As far as I can remember, this is the first “Friday Data Dump” since June…Maybe July.  Obviously, we were going for 5 1/2 weeks over the summer, and while I thought I’d write a bit more than I did, I didn’t.

Since we’ve gotten back, with moving to a new school, and trying to pack up our house a little bit at a time…most every  Friday I’ve been trying to get everything done as I rush out the door in order to start sabbath with the family. Well, this week I seem to be back on a bit of a more normal schedule (although we still are not totally moved out of the old place yet…ugh), so here goes:

Ithaca Vineyard Stuff:
Website:
As you’ve probably noticed by now, our new web site is up and operational.  Ivan Daykov & Erin Smith put in a ton of hours getting it up & looking great.

For some reason, the company that hosts our site, did some type of upgrade in August, which conflicted with the content management software (CMS) we were using for our site, and our contact forms, sign up sheets, and well, basically most of the site stopped working.   But it’s back…we’re using WordPress as our CMS, so rather than using software that eventually gets out of date, we should hopefully avoid those problems.  Also the online message section is up & working too!

This Sunday:
We are kicking off our new message series Christianity Beyond Belief this week.  I really love this topic, & the hardest part of preparing this week’s message was not trying to cram everything into the first week.  I hope if you’re in town, you’ll join us.

Family Stuff:
Erin:
I am actually a bit nervous about going home tonight…Erin turns 14 tomorrow & tonight there is a sleep over for 300 girls…Okay, maybe it’s 7 or 8, not counting her sisters, but my head is already starting to ring!

Liz:
The other milestone this weekend is Liz will be at 15 weeks…the kids were all impressed how one day she looked as thin as ever, & the next day she has a belly.  With the first 3 kids, I put on a  bunch of sympathy pounds…I’m trying to avoid that this time!

Free Time in October:
One of the things Liz & I have been doing since we got back from Idaho this spring is waking up without an alarm clock.  Generally, I’ll get to bed by 9:30 or 10:30 & be up somewhere between 4 am & 6:30 am…Moving to the new place, which is so much quieter than where we used to live, and the fact that I stopped drinking coffee after 3 pm (normally) have helped a lot with sleep.

Usually however, no matter how good my sleep has gotten, October has messed it up.  For the past several years October has meant the Red Sox playing baseball until 2 in the morning in Anaheim, and me trying to stay awake until the end, and then get up by 6:30 am…that tends to catch up with you.  This year the Sox have decided to take the year off from the playoffs, so that I can continue to get good sleep. (you have to look at the bright side.)

I guess that’s about it for this week.  Time to head home for the birthday party!