Behind on things....

So I send out my Christmas letter and tell everyone to check out my blog and then I don't post in it! Not a very smart move on my part! Rather than recap the holiday season, I'll start at the beginning of this year and try to stay more current.

New Year's night/day we had a beautiful snowstorm in the Goshen area - about 14 inches or so. Most people stayed home that day, but my friends and I had a get together planed and we decided not to cancel it. After all, we grew up in this kind of weather, certainly we could handle it!

We had a progressive dinner with a twist - we went to restaurants. (I guess I should explain who "we" is - the Rissers, Rebecca, Cara, and our friend Kristine who was home from Uganda) We met at Hacienda - a favorite local Mexican chain - and had chips & salsa, an appetizer platter, and sodas. After spending about an hour there we piled into our cars and went to Buffalo Wild Wings where we shared a couple little baskets of wings - one boneless and one the real deal. Then we travelled to Applebees for the "salad course" where we shared an Asian Chicken salad and a spinach & shrimp salad - both were delicious! Our next stop was Chilis where we shared a double order of fajitas. Dessert was at IHOP where we shared some banana pancakes with strawberry sauce and the Crispy Banana Caramel Cheesecake"....YUMM-O! And then we went to Starbucks and got beverages to take back to my place where we played games. The whole dinner took us about 5 hours, but we had such fun talking and laughing! We ended up hanging out at my place for another couple hours. It was awesome! You can check out my friend Deanna's blog if you want to see photos of our time together.

Thursday and Friday of the first week in January I spent in school. My new semester started and I was busy learning while my students were still chillin with family and friends. It was good though, because now I'll have to miss two less days of work this semester - a nice thing for those that work with me!

This term I am taking two classes...

Historical Foundations: Students will develop an understanding of historical developments relevant to ministry practice and will reflect on the relationship between theology and the practice of ministry.

and

MC 507 Ministry Mentor : Upon admission into the Graduate School of Christian Ministries, each new student is matched with a mentor with whom an effective mentoring relationship will be established. Students are expected to meet with their mentors bi-weekly each semester for four semesters during their academic experience. Mentors will be asked to hold students accountable for their spiritual formation, educational assignments and personal ministry while teaching principles of mentoring. Students must register for this course for four semesters, with the first semester taken for 2 credits and subsequent semesters taken for 0 credits that carry a course fee.

Well, I think that's all I'll write in this post. I'll recap the first week back at work in the next day or so. Thanks for reading my blog!