free internet at Starbucks.

Ok, So I have told a few of you, but I wanted to let the rest know.. The other day I was at Starbucks talking with one of the Barista's there and they told me that if you register your Starbucks gift card you can get some free stuff.. And one of those things is free internet [there are limits, like I think it is only for two hours at a time, but hey.. So check it out.. www.starbucks.com.. All you have to do to keep it active is use your card once a month. Pretty sweet, I know it is helpful to me.. because I need to get out of my stuffy home office once in a while.

John & Nessa

I have kind of decided that I want to be able to shoot some family photos, engagement photos, maybe wedding photos, and the such.. for people that I know.. and also people that I can get to know..
I bought a camera a while back, and have been using it for different things here and there mostly for web stuff and personal family stuff.. But now I am venturing off into unknown territory.. I don't 100% know what I am doing yet, but I want to learn, and grow in this area [I also want to try and teach Bethany to do some shooting as well..] All that to say, if you are a family or an engaged couple, or just need pictures for something.. Please talk to me.. Like I said, at this point I am just growing and learning, so my rates are pretty negotiable..

So this past week I got a chance to take some pictures for John and Nessa.. They will be getting married this winter. It was fun taking their pictures, but it was really hot. If you look at the sweat beads on John's head you can see what I am talking about.. So I definitely learned a few things in this shoot:

1. Don't schedule a photo shoot in the middle of the day in the summer.
2. Don't shoot photos under the shade of the trees [it cast weird shadows, mostly uneven..]
3. Don't stand in the Sacramento river and shoot [the water is really, really cold]..

Here are some of my favorites from the shoot..

Let me know what you think..

God is good.

Amen!. I could just write that for this blog and be done, but I will expound a bit more.. Although I can't really go into too much detail at this point, hopefully I will be able to soon.. but for now, for the privacy of the people involved, I will just say that God is doing some amazing things right now in my life. I have had a crazy couple of days, and I just wanted to stop and give a "shout out" [that was for you Nate] to God.. Thank you for allowing me to see and go through the stuff that you have me go through..

We are going to be planting a church soon, and we need some money and all other kinds of support.. There are a few of us leaders that have pretty much taken on the world in order to get this thing off the ground, so if you could just pray for us as a staff that would be awesome.. Also we have a group of people that we are calling the "launch team" [we couldn't find a better name, maybe the "blue team"..] that are really excited and willing to do anything to help. I just want to say thank you to all that are putting time and effort in to this.. I believe that this is what God has us on the earth for, planting churches and growing leaders.. I live to teach people how to worship, and these are we I believe two great ways.

We are starting a new series this week called "we love. we make disciples." that is what I want to do.. come hang out for the next few weeks and listen to what God is calling you to give your life to.

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..