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..

Portland.. day 2.

So today we decided to head out and take a look at some of the neighborhoods.. We started with Alberta. Someone recommended that we eat at La Bonita, so we tried it.. and we liked it.. good Mexican food for a good price..

Then we traveled down the street a bit, this place is kind of like one of the streets in Berkeley, CA.. There are a lot of little shops and restaurants all along the street. It is also a really long street.

We stopped about half way down at a coffee shop called "Fuel Cafe" and had some coffee. One good thing about Portland is that there are a lot of places that have free internet..It has been a little hard with Josiah crawling now, and the fact that he is a daredevil doesn't help. So we can no longer relax and just have a cup of coffee and read unless he is asleep..

After the coffee shop we walked back down the street to our car and waited for our friend Mary to meet us. It took her like 20 or so minutes, but it seemed like the longest 20 minutes ever.. so hot..

She met us and took us to her house where we stayed for a few hours.. again, people in Portland, OR are not used to the heat so there was no AC.

After we left there we decided that we needed to not be outside for a while, and so we headed to the mall [Loyd Center].. It was a mall like any other mall, with one big difference.. a huge ice skating rink inside.. We walked all over the mall and also sat down a lot, they have a lot of really nice creative setting all around the mall..

We left the mall and headed back to the place that we are staying and did the best thing that you can do it the heat.. cook pizzas. They were good pizzas, we had them last time we ate dinner with the Pecaut's. They are made on pita bread, and cooked in the broiler.. they were good, it was just to hot to use the oven..

After that we sat around and were just really exhausted.. until tomorrow..

Portland.. day 1.

So today we decided, after a number of different suggestions from our hosts.. to head downtown.. but first we were told to go up to a place called "Rocky Butte". As you can see this place looks out over the entire city, so it's a good place to start or end your trip [those of you taking notes]..
Here in Portland they have this thing kind of like San Francisco's "BART", called "The Max".. We we got to the MAX station, we had no idea what ticket to buy so we got the 2 zone, which i guess means 2 hours.? So we hopped on that and headed downtown.. Well apparently, right now, they are working on the bridge that "The Max" goes over, so we had to get off of that and get onto a shuttle to take us across the river.. Not usually a big deal, but we had to take Josiah in and out of the stroller each time, he did great though, we are blessed thanks for the prayers..

Once we got downtown we had a few destinations in mind, but for the most part we had no idea what we were doing. I think it could have been more fun if we had someone who knew their way around town, to show us around. We still had fun though. So we checked out Powell's City of Books. Just like the name says it was the biggest bookstore I have ever been in.. It literally was an entire block full of books..

Then we ate lunch at a place called "The Roxy". Wow.. This place was pretty colorful. We walked in and found ourselves in the movie "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". Crazy, but it was good food. And the people were really nice. But seriously this place had pictures on the wall from tons of different celebrities all signed to this one transvestite named Suzanne. Also dawning the wall space was a huge crucifix that looked antique with a neon glowing halo.. above the jukebox..

Then on our way back to shuttle we stopped at "Ben & Jerry's" for a little snack.. We come all the way up here to Portland, OR and eat ice cream at a Ben & Jerry's.. I know, we needed a tour guide..

We got across the river, and then as we were getting ready to get another MAX ticket [because the ones we had were expired] one of the lady's with the info jackets on asked us where we were going, and ended up giving us two free tickets.. God is good!.

We ended the day with a trip to Trader Joe's and are now relaxing in the heat of the night.. Serioulsy.. I thought that we left the heat in Redding, CA.. Until tomorrow..

the 7 hour trip that took 10..

So we left Redding, CA around 1:15pm and ended up in Portland, OR around 11:30pm.. Why did it take that long? you ask.. Well we only stopped a few times for gas and food, but once we got up to a town called Albany we ran into a standstill block of traffic.. For two hours!. At first we had no idea what was happening, so we called Bethany's sister, and she looked it up online.. She said that they had closed off a section of the highway.? I have never heard of that before, but she said it was because there were some grass fires along that part of the road.. She looked and found us an alternative route, which we later took, to get around the traffic.. but we were still about 10 miles or so from any exit.. That was the longest 10 miles ever.. Once we got off the exit, we looked for a place to eat, and there was nothing, so we ended up at Carls Jr. blahh.. Once we got done eating, we got back on the road, took the alternate route, and finally got on our way again.. Crazy..

Once we got to the place we are staying in Portland, we were greeted with open arms, and we already feel welcomed, and excited.. Thanks Mary, and Garrett..

There will deffinatley be pictures, and more adventures, so stay tuned..

Please continue to pray for us.. thanks..

our trip up north.

Ok.. SO some of you know that we are going to be taking a trip up north, starting today.. We are really excited, and we have never been up past Metford.. Our first stop will be Portland, OR.. I have always wanted to go and visit this city. I have heard a lot about it, and can't wait to see what is going on up there.. We are going to try and visit Donald Miller's church that he talks about in his book, "Blue Like Jazz"..

Our second stop will be Seattle, WA.. I have been hearing about this place, I have seen pictures, and I am ready to see it first hand.. I can't wait to see some of our friends as well..

Please pray for our saftey as we are driving, and pray that we can have a good time away from everything, well sort of.. I am still going to try and get some work done.. Also that Josiah is ok during the car ride.. Thanks.

I am going to bring my camera, so there will be pictures..

Poll: Where is that one place that you have always wanted to go, but haven't had the time/money.?

Whiskey Militia.

That title sounds like some kind of weird Jackie Chan film from the eighties.. Anyhoo.. I am writing this short blog to talk about something that I have recently discovered, but I guess has been around for a while.. WhiskeyMilitia.com. This is an online clothing store that has mostly skater wear, but also stuff for snowboarding, and surfing.. But the appeal of the site is that they have one item in particular that they super discount, and they place that as the main item when the page loads.. They have that one item on sale until the limited amount of them are sold out, and then that place a new item on sale.. I have some friends that have bought some stuff from here and they were satisfied, so.. check it out..