My favorite Dilbert

Because I sometimes serve as the Gammons family help desk and my friend Bill is ALWAYS the Century College admissions help desk, we thought this Dilbert was great! Gregg (or should I say the Renaissance help desk) will probably also appreicate.

GWV--The Recap

GWV (Guys' Weekend V) was a great time. In our fifth year of doing this, it felt like we all knew each other well and knew what to expect from each other and our weekend together. We spent a lot of time by the camp fire talking. We went downtown and did some of the mandatory Chicago stuff. We ate at Gino's (Chicago-style pizza) twice and Portillo's (Chicago hot dogs and Italian beef) once. We walked probably five miles around the park playing frisbee golf. I am burnt and was fairly sore yesterday. These five guys are great friends. Here are some of my highlights (in no specific order.)

1. The train ride to Chicago talking with Ken
2. Talking with Alyn about his family
3. My rides to and from Madison with Ben D.
4. Listening to Daniel talk about his life at the campfire
5. Gino's mmmmmm
6. Listening to Ben engage Matt the waiter at Gino's in Wheaton who was a Wheaton student. (I think Matt might get fired because he talked with us for about 15 minutes at our table.)
7. Talking with my boys on the phone and telling them that Daniel said he would want to be Chubaka in Star Wars. The boys laughed.

Thanks guys, for a great weekend. I can't wait for next year.

The Faces of Our Little Boys

Korn Dog

My first year at Cornerstone University I was a hall director in Quincer Hall. It was a great place--70 some guys in fire hazard lofts in a building that always smelled like urine. That year I met six amazing guys that came to be great friends: Andrew Bauer, Brian Kingshot, Matt Klooster, Ryan Avery, Andy McKee and Ryan Korstange. We always called Ryan Korstange "Korn Dog". This came from my mistakenly calling him "Kornstange" for most of the first semester there.

I thought of all of this yesterday because Matthew just got the super cool t-shirt below. Now he's our Corn Dog. I sure do miss seeing these guys. I am going to get to see Andy McKee in a few weeks when he makes the trek to MN for the ACSD conference. I hope all of them are well. Peace out, Korn Dog, wherever you are!

How do I print a picture from your blog?

Maybe you've loved some of the pictures that I've posted on the blog. Maybe you have wanted to get a print made from one of them. Maybe you didn't know how (Sharon). Here's the "Andy's Help Desk" Tutorial.

1) Click on the picture and open it up in your browser.

2) Right click (or ctrl-click for you Mac users) and "Save Image As" somewhere on your computer.

3) Then all you have to do is upload the file to your favorite online print maker. Mine is Snapfish.

4) Order all the prints you want. Might I suggest this picture to get you started.

I hope that helps.

Big G

Grandpa Dave has been working for the cereal industry (General Mills) for almost 30 years. We are often the beneficiaries of some new product samples (You should try the new Nature Valley Granola cereal.) as well as some very cool t-shirts. Ben has been living in his Wheaties t-shirt. He went 5 days out of 7, one week. Last weekend Grandpa came through with a Cuckoo for Coco Puffs shirt for Matty and a Cheerios shirt for Caleb. Check out our little cereal heads below.

Cool things you can do with Google Maps

Have you checked out Google Maps lately? There are some pretty cool new things that you can do. For instance for the weekend that I am going camping with my friends from Taylor I thought it would be cool if I sent them all a map of where we were camping. Even better than that, I was able to put a lot of other things in the map as well. Check it out here.

As you can see, we are camping just a few miles from Wheaton, Illinois. I am pretty excited about the locale. You can also see on the map that we are pretty close to Portillo's, a great place for some Chicago-style dogs. I never would have thought that there was a place to camp this close to all of the fun stuff in Chicago. We had wanted to stay downtown, but we are all poor, so camping was a better option.

This is always a great weekend. We usually sit by a fire, talk a lot, throw a football or frisbee and just hang out. I can't wait.

Matty=Uncle Gregg

Every night when we go into check on the boys this is what we see in Matthew's room.

Amanda said last night that this is how Gregg sleeps in his bed too, with his feet hanging out over the edge. There are many moments when I think of the boys' uncles. Whenever Matthew throws a little temper tantrum and then feels really bad about it and wants a hug we think of Uncle Brad. Whenever Benjamin says, "I'm so hot. I just want to go inside and play. Its cooler in there," we think of Uncle Gregg. When Caleb quickly runs the manic gambit between being the sweetest little boy you'd ever meet to putting on a huge pout, we think of Uncle Joe. Whenever Caleb asks to help with the yardwork or shoveling the snow, I also think of Uncle Joe. So guys, whether you know it or not and even if the boys don't always know it, you are a big part of our boys' lives. The apples have not fallen too far from the tree. Maybe we'll get a little Tante Tricia in July. That would be great.

Picnic table update

We had our first meal on our new picnic table yesterday. I got home for lunch and all of my little boys were playing outside. They all had their shirts off and were loving life. I wished that I had camera, but it was at work. When I get home and see the boys doing such great "little boy stuff" I am so proud of Amanda and so grateful for her. She is an amazing mom. She makes the boys mind her and behave, but still gives them enough freedom to be little boys.

The weather here has been absolutely beautiful. I need to mow the lawn tonight.

Dreams and the sovereignty of God

I was talking with someone the other day and they asked me, "Where do you see yourself in 10, 15, maybe 20 years?" This was a difficult question, made even more difficult by the fact that I had been listening to a John Piper podcast (entitled "Doing Missions When Dying Is Gain") earlier that day.

Five or more years ago, I would have had lots of responses to that question. They would have been something like a Dean of Students or a Vice-President at a Christian college some day. The difficult part of that question is that I really believe and am coming to believe more and more that GOD IS SOVEREIGN. Sitting under the teaching of John Piper is part of this, but more, I think that it is coming under the prompting and teaching of the Holy Spirit. When God is sovereign on His thrown, dreams become difficult. I think sometimes as a part of God's sovereignty, He gives us dreams that will lead to His glorification. But sometimes God thwarts our dreams and leads us into times of suffering. God causes us to suffer and leads us into desert times in order to glorify himself and to make us more like Christ. That is difficult but it is good. So when someone says, "What is your dream for your life?" it is a scary thing to talk about. I talked with this person a lot more about what I felt God was asking of me (my calling as a follower of Christ) than what I wished my life were like.

If you get a chance to check out Piper's website, you really should do it. It is www.desiringgod.org and it is filled with helpful resources. He even has most of the books that he has written there for free in pdf format. He has 28 years of sermons, conference talks, and messages in print and audio. Check it out!

A sampling of pictures from our weekend

Another good weekend

I had Friday off and it was a great start to another good weekend. We didn't do much of anything. As a matter of fact, Amanda said to me Friday, "What are we going to do this weekend?" We came up with nothing, which was the right answer. We needed a weekend of hanging loose and hanging with the boys.

The one accomplishment of the weekend was our new picnic table. Amanda said that she wanted and "old school" picnic table for Mothers' Day. So the boys and I went and bought it last week. It came in a very small box for a picnic table. Actually it was a picnic table KIT. It should have taken an hour or so to put together. After putting it together and taking it apart approximately three times, we finally put it out on the patio last night. It was very fun to have the boys help out and to see how excited they were when we finished it. This will be the locale of many Gammons family dinners. I hope some of you will come and join us.

Looks like another little Nagel

In my secret heart (not secret anymore) I was hoping for a little girl that might look a little more like me. Caleb and I have a neat bond because he looks so much like my family. As you can see from the picture below from Amanda's ultrasound this morning, we have another little Dave, Amanda, Ben and Matty. It is fun to look at Ben and Matty and see Amanda though. It will be extra special to have our little girl look like her mom. We sure are excited and can't wait to meet our little girl.