reflections.

So lately Bethany and I have felt a little like we are stuck, in life right now.. I don't know if it is just a feeling, or a reality..

I know that for me I grew up in Cincinnati, OH my whole life and then moved out to CA in the fall of 2003.

Cincinnati is a place that you settle down have a house, get married, and have kids.. but rarely do you ever leave. It is really family oriented, and very very conservative and traditional.. California is a little different, at least for me.. Ever sense I moved out here I have been on the move. I went to school for a year in Redding, and then lived in the Yosemite valley area for almost a month. I then moved to San Diego for the summer for an internship at a church down there.. After the summer I moved up to the San Francisco bay area, kind of looking for direction.. A few months later, I moved back to Redding and have been here ever sense [almost 4 yrs.]..

Bethany has a similar moving story. From Michigan to China to San Francisco to Kyrgyzstan back to San Francisco to Redding to San Diego to Redding again..

So we both have been very mobile, especially in the last few years..

As of now we have been married for almost four years [December 17th].. and have been in the same apartment that whole time. Which would be fine, but we live in a 2 bedroom apartment that holds me Bethany, our son Josiah and my home office.. The neighbors are loud at night, and kids are up way too late into the night. Police are always in our neighborhood [which is good and bad] and lately there have been a few domestic disturbances.

We know that we need to get out of our apartment as soon as we can. We don't know where we are supposed to go, at this point, though.. Please pray for us in this!.

Eugene..

On Wednesday we left Seattle, and headed for home.. On the way we stopped and visited our friends Lacy and Jesse. They live in Eugene, OR and we thought that it would be great to see them as well as not drive the whole way home.

Bethany first met Lacy her first year at Simpson, and then introduced me to her soon after that. We also went to their wedding in Grant's Pass where I met Jesse..

They were super cool!. They cooked us dinner, we played video games, ate milkshakes, and watched the Olympics.. It was a good time.

They also have a son named Byron, and he is about 17mo. Josiah had a good time hanging with him, and Byron did a good job showing Josiah all of his toys and games..

After our time there, we packed up the car and headed home.. and 5 hours, or so later we were home. and then we left again.. We knew that it would be like this, but Bethany planned an event for tonight. It was fun and there were a lot of different desserts.. I also beat Aaron in a game of horse, but Kristen beat both me and Aaron.. Awesome.. Good times.

All in all it was a good trip and we appreciate all the prayer and support. Thanks to everyone that got me either numbers, or a place to stay, or gave ideas as to what to do.. We really appreciated all of that.

Now it is time to process everything that happened and try and recover before Sunday night..

Seattle.. day 2.

**Sorry for posting pictures so late**

So today was a day of finallys. We final found this park called "Kerry Park", we finally got a chance to go to the troll bridge and get a picture, and it finally stopped raining..

So the first thing we did today was go to "Kerry Park".. This is a park just up the street from where we are staying, and it has an amazing view of the downtown Seattle area.. I took some pictures and we headed out..

This picture was taken by me and the camera was set on a timer.. So after several times of me running back and forth and restarting the timer, someone asks me, "Do you want me to take your picture for you?" to which I responded, "No, I like doing it this way?". I don't really know what I was trying to say, but that worked..

After we hung out at the look out area, we headed down these stairs and found this amazingly weird playground..

All the things for the kids to play on were not normal playground stuff. They did have a rock climbing wall and some great slides. We played for a while and Josiah had some fun..

After playing, we headed back up the stairs, got back in the car and drove to the troll bridge.. I not sure exactly what it is called, but it is the famous sculpture of a giant troll under this bridge, and in his left hand there is an old style bug cemented into the thing.

The plaque said that it was an art project that they voted on and this won. There was a lot of people that helped and some funding as well.. Pretty cool.

QUESTION: Can anyone remember what movies this guy has been in?.

Our next destination was to our old friends Eli & Holly's house. They live about 40 minutes away and they also have a kid, so we planned on going over there pretty early in the day and couldn't play much else to do. So we headed to their house, which was in a town/city called Issaquah. We got there and ate some chili, and home made cornbread.. We also got a tour of their amazing house, we met their child Ethan, and their dog Hobie.. We had blackberry cobbler for dessert, and Holly said that the blackberries grow all over the place there, like weeds. It was good food, good times, with good friends..

After that we went back to the house and Josiah fell asleep on my chest, which made me fall asleep for a bit, and then Bethany came in and woke me up.. I got up and wrote this blog.. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of our trip.. Eugene, OR. Until tomorrow..

Seattle.. day 1.

Ok, so day one in Seattle was very typical, rainy.. but it was fun. We started our day with a short walk up the hill to Starbucks.. I had never used one of those hiking backpacks that you put your kids in, but I tried it and I really liked it, and so did Josiah. When we started walking it wasn't that rainy, but then when we got to the Starbucks it was.. and so we just hung out in there for a while till it slowed down a bit.. After that we headed back down the hill, and Josiah had fallen asleep. It was funny though, becuase when I looked back at him his head was missing.. not really, but it totally looked like it was..

After we finished our hike.. We made lunch and waited for Emily Oril to come over, she came down from a town about an hour north of Seattle to hang with us and show us around..

She got there we ate lunch, and we decided to head out. We wanted to take her car so that we could save gas.. So we got all of our stuff packed into her car and then Bethany pointed out that her back right tire was completely flat. So we rolled it down the hill to a level spot in the road and since I was the only guy in our group, I changed the tire..

Once that was taken care of we hopped into our car and headed down the hill to Pike St. where we witnessed the famous throwing of the fish at Pike's Place Fish Co. The stand looks a lot bigger on T.V., but it was fun and the guys were loud.

I tried to catch one of the flying fish, but my camera battery died right after I shot this..

We also got some mini doughnuts, kind of like the ones in San Francisco. This guy was a little crazy, he would kind of put on a show when getting the doughnuts in the bag, and the last one he throws in the air and catches in the bag.. that is what I have circled in the picture below.

This is a pig that is in Pike Place.. I tried to get Josiah to ride it, but he wouldn't.

Bethany totally bundled Josiah up while we were out, it was a little cold..

We visited the first Starbucks ever. It was really crowded and lots of people were just there to see it and not order anything. I wonder how many regulars that store has.?


Sorry, this picture is a little racy.. The original logo was based on the famous painting, and they changed it to something that was green and had to do with Italy, but in the end they combined them and crated the logo that we all see today. That is why it is not brown anymore..

We walked to the end of the market and I took a picture of this totampole. It was pretty hazy all day.. especially down by the bay..

After that experience, we went back to the house.. for two reasons, I forgot to charge my batteries for my camera, and Bethany forgot diapers. So we ended up staying for a bit and hung out with Jon and his daughter Holland..

After we were recharged we decided to go to the fish ladder called "Ballard Locks", and since the tire place was close we took Emily's car to get fixed as well. The locks were pretty neat, basically the boats come in from either the Sound or the other side, and the water is uneven, so they have to get the boats in to the locks and even out the water so that they can they either enter or exit to wherever they are going.. but because of that, they created a fish ladder to help give the fish a chance to survive, and they had a viewing area so that you can see the fish swimming up the ladder.. It was pretty neat.

Afterward we went back to the tire place and found out that they hadn't even gotten to Emily's car yet, and so we ended up heading out for some dinner. We went to this place called "Tutta Bella".. a Neapolitan Pizzeria. It was good, but a little pricey. The pizza was on a flat bread and there really wasn't much to it at all.. Right after we sat down to eat, Emily got a phone call that her car was done. Weird how that works, now we had to drive all the way back to get her car after we eat..

Here is a crazy wall just down the street from the restaurant with the famous troll drawn on it.. I will get a picture of that troll.. We saw it the first night we were here, but just drove by it.

After getting the car and everything, we said our goodbyes and and headed back to the house for some root beer, cream soda, and cookies.. We watched "The Day After Tomorrow". I had never seen it, and thought that it might be good.. Bethany had seen it, and said that it was good.. I thought that it was ok, and kind of predictable.. Oh well.. Until tomorrow..

Portland.. day 4.

Well really this should be called Portland, and then Seattle.. or something, because today we left and headed for Seattle..
This morning we decided to check out Imago Dei church.. I had heard a lot about it, I read "Blue Like Jazz".. and I was intrigued. Though I didn't run into Donald Miller, we still had fun.. The message was pretty powerful. He was talking about the prayers that Jesus prays for us..

After that we headed back tot he place that we were staying, packed our bags and headed to Seattle.. The drive was pretty boring, until we got just outside the city.. We ran into a little traffic, but not too bad. I took some pictures with my laptop camera..

When we arrived at the place where we are staying, it was pretty cool, well really it was still a little warm and humid.. but the people that we are staying with are cool and one of them is an interior designer, so there place looked pretty neat.

Oh I forgot, when we pulled up we went to grab Josiah and found that he had pooped, and it was all over the seat and his clothes.. so we had to pretty much go into the house and give him an emergency bath. After that, we just kind of hung out and unwound a bit.

We then decided that we wanted to go check out Mars Hill and so we found out that it was pretty much down the street and headed there. It was really good.. The church is in a warehouse, and has a really simple yet modern feel to it.. I really thought that this is what the Stirring would look like in a few years.. The kids area was pretty normal, but they give every parent a pager and page them if their kid is melting down.. Of course Josiah was great. The worship music was a little different, they do a lot of there own music. They also did some songs that I recognized, but with their own style to it.. It was good, just different. Pastor Mark was gone, so the normal worship pastor was the one who gave the message, and again it was a good hard message about Jonah and idolatry.. God hates it!.

We left there and headed out for some food, the recommendation that we got was for this Thai place in this little area that reminded me a lot of the San Louis Obisbo area.. I was really good food, and since we really didn't eat much that whole day, we ordered a lot of food. Afterward we walked around for a bit, and for the first time it was pretty cool, weather wise.


Then we came back and ended up watching "Walk the Line" and going to bed.. good day, until tomorrow..

Poll: What is that one movie that you haven't seen that everyone else has, but you just haven't gotten around to it yet?..

Portland.. day 3.

So today we started off downtown at the Portland Saturday Market.. It was kind of like a big flee market filled with booths of all different kinds of hobby type crafts.. Sort of like a bunch of kids from the same school sat down and decided that they want to have a big festival to showcase their talents. "I can paint", "I can do Caricatures", "I can blow glass", "I can make little outfits for dogs".. Yeah, you can have a booth in the back corner next to the bathrooms..

Also there were a few street performers, kind of like Pier 39 in San Francisco.. There was a guy painted gold, and acting like a robot holding candy.. Yeah, like anyone would walk out to a creepy guy painted like a statue in Michael Jackson's living room and try to take candy out of his hand.. Nice try.

All in all there was a lot of good talent displayed everywhere.. I took a few pictures.

After the market we walked around the downtown area looking for a place to eat.. At one point we stopped and sat down on some stairs in front of a business type building to just rest and eat a little snack that we had packed.. when all the sudden a guy randomly pulled up and yelled out to us, "Hey do you guys want some waters?".. I really didn't hear what he said until after I went over to his car and he pulled out a bottle of water, and two juice boxes from a cooler in his backseat.. and then took off. I came back to Bethany, and handed her the lot, and said, "I think he thought that we were homeless or something" I was embarrassed.. I then said, "Should we give these drinks to some real homeless people?" Bethany responded, "Well I am thirsty"..

We then headed up the street a bit and ended up at Great Harvest Bread Co. We ate some sandwiches and headed out to our next destination.. Powell's.

So we decided to go back to Powell's because it was amazing the first time, and I need to do a little bit of work.. I love free internet. I got some work done, and Bethany took care of Josiah and read a few comic books, and that was most of our afternoon..

After that we were picked up by our old friend Kirstin and whisked away to Beaverton where we ate at an amazing little Italian place called "Nonna emilia bistro". We ordered one veggi style calzone which fed all three of us and Bethany and Kirstin took home left overs, it was huge. The one kind of weird thing about the restaurant was they had this guy walking around playing songs on an accordion.. It wasn't so much that he was just playing this thing, but that he was walking around the restaurant and playing really loud.. well I don't know if you can play the accordion softly, but he sure didn't.. [Just a thought: Nate, you could totally make some extra cash doing this at the Olive Garden.]

After we left there we were driven to an area that resembled Hyde Park in Cincinnati, Ohio.. Seriously, they even had a BW3's..

Anyhoo.. we walked around for a bit and then stopped at a coffee shop called "Bella Espresso" and had gelato and iced coffee.. All around the shop there were amazing hand painted/sculpted pieces of art.. it was like Michelangelo's nephew's first cousin twice removed or something like that..

We talked and hung out for a bit, and then it was time to go back.. good times, old friends, weird crazy people.. that was Portland day 3.. Until tomorrow..