Yes, Sarah is back to school this week. She’s now in first grade at Mount Vernon Christian School. Kindergarten last year was five half-days per week – now she’s in school for the full day every day. I think she’s going to have a great year.

Was she excited for her first day in the first grade? We report; you decide:

When I discussed one of my favorite albums the other day, I would have loved to be able to link to the lyrics. It certainly would have made my comments more comprehensible to people that have never heard of Jars of Clay, let alone listened to their latest album.

You can, of course, find lyrics on the Internet – a simple Google search reveals dozens of Web sites with the full lyrics to thousands of albums. Unfortunately, they’re almost certainly violations of copyright. Worse yet, most of the sites try very hard to get you to install spyware – nasty software that seems harmless (even useful!) but can do all sorts of ugly things behind the scenes. Be careful out there!

I’ve really been enjoying Who We Are Instead, the latest album from Jars of Clay. One song on that album, “Jealous Kind,” has particularly moving lyrics. In fact, I was all set to blog about it when John Moody, friend and coworker, beat me to the punch.

Why do we “choose the gallows to the aisle”? Why would I rather put a noose around my neck than walk down the aisle with my Savior? Why do I seek my desires before the kingdom of God?

I’d rather feel the pain all too familiar
Than be broken by a lover I don’t understand
‘Cause I don’t understand

Lord, help me understand.

I have an irrational fear of spiders. You’d think I’d have had the common sense to marry someone that would be willing to squash them for me. On the contrary, I managed to marry the only other human on the planet that is more terrified of spiders than I am.

Thus it was that a large spider fell out of a paper towel roll and froze in fear, hearing the deafening scream of a grown woman. It was then covered with a Cool Whip™ bowl and the room quarantined until the “man of the house” returned home. It was he that was required to move the spider to an undisclosed location, release it, and then stamp it into oblivion lest it spread its genetic material and breed the next generation of even larger spiders.

I will admit, it was very big – the biggest our house has seen. Now it is very dead.

This past weekend was nice. Friday night we went swimming at the YMCA in Bellingham. Well, the girls swam, anyway – it’s a pretty shallow pool, so I just walked around and made sure that Rebecca didn’t find a way to get her head underwater. The girls are making good progress, though.

After swimming, we went to Billy McHale’s for dinner. It was great, especially since we got to use our “thank you” gift certificate from Mike and Susanne! Thanks, guys! It’s a really great family restaurant – not terribly expensive, fun atmosphere, great food, and small portion desserts for less than $2! We’ll definitely be back.

Saturday was a standard chore day. I rented a lawn roller to try to smooth our back lawn out a bit – not sure if it’ll have any permanent impact, but hopefully it improved things a little. We finally got some rain in the afternoon and evening – in fact, it rained buckets, which seemed quite unusual after weeks and weeks of sunny weather. Unfortunately, Saturday night was spent at a five-hour emergency school board meeting…

Sunday was a nice, slow day – church, newspaper, etc. We also drove the girls and their bikes to a student parking lot of Skagit Valley College so that they could practice riding. Bethany is doing really well with her training wheels, and Sarah is making great progress without them! If we could just get her on the bike a little more, I know that she’d be a pro in no time.

And let’s not forget the Olympics. I’ll be glad when they’re over so that I won’t be tempted to watch so much television any more, but it has been fun to watch the Americans do their thing.

Last weekend, that is. I haven’t had much opportunity to blog this week, what with the Olympics and all. So, let’s start way back on last Thursday night, when I went to the bachelor party of Julie’s younger brother Mike. I joined the group at Cornwall Park, where we played a round of Frisbee Golf – I even bought my own set of discs for the occasion. We had a good time, and I even managed to get a birdie once…

After golf we ate dinner at Diego’s, a good Mexican restaurant in Bellingham. We went from there to one of Mike’s friend’s house, where there was plenty of gambling, drinking, and smoking. I participated only in the former (I dislike beer and have never smoked), but had a successful night playing various forms of poker. Beginner’s luck, I assure you. All in all, it was a great party, and I’m very glad I was there.

Friday was dedicated to wedding preparations, the rehearsal, and the rehearsal dinner at Julie’s parents. Saturday was the wedding. My three daughters participated as three of the four flower girls! Julie, Jen (Julie’s older brother’s wife), and I served as hosts at the reception, though the women did all of the hard work – I was mainly along for the ride. The wedding was beautiful, and the reception was great. Congratulations, Mike and Susanne!

We stayed in Lynden on Sunday for church, a birthday party for Bethany, and farewells to Mike and Susanne, who drove back to California for their honeymoon. Monday was a family day as well – some of Julie’s immediate family drove to Artist Point at Mount Baker and hiked around a bit. It’s beautiful up there.

Vacation ended when I drove back to Mount Vernon for a school board meeting on Monday night. To see the weekend in pictures (except for the bachelor party – sorry), be sure to check out our latest photo albums.

Julie claims that she’s never attended a Mariners game where the Mariners lost. If there was any season where that string would be broken, you'd think it would be this one – but she just got back from watching the Mariners scrape by the Minnesota Twins.

I wish I could say that the winning run was scored by my favorite player, Dan Wilson, but at least it was Willie Bloomquist, another of my favorites. It sounds like a good time was had by all.

Bethany turned 4 today! She says it feels completely different than 3. I think she’s going to make a great four-year-old.

Julie and I just returned from celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary! Neither finances nor our nine-month-old baby allowed us a Hawaiian vacation, so we did the next best thing – we spent a night on Orcas Island. We had a really great time. The pictures tell the story, so be sure to check them out.

Special thanks go to Julie’s parents for watching our kids while we were gone, and to Rebecca for not crying the entire time, and to Sarah and Bethany, for being good girls and having lots of fun with Grandpa and Grandma.