[not so] little brother

On Thursday mi familia made the journey to Sioux Center, Iowa (I'm convinced 'Sioux Center' must actually be Native American for 'land of many cornfields') to drop my [not so] little brother off for his junior year at Dordt.  Okay, we didn't drop him off per say but we drove two vehicles and helped him bring his stuff down.  Four days with my brother was not near enough.  I love that kid SO much.  We savored the last 3.5 hours together during the drive down to school as we talked about relationships, marriage, church, his time at Focus on the Family this summer, college, work, challenges in the upcoming year and his the new adventure he is embarking upon as an RA on the res life staff at Dordt.  It was precious time to me.  He's a pretty precious individual to me.

the family (sans Philip *sad face*) @ Dordt where my brother is in his junior year studying Engineering & Physics

Asian tourist pose!!!!

I LOVE this picture.  hahahahaha . . .

I got REALLY loopy (we'll just blame it on jet lag) and started doing a little "liturgical" dance to the song "The Joy of the Lord is my Strength" in the dorm annex.

Yeah, Joshua, not sure how your happy little Reform Christian college will feel about having a Zen garden in the middle of campus. . .

.  .  .  but I'll join in too

mum and dad with The Golden Child :)  (hey, it's true.  I admit it.  Compared to Josh, I was/am a lazy, hellian - I've improved some in adulthood [in the hellian department at least] but I was a pretty nightmareish child.)  Josh was a good reward for enduring the marathon that was Joy.  :)  I don't resent it one bit.  I find it quite funny actually.  I just am glad I get to be this cool kid's big sister.

The day before we left, Josh summoned his courage and called the father of a girl he has been interested in and getting to know for many months and asked for permission to court/date his daughter.  I was remembering the day Philip called my dad to ask that question:  I was moving out of my dormroom into an apartment  at Northwestern May following my freshman year.  I was excited about the summer head and relieved that we had finally passed room inspection after several hours of bleaching the blinds in our dorm room (Northwestern is VERY EXTREME in their regulation of dorm room cleanliness - RAs did room inspections throughout the year and the final out at the end of the year often required as many hours of preparation as studying for finals did [no exaggeration]).  This sweet young lady's dad has quite a sense of humor from what I can gather.  He said to Josh, "well, I don't usually receive calls like this."  Josh responded, "well, sir, I don't usually make calls like this." 

We got to meet this lovely young lady after we had unpacked Josh's belongings into his room.  I totally approve.

I'm so proud of my brother and the choices he's made in the recent months and years in regard to being very prayerful and intentional when thinking about friendships and relationships with the opposite sex.  He's pretty much an amazing guy in my book. 

we had a good laugh reinacting being made to get out of the vehicle and walk when we would fight horribly in the van as kids. . .  we both agree the really embarrassing part was being followed slowly by the vehicle