Packed weekend. We've been enjoying it. A few things as I recap:
- Our city is pretty awesome. Things are looking up all over the place. Our Friday evening on Fountain Square was great. Good food, great vibe; I love that our daughter can grow up in the midst of some incredible times for Cincinnati.
- I thoroughly enjoy our men's group on Sunday. Our discipleship at Echo is intentionally structured to let the men and women learn from each other (a la Titus 2). This gives us dudes the opportunity to discuss things that probably aren't appropriate for mixed company . . . yet we meet at a restaurant . . . in public.
- The US's performance in the World Cup was pretty depressing. It's not that they lost, but who they lost to and in what fashion. This was our best team ever, but our team wasn't really that good. What really kills is that the bracket will never get much better than this. And what's even worse is that I feel that our coach put our team at a disadvantage. Using two subs by halftime is an admission that the starting line-up was flawed and, as commentators continue to excuse the loss as our team was "exhausted," understand that it is our coach that contributed to this exhaustion. I still think American soccer is improving, but it has gone as far as possible under Bob Bradley. By the way, I'm pulling for the Dutch now.
- Nice night down at Great American Ballpark. Embarrassingly, that was my first game of the season. I've practically watched all of their games, however, on television. I know this sounds lame, but I almost prefer watching at home. It's crowded, hot and sticky, and despite a huge HD scoreboard, they rarely show replays. Still, our Redlegs are looking good. We're a little shaky in parts of our roster, but I think they'll keep us interested in baseball until the fall.
- Sidenote on tonight: Justin Bieber was in concert tonight at the same time as the Reds game. Both events let out at the same time tonight and chaos ensued. I ended up walking home from downtown. While moving through the crowd a dad, who looked about my age, asked who won tonight. After I responded, I asked back, "And did Justin Bieber win tonight?" He meekly answered yes and I knew that I had emasculated him.
- Because of our busy weekend, I had to wrap up my sermon prep before the weekend started. I'm absolutely loving preaching through Exodus. You might have to check back with me when I have to preach on provisions for the tabernacle but, until then, it's pretty cool. Teaching about the first plague tomorrow night. If you don't have anything happening, swing by and join us at Echo tomorrow night.
- Finally, my daughter has officially hit her stride in cuteness. She's very huggy and kissy on me right now and continues to say the sweetest things. I'm doing a little traveling during the next couple of weeks and it will pain me to be away from her and Kelly.
In short, life is good.