A Beautiful Day in Yosemite...

We spent the entire day at Yosemite National Park. The weather was perfect, not too hot..not too cold. In the picture with Mark you will see he is pointing to Half Dome. This is where we were originally going to be hiking to with my brother and his wife. However, due to a knee injury the 17 mile round trip hike had to be post-poned. (To a date far...far...in the future) Tonight we are going to soak our weary bones in the hot-tub. I have a ton of pictures from today, but need to do some editing on them first.

Lonely Girl at the Bar...

We were sitting at the bar in the kitchen enjoying some cold drinks. Katie had received a text message from her friend back in Oregon who was at a gathering of her drama friends. Sort of a post-play party. Although Katie is enjoying vacation, she was a little sad to be missing hanging out with her drama friends. The look on her face in this picture is priceless. I just sort of giggled as she resembled someone drowning their sorrows in a fruity drink.

VACATION...

We arrived at Dad and Donna's house last night around 8:00. This place is such a solice. We enjoy the peacefulness. This morning we ate homemade pancakes and bacon out in the gazebo. Mark, Dad and Daniel are out wandering the property. Daniel has brought along his video camera to shoot some footage for his latest movie idea. Donna is across the room from me working on her computer. And Katie...Katie..hmmm..I think she's awake now. Ahh...Katie is sprawled out on her bed with book in hand. (She's actually been awake for a few hours) The temperatures are supposed to be warm today, but this home is surrounded by trees and enjoys the benefits of slightly cooler temperatures.

"You Can't Take it With You" Encore

What: AHHA's Encore Performance of "You Can't Take it With You"

When: Friday, June 27th, 8:00 p.m.

Where: Eugene Bible College

Who should come: Everyone!

This will be Katie's last performance for a while. The play is fantastic. Katie plays a very lovable somewhat ditzy mom. (hmm..okay so she was somewhat typecast...except the mom part). I think this is probably her best and favorite role to date. She brings a lot of life to the character and a lot of herself.

"When you go through deep waters...

I will be with you." Isaiah 43:2.

That was the memory verse of the day on Air 1, this past Friday, June 20th. The verse would prove to have direct significance to our lives that day. Mark's cell phone rang at 7:30 that morning, on the other end was one of our employees informing Mark that she was standing in water at our plant. Hmmm, probably not a good thing. As it turns out a hose had burst sometime after hours and water gushed all night. The water covered probably 4000 sq ft of the plant, including some of the offices. The employees along with Mark worked on cleaning up, until the kids and I along with one of Katie's friends arrived to relieve them. Water sloshed out from beneath our tennis shoes as we walked along the carpets. We had shop vacs, carpet shampooers and fans going all over the place. Thankfully it was a very warm day and we were able to have all the doors and windows open.
The insurance adjuster arrived sometime midday to evaluate the damage and to let us know what we could expect to recover. We will still be out some money, but it could have been much worse.
Our screenprinter, who is a very kind-hearted Christian man pulled us aside to tell us about the verse of the day that he has e-mailed to himself. He said he hadn't thought much about it, until he walked into work that morning. He then called his wife and asked her to pray. You see, some of what had happened was a bit of an oversight on his part. He felt awful. Mark and I both reassured him that we did not blame him nor were we angry. I told him that it's not in the easy times when everything is going our way that we learn dependence on God, but it's in these 'deep waters' that we learn to trust. God is and will always be faithful, He will always be with us. Of this we can be sure.
Mark and I spent our entire Saturday at the business, putting things back together and fixing the plumbing issue. Before we left that day, Mark had the idea to print out the Isaiah 43:2 verse and frame it, then we glued the piece of the hose that had burst to the front. It is now displayed outside of the room where the incident began as a daily reminder to ourselves and to our employees of God's promise to be with us.....even when we "go through the deep waters."

I know the grandparents love these...

Yes..the rest of the world..probably not so much. HAHA!

More Butte Photos

Spencer's Butte Hike..as seen through my sunglasses..really

So tonight was our hike. We headed out around 7 p.m. with our friends Dave & Kay Smith. We didn't do such a great job at gauging when the moon would appear. The sun set long before we ever caught a glimpse of the moon. The trek down the butte in the dark was adventurous to say the least! We may have made a few wrong turns and paved a new path, and even backtracked at least once but we were smiling and laughing all the way! What a great night with friends! We are blessed.

How does the cookie know???

So, let me start by saying I am not a follower of fortune cookies, but today's lunch out at a local Chinese restaurant left Mark and I both laughing. As some of you know I love to hike and I absolutely love when the moon is full, so when the two are presented as a pair my cup runneth over. Tomorrow night we have planned a hike up Spencer's Butte to watch the full moon rise. Today's fortune's in both my and Mark's cookies said, "Next full moon brings an enchanting evening." Ahhhhh.... how did the cookie know?

Really great picture of Katie that Daniel took.

God's Grace...as revealed to me by Yoshi

I love the nights where our family just hangs out together. Last night our entertainment of choice was in the form of a video game, Mario Kart Wii. Our son had rented the game for the week and had been looking forward all day to a match-up with his sister. My husband and I, wanting to embrace the moments of family time, joined in as well.
Video games can be quite entertaining, if you are of nimble fingers and quick reflexes. I possess neither. I play however, to see my son smile and because I know these opportunities will be gone before I know it. What I didn't expect, was to have God's Grace revealed to me in the form a little green...little green...what is a Yoshi anyway?
For those of you who are not quite literate in the world of video games and I fall into that camp. Mario Kart is a racing game. You choose your player and your vehicle and wait for signal to GO. I picked Yoshi (He has a friendly face), and a very cool looking motorcycle. The game is played with the four of us racing against each other on a track in some remote exotic location...or on some occasions..a mall. So there we were lined up side by side when the clock counted down to 1. "Press 'A' Mom, that's how you go." came the last minute instructions from my daughter. Off we went. Well, off they went, I apparently pressed A too soon and stalled my motorcycle. Yoshi was forgiving and soon we sped off. The track was a blur and I was all over the road. I saw up ahead road signs, big blaring arrows pointing to the right. Okay, I thought, I'm supposed to go right I get it. Thumb firmly holding down 'A' I used my left thumb to navigate the joystick to the right. I made it around the turn with precision only to find a sharp cliff off to my right. A cliff? Why are there cliffs? I didn't know there were going to be cliffs! My children whizzed by the cliffs without so much as a glance. My inexperience with the game led me promptly to the edge and then over. I felt my stomach come up in my throat just as anyone would when they are plunging to their evident demise. "That's it, I'm dead." I announced.
"No, you're not Mom, just wait." Sure enough there appeared a turtle with wings returning my dear Yoshi to the track. "Everyone gets to finish the race Mom." Cool. Yoshi experienced many plunges last night, but always was brought back to finish the course.
As I was falling asleep last night reliving some of the days events in my mind, I was suddenly struck with how my own life is very similar to the Mario Kart game. I have found myself on many occasions speeding through life watching for the turns and cliffs on the roads but not always navigating them correctly. When this happens I will usually run into a wall or veer off the course, or in some cases plunge off a cliff. It's in these moments that my Heavenly Father through His Grace, will pick me up and put me back on the track allowing me once again the opportunity to finish the race, this time learning from my mistakes and slowing down to allow time to safely complete the turns.

Who we are supposed to be..

I am a sucker for sappy movies. I love to curl up on the couch with a cup of tea and a box of Kleenex and let the waterworks flow. Without exception the movie that wins the award for most tissues consumed by me is "I am Sam", followed closely by, "Martian Child", vying for 3rd would have to be "The Champ" and " Monsters Inc." (Yes, you read that correctly Monster's Inc makes me cry)

As I scan over my list of favorites I realize that there is a common thread that weaves it's way through each; unconventional relationships that work really well. There's a line in Martian Child that goes like this: "Why can't you just be what we all want you to be?" I love that line because it makes me think outside of the context of the film to the real world. Why do we do this to people? Why should we want to change who God created them to be? I believe we all have a tendency at times to look with a quizzical eye at relationships that for some reason or another seem out of the range of normal to us. What we fail to do is look further beyond what on the surface perplexes us to the underlying reason of why the relationship works.  There are some film makers who are extremely adept at revealing the reason to their audience before the characters discover it themselves.   It's not that the characters have some big revelation or undergo a major personality change, it's that they are coupled with someone who allows them to be exactly who they are supposed to be without rejection or expectations. To watch it on the screen is a delight. To see it unfold in real life....a gift.