(Josh and Jua)nita + Preaching

On Sept 2nd - I had the opportunity to speak at church on the book of Philemon:
Here's the link:
http://www.kaleohouston.com/mp3/Philemon.mp3

The weekend before that Joshnita and Juanita came to see us. They got in on Friday afternoon and Friday night Josh and I went to an Astros game.... even the Astros are 7000 wins away from being competitive against a league of one-legged elephants - there were only standing room tickets available. So Josh and I wandered from section to section sitting in all the empty seats - we had a pretty good time.... we didn't stay for the whole game.... the Astros lost in 15 innings to the Pirates after having the bases loaded in basically every inning......

On Saturday we all went down to Schlitterbahn in Galveston... mostly because Joel & Karen had such a good time there. There's a lazy river (that's more like a moderate exercise river.... it moves pretty fast) that goes around the whole park..... there's a little diversion off the river where you can go through some rapids so we did that a bunch. Part of the challenge with the rapids is that you go through a mini loop and then through a tunnel that shoots you out into the lazy river..... but if you are already in the lazy river and are trying to get to the entrance to the rapids you have to get across the really fast portion of the river (with tubes in hand) to reach the entrance.... this is a near impossibility so we had a good time doing that.....

Perhaps the most fun we had at Schlitterbahn was in the wave portion of the river where Juanita channeled her innner-otter, donned a pair of goggles, and took to the waves...... Juanita loves her some waves... I had no idea. When Erin and Ihave kids... and they have kids.... great grandnita Juanita will be taking them to the Surf N' Swim for some wavepool action.

On Sunday Josh and I went to a Derek Webb show which turned out to be Derek Webb + Caedmon's Call.... it was Caedmon's Call's CD release party for Overdressed and for at least this album Derek is back with the band. They put on a pretty good show and played at a lot of old tunes that took me back to my early days in Salt Company........

What were Juanita and Erin doing during the time that Josh and I were hanging out..... we don't know... and we'd like to keep it that way.

In other significant news - the dogs have a dog door now! They are pumped. They honed their dog door skills at Brandy's place and now they can use a dog door to their heart's content. Battlecat loves to go outside and bark at things that may or may not be behind our fence. A lot of times she'll just issue a pre-emptive bark should anything decide to make a noise within 20 yards of our home. I came home the other day to take the girls for a walk, and Battlecat didn't hear the garage door because she was asleep outside sunbathing...... Kelsey views the door as more of a need-based tool..... she'll go outside to do her thing or to see what Battlecat is barking at.... generally she just decides that Battlecat is crazy and comes back inside with Erin and I.

Erin has started her Surgery residency.... 3 months of craziness. She started out working for a cardio-thoracic surgeon (she's working 7PM-7AM at the public hospital's ER Surgery service right now so she's not here to edit this portion.....) who is world famous. I guess the guy makes artificial hearts and valves and things like that. Erin got to be part of a heart transplant - which I think is pretty cool.... but the hours are horrendous. Today she starts two weeks at the public hospital's ER Surgery service. She has several days in a row where she works the night shift and then switches back to the day shift - so her sleep schedule is going to be awful and we won't be seeing each other much over the next few weeks so please pray for her. While surgery is interesting - it's definitely not what she wants to do.... so 3 months of craziness is proving itself to be a difficult challenge.

As for me - my free preview of Setanta Sports just ended.... so I have returned to a period of soccer darkness and gnashing of teeth......

Speaking of soccer darkness..... the men's U-17s, U-20s, and full national side have disappointed recently (although the men's team played quite well against Brasil....) in high profile tourneys.... fortunately for the US.... our women rock! The Women's World Cup just started.... the US plays tomorrow morning at 3:45 AM CST and they don't disappoint..... of course Germany opened the tournament with an 11-0 victory over Argentina..... I can't think of an appopriate superlative for that type of victory.... usually I would call 4-0 a thrashing.... so 11-0 I don't really have a category for.....

Anyway - Utes football is done for the season..... the men's basketball team sucks again too.... RSL has won four games all season (they played Houston on Saturday and Erin and I went.... final was Houston 4, RSL 3 - I wore an RSL jersey and Erin wore a Dynamo shirt).... so they suck.....the Broncos won on an insane field goal against the haven't been decent since Jim Kelly Bill's so Men's sports provide no hope for me.... which is why I'm so stoked for the Women's World Cup.... The US team is always amazing - they play with a lot of flair and usually put up a lot of points.... so let's go USA.... and let's go Lady Utes.