Yearly Archives: 2018

Need a Devotional?

Bible, Blog, Uncategorized

Time to get back into your devotional routine? If you’re looking for a great personal or family devotion book, check out From a Pastor’s Heart and Hand by Joseph Oswald. 

This book is reminiscent of the compiled sermons of classic theologians. They are presented in a direct, oratory style, and you can almost hear the author’s voice addressing the reader passionately and personally. The text is engaging and punctuated with short illustrations from the lives of influential people, catchy sayings, and humorous anecdotes. Scripture and prose flow together seamlessly.  

This devotional is perfect for families, but it’s applicable to any believer. The writing is clear and succinct, conveying practical messages that are alternatively encouraging and convicting. The devotionals are short enough and straightforward enough for children to grasp, but they cut to the heart of issues experienced by adults as well. Topics range from faithfulness to finances and everything in between.

If you only have time for a devotional reading, you can absorb a chapter of the book with your morning coffee. Or, you can sit down with your family at dinner time and expand the devotional with the questions and Bible reading at the end of chapters. 

As someone whose life has been deeply influenced by the author of this book, I can testify that From a Pastor’s Heart and Hand is the perfect title for this devotional. Pastor Joe Oswald has spend his years shepherding congregations, children, P.E. classes, and youth with both loving guidance and hands-on engagement. 

From a Pastor’s Heart and Hand flows from this discipleship, which is at the heart of Christian teaching and leadership. For this reason, this book is sure to impact your life in a small way each day and for the rest of your life. Years after reading it, you may find yourself engaging in “Thankful Thursday” prayer or reminding yourself that “when you point a finger at others, four are still pointing at yourself.”

You can get this book on Amazon in either print or Kindle format. If you don’t have a devotional for the New Year, why not make a strong start with From a Pastor’s Heart and Hand?

Upscale Living

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Most of the time, applying for residency is very, very expensive for med students. It’s not uncommon for them to drop ten grand on interview season!

However, there are those unicorn interviews where you get treated instead of paying out the nose. 

We got lucky enough to get one of those. 

A hospital in Palm Springs, California invited Ben to interview for residency, and since it is pretty close to home, he decided to go and take me with him. Actually, we decided to make a family road trip out of it! As I was planning our Airbnb bookings, Ben told me that the hospital was paying for interviewees’ hotel stays. In the Marriott Resort. 

Oh, yeah. 

Even better, they told Ben to bring me to the pre-interview dinner, which was at the very fancy resort restaurant. 

I have never been to an open-bar event before, so I felt a bit out of my element! Especially since the other significant others seemed to fit into this setting quite easily. Let’s just say I don’t do well in conversations about decorators and deaigner purses.

But the homemade ginger ale was pretty bomb, and some of the other inteviewees were also from Caribbean schools, so cocktail hour ended up being a lot of fun! Dinner was great, too-  one of the resident’s wives was from Mexico, and she and another resident patiently let me bushwhack my way through conversations in Spanish. 

The most fun part of the day, though, was taking baby to the pool and showing Ben the baby swim techniques we learned in swim lessons. So much fun!

After a night in the massive suite, Ben went to his interview and baby and I took full advantage of the resort. 

As you can see, the resort (and its 1.5 mile walking path) was a wonderful place to spend a morning!

Baby even got some tummy time on the lawn.

Residency interviews have their perks. 

Baby Johnson

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We welcomed little baby Johnson into our family last month! And I have to say it has been the best few weeks of my life. He’ll be a month old in a couple of days, and I just want those days to crawl by… I love the newborn stage. I keep telling myself that I will love the next stage, too… We have smiles and rolling over and improved vision to look forward to.

In other news, Ben is enjoying his cardiology rotation and has been going to residency interviews. Life is changing so quickly and more change is on the horizon!

Blueberries for Johnsons

Blog, International Travel, Michigan, United States, , , , , , , ,

 

Have you ever read the classic children’s story Blueberries for Sal? I have, probably a hundred times or more. Ever since I was a little kid flipping through the mid-century monochromatic illustrations in the book, I have wanted to go blueberry picking. I didn’t even like blueberries as a kid (they seemed like big, purple peas to me, and who likes peas?), but I wanted to hear the “plink, plink” of blueberries dropping in a bucket.

 

 

Arizona doesn’t exactly have an abundance of blueberry patches. Michigan, however, does! We moved to Michigan after blueberry season had ended last year, but berry picking stayed on my list until July.

 

 

When Ben’s brother Jesse, sister-in-law Joy, and their boys Zach, Micah, and Elliot came to visit from Africa, I wanted to do some fun quintessential Michigan activities. Something really different than the activities you can do in sub-Saharan Africa. So, I suggested we take a trip to a u-pick blueberry farm. I guess it was a little it selfish, because it was something on MY to-do list for the summer! Luckily for me, it was also on their “America bucket list,” and so we loaded up in the car and off we went. As a bonus, Ben mentioned to his supervising resident that his brother was visiting from overseas, and, on a whim, the resident gave Ben a rare half day to come with us. How lucky is that?

 

 

We decided to go to Dexter Blueberry Farm, which is fairly close to Detroit.

 

 

It was a great choice! The farm’s u-pick arrangement is pretty casual. You walk up, grab a shiny red bucket, and head to a sprawling field of blueberry bushes to fill your bucket. Plink! Plink!

 

 

Of course, we were all more interested in filling our bellies than we were in filling our buckets. Chilled blueberries in a grocery store carton are yummy. Sun-warmed blueberries from the bush are simply decadent. Like, close-your-eyes-and-savor-it decadent.

 

 

Somehow, we did manage to collect enough berries in the buckets! A few pounds of consumed berries and a blueberry war later (I won’t tell you who started it, but his name is spelled B E N), we had filled our buckets and were ready to check out.

 

 

At Dexter Blueberry Farms, u-pick berries are $2 per pound. Compare that to supermarket prices! In the end, our massive amount of blueberries only cost $20. I guess it makes sense that berries in the store are more pricey, because picking those berries is actually a lot of work. It’s a lot of fun for an afternoon, but I imagine it’s a pretty intense full-time job.

 

 

It can be hard to find activities that adults and kids ages eight through 13 enjoy, but blueberry picking was a winner. Plus, we ended up with a massive amount of blueberries that tasted amazing in cereal, ice cream, and snacks for a couple of weeks.

Picking blueberries was the perfect way to spend a summer afternoon!

 

 

Visit Dexter Blueberry Farm

When to visit: Blueberry season is in July

Address: 11024 Beach Road, Dexter, MI 48130

Phone number: 734.426.2900

Cost: Blueberries are $2 per pound. Eat all you want for free!

Good things to know: Wear sunscreen! The sun can get intense. Hand sanitizer or wipes are a good idea, since you’ll be eating out of your hands as you pick. Also, there are only porta-potties at the farm.

First Day of 20th Grade

American University of the Caribbean, AUC, Blog, , , , , ,

It’s that time of year…. you know, when all the moms are posting cute photos of their kids holding Pinteresty signs announcing what grade they are about to begin. Not to be outdone, I was sure to take a photo of my (very cooperative) husband on his first day of med school year four:

 

 

Folks, this is the last first day of school for him. Ever. Twenty-plus years of school is enough. Next year, I’ll have him post for a “first day of work as a doctor” photo. But I probably won’t ask him to hold a sign.

I decided to find his other “first day of school” photos. I took them every year, usually chasing him out the door at the last minute because I just remembered I wanted a picture. His first year of medical school, we actually got a pretty nice photo for the first day of school, which was his white coat ceremony:

 

 

I’m not positive which photo is the “first day” photo from med school year 2, but here’s a photo from that year:

 

 

You can see Kito is enjoying her favorite perch, which is always behind Ben in whatever chair he happens to be sitting in.

Here’s last year, the third year of medical school, with his white coat freshly ironed on his way to his first family medicine rotation at the clinic:

 

 

And, of course, I can’t forget to do a throwback to his first day of college. This picture is provided by his Aunt Barb, who dropped him off at school not long after he arrived in Arizona from Tanzania.

 

 

Hard to believe that was almost ten years ago, in 2009!

So, what does 20th grade look like for Ben? Well, for the first four weeks, he has a subinternship rotation in internal medicine. He works 60-some hours a week over six days. I’m not going to lie, I was pretty sad to lose that Saturday with him. BUT- they aren’t requiring any overnight on-call shifts, so that is a major benefit. He doesn’t get “paternity leave,” since he’s a student, but fortunately he can take a couple of days when the baby is born. I’m hoping the baby decides to make his grand debut on one of Ben’s days off. Baby is due September 26, during his last week on this rotation, We’ll see if he comes on time or early. Or late– who knows?

 

 

After that, we’re not sure what Ben’s schedule will be. I figure that all of the rotations will probably be pretty intense, but at this point it’s just about getting through everything until April, when he’ll finish his last rotation. He just took the 9-hour USMLE Step 2 exam two weeks ago, which means no massive exams to study for this year! Phew!

 

 

After so much school, it’s hard to believe Ben’s almost done. It will be pretty weird to have neither of us in school for the first time ever! But it will also be pretty awesome.

Cherry Picking at Westview Orchards

Blog, International Travel, Michigan, United States, , , , ,

One of the best things about living in Michigan is the availability of fresh produce. And I’m not just talking about dirt-cheap local peaches at Meijer, although those are amazing. I’m talking about the endless u-pick farms that offer everything from apples to asparagus to strange fruits I have never even heard of.

 

 

During my year in Michigan, I visited u-pick farms as often as possible. One fruit-picking season that I was particularly excited about was cherry season.

 

 

Cherry season just happened to peak during the time that Ben’s sister’s family was visiting, so I drove them out of the city to a cherry farm for some classic summertime fun. Ben had to work, so he missed out on the fun, but he did get to enjoy the result of our visit.

 

 

Westview Orchards in Washington, Michigan is the place to go with kids! Of course, my two nephews were perfectly entertained by picking (well, okay, eating) fresh cherries off the tree, but there were also plenty of other things for them to do, including a hay maze, a unique playground, and a petting zoo.

 

 

As far as fun experiences go, though, the cherries really take the cake. We pulled in to Westview Orchards the morning of cherry season’s opening day, and we were greeted by enthusiastic employees who seemed just as excited for the cherries as we were. The gentleman who monitored the picking itself was very helpful, pointing out the different cherry varieties in the orchard and giving fruit selection tips.

 

 

My nephews had a great time in the orchard, exploring the unique tastes of each tree’s fruit, climbing ladders, and choosing favorite trees. Even we adults had a hard time filling our bags faster than we could eat the cherries!

 

 

After a picnic lunch and ice cream, we headed home to bake a cherry pie.

 

 

I helped Annette pit the cherries, and she made the best cherry pie I have ever had. The perfect end to a great day on the farm!

 

Visit Westview Orchards

When to visit: Cherry season is in June, but Westview Orchards offers u-pick almost year-round.

Address:  65075 Van Dyke, Washington, MI 48095

Phone number: (586) 752-3123

Cost: Cherries are about $8 per person, which includes entrance fee and a bag to fill with cherries

Good things to know: Outside food, backpacks, and large bags are not permitted. I was able to take in my backpack camera case without a problem, however.