The One Where They Move...

For anyone that came to this blog expecting me to announce that Jenna is prego, I am sorry to disappoint you.  She is not currently with child.  I am also not announcing the arrival of the iPhone 5.  Sorry.

The big news is actually that we are moving!  We are going to be moving down to Indianapolis in mid-November.
 

Why Indianapolis?  The primary reason is family.  Jenna's parents and sister live down in Indy.  Jenna has lived in Michigan for the past 9 years, which is much longer than she originally planned.  I take the blame for some of this, as she just couldn't resist my advances and ended up marrying me, giving her reason to stay in Michigan longer :)

Thankfully, we have been blessed with wonderfully versatile careers, where job opportunities are plentiful.  Last week I was offered a position at ATI Physical Therapy.  I had applied and interviewed at several places and ATI was my top choice, so I was excited to be able to accept the offer.  There is great opportunity for further career development, and the company values the same things I do when it comes to patient care.

Jenna is currently in the process of job seeking and has several interviews set up.

This big change isn't a decision we made on a whim.  We have put a lot of thought and prayer into this move. 

This big change also isn't easy.  My family is in Michigan.  We have many friendships, started our careers here, and have been involved at an awesome church..

I will still be a Michigander at heart.  The Lions, Tigers, Pistons, Red Wings, and Wolverines will always be my teams, regardless how poorly they might perform.  Plus, when the Lions make the Super Bowl this year I will already be down in Indy!

And as crazy as it sounds, I will miss the lake affect snow, and all the outdoor fun it provides.   Believe it or not, going 200 miles south and away from Lake Michigan reduces the annual snowfall to about 20 inches per year, down from the 80 inches per year that Kalamazoo averages.

The good news is that you will all now have a good reason to drive on down to Indy.  It's less than four hours, so it easily doable in a day, or a weekend.  We will welcome all visitors!  Also, since my family is here, we will be back often.  So, we aren't just disappearing off the face of the earth.

We will be sad to be leaving family, friends, co-workers, and everything that is Pure Michigan, but we are confident God has great things in store for us in Indianapolis!

Apple Cider Century 2011

This year I decided to ride in my first century bike ride.  I have been wanting to complete one for a while, but it has never really taken precedence with time or financial resources.

I decided to throw in the towel for all running and adventure racing in mid-July due to some injury concerns.  I was still able to bike without any pain, so I decided that a century ride would work out perfect this year.

The Apple Cider Century Ride was recommended to me by several people.  I recruited Doug VanDyk to ride with me.

I had been riding all summer, just nothing real long.  Doug and I also did a few early morning training rides together to try and prepare a little.

I was never too concerned about finishing because the pace of the ride is whatever you want it to be, and since its not a race, there is no need to push it to the limit.  Also, there are built in SAG stops along the way.  (SAG = Support and Gear)

I found out the week of the ride that friend, Daren Wendell, and his friend Jake Boley were also going to be riding. 

The weather forecast the week of the ride looked pretty awful.  Cold and lots of rain.  I was counting on the weather forecast being wrong, as it often is in Michigan, but it wasn't.

It started raining right as we started the ride.  We were still hopeful at this point, as the forecast called for scattered showers.   The 'scattered showers' ended up being consistent showers, with scattered pouring rain.

We made it through the first 28 miles and arrived at the first SAG stop.  Our spirits were lifted with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apple cider, and hot potato soup.

We enjoyed the stop a little too much, and because of the rain and cool temperatures we stiffened up a bit.  Of course, we had a couple of hills to climb after the first stop, and then had a long, rainy stretch straight into the teeth of the wind.  We were out in the country and amongst the farmland, so there was nothing to help block the wind.

We reached the second SAG stop which was about 54 miles into the race.  It was pouring rain.  We were cold, wet, and tired.  Daren reached the stop first, and as I rolled up, he asked how I felt about the Apple Cider 62 mile ride.  At this point I had no problem cutting our ride short, as I was pretty miserable, being so wet and cold.  Jake and Doug were down with the plan too.

Thankfully, this ride had multiple routes, just in case you needed to turn off early.  We took full advantage of this feature, along with plenty of other riders who had originally planned on completing the 100 mile ride.  The mileage wasn't measured correctly, so the 62 mile route was actually 66 miles.  So, we still completed a century ride, it was just a metric century (100 kilometers).

We finished the ride, and then the sun promptly came out.

All in all it was a good time, and despite the poor weather, we still had fun.  I should also note, we had out own personal, amazing SAG crew, Jake's wife Amy and friend Adrienne!

I now have a two hour cleaning project awaiting me, as my bike is absolutely filthy after riding through the rain for 4+ hours.

 Hopefully, the next time I decide on a long ride, the weather will cooperate. 

We were all smiling at this point, prior to the ride, and prior to the wet and cold!

Yankee Springs Recreation Area

A few weeks ago, we ventured out to Yankee Springs Recreation Area for a weekend of camping with Chris and Erika Vonk.   This was the second installment of what has become a yearly event for us.  This years trip, did not disappoint, with perfect weather, plenty of bugs, and off-key worship songs.

We headed up to Yankee on a Friday after I got out of work.  Chris and Erika go there before us and warned us that three of the neighboring campsites were occupied by a Youth Group on some sort of camping retreat. 

Our site in the foreground, and their setup in the background.

Now, I fully support these types of adventures for students to get them into the outdoors, however, they set up ‘central camp’ 10 feet away from our fire pit.  It made for a rather awkward set up.  We were quite involved in their weekend.   We heard conversations, watched games and listened to some not so on key a cappella worship songs.  

Outside of the awkward set up it was a nice weekend.  The weather was perfect.  The temps hit the 80s during the day and down into the 50s at night.

We tried a little orienteering; however, the mosquitoes and spider webs thwarted that attempt.  We also did a little geo-caching, which was successful as we found 2 different caches!

We rented kayaks for an hour and explored Gun Lake.

We also enjoyed s’mores, hobo pies, and numerous games of Farkle, which everyone won at least once except for me.  For a game of luck, I am pretty bad at it.  

 We even had an attempt at making some jiffy pop over the fire (epic fail).  However, the kids next door were mesmerized, and clapped when Chris had finished.  Little did they know that not a single kernel had popped, but Chris had only managed to get the foil to expand.

It was a great weekend at one of my favorite places in Michigan.