Kauai – Saturday

Whew we’re tired…we’re going to need a vacation to recover from our vacation!!! But we are having a blast!

Today started by going to look for this lady selling Malasadas (Polynesian Taro donuts). The book said she would be set up in front of the Nappa auto parts store in Lihue…so we went to search her out!!! She wasn’t there. I hope she’s ok!

So we headed up to Wailua Falls. This was a “double” fall with a huge pool at the bottom. This was another one of those “tourist spots” so it was very crowded and you couldn’t actually go down to the falls (well I think you can but we decided against a big hike this morning and I think you have to break a few laws to get there!). The falls were beautiful…I think they must have been in some movie because there were a couple of “Movie Tour” buses at the falls. Oh yeah...these are the falls that were in "Fantasy Island".

After snapping some shots at the falls, we headed up the north shore to Ke’e Beach. You get to this beach by going up the North Shore until there is no more road. No kidding…this is the beach at the end of the road. The beach is has a reef starting 20 or so yards off the beach that protects it from the waves so it is nice for swimming. But the cool part of this beach is the snorkeling. This was some of the best snorkeling we’ve don’t the whole time. After swimming out 20-25 yards, you get to the reef and soon you are in ankle deep water…well the water is probably actually 30-40 feet deep here but you can stand up on the reef and the water is ankle deep. Navigating through and over this reef is a chore but the reward on the other side is well worth it. The fish are beautiful…incredible colors…the water is so clear…and we swam with turtles. They weren’t little turtles like you see smeared in the middle of the road in Texas….these were huge…3 ½ to 4 ft. across. You could just float and watch them eat. At one point I was standing on part of the reef with one foot on one wall one on the another and a channel below me…trying to dump the water out of my mask. Then a huge turtle swam right between my legs!!! SO AWESOME. At one point I was swimming along the surface and there was a turtle swimming less than arms length underneath me. I could have reached out and touched it but I didn’t want to spook it.

Ok, then…as if the turtles weren’t enough, there were sharks!! Yep…reef sharks…only a few feet long but nevertheless…they were sharks!! To see them you had to swim down hard 6 or 7 feet and look under this little cave in the reef and they were laying down in the sand. It was so cool!!

We forgot to take pictures of the beach from the beach!! However we got some cool (hopefully cool, we’ll see when we get them developed) underwater pictures. I’ll post them when we get them developed.

We also took some pictures of the mountains from this beach and some caves around the beach...here are a couple of them.

View from the beach up the mountain.

We spent a lot of time in the water here and were pretty exhausted and decided to go in. While walking over the reef, I slipped, my flipper came off, and my leg went down in this whole up to right above my knee…and I landed on my butt!! Dude it hurt!! I now have wounds to prove I was out there. A huge chunk from my foot and several bleeding scrapes down my lower leg. Now that I think of it, it probably wasn’t so good to be out there bleeding with the sharks so close!!!

From Ke’e beach we headed back to Hanalei for some lunch. Lunch today was at Bubba’s Burgers….and excellent little burger joint! Their motto is “We cheat tourist, drunks, and attorneys”!! Then we headed back to “Queen’s Bath” (from Monday). This was one of my favorite parts on the island so we were going to go back one more time (plus Christy lost her first snorkel set there and I was hoping to find it). Then we ran into a new phenomenon on the island…weekend crowds. When we went to Queen’s Bath on Monday there was hardly anyone there…this time, the parking lot (only holds about 10 cars) and all around was packed so we decided to go to a beach we had not visited yet.

We headed down south to “Larson’s Beach”. This is another one of those out of the way beaches that you would never go to if someone didn’t tell you how to get there. The last mile or so is on a (very rough) dirt road and then we hiked down a trail for 10-15 minutes to get to the beach. The book said this was a good snorkeling beach but when we got there, it was pretty rough seas so we didn’t snorkel (plus we were worn out from the morning!). So we just relaxed on this beach. At one point, we were the only two people on this beach. Then this guy came walking down the beach (he had been a few hundred yards up the beach when we got there) to right be hind where we were. Evidently he was a homeless man. He had a few bags there with him and had dug out a small hole that he was resting in. He had several cats with him that he was giving water to. Pretty strange…I wondered what his story was. What kind of luck do you come on that leaves you homeless (if that is what he was) in Kauai.

Then the hike back up to the car….whew! It was a lot farther up that it was down!

This was our least favorite beach of the trip but still beautiful and nice just to kick back and relax.

Here are some pics:

From Larson’s we headed further South (toward home)…did some shopping then had dinner at Kauai Pasta. We ate here a couple of nights ago and LOVED it. The guy that owns it is a Christian…he has DVD’s of sermons from his church, Kauai Missionary Church, for you to take at the front desk. He also gave out “Scripture Mints” as after dinner mints. He seemed like a real cool guy and you could tell from when you walked in that he was…different! You know by different….I mean a Christ follower.

From supper we came home and started packing up for the trip home tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning, we are going to worship with some brothers and sisters here in Kauai. I remember singing at this church both times I’ve been here before and remember their preacher. It’ll be fun worshiping with them but I know we will miss our faith family at home.

After worship, we’re going to do some final shopping…maybe hit another tour…even thinking about another round of golf…and then off to the airport.

More later…

Kauai – Friday

Another great day in a great place…

Again, we slept in this morning…for me, that meant up at 7 a.m…I just can’t sleep here!!! Oh well! After breakfast we headed out to the golf course. I can’t remember the name of it and I don’t have enough energy right now to go find the book that has the name of it in it!! It was a pretty cool little course. This story is that this man living in Kauai built this nine hole course (in Poipu) and then when he died, he donated the course and money to keep it up to the island. This dude is buried in this little garden between 6 and 7. So, since it is donated, the greens fees are only $8!!! That’s my kind of greens fee. Ok, so it wasn’t the Princeville course but it was still fun. There were awesome ocean views all through the course and the fairways are wide and strait…unfortunately, not wide enough for me most of the day!! You may be asking…what did Christy do while you played golf? This is the really cool part of the story. Christy knew that the last time we were here, one of my favorite times was when I got to play one of the other courses here in Kauai. She had told me before we came that I could go play one afternoon if I wanted to but I told her that I didn’t want to without her (plus, I needed someone that could actually see my ball for me!). So…before we left Amarillo, Christy arranged a 30 minute golf lesson with one of our friends from church…nothing big…just teaching her how to hit the ball. (You can see her form below!) She did this just so I could enjoy and round of golf…with her. Pretty awesome wife huh!!! She did great too!! She didn’t hit the ball real far or up in the air but it was always strait! We had a lot of fun playing. We also got lucky that we got paired in a foursome with a couple that was worse than us!!! They were a lot of fun too!

I’ve now played two golf courses in Kauai…one more than I’ve played in Amarillo!

View from the golf course.

Check out this swing!!
And this form!

After golf and lunch at Brick Oven Pizza (again!!), we headed up to the North Shore to another beach we hadn’t visited yet. This was another very cool place. You can only get to this beach by taking this path between a parking lot and a tennis court at the Princeville Resort and following it down to some rickety stairs to another STEEP path and finally to this very cool secluded beach. There is no way you are going to find this beach unless you read about it in a book like ours or someone gives you directions…I think that’s one of the things I loved about it. It wasn’t a beach that everyone goes too….you have to know it’s there to get to it. The sand part of this beach is only 100-150 yards long and has huge trees for shade just 20 yards from the water. On each end of the sand is outcroppings of lava rocks….it’s just a beautiful place. Oh yeah…it’s called “Hideaway Beach”. And the sand here was awesome…very big grains of sand but very soft to walk on. The reason we went to this beach was because the book said it was great for snorkeling…and the book was right. We spent a few hours here snorkeling and relaxing. The snorkeling was incredible…there were huge rock formations that started about 30 yards from shore and went as far as we dared to go out. Lot’s of coral, lots of color and lots of beautiful fish. Just incredible fish. We took some underwater pictures here that we will have to get developed when we get home. At one point I got about 250 yards from shore and found my self in the middle of a school of fish. They were on every side of me…beautiful. At one point while I was out there, I stopped and stood on a big rock where my head was barely sticking up above the water. Christy was back at the shore but I couldn’t see her…that’s how far away I was. She said she couldn’t see me out there either. So I just stood out there on the rock for a few minutes…very humbling…when you are out there in the ocean…big cliffs in front of you, hundreds of miles of ocean behind you, you begin to get a glimpse of how small you are. It was cool….I don’t even know how to communicate how cool it was.

Here are some pics from Hideaway Beach:

From the hike on the way down

From the beach.

Christy, after the shark attack!!

After the LONG trek back up the trail to the car, we headed in to Hanalei to pick up some more souvenirs for the kids and to get some more Shave Ice. Ok, it was good, but the Shave Ice at Jojos is SO MUCH BETTER.

After Shave Ice we headed to the Hanalei Bay Pier to watch sunset. Beautiful is the word we use but it doesn’t do it justice. This was a cool beach…the sand at this beach was the opposite from the sand just a few miles South at Hideaway…it was so fine…like powder. There were several people fishing at this Beach too…with nets or poles. I still haven’t seen anyone catch anything. It was also cool here because you could drive your car right up to the water. Several had backed there cars or trucks up to within feet of the shore to picnic or fish or surf or whatever.

Like I said…the sunset was just incredible…the pictures turned out pretty good on these too.

Hanalei Bay

Locals backed up to the water.

Sunset at Hanalei. Nice huh?

Another great day!!! God is so good to me…this scenery, the beauty, and the reason I have taken this trip…my wife. I remember 16 years ago being here and being “so in love”…and I was. I loved her then…but today, I love her even more. Thank you God…You have been good to me.

Sorry for the not posting lately...the internet connection in the condo was not good so...anyway, here is Thursday

Kauai - Thursday

Wow!! Today was busy, we saw a ton of stuff on the West Shore of Kauai and up in Waimea Canyon. Here’s a quick run through of the day…

We started the day with a trip to Christy’s favorite spot in the mainland…Walmart!! Had to stop there and get some Benadryl for those nasty mosquito bites. We ended up spending a little time there looking at novelties and I bought me a sweet Hawaiian shirt!! From Walmart we headed to the West Shore.

Our first stop was JoJo’s Shave Ice. JoJo’s was highly recommended by the book we are living by here in Kauai (The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook) and we wanted to go there because…well…it was JoJo’s. JoJo’s was a cool little hole in the wall with GREAT shave ice (with Macadamia Nut Ice Cream underneath it). It was so good. The guy that served us had no shirt and board shorts on…only in Hawaii!!

After walking around for a little we headed up to Waimea Canyon. The drive up was very pretty. The West side of the island is the “dry side”. It is SO different from the side we are staying on and have stayed on for the first few days. It is not humid but very dry (hence the description "the dry side"!). The grass is all dead and yellow, and the dirt is RED. It looks a little like Oklahoma! Start up the mountain and things begin to change. We drove up the mountain for 15-20 minutes and it looked like we were in the middle of Colorado. We traveled all the way to the top of the mountain to the Puu o Kila Lookout. This lookout was from the top of the mountain out to the Na Pali coast. The Na Pali coast can only be seen by boat or air or from this lookout – there are no roads to it. It was so awesome!! Unfortunately, there were clouds rolling in so the pictures didn’t turn out great. Here are a few pics from that lookout.

With the clouds!! Pretty huh?!

Less clouds.

Even less clouds...the pictures again don't do it justice.

From there we worked our way down the mountain to several different lookouts including quite a few for the Waimea Canyon. This place was UNREAL. I can’t begin to explain how incredible this Canyon is…you just wonder at it’s beauty. From the main lookout you can see this BEAUTIFUL double waterfall (the one from Fantasy Island!) but I think the little off the road lookouts were even more spectacular. Here are a few of Waimea.

Almost as pretty as Palo Duro Canyon!!

Incredible!

Check out this cool waterfall!

We also saw a family of mountain goats from one of the off the road lookouts. Here’s the Billy!

The drive back down the mountain was also incredible. The views of the Ocean coming down were…well…they were incredible. No pictures!! You’ll just have to trust me on this one.

After a quick lunch (great Calzone at a little hole in the wall), we went to a few other sites on the West side. We went to 1 beach where the sand is a real dark green. This is where the Waimea River runs into the ocean….it’s real cool to watch. The sand there has olivine (green) and black flecks of lava in it to make it dark green. Very pretty but not good for swimming or playing on the beach.

Green Beach

We then headed over to Pekala Beach.

Pekala beach again is not for swimming and there were only a dozen or so people there...mostly surfers…well all surfers accept for us. This is a beach known for it’s surfing but not good for swimming or snorkeling. You get to it by parking along the highway, going through this fence then along a “pig trail” for a couple of hundred yards. Then down the beach and past the wall that says “private property”! All beaches in Kauai are public but sometimes you have to cross private property to get to them. We spent a little while at Pekala watching surfers do their thing and kicking back on the sand. Very relaxing!!

From Pekala we went to another beach…kinda weird beach…Glass Beach. Our book says that Glass beach was created from millions of pieces of broken glass washed in from broken bottles and auto glass. Behind it is the industrial part of the west side with huge gas tanks…you have to drive down this dirt road and then you come up on it. Again, not a place to swim but the “sand” was very pretty and cool and interesting.

Glass Beach

We spent some time then at the Harbor and watched some team kayaking and surfers then headed over to Spouting Horn at sunset. Spouting Horn is pretty cool. Spouting horn is essentially a hole in the lava shelf where water from waves is forced through forcing out water…and air. This is what the “blue book” says about spouting horn. “This particular site distinguishes itself from other blowholes around Hawaii in that it has an additional hole that blows only air, causing a loud moaning and gasping sound”. That's funny...me too! It was cool. Especially at sunset. When the sun was setting, every time the hole would blow (ha!) it would create a cool rainbow. We also saw a turtle and a seal at Spouting Horn. We spent quite a while there taking pictures and just enjoying the view.

Spouting Horn

A couple of Blowholes

Check out the Rainbow

We ended the day with a sandwich and some fresh pineapple at the condo…pretty tired from the day.

Today, we didn’t do any swimming or snorkeling or zipping…just a lot of enjoying God’s beauty. It’s incredible. It reminds me of how creative our God is….he is the creator! The beauty he made is AMAZING…and as I was sitting on the rail looking out over the NaPali coast, what came to my mind was…as beautiful as this is…outstanding colors, peaceful in every way, etc, etc, the most beautiful thing God did was on an ugly mountain with no flowers…just the blood of his son. This caused me to worship today…again. God is good in every way. Thank you God for the beauty you created in nature…thank you for the love you show every day to me.

Kauai – Wednesday

This morning started early…but we had a blast. We started this morning with the “Zip-line Tour”….very stinking cool. Christy and I both have ridden ziplines at Blue Haven and Ceta Canyon but NOTHING like these. They were long…I think the longest was 350 yards or so….and some of them VERY high…I think about 80 feet above the ground. A couple of them were very low too which was cool. There were 7 different ziplines in all that we got to zip. We zipped over what used to be a crater created by one of the volcanoes that made Kauai. At one point, we were at the foot of the mountain (can’t remember it’s name right now) that is the wettest point in the world. It had rained last night (of course) and you could see 10 or so waterfalls from the first place to zip. It was lush and green and a TON of fun! We ended at this little pond and had sandwiches then road back up to the city. Yeah…we had a lot of fun!

Here are some pics:

Before the Zip

Christy Zipping

Doyle Zipping

More pics of this when I get to a faster Internet connection!

After the zip tour we were pretty tired so we headed into town for a little shave ice…then back to the condo for a bit.

After a little rest, we headed out for some beach time. This afternoon we went to Lydgate Beach. It’s a pretty cool beach…nice for just relaxing and playing in the water. They have created this rock circle to protect this beach from the waves so it makes a nice serene pool. We snorkeled for a little but the snorkeling wasn’t great. Not a lot of fish in this area. Then we just vegged!! It is so nice to be able to just relax and do nothing if you want to! This was a very pretty beach and we are hoping to get back to this beach to watch a sunrise.

Lydgate

We went from Lydgate to see Opaeka Falls. These aren’t falls that you get to actually go up to, you can only view them from the road. They are beautiful though! Here are some pics.

After the falls we were just driving up this little road and ran into a Hindu Monastary. It was pretty cool. We didn’t get to go into the temple…it’s only open in the morning. But reading some of the history of the monastery was pretty cool. One interesting thing they had there was a place you could write down all of the things that were bothering you and burn them in this urn. They said that your problems were taken away when you burned them in this urn….pretty interesting. A lot of interesting stuff in their tenets of faith…more on that later. No pictures here…if I get to go back to the temple, I’ll take some pictures.

After the monastery, we went to eat at a great little Italian place, then shopped a little, then went for a stroll on the beach. Again, it was a great day. We are pretty tired but having so much fun.

More later…

TUESDAY

Wow…Tuesday was fun but WE ARE TIRED!!! This was a day that we planned to “sleep in”. So, I got up about 6:30!! Wow…what a sleep in. I just couldn’t sleep. We lounged around the condo for a while, then had breakfast, and hit Kauai!

We started at Hilo Hatties looking for souvenirs and stuff. Shopping…woohoo. Then we headed to the South Shore to do some snorkeling and boogie boarding. We started at Poi’pu Beach and did some snorkeling there. There were a lot of fish and urchin and stuff to see but the floor was VERY rocky and hard to get around in. The hardest part was getting back to shore. The beach was beautiful though and we had fun just people watching. We laid on the beach for a while DOING NOTHING. Doing nothing is so good! No pictures of Poi’pu…sorry.

We headed off for some lunch…a very good burger and chicken burger at Tropical Burger, and then looking around in some shops at the Market in Poi’pu.

After lunch it was time for some boogie boarding at Brennecke Beach. The waves were pretty awesome. However, neither of us will soon be asked to join the national boogie boarding team. We had fun and took most of the sand from Brennecke Beach away with us in the many hiding spots in our swim suits and other crevices on our body! Here are some pics of Brennecke Beach.

From Brennecke we went to my favorite spot of the day…Kipu Falls. This was awesome. Kinda in the back country of the South Side, you park by a bridge and then take a “pig path” through some grass fields where the grass is taller than me. You walk down this path and over some rocks for about 10 minutes and then come up on this awesome waterfall and huge pool. The waterfall is probably 20-25 feet high and Christy and I both jumped off a couple of times. IT WAS AWESOME!!! Then you can swim over and climb back up and do this huge rope swing. Very cool too but not as cool as jumping off the waterfall. Again, I think this was our favorite part of the day. We like these places that are off the beaten path and VERY COOL. Here are some pics:

Christy Jumping

Doyle Jumping

Rope Swing

After Kipu Falls we were beat and ready for some supper and rest. We spent some time at the store buying souvenirs and food for tonight. Then we came back to the condo and Christy cooked supper. It has been a nice relaxing night.

Tomorrow is our Zip-Line Tour!! We can’t wait!!!

More tomorrow.

Day Two: Monday

I woke up this morning about 4:30 a.m…body telling me it’s 9:30, so I couldn’t go back to sleep. So, I got up, made some coffee, took a shower, and headed to the beach for some pictures of sunrise. Unfortunately, I’ve been greeted by a “Garden Isle” rainstorm this morning. Oh well, maybe tomorrow morning. The walk on the beach was superb (after it quit raining on me for a while).

At one point I stopped, looking out into this vast ocean…thinking about how incredibly huge and powerful it is and thinking…my God is in control of all of this. Then I look down at the sand going through my toes and think…my God knows every grain of sand. I couldn’t think of a word to describe God. So I worshiped him. This is a GREAT way to start the day!!! I’m looking forward to many more of these!

Now I’m sitting on our balcony, watching it rain, listening to the %#$*%#@ roosters, waiting for breakfast. Christy is still sleeping off the jet-lag. After breakfast, I think we’re going to go snorkeling or swimming…who cares, we’re in Hawaii.

First morning!!

This was the most sun we saw all day!

More later…

So when we got here they told us there was a free breakfast on the first morning we were here…we went. Note to self…anything free here, they want something from you. It was a sales pitch for all different kinds of Luau’s and stuff. We ate, listened for a little, then left!

After renting snorkel and boogie board gear, we headed to the “Lighthouse”. It’s this bird sanctuary place on the East Shore. Pretty cool…very beautiful views….and red footed boobies. Yep…we came to Hawaii and saw boobies on the first day. We even took pictures. While the Lighthouse isn’t just crazy exciting, the views are absolutely gorgeous. Do you ever just get used to this and not pay attention to how gorgeous it is? Like we do with Amarillo!!!! They say from this point you see a lot of whales…in season…it’s not season so we saw a lot of water…and boobies!

See!

Those little white specs in the green are boobies.

After the lighthouse, we headed up to the north shore…grabbed some lunch and then went on up to “Tunnels beach”. To reach this beach…you drive north until you nearly run out of road, then park on this little dirt road…and walk up the beach what seems like forever to get to the place where the snorkeling is good. It was SO worth it. The snorkeling was awesome….fish of every color (doh! Forgot to take pictures!). You just swim around and notice new fish after new fish…no kiddin…awesome. Then back to the car and on to my favorite place of the day…”Queen’s Bath”.

This place was so cool. Again, it’s a little out of the way place that I don’t think a ton of people know about or go…but it was awesome. You drive through this cool resort then park and hike for about 15 minutes. Down a steep muddy trail to a cool little waterfall, then down further to another little waterfall…then…for about 300 yards you go along the waterfront (cliffs kinda) on lava rock…with the waves crashing. IT IS SO COOL. At then end you get to this pool of water…about the size of a backyard swimming pool. On the front edge the waves are crashing in over the rocks and you can swim and snorkel…oh my goodness it was amazing. Just so cool. We swam and snorkled here for a good while and then hiked back up (ok the trip back up was a little harder for these out of shape people but WELL worth it!).

Waterfall on the way to Queen’s Bath

Part of the hike to “Queen’s Bath”

“Queen’s Bath”... pictures don’t do it justice (at least not ours!) The pool was about 12 feet deep at the deepest points.

Cool huh! This is another place that you see on the hike to "Queens Bath"

After a little shopping, we headed back to get cleaned up and then had some supper…very good but pricey BBQ. When we got to the BBQ place (with a spectactular view of the beach) we realized that we were on the same beach (give or take 100 yards) where I popped the question. VERY COOL! Then we went and walked through the market in Kapa’a for a little while. This is the market that we walked through over 16 years ago the night before I proposed to Christy. I remember going by a jewelry store acting sad because I couldn’t buy her a ring when I had bought the ring months before!! It’s a cool little market.

Then back to the resort for bed and relaxing.

The sun hasn’t been out more than 10 minutes today but it has still been fantastic. I understand it’s supposed to be like this tomorrow too. I hope at some point we get to see the sun!!! Even if we don’t, this place is fantastic.

More tomorrow…

I hope to be able to update daily but as of now I can’t get an internet connection in our condo (oh well!!) If not, I’ll post this all when I get back to the mainland.

Kauai Travels Day 1: Travel Day

Not much to report from Sunday. Travel day started early and ended late. Not so much good traveling in between. It started with us in DFW EARLY (to try to get an exit row seat). We did get the exit row seats booked for our flights all the way to LAX…but then, right before we were going to get on the plane, DFW had a bad lightening and rain storm and delayed our flight about 2 hours. Since this would make us miss our connecting flight, they then moved us to a direct flight to LAX. So, we ran to the airport and got on our flight to LA. Not too bad…no exit row…but not too bad.

At LA we got settled in for our flight to Kauai. The flight was packed so there was not any hope of getting an exit row. This was a United airlines flight. They boast “more leg room than any other airlines”. I have one thing to say about this….Liar, Liar, pants on fire!!! NO LEG ROOM. Oh well we made it to Kauai…long flight….tired booties…but we made it…

However, our luggage didn’t!! Because of all the flight delays and us last minute switching flights to LA, our luggage went on and made the trip through Denver and then to LA missing our flight to Kauai. The very nice man at the luggage place told us that we were on the last flight for the day so our luggage wouldn’t get here till today at noon. So…after checking in at our cool condo, and driving across the Island to “Brick Oven Pizza” (at the recommendation of Pill Hackler), we headed to Walmart (broke Christy’s heart to have to go to Walmart!) and bought a few things to tide us over till we got our luggage. Then, we got back to the condo…EXHAUSTED…our bodies still telling us it is 3 a.m. and we had a message from the office telling us that our luggage is here!! Woohoo!!! It was good to have our luggage with us again, although they did destroy my suitcase. Not sure how we’re going to deal with that!

Anyway…we were pooped and hit the hay.

Oh yeah…Brick Oven Pizza was good…not great…service was actually not good at all…but the food was good. I think we were too tired to enjoy!

SE Chronicles… - Last one…I promise

Two weeks ago, I was traveling with Josh to Lubbock right now, getting ready to enter into a great week. Just wanted to reflect on some of my favorite things of SE 06

• Family – It is so cool to get to work with blood family at SE. From nieces and nephews as students, to brothers working along side me….it was just excellent. It was cool to get Elven indoctrinated to SE this year. What a great help he was. I love my brothers and sisters…every one of them!! The best thing I love about them is that they love God!!! This week was just a reminder to me of how blessed I am with family that loves God. One of these days, we’ll get Twila to come and help!!!
• Family part 2 – It was awesome to have Everett there with me. He is the son I don’t deserve!!! He is way too good for me. My favorite times of the week were when he would sit next to me at the computer and worship with me. There were several times I was so moved I couldn’t sing because I was watching my son lift his hands to the Lord and worship Him. That was priceless!!!!
• Family part 3 – Laci Richardson – She is not blood kin but married into the family. It is such an honor to work along side Laci for SE. She is perfect for SE!! She is such a great woman of God and wants so badly to be in His will. She gives herself sacrificially so that others will know the love of God. She is a great Mom and wife. Laci is just awesome. AND….her favorite joke is SO funny!
• Family part 4 – Josh Watkins – Ok, Josh isn’t “family”…he didn’t even marry into the family, but he is a brother to me. What a great partner in ministry. He is fun to work with, he challenges me, I think I challenge him. When we are together, I laugh (a lot), I am challenged to grow in Christ, I am encouraged…It’s just one big pile of cool!! Love this guy. On the way home the other day we talked about planting an SE church (more on that later). And we talked about our Dream Team of SEers to be at this church. That would be too much fun.
• Family part 5 – Quaker Ave. Church – this is the church I grew up in in so many ways. It is just cool to get to go back there at least once a year and be a part of that family. I love worshiping with them on Sunday a.m. I love seeing how they serve SE because of their love for Christ.
• Confession – much healing happened this week because of confession. Let’s hope we can all be real enough to never let this stop.
• Long rides in the golf cart with my girlfriend…..ok just kidding

Top Ten Things I Miss About SE

10. Rainbow Celebration – not necessarily the worship…just saying the words!

9. Cookie Crisp with Chocolate Milk

8. Riding around in a golf cart….I gotta get one for the house!

7. The nurses….Charmaine and Lanna are the COOLEST

6. NO SLEEP

5. Pizza and a Hamburger (and cookie crisp) EVERY DAY for lunch.

4. Mbale

3. Kick-ball

2. Mbaleball

1. Late night hugs from Jake!

Make sure you check out the SE website for all of the pics! www.summerexcitement.com

OK, for all of those (both of you) who are reading this….WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SE 06 memory? Or…..what is your favorite SE memory of all time? Or…what would you add to my top ten list.

OUT!!!

SE Chronicles… - Friday, June 23, 2006

Ok, it’s actually Saturday morning. I didn’t have time Friday to journal so here is the recap of Thursday and Friday. Thursday morning is always the hardest day for me. We are in the home stretch…the end is near...but I don’t want to lose energy or power at all. I was tired Thursday morning…bad tired….I’m getting way too old for this! Now I understand why Richard would head out in the middle of the day….NAP TIME!! But God gave me the energy to get through the day!

Thursday was another great day though….people continued to respond to the call of God. Thursday night Rainbow Celebration was great…at least I thought it was. I love the “Lonely People” video….because of the message, “you have never been unloved”. What a powerful message for kids….for everybody…to hear. Then I loved how the Deans connect all of the school themes to the overall SE theme. It just worked great. One of the cool parts for me was getting to sing with Josh. We sang “If You Say Go” over the students as they prayed…I can’t begin to tell you all of the coolness that happened within that…just trust me…it was awesome.

The awards time was kinda anticlimactic for me. So many great things had already happened. Although….I LOVED recognizing kids for being Christ-like. We need to do that EVERY DAY. I loved the ovation that Josiah Shelburne got. I loved the ovation that Amber got….and that Justin got….all deserving…for totally different reasons…but everyone in the room knew why.

I think the most rewarding time of the week though was yesterday (Friday) lunch. As we sat around with TLs, TLCs, and Staff, and shared victory…God gave me a picture of what he is doing with SE. I just saw these stories…these victories for Him, multiplying over and over across this nation, and to the nations. As I listened to victory after victory, I praised the God who made all this possible. The God who planned this before time began. I just sat and worshiped as we shared with each other. (And I got to play with Leah for a lot of that time!)

SE 06 was a great success. Thanks to so many people, but primarily thanks to God. And now, we continue our Journey. I told the TL/TLCs yesterday...”don’t let this be the greatest day in your life.” I want that for myself, I want that for all who attended or volunteered at SE. Don’t let this be your mountaintop experience. Let this be another incredible stop on your Journey…but let the mountain top experiences be the everyday decisions we make to follow our Rabbi, Jesus.

Father, you took care of us again. You answered prayers before we even prayed them. You brought people together that needed each other. You put people in leadership positions that needed to lead. You are truly and awesome God!!!! I don’t know how else to say it. God protect SE from the evil one. Protect our students and TLs as they go home. Remind them with Your Spirit of the things they learned and the promises they made to you. Bring yourself glory. We pray that our work has been fruitful and is producing “fruit that will last”. If we are not fruitful, prune us so fruit will grow. We love you God and depend on you not just for SE but for our lives. Continue to amaze us as we go back in to our “normal”lives….make our lives abnormal!!!

Your Son,

Doyle

As I read back over the last week’s blog entries, it makes me sad that I missed so much. So many stories, so many God honoring victories…there is just no way to cover it all. I guess this is why for the last 22 years, we have all been saying, “I can’t describe it, you just had to be there!”

My summation is, if I can ever describe everything that is happening perfectly….it probably isn’t of God.

Sorry, I forgot to post these when I got back....HERE YA GO!

SE Chronicles… - Thursday, June 22, 2006

Oh….wow….am I tired. Just when I think I can’t get any tireder (ok, I know tireder isn’t a word but for me it is what works right now!!), I get even more tireder!!! And then when I think I can’t give any more….God gives me this incredible burst of energy! Sometimes I’m afraid to act on that burst of energy because I’m afraid people around me will think I’m on drugs!!! What gives me the most energy is things like last night…..no matter how tired I got, live giving….true life giving energy was returned to me through watching as people’s lives changed.

Wednesday night is always special at SE. But last night was different than any SE Wednesday night I have been a part of. First….I loved how it started. We were all sitting there before “starting time” and just started singing…and before you know it…we were worshiping!!! I loved watching as the “old people” came in to this atmosphere of worship. The looks on their faces were priceless. Our worship time together was excellent…at least in my estimation of what excellent is!! Ian’s analogy of Tumbleweeds and Fencepost was very cool and thought provoking. Are we being blown by the Spirit as we spread seeds everywhere….or are we a dead piece of wood, stuck in the ground, trying to keep other tumbleweeds from spreading their seed? Good question. Then came the invitation…a time where in years past so many kids responded to what was going on in their heart. And as we sang the “invitation song”….nobody “responded”. Well, I’ll take that back….I think many of us were responding…just not in the traditional way of coming down front. As we guided the students into their families….I watched as hundreds of kids responded. I saw the tears begin to flow…not necessarily a sign of response but many times it is an outward sign of what’s going on in the heart. I watched as kids confessed to each other and prayed for each other. I counseled with kids as they looked to God for help. While some might have thought, “Oh no, nobody responded!”, the truth is…so many responded…and are still responding to what God is doing in their heart.

It seems to me that we have created some kind of monster with our response times in churches. It’s like you can only “respond” to what God is doing in your life at a certain time on a certain day during a certain kind of song. That is so wrong. What I saw the kids doing all week was respond as they were going along the journey. As we journey, there will be many, many times where we will be responding to God and to the holiness we are called to. I loved seeing that all this week. I loved seeing that last night….I will love seeing it tomorrow. Father, thank you for the gift you gave us last night of “no responses”. Teach us through this that our journey with you is just that…a journey. Not a destination that we arrive at and are never called to more..but a journey where you continually call us to follow you. Give us more of this teaching Father.

Then the baptisms started happening….yeah we had responses!!! Praise God for drawing those to Him. I think we had 5 baptisms last night and two decisions to be baptized when they get home. Awesome. You know…that’s not our primary goal at SE…to get the students here to be baptized….but it happens every year. I’m sure there are deep lessons in that….too tired to expound on it now!!

Then there was the party...Quaker Church is so awesome. They help in so many ways with volunteers and financial support. They pray for us like crazy (including a 24 hour prayer vigil before SE), but the most visible way they help is with Jailbreak (the party). When I first saw what they were doing I thought….”Oh my…this is over the top!!” But the kids loved it. It was over the top!!! The kids loved it, the volunteers at Quaker had fun. Last night in the dorm, someone told me that Jailbreak was “the best dance I’ve ever been too. Even better than prom!”. Then someone said, “It was even better than the FFA dance!” That cracks me up. So…the church of Christ throws a party and kids come away saying it was the best dance they’ve been too!! Too funny! I love this time because it gives the kids time to release….to just be themselves and have fun….with no worries of what others think. Life should be like jailbreak!!

Then in the other room, kids were still responding….we would take a break for a baptism here and there. God was glorified last night.

God, thank you. That seems so small to say…but I don’t have words to praise you right now. Thank you. I love you.

Doyle