A photo blog of Wes's 27th year

greeting our friend mark at the bus station and posing with the sunflowers in summer


japan and birmingham in the fall


merry christmas and a yahtzee! during winter

heart in motion with recording in the spring

happy birthday, wesley! cheers to another great year.

Feliz Cumple!

george_brett, originally uploaded by andrewgaines.

Happy Birthday Wesser!

Print this photo off. It's gotta be worth about 150 bucks.

You turned that adolescent 'you get the keys' attitude around into something special. I love it!

You're a tru bro. I'll see you soon.

andy

thank you

Steph and I don't have the words to express how BLESSED we are to have friends and family across the country that would PRAY WITHOUT CEASING for our lil' guy. It's been two weeks now and he is doing great. Just look at this stellar smile! I really can't say much more. It was one of our scariest moments ever; yet within that context of the unknown and fear, you feel this enormous LOVE from "the praying saints." I realize that there will be times when all of us will hold our breath and surrender our hearts to the Holy One for our children (there will be 5 in our posse by the end of 2006!!!). I am just so thankful for how CLOSE (despite physical mileage) is our COMMUNITY. LOVE YOU GUYS. SEE YA SOON.

A new stage in Life for the Lampi's from Mt. Pleasant

Yesterday had to have been one of my favorite days this year. we had the whole family (stelter-lampi) in the beautiful Mountain that is known as Pleasant. At 10:00am the family was sitting front row at the final His House service for Steve. The music played the preacher spoke about our calling to be missionaries wherever we are (Always a good sermon) while also saying " How much fun can it be to go to a dome and hit golf balls." Ooops, he obviously forgot my father in law was there. I leaned in and told dad stelter, it's alright I like it too. he smiled and shrugged off the comment like the rock he is. By the way, his brother won a thirty thousand dollar car for hitting a whole in one at the Saginaw Country Club invitational two days ago. Yes, all Stelters are amazing golfers/Legends in Saginaw. I am proud to carry the tradition on with my 37 handicap. Anyway, back to church. As the last song played i could see a faint red dot in the back and a hand in the air videotaping the song. Guess Who? You got it, Jeff. He's always there to catch those unforgettable moments. Anyway, we celebrated Jen's brthday and hung out. We played some home run derby and ate some great cake. i finished the day by myself on the golf course in the late evening shooting out nine. That is my getaway, my sanctuary, just me and the ball working together (usually me working it far right off the tee and way over the green on my approach). As I walked the beautiful riverwood alongside the chippewa, i wished ya'll were there. i actually called ben, but no answer. Well, the sun set and as I drove my last shot down the fairway toward the big orange Sun fading into pink clouds, an end came to another chapter in life and a new began. I have a baby on the way, a new job, and I hit the ball in the middle of the fairway. Things seem to be looking up, hopefully the same won't be said for the golf score soon.

See you in East lansing Soon.

THE ADVENTURES OF FUTURE-DAD

Up to this point my role in this pregnancy has been pretty low-key, fix a meal here and there, bring the fan downstairs, give a back-rub, all tasks I can handle. As is in every pregnancy the woman (Sarah) is left to handle all of these rapid changes occurring daily to her body, while I'm usually left to observe and offer what little help I can. Well today I got called up to the majors! It is a beautiful summer day in the Fort, not too hot, a mixture of sun and clouds. We were attending the wedding of one our friends at a park close to our house, a perfect day for an outdoor wedding. The ceremony was beautiful, just a handful of close friends and family attended. After the ceremony a lunch was being served in a pavilion on the other side of the park. So Sarah and I and the rest of the wedding guests started walking over toward the pavilion. About 200 yards into our walk I got the first warning sign, Sarah gives the "I don't feel good, I need to eat now" signal. A couple steps later I get the "oh I need to sit down, I can't see anything". Heeding these two crys for help but still believing she can make it to the pavilion, I grab her hand and continue on. About five "drunken" steps later, I realize that I am now the only thing holding Sarah up. My time had arrived, I got the call and went to work! As the rest of the wedding guests and wedding party continued walking, I softly lowered my now fainted wife in the grass, so as not to distract from the wedding procession. Immediately I was joined with a member of the Smith family reunion who were celebrating nearby, we got her some water, and less than a minute later she was resting in the shade. The rest of the wedding guests became alerted as to what happened, but so as not to embarrass my wife I told them "Go, on. I got this under control". Later as we left the wedding, Sarah feeling much better, exclaimed to the bride and groom, "thanks for inviting us, sorry i fainted at your wedding". There you have it. Men, you just never know when you might be called into action. Be ready.

Progress

Here's a little progress report from the fort. The above is Sarah at 19 weeks. She feels better but the combination of hot humid weather, work, school, carrying a baby etc...is wearing her out. In the words of her gramps, "you gotta give it to her, she's strong".

We're looking forward to the "west coast invasion" this august. I'll make an offer that anyone who wants to catch a Tigers game while they're out, I'm there. Surprise, surprise I got TIGER FEVER. Sarah's grandpa (a lifelong Tigers fan) and I watched the game last night against the White Sox, and when Craig Monroe hit that Grand Slam I nearly had another Mickelson moment (those unpredictable tear ducts). As I told Andrew, the Sox are the new Avalanche and Pierzynski is the new Claude Lemieux.

Our trip to Missouri over the 4th was memorable. Here are the highlights:

Jolene: "Eddie would just as soon slit a cow's throat and eat it right there."
Eddie's response: "I guarantee I would, it'd still be warm!"

Gramie to cafeteria workers: "This my son, grandson, and their wives...they're Yankees, I'm not." (turns around and walks away)

Honorable mention is Uncle Kurt explaining to Gramie the difference between "lucky" and "blessed"
Gramie's reponse: "what-eva!"

See y'all soon. Lots of love from the fort, and continued blessing and protection to Abigail, Sarah, and Shea.

Friend in Lebanon

someone we know from our local coffeshop (who moved to D.C. last year to attend American University) was featured in our paper b/c she's been in Lebanon studying for the summer. Here's a link to the article and a link to her blog--if you don't mind a swear word or two:). it's interesting to read a young person's perspective on all that's going on.

Dov on Charlie Rose

American Apparel founder/owner, Dov Charney, was on Charie Rose Friday night.

It was a very thoughtful and telling interview and I think you should check it out:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8906053411802681740

Dov's the second guest, so you might want to fast-forward it to the middle.

Covina Vineyard Serve Week 2006

Well, the Covina Vineyard successfully pulled off our 3rd annual serve week with quite a bang at the finish line. We've been doing projects all week in the community including our standard thousands of cold water giveaways in traffic, which was nice seeing that we've been in triple digits all week. But yesterday we broke new ground. We tried to come up with something big and practical this year to meet a need. With the now record price of gasoline we came up with the idea of giving away free gas. So, our relatively small church gave $5000 to this endeavor and yesterday we took over 2 gas stations and gave each car that showed up $10 of free gas. It was a smash hit with traffic backups and all. We gave away nearly all the dinero in about 2 hours and then gave the gas station employees $50 gift cards to Chili's. What was really cool was seeing our people all over the gas station praying with people as they filled their tanks. The reception was amazing and the papers showed up to cover the event. There was a front page picture and then a huge article inside which you can check out here.

Arturo

Arturo, originally uploaded by andrewgaines.

Quite simply the best American Apparel ad I've seen.
I don't know if you'll be able to read the print but Arturo is an employee at American Apparel and a former police officer and Lucha Wrestler in Mexico. And an all around good guy.

Watch this video of him also that Ben helped translate: http://www.americanapparel.net/gallery/galleryThoughts.html

NASA nerd

I don't know why but I've been fascinated with the Discovery mission, you gotta check out the videos on the NASA website. Man! why didn't I join young astronauts!
Jake, maybe can get us into space camp next time we're out.