2009 Year in Review

January
With new dental insurance, I once again began to take care of my teeth with the beginning of many trips to the dentist. I also made my 6 months checkup with my doctor and received a good report. We took my daughter Melissa to the airport and said our teary (mom) goodbyes. She was leaving for England to work as a guide dog trainer for the blind. She will be gone for at least 6 months to a year. Karen and I plan to visit her in May.

February
I delivered the sermon at our church on Pioneer Club Sunday. The message was entitled "Built for Other" with the main point being we were created to serve God by serving others. Pioneer Clubs hosted David Cain, a very talented Christian juggler. Zach came to visit us for his first 2 night stay and he did fine. We had a great time. To finish up the month, I had a colonoscopy. Praise the Lord, a small polyp was removed and it was not cancerous.

March
Mystery Night at Pioneer Clubs was a new event and was a hit. I taught Sunday School classes while the Collerts were cruising. Pioneer Clubs annual skating party at Grove Skateland was once again a big success. I attended a football clinic with the Ottawa-Glandorf coaching staff at Notre Dame.

April
I continued to serve on the Steering Committee at church to help keep our congregation informed of the progress of the Living Waters Campaign (to raise money for sewer and water service). I created a video that was shown at a Joint ABF session. Pioneer Club wrapped up with a huge splash with a Crud War! One child told his mom as she was tucking him into bed that it was the best night of his life! Nick Powell assisted me in this endeavor and I enjoyed working with him. I headed up the Planning Committee once again for the Pandora Community VBS.

May
This was a very busy month as we made a trip to England to visit Melissa. We visited Bath, London and of course, Southampton, where Melissa lived before taking the EuroStar to Paris France. Upon our return, we were informed by our daughter Erica and her husband Cody that they were expecting a baby! We attended many (17 I believe) graduation parties. The biggest blessing however, was the adoption of our grandson Zachary to our son Jeffery. He is now officially, Zachary Andrew Weaver!

June
VBS was a blast this year as it was a bit out of the ordinary. Our theme was Studio Go: Game Show! Grace Mennonite Church hosted the event. I helped in the weightroom and tumbling at the school two times a week. I spearheaded a project to redesign our website. It now has a more contemporary look while being more user friendly.

July
I am beginning my 15th year of coaching at Ottawa-Glandorf High School. This summer we had a mini-camp before heading into some passing scrimmages. We did a little better than I expected at the tournament at Liberty-Benton. We had our midget and high school camps later on in the month. I submitted my resignation at St. John Mennonite Church as the Director of Children Ministries. They asked me to stay on until September.

August
I had the privilege of baptizing a little girl named Grace. Melissa, unable to get her green card renewed had to return to us from England. We were all happy she came home. We had an extremely long 2-a-days this year in football. The defense is looking good as we have many returning from last year with playing experience. Not so on the offensive side of the ball where we have just one returning starter. We are cautiously optimistic though. We did not scrimmage well against Perrysburg but had a good scrimmage against a good St. Henry's team. We won our first football game against Fostoria at home. I started my Friday Focus chapel program again. This year my theme is Maximum Impact: Making a Difference.

September
I began doing some substitute teaching within Putnam County, primarily at Ottawa-Glandorf Schools. We, the coaching staff, felt pretty good about winning 3 of our first 4 games. We knew it probably meant the best we could hope for would be a tie for the league title, but we kept improving from week to week. We are gearing up for the post season. I continue to explore and research the feasibility of a coffeehouse in Ottawa. I helped Erica and Cody put a new roof on their garage.

October
I continued to substitute teach while working on my proforma for an idea of a coffeehouse ministry in Ottawa. The first step is identifying a location. I tracked the traffic at two potential sites but can not get any information about the lease or purchase of these properties. One highlight of the season is the opportunity I had to help prepare our manager for the opportunity to dress and kick a field goal in our last regular season game. We finished the regular season with 8 wins and 2 losses, tieing for second place in the conference. We finished 5th in our region which paired us up with Wooster Tri-way for the first round of the playoffs.

November
Playoff fever! We won our first game in the playoffs convincingly and moved on to play Eastwood who defeated the first place finisher in our region, Galion. We had perhaps our best game of the year against Eastwood, beating them soundly. Our next opponent, Orrville, a perennial power, defeated the preseason pick to win our region Genoa. We snuck by Orrville with perhaps the biggest win in OG football history to take the Regional Title! Oh how sweet it was! Chagrin Falls stood between us and a trip to Canton. Chagrin Falls finished first in their region undefeated. We played well but came up just short in the end to lose a very close game. As the old cliche' goes, we didn't lose, we just ran out of time. Our only console was knowing that we made it to the final four and had taken another step closer to our ultimate goal of a state title.

December
We continue to anticipate the arrival of our new baby grandson. Erica is doing quite well with the pregnancy and is due next month. We had very blessed visits with our families over the holidays. We had a white Christmas up until Christmas Day when it rained. I closed out the year by having two lumps surgically removed which both proved to be noncancerous lipomas. Melissa, Karen and I saw the New Year in together. We played a new game Melissa bought and watched a movie together.