Luke’s Notebook

Friday to Sunday, this weekend has been just terrific! It’s been incredibly busy, but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

Friday: On Friday evening, Mom, Dad, Paul, Mark and I headed over to Panorama Lanes in Belleville, for the rehearsal dinner for Mandy and Cameron’s wedding. The wedding and reception were to be held in the large downstairs banquet room, and I watched as they rehearsed the ceremony and ironed out all of the kinks.

Saturday: The big day! The entire wedding ceremony went incredibly well. Mandy and Cameron did awesome, Pastor Rick (a/k/a Dad:) did a terrific job officiating the wedding. All in all, it was a beautiful wedding! I was privileged to videotape the ceremony, some of the pre-wedding events (bridal party photos mainly) and portions of the reception. Paul and I each operated a camera during the wedding, and afterwards it was more of a tag-team effort. That way, we each had enough time to dance a bit. =)

Speaking of dancing, I’ve come to realize there were a couple of, shall we say, less-than-flattering photos of yours truly participating in the Duck Dance. I don’t know if I’ll ever work up the courage to put any of them up here! We’ll see.

Anyway, the reception was a blast, too. It was awesome to watch Cameron and Mandy’s first dance as a married couple, videotape Cameron singing a song to Mandy as he strummed on his guitar, watch the cutting of the wedding cake, participate in dances such as the Dollar Dance, the aforementioned Duck Dance, Congo line — all that good stuff.

If you haven’t realized it yet, we could not be happier for them. It’s incredible to see how God has worked through all of this. How awesome is He?! And, I’ve got to admit, I just entertain myself thinking about how many times there’s going to be similar celebrations going on when an Arndt is the groom. I imagine we’ll get to be quite the experts!

Sunday (Father’s Day): After church today, we had a little Father’s Day party, where Grandma and Grandpa Arndt, along with Aunt Berni and Uncle Dave (Dad’s sister-in-law and brother), joined us for lunch from the grill, cake and ice cream. We had a really fun time!

In the evening, Mark, James, Philip and I drove over to Grandpa Stock’s house in order to check out the RV that he recently purchased. We received the grand tour of the 27-foot vehicle which features a TV, VCR, fridge, freezer, microwave, stove top and oven. We also spent a good deal of time talking with Grandpa about his different ideas for the trip, different sights we might see — stuff like that. It looks like we’re planning to hit the Grand Canyon. Hurrah!

Right before we left Grandpa’s, Mom called me and asked if we could swing by Aunt Ann’s house in order to change the tire on her minivan. She had discovered a flat this evening and was needing to use the car in the morning. So we headed towards Aunt Jane and Aunt Ann’s house. When we got there, James, Mark and I wasted little time in jacking the car up, unbolting the flat tire and putting the spare on. We made pretty quick work of the replacement.

Afterwards, we hung around to talk with Aunt Jane for a little while about the trip. She plans on joining us for the first half of the trip, before flying back home at some point. So it was a lot of fun again talking about different trip ideas, various things we want to make sure we bring — stuff like that. I am officially very excited about this trip!

Well, that finally does it! I’m caught up with this journal. This weekend has been a blast. It’s been one of the busiest weekends in recent memory, but, like I said, I’ll take it! No complaints here.

What a day. What a day.

I’m pretty beat, so I’ll just have to wait until later — tomorrow, hopefully — to write about the events surrounding Mandy and Cameron’s wedding and reception.

So stay tuned!

So tonight was the rehearsal dinner for Mandy Schaefer and Cameron Blanchard’s wedding. I wasn’t quite sure why they felt it necessary to rehearse dinner, but anyway…

The wedding rehearsal (and dinner) went very well! Tomorrow evening’s wedding will be officiated by my dad, and it will be his first wedding ceremony that he will be performing, now that he is a licensed minister. Paul and I will be performing the video duties, and my brother Mark will be snapping some photos of the entire event.

You know, it’s really incredible to see how this entire situation has worked out. Mandy has been a longtime friend of the family’s, and she has contributed so much to our ministry, the church, the family — even helping us out many times while we were in the midst of building our house.

Anyway, over the past several years we have gotten to know Mandy well and to watch her as she grows closer and closer to Jesus. We have had the privilege of witnessing her transform from an “ordinary” young lady into a strong, humble woman who loves Jesus and has a servant’s heart. It has been incredible to see her desire to follow God’s will and how she was willing to let Him take control of her life, trusting Him completely, even when it meant going against the grain, going against the influence of her peers.

Psalm 112 keeps coming to mind. It says (paraphrased): “Blessed is He who fears the Lord; who finds delight in His commands.” How true that is!! Time and time again, God proves it to us that when we just make it our mission to obey Him — when we delight in simply obeying Him — that is when He overwhelms us with blessings!

To sum it up, we are extremely proud of Mandy, and we could not be happier for her and Cameron! I’m honored to be able to videotape their wedding. I feel it’s the least I can do after all of the ways Mandy has contributed to the family in the past! Heck, just a couple of weeks ago, while Mom and Dad were out of town, she was kind enough to help baby-sit the little guys while us older guys played softball.

Lord, please bless Mandy and Cameron on their wedding day. I ask that you just watch over them and be with them during their life as a married couple. Protect them and be their shelter throughout difficult times. Give them joy, peace and wisdom. Please bless their entire marriage!

I am really looking forward to the wedding tomorrow evening!

Hey, good news! I had two hits tonight, as I batted 2-3. I’ve bene doing a bit better as of late, so that’s really a good feeling to get more hits than I did outs. Unfortunately, it was in a losing effort, as we lost 12-7. Ah well.

I’m going to head off to bed before it gets much later. Big day tomorrow!

Great news! Today, our road was temporarily closed due to repair work! Just why is this so great? Well, I’ll tell you. Our road has had a couple of trouble spots where the pavement had sunk, thus creating a couple of big “dips.” These seem to have gotten worse recently, and they were becoming quite a nuisance to have to drive back and forth on all the time. Today, the first phase of the reparation process begun, as they shut down part of our road so they would be able to break up some of the trouble spots and install some new drainage pipes. When it’s all said and done, I understand the road is supposed to be much nicer, with many repairs made, possibly resurfacing, and I would just imagine it will be much more pleasant to drive on. Thanks for the hard work, guys! Good going.

I’m going to try to get to bed right away, which would make two nights in a row that I had a very nice bedtime. It’s such a great feeling to get a good amount of sleep, waking up refreshed and not sluggish or listless. Tomorrow morning, Mark and I plan to go out to breakfast with Dad! So that ought to be a lot of fun.

Today I talked with my grandpa on the phone, and he gave me a better idea of some of the destinations and routes we would have on our western trip. It sounds like we’ll get to see Mount Rushmore, the Black Hills, Yellowstone, Dinosaur National Monument, Salt Lake City, possibly the Grand Canyon, Slide Rock in Arizona — lots of great sights! I’m really excited.

I’m still trying to figure out a way to get online while on the road. If we stay at KOAs, some of them offer wireless Internet. That would be ideal, I suppose. Also, Verizon Wireless offers what is essentially a nationwide Internet service, but it comes with a hefty price tag. $59.99 a month with a year-long commitment. That’s a bit steep, especially since the connection speeds aren’t much better than dial-up.

Who knows what we’ll end up doing! It would be great if we had some way to get online, because then I’d be able to stay current with the website, this journal, and it would enable e-mailing depositions back and forth, which would be very important. So we’ll see!

You ever have one of those periods of time when life is keeping you too busy to write about it? Well, such has been the case recently.

I’m already a half-day behind, but I might as well hurry write about yesterday. And the reason I say “hurry” is because today I’m kind of racing against the clock, too. I’m in the middle of editing the Safe At Home Show, and I need to get backto that just as soon as I can, because I have a few other tasks waiting in the wings. I’ll make it, though! No worries.

Yesterday morning, I received an e-mail from an attorney with a subject of “Help!!!!” His computer had crashed, and he was unable to access any of his important documents. Since I know how helpless a feeling that is, I dropped everything and headed on over to Belleville to see what I could do. After a couple of hours, I managed to get his computer to the point where his files were accessible, and I immediately started copying them over a network to a different computer in his office. For some reason Windows XP, would not load anymore on this computer. Who knows why, but I’m thankful that I was able to salvage his files. I think he plans on buying a new computer to replace this one anyway, and his main concern was saving his important data.

In the afternoon, Mark and I taped a few segments of Safe At Home. I was the cameraman for the majority of the time, but Mark relieved me of my duties long enough for me to step in front of the camera and host the show for a few minutes. I talked about the upcoming Softball Classic (August 6th, by the way) and the recent trip Mom and Dad took to Williamsburg, Virginia.

Luke Hosting Safe At HomeI was standing on the dock while hosting. I thought it was a pretty neat shot.

In the evening, we played softball against the Saints. Our defense was pretty bad as we made several errors, and our offense just didn’t kick in soon enough as we lost 10-8. I batted 1-2 with two walks and one run scored. Hopefully we can turn things around on Thursday! We need to get our offense going.

That pretty much sums up the highlights of Tuesday. It’s time to run now, as I need to finish editing this show.

Tonight our game was rained out, as we had a really big storm move through out area. Very heavy winds turned into a strong downpour, and there was thunder and lightning all throuhgout the area. In fact, our power was knocked out here at the house for a good two hours. It was very weird to be without electricity. Thankfully, though, we weren’t totally powerless, as we have a gas generator that kicked in, and several of the more important circuits (kitchen, a couple of bathrooms, et cetera) were powered, even during the outage. So that was great!

During the power outage, I decided to head outside to play some disc golf with some of the other guys. We have our own disc golf basket in the back, and Jude mapped out a nine-hole “course” of sorts. We throw to the same basket every time; it’s simply nine different starting points. So anyway, Jude and I went out there and played with some of the younger guys. It was fun, even though we were sloshing through the soggy grass.

Around 9:30 this evening, the lights flickered on and power was restored! Even though I’m very happy to have power back, there was a certain something that was neat about being without power. It made me realize just why people used to go to bed so early and get up early. When the sun is down and you have no source of light, what else is there to do? Also, since our neighbors were powerless as well, when I looked ou the window I would just see darkness. No streetlights, house lights — nothing. And with us living out in the country, things are already dark enough! So that was kind of cool.

I almost forgot to mention… this afternoon, a photographer from the UPI came to our house in order to get a photo of our family, what with Father’s Day appoaching and all. I’m not exactly sure how things work with the UPI, but as I understand it, this photographer will “put out” these photos, and newspapers/magazines/publications all over the globe will be able to pick it up, if they want. Trouble is, I wonder how we’d ever find out if they did? Do me a favor! If you see a picture of my family in front of our house, everyone wearing their “Safe At Home” jersey, let me know, okay? Thanks! =)

That about does it for now. I decided to write this entry while lying down. Sometimes it’s fun to unhook the laptop and take advantage of web without wires.

Yesterday, I was watching a show on TBN, called “The Way Of The Master.” It’s hosted by Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. I’ve seen several of these episodes before, and I really like them simply because they’re very honest and sobering. Kirk and Ray do lots of off-the-street interviews with random people, asking them questions about their faith and specifically what they believe. What’s so neat is they will gently but firmly cut through people’s vagueness or squishyness and get right down to the truth.

One thing I liked from this particular episode was what Ray Comfort said in response to people saying that they don’t believe in God, don’t believe the Bible — stuff like that. He used an analogy of somebody strutting onto an interstate, claiming, “I don’t believe in semi-trucks; therefore, they don’t exist.” Well, it’s obvious that the 18-wheeler is still there barreling down the highway, and this guy is going to get creamed, regardless of whether or not he believes in trucks. I thought that was an excellent point. People say, “Oh, I don’t believe in God,” or “I don’t really believe that part of the Bible.” Quite frankly, that doesn’t matter! Their beliefs will never change the facts. I love this line from Phillips, Craig & Dean’s “You Are God Alone”: You are God; that’s just the way it is. Like it or not, that’s just the way it is.

By the way, I would strongly urge you to check out http://www.wayofthemaster.com. They have some awesome and challenging resources there. You can even watch a few of the WOTM episodes online.

Today, by the way, was a nice Sunday. The weather wasn’t too hot, as we topped out around 81 or 82 degrees. After church, Paul, James and I went to Cici’s. We ate and hung around there for a while, watching the Yankees/Cardinals game. In the afternoon, we had a softball practice. I’m coming to learn that I hit my best when I: Adjust to pitches (particularly slower pitches), I stand far enough away from the plate so as to get the barrel of the bat on even the inside pitches, and when I step into the pitch — for instance, if I’m pulling the ball, if I step towards right field — the ball carries much farther. So I’ve got a few more things to think about tomorrow night as I step into the batter’s box. I’m going to get on a hot streak yet!

Since the laptop issues are over and done with — for the moment, anyway — I spent most of today doing my normal job, which is scoping! So, today I scoped a good 120, 130 pages. It was a good feeling to plow through so many pages and to finish up with two depositions today.

Anyway, we’ve had some more exciting goings-on today! This afternoon, we splattered and painted our basement! It looks wonderful! I wasn’t a part of the painting today since I had to be scoping, but I looked at it tonight and they did an awesome job! The walls have a very light blue tint to them, and the texture is pretty neat, too. Now we just need to add the drop-ceiling and the carpet, and we’ll be good to go for hosting the Father’s House church services down there. It is going to be a terrific meeting place, I think. Maybe I’ll get a picture sometime soon. Or maybe I’ll wait until it’s completely finished. We’ll see!

Tonight’s FamTeam Live! webcast went very well, I think! We had a great time, and we answered some questions about home-schooling. We also talked about some of the audio recordings and videos we have up on the website. Some of those have some really amusing stories behind them!

Well, I’m going to head out. It’s well into Sunday already.

This morning, Grandpa Stock (Mom’s dad), came out to our pond to do some fishing. As he was getting ready to leave, he asked Mark and I to go meet him in our driveway. We’ve come to learn that he would like us to join him and Grandma (and possibly an aunt or two) on an RV trip to Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone National Park, possibly the Grand Canyon, and lots of other sites in the west! Wow!

We were pretty thrilled to hear of the offer, and it looks like it would work out. I think the trip would be in the fall — possibly in September. I don’t know many specifics as far as the duration or exact destinations, but I’ve heard enough to already be really excited!

A trip to those locations in and of themselves would be terrific, and being able to do something like this with 71-year-old grandparents would really make it special.

I wonder how many pictures we would end up taking… =)