Hudy A blog about all things Hudy...

I will preface this goal by saying that i am really not a big reader, that's why 3 books seemed enough for the goal for me, I know some of you out there could easily do that in a day or two.

The books I read were -

Prophet - Frank E Peretti
This book is a Christian fiction novel about spiritual warfare.  I have read 2 other books by Peretti and have loved them all.  One of the things I really like about them is that Peretti give a great picture of angels and demons and how they interact with us here on earth and he also really emphasizes the great power of prayer.






The Shack - WM. Paul Young
This was another Christian fiction that I got from my mom.  I had heard others read it, but didn't really know much about it.  I will say that it is one of the top few fiction books I have read, granted I have only read a few anyways.  It is about a husband/father that deals with the loss of a child and struggles in his faith with God.  Again, awesome imagery, but this time it is of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirt - I would HIGHLY recommend it!




The Prodigal God - Timothy Keller
This was a book recommended by a friend of mine.  The book basically takes a different look at the parable of the prodigal son in the Bible.  It has great descriptions of God and his love for us despite who we are and our failures and shortcoming that we have like the younger brother, and despite our arrogance and goodness like the older brother.  This was a very quick and easy read, but yet very beneficial especially to someone that has grown up in the Christian faith.

About 2 weeks ago or so, Angie said she didn't like how her closet was set up, I don't blame her, it wasn't all that exciting, you can see it here.

So I figured I could make it a bit better.  We looked up pictures of closet setups online and found one that we like and we figured we could copy pretty easy.

This was something that I have just put off for about a year since we moved into our house.  Our fridge has a front water faucet on it which is great and is getting me to drink more water but the problem was that is ever so slightly dripped.  Just enough to fill a coffee mug over the course of a long weekend.

So finally, with a little troubleshooting help from my Dad we were able to figure out that it was the water valve that was not sealing properly, and that is what was causing the leak.  So I got ordered a new faucet from ApplianceZone.com (which I would highly recommend) and got it installed, and what do you know - no more coffee mug to catch the drips!

So not too exciting of a goal but one that I wanted to try to do.
I wanted to have more time to pray before I got to work and some time to work on learning the 60 topical memory verses I am working on as well.  It was getting to the point that whatever was being talked about in to morning was just repeats of the content from the day before and it was all about the just passed election, so it seemed like a good time to have a change.  It was a bit difficult at first to not listen to the radio at all, but it actually got better each day and I ended up really enjoying the peace and quiet.

Well, so far the camping trips aren't really getting marked of the list too fast, but they are still alot of fun, as you can see by this excited expression on Eri'cs face. 

The Leinie Lodge

We went to Lake Wissota State Park, near Chippewa Falls.  We went with a few of our friends and some of their family.  It was the same weekend as Pure Water Days, which is a parade/festival that celebrates the "pure water" that the Leinenkugel Brewery gets from the Chippewa River.

This was Connor building some sort of rocket or plane shooting gun with tent poles.

An old fire truck in the Pure Water Days parade.

Andrew, Carrisa, and Olivia checking out the brewery.

Alena eating some lunch at the camp site.

Carson chillin with some pretzels.

Me and my wife.

Like father like son.

Apryl and Clara.

Angie, Cristina, and Clara hanging out at the parade.

Ruth and Carson having fun in the Falls.

Tha Boyz - Herm and Arch

Alena showing her Dad that she can grow a mustache too.

Not too much explanation needed here.  I thought this would be good training for my Race the Lake race that I did.  I have been wanting to ride to work for a while, I did it last year once when I got off work early to see how long it would take.  It is about 16 miles one way and I can take the New Berlin Trail for about 9 of that, so it is a pretty decent ride.
I am going to see if I can try and ride a few more times before it gets too cold in the morning and too dark for the ride home.

What I would not do next time is wear a back pack - need to get saddle bags!

This was a race that I wanted to do last year, but because of the lack of training I had, I figured I would just hold off until this year.  Well, the training didn't increase that much more this year, but I am in better shape this year from the marathons that I have done.
 
The race was a 88.5 mile race around Lake Winnebago, starting in Fond du lac and going northwest around the lake to High Cliff State Park, then riding south along the eastern side of the lake and back to the starting point.

I ended up riding with my cousins Tim and Sam and two of their friends, Wade and Phil, most of the way which was alot of fun.  Here they are:


The best part of the race was when me and about 12 or so others were coasting down a slight decline at about 30 mph and just laughing at how easy it was - its amazing what drafting can do.

I ended finishing in just under 5 hours - 4:59:15.  I think it would be fun to do the race again and try to beat that time, but I was really happy with how I did.

 (not the actual flooring, but pretty dang close!)

Forgot that this was one of my goals, but I guess I can mark it off now :-)
This Saturday, I went over to Paul's house and we tore up some the old linoleum in his office and the back stairwell because there was existing hard wood floors that had been covered up years ago.   That is the most I have sweat in a long time!  It was a fun thing to do and it is going to look awesome when they get it re-finished.

The hardest part was scraping off the old asbestos tile in the stairwell - we think it was put down with some sort of tar based adhesive!

Looking forward to the next home project, they are soo much fun!