Spring 2012 Update

Though it’s only May, it actually feels like spring has been here for a while as it decided to make an early appearance in Denver this year. While the warm beautiful weather is always welcome, we were sad to see winter come to an early end since it cut short an already poor ski season. Oh well, hopefully we’ll have better snow next year! Despite the lack of snow sports, the Redden family has had no lack of activity to keep us busy.

Ethan has enjoyed a great year of first grade at our neighborhood school, Steele Elementary. It has been amazing to see how much he has learned and grown during this year. His reading, writing, and math skills have continued to get better each week, and he’s shown a lot of enthusiasm for special projects like learning about Australia. In addition to school, Ethan played another season with the Colorado Fusion soccer club. This is his fourth season with this team, and it is fun to see these kids grow together. As they get older we can see their skills and competitive natures growing. Fortunately we have another year in the “developmental” league before we have to step up to the more serious competitive league! Ethan is also playing baseball and really loving it. We think his favorite sport is whichever one he is playing at the moment. Ethan is looking forward to a summer full of camps around Denver and some fun travel to visit family. We also made the decision for Stephen to take Ethan with him on his June trip with New Denver Church to Guatemala. You can read more about that trip in a separate post, but Ethan is so excited to experience travel to another country and experience a whole new culture.

Andrew turned 5 in April and celebrated with a party with friends from school at Chuck-E-Cheese (we hope this is a our last Chuck-E-Cheese birthday party). Andrew was thrilled to have Stephen’s parents here (aka “MaLa and Pop”) for his special day. What’s not to love about a few days of spoiling from your grandparents?! Andrew still doesn’t like school and is glad to remind us of that on Monday, Wednesday and Friday when he goes to pre-kindergarten! Kate took him to a kindergarten open house at the school he’ll be attending this fall and was encouraged that he seemed to enjoy himself. We’re beginning to see he may just be more of a homebody! He is still playing soccer with the Colorado Fusion club, and Stephen is coaching his team again. He has improved this year but still loves snack time after the game way more than the game itself!

Kate continues to be the one to keep our household running and organized. On top of her work with Ronald Blue & Co., she still finds time to make lunches, chaperone field trips, be team mom for Ethan’s soccer team, coordinate our family schedules, and invest in women from our church through a bi-weekly discipleship group. In March she also made time to take the boys to visit her grandmother in Virginia. She’s also been hard at work planning an anniversary trip this fall. On August 24th, Stephen and Kate will celebrate ten years of marriage and are planning a trip to San Francisco and Napa Valley in September. Between now and then Kate will be navigating our family through a summer filled with a complicated maze of summer camps and cross-country trips to visit family too complicated to begin to describe!

Stephen continues to stay busy with a variety of things as well. New Denver Church continues to be the primary passion of his heart, but since he and the other three pastors committed to being bi-vocational since New Denver started, he also has several other things on his plate as well. He let some of his technology consulting contracts expire last fall to commit to being home with Andrew one day a week to give Kate more margin to do her job. But in anticipation of getting that time back this fall, Stephen started doing some small groups coaching for other churches through the Miles Advisory Group. It has been a great experience and seems to be a flexible way to provide more income while serving the wider church. Stephen has also been working with an old friend, Gabe Lyons, and some friends here in Denver to host a local version of the Q Conference that Gabe’s organization puts on every year. This effort is fueled by Stephen’s desire to be part of igniting a movement of churches and Christians around the Denver area to work for the common good of the city. It hasn’t been all work for Stephen as he took some time in March to go with some guys from New Denver down to Arizona to watch some Rockies and Dodgers spring training baseball! Stephen is also looking forward to a busy summer full of exciting projects, including his trip to Guatemala in June (again, for more on that click here) as well as some fun trips to visit friends and family.

If you’ve read this far, thank you. We’re grateful for friends and family who care about us and keep up with what’s happening in our lives. We pray that this update finds you all well. Please reach out and say “hi” or even better – come see us! Denver’s a great place to come visit… 😉