saturday in the park, i think it was the fourth of july

Today was a gorgeous day. We headed to Gunpowder Falls State Park, 45 minutes northwest of Bmore, because our friend Greg told us there was windsurfing there. None of us had ever tried windsurfing before, so we thought we'd give it a try. When we got to the park and were ready to pay our $20 each to have an hour of windsurfing, we were disappointed to learn that they require you to have taken lessons before they let you use their equipment. Psh. And they weren't giving lessons today. And one lesson was $60.

Although we didn't windsurf, we still had lots of fun. We went swimming, and the water was actually warm. Coming from the north, it's so weird to have water warm in May; usually it's not warm until mid or late July. We also tossed around a football in the water with a bunch of kids. And flew a kite. And we met a new friend who played soccer with us. 'Twas a day full of sunshine, warmth, smiles, friendship, interacting and playing with random people, milkshakes, sunburn, and sport; those are the things that pretty much comprise a perfect day, in my opinion.

profile of a friend: Greg

This is Greg:


He is our friend.

Greg, among others, told me I should write a blog post because I haven't written one in so long. And because he was so forceful, I'm punishing him by writing a post about him.

The above picture was taken almost three weeks ago when he ran and finished a marathon (by the way, Tim ran the half-marathon, which was so impressive, and is running a full marathon in October).

Greg is probably the most positive person I've ever met. You can probably tell this quality of his by how sickeningly happy he looks in the picture. When it was taken, he had just run 13 miles and had 13 left to go; any normal person would probably be wearing a scowl at that point, but just look at his beaming smile.

We like to play tennis with Greg. In fact, we've been playing so much that I think I'm probably good enough to beat my sister, Kelsie, who is really good at tennis.

Lately, we've been getting into golf. Yesterday, we went to the driving range, and Tim beat him in HORSE.

Greg is a US-2, which basically means that he doesn't have a real job. And next year, he's hopping around aimlessly overseas, so who knows when he's going to get a real job.

In reality, Greg does a lot of great community work in Hampden, the neighborhood I work in. And next year, he's going to Haiti to work with an orphange and to Kenya to do some work I'm not sure about at the moment. He likes to keep things secret.

Sadly, Greg is leaving us in mid-July to go back home to Charlotte, NC for a month before he travels to Haiti. We will miss him.

That's enough for now.