whoa...finally posted...

Well another summer come and gone and classes have begun. first week completed and 29 weeks of classes remain (not including finals week).
ups and downs for sure. praises for getting a killer job at nordy's and succeeding in it. downs with....well you guys know (relationship problems) haha.

Another up was that I was blessed to be able travel the world, or a little section of it this summer...yes im talkin about Italy. Amazing.

It was super interesting to see ruins that dated all the way back to the time of Jesus. it felt like being there in a way. the architecture was amazing, its hard to believe it only took 8 years for the Colosseum to be built without modern tools or cranes. it was built 80 years after Jesus died, and as you walk in you can hear the sounds of the crowds just like the games are still going on...i wanted to jump into the middle of the arena and act out a scene from gladiator...Russell Crowe style!!

I enjoyed walking around on the cobblestone streets of rome seeing a different culture and lifestyle take place. best part about the culture was the siesta which was observed everyday from 1-around 4 pm. not to mention the food was pretty bomb to (not in rome, everywhere else).

We did some hiking along a row of these coastal towns called the Chinque-terre and was able to see the Mediterranean, so blue and beautiful. Interesting history of these towns, they were all isolated and weren't able for the children to meet potential partners so they build these trails/roads from town to town so that the kids could meet up on the paths and fall in love...or something like that. All along the trails there are pad locks placed by tourists that 'fell in love' on these paths. I had no such luck in meeting an Italian dream boat but i did break a pretty good sweat from the heat.

So much more to tell about this trip but ill save it for our next skype session, otherwise this post would be super long and boring (it already is boring).

Finally I've been reading a book called: Not A Fan by Kyle Idleman for our house bible study and ive got to say...as a non reader...this book is pretty stinkin good. only a chapter or two into it but its a call out for sure. the whole premise of the book is asking are you a FOLLOWER of Jesus or are you a FAN of Jesus. My favorite part or sentences from the book so far is this: "The biggest threat to the church today is fans who call themselves Christians but aren't actually interested in following Christ. They want to be close enough to Jesus to get all the benefits, but not so close it requires anything from them." That really makes me think. This is going to be a good call out for myself and hopefully more guys in the house. Please be praying for us! Can't wait to learn more by reading this book and hopefully I am called to reform in areas of my life so that I can be a true FOLLOWER of Jesus Christ.