Daniel’s Pilgrimage

My good friend Nate has been on me for a little while to get out on the court with him. So yesterday we went down to the court here on the hill and played some ball. I didn’t embarrass myself too bad so I guess it was a successful first couple games back. I haven’t played a game of basketball in quite a few years, maybe even since we got married(almost 6 years now for those counting).

I was amazed that my body still thought it could do the stuff it used to be able to do. My vertical leap is a foot or more less than it used to be. I’d still get over to the correct spot on help defense but when I jumped to contest the shot it always made it’s way over my hand. That was a sad thing for someone who once blocked 26 shots in a game. And my jump shot was horribly inconsistent. For every one I knocked down there was two that weren’t even close.

But overall it felt good to get to play a game I used to love and obsess over. Once my body recovers from yesterday I think I’ll try to get out there again. Hopefully I’ll slowly be able to work my way back into form. Stay tuned for further recaps.

I wrote two posts for over at hope like mad(my friend Brent’s blog) in the past 2 days. A bunch of us are blogging through the book Jesus For President and my posts are part of that series. They are here and here if you want to be a dedicated fan of mine and read everything I write.

I found these photos of our backyard not long after we moved in. Quite a difference from the ones below:

And then we cleared some stuff and they cleared the lots next door:

So this amazing lady that I get to share my life with had insane fantasies wonderful dreams of what our backyard should look like. She made them happen this weekend. Below are pictures of what she was able to accomplish(with some help from me, but we all know it wasn’t my idea or push). We just had friends over for some s’mores around the firepit and beers and it was a blast. Enjoy the pics:

Above from after day 1

Above from after day 2

After day 2 from another angle.

Looks good doesn’t it?

Our good friend(and short term roommate) Ryan left Richmond yesterday. He’s on his way to Ireland to prepare to get married and then move to Cambridge, England with his lovely future wife Aoife. It was a lot of fun having him as a roommate for a little while and we’ll miss getting to see him regularly. But for now we are back to just the 2 of us(and the 4 cats) at the house.

We’ve been pretty busy lately and I haven’t been posting a lot. I have some video of the world record 3200 pounds of nachos that were made by Banditos at the Fan Festival last weekend that I’ll post soon.