Sunday 4/29

-Awesome worship today in a service of confirmation for 39 8th graders. Doyle preached on "Oaks of Righteousness".

-Miles is slowly getting his sleep cycle back to normal as we taper down his prednisone dose. Last Monday night he slept not one minute from bedtime until 7:15 am. We are still recovering - all of us. Miles is enjoying his new pet, a leopard gecko named Faith, and also enjoyed a visit from Maggie, who is owned by the Reuters - who are also the parents of Jeffrey, ElenaClaire's boyfriend.

-ElenaClaire is moving into the home stretch - Pops Show is over (videos here) and Prom is coming - Graduation is May 25th and her Grad party at our house is May 29, featuring the music of These Guys Here.

Concordia and North Park both offered her generous scholarships ($8500 and $14200 respectively) but she is feeling like it would be wise for her to finish a couple years at Kingwood College - not certain that either she or Miles is ready for her to leave, and not feeling good about starting her post-college life with a pile of college debt (which would surely be the case if she went to either school).

-I just got home from a 5 hour rehearsal for "How to Succeed in Business without really trying", on stage here in Kingwood in June - my first entrance into community musical theatre since "Bye Bye Birdie" 30 years ago in Davis. The time commitment is demanding but I'm having fun. today we choreographed "Brotherhood of Man" step for step based on this video of the Matthew Broderick revival of the show.

I just finished reading "Flyboys" by James Bradley, author of "Flags of our Fathers". Awesome but disturbing book. No one really comes out of war virtue intact. But the details make it clear that a Pacific war was necessary back in the 1940s.

A Cure, using patient's own stem cells?

Read about it at Miles.Lindholtz.net

Thursday 4/12

Easter was a great day... over 1700 in attendance, including the largest number of people ever to attend a single service at CTK (720 - all but maximizing our available seating, with folding chairs set up in the aisles.)
Miles was very sick on Tuesday, then had a great day on Wednesday. Today he is sick and at home again.
ElenaClaire secured a solo spot in the Kingwood High Pops Show at the end of the month. She'll be singing "Eleanor Rigby", backed by a small group of vocalists on the chorus.
She learned this week that she secured neither the vocal scholarship nor the LEadership Scholarship for which she applied. We are looking at Financial Aid packages, but realizing that in all likelihood she'll be at Kingwood College for a year or two. Still, we're making no firm decisions. Who knows what might still happen?

Good Friday

Miles' health has sort of taken over the subject matter on this blog - (and a lot of other stuff in our lives). It will not always be thus (I say in faith). The worship, music, drama, and theological musings will return.

Several of you who read here have sent encouraging notes - Thanks Geoff, Don, and John/Melissa, to name a few -

Miles started on prednisone Tuesday night and as expected, it is shooting his glucose levels all over the place - on the high end. Target levels are between 80-200, and the lower in that range, the better. On Weds., he didn't drop below 200 until 11:15 PM. Wake ups have been in the high 300s to middle 500s with the added complication of ketones, a chemical side effect of high numbers that make highs very stubborn. He went to school on Monday only this week. Last night we increased his nighttime basal rate (The dose of insulin his pump gives him every 3 minutes, day and night). ElenaClaire did a midnight check and I did one sometime in the 4 am hour. His wake up was 186. We'll learn a whole new system of management during his prednisone dose - anticipated to last 3 weeks, I think. Here's my best shot at explaining what this is like.

ElenaClaire had a phone interview yesterday with Concordia University in Austin. She's one of 8 finalists for 3 full-ride scholarships there. She also received a phone call Monday night from the Director of Biology and pre-nursing there, who when she learned North Park UNiversity in Chicago was also in the running, had very complimentary remarks about NPU and said she had sent students there to complete their nursing training - but most interesting was that Concordia is likely to start a school of nursing in the 2008-09 school year. For a number of reasons, not least of which is the relative proximity of Austin as compared to Chicago, I think Concordia has a subtle lead between the two schools. We should know by late next week what each school can do financially, and then ElenaClaire will have to make a decision.

At Christ the King, we had a great Palm Sunday which included a drama I wrote, with a cast of 7. I led last night's Maundy Thursday service worship along with Marilyn and John. Tonight and on Easter Sunday, I will be singing in the choir; on Sunday I will be conducting the choir on one song (Paul Baloche's "What can I do?") and leading vocally on one song ("Crown Him with Many Crowns", in the arrangement generated here last year by Brian West).