The Foerster Family

Retiring pastor revs up for cross-country motorcycle trip

stefan — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:04:17 +0000

Ready. Set. Ride.

May 31 was Mark Coleman’s last service as Pastor of North Shore Community Baptist Church. After having served for 20 years at NSCBC, and 41 years over his career, Mark’s retiring. Today, he embarks on a new adventure – the adventure of a lifetime. Check it out…

Retiring pastor revs up for cross-country motorcycle trip – SalemNews.com.

He’s riding across America to benefit Peace and Hope Trust, an organization that serves the remote regions of Nicaragua.

Mark and Sybil, we love you both very much. You will be dearly missed.

Darienne at Baker’s Gymnastics

stefan — Sat, 30 May 2009 16:29:35 +0000

Darienne’s in her 3rd gymnastics meet with her Level 2 team today at Baker’s School of Gymnastics in Salem.

Tomorrow Shall Be Our Sledding Day…

stefan — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 17:01:28 +0000

Actually, we decided to go today instead, and it was a blast! Jess H. showed up for a pancake breakfast (Cami made yummy chocolate chip ones…), after which we took the kids out to the little hill beside our building — perfect for the little ones. John and Grace were out too. We had a few saucer sleds out — which makes avoiding trees an interesting proposition as you’re going down the hill backwards, but otherwise works rather well. I’ll try to post some pictures this weekend.

We have another snowstorm coming in this weekend…

White Out

stefan — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:01:42 +0000

The first significant snowfall of this winter season has arrived in New England!

Some will look at that first statement and say, hmm… he almost seems excited about it… And you wouldn’t be wrong. I love snowy days. When the snow becomes slush and freezing rain is when I say no thanks. But snow? I love it. It’s beautiful, it’s fun to play in, it’s peaceful. Yeah, you have to shovel it out but again, it’s that slushy wet stuff that’s the nasty stuff to shovel. The light powdery stuff we had today is wonderful. It’s good for sledding, though not so much for snowballs and snowmen. And if you’re looking for the picturesque, photogenic New England winter, this is the stuff you want. That said, it did take me about an hour and a half to drive home from work today — a drive that normally takes me about 35 minutes. But at least folks were driving mostly sane, which is saying something around here.

Hopefully we’ll be able to get the kids out to play in it before it all melts…

Habits

stefan — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:14:15 +0000

Well, old habits die hard… Or rather, new habits aren’t always easy to start.

We haven’t posted an update for quite a while now. The last couple weeks of August and into early September are admittedly a crazy time for us as a family. Cami picks up her college schedule again with the beginning of RD training in early August, followed by Darienne starting school again near the end of August, followed by Micah starting preschool again after Labor Day. My life meanwhile remains mostly routine — except where I interact with the rest of my family… However I was out in Oakland, CA on business for a week in the middle of September, and have been dealing with changes in the contract I’m working on, so I guess my life’s been somewhat hectic as well. In any case, we’re still alive, and actually doing pretty well.

I’m going to try and pull some more pictures of our cute kids (yes, I’m biased!) and hopefully be able to fill in some more about what’s been going on with them soon.

I deeply and sincerely apologize to the many of you who we haven’t seen or talked to in quite some time… Know that you all are in our thoughts and prayers!

Perseid Meteor Showers

stefan — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 14:06:32 +0000

Well, we weren’t planning on being up until 2 am to see the peak of the Perseid Meteor Showers last night, but we were… Cami and I have the rare opportunity this week to do things like that while the kiddos are visiting Grandma Cherie and Grandpa Phil at their house. So, we were walking to go see the meteor shower around midnight when we noticed another RD in the process of moving his office… Of course, nobody expects help moving at midnight, so we figured “hey, why not?” and lent a hand for an hour or so — so, by the time we made it to where we were going to watch the Perseids from, it was after 1, and we hung out until sometime around 2. While we didn’t see as many as I’ve seen in the past, there was a pretty steady series, including an amazing one that left a ghostly trail across the sky for a few seconds as it streaked through. Pretty amazing stuff…

Blogger vs. Webmaster

stefan — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:02:40 +0000

Found this article while searching for some WordPress tips and tricks… It’s all beginning to make sense now…

Webmasters do a lot of things, in fact webmasters are jacks of all trades, programmers, designers, customer service representatives, they are not bloggers. Who can blame them really, they are so busy dealing with all the other stuff they simply don’t have time to sit and write content for a weblog. When webmasters do sit down and write content for a blog, it is often in the form of a tutorial on their favourite script, html or css.

I applaud all of you bloggers out there. To consistently be able to write good content for a blog takes a lot of hard work, time and creativity.

From: Bloggers Are Not Webmasters and Webmasters Are Not Bloggers

While I’m not a full-time webmaster, I play one for a couple different sites; and I am a full-time software developer. No wonder maintaining my own site is a constant struggle…

Back Home

stefan — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:09:18 +0000

Well, after a wonderful, yet very fast vacation, I’m back home and back to work. (Why is it vacations always seem so long in coming, and always go so quickly?)

Cami and the kids will stay out in sunny (and hot! — I got out just in time!) California for another week before returning home. All-in-all, it was a very nice vacation. It’s always a wonderful trip — and this one even more so as sister Sarah got married! We got to visit with our friends, the Halls, while visiting Sarah, Jeff, and our niece Kristin at their new home; I played — or attempted — a couple rounds of golf with Bud & company; went swimming with Darienne and Micah; saw Harry Potter with Cami; and, oh — did I mention the wedding?

So, back in Massachusetts, we’re looking at the triple-H’s for the next few days — hazy, hot, and humid. But, it should also be quiet, which is a good thing, but it also reminds me how much I’m going to miss Cami and the kiddos. (Love you guys!)

Introducing Mr. and Mrs…

stefan — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 04:45:09 +0000

Congratulations Sarah and Jeff!

It could not have been a nicer day — the weather was perfect, the setting was wonderful, and the wedding was beautiful! Sarah was radiant, as were Cami (matron of honor) and Darienne (flower girl)… Micah was the “ring burier” (his words, not mine), and I read 1 Corinthians 13 — the Love chapter. Kristin was an integral part throughout the wedding, as this wedding creates a new family for her as well; she joined Sarah and Jeff during the lighting of the unity candle and as they recessed down the aisle as a family. It was very sweet.

The reception followed, at the same location — a gorgeous estate up the hill a bit from the Smiths. The food was delicious (thanks to Janie — who did our wedding too! — and the Pigmeister), and the party continued into the night with good friends and family all around.

Welcome to the family Jeff!

[Update: well, I had hoped to have photos up by now — we have all 700+ of them — but I thought we should probably pick out the top ones rather than trying to post them all…)

Sunny in SLO

stefan — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 21:59:49 +0000

We made it! After a mostly-uneventful 11 hour trip (with connections, and our trip from San Francisco to Chico was delayed by about an hour and a half due to fog), we landed at Cami’s parents Tuesday afternoon a bit tired, but otherwise no worse for wear. We went by Grandpa’s store on the way to the house and let everyone say hi. It’s so good to be here! Everybody’s so excited! The kids were up until around 9:30 local time — well after midnight by their internal clocks, having been up since around 4:30 am Eastern. They’re troopers…

Wednesday was pretty kick-back — a chance to recoup a bit. Cami and the kids went out shopping for stuff for Sarah’s wedding before going to see Ratatouille — which gained rave reviews from our 4- and 7-year old critics. Meanwhile, I got in my 3rd-ever round of golf — a.k.a. “wack-a-ball”. (I won’t divulge my score so as not to embarass those I played with — or mostly myself… I think I was 10 when I played my first round; my second, a couple years ago with Bud.)

Darienne has (re-)discovered the piano at Grandma and Grandpa’s. Whenever she’s not playing video games or check out the momma and baby deer out in the back yard, she’s been playing. Might be time for piano lessons…

So then yesterday we rented a car (a new Dodge Charger — Darienne liked that it is a “jazzy blue”) and drove about 7+ hours down to Sarah & Kristin’s new house in SLO. The beautiful coastal weather immediately had Cami and I sitting back saying “um, so why aren’t we living down here?” It’s just wonderful…

Tonight, we get to go visit with Jill and Patrick and their kids Connor and Katherine. (They were a fellow RD family before moving out here, and good friends whom we miss dearly…) We can’t wait to catch up a bit with them!