Brett's New Blog

I've been working on getting another blog started for theology and ministry. I've decided that I will post those sort of things on that blog. This one will be reserved for family news and other random things that need to be said.

Click here for the Sounding Board.

A tip of the hat to chase bowers...

thanks for the nod chase.

The Spring Update

Things are a bit different this Spring. Not much has changed for Helen, but there have been some significant changes for me. First, the San Antonio extension of SWBTS is not offering any courses I need, so I am traveling to Houston every monday this semester. Doing the math (and i hate math), it is cheaper to fly to Houston and back than it is to drive. So every monday morning, Helen drives me to the airport and then she picks me up at night. She's great, i know.

I am also tutoring two days a week at a middle school. it's a good gig and i really like spending time with people, instead of sitting around the house reading books all the time.

I'm still working part time at Hays Hills. Things are starting to pick up again as summer draws closer. We have two major trips planned for the summer: mexico mission trip and a mountain climb. Both should be fun.

Hopefully we'll have more to post in the coming days and weeks. Until then, enjoy spring.

wow

It's been awhile. I just remembered we had a website when i had to renew our domain name. oops. well, for your enjoyment...

Sorry for the Lapse

So it's been over a month, almost two, since the last post. Things got super crazy, super fast once we got to Texas. So here's a brief update on where and what Helen and Brett are doing.

First, Helen officially started her job last week. Although, she has been up in her classroom working for several weeks prior. Things are coming along nicely... she might disagree... but her classroom is shaping up well. She'll have her first grade students for the first time in two weeks... complete with lunchboxes, backpacks, toothless smiles, runny noses, and high pitched voices. I'll bet she's excited.

I have been keeping mildly busy working at the church. I have taken over the reigns for the youth worship time on Wednesday Nights, and have inherited several students to develop a band. So we'll get going on that in the next few weeks. I'm super excited about that opportunity.

Most of all, we're glad to be back in Texas. We'll get to see Helen's brothers Paul and Sam play football this fall. Paul is a varsity receiver for Hays High School, and Sam is on the JV. We'll finally get to see them play (maybe they'll throw the ball to Paul every once in a while... if not, i'll be that guy who yells at the coach from the stands. I've always wanted to be 'that guy.')

We'll get to see Anna (Helen's sister) play volleyball for Baylor. Helen and I are both excited to see that. I'll cheer for Anna and her team, but it will take a lot for you to see me wearing green and gold.

The best part about being back is that we get to see many of the people we love and have missed over the last year. It really has been a blessing from the Lord, and we are so grateful. The worst part is that we now have people in Louisville who we love and miss. So Louisville People... come visit. We miss you. And know that you always have a place to stay in the austin/san marcos/san antonio area. No charge.

Soon we'll have some pictures of the house and some other recent happenings. I'm about to start classes at Southwestern, so we'll see how busy I get in the coming weeks. Let us hear from you!

We're Back

So Helen and I have a lot to update you on since the last post. Things have been crazy for the last few weeks, so you'll have to excuse our laziness in posting. Since the last you heard from us, we have been to Chicago and back. Then we loaded up the truck with all of our stuff and traveled across the country, making it safe and sound to Texas. We move in to our new place some time on Sunday. We have a bunch of pictures to upload. We'll get to that soon.

Want Free Pizza?

We need help moving on Saturday, June 30. We'll be serving pizza. If you are willing to help, please let us know that you'll be coming. Be at our place at 4:30pm. See you there!

Cincinnati or Cincinatti... Either Way We Had a Good Time

You would have thought we could spell the name of that town, but simply visiting Cinncinnatty doesn't help with spelling questions. Helen and I visited that city last week. Here are some pics...

The first thing we did was go to the Reds vs. Angels game. We parked in a parking garage across the Ohio river in Kentucky, and rode a ferry across the river which dropped us off right outside the park. Our tickets were $5 seats, way up high along the third base line. We actually moved higher so we could be under the overhang for shade. It was stinkin' hot! The game was a pretty good game, until about the seventh or eighth inning when the Angels blew it open. Cinci "fans" began to boo their team... at which, as Aggies, Helen and I were appalled.

Ken Griffey, Jr was playing and we got to see him hit a homerun... with the exact same bat we saw being made in the Louisville Slugger Museum... well, probably... well, maybe (see post below).


Here is a ZOOMED IN picture of Ken Griffey, Jr waiting on a pitch... yes, our seats were closer to the sun than they were to home plate.

But all in all, we enjoyed our afternoon at the ballpark. It's definitely worth the visit for those of you who are still living in Louisville.

After the game, we checked into our hotel and then went walking around the area. There were various bridges that crossed the Ohio River between Kentucky and Ohio. This bridge was high, and it was a long way to the other side. To top it off, there were cars ZOOMING BY at dangerous speeds. Seriously, do people not consider others while driving across these bridges? Needless to say, I was terrified. It didn't help that Helen heard a noise and screamed, latching onto my hip. It creeped me out even further. Above is a picture of me being very brave. Very, very brave.

And here is a picture of me exiting the bridge as soon as possible. (Still being very brave.)

That night we watched the Spurs seal up game 4 of the NBA finals. We celebrated...

And celebrated...

The next day we woke up, parked downtown and viewed all things worth viewing. For example, we walked the perimeter of Paul Brown Stadium (where the Bengals play). There wasn't much to see, and there wasn't even that great of an entrance. This is the best picture we could take...


But we did learn that to everyone in Cinci, it's pronounced BANGls, not BINGls. So here I am making the distinction...


We also stumbled upon the University of Cincinnati. It was a really pretty campus. The funniest thing was that the football stadium was right in the middle of the campus, and there was no fence around it. You could just go on the field without anyone stopping you. So we did...

This is the first time anyone has struck the Heisman pose on this field.

And I am the closest anyone on this field will ever come to winning the Heisman trophy.

All in all, we had a pretty good time. We still can't spell the stinkin' name of the city, but we did enjoy its fine dining, the ballgame, and its beautiful scenery. If you are ever in the area, Cinci is worth going to.

Visit from Mom and Dad

My parents came and visited a couple weeks ago, and we had some technical difficulties getting the pictures. But Helen worked hard to get them from my parents so we can now post them.

First, we went to the Louisville Slugger Museum in downtown Louisville. This is where they make bats for the Major and Minor Leagues. This is the largest bat in the world.


We took a tour of the Louisville Slugger Factory, but we weren't allowed to take pictures inside. We watched them make bats from pieces of wood called Billets. It was really interesting. As we walked through, we saw some bats that had just been completed. They had tags on them with the names of players they were going to. One of them was for Ken Griffey, Jr.

There was a batting cage at the Museum, so I took a crack at it.

Helen did too...
I had a conversation with Micky Mantle. We just couldn't believe the ump made that call. I mean come on! If he had one more eye, he'd be a cyclops.


After the Slugger Museum, we drove out to Churchill Downs to catch a race or two.

We had no clue what was going on. There were numbers and colors and everyone around us seemed to know what going on. It was like a whole new language. The only thing we were sure about was the horse that crossed the finish line first won the race.

The next day we went to Huber's Farm in Indiana to pick some strawberries. It's this huge farm out in the middle of nowhere. There were so many twists and turns, it's a wonder we got there, and it's even crazier that we made it out. Once we got to the farm, we got on a tractor with this guy who drove us out to this field with strawberries in it. He let us loose and we could pick as many strawberries as we could eat and/or pay for.
Of course, as soon as we got away from the shelter, it started to rain on us. But here is what we managed to pick before we got soaked. I think my mom was excited about the strawberry shortcake and smoothies we were going to have later that day....

After we paid for our strawberries, we headed over to the ice cream shop where we bought some homemade ice cream. It was great. Here I am enjoying my delicious homemade chocolate ice cream while riding a cow.


After that, we went on a cruise down the Ohio River on the Star of Louisville. The cruise included a meal and a two hour cruise up and down the river.



We had a great time with my parents, and we got to do some things in Louisville that we hadn't had a chance to do yet. We were glad that they got to come, and we're even more glad that we are getting to go back to Texas here in a few weeks.


Goodbye Louisville...

THE COOKIE MONSTER and the BETHANCOURTS

C is for cookie that's good enough for me. C is for cookie that's good enough for me. C is for cookie that's good enough for me. Cookie cookie cookie starts with C.



We had dinner with the Bethancourts the other day, and after dinner, we decided to experiment with something. Cheddars serves this dessert, a cookie in an iron skillet, topped with ice cream and some other goodies. Who needs Cheddars though, when you have 4 aggies and a gift card to bed, bath and beyond?

Here is the result:


That's two rolls of cookie dough and a gallon of Blue Bell Ice Cream.

And here's the damage we did (especially garbage disposal Phillip):


Phillip swears up and down that he could have eaten more, but we were pretty stuffed afterward. Just a hint, one roll of cookies is plenty for four people.

Classic NBA Video

This speaks for itself.

Those Clever Aggies...

Coach Fran will be speaking at the Capital City A&M Club (Austin, TX) Coach's Night on Tuesday July 24th. He'll be speaking at 6:48pm. "Why 6:48?" you ask. Well, if someone asked you for the time, and if you wanted to give the time in reference to 7 o'clock, you might say that it's 12 to 7. Hmmmm.....

BLAM!

Surprise Guest in Class Today

This week I'm taking a week-long course at Southern. Basically, it's an 8-5 class for a week. You do almost the same amount of reading and assignments as you would in a semester-long course. Right now, I'm taking a really practical course called Discipling Adults. Dr. Hal Pettegrew is the prof. Obviously it is a challenge to keep students engaged for eight hours a day, and Dr. Pettegrew is doing a great job of it. He has wisely brought in guest speakers in the afternoons to talk about different topics pertaining to discipleship.

Today we had a break just before the guest speaker came. I was sitting in the classroom with a few other students as the guest speaker walked in. He wasn't anyone famous (to my knowledge, at least) and yet he treated all of us as if we were the famous ones. This man, who had to be in his seventies, came to meet each of us before the class started, walking around to greet each of us. After meeting each of us and learning our names, he responded with "Glad to know ya."

As I sat at my computer, waiting for the break to be over, this man looks over my shoulder and says "Gig 'em." I was caught off guard. I wasn't expecting something like that. I looked down and he was pointing at my ring. Then, he pointed at his hand which had a smooth gold ring on his finger. He grinned at me and said, "class of 1956." His ring didn't look quite like mine. The year and shield had worn off, and you could hardly tell it was an Aggie Ring. I shot a "Gig 'em" right back at him, and I listened to him speak for about an hour and a half. I learned much about pastoring and discipleship, and I really appreciated his humility, as I learned from his actions as much as his words.

The McDonald Coaching Legacy

Here is a link to a story about my Dad.

For the lazy, here are some snippets:

This offseason has made it abundantly clear. The McDonald family is firmly established as one of the top basketball families from the San Marcos area.

Donny McDonald, son of legendary Texas State head basketball coach Vernon McDonald, was named one of the Dean Weese Outstanding Coaches of the Year for 2007, the girls 4A Texas Coach of the Year, by the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches.

His brother Lynn, the head coach at Clear Lake High, earned the boys 5A honor.

And here I am upholding the legacy with 7th and 8th graders...


The legend lives on...

Aggieland...

Summer is Coming

Helen is down to 3 1/2 weeks of teaching left. I have two finals this week, one take home and one in class. Then we are done for the Spring semester. I'll be taking two J-Term classes... Discipling Adults and (against my better judgment) Hebrew Exegesis of Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes. After those two classes, we'll have a few weeks before we move.

Summer has several good things in store for us.
1. My parents are visiting at the end of May for about a week.
2. My brother and his wife are going to help us move. We are going to meet them in Chicago and watch the cubs, then drive back to Louisville and move out.
3. Several good movies are coming out... Shrek 3, the Simpons... what else do you need?
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes out in July. Will Harry make it out alive?
5. Texas.

Summer is the best time of the year.

All in the Family

My uncle Lynn and Dad sporting their trophies for 5A Boys Coach of the Year and 4A Girls Coach of the Year respectively. Way to go!


PS It looks like Dad has an idea with that light above his head. Haha!

We Bleed Maroon

From the outside looking in, you can't understand it. From the inside looking out, you can't explain it.

Thanks for Playing Mavwrecks

The Mavs were eliminated by the Golden State Warriors. The Mavs were the 1 seed and the Warriors were 8 seed. This is the first time an 8 seed has beaten a 1 seed in a 7 game series. It's just the third time an 8 seed has ever beaten a 1 seed in any type of series. The Mavs won 67 games this year, which is the most regular season games won by a team eliminated in the first round. This is for all the arrogant, loud, and ignorant Mavs fans, for the players, and for the whiny, annoying, bratty owner Mark Cuban...

Good luck next year. Thanks for playing.

Jack Black, the Next American Idol

Just for fun...