Chicago Marathon

Hurray! I had a goal to run the Chicago Marathon this October. I had decided that training for the marathon would give me a chance to have more discipline and fitness in my life. I knew that if I was going to run a Marathon, I would have no choice but to routinely exercise. I had a rough last month of training because of a pulled leg muscle, but I just wanted to finish what I had started. I finished the marathon in 6 hours and 48 minutes! It took longer to finish than I would have liked, but my goal was to finish so I am very happy! I am so thankful to God for getting me through it! I can't tell you how many times I called out to Him. :)

My running buddy! Dave ran with me the last 5 miles and what a great help that was to me!

I was told that after they saw me at mile 5, Natalie announced that they were finished and it was time to go home. Good thing she had no idea how long she still had to wait. :)

This is my cheering section. I should have a picture of all of you cheering for me from home too! Your words of encouragement and prayers are greatly appreciated. Thank you all!

Quick Update from Anita

Natalie and Dave enjoying banana cream pie in Lake Geneva, WI

Luke, Emily, Alise, and Natalie at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Ostercamp and Bailey Cousins

The Family

Ostercamp, Lenz, and Bergmeier Cousins with the Grandparents

Yes, it's Anita again. Please continue to bug Dave to make more posts! I'll keep putting pictures on to keep the blog as current as possible, but Dave is the real writer! Anyway, here are a few pictures from the past months. We hope your summer has been great! Enjoy this last month before fall!

Picture Summary of our Past Month

In reverse order from May 28 to June 12, here is our summary. I tried to compact it all, but you can click on the pictures to see them better.

We had to say good-bye to Oscar and Lina. They went back to Sweden and will finish their studies there. We are so blessed to have had these friends here during our first two years at North Park. We will miss them greatly. (June 12)

Blackhawks Fever (June 11)

For our Marklund good-bye party, we went to play Whirlyball. So much fun! (June 9)

Dori and Sylvia came to visit us. We took them to the Shedd Aquarium and enjoyed having them hang around Chicago with us for a few days. Natalie and Sylvia even fell down outside the Shedd and scraped their knees up at the same time. True friends. (June 7)

Grandpa and Grandma O came for a weekend visit and we went to Lake Michigan. The kids are always up for a swim even in cloudy and cold weather! (June 5)

Alise ran a 5K run with her Girls on the Run group. She and I ran together and Alise was great! (June 5)

We enjoyed some Willmar fun in the sun over the Memorial weekend. Emily got to hang out with her friend, Kayla, all weekend. We also had a nice visit with my family, but I was a poor picture taker in Bloomington. (May 30)

Ahhh, the Twins! We enjoyed a game at the new Target Field. The Carlson's and William's joined us in Minneaoplis to watch the Twins. Our night was super fun!! (May 28)

The Pains of Losing a Tooth!

Look at this loose tooth! For weeks, no, months! - we couldn't look at Luke's smart face without seeing this dangling tooth that lived in his mouth. We tried to bribe Luke with extra money if he'd let us pull the tooth out. Even people outside of our family tried to convince Luke to let them pull his tooth. One night, Dave tried to yank out the tooth while Luke was sleeping! (Probably not a good parent moment, but Luke doesn't know because he never woke up.)

I got so desperate to get the tooth out of Luke's mouth and convinced him to tie a string around it so that he could easily yank it out of there (I took some tugs too). As you can see, that didn't totally go over well and it didn't even work!

Finally! On Sunday morning, Luke bit into a donut and out came the tooth. Who would have thought that a trip to Dunkin' Donuts would do the trick!

Posted by: Anita O.

The Perks of Living in Chicago

Recently, I have witnessed 4 perks of living in Chicago. I have pictures to prove it! The first 2 pictures show off the first perk: when the Twins are in town, we can easily head to the Cellular field to cheer them on. Someone in our family actually enjoyed attending all three of the games that the Twins played. (Picture 1: Lonnie Moore was here checking out NPU.)

My dear friend, Marybeth, whom I've known since high school, contacted me as she was on her way to Ethiopia and would have 5 hours in Chicago. So I picked her up at the airport and we enjoyed Chicago pizza together. I was so glad to connect with Marybeth again - another perk of living in the city of Chicago.

Dave was handed four free tickets to the Cubs game last Thursday. So, we cleared our afternoon schedule, made a plan for the kids, called a couple of friends to join us, and headed to Wrigley field for a beautiful afternoon of baseball! Yes, the third perk is a baseball thing again, but that's our family for ya.

The fourth perk is FAMILY! Dave's sister and family came down to Chicago for Saturday as she lives a short distance away in Milwaukee. So we went to the Aquarium together and it was a very fun day! Dave's brother and wife live two miles away (Matt went with us to the Twins game last week but I don't have picture proof), and it's just so fun to have the siblings close! Becky and Krista - you are close to us in our hearts. :)

So there you have it, Chicago does have it's perks!

Fun Friday

The kids and I went downtown for a Dairy Queen treat today as they had today off of school. I had gotten some coupons for blizzard treats so we took the L train to the Thompson Center. These are a few pictures to show off our day. Natalie is showing her grumpy face when she discovered all of the icecream was gone. But, then the next picture shows how quickly she can get over her sadness.

Sleep

I like to think of myself as a fairly optimistic person. The only time my optimism seems to fail me on a consistent basis is the first hour of every day. If you are one of those people who wakes up with ‘Folgers in your cup’ excited for all the possibilities of the day, I have a hard time relating to you. My seven year old son Luke, however, you could be best friends with him. For him each day is an adventure to embark upon. This means that he and I often do better in different rooms in the morning, as I’m not always ready for his level of optimism. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want him to lose his enthusiasm for life, I just want to make sure that he keeps it to socially acceptable levels. Ultimately my goal is to learn from Luke and to eventually be able to meet him in the middle. Although at times I enjoy my less than enthusiastic approach to the morning (and lets be honest you kind of enjoy it as well, right?); however, I do not believe it is a good thing. Thankfully I think I may have stumbled on a solution that doesn’t involve coffee.

Recently I was struck by how Jesus and his disciples use the word for sleep in the Bible. By my count the words for sleep are used 40 times in the New Testament. 21 times they are used to mean sleep like you and I do every night, well for some of you I should say most every night. However, 19 times the New Testament writers use the words for sleep where the words for death would be much more appropriate. Of course this was as strange back then as it would be now. Imagine if someone close to you died and you tell a friend who responds with the line, “they are not dead they are only sleeping”. (Matthew 9:23-26) One could see how some sarcastic laughter might be in order at such an occasion, which is exactly what happened to Jesus. They laughed at Him for his choice of words because everyone knew that the person wasn’t sleeping. That person had died (Matthew 9:23-25). Only a child would confuse a dead person for a person who was sleeping.

There are some similarities to sleeping and death is there not? As a parent I love to watch my kids sleep, they are so comfortable, beautiful, and peaceful when they sleep. They do not seem to have a care in the world, which is just how a parent wants their child. Plus it is super fun to mess with them when they are asleep by lightly tickling their face, giving them a kiss, moving their arms and legs, or pouring just a small amount of water on their forehead. Try it on someone you live with if you haven’t already, they will love you for it.

If you think about it, it is pretty crazy to lay down each night and allow yourself to slip into an unconscious state where you are totally vulnerable and oblivious to the world. Also amazing is the ability to maintain confidence that each morning you will awake to life. It really is like a miracle! And that is exactly the point the New Testament writers were trying to make. As we approach Easter this spring may you be reminded that each day you wake up and smell that “Folgers in your cup”, remember that death is not the final answer. The miracle of the resurrection is true (John 14:1-3; John 3:16, etc.)! If this reminder each morning of my future does not help cure my morning blues, well, I just might have to start drinking that lousy coffee. Sleep, for Christ followers, is in fact a better word than death. For just as you arise each morning, you will arise again to eternal life. Only a child would mistake a dead person for a person sleeping. May you have the faith of a child.