So much to catch up on

Where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday we were coming back from Summer camp, and now we're looking towards Youth Conference. There have been several things that have happened, but nothing as life altering as deciding to homeschool Kadin¹. Right now we're taking it a year at a time, but I know this is the right move this year. In about three weeks he's gone from knowing letter sounds to recognizing whole words without sounding them out. He cruises through his easy reading books and in about an hour can read a 25-30 page book (15-30 words per page). He's doing really well and really seems to be enjoying his newfound abilities and confidence.

Football season started this last week and, of course, I'm involved in fantasy football. It makes football so much more interesting because I'm looking at games all over the country, instead of just caring about the Seahawks. Here is a link to the league I'm in². My team is Coast to the first³. My starting lineup looks like this:

QB- Tom Brady
WR- Chad Johnson
WR- Javon Walker
RB- Larry Johnson
RB- Maurice Jones-Drew
WR/TE- Wes Welker
WR/RB- Jerious Norwood
K- David Akers
DEF- Denver


Now that's a studly line-up⁴! I've got consistant producers at almost every position, plus a couple of guys who could really break out and have big years. The only thing I'm kicking myself for is picking Johnson over Joseph Addai. I'll let you know how the season progresses.

And speaking of football, the 'Hawks played three quarters of really good football (so what if it was against the 'Bucs). Bill Simmons from ESPN Page 2 picked them to play the Pats in the Superbowl, and you know what? I'd be okay with that. I think the 'Hawks are the best team in the NFC right now, and I don't care what the "experts" think. I guess we'll find out in week 3 if they're among the elite or not (they play the Bengals). BTW, I just finished this season in Madden 2008 and they just missed the playoffs, going 9-7 (the Rams were 15-1 and lost to the Broncos in the Superbowl). Not that it means anything at all.

Well, that's enough rambling for now, tune in next time when I talk about the Super jet!
-Jeff-

1- One of my big fears as a parent is that I'm not smart enough to teach him what it means to be a good man. Now I've compounded that fear by assuming the responsibility for his education. Before I could always point at the school and complain about their faults, now all the fingers are pointing straight at me. This should be it's own blog post.

2- Kadin named it league-o, because it sounds like lego. This reminds me of when my sister bought my niece a gerbil, and Kadin told her to name it Abra-hamster. He's very clever about things like that, which brings me back to point #1.

3- He also named the team, which is good, but I keep getting "Don't you mean coast to the worst" comments from my league.

4- This team will be very good, but we lost by 8 in week one. This week we should get on track, although Johnson will be playing the Bears defense, which isn't a good matchup for anyone (see Tomlinson, LaDanian)

Training Camp opens!!!

The Seahawks are back at it. Training Camp is officially underway and I am so pumped for the coming season. I even started openly asking my wife for Madden 2008 for my birthday (August 26th) and I watched a recap of the Patriots 2004 season, plus a little arena football yesterday. We (yes I refer to myself as part of the Seahawks - 12th man baby!!!) are looking very, VERY, VERY strong on paper. I've been watching news stories and reading articles on this years team, and it may be the best ever. Our defense seems to have been shored up, now if only the offense can stay healthy we may be looking at another Super Bowl run.

One of the things I love about football is all of the analogies you can draw from it. I'm sure we'll run through a bunch of them during the season. I just had a weird thought though. I'm big into fantasy football (you can view or join my league here) and my weird thought has to do with it. For some reason I was imagining Peter and Paul up in Heaven when the Earth League Fantasy Draft comes around. I'm not sure what stats they'd use to determine a person's value, but maybe there would be points earned for witnessing, time spent in prayer, overcoming temptations, things like that. I'm sure that the first draft pick would be some little old lady in Argentina who's been praying non-stop for 74 years. And then it would probably be the guy who gave up his great business to help orphans in Malaysia or something. I think the guys we consider to be spiritual giants probably would be second or third round draft picks, because they've got to be doing something right, otherwise God wouldn't have put them in the position they're in. I don't think that seeing a million people making one time decisions for Christ would be weighted as heavily as seeing one person saved and walking with them until they are strengthened in the Lord. What would you look for in someone on your spiritual fantasy team?

-Jeff-

For more information on the Seahawks training camp, check out some of these links:
The Seahawks homepage
Seahawks blogs
The Seahawks Insider
NFL.com