JCC Mens Basketball Champs

For most of the summer I have been playing with some friends of mine in a 18+ Men's Basketball league. It has been a lot of fun, and there was some decent talent in the league. We were team "yellow"; very creative. We started off with a couple of wins and then hit a slump losing several games straight. It was tough for a little while there during those losses. One of the problems was that we had a lot of talent on our team, but we were missing some solid team chemistry. But we got together early one week before a game and went over some basic offenses and defenses and we didn't lose another game. We were finally playing some great team basketball and also playing some really strong defense, it was a lot of fun. We ended up winning the championship for the league. So we had to take a pic of the winning "yellow" team. I was glad to be a part of a team with great kids. I realized what 30 yrs old feels like during the season. I think that they made the basketball courts bigger than when I used to play!

Cape Cod '09

Sorry it has taken me a little while to get a new post on here! Julie and I have been really busy and spending a lot of time with my sister and her husband and their baby while they have been here in CT. It is special whenever they are around so we try to hang out with them as much as possible. One of the highlights of our summer so far is that all of us went to Cape Cod a couple of weeks ago. We stayed in Wellfleet (Northern Cape) and it was a blast. Our trip was filled with card games, watching netflix movies on the PS 3, Moped adventures, big puzzles, and many other memorable times. What a blessing to just be with family and enjoy each other! We played a lot of games and watched a lot of movies because of all of the rain we had. But we did have a couple of nice days. And one of those days we rented a charter fishing boat and went fishing for stripped bass and bluefish. What a beautiful day we had, but even better we got a ton of fish. Even Julie came, and I am pretty sure she had one of the biggest fishes of the day; a 32 in. striped bass. Altogther we had about 30 lbs of filets, eventhough we threw back a bunch of fish. Franky had never been before and he loved it, he had the biggest fish of the day, a 35 in 15 lbs stripped bass! Our trip also included getting two 5 lbs pound lobsters! While we were fishing a friend of our captain was out taking care of his lobster pots. So our captain radioed his lobster friend and told him that we wanted some lobster. So the lobster man drove up to our boat and we got two 5 lbs lobsters fresh from the sea at a great price!! So I included some pics of our trip and a great meal we had at the end of the day. This trip was special for a lot of reasons. Great family time, a healing time for my mom because she just had surgery, great food, but one reason really sticks out. This is the first time we have been to the same town and stayed in the same house in Wellfleet since our last visit two years ago. The reason we went before was for my parents to renew their wedding vows. And those of you that know my family and the difficulties that were there, the renewal of their wedding vows was truly a miraculous event. Thank you God for the way that you can heal hearts and heal familys. Surely he is the master of Restoration and Reconciliation!

Since my husband has done all of the blogging so far, I have decided to try one myself. I am really not sure what I am doing so hopefully this will be posted. For my job I am usually driving in my car 300+ miles a week. This leaves a lot of time to listen to music, talk radio (Glenn Beck/Hannity), the news, or talk on the phone (with those people who are not working or are working and get in trouble!! ha). I spend a lot of my time listening to Praise and Worship music. I have heard all of my P&W cd's about 50,000 times and sometimes they get old, but sometimes God brings new meaning to the words in a song. One song that really struck me this past week was a song about the GLORY of God.

The line in the song that kept replaying in my head is actually a bible verse. "Holy is the Lord God Almight, the Earth is filled with his Glory". This line in the song comes from

Psalm 72:19...."Praise be to his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory."

I began to think about what Glory actually means. It is heard so often in "Christian lingo", but what does it mean?? The dictionary describles Glory as " very great praise, honor, or distinction bestowed by common consent; renown, splendid beauty or magnificance". I think that this definition is pretty accurate for describing the Glory of God. I would describe God's Glory as awesome and great, something that is powerful and yet a little hard to grasp. One example that sticks out in my head is Moses. In Exodus 33: 19-23 Moses asks God to "show him his Glory". God responds by saying, "...you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live...you will see my back; but my face must not be seen". Glory is a sacred thing, a holy thing. I guess in this sense we will have to wait till heaven to see God's full Glory.

So back to my song....I think that when the verse states "the earth is filled with his Glory" there are two meanings to this line. The first and most obvious reason is that the earth is filled with a supernatural glory that is awesome, great, powerful, renown, splendid, and beautiful. This glory is something you can not physically touch. It is something that as a christian you are aware of. The second type of glory(the type that God keeps bringing to my mind) is US, christians living on the Earth, His chosen people. We are his Glory!! As christians we are physically on this earth to honor Him with our lives by serving and blessing others. This glorifys God to the fullest. So to say that the earth is full of Gods glory is literal in a sense. We his followers are filling the earth (or striving to fill) the Earth with God's Glory. So next time you hear that verse or song, remember...we are God's Glory, his prized posessions, daughters and sons!!!! Each one of us brings Glory to him in our own unique way!!!!

My Redeemer Lives - Team Hoyt

The question is --Did you cry like everyone else who saw this video? Hope your boss isn't around! What an amazing and powerful video about a Father and his son as Father's Day approaches. This is a father and son team from MA who regularly compete in marathons and/or triathlons. Dick (father) and Rick (son) not only compete in these events, but they also share their testimonies often. It has been Dick's goal to always include his son and to have him share in his experiences. For more about them and their amazing story check them out at: http://www.teamhoyt.com/ . Whether Father's Day is a blessing or a difficult time for you, our Father in heaven is faithful to us and He lives and loves us. And it is important to take time this Father's Day to say thank you and show love to the Fathers and Father-like figures in our lives. Happy Father's Day!!!

A Football Game Gives Hope

Sports with the Right Focus

Class of '09 Westwoods

Westwoods Christian Academy class of 2009, Congratulations!! This is not the picture of the entire graduating class, just some of the graduates. This was the only picture I had! For those of you who may not know this is the other high school that I work at. The school year for me is extremely busy working at Notre Dame and at Westwoods. At Notre Dame I am a Math teacher and co-moderator of the intramural basketball program, and at Westwoods I have been the head boys basketball coach for the past three years and athletics director for the past two years. My time at WWCA has been special. I have been privileged to work with and be around some great young men and women. This past Thursday was their graduation and I was the commencement speaker--how funny is that?! Anyway I know that the future is bright for these young men and women. They are a great bunch with the love of Christ in their hearts. I hope that what I had to say on their graduation night will help to guide, strengthen, and encourage them; I know that it will for me. I like to wonder a lot of times to see where students will be in 10 years or so because you never know where life and God may take them. Wherever they end up I hope to continue a great relationship with many of them. I am sure they already know, but "Coach" will always be there for them.

Officially Summer Time!!

Another school year is over! Graduation was this past Sunday and I am sure that the class of 2009 could not be happier. I am not sure who enjoys the time off more, the teachers or the students. I wanted to write this post earlier, but for me it did not really feel like the end of the school year because I had all of the final exams to grade. But I just finished all of my grading and now I can start to think and reflect about the year. Overall I think that this was a good year for me at Notre Dame and also at Westwoods Christian Academy. As I think about the 08-09 school year at ND, alot of memories come to mind. I think of myself being a better Math teacher this year, having a great time playing in the student-faculty basketball game, some unforgettable moments with students in and out of the classroom, and creating better relationships with the faculty. At Westwoods hopefully I was a better AD (athletic director) this year, and as coach for Westwoods Basketball team, our team enjoyed a 22-3 record. As I reflect on this past school year, as other years, the main thing going on inside of me is an evaluative process. For me to determine whether or not I did a good job this past year, I have to really take some time and think about it. My overall goal is to be better than last year, in every capacity. Every year I want to get better. Better at relationships, better at teaching, better at coaching, and most importantly to me, better at being a faithful Christian. It is easy to hear and believe the nice things that people say and I think that it is important to do that, but I want to be honest enough to get the whole story as well. And this can be humbling and hard to do. I know that before I started the 08-09 year I had some goals that I felt like God put on my heart to make a priority. I wanted to make my classroom a safer place with less sarcasm and joking around, and have more encouragement and affirmation. I wanted to start off all of my classes with improved interesting relevant thought provoking devotionals. I wanted to get to know the faculty better. I wanted to run better basketball practices, create more effective plays and defenses, and make Christ come alive and shine through our team more than in years' past. This is just the short list of some of my goals for this past year school, and I want to evaluate myself through this kind of lens. So how did I do--hmmmm, I am still thinking about it. Some goals I did okay with, some goals I may have done better with in previous years. That's okay though and I will not get all depressed or weird about it. I know that I will never be perfect, but I also never want to quit letting God refine me and I want Him to continue to give me opportunities. So I have already been praying about how I can make this summer of 09 better than last year's, and I will soon be thinking and praying about the next upcoming school year. This might sound like a silly way to go through life, but Julie and I firmly believe that God wants his people to have strong character. He does this by presenting us with opportunities in life to be good stewards of, and that is what we want to do! So next time you are in the office, on the jobsite, in the classroom, at practice, or with the spouse, remember you will be provided opportunity- try to take advantage of it! Jesus talks about this stewardship in Matt 25. If you have some free time read it today!

Frustration

Julie had a frustrating day today at work, and I thought that this pic says a thousand words how a frustrating day can feel, I'm sure we can all relate. Through many mistakes I have found that frustrations at work present golden opportunities in relationships. Specifically in marriages. They are opportunities for Julie and I to handle together and bring us closer together. Now this does not always happen (the closer together part). I too often like many men like to skip the sympathy role and get to the remedy. After all who wants to sit around and think about a problem from a million different ways and continue to relive it? I'd rather try to fix it so it does not happen again, and fix it immediately. Besides we gotta get the facts and figure out who is right and wrong and figure this thing out---Danger Zone. But my wife does not work that way. I have learned probably just a tip of the iceberg of what it means to "come along side" my wife and try to understand those frustrating feelings. And I still mess it up more than get it right. Now 4 years into this marriage I am getting a little better. I have come to find how important these golden opportunities are for Julie and I. They are critical to the safety and nurturing of her feelings. And for us this builds our intimacy and oneness. For me this also creates a very real picture of how the Holy Spirit deals with us in our prayers of frustrations and hard times. Today we handled the frustrations better than normal--Thank You God! Hopefully we can do even better next time!

What do I do?

The first blog, so much pressure, yeah whatever. There is so much to say and so much to write about. The temptation is to try and cram everything. I think I'll take a basic approach and and talk about my background pic. I will not leave it there forever so I want to brag about it for a minute. Julie took this pic in her usual exceptional photography self. We were visiting Jordin out in Cali last year; and while we were there Julie and I went to Yosemite for the day and this is one of her pics that she took. She caught me checkin out some fish. And even though I do not show it that water was cold! Yosemite water in July was chilly! As I think about this pic several things come to mind. How blessed I am to be able to go to California, do be able to do it with a great wife, and the magnificent creation of God. Being in places like Yosemite it brings to mind a verse like Psalm 46:10. When you are in these types of places life slows down, perspective changes, and little things can be noticed. And it gets even better when you are with the person you love most. Being at Yosemite and seeing this pic (and I'll post other ones that Julie took, they're great too) helps and reminds me to "Be still and know that He is God"