Scenes From The Columbia River Coast

I sit here 'freezing,' in the dark gloomy evening, as the reality that summer really is over soaks painfully to my bones. I decided to look at some of the beach pictures we've taken over the years...there is some association of beach to summer and summer to warmth and light that is very inviting now that the hot chocolate I just drank has lost its warming effect.

Ironically most of our good beach pictures weren't taken during the summer. I think the beach is like coast residents...just kind of hangs low until the vacation rush ends, then comes out to play. (Click on the picture to see more detail.)

Cape Disappointment Lighthouse @ the Mouth of the Columbia River (Ilwaco, WA)

North Head Light House (Ilwaco, WA) and a sample of the Coast's great avian populations.

Peaceful Light clouds and pure blue sky backdrop a boldly colorful Kite.

Indian Head Beach, Ecola State Park, where the water dances majestically over giant, beautifully scatter rocks.(Cannon Beach, OR)

Blue Sky; White-tipped,Blue Ocean; Scattered Clouds; add Sunset = Unmatched beauty.

The sun goes to bed behind the endless Pacific Ocean under a warm blanket of clouds!

Going to bed under a pile of warm blankets sound really good about now. Maybe I'll dream of walking barefoot on a warm, soft, sandy beach with the calming hush of the waves in the background and the cool water lapping at my feet...hand in hand with my wife as a light, warm breeze blows from the yellow, orange, red sunset shimmering across the eternal sea.

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[Technical note: If you hover over a picture in the blog, you will see a web link address show up on the bottom of your browser, depending on which browser you use. Towards the end of the address you will see text between a set of slashes that reads: "s1600-h"--or a variation.

If your picture doesn't link to a bigger-sized picture when you click on it, you can add it by copying the picture address as shown in the Edit Html tab (starts with 'http://..." and ends with ".jpg"--or some other picture format extension following the name of the picture you uploaded.) Now, switch to the Compose tab, click on the appropriate picture, click the 'Link' icon (the green circle with a chain link overlapping the top in the tool bar), and paste the web address in the field provided. From there you can change the 's400' to 's1600-h' (or your desired resolution) resulting in a bigger picture when you click on the blog picture.]

Special Effects Photography

These photography special effects actually have very little to do with photography other than maybe posing the subjects. They were done with the free Gimp program. Note: I can only take credit for a small part of these special effects, my wife did most of it.


For a while there our family was really into Star Wars (about the time we got the Lego Star Wars video game.)

If this were real, no one would be smiling. Rest assured no one got hurt in the creation of these light sabres. Please create your own sound effects.

Two against one...not fair.

No we don't have twins...or super powers.

The Weekly Sabbath Day War

Sunday is our sabbath-day. The sabbath day is supposed to be a Holy, spiritual day of rest...and for the most part it is except for the weekly four-hour-war: Church and getting ready for church.

I imagine everyone understands the challenge of getting young balls of kinetic energy motivated enough to get dressed in uncomfortable clothes in anticipation of sitting through long meetings of people talking about abstract things that are hard to understand. For that matter, maybe that's exactly how you feel getting up every morning to go to work or school. Unfortunately my wife has to fight that battle alone because I'm at church early preparing for the next battle.

The next battle, for me, starts out calm and sweet and peaceful as I see five bright, shiny boys in white shirts, smiling wide as they open the glass doors of the Church to greet me. This is part of their strategy...start off disguised as sweet and reverent so the gullible parents will be thrown off guard later. (As a parent, I sadly confess, it works every time--'surely they will behave this time.')

As a precaution, we usually start out in one of the sound-wired side rooms apart from the main chapel to minimize disruption. With difficulty, they maintain their reverent disguise through the sacrament ordinance/ceremony, but once the talks start, they unleash their attack.

Its not so much an attack against us as parents, but against each other and the social laws of public places. My two oldest usually start touching each other for no apparent reason and start giggling louder and louder until one of us parents fires a counter attack, "Shhhhh!," to quiet them down. Meanwhile, another trooper quietly starts doing loops around the rows of chairs until another one starts pressing keys on the piano. This technique successfully lures at least one of us parents away from the front lines so two more kids can fight over which crayons or books to use. The kids are brilliant, there's a new battle strategy, planned or unplanned, each week.

The well-trained sniper among them is my seven year-old, middle son. Today, my wife ran into one of our friends coming out of the men's bathroom with a mop. He explained there was a river of hand soap streaming across the floor of the bathroom. My wife wondered to herself who would do such a thing, only to realize the answer before she finished the question: #3! Fortunately, our boys are generally very honest. When ask about it, #3 was stunned and speechless that such detailed knowledge came from one who wasn't there and wasn't told. The wide eyes of shock and the guilty complexion revealed the truth and #3 succumbed to the only logical response--he confessed to the crime. So we engaged in a unique father-son activity of cleaning the bathroom during the chapel meeting...or was it playing in the water, I'm confused about which event it was.

After the main chapel meeting, the boys have the opportunity to go to a class designed for their age level. Most of the troopers behave relatively well during this part of church...I'm not sure if they tired themselves out from the first hour's battle or if they have adapted to the culture of sitting through their classes and trying to follow along. In any case, I'm hopeful that they get something out of their classes and, on a more serious note, their teachers do a great job working with them.

However, our little church sniper stays active during this time. Usually, he just does his covert wiggly nervous body technique sliding back and forth across empty chairs in his row, or crawling on the floor underneath the chairs. Today, after a 15 minute attempt to get him to go to class, I saw him scoot backwards on his bum across the bench until he bumped into his class mate, then playfully pretended to bop him on the head repeatedly. This action triggered a teacher to come sit by him to minimize the damage.

He remained calm for the next half-hour or so, until the last ten minutes of church when he executed his last strategy for the Sabbath Day War. He got impatient and fled the building. You always know there is something up when a teacher from the children's classes pulls you out of your class. I've learned to expect it--I even know who its about most of the time. As I quietly walked out of my class, the teacher explained to me that #3 ran outside. I walked down the hall to see another adult staring out the glass doors, quickly glancing my direction and said somewhat passively, 'He's long gone.'

Unsurprised, I walked outside watching and listening for any signs of him. I've learned that chasing him, makes him run away faster, so my strategy is to take advantage of his tendency not wander too far from places he knows are safe. Knowing he likes to check back to verify someone is watching out for him, I applied some stealth of my own minimizing his vision of my location.

In the end we walked back to the church together and he sat the last few minutes with me in my class.

"How long 'till it's over?" he asked.

"About thirty seconds." I responded.

A few seconds later, and frustrated that the instructor was still talking, "I counted to thirty!"

"Keep counting," I said.

"Its been a minute!..."

The instructor ended, and in the middle of the closing prayer: "It's been two and a half minutes!"

"Amen." And the war was over...

7-yr-old Guest Blogger: :-)

shadens Birthday was a few days a go:-)

A Child's Understanding

I asked my second oldest (9), who is also the most helpful of all my children, "Will you please get me a phillips screwdriver?"

He willingly said, "Sure!" He ran off and quickly came back sincere and apologetic, "Sorry, dad, I couldn't find a Phillips, all I could find was a Stanley screwdriver."

I just thought this picture turned out pretty cool.

This could be Seaman's view of Lewis and Clark as they looked over the ocean...

Family: To Be Or Not To Be

Is family the most important thing in your life? Does your behavior reflect the answer to the first question?

I've been thinking about my personal answers to those questions lately.

I think about my experience growing up...how important my family was to me: the support and grounding they provided, the safe-haven to learn in, the only sure place of security (even with the challenges we faces together as a family.) Even in my teenage/college years, when I was much more independent and had "freedom" to do what I wanted, my family was still there to back me up.

Now I'm married, have five young boys and all that 'freedom' I had as a young man came to a screeching halt. Its one thing to be dependent on a family and another for the family to be dependent on you. Suddenly, I have to make many more sacrifices of my personal 'freedoms.' There are luxuries or hobbies or activities I've had to give up or wait on because my time, money, and sanity is reallocated to other places.

Young boys have an intense physical and mental demand. There's a reason, we only use Tupperware dishes, and only have a few pictures on the walls. There's a reason almost everything we own is half destroyed (or in the garage grave-yard.) Money aside, there's a reason we don't have nice furniture, beautifully decorated wall coverings/curtains, or nick-knacks adorning our home.

Then throw-in the financial limitations. Our idea of eating out is the McDonald's dollar menu with water and, occasionally, we'll really splurge and split some fries. Almost all of our furniture was given to us by family or others. We sport around with a ride to make anyone jealous: a used 2002 maroon Chevy Astro Van w/ four car seats, crumbs on the seat, crayons lost in the abyss of the seat cracks, smudges all over the inside of the tinted side windows, and a few scratches in the paint.

You won't find me at very many social events...except maybe Cub Scouts. We barely have the guts to take our kids to a family church potluck. I even have to battle to socialize with my wife. Just to mix much needed personal and together time, we end up doing a lot of 'parallel play': watch a DVD together on the couch, or blog side by side on two different computers, or I sleep while she reads a book in bed. Sometimes we just talk...its refreshing to not have to repeat everything at least three times and still be ignored (although, I'm not sure my wife could say that.)

So is a family worth sacrificing all of those 'freedoms' and 'luxuries'? Well, actually, most of my sacrifices are self-inflicted: I could demand my wife work, take my kids to day care, and leave my wife with the kids in the evenings while I go to play. I could even do a lot of good things like volunteer for a service organization or join a lot of service clubs.

However, why would I take all of that stuff, when I could be at home with my family to watch my family progress together through life. I only have my kids this close for about 18 years--that's not a lot of time to share with them. There is no greater education than having a family. There is no greater service than raising your own kids, in a safe haven, where they can learn and grow and feel secure. There is nothing better you can do for your community than to be a good family unit. Can there be any greater joy than helping your own children get as much out of life as you did and have a family experience of their own so they can continue to progress? There is a reason Heavenly Father organized His children's experience through life in families.

After working a job that took a lot of evenings and weekends and time away from my family, my time with family is precious to me. I've been trying to cut back on my extracurricular activities so I can be a part of my kid's life. To watch them do and say those funny things...or those amazingly intuitive things. Raising your kids is like giving you an opportunity to raise yourself again because you come face to face with your own demons. The great news is you can do it together with your spouse so no matter what life with kids throws at you, you have each other lean on. All of life's storms, fun times, great times, happy times, sad times, scary times, hopeful times, etc. are experienced in an environment of caring and security--where you can be yourself without feeling threatened. There is nothing you can't face together as a family.

What are you willing to personally sacrifice for the joy of your family?

Incredible Sacrifice: Civil War

Some good friends invited our family to a Civil War battle reenactment at Ft. Stevens State Park (Oregon) on Saturday. Its a great hobby for a lot of people. You get to relive history, meet a lot of friends, enjoy the camaraderie of fellow members, and wear era clothing. It's a lot of fun.


For me, though, it hit a sensitive spot. As I was looking over the reenactment; feeling the gigantic boom from the cannons; hearing the spattering of black powder rifles; watching the clouds of smoke sift through the battlefield as men and some women stood vulnerable to their enemies within a few hundred feet; listening to the bugles and the drums cheering on their respective teams. As the drama intensified, you would see soldiers drop from the crowd: sometimes as random individuals disappearing from the midst or often as clumps melting from the crowd of soldiers--usually after loud booms and pops from cannons or group fire. This is where it got me.


As the scene played out before me, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that this is demonstrating something that happened in real-life. Suddenly empathy for those who lived the real nightmare kicked-in. Fellow United States Citizens, brothers, fathers, faced off in close battle knowing they were more than likely not going to live through it. I could feel the paralyzing fear and anxiety they must have felt as these, often very young men, were thrown-in to possibly face their last moments alive. I could imagine the adrenaline-powered actions as they concentrated on the technical process in operating their guns and acting in faith to the commands of their military leaders, trusting that their efforts, even if short lived, would be most effective.


Then I could imagine the intensity of the moments as some of your best friends fall silent beside you or vainly cry-out in pain--yet you keep your focus on the survival task at hand while in the back of your mind you wrestle with a hurricane of emotion: fear, sadness, anger, despair, helplessness, heart-crushing emotional agony...yet you keep going through the actions of battle, because there is no time to rest.


Towards the end of the reenactment, as motionless bodies lay scattered across the battlefield, with the, much fewer, pops of random gun fired in the distance, a lone bagpiper played a slow, thoughtful version of "Amazing Grace." When the battle was over, provided you survived intact or wounded, ...then, I could imagine, was the time for that hurricane of emotion to break free as the reality of what just happened sank-in. You relive the battle in seemingly slow motion, agonizing over what happened at each moment: what should have happened, and why did it happen this way. I could only imagine that the women who tagged along, just to be with their husbands and, perhaps their sons, were left haunted with a permanent scar for the rest of their lives.



As the reenactors and the audience drained from the battle stage, the vacancy was filled with a solemn feeling of respect, admiration and sadness. The courage the soldiers must have had to act through their fears and face death time and time again. The conviction and the faithfulness to things greater than themselves they must have had to be so willing to trade their lives for it. The sadness that war was the attempt of settling disagreements. Sadness that so many brothers and sisters died in the battles or as consequence of the battles.


In the real Civil War, more than 3 million people fought, 2% of the population (more than 620,000) died in the war. At least in the scripted war I saw on Saturday, those who 'died' were able to get up at the end and continue to enjoy a life that was influenced in one way or another by the real Civil War.


I pray we will all be grateful, and have a lot of respect for the incredible sacrifice our ancestors made in the Civil War and the other great Wars.