exciting moments of Christmas break

Many of you know that I was a little concerned that I would be bored being home for so long on Christmas break. But let me tell you, I have been in St. Louis since Thursday night, and there has not yet been a dull moment. So now I'll share with you some of the highlights, and let's go ahead at start with the highlights of my whole Christmas break so far.

Christmas Spectacular was a success for sure. It was a lot of fun, and I'm pretty sure our step routine was awesome. But I'm kind-of glad it's over because I was getting tired of yelling at the boys constantly and feeling like a step nazi. They are ridiculous, but also hilarious.

I got to hang out with Cait and Angie for a few days which was sweet. Due to inclement weather, Cait and I did not go snowriding. But we did go see the movie Changeling, which caused me to periodically yell out "He's not my son!" for the few days following.

The Wysockis gave me some awesome Christmas presents which included Hancock, a ridiculously hard puzzle, a sweet water bottle that no one knew I wanted, a crossword book, and Jon and Kate's book, Multiple Blessings.

Love me some Jon and Kate Plus Eight. So thanks again to the Wysockis, you know me well.

Last Thursday I got two cavities filled. Not fun, but pretty entertaining to have my mouth numb for several hours. Just ask Sophie and Angie.

Four names describe why I did not have one moment of boredom from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon: William Hale Springer McGinty.

Also known as my cousin Bill (I don't know about the two middle name thing). I usually don't stop laughing when I hang out with him, but I don't see him nearly enough. We did lots of things this weekend, including buying Christmas presents, watching Prince Caspian, playing Disney Sorry with Stacey--and that was all just Friday.

Saturday we saw the new Will Smith movie, even though Bill continually repeated to me that the New York Times said it was one of the worst movies ever made (his slight exaggeration). I thought it was interesting though. Not awesome, but still good. Plus, it's Will Smith, come on.

Then Saturday night was my Aunt and Uncle's 50th anniversary party, which was fun with the whole family. My cousin Steve spoke about his parents for a moment, and the funniest thing he said was, "My dad had a peanut allergy before it got cool." Awesome.

Even thought most of the party was in their 70s, it turned out to be a pretty fun night. I stuck with the younger crowd most of the time.


Those kids in that picture are third cousins. THIRD. Who else do you know that hangs out with third cousins? Crazy.

There's no way to put in writing the hilarity that is Bill McGinty, swearing at our young cousins and all, so someday when all you tateblog readers are at my wedding you can hang out with him.

So since Bill left things have been a little less eventful, but my brother came in town and he can also be pretty entertaining.

Oh and yesterday I saw Jeremy Maclin at the mall. This may help in identifying who he is if you're completely out of the loop:

But more important than the fact that he is one of the best players in college football is that he went to Kirkwood High School. Joe knows that because I tell him at least five times every time we watch college football. But here's the story of the mall sighting:

My parents were in the Apple Store for like 8 hours so I was wandering elsewhere. At one point when I checked in on them, my dad told me he thought he had seen Maclin earlier in the mall. I did not believe him, because I didn't think Gar-Man would recognize him (I wasn't sure I would either) and I also didn't think it was possible that Maclin would just be hanging out at the mall in St. Louis this close to their bowl game.

But I left the store again and minutes later, sure enough, I passed by the very recognizable Jeremy Maclin. So I called my dad, who then was offended that I assumed he thought all black people look alike (which he doesn't), even thought that's not ever what I really thought. But we moved past that and the important thing here is that we saw Jeremy Maclin at the mall, and he went to Kirkwood High School, and I was friends with his brother at one point. Ok I'm glad we're all clear on that.

Just when I thought things couldn't get more exciting, today I saw six of my high school friends, and that was sweet. I had breakfast with Kristi, Sarah, Kelsey, Carolyn and Kerber, and afterward Kristi and I went to visit Alison. I love those girls a lot, so it was great to reunite.

Then if that wasn't enough reuniting, I had lunch with the one and only Kevin Butler. He ran the show in New Orleans, and I was like Associate Runner-of-Show or something like that. He lives in the Lou now and works at at church, so it was good to catch up and reminisce. Oh New Orleans, you will live forever.

And as one last piece of info, I am very excited to announce to the tateblog that Mark Poshak is engaged! Most of you already know that, but he'll be marrying Miss Kara Quackenbush in August, and I am pumped. Mostly for them to be married, but also because I am finally free of people constantly saying, "You should marry Mark." Phew.

Well that was long and informative, but it's been awhile and I do what I want. Now it's almost time to watch the Mizzou-Illinois Braggin' Rights game that my brother went to (boring), followed by the KU-Arizona game (booyah).

Merry Christmas to all my faithful tateblog readers, and to all a good night.

a quarter done

I am done with all of my work for this semester!!

Currently, I am wasting time until I have my last class tonight.

Once that is done, I will officially be 25.8% done with my seminary schooling, assuming I pass all my classes, which I will duh.

And now I have lots to look forward to without the stress of homework and school getting in the way. Like...

Snowriding, tomorrow with Jake and Tuesday with...

Cait!! Which is an excitement in itself to hang out with her.

Also, Angie comes Sunday, holla! I love when we get to be housemates.

Christmas Spectacular! Sunday. I have once again created an awesome step routine that will be featured in the event.

And in a week I'll be on my way back to the Lou again, ready to watch TV shows and movies, read Narnia and some other books, and hang out with my long-lost family (AKA The McGintys and Ryan and Justina).

By the way Joe, did you know my brother is married? Here's a picture of them, just to clear up further confusion.

Then in the month of January I get to keep reading books of my choice, be in Jen and Alan's wedding, hang out with Kristen, and go snowriding some more.

Also, here's me and a baby working on homework.

Gwyn knows a lot about how the Israelites compare with other Ancient Near Eastern cultures, so she was giving me some pointers.

Then we just played on Photo Booth for a moment.

She wasn't that into it. She was however, pretty entertained by Sophie.

But who isn't really?

Well it's time to go eat some foods and then attend my final class of the semester. And then I'll try to sleep but I probably won't be able to because I'm so excited about everything happening in the next two months. If there were another Will Smith movie coming out, I wouldn't be able to contain myself.

Oh crap....there is!!!

THANKSgiving

Next week is finals week, and guess what? I'm not even that stressed about it. I still have a lot to get done, so I need to start on some reading today, but I felt that I first needed to update tateblog.

Prince Caspian came out on DVD on Tuesday.

I of course watched it that day, despite the amount of homework I had. And I of course cried a little at the end. I can't help it. I just love Aslan. And Edmund. Anyway, it was great to be reunited with all of them, and I plan on watching it again this weekend. And then a few more times on Christmas break.

It's weird that I'm going home again in less than two weeks, because I feel like I just got back. Oh wait, I kind-of did just get back. But it will be good because I didn't get to see a lot of my friends over Thanksgiving break, besides my Ellen.

Thanksgiving was sweet though. We missed Ryan and Justina, but most of the rest were there. Including Angie and Kara.

That's us on the required visit to Ted Drewes (Kara on the left, Angie in the middle). For those of you who don't understand who these people are, Kara is "Uncle Mark girlfriend!" (as Kyle said it) and Angie is my friend who lives in Chicago. But Angie is also the oldest daughter of the family I live with. And she was also Kara's small group leader one time at 4Cs. And she also babysits for the Van Rossums, who were also at Thanksgiving. So I basically felt like she had more connections with people at Thanksgiving than I did.

But besides all the excitement of hanging out with the Poshaks, especially Kyle and Ellie, who are now over 2-years-old and hilarious, I got to see my actual family.

Those are my cousins: Jane, Charlie and John. Well, first cousins once removed, technically. Our family is a little complicated. One of my favorite parts of break was eating dinner at IHOP with these three, as well as little Margaret and Stacey, instead of going to the country club with the "adults." Stacey and I are 36 and 26, but we still tend to prefer the company of the little ones. No offense to the rest of you, we still like you too. But will you sing "The Boys are Back" from High School Musical 3 with me like 2-year-old Margarent did? I didn't think so.

Over break I also got to meet my first and only Tate cousin for the first time.

That's Andrew Tate. He's my Dad's only brother's first son. This is exciting stuff because the Tate family was down to just six members before Andrew came along. It's probably about time for Ryan and Justina to step it up now and contribute to our numbers, hint hint.

Some other highlights of Thanksgiving included cookies, 30 Rock, going up in the Arch, Thanksgiving dinner, and relaxing at home. I missed the Turkey Day game, but Kirkwood lost anyway.

I'm looking forward to being back in the Wood again real soon.

starting the week of thanks

Yesterday was the inaugural snowriding day for me.

Beth's mom let her miss school, so we ventured up to A Basin for a day of riding the scrapies.

For those of you who are not familiar with my term "scrapies," it refers to patches of ice that when you carve over them make a scraping sound. I am terrified of that sound, and I sometimes wonder if that was the last sound I heard before I hit the ground and dislocated my elbow almost two years ago now. I don't really remember, but it seems likely. But anyway, scrapies aren't really fun, especially when that's what most of the mountain consists of. They just haven't gotten enough snow up there in the mountains yet. But it was still way good to be back on the board, and now I got my fix until the better snow comes. Hopefully really soon.

Speaking of injuries, I apparently have not shaken that soccer injury yet. I think it's been like two months now. I keep hurting my ankle in almost every game, for those of you who haven't been there to witness the scream and then the rolling around the bench in pain for the next 5-10 minutes that has occurred most Friday nights. But today I went to see Dr. Zuehlsdorff (the father of a couple of our 4Cs kids), and he gave me some pointers. Like practically overdosing on Aleve for the next week. Should be fun.

Oh and by the way, since I keep hurting my ankle I just play goalie instead. I've never played goalie in my entire life, but I'm actually kind-of enjoying it. Mark missed the first game I played and I overheard someone telling him that I was goalie, and he goes, "Tate? But she's scared of the ball!" True. But it wasn't as scary as I thought.

In other news, I love the Denver Rescue Mission. It's this organization that does all kinds of things to help the homeless and others in need. They're probably most well known for their facility in downtown Denver that serves three meals a day to the homeless.

But one of the coolest things DRM does is they have this rehab program for men who have struggled with addictions. The program has several phases that include working, classes and meeting with chaplains. They really put a lot of time and care into these men to get them out of addiction, out of debt and back into society.

This whole semester I have volunteered at DRM's Ministry Outreach Center, which is basically a clothing bank. I sort clothes, keep things tidy, entertain kids and help customers. And because most of the customers are Hispanic, I occasionally am called upon to translate, which is both exciting and slightly terrifying.

One of my favorite parts though has been getting to know the other guys that work there. Most of the men that work alongside me at the MOC are actually in the Rehab program, and working at the clothing bank is part of their phases. They are great guys, and some I would never have guessed were in the program. And this month I have gotten to see them more, as I led a team of students to The Crossing, DRM's housing facility, the past three Wednesday nights to serve dinner. The Crossing houses the men in the program, as well as families who have ended up homeless somehow. Here's a little video about that...

I love Denver Rescue Mission because they're not just about meeting immediate needs, but they want to help people really change their lives. I could go on and on about how much I love the work that DRM does, but I'll leave it at that for now, and with this one story from one of my mornings volunteering:

When kids come in, I'm usually the one to go find them a toy to play with and take home. One day a cute little boy came in with his mom, and he actually spoke pretty good English. But he found this flyer in the clothing room with a picture of a train on it. So he first went up to Eric, the guy who works the "check-out" and asked if he had a train. Eric told him that he'd have to ask me about that. So I go into the back to see if I can find anything close to a train, but all we had were some stuffed animals. So I came out and told him we didn't have any trains, at which point this little boy went in the middle of one of the clothing racks and cried. Oops. I think I crushed all his hopes and dreams. But he came out a few minutes later and was fine, so it's possible he was faking. Regardless, when he left we were back on good terms again. Phew.

Well tomorrow Mark and I head out to St. Louis for Thanksgiving week. Should be exciting being back in Kirkwood. I might even try to hit up the Turkey Day Game, even though it's at stupid Webster. Oh well.

Getting in the spirit, from this blog I see that I am thankful for snowriding, Bethany Gager, Dr. Zuehlsdorff, playing goalie, the Denver Rescue Mission, my limited Spanish conversation skills, my friends at DRM, the good attitudes of the students I took there, and that I get to go see my family and friends soon.

Oh and I'm also thankful for my sweet small group girls and our sleepover last night, even though I feel sick and exhausted today. Worth it.

Oh and also I'm thankful for my brother because it's his 29th birthday today.

Ryan Edward Tate, born 11/22/79, Thanksgiving Day. Now he likes to climb trees in the jungles of Seattle.

Ok I'm done.

class of '08

Last night I received a great message on Facebook. This is what it said...

Anyways, when I am missing people in arvada, I often read Mark and your blogs. Usually there is a little shout out to people at 4c's. I thought I would give you some feedback.

-I am impressed with your ability to take something average (doing tae bo or running) and making it into something worth reading about.
- Sometimes I feel like I have to be a regular in your life to exactly know what you are talking about i.e. nike commercial, but you eventually fill-in the readers later on.
-Great job giving the plugs to people when you can, like when you commented on kayanne's radness on a side note.
-Your blog is evenly balanced with text, pictures and the casual video. I loved watching the nike video.
-Ease up on the HSM references.
-However, way to always bring everything back to, "in high school" because we all know that is really the only thing that matters in life... A person's success while in high school.
- I love your proper format of adding a quote from your brother.

keep up the good work, Tate. Hope all is well, and I will be awaiting your future entries.

And who might that be from?

Ah, Miss Rachel Larsen. She is da bomb. She may not have wanted that message posted, but I get really excited when I hear people are reading the blog, and even more so when they tell me good things about it. Made my night.

Anyway, Rachel graduated from Ralston Valley last year and was one of the 4Cs regulars. She's awesome. And awkward, which makes her even more awesome. I went to see her and Kim up at CU Boulder a few weeks ago and it was good to hang out again. I sure do miss those seniors from last year.

But tonight I get to go see another one!

Yep, Sophie and I are taking a field trip up to Colorado State University in Fort Collins to see Kristen. I'm pretty pumped. Oh, and I have no idea what was going on in that picture or why. But whatever, we're hanging out tonight and it will be sweet.

Rachel was right. I do tend to bring everything back to high school. Because it was awesome, duh. The other night I had a dream that I was a senior back at Kirkwood High School again, hanging out by my old locker (that I shared with Ellen) in the Senior Hall with I think Kristin Borgwald. Good times. I hope Heaven is kind-of like hanging out in the Senior Hall at KHS.

Well thank you Rachel, for your encouraging words to the tateblog. It is now time for me to move on with my day, which includes cleaning my bathroom. Gross.

pilates and tae bo

So I've been trying to go running on a regular basis since like March now. Some weeks it goes well, some not so well. But I try. And I only run like 2 and a half miles, so it's not even a big deal. I pretty much am annoyed at myself after every run though that I can't run as fast as I did in high school. Oh well. Those days are over.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago I wanted to run but it was real cold out, and I also didn't have a whole lot of time. So I decided it was time to try out one of the work-out videos I'd seen on the basement shelves forever. I grabbed the Pilates 20 minute full-body work out tape, took off the plastic seal that it's been in on the shelf for several years, and put it in.

Ever since then, I've been addicted to Pilates. And I got Sophie in it too, so now we do Pilates together in the basement with Mari Windsor. We like to make comments back to Mari and her little team of Pilate-ers a lot. Such as, "Shut-up Mari I can't reach any farther!" We've come to be good friends with Mari, Susannah, Dina, Brendali, Roger and Dagney. You're supposed to watch Dagney if you have any "delicate issues" or something like that, because she doesn't go full out. So we will tell Dagney that she's terrible every once in awhile because it makes us feel better about how bad and unflexible we are. And we don't like the other girls because they're too good. But we like Roger, even though it's still weird to us that he's one of the instructors.

Anyway, you've gotta see the tape sometime. It's an event for us.

Then today I wanted to run again but was too stressed out with school and didn't have much time AND it's cold. So I thought I would try a Tae Bo video I found in the basement. It turns out it's just a preview video, so it was really lame. But it did take me back, because the only other time I've done Tae Bo in my life was for weights class my senior year of high school.

That was the class I had with my friend Anthony Smith, who passed away in January. I will never forget watching my 6'8 somewhat lethargic basketball playing friend attempt to do Tae Bo. It was hilarious. If you knew him, picturing that image should make you laugh.

And while we're remembering Anthony again, I will also always remember him (and his brother Antoine) asking me "How you livin?" They taught me the correct response to that question is, "Large and in charge." Much more true for them than me, but that's okay. Much love to the Deez.

And much love to Mari Windsor and her Pilates crew. But not the same kind-of love. And not nearly as much.

Flying in Fear

I went a large part of my life without realizing that I have a fear of heights.

But yes, I definitely have a fear of heights. You may be asking yourself why I am suspended in mid-air hanging by some ropes and screaming in this photo. The answer: High School Fall Retreat.

Not to be confused with High School Musical 3: Senior Year, which was released in theatres this past weekend.

We'll talk more about that later, don't even worry.

Anyway, this year we had Fall Retreat at Camp Timberline near Estes Park. In the past we've held it at the old Covenant Bible College in Windsor, CO, which has way less fun things to do and is in the middle of suburbs. But for some reason, our students thought it was the greatest place in the world. Like C.S. Lewis said, they'll be satisfied playing in the mud because they don't believe there's something better out there.

We got them out of the mud this year for sure. Not only is the camp actually in the mountains, but they have way cool things we got to do. And this is where my fear of heights came into play. First we did the zip line, which isn't bad because I've done a lot of them before.

Next was Gut Check. Great name. So first you sit on this ledge, which I have to say made me feel a lot better than standing.


Then they just push you off.

One of the girls working there said to me after I went, "I don't think I've ever heard someone scream before they were actually off the ledge." Yeah, well, I'm a sissy when it comes to falling off tall objects. And the scariest part of Gut Check was that you sort-of bounced in the air on the rope (like bungee jumping I guess), so there were moments when I just felt like I was floating/falling. Terrifying.

The scariest moment came the next day though.

We moved on to the Leap of Faith, where two people stand on that platform up there (that's Kayanne with me, she's rad), and then leap for this trapeze. Now I kind-of waited until the end and thought I could just not do this one and no one would notice. But of course, everyone told me I had to do it. So Kayanne volunteered to go again as my buddy. Just climbing up to the platform was scary enough.

But then came time to jump. This is my biggest fear. They have one of these things at Crooked Creek that I did my senior year of high school and I think I practically cried. So Kayanne jumped first. I knew there was no chance I was jumping for a trapeze, so now I just had to get off that platform somehow. So how did I do it?

I closed my eyes and pretended I was jumping into a pool. I believe I said something like, "I love the pool!" and went for it. Now we need a close-up of those faces.

There it is. Classic. I honestly think I am saying the word "pool" in this picture. So there was only one event of terror left.

The Silencer. Let me tell you, I was anything but silent. On this exciting event a team of people pulls a rope to elevate you to maybe like 60 or 70 feet in the air, which is about where I am in that first photo at the top. And then, guess what? You release...

Now I must say, while I did scream all the way up, and all the way down, and then some more after that, this one was awesome. Because not only do you get to feel like you're flying for a few minutes, you have this incredible view in the background. Sweetness.

Fall Retreat did include a few other things besides swinging on ropes. We had some great worship services feature the Senior Pastor Dave Sherrer as our speaker, some great times of talking about life and God and dogs and any other tangent you can think of, and of course, Date Night.

Date Night is a High Point Fall Retreat tradition, and one of my favorite moments of the year. We put all the girls' names in a hat and each boy picks one (or in this year's case, some pick two). Then they have to go knock on the door of the girl cabin, ask for their date, and walk with arms linked to dinner. Oh not to mention, they all must have a photo.

Oh Sophie. She's growing up so fast. Anyway, watching the students go on imaginary dates for ten minutes is more entertaining that I would have thought.

So that was Fall Retreat '08. It's one for the books. Whatever that means.

And then, as we said we would, Sophie and I, along with Steph, went to see at 10:10pm show of High School Musical 3 about an hour after we returned from Fall Retreat. As for my review of the movie...it was awesomely ridiculous. I can't help it, I just love these movies. And the soundtracks.

I think there's also sentimental value there. I still remember the fall of '05 when Dani and I watched the Disney Channel all the time, and they started showing previews for the first High School Musical. We were pumped. But then it came out in January while I was in New Orleans without TV (besides watching SNL DVDs constantly). I still remember my KU people coming down in March and Jen and Dani introducing me to the soundtrack. And I remember watching the VHS tape that my roommates taped for me when I returned in April that was missing the first scene and song of the movie. And I remember how much Emily loved the slow version What I Been Looking For. And I remember how I watched it over and over again.

And I remember how Emily and I took two guys we barely knew on a double date that ended with watching that movie. It also included a visit to Quick Trip and the batting cages--best date ever in my opinion.

So, I think that's why I love it. It's cheesy and hilarious and reminds me of my love for my Kansas boos.

Well it's late, and I still never got around to discussing the glory of that Nike commercial. I just keep watching it over and over again.

Oh wait, one last story. So, claim to fame, my brother used to play baseball against Ryan Howard.

You may recognize him from winning the World Series this year. Anyway, the dude graduated from Lafayette High School (same conference as Kirkwood) in St. Louis in 1998, the same year as my baseball-playing brother (also named Ryan and almost as good). So here's a little story from when my brother, as well as Mark, played against Ryan Howard (World Series champion) in freshmen baseball:

I played against Howard all through high school (including American Legion). You should ask Mark (I don’t know if he remembers, but he should) about the home run that Howard hit against us freshman year. We were playing at Lafayette on their secondary field, which had no fence in right field. Tim Miller hung a curve ball to him that Ryan blasted as far as I had ever seen a ball hit at that point in my career. Tim Adams was playing right field and had to chase this ball down which just kept rolling. Hilarity all around. The best part was how much crap we game Tim Miller afterwards. And he kept getting so mad at us and blaming Havener for calling a curve ball.

Gar-man will probably appreciate that story the most. Sorry for all the Kirkwood names for those of you not privileged enough to have been raised in that great town.

Ryan Howard may have won the World Series, but Ryan Tate is dominating on his Seattle rec-league softball team. They even have a web site, but I forgot what it is, so you'll have to check back later for that.

Fate

I am still in recovery from a great high school fall retreat Thursday and Friday, and am in the midst of super-busy seminary times, so I need to go to bed like now. But I am writing this now for one reason.

As ridiculous as it may sound, this Nike commercial gives me goosebumps.

I don't even know who either of those players are, but when the one guy jumps up at the end and gives the other guy a good game helmet tap, I could almost cry.

Maybe in the next blog I'll try to figure out how Nike found a way to reach me to the soul in a way I thought only God, Narnia and Will Smith could.

kingry shout-out

During in this past week, in some times of great procrastination, I made a few updates to the tateblog. You may notice them over on the side there. As I wrote that little description of the history of the tateblog, it made me really miss the days when I was better at it. I only write like once a month now, and it doesn't even compare to the college days. I think my life was more exciting then. Anyway, I now want to get better about tateblogging. We'll see how long it lasts.

To start this one out, I will now post a picture I meant to put up a long time ago of the first person who will read this blog, probably.

There he is, Mr. Joe Kingry. This is from Peru. He totally beats out anyone of being the most faithful blog reader now. I'm not even sure if that dummy Jub Jub reads this anymore. So disappointing. Although it should be noted that the other day, Joe "found the end of the internet," so maybe my blog isn't actually that special.

Speaking of Joe, I love hanging out with the Kingry family.

They're great. Plus Gwyn is my new BFF, even though we don't have a facebook photo together yet.

Yeah, she's cute and has a lot of hair. And is one of the best babies I've ever experienced. I don't think I've really even heard her cry yet.

I get to hang out with the Kingrys on Sunday nights for Amazing Race, which is entertaining although I'm still bitter that Mark and I are not on it. Also I like to watch college football there on Saturdays. Gwyn is a big CU fan. And by Gwyn I mean Joe. He might not invite me over again if I make any comments about Saturday's game, but let's just say the team with the fictional bird mascot won. Holla.

In other news, I really want to go see this movie called "Call + Response," but I think I'm too busy to see it in the two weeks it is showing in Denver. So if any of you can go see it, you should. It's a documentary about human trafficking. The president of International Justice Mission is in it, and I love that organization. They are da bomb in terms of bringing justice to the oppressed. I want to vote for them for president.

Finally, I just have to say that the other day, when I was once again procrastinating, I started looking at old pictures on the facebook and then missing college a lot. Here were two pictures in particular I liked:

CRU Halloween party '05.

Relief trip to Minden, LA, my birthday weekend '05. Clearly Lucas is struggling to hold me up. That face is priceless.

But what's new? I'm always missing college times. I can't help it if I had the most bestest friends ever.

OK, back to reading in the Denver Seminary library.

my best friend's wedding

I'm currently sitting on my couch on a dreary-looking cold fall Friday afternoon in Colorado. Enough description? Oh, and I'm watching an episode of 7th Heaven. Classic. I remember the days watching this at Kentucky Place with Melissa and Danielle and whoever else was hanging around. It's a terrible show, but oh so entertaining.

I have a soccer game tonight. A few weeks ago I hurt my ankle in a game (I tried to block a really hard kicked ball), and it keeps getting rehurt. We'll see how tonight goes.

I'm getting really excited for Thanksgiving. Why? Because the following people will be on Rochdale (besides those that always live there): Mark, Julie, Bill, Kyle, Ellie, MACKIE!! (Maggie), Grandma Doris, Mark's new lady Kara, and Angie. Yeah!! It's still over a month away though.

Oh snap a pregnant girl just stole Matt's car! (7th Heaven. Gotta love this stuff.)

And now for the good stuff.

Once upon a time, I moved onto the 4th floor of a huge dorm called McCollum Hall in my first year at KU. At some point in that first month of school, I wandered down the boys' wing and met a funny kid named Steve Sweat. You couldn't always find him though, and he was hard to talk to because he was usually sitting in his closet with the door shut talking to a girl on the phone.

One day Steve walked into my room and asked for a ride to Dillon's, and our best friendship began.

Steve was my best friend for the first two years of college, and we were nearly inseparable. After that we kind-of branched out a little (and actually made other friends), but we always stayed tight.

Unless you were ever around us in college, it's kind-of hard to explain the relationship, but Steve was and is a huge blessing to my life. And just a couple weeks ago...

Little Steve got married! He's all grown up. I'm so proud. It's still kind-of hard to believe though. One of the best parts was getting to be reunited with all the KU peeps.

Yep there we are. Minus Justin and some others who were not present for this photo shoot. Anyway, it was a great night, and I'm happy for Steven and Emma Sweat!

Overall though, I loved loved LOVED getting to see my boos.

I miss them lots. And the next time we'll be together is...

The wedding of these two lovely people. January 10. Get excited.

everything new

You know what? I love summer, but I also love fall. Mostly because I get to feel like a high schooler again.

You see, the fall means kids starting school again and having new classes and new experiences and I get to talk to them all about it. But also it means fall sports are in full swing. The other day I put into my calendar all the games I want to go to: football, freshmen softball, jv soccer, varsity volleyball, etc. I mostly go to these games because my youth group kids play on the team, but also to remember the excitement of high school.

This past Friday was a perfect example of my love of fall. And of high school. First off, I showed up at Ralston Valley, the high school that a bunch of our kids go to as they were getting out of school just to say hi. I love the look on their face when they see me in the hall. Simply because I am out of church context they are like ten times more excited to see me, so that's sweet. Most of them say, what are you doing here? And some of them say, you're not in high school anymore Tate, get over it. Whatever.

So I hang out there talking to kids for awhile, and Bethany decides to just stick with me instead of going home. So then we go pick up Cori and go over to the JV soccer game of one of the boys in our church. Plus, the weather was awesome. Anyway, then Beth and I grab some dinner with some other girls from the church and head on to the Ralston Valley vs. Pomona football game. We know kids from both schools. I am instantly reminded that football games are merely social events as I was only able to watch about three plays in the midst of being dragged all around the stadium by my freshmen girls. But I loved it. Most people thought I was one of them I think.

And then after the game, we sat around in the stands until the place nearly cleared out, just like we used to do at Kirkwood High School. It was sweet.

Speaking of high school, here's what I would have looked like had I been in high school in the 50s/60s/70s:

Yeah that's terrifying.

Nice hairdo.

Even better.

And last but not least, how much does this look like Melanie's actual yearbook picture from high school:



Scary, isn't it? We'll see if Mel can scan us her actual photo for comparison soon.

Oh also, Ev had her baby!!

Gwyneth Annelle Kingry, born on August 28.

The new happy family. Love them.