2 year aniversary

Today is our 2 year anniversary! It has been a great day. We cooked up a little brunch and have been able to relax by the fire for most of the morning. We will continue to celebrate for the rest of the day...after doing a little studying.

Radiating Christ by Mother Teresa

Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus! Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine, so to shine as to be a light to others; the light, O Jesus, will be all from You; none of it will be mine: it will be You shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise You in the way You love best: by shining on those around me. Let me preach You without preaching, not by words, but by my example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You. Amen.

Mother Teresa

"A fitting honor"?

As I was looking at my hometown newspaper, I saw an interesting article about the former football coach of my high school. Larry Garman coached the Pittsburg High School dragons for 34 years and is now being honored by having a street named after him. I think anyone who has worked in the same place for 34 years should have a street named after them.

However, this does not seem to happen very often and shows what the city of Pittsburg finds to be important i.e. football...

Check out "a fitting honor" article.

Reading Week

It is reading week at Regent College. This means a week of no class and trying to catch up on the reading requirements for our classes. I am reading some great books such as the one above by Stott. I am about to finish a book called The Christ on the Mount by E. Stanley Jones. This book is a must read...simply amazing! Finally I am reading Biblical Healing and Deliverance by Chester and Betsy Kylstra.

Purpose Driven in Rwanda

I know most of us have heard of The Purpose Driven Life/Church. It almost seemed that the author (Rick Warren) was just riding a wave of popularity and trying to profit on what people wanted to hear. I was in a Purpose Driven small group and thought, "wow! This seems to be a fad like the Prayer of Jabez."

In my Sermon on the Mount class with DARRELLJOHNSON I found it fascinating to hear what Rick Warren was up to these days. Dr. Johnson told us about how Dr. Warren has had a change of heart and is an example of being light to the world. Specifically Dr. Warren has donated all of his salary from the past 30 years back to his home church. He is able to do this as a result of the popularity of his books. He also has been tithing 90% of the income from his book sales. A sign of a changed life.

To top it off he has joined with Bill Hybels of Willow Creek in Chicago to combat aids in Africa! Check out "Purpose Driven in Rwanda" in Christianity Today

Breaking the chains

This weekend we went to Burlington, Wa to a class named breaking the chains. It was good to get out of Vancouver and hear about Tierra Nueva's mission.

my twin brothers b-day

Yesterday was my brother Nathan's 28th b-day. He is in Pittsburg, Ks with his wife preparing for life in the Malawi Africa with the peace corps. Some day we hope to be able to hang out on our shared b-day.

However, it is always great to let other people know that it is "my brothers b-day today".

happy b-day nate

Grouse Grind

Today Tara and I went on the "grouse grind" with our friends Dave and Christy.

The grouse grind is a hike that is straight up a mountain. It took us about an hour but people can do it in half that time. The view from the top is amazing. To get down we paid $5 and took the gondola. However, it costs $30 to go up to the top on the gondola.

What do you want on your tombstone?

I just read about a new product called the vidstone. Apparently it is a solar powered television within a tombstone. According to the vid stone web site it plays, "...a 5-10 minute multimedia memorial detailing the most precious memories of your loved one’s life."

What video would you want everyone to see?

the cottage

Ok we are finally moved... Now we just need to unpack everything :@

Here are a few pics of the cottage we live in now.

Sunset

The night before we dropped Tara's parents off at the airport in Seattle we got to eat at Anthony's in Bellingham. They had the best Wild Salmon I've ever tasted. Cooked on a cedar plank and amazing.

Here is a picture of the sun that showed itself at the end of a rainy day. This was our view from Anthony's. It was our last meal in the North West with Tom and Julie. We stayed with our friend Deborah and she introduced us to the restaurant.

Our friend Deborah is the marketing director at The Firs camp and conference center in Bellingham.

Here is a picture of all of us at dinner. She is one funny gal!

moving day

Today is the first day of moving our stuff over to the cottage. I decided to do what is truly important and write on my blog. :) On Monday we saw a great movie that has been out most of the summer. Batman begins:

Our Canadian Grandma

We just got back from having dinner with our Canadian Grandma Margaret. She has helped make Vancouver a great place to be. Who knows, without her, we may have left Canada by now. Here are a couple pictures of her. The first one is in front of her house and the second is where we ate dinner tonight named Sun Sui Wah, an amazing place to eat Chinese food.

Sista's 30th B-day

Today is my sister Shannon's 30th b-day! Wow! She is officailly a thirty something.

Here is a picture of a water fall that is named after her.

Canada place

The Canada Place is a great place to look out on the city of Vancouver. Here is a traditional Canadian place view.

Tom and Julie are taking us out to a lot of fun places to eat and we are seeing a lot of Vancouver that we haven't seen before. It's good to have them around for another few days.












Here is a picture of Tom and Julie by the famous Gas town clock.

Galiano

We made it over to the beautiful Galiano island in the Georgia Strait. It was so fun to relax in a beautiful place. The Gay's let us stay in their cabin for a couple days and help us get ready to hang out with their kids for the upcoming school year.

We will be moving NEXT WEEK. It is hard to believe we will be leaving the East side of Vancouver.

We will be moving into a place where we will get to spend time with a cute puppy and some great kids.










RAIN - Our new best friend?

Swimming in the Ocean

Yesterday Tom and I got to take a dip in the ocean off of the rocks at the Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver.

Today we got to go on a long bike ride around Stanley Park and enjoy some cheap wings at Sammy Peppers.

Looks like the four of us will go to Galiano Island this weekend and get to hang out and relax.

Tara's parents

Tara's folks made it up here on Tuesday. When we picked them up in Seattle we got to hang out at the fish market.

We have been able to show Tom and Julie the beautiful city we live in and celebrate Tara's b-day together. Here is a picture of here parents under a big Douglas fir.

Finally here is a picture of Julie (Tara's mom) and Tara by our famous Kansas flower

Tara's b-day

It was my beautiful wife's birthday yesterday. We had a great time and got to go to the fish house in Stanley park for an amazing birthday lunch.














Left to right: Tom and Julie (Tara's folks) Tara (birthday girl) and me

Later I took her to Jericho beach and surprised her with a bunch of our friends ready to celebrate her birthday.














A few of the party peeps: Allie, Lisa, Tara, Aimee, and Krista

This is Shangri La

We went on a little trip to Sloquet hot springs this weekend to celebrate Tara's upcoming birthday. We traveled on the sea to sky highway past Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton to get there. Ended up that we had to drive 3 hours on the world's bumpiest gravel road once we got to Pemberton to get to the hot springs.

However, it was well worth the trip. We got to have the hot springs to ourselves once the campers left. A sign read, "This is Shangri la."

We were planning on camping a few more nights but Tara started feeling sick. Therefore, we ended up camping in our car and taking off in the morning.

Tara's folks come up Tuesday and we will get to take them around to see the beautiful city we live in.

EGG-celent week

We just dropped off Dusty at the aeroporte. It is hard to believe that he was here for a week, as the time flew by. We really enjoyed having him here.

Here is a picture of all of us at the Northern Cascades. It was absolutely beautiful. We camped 8 miles in at Egg lake. Over 16 miles round trip in 2 days. A lot of hiking with a backpack. I still feel like I got beat up. Galen Stark says this about North Cascades park, "It's a rugged wilderness and only hearty backcountry users enter the national park."

Hearty back country users from Left to Right: Dusty, Andrew, me, Tara, and Amy. (Chris is taking the picture)

We had a great time and will never forget our dip in egg lake.

We got to take Dusty to Lighthouse park, Lynn Valley and a number of other places.

Festival of surprises

Dusty made it to Vancouver. He woke up at 4 am and got to travel through 4 air ports to get here.

Tara and I made our first pies today (blueberry and blackberry). Very yummy.

Tara also got to see Patty Griffin at the Seattle zoo. However, the concert only lasted 45 minutes.

It was a good Vancouver day and fun to share with our great friend Dusty.

Blackberries

I am sitting here with a blackberry stain on my shirt. We had a relaxing blackberry day. After seeing march of the penguins for the "low" Tuesday price and getting a new tube for my bike we went to pick blackberries. Our Canadian grandma says "Picking blackberries is a labor of love." This is true because the thorns leave the marks to prove you picked them.

We got to celebrate our friend Jason's b-day with him. His wife and another family that came to the party made blackberry cobbler. Definitely a blackberry day.

My mom would often take me and my brother and sister to pick blackberries a few times in the summer behind our church. She would make an amazing blackberry pie...which I hope to replicate.

Totem poles, Bag pipes and a flat tire

Today was BC day. A random Canadian holiday just to give people a day off.

We went on a bike ride with Julio and Lisa hoping to go all the way around Stanley park on the sea wall. However, my Panaracer Pascal TX tire went flat. Therefore, we stopped at the totem pole section of Stanley park and listened to bag pipers for awhile. We were also looking for someone who had a bike pump and were unable to find anyone. Finally once we tried to air it up it would not hold any air.

Julio and I rode downtown to see if we could find an inner tube. But all the rental places didn't carry tubes. So we went to the bike shop at Pacific and Burrard. Which just closed and the guy inside was not kind enough to sell us an inner tube.

So I got the car and picked everyone up. We got some food and laughed about all the adventures we had.

swimming in a mountain lake

We went to Black mountain yesterday with some friends. We made it to the top ate lunch and then decided to go for a dip in Cabin Lake. It felt really good.

Today we made pasta and chicken salad for dinner with our canadian grandma.

This is the first week of Tara being off of her CPE program and it looks like our friend Dusty is going to come up from Memphis to visit.

I am glad that we will be able to hang with Dusty as I haven't seen him for over a year. I am sure he will love Vancouver and it will be hard for him to go back to Memphrica.

School is just around the corner and it is hard to believe that we will be moving in a month.

The Holden's

Here is a picture of our great family friends, the Holden's. They have always been there for my family from baby sitting us when we were small to going to our all of our graduations and weddings.

Thanks for being great friends!

My Cousin Doug's new video

Here is my cousin Doug's new video he is entering in a film festival.

Lighthouse at the end of the CPE

Tara graduated from her chaplaincy program today. We got to celebrate with all her class mates on top of St. Paul's hospital overlooking downtown Vancouver. It was great to finally put all the names with a face. I was so excited to be able to meet the people she has spent the last 11 weeks with.

To celebrate we went with our friends Julio and Lisa to lighthouse park in West Vancouver. It was another BEAUTIFUL DAY and we are glad to have finished an emotional chapter of our lives by Tara finishing the CPE program.

Tomorrow we hope to hike black mountain in North Vancouver.

Hanging with Orcas

Wow! Woodsong was fantastic! Tara and I decided that we liked it so much that we would like to travel to it no matter where we end up. It was refreshing to see and hear the gospel in a new way. We got to meet a lot of cool people and get a picture of what heaven may look like. Camping, "climbing" Mt. Constitution(The highest point in the San Juan Islands and arguably the best view in Puget Sound.), hearing Orcas talk to each other, free pancakes and waffles for breakfast, sweet music, etc.

This is a great song: check it out "Kickin' this stone"

It was great. Today I was back at the ropes course. Also Tara had her last day with her friends at Langara hospital. She will be finished with CPE this Friday... Wow...

Woodsong on Orcas island

It is almost the weekend. Tara is slaving away at her final CPE papers. She will be finished in a week! She wants to get most of her work done tonight so that we will have a free weekend to hang out on Orcas island. The Woodsong festival is going on and they have DISC GOLF!!!

Today I made our Nana's world famous Chicken salad. Borrowed Julio and Lisa's crock pot to cook the free range chicken all day. The chicken still had its neck on it and kinda suprised me. Anyway the chicken salad turned out awesome.

We shall see what the weekend brings...

Vote for Kansas University

Espn is doing a poll to see the most popular sports team for each state. Be sure and vote for the Jayhawks.

Jen and Greg

Here is a picture of some awesome people we know! Looks like they will be moving to KC. We hope to live close to them in the near future as they are BFF.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal cookies

I just made some really good chocolate chip cookies. Tara needed some chocolate because she has a lot of papers due next week. Today was an audio class day. Listened to J.I. Packer explain the different terminology used in systematic theology.

Boyz on the hood

Here is a picture of my brother and me from our backpacking trip on Mt. hood.

I got a second e-mail from my brother. He and his wife Diana are currently in Australia. He is in Renmark, Australia and she is in another part of the country. They will not see each other for four weeks! I was wondering what he would do with the group of college students he is leading. He told me that, “We mostly feed the animals at a small personally owned zoo here in Renmark Australia (300 km East of Adelaide). It's beautiful here even though it is what they call winter.”

BC peaches blueberries and Cider

My wife and I are enjoying some local British Columbia peaches and blueberries. We also tried a new Okanagan cider. It is a great ending to a summer day. It is probably the coolest summer Tara and I have ever experienced. In a typical Kansas summer we would often have weather warm enough to fry eggs on the pavement. We often don't know what the weather is because everything is in metric, but we are trying to learn. The last few days have probably reached a high around the upper 70's.

I spent a few hours today talking with United airlines. The last time we flew to Kansas City we had a lot of trouble with them. Therefore, we are trying to give them another opportunity to keep our business. At one point today the lady with United airlines said, "Your business is not worth giving you vouchers to fly with us." That was the general tone of the conversation and sent me back to what seems to be the beginning by having to write another letter. We will have to see what happens.

A sunny and gloomy day

Today was the type of day that makes you forget about the other 304 and a 1/2 rainy days we have had this year in Vancouver.

I worked at the ropes course today and had an interesting group of kids from Delta, BC. Eventually they learned how to work together in order to make the day a lot more fun for everyone. I really enjoy seeing the excitement of a person when they do something they don't think they can and succeed. I get to see this a lot on the ropes course.

Although it was a sunny day outside for many it seemed very gloomy. When I got home from the ropes course, I found out that many people and animals had been pushed into eternity. Specifically, my wife saw a patient she knew pass away for the first time today. Also a friendly Beluga whale passed away today at the Vancouver Aquarium. I got the opportunity to see this whale a couple weeks ago when I went to the Aquarium with a couple of 7 year olds named Nick and Andrew. Also I found out that my friend Matt, a student at the University of Arkansas, lost a fraternity brother in a car accident yesterday. Finally a tragedy occurred in a town close to our parents. Two toddlers drowned in a backyard pool. Please pray for the families and friends who will be mourning the loss of their loved ones.

When people you know and love pass away it is difficult to go back and do things the way you did the day before. I don't know how I could handle the loss of people without the hope that this earth is not the end of our journey. I do know that is still hurts beyond expression to lose people you love.

My first blog

My wife, Tara, declared today to be the most beautiful day we have had since moving to Vancouver. On this beautiful day Tara and I heard Darrell Johnson speak about "The Great I am." D.J. helped us to have a new understanding of Charles Wesley's hymn, "And Can it Be". After which we went down to Jerico beach and tried to hear some of the music going on at the Folk festival. We rode our bikes all over Vancouver and were rewarded with an awesome dinner that our friends Katie and Rachel made.

My brother and his wife are in Australia for four weeks and will be heading the peace corps when they get back...