Deuteronomy 10:12-13

The cool thing that our church started this fall is having the entire church memorize verses, not just the kids. I've always wanted to do that in a church. We've been using the Desiring God Fighter Verses, and it has been so good to memorize together as a family.

Deuteronomy 10:12 "Now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require from you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the LORD'S commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good?"

This is one of my favorites as I love how it ends. Fearing God, loving God, serving God, obeying God all lead to one result which is God's perfect design - our good.

Deuteronomy 7:9

This is the month I get caught up on all the boys and girl's verses. Really. I mean it. It's going to happen. Here's the first.

Deuteronomy 7:9 "Know therefore that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments;"

Go Bruins!

We were blessed to be able to go see UCLA play Cal. Andrew went on a church event while the little ones (we refer to them as Memz in writing) came with us.

We introduced them to the BART. This was taken before the hundreds of UCLA and Cal fans stormed the BART.

We trekked a block through Berkeley. Emery said it smelled. I agree.

We walked through campus.

We had a few photo ops along the way.

It brought back some memories of when I taught Bible study on this campus 13 years ago.

Cal students were even friendly enough to take a picture of this UCLA family!

We had really good seats.

Too bad we could see the wrong team up close.

We were on that side in spirit. Although there were quite a few Bruin fans all around the stadium.

I think this was Sandy's favorite part - the UCLA marching band!

Even though Matt looks like he's being tortured, it was a fun day. He enjoyed it. I promise. And it didn't hurt that UCLA won! Go Bruins!

Camping

The boys and girl LOVE to go camping, and we finally managed to take them this year to Lake Chabot.

It was even more fun because we went with the Choi's.

The boys and girl always do some whittling.

They actually get kind of obsessed with it. I guess this is the one time I let them use a knife so they get excited.

We saw some wild turkeys.

Emery went on her first camping "sleepover" and slept in a tent with Cassidy. Girl camping. She was so brave!

The moms had a good time too!

And with fire and steak, everybody wins!

Happy Birthday Sandy!

About once every 10 years, I try and surprise Sandy on her birthday. The first time it was all my idea. This second time, I have to give credit to her bro Sam.

The surprise almost failed about 10 times. And the most exciting part was having Sandy and I at the hostess desk at Cheesecake Factory about to sit down at our table while I thought everyone was safely sitting down and waiting for us, only to find out that everyone was just outside the front door, 10 feet behind Sandy! Somehow we managed to pull it off, and Sandy was surprised! What a great night! Happy birthday honey!

San Jose Half Marathon

After months of training, I managed to finish my 3rd half marathon, this time in San Jose. My official time was 1:56:47. It was my personal best though to be honest, I had hoped to run faster. I had my first bout of plantar fasciitis the week before and had a horrible night's sleep to slow me down.

I finished 1700 out of 8362 total runners (top 20%), 1295 out of 4128 men (top 31%) and 231 out of 760 between the ages of 40-45 (top 30%). All in all it wasn't too bad. The race was a ton of fun with bands playing and squads cheering. One of the funniest things to happen to me was that one of the lenses of my sunglasses popped out after mile 1. It was disorienting having one lens in and one lens out so I had to dump the other lens and was just running with empty frames for 12 miles. I kept wondering if they looked like Google glass. How fitting as I ran in San Jose!

Old Town Sacramento

We spent a little time in Old Town Sacramento this summer visiting Cancun and Auntie Charlotte.

It's stayed true to its Western roots with all sorts of brick buildings and wood walkways.

Even though it was super hot, we tried to stay cool.

We did find one cool cowboy...

Sactown was the place to be!

But to the boys, it didn't really matter where they were as long as they got to hang out with their Uncle Sam!