thomas washington

2011-04-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

2011-03-01T17:00:00.001-08:00

Breakfast

2011-02-26T12:05:00.001-08:00

Happy V-Day Comic

2011-02-14T16:25:00.000-08:00

2nd comic attempt...

2010-11-24T08:55:00.000-08:00

Here's my first attempt at a comic strip...

2010-11-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

I made it a couple of days before Halloween.

May, 2010

2010-05-17T15:52:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been 8 months of blogging silence... and I'm not making any promises, but...

I've started an art page since I've been spending a lot of time on visual art this past year. I hope to keep it up. Check it out! It's linked on the right side of this page)

www.tomadroit.blogspot.com

Two-Mountain-Drive (St Helens / Rainier)

2009-09-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

shoulder injury - acromioclavicular separatiom

2009-08-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

At Nick's bachelor party my shoulder got jacked playing ultimate frisbee. I had surgery last Tuesday and am recovering well. I looking at 3 months recovery : (

Youth Trip to Eastern, WA - last week of July

2009-08-24T13:45:00.000-07:00

Family Visit in July

2009-08-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

2009-06-23T12:37:00.001-07:00

My sister Andrea came to visit this past weekend from Maryland. We had a great time! We whale-watched, went to Hurricane Ridge, took a ferry to Whidbey Island, went through Deception Pass, walked around Seattle, and then chilled in Olympia for a few days. I'd never been whale watching, on a ferry around here, or at Deception Pass, so those were good times.

These are a couple of the orcas we saw. There were four or five swimming around - under the water for the most part. We didn't get any fancy breaching or swimming tricks. Bummer. After seeing about 4 orcas, we grabbed lunch in Friday Harbor:
Above the clouds on the way up to Hurricane Ridge:
No line on the horizon of the Puget Sound / Pacific Ocean:

At Hurricane Ridge: Deception Pass Bridge - Whidbey Island, WA Important Reminder:

Eagle Peak Trail

2009-06-08T17:32:00.000-07:00

On Friday Matt, his friend Mateo, and I tried to hike to Eagle Peak, which is on the edge of Mt. Rainier Nat'l Park. It was overcast and cold, and the snow kept us from getting very far... so that was a bit disappointing. But we still had a fun time away from town and wandering around the woods. This is another hike that I'll have to try again when it's actually hiking season.

Another go at Rainier...

2009-05-27T09:51:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to get in a couple trips to the snow before it's all gone. On Saturday Annemarie, Kristin, Richard, and I headed out with our snowshoes to the Paradise side of Mt. Rainier for some sun, some views, and a little bit of elevation gain. We stopped at Panorama Point for lunch, then Richard and I headed up a bit further. It was a sweeeet time.

back to the snow

2009-05-09T09:01:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, my buddy Scott and I spent the day snowshoeing at Mt. Rainier. I have not been out nearly as often as I should be. It was a beautiful day.

Scottie:

Me and the Mountain (above)

At Panorama Point (above)

This is the furthest up toward the mountain that I have been - probably a few hundred feet above Panorama Point:

Easter

2009-04-14T12:52:00.000-07:00

I got to design the stage decorations for our Easter services this year. I was really pleased with how it turned out! I cut three sheets of semi-stretch fabric into different sized trapezoids and pinned them to the back wall and floor. Each sheet was illuminated with a 50 watt halogen flood lamp. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out a way to hide the light source, but in the big picture the bulbs themselves weren't too noticeable. Shoot... I like that glow! The three pieces of material represent the Trinity.

From the front row:

The whole stage view from the back of the sanctuary:
Easter services went great! The worship team led very well, and it seemed like a great time of celebration.

Leavenworth, WA

2009-03-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

Rented a cabin in Leavenworth, WA (north central wa) with some friends last weekend. Leavenworth is this little Bavarian mountain-side town in the middle of nowhere. There're some little shops, restaurants, and wine-tasting. Very european feeling. We blazed up there Friday and had a sweet time. I drove the 3-hour ride back alone Saturday night since I had to be home for church in the morning. It was great to get out of town, even if only for a day and a half...

Happy U-Tuesday

2009-03-03T11:42:00.001-08:00

U2's NO LINE ON THE HORIZON is out today!

Go buy it! It is good.

Very good.

Mountain-Climb-Monday

2009-02-03T12:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, my friend Sam and I, and his brother Ted, snow-climbed Mt. Ellinor. I think this might have been my 6th time reaching the summit, but my first time with snow gear. Because snow blocked the roadway, we were not even able to get Ted's truck up to the lower trailhead, which made a 4-mile roundtrip hike into 9 miles. We climbed about 4,000 ft in elevation from the truck to the top.

In this picture you can see the 'chute' that we climbed to reach the summit - the steep path of snow in the center:

Our lunch break... and also the birds':
Sam and Ted ascending the chute:
Rainier, a couple hundred miles away:
This is a look down from the top of the chute. After reaching the summit, we slid down on our tails... since there was plenty of snow we slid down the entire chute. It had a bit of a rollercoaster feel to it - height, steepness, speed, trees and rocks that you definitely did not want to crash into...
The false-summit. We had to kick into some pretty slippery ice with each step. We didn't actually end up using snowshoes... and we didn't use crampons... just ice axes.
A clear view of Seattle. If you expand the picture you can probably see the Space Needle... it's the tiny little white tower on the left side that is much smaller than all the sky-scrapers.
South from the Summit:
North from the Summit:

Friday in Westport, WA

2009-01-20T17:01:00.000-08:00

Friday was cold and cloudy in Olympia and cold and sunny on the coast.

New Songs

2009-01-13T09:40:00.001-08:00

I posted two new songs on myspace (www.myspace.com/tomdykstra)

I'm fairly satisfied with how All Over the World turned out.

I rushed Because of the Cross a little bit, so I'll probably re-mix it and get a better version up there soon.

Both songs are revisited tracks that I'd recorded 7 or 8 months ago. Since I'm still not able to play guitar, I used all the original guitar tracks & some of the drum tracks, redid most of the vocals, and added a few other layers.

Home for Christmas...

2009-01-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

I caught a flight at midnight on Christmas Eve (after our service) to head home to Florida for Christmas and New Years. It was great to be back home and warm for a few days.

After spending three days in Lake Worth at home with the fam, we took off for the gulf-side of Florida to spend some time with our grandparents, uncle Jerry, and Aunt Marsha. We stayed a nice little 4th-floor condo on the beach with a nice beach/gulf view:

One of our afternoons there I went mopeding with my sister Andrea. Ann had to wear a ridiculously large helmet:But so did I... and mine was ridiculously larger:Gramps and Grandma:Beautiful sunsets every night:I didn't do any swimming, but we did rent a couple of wave-runners on New Years Eve... Perhaps I'll throw a few of those pics up here when I get them.

2008-12-15T09:49:00.000-08:00

I've been listening to Christmas radio for the last week or so. Mmm.

But what would this Christmas season be without a little U2 cheer? Check out U2's brand new Christmas song video: 'I Believe in Father Christmas' - (a Greg Lake cover). It's typical U2 song: ambiguously spiritual... but so are 1/2 of the Christmas songs out there.

See the video here: http://www.u2.com/highlights/?hid=507

Does this get anyone else excited about the new album?

2nd snowshoeing of the season

2008-12-15T09:24:00.000-08:00

There was a lot of hype about a snow storm hitting the area this past weekend - and we did get a little snow in Olympia yesterday and this morning... But Friday night's storm didn't keep me from hitting the trails. Saturday, my friend Beth and I packed up our snowshoeing gear and headed back to Mt Rainier. I had just been there five days earlier, and it was certainly a different place with the new snow. The last few miles of the road were closed, so we started hiking just a few miles into the park.

We chose the Eagle Peak trail - which the ranger said would be the hardest of the handful of options... so naturally we went for it. The summit was up 3,000 ft and 3.6 miles ahead. We hiked in for almost three hours before the cold started getting to my feet. We made it about 2 miles in and 2,000 feet up, one of the more aggressive altitude gains I've done in the snow.

My pictures aren't too diverse since we never made it above the tree line.

Here's a few shots from the trail...

We turned around because my feet were getting soaked and reeaally cold... maybe in the early stages of frostbite. Thankfully there were a couple other hikers who gifted me with an extra pair of warm wool socks for the trip down... my first x-mas gift of the year.

Lesson learned: don't go out there without all the right gear!

the 1st snowshoeing of the season...

2008-12-10T10:21:00.000-08:00

Monday I had the day off, so I headed to Mt. Rainier to have a go at the snow. This was my first time snowshoeing since April or early May, and I was jonesing to be outdoors...

Why do I enjoy snowshoeing so much?
It's quiet. It's peaceful. It's good exercise. It's beautiful. It's away. It's a different world.

There were 10 inches of fresh snow on the mountain when I arrived, but the roads were cleared pretty well all the way up to Paradise.
The sun wanted to shine,,,,The sky began to clear, and my hopes of a nice mountain view increased:These whisps of cloud were pretty neat when the fog finally lifted:It's christmas for like 6 months on this mountain...How cool is this? The clouds spreading off the southeast side of the mountain, covering the valley below: The mounatin and me:The clouds re-covered the mountain as I began my decent... The snow covering everything is incredibly beautiful, I think. The path down:
I listened to all-Christmas radio the whole way back to Olympia. It was a great day.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-29T12:01:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving was incredible. We went to Matt & Amanda's new house and made a day of it:

12:00 - made appetizers
1:00 - ate appetizers
1:30 - relaxed
2:00 - played a game
2:30 - the kitchen table caught on fire
3:00 - relaxed
3:30 - thanksgiving meal
4:30 - nap
5:00 - ate some food
5:30 - played some catch phrase
6:30 - relaxed
7:00 - played pictionary
8:00 - ate some more food
9:00 - ate some desert
10:00 - went home

The spread:Matt, Amanda's mom Janet, Amanda, Nicole, Nick, & me:

We tried to learn a game called Aquire, but failed. We mostly played catch phrase & pictionary guys vs girls. Guys rule!

2008-11-24T18:39:00.001-08:00

I'll blame my absence from the blogging world on having taken no pictures.... and I still haven't. Instead, I should blame it on not feeling like it.

I might be feeling like it more now.

I also joined facebook today.

Vacation

2008-10-16T12:28:00.000-07:00

I spent the first week of October in Florida - a few days with fam and friends in Lake Worth and a few days with brother Jeff in Orlando. It was a great time! I didn't take too many pictures, but I did do a couple 15 mile bike rides - one was to the Palm Beach beach before sunrise and I took a few pics:

Mt. St. Helens

2008-09-17T12:39:00.000-07:00

This is Mt. St. Helens: (picture taken last fall)

On Monday, Matt, Nick and I climbed it. Easily one of, if not the highlight of my summer. This was my third trip to a volcano's edge -- and I think my first summit of a "glacierous peak." The pics are below...

Most of the trail was climbing/scrambling on boulders. This is looking down where we came from:

A photo-op with these two boulders was just an excuse to rest up a bit. We gained almost 5,000 ft. elevation over something like 5 or 6 miles.
Mount Adams to the East:

The final ascent was trudging through ash. Here's the last piece before the summit:
Me and Mount Adams:
Success (me, Nick, Matt):Matt and Nick having lunch on the crater's edge:
Crater edge w/ the future summit, growing from the middle of the crater since the eruption: We hiked around the rim to the highest point, on the right side of photo:
This is my favorite picture from the day, Matt on the edge of the rim w/ a sizeable drop below:The growing dome:We spent about an hour-and-a-half at the top. It was pretty windy and we got a few face-fulls of sand/ash while we chilled.

Ellinor

2008-08-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

Friday was the yearly trip to Mt. Ellinor, this time with Matt, Matt, and Matt's brother Steven. It was a beautiful day, really warm with record-highs, and a great view. The Ellinor hike is short and quick, but it's extremely steep and my legs took a bit of a beating.

The hardest leg of the hike in my opinion is an open meadow full of wildflowers: The steep go of it is well worth it when you see the summit view:
We scrambled around at the summit for about an hour.
On the return trip we chose a harder way down than the trail:

2008-08-19T12:03:00.000-07:00

My sister Andrea was out to visit (from Maryland) a couple weeks ago. My friend gave me a couple great tickets to a Mariners game - 18 rows up, right behind home plate. Here was our view:
We kicked it around Olympia Friday, Saturday, and Sunday because the weather wasn't so great... but Monday we made a day trip to Oregon to Cannon Beach (which is an incredible place) and Portland in the evening. A long day, but lots of good times.
Low clouds rolling over the rocky coast:

The same day:

It was fun to take a slightly longer trip than usual. Cannon Beach is a little over 3 hours away. Thanks for coming Ann!

a few big weeks...

2008-08-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

Updates...

Monday through Thursday I took our Junior High Youth Group to the Mt. Hood area in Oregon for a week of ropes challenges, rock climbing, white water rafting, and camping.

The road to Mt. Hood:

Well, I didn't reach the summit of Mt. Hood or anything, but I did make it up this little rock face a couple of times...

I was glad when I reached the top: Wednesday, we rafted the Deschuttes River - basically in the deserts of Oregon. This is the river valley (the river is below the hill in the foreground).
Joe, Kristin, and I brought 11 students from our church. It was such a sweet week of hanging out with the kids, spending extra time with them, seeing their personalities come through, seeing them face some challenges, and seeing/hearing them think and talk about their faith. Good growth happened. I think I needed a bit of a boost of motivation for the week-to-week of youth ministry, and I got it. Here is us with the Youth Dynamics staff just before heading home on Thursday:
A few weeks ago (July 14 - 20) we did our 2nd Music and Drama Camp at Olympia CRC. It was another one of the big weeks on my calendar, with months of preparations... It went really great though. We had 50 kids in the church Monday - Friday and for our performance of a play on Sunday during the services. Basically we spend Monday - Friday playing games, doing skits, singing to high-energy worship songs, learning lines, learning blocking, practicing for the play... and then Sunday we perform it for the church, friends and family. It was a ton of work and pretty exhausting, but we had so many volunteers who made it a lot easier on me.

the ocean on Saturday:

2008-07-16T13:14:00.000-07:00

On Saturday Keith, Stan, Natessa, and I went to Ocean Shores - about an hour-15 from Olympia. The beach is pretty over-crowded with cars driving all over it... especially on a sunny saturday... so we drove south a bit to Damon Point State Park which was much less crowded. There's a sand/bar spit that's a mile or two long. We hiked it. In a few pictures you can see the Olympic Mtns in the background:

2008-07-02T11:00:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I spent the late afternoon/evening working at Nick's fireworks stand. Yesterday was opening day but not too busy. Apparently it's insanity on the 4th...

Nick beckons potential customers to the stand:
The selection...
Here's my personal favorite product - a innocent looking penguin with a defense mechanism that sprays sparks out of its face... I pointed it out to nearly every customer... and finally someone bought a pair.

I did a little better selling roman candles. Here you see me pointing out some precautionary measures to take while operating explosives:

We stayed open til 10:00 PM, which is about when the sun goes down in the summer here:

2008-06-30T12:23:00.000-07:00

It's been 90+ degrees since Friday around here... Saturday morning I woke up to a beautiful day and decided a hike was the only responsible way to spend it. With a bit of a late start, Matt Hessler and I hit the road around 10:30, heading north of Olympia, east of Seattle, and east of Snoqualmie pass to Rampart Ridge trail - about a 2-hour drive from Olympia. I haven't done any hiking past Snoqualmie pass, so it was cool to be in new territory.

There were two downers: 1) was that there was broken car window glass in every parking space at the trailhead, because someone had recently busted into everyone's cars while they were off enjoying a beautiful dayhike... and 2) because there was still a lot of snow and it was hard to find the trail at times. I was a bit nervous leaving the car there and also unsure of how far we'd make it through the snow. The trail was great - it followed a creek with waterfalls every few hundred yards. If we couldn't find the trail we just stayed near the creek.

Matt and I both made it across this shaky log... probably against better judgment.
With tons of snow this past winter and the hot days recently, there were quite a few waterfalls on the hillsides surrounding us.
Matt documented me doing a face-plant on this log... which transitioned into a nap... or a coma?Nice views from the valley we were following...

The height of wildflower season is still to come... but there were a few coming out...

We ended up only being able to go about 3 miles in since we lost the trail... Rachel Lake was our intended destination (about 4 miles in). It was a great time anyways...

Junior High Hike

2008-06-30T12:14:00.000-07:00

About a week ago we took 10 of our Junior Highers on a hike to Lower Lena Lake. It was a great time... all the students made it to the destination... and back - it was about 5 miles round trip.

Here's most of the group:

A huge tree tipped over and fell on a bunch of the girls. Thankfully these guys were able to lift it off and no one was hurt!

Also, it was my birthday a few weeks ago... you may have celebrated it without knowing it on Flag Day. I'm 24!

we're on TV...

2008-06-03T16:39:00.000-07:00

A Seattle TV news station (King5)made use of a video I put on YouTube last summer... Here is the original video.... Meet local celebrities Alan Kaiser, Brian Koning, and Matty (I'm holding the camera):

Al probably would have preferred that the squeals and screams that came out of his mouth while the snow went up his shorts would be kept off TV... Too bad, ma-man.

Check it out - It's worth seeing this video in the context of the story... The news report can be watched here:
http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_060108WAB_mt_ellinor_injured_SW.4eb939d0.html

Recording Experiment

2008-05-31T14:41:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I decided to experiment with recording drums. Usually when I record drum tracks for my songs I tap out a kick and snare beat on my keyboard... it's kinda lame, but often doesn't actually sound too bad because the drumkit voice is decent. I've been meaning to experiment with drums. With my interface I can record 8 separate tracks/channels at once. Unfortunately I need an education on drum microphones.

Reasons the experiment failed:

- crappy drums
- wrong microphones
- I am not much of a sound technician
- I forgot about an event happening at church @ 2:00... (so I had to quit early)

In my rush to wrap things up I only got beats laid down for two songs. I'll toy around with the eq and levels to see what I can do to salvage the sound.

I'll be back on Monday to try the whole thing again....

Tonight some guys are coming over to watch game 4 of the Stanley Cup... I've been able to watch games 1 and 2, but missed 3 Wednesday for worship rehearsal. We're gonna BBQ afterwards. Go WINGS!

Lower Lena Lake

2008-05-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

It was in the 80s and 90s this weekend... so on Friday, Kristin, Chase, and I headed up to the peninsula, not far from where I hiked a couple of weeks ago. We decided to do the easy hike up to Lower Lena Lake - just over 3 miles and and 3 miles out.

cinco de mayo

2008-05-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

I was feeling exhausted after Sunday, so I decided to take Monday off. I slept in, had breakfast, got a haircut... and around 11:00 AM realized how nice a day it was outside. 70 and sunny. So, I decided to do what every one in WA should do when it is a beautiful day, go to the mountains. I went to the Hamma Hamma recreation area in the Olympia peninsula (Lena Lakes, Putvin Trail, Mildred Lakes area), which was supposedly closed. I figured I could make my way in regardless... and I made it pretty far... but...

Here is the landslide over the road that kept me from getting to the trailhead:

Even the Mazda 3 couldn't make it over that mound:Even though the 2-wheel drive hatchback couldn't make it, my new hiking treads were able to get me past the road block. I decided that my new goal would be to at least reach the Putvin Trailhead, about 2.5 miles down the road. I followed the road for probably a mile-and-a-half before hitting lots of snow. I kept going for awhile and noticed that some of the tracks I was walking beside looked an awful lot like a bear's tracks. I trudged along anyway, but about the time that I got sick of the snow in my shoes I realized that I didn't REALLY want to interact with the bear that made these tracks, so I decided to turn around.
Unmistakably bear-tracks: there's the paw, the fingers, and the claws...I kicked it down by the river/creek for awhile... Eventually I climbed up the cliffs on the northside of the road and found a sweet spot with a great view to have a late lunch and to read for awhile. After an hour or so I noticed that there were a lot of spiders hanging out on my mossy overlook. I'm not a big fan of spiders. I enjoyed the view for a few more minutes before heading down... It was great to get out of town for the day. Good to be out in the mountains with no towns, cars, or people for miles...

Rainier - Week 2

2008-04-21T10:07:00.000-07:00

Two weeks in a row at Mt. Rainier… I’m putting my new snowshoes to good use. It was warm, sunny, and 55 degrees last week – today it was cold, windy, snowing and 30 degrees, maybe less.

Matt and I suited up in a building that was completely buried in snow except for a small tunnel dug to the door. Inside:

These pictures document the first hour of our hike up the mountain. We got one look at the mountain through the shifting clouds… they cleared just enough to give us a look at a bit of a blue sky.
Although he looks like a pro, this was Matt's first time snowshoeing:

After the first 60-minutes or so it clouded over, and it got too cold and too windy to take pictures. We went another 30-45 minutes, but eventually it was snowing so hard and the wind was burning our faces and blowing snow all over the place… we couldn’t see more than 10 yards ahead of us or behind. Since we were wandering up the slopes of a massive mountain, nowhere near a marked trail we had to turn back. We found some shelter in a grove of trees for lunch and hoped the snow and wind would let up a bit. It was a bummer that we didn’t make it further, but the intensity made it pretty fun anyhow…

And at the end of the hike, the icing on the cake was the ice on my face. As you can see, we were pretty frosted.

2008-04-16T13:34:00.000-07:00

two months ago I purchased 4 new tires
decided not to purchase a full warranty for $16 per tire
i got a flat tire last night driving over a pothole
i was pulling out of my culdesac on my way to the grocery store
where i was pretty much going just because I had nothing better to do
i probably should have just stayed home and watched more hockey playoffs
i went to discount tires this morning and shared that i regretted not purchasing the warranty
the guys said "you can purchase it now... then i'll go look at your car"
i told him perfect
for the purchase of a 4-tire warranty (about 69 bucks) i got a brand new ($150) tire
sweet deal

Pictures from Snowshoeing @ Mt. Rainier on Friday

2008-04-14T12:42:00.000-07:00

A beautiful day at Mt. Rainier:

Mount St. Helens in the distance:Mount St. Helens Close-up:

2008-04-07T13:50:00.001-07:00

I bought some snowshoes today that I'm pretty excited about. It was an impulse buy -- they were used rentals for a couple seasons, but still in great shape and well below half-the-price of brand-new-ness. It's doubtful that I'll be able to use 'em yet this season, but we'll see what happens...

Kennedy Creek

2008-03-31T09:56:00.001-07:00

On Saturday, I finally broke out of my no-hike streak with a whopping 14-miler. I think I would've been able to handle it fine, except that a) I hadn't hiked in a long time, b) I didn't expect to go so far... Anyhow, I came out feeling like a very old man, completely sore from feet to the knees - barely able to hobble from my couch to my kitchen. We went just a few miles west of town and trekked some old gravel logging roads through some rolling hills. There wasn't a peak or any especially spectacular views, but it did feel great to be out of civilization a bit again and getting some solid exercise. I was poking fun of Mike for his elaborate pre-hike stretch routine... but turns out I could've used one of my own.

The crew was Bruce (a friend of Brian and Meliss'), Mike Eekhoff, Kristin, Eric, and Brian. My body started to regenerate yesterday, but I think it'll still be a day or two before I'm back to normal - I feel like a wimp!

March Fourth

2008-03-04T09:16:00.001-08:00

Alrighty... I'm still around. I just haven't been doing anything that's picture-worthy. And picture-taking is what usually leads to any blog updates.

I recently discovered the simple pleasure of two consecutive days off. There's a big difference in two days off in a row and having a day off here, a half-day there, and maybe another half-day somewhere else. If I have just one day off I usually spend it trying to decide how to best spend it - cramming as much relaxation and enjoyment into my waking hours as I can. But with another day off "tomorrow" I find it much easier to take it easier. It's awesome.

It's March 4th, and Christmas/New Years seems like a very long time ago. I prefer the feeling that time is moving slowly, rather than the more frequent feeling that it is flying by and things are being under-valued or missed, glazed over, or forgotten. Lots has happened in the last two months. Work-wise, we started two worship services at our church (both on Sunday mornings), we're doing Wednesday PM worship rehearsals, I went to a vocal workship which has led to me taking a lot better care of my voice and exercising it regularly, I've scheduled a summer rock-climbing and rafting trip with my middle school group, pretty much decided that we're going to do another music and drama camp this summer - just a lot of stuff at work is going on... Also in 2008 I've seen U23D three times (and it's unbelievable by the way...) I went to it twice on the IMAX in Seattle and it came to town last weekend to the local "big" screen; I've been leading worship on Sunday nights at Reality-which has been really great, several of my friends started getting together for joint dinners on most Monday nights, I've gotten back into recording music at home, and.... I got new tires for my car... and a new roomate - and rearranged my apartment too. That's about it. Everything's been busy, but... I like that time is taking its good old self.

busy.

2008-02-18T13:30:00.000-08:00

The past couple weeks have been tiring. I had Friday off, and decided to get out of town and drive up into the Olympic Peninsula to Lake Cushman. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a lousy day. But at least the rain stopped when I arrived.

Occasionally the clouds thinned a bit, and I got a few glimpses of Mt. Washington:The clouds were interesting to watch as they poured over the hills and over the lake:

Reflection Lake

2008-02-04T12:10:00.000-08:00

My laptop's been out of commission for awhile. I had to send it in to HP for the 2nd time for some major repairs. But it's back... and I'm back in business.

So it turns out that I'm not that great a picture-taker... Usually I get a lucky good shot out of every 20 or so... but out of about 40 pictures of Mt. Rainier from a recent snowshoeing trip, I couldn't find a single one I was very proud of. But, here are some pics from the trip to Reflection Lake... a couple miles south of Mt Rainier:

Bird-watchers - any guess on this little guy? These guys were hungry and wanted in on our g-bars. They'd hover literally 3 feet above our heads... it was a bit startling how close they'd swoop in whenever we took a bite.

2008-01-21T11:30:00.000-08:00

I had a great weekend... It was busy!

Friday: Day Off - slept in a bit, went guitar "browsing" with my buddy Chris in Tacoma, played guitar, supper @ the fishtale brew pub w/ neighbor Jeremy, watched the movie "Rounders"

Saturday: Slept in a bunch, cleaned the apartment, talked with my mom and dad for awhile, worked in the afternoon, Middle School Gym Night @ night - very fun, 2 games of speed-Settlers at Matt and Matt's place. In bed by 11:00

Sunday: @ church @ 7:00, worship rehearsal @ 7:45, 1st Service @ 8:30, 2nd Service @ 11:00 -- both went quite well I thought, Youth Group @ 12:30 - lunch, taught a lesson (which I thought went fairly well), played ping pong... Home @ 3:00, watched the last quarter of the Patriots / Chargers game, Reality worship practice @ 4:00 (with a new band, but things came together pretty well), led worship @ 7:00 Service... went great!

2008-01-08T12:04:00.000-08:00

Last night we got a little bit of snow in Oly. It was a pleasant surprise to wake up to an inch or two of snow glazing the yard, the trees, and the roads. With even a hint of snow schools, businesses, and pretty much everything seems to shut down around here. But there was only a 2-hour delay today for the area schools. I think I posted about it awhile ago... but man, you have to TRY to get excited about the snow around here. When it comes so rarely with just an inch or so it's not very exciting. Last time we had snow I saw one of my pastor's sons sitting on a sled, on a hill partially dusted with snow, pushing himself down, inch by inch through the muddy grass. That's not my idea of fun sledding.

Anyhow, last night I hung out with Kyle De Graaf, one of my roomates from college, in Seattle. He just started a new job in Ontario, California but was in Seattle for three days of training. I took off a bit early from work and met him at his hotel. We went downtown and grabbed dinner at Zeek's pizza, then headed over to the Science Center to watch I Am Legend on the 6-story HUGE Imax screen. I was under the impression that it was also going to be 3-D, since the advertisment said: I Am Legend at the Imax 3-D theatre... But it wasn't 3D. Shucks. U23D comes out at the end of the month - and it's going to me a-maz-ing.

Anyhow, it was awesome to hang out with Kyle again... I hadn't seen him in over a year-and-a-half since his wedding... which is when we took this picture:
Things at church are quite busy. I'm back from vacation so there's lots of work to catch up on, our sound system "crashed" Sunday AM (for lack of a better, more detailed description of what happened), and we're beginning an extra AM service on Sunday morning... so we'll have services @ 8:30 AND 11:00. We are doing identical services instead of the different styles approach. I'm excited about it... but also a little bit nervous. It'll all go fine... it'll just take some getting used to.

Florida

2008-01-07T12:56:00.000-08:00

Florida was great. Had plenty of time with friends and family, who I likely won't see for a long time. Relaxed alot. Hammocked. Biked. Jogged. Road trip to Key West with Josh. A couple days in Bradenton, FL.

Map of Key West - It takes about 3 hours to drive from mainland FLA to the end of the islands:
A piece of the seven-mile bridge on the way to Key West:

Sunset from Key West:

There was an iguana on our roof the day before I left:

21st - 24th

2007-12-24T09:06:00.000-08:00

Inspired by the good Brian Koning's framed photography, I decided to make work of getting a some of my favorite photos enlarged and framed in my apartment. This has been on my to-do list for a few months now, but I finally ordered mats and backings from a website and they came last week. I had most of Friday off so was able to pick up some 8x12's of my pics, adhere the photos to the backings, and use two-sided tape to attach the framing mats to those. It's a nifty little process. I've done 5 so far, but I have ten more mats to use... Most of these photos have made a previous appearance on my blog:

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I'll eventually make a few more for the apartment and a couple for my office.

Saturday I spent the day recording some music. I usually lay down a vocal and guitar idea and then add bass, electric guitar, keyboard, maybe shaker; then I tap out a drum beat using the drum voice on my keyboard - just to get a general idea of how it would sound with a band. I've been recording on and off since April or so... and I only recently realized that I have quite a few song ideas coming together. Getting a really quality-sounding recording seems to be pretty complicated, but I'm gradually getting a little better/quicker at it. I was pleased with a song that I got down on Saturday.

Saturday night my church Bible study group did some Christmas caroling at a nursing home. I wasn't particularly looking forward to it... and maybe had a bad attitude about it, but it was actually really fun. I thought it'd be awkward. But I'd challenge anyone not to have a good time belting out familiar and less-than-familiar Christmas songs and verses... (there are a bunch of weird Christmas songs out there) with a group of friends. Musically, we had our strong and weak points, but that didn't seem to matter to all the folks at the nursing home. They thought we were a professional touring group.

...Had a x-mas party with some friends last night. It was a great time. It was an everybody-brings-something meal... and we followed it up with a game of spoons... of which I was the winner.

Tonight I had a Christmas Eve service at church and I'll fly out of Portland Christmas morning to head to Florida. It's been 8 months since I've been back. I'll arrive home @ 10:30 PM where there'll be a full house of family waiting to give and receive gifts. Then, vacation.

2007-12-16T08:28:00.000-08:00

Saturday was spent snowshoeing again... This time, Brandon, Matt, and I headed to the Alpental area at Snoqualmie Pass (about an hour-and-a-half to the NE from Olympia). I've been here for snowshoeing once before and it's the same trailhead area for Snow Lake (where I backpacked back in August). We picked up some tire-chains on the way because we heard a news report that traction tires were required through the pass, but it turns out that they're only officially required for trucks and over-sized vehicles. As always, I was a bit nervous that the conditions wouldn't be quite right, but as always I was pleasantly surprised. Three was over 3 feet of snow to walk on with a light snow falling.

About two weeks ago a couple people were killed in an avalanche on the trail to Snow Lake. We decided to steer a bit clear of that area and stayed mostly in the middle of the valley... but sometimes the vertical is just a bit too tempting so we did some climbing around on the opposite side from where the avalanches happened.

Brandon blazing our trail:
It's always extremely quiet when you're surrounded by snow-covered-trees.
At the far end of our trek we found a small waterfall:
Matt enjoing a satsuma:I thought these two little x-mas trees looked cool. I imagine either of these pictures could make a pretty nice winter/holiday computer wallpaper...
Again, I've never been disappointed with a snowshoeing experience.

rhythms

2007-12-05T09:56:00.000-08:00

Every morning I wake up at 6:30, shower, get ready, put coffee on, have a bowl-and-a-half of Frosted Mini Wheats, and read with a cup of coffee for about an hour. I'm a big fan of my morning routine. The coffee is a Batdorf/Bronson Dancing Goats Blend (named after the legend that coffee was discovered in Ethiopia by a farmer whose goats ate coffee beans and went nuts). Here is this morning's cup of coffee: (you can't tell by the picture, but today it was just a bit weak)... Here is a close-up of my Christmas Tree:
Here's a close-up of one of my drawings:
It's been raining a ton in the NW the last few days (check out the Konings' blog for a picture of some flooding in Olympia), but it was cool to see a rainbow at sunrise outside my apartment this morning.
I'm back in the habit of drumming pretty much everday again. We're trying to control the volume of the drums at church, so I recently ordered a "Acoustical Sound Trap" designed to eat up a lot of the volume and high end sounds that come from the kit. It seems pretty effective so far, but we'll see how it goes on Sunday with the full band. I was afraid it would be ugly, but I actually think it looks great! Here's what it looks like:

Snowshoeing Saturday

2007-12-03T10:36:00.000-08:00

Saturday was the first snowshoeing opportunity of the year. It was awesome to be back out there -- up to our knees in the fluffy white stuff. The crew: the 3 Konings, the dog, and Melissa's sister Michele. We headed south and east about two hours -- and set out directly across form the White Pass Ski area. There were some cross-country skiing trails we could use, but what's the point of snowshoeing if you're gonna stick to the trail?

The trouble with getting sweet pictures from snowshoeing is that whenver you see something you want to take a picture of, you have to decide whether you really want to: take your gloves off, open your back-pack, dig out the camera bag, unzip it in the frigid air, holding the camera still while shivering, feeling the trigger with your frozen pointer finger, and then replacing the camera, zipping the bag, packing the pack, and putting the gloves back on. I know I'm a big baby... but here's a few that I did find it worth shooting:

As always, it was a really great time. I've never not had a swell time on a snowshoe excursion. There's such an incredible peace about being in the middle of the woods, surrounded by nothing but snow, trees, and mountains... with complete silence except for the poof poof of your footsteps in fresh snow. The perfect ingredients: Snow, silence, solitude, retreat, friends, warm coat... and of course burgers and fries on the way home.

Cabo San Lucas:

2007-11-18T21:46:00.000-08:00

It's been such a busy week since I got back from vacation that it's taken me almost a week to get this post up... but the Mexico trip was incredible!

Two weeks ago I headed down with Shauna and her parents to Cabo San Lucas, to stay at their time share at an amazing resort on the beach. It was really, really nice. A typical day consisted of working our way from relaxing activity, to relaxing activity, to eating opportunity, to relaxing, to pool, to beach, to fun activitiy, to relaxing, to eating amazing mexican food, to relaxing again. It was so easy to transition into relax mode -- and I found it no problem to leave the stresses of work and normal life behind me.

We had such a good time... Here's the Top 10 list of our experiences: (in no particular order)
1. Being served poolside and beachside food and drinks
2. Watching the Mexican sunset
3. Jeep rental and drive to Todos Santos
4. 60-minute Swedish Massage at the "best rated spa in the Americas"
5. Renting a scooter and zooming around Cabo for an afternoon
6. Kayaking
7. Waverunning
8. An incredible meal at Lorenzillo's Seafood & Live Lobster House
9. Being completely, 100%, totally relaxed
10. ...everything else we did...

Sunrise at the Pueblo Bonito Rose':
The pool courtyard:We rented a kayak and paddled out from the beach, past these sail boats and followed the rocks that you can see below. There was a great beach called Lover's Beach near the end of the strip of rocks that had coast on both sides. It was awesome. We paddled out to on the Kayak one afternoon and caught a boat taxi out on the last day...

Harborside:Pacific-side:A Pacific Beach:Some rocks to climb on -- my one "summit experience" of the trip:
On one of the last days, Shauna's parents rented a Jeep and we headed about an hour up the Pacific coast to the small town of Todos Santos. It was nice to get out of the resort-ness of Cabo San Lucas and see a bit more of "real Mexico". It was pretty fun -- we poked into a catholic church service (complete with a Mexican worship team), checked out shops and art galleries, and had lunch at the Hotel California (from the Eagles song). We also got to swing on a rusty swingset.... Shauna and I, and the Jeep in Todos Santos:
After hanging out in town we headed back down the coast and checked out a couple of beaches:
At the first beach we went to we were able to see some whale water spouts in the distance. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the whales themselves, but you can see a couple water spouts in this picture: Before heading back to Cabo we stopped at another beach to watch the sunset. It was amazing...

Post-Halloween Costume Party and House Warming

2007-11-04T19:16:00.000-08:00

Some friends of mine had a great house-warming party last night.

Pictured here are Nick (ostrich rider), myself, Matt, Stan, and Brandon:
Nick's first Oreo?

I'm leaving for Mexico in 12 hours... and I haven't packed yet...

2007-10-31T15:40:00.000-07:00

Well, we've been dating a few months now, so I thought I'd introduce Shauna. On Sunday we went over to Tumwater Falls - which I've driven by nearly every day since living in Olympia, but never got around to checking them out. Sunday was a beautiful day -- the last of which, it seems, we'll see around here. The park closed at the early hour of 4:30, so we headed down to Capital Lake and caught the sunset:
A few week's ago Shauna invited me to go to Mexico with her family! So this Monday, I'm heading down to Cabo for a week of relaxing, swimming, most likely sun-burning, and hopefully a little hiking and exploring too! With the Bahamas trip last April and this week's trip, I will probably remember 2007 as the year of unexpected and undeserved tropical vacations. I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures...

Friday and Saturday

2007-10-28T13:56:00.000-07:00

What's the perfect way to spend a day off?
A hike with some good friends.

What's the perfect way to start that beautiful day off?
Hitting a deer on the interstate.

...maybe not. But that's what happened. Five minutes into our trip a deer went charging across the four lanes of north-bound traffic on I-5, gracefully jumped over the median, entered the left lane of the south-bound (which happened to be my lane) and locked onto the front of my car. It bounced off the mazda and was hit by a girl who was driving by to the right. She was going MUCH faster than I was.

We were blessed to come out of it in such great shape. No one was hurt, and the damage to my Mazda was just a cracked grill and a slightly dented hood. Thankfully I was able to slow down from 70 mph to about 30 mph before hitting it. I see the experience as a gracious reminder to stay focused while driving -- and definitely to make the resolution to no longer write text messages while I'm driving.

A collision with a deer wasn't enough to stop us from doing a sweet hike, and after an hour of straightening things out with the state patrol and the other girl, we were back on the road. We headed to Goat Mountain -- which is a great ridge-trail directly between the three big mountains: Rainier, Adams, and St. Helens. We had amazing views of all of them. We were out here with a crew last October and I wanted to get back here ever since. Here are the stats: Elevation gain: 2000 ft. / Distance: somewhere between 6 and 8 miles. Here's some of what we saw:

After the main elevation gain, Matt and Nick stopped for a conversation:
The trail followed this ridge... non-stop, 360 degree, great views!
This is me standing on the rocks that you can see right in the very middle of the previous picture:Peanut Butter and Jelly tastes so much better with a sweet view...
The gaping, snow-filled crater of St. Helens:
My favorite shot of the day: (Rainier)
On the way home we got a nice sunset look at Mt. Rainier:
We stopped at a little burger joint called Huff 'n Puff for some well-deserved burgers and shakes on the way home. It was a solid two hour drive back.

Saturday night was Nick's birthday party. We had a sweet time and also got to carve pumpkins... Here are some of the best:Mine was an angry deer. After hitting the deer Friday, I was able to use this pumpkin-carving as a "coping mechanism" for dealing with the emotional debris-field that remained after the accident.

2007-10-19T16:26:00.001-07:00

This past weekend was the Reality Retreat. We headed out to Millersylvania State Park for a sweet weekend of hanging out, teaching, worshiping, eating, games, sitting by the fire, staying up late, canoeing, row-boating, volleyball, reading, and relaxing. It was fun and I met lots of new people. I got to do a little bit of everything in the worship realm: I played bass for the worship team Friday night, I led Saturday morning, and when the drummer couldn't make it for the evening worship I filled in for him. I had such a sweet time playing the drums. I haven't been playing drums lately... so it was good to get warmed up again. I also hadn't really played with a good worship leader/guitar player before and it was fun!

Our youth group recently got a ping pong table donated to us... and we've been playing lots of round robin. It has significantly increased the fun-level at youth group.

2007-10-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

1) It was great at the end of the day yesterday when I took my wallet out of my back pocket, placed it on my desk, and realized that I hadn't reached for it all day. These days my wallet's open in my hand with the check or credit card sliding out of the slot almost constantly. The receipts are many at the conclusion of any given day. Such is life. But it felt good to realize that I'd not spent a dime all day.

2) Dental Hygiene. I value it. It wasn't always that way. When I was a kid I enjoyed the fact that even though my older sister Andrea brushed her teeth much more diligently and frequently than I did she was the one getting the cavities, while I had zero. After moving on in life, getting a couple cavities, getting wisdom teeth pulled, and realizing that dental work comes at an expense, I've decided that it matters to take care of your teeth. I've been flossing consistently for over a month now. I also brush.

3) Does anyone ever read song lyrics when people post them? I usually tune out when I see the title of a song followed by the neatly squared sections of text that go verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus, first-line-0f-the-verse. Anyhow, here's a song, and maybe it won't be that great a read-through, but the song is incredible and you should go out of your way to listen to it. It inspired my youth lesson for this week on Guilt and Grace.

Embracing Accusation
Shane & Shane

The father of lies coming to steal, kill, and destroy all my hopes of being good enough. I hear him saying, “cursed are the ones who can’t abide.” He’s right. Hallelujah, he’s right. The devil is preaching the song of the redeemed. That I am cursed and gone astray. I cannot gain salvation, embracing accusation.

Could the father of lies be telling the truth of God to me tonight? If the penalty of sin is death, then death is mine. I hear him saying, “cursed are the ones who can’t abide.” He’s right. Hallelujah, he’s right.The devil is preaching the song of the redeemed. That I am cursed and gone astray. I cannot gain salvation. Oh the devil is singing over me an age-old song… that I am cursed and gone astray. Singing the first verse so conveniently, over me, he’s forgotten the refrain.

Jesus Saves.

He’s redeemed us from the curse of the fall.

2007-10-04T10:54:00.000-07:00

I've neglected the life of a blogger for almost three weeks now... I haven't taken any pictures lately... and that's always the post-able material. Life is busy, but life is really good. However, the great disappointment these days is that Alan's moving back to Florida at the end of this week. He's assured me that he's not moving out because I complain about the unrinsed dishes in the sink, or because my alarms are intolerably loud, or because I only listen to U2, or because I'm too pleasant a roomate. His real reason is an internship opportunity in Bangledesh -- teaching Bible to middle school students. He's hoping to head out there in January. For now though, he's wrapping up his time in Olympia [which has been swell], and heading home. Josh Schans flew up from FL yesterday to make the cross-country drive with him.

Here's a Josh-man tribute picture from our Bahamas trip last April...

Putvin Trail / Lake of the Angels

2007-09-17T20:29:00.000-07:00

You may have seen "Putvin Trail" (without "Lake of the Angels") as a subject for a couple of other posts a few months back... That's because I've tried it two other times before because snow was both blocking and disguising the trail. But for this Friday my buddy Nick and I tackled it again -- and it was smooth going (as far as snow goes). It was a bit of a butt-kicker (7.2 miles and 3300 ft. elevation gain) and with a 30-minute break at a waterfall on the way up it took us almost four hours to reach Lake of the Angels. The day started out overcast, foggy, and misting... which was disappointing. But fog can make for some cool pictures.

The matching brown shirts was unplanned...
About half-way up we suddenly found ourselves above the cloud line and had a spectacular view to the south. I can't really describe how amazing it was... and how pleasant considering the lack of views to that point.

Above the clouds:

Lake of the Angels is perhaps a bit dramatically named... but it was a cool destination none-the-less. It's located in the "Valley of Heaven" -- certainly a pleasant place. We only got to spend about 45 minutes or so there before the 2.5 hour hike down.

Man, I've done some sweet hikes, but this was one of my favorites. There's a wide variety of terrain, phenomenal paneramic views, a great destination, waterfalls, and certainly a lot of exercise.

wisdom teeth

2007-09-12T11:16:00.001-07:00

2 down, 2 to go. I got my bottom two wisdom teeth pulled last week. After hearing a lot of horror stories I was surprised about how smoothly everything went. I'm glad I chose IV Sedation... I got completely knocked out - and it was all over in a flash. My recovery was quick, no swelling, little pain, and I had a ton of delicious smoothies.

Project Mural T. Moose

2007-09-04T17:24:00.000-07:00

Brian and Meliss had a beautiful baby girl a couple of Fridays ago (August 31). That's awesome... but the next step was to finally make good on my promise to paint them a moose and outdoors mural on the wall of the baby room. I've never done anything like it before... so I was pretty hesistant to attempt it. I finally came up with a good sketch though, and spent a lot of hours this weekend on the project. The whole deal took about 12 hours (Friday and Sunday), and I still need to get over there to touch it up a little. But I'm pretty happy with the final product... What do you think? It's a wall-sized moose!

Moose Day 1:
(the moose, with antlers and all, is a little taller than me...)

Moose Day 2:

Trees Day 2:

Moose Face Day 2:

Moose Mural Day 2:

After the touch-up stage I'll probably take and post one last picture.

In other news, I got my wisdom teeth pulled this morning. Everything went smoothly, I was in a good mood before and after the procedure, and I am drinking so many smoothies. They're AWESOME!

Here's a couple pictures I might as well put on here:

Labor Day Sunrise on the Capitol:

A peakcock outside my apartment:

Backpacking Snow Lake

2007-08-28T08:54:00.000-07:00

Snow Lake was amazing! Myself and 9 others hiked out Friday AM, only about 4 miles in starting at Snoqualmie/Alpental, weighed down by 40 - 50 lb. packs and set up camp on a secluded peninsula on the far end of the lake. The lake is surrounded by steep cliffs so it gives the feel that you're in the bottom of a massive bowl. Friday weather was perfect -- sunny and warm... we enjoyed an amazing sunset and a quick temperature drop. Snow Lake is fed by melting "glaciers" so it's pretty dang chilly - I'm sorry to say I didn't brave the frigid waters...

Friday evening, the second half of our group reached camp. The night was absolutely freezing. I had not mat -- just a thin sleeping bag. I slept for about two hours and then shivered until morning. The morning mist never really burned off, so it was much cooler on Saturday. However, the mist made for some cool photos.

On Saturday afternoon I rounded up a few people to hike a little further in and up to Gem Lake -- just about 2 miles in. We got even better views of Snow Lake from there, and Corbit and I went a bit further to bag Wright Mountain which provided a sweet view of both lakes. The view in the other direction was supposed to show us Mt. Baker and Glacier Peak, but unfortunately the mist/fog didn't want to reveal those two.

I took off alone on Saturday PM to head home since I had church to do in the morning. But apparently I made it out in the nick of time --- the rest of the group had a miserable, wet, cold, horribly night.

I don't have all the backpacking gear I'd like to have, but thankfully that roommate of mine, Alan, hooked me up with all his gear. Thanks dude!

2007-08-23T16:42:00.000-07:00

I went home for lunch today. On the way back to church I zooomed past three police officers and their motorcycles. I was doing 35 in a 25. I was pleased that they didn't follow... but as I past they all looked and the one guy aimed something that I could only guess was a radar gun/camera combination at the back of my car. No relief. I'm afraid that I'll receive a ticket in the mail one of these days. Blast! I don't want my insurance to go up!

I have a wisdom tooth extraction scheduled for a couple weeks from now. What kind of sedation do you recommend?

I'm backpacking Friday and Saturday to Snow Lake in the Snoqualmie area (where I've been snowshoeing before)... should be fun!

A week or so later...

2007-08-20T10:40:00.000-07:00

Music and Drama camp was a success! I had a lot of fun, and even though on Friday we were all exhausted and doubtful about how the kids would do on Sunday, the performance went awesome. Everyone seemed to enjoy the service, there were a lot of extra people in church... it was a great Sunday. It's been a week since camp was over, but I'm only now finally finding time to post about it.

Large group time worship songs:

Teaching songs for the musical:
My sister Andrea was out for a week on the tail end of camp. Even though it was one of my busiest weeks, we had an awesome time. I had a couple of days off afterwards though, so we made a trip out to the Pacific Ocean...
And the next day a trip over to Mt. Rainier:
Mt Adams on the horizon:
Mt. St. Helens in the distance:

Three days to go...

2007-08-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

Shucks.

Music and Drama Camp is going quite well. There been a real mix of anxiety, excitment, positive challenges, and physical/emotinoal drain for me in the last few days. We're finished with Day 2, which means there's 3 more to go. Sounds do-able, but when I think about all that has to happen between now and Sunday, I'm quickly overwhelmed. I'm sure thing will all come together... I just don't know how. I think it's been a real success so far. There's a lot of positive energy with having kids, families, volunteers in the doors. It's awesome that we almost exactly reached my goal of 50 kids.

Today was smoother, faster, higher quality, and more fun than yesterday. On Day 1 I felt that I still had to "sell" the whole idea/concept of Music and Drama Camp to all the volunteers, the kids, and the families... so it was particularly stressful to just make it happen for one day. However, now that everyone has done it I think there is a better vibe of "we know what's going on here"... So that's great. I lead the large group time -- which is singing songs, performing skits, doing wild motions, telling jokes, and entertaining the kids in any way possible for (3) half-hour segments each day. It's pretty hard to keep the energy level up for that long and at the end of the day I need to crash. Frrrrricken. I need to crash.

Alan and I went wakeboarding at Bill and Kelly's place on Long Lake last Thursday. Wakeboarding is awesome. I'm not much of a showman, but it's a really, really good time. We might go this afternoon, but I don't know if I'm up to it.

pictures-of-the-week:

2007-07-30T11:19:00.000-07:00

Next week: Music and Drama Camp and my sister Andrea is coming to town...

2007-07-24T08:55:00.000-07:00

I got to see Dordt people last weekend! On Friday I headed up to Lynden for Tara Warolin and Dave Kraayenbrink's wedding. It was cool to see Marcus Roskamp -- I had dinner with him and stayed at his host family's house... Also got to see Sarah, Adam and Kate, Becka, and Amy. It was really great to see some familiar faces and to catch up with college friends.

I hate traffic. It took me 4 and a half hours to get there on Friday -- only 2 and a half to get home Saturday.

I had a bummer of a start to the day this morning when I found the Music and Drama Camp banner outside of my church had been slashed from one side to the other. We're two weeks away from camp. The banner cost over $200... and we were hoping to use it next year. Schucks.

Our church website is pretty much finished. I had been working a ton on it over the past two months with Kim (our church's administrative assistant) and a couple other volunteers. I think it has come together really nicely! It's not quite exactly where we want it... but I'm pretty happy with the result of all the work. Check it out: www.olycrc.org

2007-07-18T08:17:00.000-07:00

I got a couple of pictures from Brian Koning that I thought I should add:

In the bag:

To see the video of the picture above, click here: http://www.youtube.com/v/cg3RzrP8xVw"

Watch the Video!

2007-07-17T09:13:00.000-07:00

On Friday, the youth group leaders, Alan, and I went camping at Lake Cushman -- on the south side of the Olympic Peninsula. Friday PM was a bummer because there was a burn ban [apparently with a $5000 fine attached to it]- so it was a challenge to eat hot dogs... but we figured out a way to eat and we got away without a fine.

Saturday we decided to bag a mountain. I'd hiked Mt. Ellinor twice before, but this time we wanted to first bag Ellinor... and then cruise over to Mt. Washington. On the picture below [taken from camp] Ellinor is the tallest peak on the left side, and I think Mt. Washington is the tallest to the right.
We got to hang out on Mt Ellinor for awhile to rest up and enjoy some really amazing 360 views. We could see Mt. Baker, Rainier, Adams, St. Helens, and Olympus. We also imagined that we could see the Pacific Ocean through the haze...

Well, we were pretty pooped at the top of Ellinor and the trail to Washington looked sketchy at best, so we settled for bagging a lot of the mini peaks that stretched between the two mountains. I certainly didn't bring enough bags for all the peaks were baggin'...
Alan with Mt. Ellinor in the background:
We saw dozens of mountian goats, and when we stopped to eat we were getting surrounded by them. These were take of goats that were just out of arms reach away - probably 6 - 8 feet.

Click here to watch a great video of Alan and Brian "glissading" down a huge snowfield on the way down Mt. Ellinor:

http://www.youtube.com/v/cg3RzrP8xVw"

- - I'd like to make a note that the high pitch noises were not made by the camera man...

Seven Eleven Two Thousand Seven

2007-07-11T12:35:00.000-07:00

The Fourth of July is not only our nation's birthday -- it is also my car's birthday... or is it anniversary? I like to think that it didn't have a life before I bought it last summer, but maybe birthday isn't the right term. Regardless, I decided that I'd do it a favor and wash it inside and out. It always feels good to give your car a good cleaning doesn't it? It makes me feel responsible. Anyhow, the clean car remained so only for a day and a half. On Monday morning my car got absolutely trashed by a seagal or some other massive bird -- most likely with a serious indegestion problem. I took a picture of the debris which covered my entire hood and windshield... but it was honestly a little bit too nauseating to put on here.

I had Monday off this week so Cody and I took a day trip to Mt. Rainier. It was a perfect day -- no clouds, about 75 degrees, and the snow was melted away enough to not pose a problem. We only did about a 6 mile loop, but we had time to relax, read, and enjoy the view. The loop basically encircled the snowy grey slopes that you see on the right and into the middle of this picture:

Cody made a friend with this ground squirrel-ish-looking-chipmunk:

And here's a little Mt. Adams in the distance [one day I would like to climb the summit]:It's 100 degrees in Olympia today. My church has no air-conditioning, but since my office is sort of in the basement it stays pretty cool.

2007-07-04T13:42:00.000-07:00

My family visitied Olympia for a week... and they left today. It was a sweet time and we did a lot of great stuff in the area. Unfortunately the weather was pretty ugly for the first few days, so for example, we couldn't really see Mt. St. Helens and we got a significant amount of rain....

Mt. St. Helens

Hurricane Ridge (north side of Olympia peninsula)

Courtney @ Hurricane Ridge

From the Hurricane Ridge parking lot we headed on a 5-mile roundtrip trail to Mt. Angeles. It was an awesome trail that ended at the peak area with a scramble up the rocks. I like to call these climbs "realistic challenges" because ropes would be nice but climbing without them is possible. Unfortunately the sun was going down when I was just a few minutes away from the peak so we had to turn around.

View from Mt. Angeles.

Mom and Dad on the Mt. Angeles trail.

We also drove around the entire Olympia Peninsula, stopping that the Hoh Rain Forest and Ruby Beach. It was Jeff and Courtney's first time at the Pacific Ocean.

Ore-gone first timer...

2007-06-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

Man, I am thankful for another sweet reason to endure a rainy winter in the NW. It is an incredible blessing to be in such close proximity with places like the Oregon coast.

On Friday Alan, Nick, Matt and I jumped in the car around 5:00PM to drive down to Cannon Beach -- famous for beautiful scenary including huge rocks towering out of the Pacific -- the most famous of which is "Haystack Rock" (seen below). We got there at about 8:00 and had time to enjoy the sunset for about an hour. The sunset was incredible, the view was entirely worth the drive, and it was just good.

It was awesome to be at the Pacific coast again. Cannon Beach, and maybe the Oregon coast in general, reminds me so much of the California coast south of San Fransisco. I thought some about the good old days of my internship in Redwood City, CA... I'd get out to the coast about once a week near Half Moon Bay and Montara. For the record, the west coast is absolutely better than the east coast as far as beaches and coast lines go. I wanted to chill out there much longer, but the sun went down and our hopes of staying their some on Saturday were shattered...The initial plan was to camp on a beach somewhere, but what with that being against-ordinance, every camp ground and site in the county being full, and no vacancies in any motel... things didn't quite work out as was planned. Here's what happened:

8:00 PM arrive in Cannon Beach

9:30 PM gather kindling and firewood

10:00 PM build fire on beach

12:00 PM decide to sleep on the beach despite posted signs

1:00 AM fall asleep in sleeping bag on the sand

2:00 AM woken up by police officer

3:00 AM fall asleep in sleeping bag on the sand on different beach

5:00 AM woken up by rain

5:30 AM drive to Portland

7:00 AM eat breakfast in Portland

9:30 AM downtown Portland visit biggest book store (in the world?)

We were walking zombies after no more than 3 hours of sleep... but it was still a great time!

Today (Sunday) it rained on and off, but this evening there was an amazing sunset while the rain clouds were wiped away with some blue sky poking through. There was one of the biggest rainbows I've ever seen, and I heard the Lord say... "Never again will I pour down such a lengthy and dreary season of rain on the state of Washington."

23

2007-06-18T17:11:00.000-07:00

Last week Thursday was my 23rd birthday. It was awesome. Alan and I BBQ'd with our brand new grill at midnight (wednesday) which we were very excited about, I got great gifts and cards from everyone, and some friends threw me a great birthday party Friday night.

I ended up painting my office on Friday. Colors: I chose Alexandria Beige for two walls and West Coast Blue for the other two. I was able to get it all done in a 7:00 AM - 4:00 PM project. There are a few little things I need to touch up, but otherwise it's all done. I worked today in the newly painted space and it was awesome... it feels like a different room.

Before: (before the paintjob, but after I moved things away from the walls)

After: (Not much up on the walls yet though...)

My office is 10 times nicer with the new look... it's pretty pleasant, mellow

2007-06-13T15:48:00.000-07:00

i'm either going to paint, or not paint, my office this weekend.

it's decision time.

2007-06-09T16:57:00.000-07:00

Custom Designed 3'X9' Banner from FastSigns: $202

28 feet of PVC Piping: $15.58

PVC Primer and Cement: $8.70

2 PVC Couplers: $1.58

Zip ties for securing the banner to the pipe: $6.59

Gas from two frustrating trips to the Hardware Store: $3

Two other people who know what they're doing to help me: zero dollars

Overtime hours worked in the rain: zero dollars

Guaranteeing that everyone who drives or runs or bikes down Log Cabin Road for the next two months knows about Music and Drama Camp at my church this summer: Priceless

2007-06-07T12:33:00.000-07:00

Here're a few pictures from Sunday AM worship:

Alan B. Kaiser:

Mark Rosales:

Andy "Crash" Doelman:

Me, Melissa, and Mark:My guitar has no name:

religiously

2007-06-06T10:29:00.000-07:00

I think I'm at walking a thin line between enjoyment of, and complete dependence on, my drug of choice.
On mornings that I have it I'm optimistic, energized, upbeat, and productive.
On mornings that I don't have it I'm bleary-eyed, unproductive, unfocused, and slow.
On mornings that I have it I'm intent on pursuing projects, making plans, looking ahead.
On mornings that I don't have it I'm discouraged and unmotivated.
On mornings that I have it I feel great.
On mornings that I don't have it I'm subsituting Ibuprofen to deal with headaches.
The days snowball - the good ones get better, the bad ones get worse.
High.
Low.

I can't say how much I enjoy sitting in the New Moon Cafe @ 7:00 AM reading my Bible, journaling, and sipping that sweet nectar before a day of work. The magic question as the waitress sets down the glass of ice water and silverware is, "Can I get you anything else to drink this morning?"

"Yes. Yes. As a matter of fact, you can. You can get me a cup of coffee. And it would be great if you didn't warm me up too often, but when my cup is empty, please, fill it up to the top again."

My wish is her command... it's on my table in a minute. Sip, swallow, read, repeat. An hour later, when I leave that diner I'm emotionally, physically, and even spirtually on the incline. Strength to face the day.

I go to New Moon on Tuesdays. Today is Wednesday and I have a headache.

OADD

2007-06-04T13:32:00.001-07:00

More often than not I find myself spread just a little too thinly to be able to focus fully on everything -- and to give youth ministry and worship ministry the attention that each deserves. I'm easily able to focus on the things that I am most passionate about. Sunday AM worship yesterday was really great. I think it replaces the evening service that I enjoyed so much a couple of weeks ago as my favorite worship session so far at Olympia CRC. I'd like to cut and paste a similar experience on every Sunday AM... but it will take a lot more work than that. It can be a rollercoaster week to week with ups and downs, but lately I've been really impressed with the musicians I'm leading... and it's good to see some significant progress under the right circumstances. It's my favorite thing to shape an atmosphere of worship, and yesterday the atmosphere seemed just awesome.

However, It's discouraging for me to do something half-way because I've done too much else and haven't given it enough time or focus... I'm thinking mainly of my youth lesson yesterday. It was rough, unorganized, and likely impossible to glean from, but at least it's over and we had a good time for the rest of the meeting with our students. If I'm going to be a part of something I want it to be done well. If I'm going to work on anything at all I want to go all the way. And if I can't fully dedicate enough time and energy to make that happen I'd rather not have a go at it at all.

Yesterday Alan, Matt, and I played a round of Frisbee Golf. It was pretty fun... but I'm sort of lousy at it. We also BBQ'd at the Matts' afterwards and hung out for awhile.

Today is another day of looking at a long list of projects and necessary work-related-diversions and wishing I could just pick something to focus on. But I have serious office ADD. Instead, I blog.

2007-05-29T16:23:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day:

- I worked for the morning... Is it legal to work on Mem. Day?

- Went to the Reality Mem. Day BBQ

- Drove around town trying to find a music store that was open (broken guitar string)

- Cleaned my office @ work

- Jogged for 2.2 miles

- Watched Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals

- Went to The Ram with Victor, Ethan, and KJ

Tonight I'm helping my friend Victor move out of his apartment. He's leaving town to work at a kids camp for the summer and to join the National Guard in the fall. He's staying a couple of nights at my place until he leaves Thursday AM. Victor's been a good friend and he'll definitely be missed in the Olympia area.

But as one friend leaves another arrives... I'm stoked that my friend Alan Kaiser is relocating from Florida to Olympia this summer. I've had an apartment with an extra bedroom for the past 8 months and that, in addition to the hiking/mountain opportunities around here, was enough to convince him to move up here for awhile. He's arriving tomorrow night.

2007-05-27T09:20:00.001-07:00

Friday - I went to Pirates of the Carribean III. That movie gets a C- and should consider me very generous.

Saturday - My friend Zach Wilson had a bachelor party. We played paintball from 11:00 AM until 5:00 PM. I have 10+ welts all over my back, arms, and legs. Zach and Randi are getting married next Friday and I've been asked to recreate the candle-setup that I've used for a couple evening worship services here at church with a couple hundred tea lights all over the place [© Sam Gutierrez].

Today - I'm at church:

under my skin

2007-05-24T14:14:00.000-07:00

It's cool that when you go the doctor and get x-rayed you can get a copy of the pictures if you want. I've had wrist issues for awhile and I've been trying to get them diagnosed. I've had a bunch of x-rays and two MRI's -- including one in which they pumped a bunch of 'dye" into my wrist. It didn't hurt but my wrist felt like it was an over-inflated balloon for a few hours. I had an old hockey fracture... but that seems to be gone now and they weren't able to find any cause of the pain. I just have take drugs and take it easy when my the pain's around.

If you were Superman, this is what my arms and hands would look like:

13 hours later

2007-05-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

Holy cow... I just got done with a 13 hour day. I woke up at 5:00 this morning. I was working by 6:00, but all the coffee in the world couldn't have quite got me going at the clip I wanted to be moving at. My youth group lesson had sort of fallen by the wayside this week... and I had only started some preliminary thoughts--picked a passage and a focus. I showered, had a bowl of LIFE, drank a few mugs of coffee, worked out a lesson, then went to church around 8:00. I'd been thinking about the material for awhile, but a tangible lesson for high schoolers was evading me. Our piano player was hospitalized last night, so the worship team that was leading rolled with the punches and pulled off a decent set. Things were pretty flimsy musically, but you could feel the congregation wanting to support the singers... and as much as the team would have liked to lead, it ended up being a bit of a combined effort. It was kind of cool that people clapped their way through the last song...

Youth Group went well today I thought. I felt good about the lesson despite the fact that I formulated it before I was fully awake. We followed it up with some songs and prayer... and I think it was one of the sweeter worship sessions we've had with that group. Days like today I'm stoked that I get to pour into these kids and really encourage their growth as followers of Christ. I had some pretty cool conversations with a couple of them today too.

I had an hour off, but then I was back at church for our congregational meeting. There's a lot of important and sometimes mundane business stuff that has to happen at our yearly meeting, but we did a bit of a worship and celebration vamp on it--starting with a few songs and ending with a few to thank God for his faithfulness in the last year and to look ahead to this one. I had a great time with the music. Occasionally the music is a bit of a teeth-gritter, but I thought tonight felt great. The band connected on a level that I hadn't had here previously. It had a bit of reminiscence to GIFT. I was reminded again that I really want to lead a regular evening worship service. I think it suits me a bit better than AM services.

Anyhow, it's a great feeling to have worked so many hours and feel tired, but more energized than drained.

Baseball

2007-05-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to a Seattle Mariners game.
It was a last minute decision -- my friend Matt invited myself and my other friend Matt to go @ about 5:30 (game @ 7:05)... so we were about a half-hour late. The Mariners got toasted by the Angels (7-3) but it was a beautiful night to be sitting outside with some friends and some new friends. Afterwards we hung out in Ballard (W-ish Seattle as far as I can tell)... and stayed out quite late. Unfortunately I wasn't in bed until about 2:00 AM. I'm tired.

I was trying to think last night about all the MLBA Ball Parks I've been to:
Pittsburg Pirates
New York Mets
Chicago Cubs
Florida Marlins
Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Houston Astros
Kansas City Royals
St. Louis Cardinals
Atlanta Braves
Seattle Mariners

I'm probably forgetting a couple...

the foo

2007-05-17T00:24:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I had a foo manchu.

It's gone now.

Putvin Trail: Attempt # 2 -- For some reason I can't enter text in the body... These are pictures from Friday's hike with Matt and Zach.

2007-05-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

Dependence on Technology

2007-05-08T17:50:00.000-07:00

Forgive if this is one long whine... It's been a frustrating week and a half.

A week and a half ago my wireless connection on my laptop stopped working. I thought it was tough not dealing with an internet connection... but things got just a little bit worse when my computer died on Sunday. It worked in the morning... and didn't work in the afternoon.

I'm finding that I'm extremely dependent on my computer--especially at work. I hardly use the phone for things because email is far more convenient. Every task I do seems to have to do with working on a file, referencing a file--whatever. Plus, I just bought some recording gear for my computer too... and now I can't play with it.

Do the math:
2.5 weeks with no internet connection
4 hours on the phone with HP tech assistance
2 hours when I thought my harddrive had been completely lost
4 hours running back and forth between computer stores
2 weeks of no music recording
2 weeks of no access to my files
= me being lost, confused, disappointed, and helpless...

I'll recover one day... maybe when my computer comes back from HP. But for now I will try to optimistically start a week and a half of fasting from technology.

My 200th post!!!

2007-04-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

What an incredible trip! I’m so thankful for the gift of vacation – for an escape from the cloudy Northwest, a chance to see family, a sweet time with friends, an amazing time on a sailboat, and a chance to explore the underwater and island worlds of the Bahamas.

It took a little while to get used to the pace of life aboard Twichell II, but here’s a sample of a day well spent:

8:30 AM – wake up, read – mostly “The Life of Pi” and the Bible
9:30 AM – continue reading, first application of sunscreen
11:00 AM – make breakfast – cinnamon rolls or biscuits in the cabin oven
12:00 PM – second application of sunscreen, snorkeling and diving around nearby reefs, spear-fishing
3:30 PM – third application of sunscreen, take the dingy to the island, explore island, set up and lay in hammock
5:30 PM – back to boat, begin thinking about and preparing dinner, resting and reading
7:00 PM – dinner in the cabin, fresh snapper or grouper beer-battered fillets
8:00 PM – dishes, sit around talking and listening to music
9:00 PM – on an especially good day—desert, more conversation, sipping drinks in the stern
10:30 PM – bedtime
2:00 AM – finally fall asleep

Pictures below…

2007-04-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

The Bahamas:

Taxiing out of Nassau Harbor at Paradise Island
the mast from the headstaythe helm, GPS, compass, and depth

shifting into sailing mode...it was at about this point that I transitioned into Pirate mode...the open Bahemian seasflying the Bahemian flaganchored at Rose Island

this was the perfect beach reflective pirate modethere's no possible way I could have been exposed to as much sun as I was without getting burned... apparently I didn't apply evenly

plenty of time to read

Twichell II at sunsetthe evening sunset happened each night - we swam from this beach out almost a mile to reach some reefs -
- I've never swum so far in my life and I thought I'd die of exhuastion -
hammock time

fresh fish doesn't get any fresher

The Cabin: the bedroom, the dining room, the kitchen, the living room

The answer is...

2007-04-20T20:13:00.000-07:00

I never went Deer Hunting. -- Good guessing by some of you guys!

Florida has been great -- the weather is amazing.

I leave for the Bahamas tomorrow afternoon.

I got a camera today so there should be plenty of pictures when I return...

Man Retreat

2007-04-16T14:39:00.000-07:00

This weekend I went on the "Man Retreat" with my friends from Reality. It was a sweet time out at Millersylvania State Park -- [about 20 minutes away from Olympia]. We played ultimate frisbee, settlers of catan, a very messy game of dodgeball, frisbee gold, round robin, spent lots of time learning and worshipping, eating steaks, lifting weights, grunting, roughing each other up, fixing cars, talking about motorcycles, arm-wrestling, and growing facial hair.

On Friday night we all had to write some of the manliest things we had ever done... except one of them had to be a lie. Here are 3 statements about my past:

I got in a bloody hockey fight.
I went deer hunting.
I sported a foo-man-chu for two weeks.

Can you guess which one isn't true?

Two days until FL...
Five days until Bahamas...

don't forget to bring your towel

2007-04-07T10:40:00.000-07:00

This past week I was given a vacation opportunity that I am so thankful for and one that I don't feel I deserve. It's a combination of an amazing invitation, a very generous gift of a free plane ticket, and circumstances here at church that will allow me to take off at a late notice. On April 18 I'm flying to Fort Lauderdale... hanging out with my family for two days and then flying to Nassau in the Bahamas with my friend Josh to join Alan and his friend Dave who are sailing there for a month. I'll be with them on the boat -- sailing, diving, and getting scorched by the sun for four days, then back home, then back to Olympia.

Things fell into place this week and I was able to book all the travel plans and work everything out... I'll be gone for a week. Perfect timing. I could use a break.

Mildred Lakes: 1st Attempt

2007-04-03T16:28:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was great! Unfortunately my sister had to postpone her trip out here because she had a lot going on back in Maryland [she'll be back in June]... but fortunately, Alan made it out here safe and sound. Alan wrapped up a season working in Aspen, CO on the ski slopes, and is moving to Olympia in June -- finally putting my extra bedroom to use. He drove up from Colorado for the weekend to drop off his car and most of his things... but is now heading back to FL for two months.

On Saturday, Alan, Brian Koning, Mike Eekhoff, Matty (the Koning dog) and I [all Dordt grads except for Al... and Matty], headed to the Olympics (very near to the putvin trail I did a couple of weeks ago) to try to get to Mildred Lakes. Unfortunately, Mildred Lakes became my second uncompleted destination in two weeks! The Mildred Lakes trail is another un-maintained trail, but was marked in a number of places with little pink ribbons. The deep snow made it pretty difficult to follow in some places, but somehow we managed to stay on course for most of the time. Most of us got soaked from falling through the snow every few steps -- again, should have brought snow-shoes.

Finally we reached a point (probably a mile or so short of the lakes) that we couldn't go any further, so we found a dry spot and, with the help of Matty, we built a fire.

Aside from not reaching the destination, it was also disappointing to be robbed of a sweet view. The fog made it about 100 ft. visibility. Here's the view we got to enjoy:

We chilled up there for about two hours -- warming ourselves and our feet by the fire, sipping hot chocolate, taking pictures...

and then started the trip back. It was a bit tough to find the trail on the way out, and for a couple of minutes I wondered if we'd make it back to the car before dark. But we made it, no problem. We ended up taking it slow on the way down to enjoy some more scenary and the extremely tall trees.
Look how short Mike is:

All-in-all it was a great hike... no views, no destination, but the process was an adventure and and the bits of doubt about finding our way home the fire in the middle of nowhere was neato.

Photo credits go to Brian Koning... [who was unable to appear in any of the pictures from this hike].
a Tribute to Brian:

Listen to more U2!

2007-03-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

Last week I bought three U2 CD's on Amazon.com for under 10 bucks! I've had copies of these CD's for awhile, but it's nice to thave the real deal -- the cd, the inserts, etc. Now I have all of U2's studio albums!

Our youth group went bowling on Saturday. It was a good time... Here you'll see me coming off of my 4-step approach with a textbook release. Credit needs to be given to the Dordt College bowling class...

putvin trail on Saturday

2007-03-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

Friday's beautiful spring weather (65 degrees, sunny, and breezy) had Mike and I anxious to hike on Saturday -- but unfortunately the weather didn't hold out for Saturday. We decided brave the elements anyway, and we headed up into the Olympia Peninsula for a hike on the Putvin Trail (about an hour and half from Olympia). This was one of my favorite hikes yet. It was on an unmaintained trail--about 8 miles in and out--and it took us around the edge of Mt. Skokomish, across some small waterfalls/streams, very steeply up into the woods, and past a huge waterfall (pictured below -- it's probably not quite this big year-round... but with all the snow melting and lots of rain this was a big, big waterfall). The final destination is 4 miles in and is called Lake of Angels. We made it about 90% of the way there, but we hit the snow-line--where the snow is waist deep unless you have snow-shoes. Unfortunately we didn't have any along, so there was no way we could reach the lake. We were pretty disappointed for a while... but regardless, it was an amazing hike. Plus, now I have an excuse to go and do it again when the snow is a bit more melted. Instead of reaching the lake, we decided to get closer to the big falls and hang out there for lunch.

This was a pretty steep and strenuous hike, and both Mike and I were pretty pooped!

When we stopped for lunch, the sun came out for just a couple of minutes (the rain didn't stop)... but it burned away a bit of the mist and we had a sweet view of the surrounding mountains.
After lunch I decided that I had to get to this tiny little rock at the half-way point in the falls. I'm not sure if these pictures capture the size of the falls, but it was a bit of a scary endeavor. I didn't think I'd find a way to climb down to the spot, but I ended up finding enough footholds to get there. In the picture below I'm standing on an extremely slippery rock and some tree limbs, the freezing water is splashing up onto my back, and I was not feeling too safe at that moment. I spent about 30 seconds there, just long enough for Mike to get a few pictures... it was incredible!

I can't wait to do this hike again...

2007-03-15T15:08:00.000-07:00

I just finished giving Mike Elders, alumni of Dordt College, a tour of the ole church. I've got him connected to our wireless -- surfing the web to his heart's content while I finish the afternoon of work. Mike got to Olympia last night from Tacoma. We ate some great teriyaki, played a dozen games of connect four.... which I won the entire first half of... and he won the second half of them. This afternoon we went to Thurston County Youth Workers lunch and now we're at church. He's staying through the weekend.

2007-03-13T12:32:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of bookmarks I designed for my church for Bible memory. The first is Isaiah 53:4-5 that we're working on during lent and the second is Jeremiah 17:7-8 that we used last fall. I work with images and graphics regularly for projection during worship services, but sometimes I get to do special projects like these...