Update #14

minnesota update #14

November 7, 2006

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Welcome to Update #14. It's been a while since we've been able to keep you up-to-date on what's been going on.

While a fantastic summer, the major things that have been going on is our whirlwind trip to Vancouver and, of course, our puppy.

Granted, there are lots of other little things that happen, but I won't get into them now. In fact, I may not go into them in detail at all, since we all know that we'd much rather look at the pretty pictures rather than read reams of Mike's rambling babble.

So, in the continual search for the smoothest, most efficient way to create these updates, I'm simply going to list a bunch of photos and videos and let them tell the story. If you can't figure out what the story is, make one up or drop us a line.

Speaking of pretty pictures, here's Sarah:

Welcome to Update 14! As far as Sarah stuff goes, I just celebrated my one year working at Internet Broadcasting. The Minneapolis Star Tribune did an article about the interesting journey to getting my job and there's a cool picture of my desk -- click here to check it out! I'm writing a novel (or in my case "writing a novel") this month for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The official goal is 50,000 words in 30 days. I'm focused more on trying to write every day more than the actual word count. So far I have more than 6,000. We'll see how far I can make it. You can check out my writing profile here. Thanks to everyone for being so hospitable when we visited Vancouver last summer. It's really special to visit now and have established really cool friendships with so many people. It's always hard to leave and we're trying to find a time to go back again. We're excited for Art and Janice McQuade to visit Minnesota next summer!

Oh. Just a quick note before we begin. For the photos, I've setup a new system using Lightbox JS 2.0. Now, instead of clicking on each image separately, each set of photos can be scrolled through within viewing the image. Check it out below. I'm sure you'll figure it out.

March 5, 2006 to March 11, 2006

Jumping back just before Update #13b and the announcement of Riley, here are a few photos of the little things we've done: painting rooms, hanging out with friends,a photo of the Upper Room staff and a day at Jonathan's recital...

March 25th, 2006
If you didn't already know, We got Riley on the 24th of March (as talked about in the exciting Update 13b). Here we see that little Riley is in fine form, getting used to us, and hanging out with our friends. Plus, below the photos, you can watch a video of Riley just after we got him.

Riley (April 2006)

April 1, 2006
For April Fool's we participated in two events that were far from fake.

The first was the baby shower of our friends Brent and Harmony (as seen in the 4th picture of the 1st section). It was the first baby shower I had ever been to (since it was a co-ed thing). Since there were other guys around, I can safely say I had fun. Oh, and playing Baby Bingo made the whole shower experience "funner-er".

The next stop in our day was to one of Jonathan Jazz Band concerts; the last one of the tour.

April 9, 2006 to May 1, 2006
Not too many "BIG" events going on in this month. Our lives, while normal, seemed to be consumed with puppy raising. I can't imagine what it must be like to raise children. Phew! Anyways, here are a few random shots to entertain you (click on the photos to read the caption).

May 4, 2006 / May 5, 2006
Our first ever Upper Room staff retreat. We did an over-nighter at a small resort at a local college (up north, secluded from the cities) and spent some time hanging out and further developing our team building. It was a really beneficial time; one that we all felt we got a lot out of.

Unfortuantely, just prior to this, John Hoel gave his two week notice to persue other areas. It's just not the same without him around, but we're managing.

On the way home from the retreat, however, we made a detour to pick up the brand new Upper Room Live worship CD that we had recorded earlier in the year.

May 7, 2006
Christ Presbyterian Church celebrated it's 50th year by doing a lot of cool things. Three things in specific were: 50 days of service (various service projects that people could be a part of) and a Jubilee fundraiser that reached close to $2 million which will be distributed between various local and international mission organizations that we've partnered with. The final event was a 50th Celebration service at a nearby "mega-church" where we had all CPC and Upper Room communities come together for a single night of worship. Myself and a few friends were backstage running tech, but apparently it was a great night :)

When testing the screens, I couldn't help but put a picture of Riley up. Now THAT'S a huge puppy!

May 8, 2006 to May 22, 2006
More random pictures of little things going on...

May 28, 2006
Jonathan's graduation from Gustavus. I'll let Sarah fill you in.

This spring was a huge time in the Grimsby family. Both of my brothers graduated -- Jonathan from Gustavus Adolphus College and Stephen from Edina High Schoo. Stephen has already started at Gustavus this fall and it sounds like he's really enjoying it. He has a roommate from Ethiopia named Chu. Jonathan is student teaching high school and middle school band this fall in Minneapolis and just got engaged to Erin, is girlfriend of 7 years! He proposed with the ring on a fish hook at Maggiano's -- where our wedding reception was two years ago. We're totally jazzed that Erin is joining our family!

May 31, 2006
As mentioned above in the photos regarding the baby shower, little Caleb Robinson was born on May 30th. The day after, we got a chance to see the happy couple and the newborn.

Last May our amazing friends Brent and Harmony had a beautiful baby boy named Caleb. It's been really cool to see him grow and become more aware of his world. Here is Auntie Sarah, Uncle Michael, Autie Christa and Uncle DJ Brunch visiting him at the hospital when he was less than 24 hours old.

May 28, 2006 to June 12, 2006
And now... another random photo interlude. Not much else to report.

June 12 , 2006
And yet another Grimsby boy graduates.

(see above - Jonathan's Graduation)

June 13, 2006 to June 15, 2006
For two night the Upper Room staff flew to Chicago for the Willow Creek Arts Conference. It was great to go as a team and all participate in the same experience. We also had a lot of fun just hanging out.

June 18 , 2006
Another summer and another set of outdoor worship services for the Upper Room. Here you can see me sweating my face off when getting the food supplies for our BBQ. Man, it was hot. But, that was good because we had awesome weather for each of the four times we were outside.

June 22 , 2006 to June 24, 2006
For the weekend we had Maggie (the Moore's dog) at our place while Corey and Sarah were out of town. It was a rather entertaining few days considering Riley spent every waking moment trying to closely inspect Maggie's face. Maggie was not impressed, but stuck it out.

June 30, 2006

As you may know, I got really sucked into the figure skating world this past winter. It's totally addictive. I watched every minute of all the qualifying rounds, the Olympics and the Worlds. I learned the terms, techniques and back stories. I formed a list of my favorites and I followed them closely, almost obsessively, in a non-crazy way. I fell in love with ice dancing and especially Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto. And then they came to town. Through our wonderful friend Alissa, I went to Champions On Ice last June and even got to go backstage. I would like to say I "met" the skaters, but it was more like I was quietly in awe in the midst of the claustrophobic autograph line chaos. I was so completely geeked. All attempt at being cool went completely out the window. Here are some of my photos with the skaters... Please excuse my dorkiness.

July 1 , 2006 / July 4, 2006
July started with a bang! With Canada Day, we hosted a party and invited people into Canada's most sacred celebration <end sarcasm>. For additional photos, you can check out our Picasa Web Gallery (Canada Day) .

Only a few days later, it was time to celebrate again, this time for US Day (or whatever it's called).

July 15 , 2006 to August 15, 2006
Let's just fire off a few more random photos taken during this month. Some of the exciting events include:

Spilling candle wax (which, I'm sure, is definately journal-entry worthy).
Growing baby Ryan. Such a cool little dude!
Sarah's visit to Dan and Cassie's house for Dan's birthday (which included a homemade cake in the shape of a giant taco)
CPC office rennovations... well, re-carpeting, actually. But I moved into my new office, which I really like.
Sarah's friend Paula cutting my hair (and having a little fun in the process by giving me that Man of Steel look)
Our encounter with a monkey, which you can always read about at Sarah's Blog.
And, of course, I have to mention that I got a new pair of shoes.

August 16 , 2006 / August 18, 2006
Our friends Jeremy and Susan got married on the 18th of August. To celebrate, the boys got together, played some frisbee golf then headed to this German restaurant for dinner. It was the first time I'd ever been there and I can easily say it was the most bizzare dinning expereince of my life (probably because I know nothing of German tradition). That, of course, is not to say that I didn't enjoy myself. While weird, it was certainly entertaining. Wandering accordian musicians, huge boot-shaped beer glasses, and this snuff stuff that gets snapped into your nose (and burns like Vic's Vapo-rub) are just some of the experiences found there.

Two days later was the wedding reception outdoors in a really nice park. It was great to be a part of it and see both Jeremy and Susan so happy.

Right after the ceremony, Sarah and I hopped in the car and headed to the aiport so we could go to...

August 18, 2006 to August 26, 2006
Vancouver! It sure felt good for me to be home again, to reconnect with my family and catch up with my friends. I could tell you all the crazy things that happened (from living with the Boyles, to storming the peaks of Whistler, but I'd much rather let the pictures do the talking. There are quite a few of them, so you'll need to pop over to our Picasa Web Gallery (Vancouver) to see them.

September 1 , 2006
Well, Johnny stopped by today with a really sweet Sony HD camera he had rented for the weekend. This thing retails around $10,000 so it was a rare thing for us to even see one. Since he had to go to a meeting, he left it in my nerdy hands. Unfortunately, I was unprepared to film something totally outstanding and breathtaking (note to self: always have killer script ready). Instead, I just bummed around my office with it and created, what I like to call, my really lame documentary. Check it out if you want.

My Office (a really lame documentary)

September 2006
That's right. The entire month of September summed up in a handful of random photos. That's really because nothing really big happened... just lots of little cool things, like....

October 14 , 2006
Oh. I almost forgot. Today we went with friends to this huge corn maze. It was a little chilly, but we had a great time indeed! Our group consisted of Burrows, Burton, Emilie, Harmony and baby Caleb and Sarah and I. We've got pictures here: Picasa Web Gallery (Corn Maze).

October 6 , 2006 to October 9, 2006
2 years! Sarah and I celebrated our second anniversary by going away for the weekend to a small cabin resort up north. It was the end of their season so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. We (including Riley) lived in a small 1 bedroom cabin complete with kitchen, jakuzzi tub, king sized bed, fireplace and even a hot tub on the deck. It was a great way to spend the weekend, just relaxing. On our last night, we went out to a nearby casino and played the nickel slots for a while, until our hands got all blackened with coin residue. The last coin we played, Sarah won big by converting our dirty nickel into $18.50. If you want to see photos of our time, visit our Picasa Web Gallery (Acorn Hills) to see them.

October 2006
As we near the end of the update, we close out October with a few more photos (sick of looking at pictures yet?)...

The End
Well. There you have it. Another Update has come and gone. If you've made it this far, thanks for sharing in our memories. In the coming weeks, I'm going to try installing some blogging software on my webhost. This means that (hopefully) updates will be coming quicker and easier. The more streamlined I can make the process, the less excuses I have when it takes 7+ months to do these.

Until next time...