Uplifting Teaser Trailer

Short Time, Long Line of Events

A lot has happened since I wrote last.


Christmas. Christmas Eve-day we went over the river(s) and through the woods in our 190 horse open sleigh to Grandma and Grandpas' house. Actually it might as well have been an open sleigh because about 15 minutes into the trip, our Astro Van lost heat and defrost. So we traveled over the the snow-covered coast range wiping the fog off of the windshield every two minutes.


We enjoyed Christmas Eve with my wife's family. We opened a present and my niece started a brand new Christmas Eve tradition: wrapping paper-ball fight!


After a nice evening of food, presents, laughs, and fun, we slid through the several inches of ice and snow to spend Christmas day with my father (a few miles away). That yielded more fun watching the kids get excited about the presents when they woke up in the morning--then making them suffer through breakfast before we opened them.


The wintry weather in our neck of the state mellowed a little bit the following week.


We enjoyed time together as a family on New Year's Eve. Our tradition is to have a bunch of finger foods for dinner and watch movies 'till the New Year. We watched Horton Hears A Who, a few episodes of Teen Titans and a few episodes of Hannah Montana until we turned on the computer for the countdown to 2009. The boys actually stayed up this year without falling asleep before midnight...but it wasn't hard to get them to sleep after that.


The day after New Year's day the family and I took a business drive to Gresham, OR. Once again we hopped in our cold, defrost-less Astro Van and slipped down the road -- literally. After a rainy New Year's Day, the wet roads froze overnight resulting in a miles of prime skating ground. Even in our all-wheel-drive van the trip over the coast range took two hours instead of two. We fish-tailed a few times and stopped to help a couple that slid off the road and landed upside down in a 20 foot ditch. Fortunately, as we stopped, they were crawling up the embankment unharmed--although they were freezing from the freezing cold water at the bottom of the ditch. Fortunately the rest of the trip was uneventful.


This past week the weather continued its attack. However, instead of snow and ice, it delivered several days of warm wind and non-stop heavy rain. The combination of sudden snow melt, constant rain and high tide caused massive flooding throughout Western Washington and Oregon. Fortunately, my neighborhood was fairly safe from major river flooding. Moss Lake was extra large this year and Moss Bog in the backyard came back extra strong. Washington State got the brunt of the flood storms this year.


Friday, a friend of mine was involved in a pretty major accident. In a 45mph section of town, another car crossed the yellow line and smashed into the right front corner of his little pick-up causing the truck to roll. He ended up upside down. After I found out the accident involved him, I walked the short distance from my office to see if he was still there. He was already at the hospital but I saw the truck. The wheel was ripped off, the air bags deployed, the front corner was smashed almost inside out. Looking at the wreck, you would never guess he was released from the hospital after two-hours with nothing other than a pulled shoulder muscle. The Lord was watching out for him and his family.


So far this week looks like it will be less eventfully...at least I'm praying for it to be so.

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?

Moss Fam and the Active Backyard Volcano

I'm not talking about Mt. Tiki Soki...

I'm talking about a REAL volcano just slighty over two-hours away, by car, from our coastal home. An active volcano still breathing fire and smoke and spitting rocks and lava out of its mouth randomly as it pleases.

I have always been fascinated with Mt. St. Helens, ever since I felt that small earthquake while going to bed one night several years ago and finding out it wasn't the cat shaking the bed as usual. Realizing the logical alternative to our cat, I jumped from my bed, ran to my parents scared that the monster was preparing to emerge and devour me. I was relieved when I learned it was just an earthquake on Mt. St. Helens...not realizing that a monster, bigger than imaginable, actually was emerging from the depths of the earth.

As time went on, the crater in Mt. St. Helens widened and steam vented from its throat. I would go down to the end of my Vancouver, Washington street, to the intersection where we could see an unobstructed view of the steaming mountain. We watched the white puffs get bigger as it yawned wider and wider from a 180 year nap.

Following much anticipation the monster emerged suddenly on the morning of May 18th, 1980. A 5.1 earthquake from a mile beneath the mountain caused the whole north side of the mountain to slide down at 50-150 miles per hour. As the side of the mountain thinned, the pressurized gasses within the volcano burst through the top and side of the mountain speeding past the land slide at speeds up to 670 miles per hour. The top 1314 feet, propelled by gases up to 1300 degrees, instantly ripped through 230 square miles of lush forests, beautiful lakes and crystal clear rivers; the mountain buried the North Fork Toutle River up to 600 feet in spots...with an average of 150 feet.

In an attempt to escape the angry beast emerging from the volcano, a glacier on the east side of the mountain, liquefied in the heat and raced down the mountain, peaking at 50 miles per hour destroying trees, bridges, homes, roads and other things in its path. Today at the Lahar viewpoint you can see the flood marks on the few trees still standing, burried in the mud flow.

The ashy, hot, gaseous beast burst out of its earthen prison stretching 80,000 feet into the air in 15 minutes. It's cloud and ash-fall, turned day to night in some places downwind to the east. For nine hours ash and gasses poured from the the volcano. In three day's it stretched across the United States--in 15 days it circled the world.

In spite of its fury, only 57 people died in the eruption. It still amazes me that the mountain blew away from the major population areas of Vancouver/Portland and the I-5 corridor. 27 bridges, 200 homes, 185 miles of roadways, 15 miles of Railroad, 40 billion board-feet of lumber was destroyed. Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.

This is the volcano we visited as a family, almost 30 years later. Today it quietly, yet without rest, tries to rebuild itself by pumping a dump truck's worth of lava to the surface each day. Periodically it coughs gas and ash like a respectful memory of that eventful spring day.

I am still fascinated by the mountain. Evidence of its power can be seen in every stream and river connected to it... and in the landscape that dwarfs its human witness. Below are some of the views we saw on our vacation to the blast-side (north) of Mt. St. Helens.

As you drive up to the mountain on hwy 504 in Washington state, you notice the rivers flowing over grey rocks and 'sand.' The water is clear, but has a green-brown tint to it as it carries its memory of the eruption down stream in a vain hope of being free from its scars.

The road climbs higher and higher through the river valley with incredible vistas. The hilly landscape is covered in green trees and a snake-like line of grey winds through the middle of the valley to indicate the river's path. Beneath the trees are a multitude of grey, brown and rust colored rocks with surprisingly little underbrush. Every once in a while you turn a corner and see the shell of the volcano growing bigger with each glimpse.

Finally we see a sign guarding the entrance to the blast zone. The trees here, if any, are very young with dead, grey tree trunks laying on the ground between the newborns. The mountain jumps out around a big cliff corner and its sickly grey-brown drape-like sides hide the attempts of nature to re-vegetate the area.

Think of this picture on an i-max screen--this picture alone comes nowhere near the full magnitude of the view. You can see one of the lakes created when the mountain dammed up a river. You can also see the grey snake-like river creeping from the mountain. You can see where the mountain 'drained' down the north side (the grey-brown sections lacking vegetation.)

We drove through the blast zone to the Johnston Ridge Observatory which is about halfway up the 8,363 foot mountain as far as elevation goes. And only about 2,000 feet below the crater floor. The view of the mountain, straight into the crater covered the whole scene including your peripheral vision. It was a massive backdrop--you can sort of tell from the size of the people compared to the mountain in this picture.

Notice the steam/gases coming out of the crater dome. This is where the lava is rebuilding its peak to match the other beautiful, yet dangerous mountains scattered all over the Cascade Range.

While we were at the observatory, you could see the trees that were flattened in the blast. You could see how some of the trees were somewhat protected from the powerful wave of rock and hot gasses as it rolled over the areas protected by the hills.

Imagine these hills covered in lush, large evergreen trees. Notice how the trees are all combed in one direction. To the left of the center hill, you can see trees still standing because of the protection of the hill. Mt. St. Helens looms on the right-hand side of the photographer. The green coloring comes from vegetation starting to grow (look at the bottom right corner) but after almost 30 years, there are still very tiny or no trees. We did see several chipmunks and wild flowers. Nature is slowly making a comeback.

Mt. St. Helens is just awe-inspiring: the power and magnificence... andwitnessing how nature recovers from the consequences. Personally, it helps me have great respect and reverence to God and the worlds and life He created...and gives me gratitude to Heavenly Father that He would direct something so powerful away from the most populous nearby areas to protect as many of His children as possible. Just silently awe-inspiring!