But our enthusiasm was rechanneled when we successfully negotiated a time zone changing of the dashboard clock in the minivan. It's the little things, kids.

I never knew that Matt was such an afficionado of Runts before this trip. See what fascinating things you can learn when you leave town with a minivan full of your best friends?

And after many, many long hours in the van, we finally crossed the river into Louisville. Yay!!

This is the fine exxxstablishment that was located across the street from our hotel. It seems only appropriate that a hotel full of pastors would be adjacent to the Love Boutique since 1 John reminds us that "God is love."

We ran into our good friend Sharon who transferred to Columbia Seminary last year. It's always good to stumble upon old friends.

We decided that nothing says "zany pastors cuttin' loose" like a late night game of bowling. I'm not sure why Chris is licking his shoe, but hey, you know...whatever.

Matt was in charge of setting up the scoreboard. My bowling name was Flo. I couldn't get any of the others to buy into my theory that everybody should have a three-letter bowling name - Flo, Lou, Sid, Bud, Fay, Ike - see how those all have a proper bowling name sound about them? And besides that, three letter names are Trinitarian.

Ryan wins the award for effeminate pose of the night. And yet I couldn't get him to pick a bowling name.

After bowling, we stumbled upon a piano bar where I fell in love with this guy. Oh yeah, I am soooo over Charlie Gibson.

Chris lept at the chance to dance on stage. Here we see him giving us the universal symbol for unicorn. Yeah...that's what it means...unicorn.

And because I was the loudest participant in the bar, our table won the bucket of "magic elixir" that you see in the middle of the table. I'm really glad to know that all of my training in opera wasn't a complete waste of time and money.

When we got back to the hotel, we discovered that the seat of Emily's jeans had met an unfortunate demise while we were bowling. A moment of silence, please.

Meanwhile, back at the Presbyterian center, this is the first piece of artwork one encounters when walking through the door. Seriously. I think this is another occasion when y'all really need to write your own caption.

But artwork aside, the architecture was illuminating and theologically fascinating.

Jeff decided to try his hand at artwork by taking a picture of his own tonsils. Suitable for framing, my brother!

Here we are on the front steps of the Presbyterian center. What a well-behaved looking group of pastors! (Work with me, people.)

I think it was at this point in the weekend that we all started to get a bit punchy. Brad decided that for the rest of the weekend, it was his personal mission to make his way into every photo I took. For instance....

This is a picture of Hosung. Oh nuts, hold on...

THIS is a picture of Hosung. D'oh!! Dangit, Brad! Hold on...

THIS is a picture of Hosung, which can only mean that Brad must be in the bathroom.

Really, Brad? That's your best game face?? 'Cause it is ON, my brotha!

We found a great pub Saturday night. This is suppose to be a nice picture of Brad welcoming all of us to the table, but it ended up having a much more sinister feel to it...like we're all being brought in to get wacked by Tony Soprano.

So we enlisted our waitress Sly (her real name) to keep the Godfather in his place.

And we had Jeff put on his best puppy dog eyes because who could possibly wack a guy with puppy dog eyes??

We were pleased to discover that we would be ordering our drinks from the Beverage Bible. (Notice the presence of Brad in the background. Picture hog.)

Me! I had the very important job of being the toast master. Toast mistress? Toast maven? How about we just say I was the chick in charge of making the toast. (Photo by Matt.)

I think this pose just shot sinister in the a$$.

Then we walked several blocks down the street where we stumbled upon this polka band playing their last song of the night.

There was just enough time for Brad and Emily to cut a serious polka rug!

They were really very good!

Okay, I really don't know what this picture was intended to be other than ongoing evidence that Brad is the world's most skilled photo hijacker. Kudos, my friend. I bow to your superior abilities.

This is our new friend, Karl. We met him at Oktoberfest and couldn't resist getting a picture with him. He was a colorful dude.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but Karl (who had clearly been consuming copious amounts of beer for many, many hours) is balancing on one foot in the squatted position with the other foot in the air. He held the pose long enough for me to get out the camera and snap the picture. Then he stood back up without ever putting his elevated foot on the ground. Really amazing!

And we couldn't let the evening end without everyone pointing to their favorite pronunciation of Louisville.

We headed home on Sunday and capped off a great weekend by successfully navigating the minivan dashboard clock back to central standard time. And yes, those are Brad's thumbs.

Week 5

Have I mentioned lately how much I love this choir? 'Cause I do.

As Elissa and Jordan demonstrate, chapel is often a family affair.

Rupe, launching the sleeve from my coffee cup to the other side of the room. But I must say, he had excellent form.

Kate and me in Forgiveness class.

This is Monte. At one point I realized that my camera was missing only to discover that Monte had swiped it and was snapping pictures down the front of his shirt. Oy vey.

But how serious can any class be when Dr. Phil is in charge?

Yeah, yeah...I know he's cute and he makes you want to bundle him up and take him home with you. But then you have to feed him and water him, take him for walks, get him house broken, scoop up the messes he leaves in the yard...

When Itsy and Bitsy decided to go on a four-day hunger strike this week, I threatened to replace them with this guy - a hairless rat that's for sale at PetSmart. Though he's trying desperately to avoid the paparazzi in this picture, he's actually quite personable.

He's got an interesting sort of charm about him, huh?

But I decided to keep the hamsters since I had already signed them up for the hamster races this weekend. Here we see the girls with Morgan and Hannah, their official "handlers" for the day. Check out the woman in the background with the bullhorn. I need a job with a bullhorn. I wonder what kind of job would require large groups people to listen captively while I talked into some form of amplification device for, like, an entire morning at a time? Hmmm...lemme think...

The girls stayed limber in their holding corrals (aka shopping baskets) while we waited for the races to begin. At one point, Itsy got so jazzed that she busted out of her pink ball, but she quickly realized that she was in the land of giants and voluntarily re-entered her ball.

Look at tiny little Bitsy on the end. How, I ask you, how were my little girls suppose to keep up with those enormous rats?? (Yes, they really were rats.) Still, the girls brought their mighty fighting spirits and each came in 2nd in their individual heats.

And like all great sporting events, it was followed by a trip to Dairy Queen.

Don't worry, the racers got a treat, too. This hamster "candy bar" should keep them busy for a while.

This is my new Sunday morning "home" - the First Baptist Church in Iowa City, just across the street from the University of Iowa campus. Imagine that...a divorced woman preaching in a Baptist church. And not just any divorced woman, but me. God's humor, huh? It means that I spend three hours on the road each Sunday, so even when I'm not traveling, I'm still traveling. There is, indeed, no rest for the wicked, my friends.

Week 4

Matt and I always go to chapel early on Wednesdays because we love to listen to the choir rehearse before worship begins. It's our favorite part of the week.

I mean, isn't this the face of joy??

It takes an act of God to get everyone to simmer down so chapel can begin, and professors are the worst.

Here's Kelsey with Skip (Assistant Dean of Seminary Students) who isn't nearly as clueless as he looks in this picture.

Sure, Kevin looks cute as a button when he's standing next to Kelsey...

...but he's actually a maniacal double-fisted pastry eater with a ziploc baggie full of cash shoved in his armpit.

The backpacks sit so patiently while the Presbyterians have lunch. They're like children waiting to be picked up by their parents after daycare.

This week's activity at Tables - racing to see who could finish the placemat puzzles first. Past experience has shown that we can't be trusted with MadLibs.

Snapping surprise pictures of Matt isn't nearly as amusing to me when they actually come out good. I don't know why he puts up with me.

Les (Professor of Discipleship and Teaching) is an all-around cool guy and TOTALLY the bee's knees even though he threatened to take my camera away from me for using flash photography in the middle of his lecture. (But I'm sure he was chuckling on the inside.)

Each month the Company of New Pastors meets for dinner at the home of Bonnie Sue Lewis(Professor of Mission and Evangelism). One of the highlights is getting to play with her dog, Jessie. He's such a good doggie that he almost makes me want to get a pooch of my own. But then I get over it.

I'm finding that one of the joys of carrying a camera with me everywhere I go is that I often find "surprises" when I download the pictures each week. For instance, I didn't take this completely flattering picture of Ryan...

...nor did I take this picture of Gary (although it's a keeper!)...

...nor did I take this picture snapped by Shakey the Cameraman. I suspect that Matt is the prankster behind these candid shots, but since he's taking them with a hot pink camera with a sparkly wrist strap, who is the joke REALLY on??

Apparently this series of pictures is an ode to the tongue.

God calls all kinds.

Even without knowing what Gary and Matt are talking about, I am entirely positive that this conversation is completely decent and in order.

The best part of the week was a surprise visit when my BFF Barb came tripping through town. Not only were Barb and I roommates for two years, we even shared the same bathroom and occasionally - though entirely unintentionally - the same towel. Barb is proof that there is not only life, but JOY after seminary!