Kyle's Blog

Rolling out the Red

May 3, 2010

Guys, this is a sad time for me. This will actually be my last blog of the year. Don’t worry though; I will be back next year to share more Cornerstone memories with you all. I thought I would wrap up this last blog by talking about the banquet that Admissions had for all their volunteers called Rollin Out the Red.

Every year, the Admissions office throws a really cool party for tour guides, lunch hosts, chapel hosts, and any other volunteer position that you can think of on Cornerstones campus. It’s a great way for the Admissions office to show their appreciation to their many volunteers. I actually work for the admissions office so it was awesome to show appreciation my fellow college students who work for me.
When people got there, we had someone taking pictures as they walked in. There was also a giant red carpet (hence Rollin Out the Red) that we had coming into the entrance. The Admissions office got a ton of ice cream and all types of toppings for students to have. It was a delicious night!

Man, I can’t believe that it is the end of the year. Isn’t it crazy how fast time goes? It feels like it was just yesterday that I was starting my junior year of college. I’m so excited for what God is going to be doing in my life next year though. I have the privilege of serving on Evensong, which will be a brand new chapter in my journey towards knowing God more. I hope you guys have such an awesome summer and I can’t wait to talk to you again next year!

IM Softball

Apr 29, 2010

For the last two weeks, the Cornerstone University softball intramurals have taken place here on campus. My roommate Tom and I thought it would be awesome to get a team together to compete against other fellow students. One thing you should know about me is that I am a HUGE baseball fan. I played baseball all four years in high school and have missed it dearly since coming to college (where we don’t have a college baseball team). 

This is the first year that we have done intramural softball, so when I heard about it there was no way I was missing the opportunity to play. I actually played very well today, which was nice. I wasn’t sure how I would do, seeing how it has been almost three years since I last threw a baseball.

We actually played our fifth game the other day, which makes our record now 3-2. We started off pretty slow, but have actually won our last three games. The playoffs start on Friday and we hope to make a good push to the championship game. It would be pretty cool to win the tournament on our last week of actual classes.

I’ll make sure to keep you guys posted on the results of Friday’s game. Friday or Saturday will unfortunately be my last blog until next year, which saddens my heart. I hope you guys enjoyed the pictures and video that one of my friends was able to get of our last game. Have a great rest of the week guys and I look forward to blogging to you again soon!

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House Hunting

Apr 26, 2010

Hey guys! I first of all want to apologize for not blogging in what seems like forever. It has been a pretty crazy week and a half here as papers and finals are soon arriving. Anyway, I thought I would update you all on what has been happening in my life this weekend.
This past Sunday, myself and two other guys went house searching for next year. This has been an interesting week, seeing as how I have decided to live off of campus next year. With that decision comes time invested to looking for places to live. We looked at three different houses, but were not entirely impressed by what we saw. The only really positive things were the bedrooms inside. The houses in general didn’t exactly catch our eyes.

One other thing that was pretty inconvenient was the distance they were away from campus. The houses were a lot closer to downtown, which would mean that more gas money would have to be spent on driving back and forth to school.
This process has actually been very difficult for me. I went back and forth on whether I should stay on campus next year or live off campus. The main reason I’m leaving is because I think it will be a great opportunity/growing experience to have an actual place of my own with some good buddies. It will be really weird not living on campus next year, but I plan to still be around a good majority of the time. Hope you guys are having an awesome week!

Melody's Birthday!

Apr 17, 2010

This past Friday a bunch of friends and students from school went to Olive Garden to celebrate Melody’s birthday. She turned twenty-one so it was a pretty big deal. Our Resident Director decided that it would be an awesome idea if a bunch of her really good friends got together and went to her favorite restaurant.
I don’t know about you guys, but Italian food is one of my favorite types, and Olive Garden always hits the spot. It had been awhile since I had last been there, so it was awesome to both celebrate Melody’s birthday and get some really good food. After we all ate our meals, we were sadly told that the restaurant no longer did their birthday song, so we decided to do it ourselves back at the apartments.

After everyone sang and celebrated once we got back, the festivities continued for the rest of the night. We all ate cake and ice cream and just had a really good time being crazy together. Our Resident Director started to throw Skittles and everyone and we made a game where we would try to catch as many Skittles in our mouths as we could. After that crazy game, everyone sat down to watch Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs.

Overall, it was an awesome Friday night. It was really cool to just be goofy and celebrate Melody’s birthday. To top off the night, the Detroit Red Wings won their playoff game! Awesome night, awesome weekend, except now I have to start homework…oh the life of a college student.

Griffins!

Apr 10, 2010

This past Friday night, the Westside apartments had an activity planned. About fifteen of the residents of the on-campus apartments went to the Grand Rapids Griffins game. For those of you who are not familiar with the Griffins, they are our local hockey team. I know that I have blogged a lot about sports lately, but this was a pretty awesome event. The tickets were only five dollars and we also got three dollars for food. If you think about it, the game only ended up coasting two dollars!

One disappointing fact about the Griffins this year is that they are not doing too well. Sadly enough, they will not be playing in the playoffs come next week. They did show up to play Friday night, however. They ended up winning the game 6-1, putting on an offensive show for the crowd. There were plenty of goals, including a fight, which made the game even more action packed.

It was especially cool to see some of the different people that attended. A lot of the people that came were friends who I haven’t seen or hung out with in quite some time. Overall, it was great to catch up with old friends and enjoy a cheap, yet fun, night downtown Grand Rapids.
I hope you guys are having a fantastic weekend! It has been so nice here in Michigan, and I couldn’t be happier with the weather that we have had. Don’t forget to check out this awesome video of one of the Griffins many goals!

Awesome Car Ride

Apr 6, 2010

Hey guys! Last time I blogged to you guys about my trip to Minnesota. I thought I would share a little more with you guys and also show you an epic video. Maybe it is just me, but whenever I go on a trip, the car ride usually seems to be one of the best parts. It may just be when you are with close friends, but the car ride up to Minnesota was one of the best I have ever been on.
A tradition that we have started is to build a loft in the back of the van. What usually ends up happening is two different guys rotating every time we take a break. Last year, there was a pretty epic battle between two guys on our team. One thing to know, however, is that these fights are not real. What usually ends up happening is a massive wrestling match gone crazy.
We were about three or four hours on the road when Brandon and Scott decided to reenact their clash from last year. I only caught a mere glimpse of the battle, but I think you guys will get a good enough taste of some of the fun that we had on our way up north.

What an awesome trip! I know that I explained a lot to you guys on my most recent blog, but I can barely describe the sheer joy of it all! I hope that you all have had an amazing Easter! Take some time to realize how amazing our Lord and Savior is!

National Championship

Apr 1, 2010

This past weekend, ten students and two faculty members took a trip up to Minnesota to play in the National Broomball Championships. I’ve blogged about Broomball before, but this past weekend was one of the best Broomball weekends ever! Last Thursday, our team loaded up a Cornerstone van and before we knew it we were on our way to the great north. The ride lasted about ten hours, but we made the most of it.

One of the guys on our team, Mark, lives in Minnesota so we were able to stay with him and his family that weekend. We ended up saving so much money by staying at Mark’s house. Something that God really blessed our team with this year is giving us a budged to use from Cornerstone. Last year, we pretty much had to pay for everything ourselves. The only money that we had to spend was on food, which was significantly less money than last year.

To make a long story short, our National Broomball visit came up a little short. We didn’t win any games, but we improved so much from last year. We lost three games by only one or two goals, while last year we were blown out at least twice. Even though the wins didn’t come the way we wanted them too, we still had an amazing experience as a team.

We are wrapping up school pretty soon. My last day of classes are tomorrow and then I get a four day weekend because of Easter. This break couldn’t have come at a better time. I hope you all have a great Wednesday!

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Hockey Night in Michigan

Mar 28, 2010

Last week, my roommate and I went to a Detroit Red Wings game. Matt’s (my roommate) dad got free tickets to go to a Monday night game against the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburg Penguins. It had been a good four or five years since I have last been to a Red Wings game, so I was pretty stoked about going back. I had recently received a Henrik Zetterberg jersey and decided to wear it to the game. Now for those of you who do not know hockey, Zetterberg is one of the best Red Wing players to have ever played the game of hockey.
Upon arriving in Detroit, Matt, his dad, and I went to a local restaurant called Cobo Joe’s. This was a restaurant unlike I had ever been to before. When we entered, the whole restaurant was filled with red. People were wearing all different kinds of Red Wings jerseys. The funny thing about this restaurant is that they use the opposing team’s jersey as the welcome mat. Once customers enter, they are told to wipe their feet on the jersey.
After we ate some amazing food, we went over to the Joe Louis Arena to catch some hockey. The Red Wings were really desperate for that particular game. Before it started, we were currently tied for the last playoff spot. It is important to know that there are only fifteen games left in the season as well. Keep in mind that we were also playing the same team that beat us in the finals last year.

The hockey game ended up being an amazing one. The Red Wings won 3-1 and took a major step in hopefully securing a playoff berth. It was such a great time to hang out with one of my best friends and watch one of the best sports ever invented. Click here to see a video of the amazing night!

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Bowling with the Firmites

Mar 24, 2010

This past weekend, my Terra Firma group thought it would be awesome to go bowling. Just to let you guys at home know it had been a long time since I had gone bowling. Back in high school bowling was actually pretty popular. There was an ally right next to my house that was super cheap, so a bunch of my friends and I would occasionally make a stroll down to the lanes every other week. This night was even more amazing because most of my group was able to attend.

We got to the ally around eight o’clock to try to pick out a lane. It was pretty packed, seeing how it was a Friday night, but we were still able to get two lanes to show off our bowling talent. Believe it or not, I actually ended up winning, which was very surprising. Beth Wyckoff, an awesome member in the group, put up a good fight though, and we were pretty much neck and neck all game long. I can honestly tell you guys that I do not know how I pulled off the win. In the end, however, it was ultimately just an awesome night that I was able to spend with my group.

After we got our bowling fix, we went over to a college student’s favorite food place: McDonalds! We all went in and ordered off of the greatest thing that America has ever invented, that being the dollar menu. As soon as we loaded our arteries with good McDonald’s food, we headed back to the on-campus apartments to play some card games.

This ended up being an awesome night! It was huge for myself because I had just finished a huge ten page paper that week and I needed to do something other than study sixteenth-century poets (I know that it sounds amazingly appealing). My group never ceases to amaze me though…God has blessed me beyond belief this semester.

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Spring Break

Mar 15, 2010

Wow is it good to be back! I’m not going to lie I’ve missed writing to you guys. This spring break, however, was one of the best breaks of my life. Last week a group of eight students, one faculty member, and two Cornerstone Alumni all traveled to West Plains, Missouri for the time of our lives. We were involved with helping build a habitat home for one of the local residents in West Plains.
I knew one girl from our group, leaving the rest of our group complete strangers. This was actually my first official “mission’s trip” and I was actually nervous about not knowing anyone. Within the first day, every single person in our group became extremely close. We ended up staying in a Methodist church for the week, which helped cut down on costs by a ton. I have never seen hospitality like the way I did in West Plains. Every day, a different church or group from the town offered to either make our team dinner or take us out somewhere. Their attitudes toward everything were amazingly encouraging.
By the time we left West Plains, the house was almost weather proof. We put up the floor, all the walls, the rafters, and the roof. We even got to start putting up most of the electrical wiring! One awesome thing to see was how our group blew away everyone’s expectations at West Plains. They had no idea how hard we were going to work prior to our coming.
The best scene from this whole trip had to be seeing Amanda and her two children stand and look at their new house being put up. She stayed there, looking at the house for at least a half hour. This was the main fuel that kept our group going. God was truly working during this past week.
Habitat’s plan is to have the house finished and ready for Amanda and her kids to be moved in by the beginning of June. It is unbelievable that we were able to help quicken the process of getting this family into their house! God is absolutely incredible…there is nothing that he cannot do!

 

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Hello Spring Break! 

Mar 5, 2010

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