While Mom's Away, The Boys Play

My wife went away with baby b for the weekend to spend some time with her mom and sisters. The boys and I decided to camp out in the backyard and have some fun ourselves.

We had fun and plenty of room in our relatively new 3-room tent. There was even room enough for mommy and baby b if they were here. That would have been fun too.

In the morning, I called-in our burn permit and we had a little campfire. We're slowly getting our pile of branches burned down and taking recreational advantage of it when we can. We did have a fire extinguisher nearby per permit rules. (Just in case the Fire Chief reads this. :-) )

We also cooked up some bacon and pancakes on the camp stove. We heated water for Hot Chocolate over the fire. Later we did S'mores.

What did you think about the camp out? C: Good. Fun. And Cool. Amazing. And I don't know why it's amazing. And it was....'wicked cooool'.

What was your favorite part of the camp out? K: Uh...the S'mores and the stuff that we did today.

What did you think of the camp out? Eddie Banana Hands: I Loved it!

What's the most memorable part of the camp out for you? S:

What did you like about the camp out? J: It was fun. We should do it more often.

We had a lot of fun hanging together...just us boys.

What's So Important About Jesus Christ?

Many people celebrate Easter in difference ways. Easter, like many other holidays, has origins in the belief of Jesus Christ. Why are there so many holidays and religions founded on the belief of this one individual who lived for a little more than 30 years, 2000 years ago? Were there not other mighty characters of history deserving of such great attention? What is so important about Jesus Christ?

To understand the significance of Jesus Christ, we first must recognize our own eternal potential: --to experience the fullness of joy (referred to as exaltation or eternal life). The fullness of joy is experienced when (1) we have a perfect physical body inseparable from our spirit (or soul), and (2) we continue to progress through eternity in the presence of our Heavenly Father (God). To live in the presence of our Heavenly Father, we must live by His laws...since He knows what must be done in order to receive the fullness of Joy.

The problem we face here on earth is that it is impossible to achieve the fullness of Joy by ourselves for two reasons. (1) We have imperfect, mortal bodies in which our bodies will separate from our spirit (soul) at death. (2) Our behavior is not perfect--we break the laws of God that allow us to achieve the fullness of joy (called sin). No unclean thing can dwell with God.

Heavenly Father's plan for our salvation required a Savior to help us overcome death and sin. Jesus was appointed to be that Savior and executor of the Plan of Salvation from before the earth was created through to the end.

As the only begotten son of our Heavenly Father (Jesus was born with Mary as His mother and God as His father), Jesus had power over death. Jesus also obeyed all of the laws/commandments of God. His behavior was perfect for he committed no sin.

Justice requires punishment for any who break the eternal laws of God--including never being able to live with God and experience the fullness of Joy. Jesus Christ, a perfect man requiring no punishment, took upon himself the punishment for all sins committed by the human family past, present and future. His only ability to live through the physical, emotional, and spiritual pain caused by this atonement was his power to not die.

Immediately after drinking the 'bitter cup' of the atonement in the Garden of Gethsemane, he was betrayed by a friend, physically tortured, and condemned to death by the Roman technique of crucifixion. He was nailed to the cross and while there suffered the final solitary moments to complete the atonement. When Jesus Christ knew his work at this stage was finished he let his spirit leave his body--he finally chose to die.

Three days later, Jesus Christ reunited his body--now 100% immortal and perfect--with his spirit never to be separated again in all eternity. Being the first to rise from the dead, he set in place the resurrection of all humankind. Anyone who is born on the earth, past, present and future will now be resurrected with a perfect, immortal body, never again to be separated from his/her spirit by death. All of us will receive glorious bodies for the rest of eternity. Christ's gift of the resurrection is given to all.

Through the atonement and resurrection, Jesus Christ became our mediator with our Heavenly Father. We are still required to obey the laws of God if we are to experience the fullness of joy, but Jesus Christ is able to fill-in the gaps of our imperfections and inabilities as we honestly strive to live up to the knowledge we have of those laws of God. Our Savior, Jesus Christ, becomes our merciful judge and is willing to apply his atonement on our behalf. All He asks is that we choose for ourselves to exercise faith in Him ( He has the understanding and ability to help us physically, emotionally, and spiritually with all that we need and want); repent when we come short of what we know we should do; get baptized by those whom He has authorized to perform such ordinances; receive the gift of the Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit); and to keep His commandments which will bring us happiness and comfort in this life and throughout eternity.

I am convinced that our loving Heavenly Father does everything in his power to help us come back to Him without taking away our freedom to choose for ourselves. Not only did God provide a Savior to overcome death and sin for us, but as an added help He provided the Holy Ghost (or Holy Spirit).

The Holy Ghost, among other things, confirms truth, provides comfort and cleansing, and provides guidance to help us follow the path that our Savior laid out for us to return to live with Heavenly Father in the fullness of joy. It is by the power of the Holy Ghost that we can know in our heart and mind that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true. The Holy Ghost communicates to us in such a personal way that we know for ourselves that truth is truth. When the Holy Ghost confirms truth to us we simply act on those feelings to follow the Savior and keep His commandments.

So what is so important about Jesus Christ? Perhaps the unmistakable, good feelings from the Holy Ghost provided that answer to you as you read and thought about our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ lives! Because He lives, we all can be resurrected and forgiven of our imperfections so we can live with Heavenly Father again in the fullness of joy! All we have to do is choose to act on the increasing knowledge we gain of His gospel until little by little we find ourselves full beneficiaries of the atonement of Jesus Christ and experience the fullness of joy with our Father in Heaven. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Happy Easter!

May the hope and gratitude of the atonement and resurrection of a loving Savior, Jesus Christ, lift you through all of your good times and challenging times no matter what the circumstances may be. The most hopeful phrase for us now and in all eternity: He Lives!

Happy Easter!

Almost-Spring Sunsets

I haven't posted pictures for a while. Here are some pacific ocean sunset pictures from the last few months:

Sun's Eyes Half Closed

Crisp, Cool Silhouettes

"C'mon kids come home and get ready for bed."

Come Down to Rest

Venus Watching Over Sleepy Fishing Boat.

Uplifting Teaser Trailer

The Affect of Ghost Stories

Last night as a few co-workers and I were driving the two-hours home from a field office, we somehow ended up talking about ghost stories. I think that is why I had the following dream last night:

An old building on a College campus was said to be haunted. The yellow-white marble building with the Romanesque pillars lining the front looked old, but it didn't look particularly scary. A friend and I decided to investigate for ourselves.

It was dusk when were ready to check it out. I wasn’t scared at all…more excited, curious, and hopeful to actually see a disembodied spirit.

Most of the building was still being used for classes, so security lights were on, but we still needed our flashlights to see clearly. We explored the hallways on the main floor, but found nothing unusual.

We came to some spiral stairs. We looked down over the railing. Two stories below us was the basement. To avoid duplicating our efforts, we decided to start in the basement and work our way up through the five-story building.

As we reached the first landing on our way down, my flashlight flickered and went out. ‘No big deal,’ I thought. ‘I think I have some spare batteries in my pocket.’ I fumbled through my jacket pocket and found the spare batteries. We started down the stairs again as I tried to free the batteries from their wrapper.

The stairs ended in the basement just outside the open doors of a small theater. The basement wasn’t used for classes. In fact it is was empty. Inside the theater the cement floors we bare with the exception of some rusty holes where it looked like rows of chairs were bolted to the floor at one time. The floor was quilted with glue residue which, at one time, secured the carpet to the floor.

The stage was still intact and a dark burgundy velvet curtain was closed across the stage. After spanning the room, lit only by our flashlights and faint security lights, we looked up startled to see three figures on the stage just outside the curtain. They were acting as if they were having a barbecue—without Barbecue equipment. They appeared to have a faint glow around them.

One of the figures was going through the actions of tending the grill. He was a young man, tall, confident, and had blondish-brown hair. He seemed very friendly.

I was wondering if this was a residual haunting where the ghosts simply replayed actions they performed while they were alive. While I was settling on a conclusion, the tall blond young man looked at us, smiled and invited, “would you like to join us? It will be fun.” Then he and the others disappeared through the closed curtain.

Contact! We were so excited! That was more than I hoped to experience.

My friend decided to follow them. I started to follow, but remembered I still needed to put the batteries in my flashlight. While I was messing with my flashlight, my friend crawled under the closed curtain in pursuit of these entities that just interacted with us. I could hear his excited, yet un-revealing, exclamations. I could only imagine what amazing things he was discovering. I was getting jealous. I quickly finished securing the battery cover on the flashlight.

That is when I noticed it was dead silent. I could no longer hear my friend’s expressions.

Suddenly the room went completely dark for a few seconds. The lights flickered, then stayed on again. I got a little scared and ran to the stairs to the stage to find my friend. I went through the main curtain and found myself on a dimly-lit section of the stage among layers of hanging black curtains.

I saw the friendly, tall, blondish apparition waiting for me. At first I thought he would try to attack me so I swung my arm out in an attempt to push him away. To my surprise my arm went right through his body.

He remained warm and friendly and for a moment my fear turned to excitement. “You really are a ghost!” He just smiled warmly and nodded.

I attempted to poke him to verify I wasn't imagining things, but he calmly grabbed my wrists. This time I could feel his hands wrapped around my wrists as if they were a tangible substance. I was surprised that he was able to change his density in such a way.

He didn’t speak, yet he still had his warm, friendly smile.

I asked if he knew where my friend was. As I looked at him for the answer, I became startled that his grip on my arms was getting tighter. He still had the same friendly smile, but his eyes! His eyes no longer looked friendly. Fear engulfed me and I realized I was soon going to find out what happened to my friend....

...Instantly my alarm clock pierced the silence, shaking me from my sleep. I was free the grasp of this frightening apparition! I felt my tension release as I realized it was just a dream.

I was never able to find out what happened to my friend.

In a few hours its bed time again and I'm already getting tired...will I learn the conclusion of the mystery tonight?! I don't think I can keep my body awake for too much longer....

Making A Difference

See more uplifting videos.

Last Summer's Trip To The Beach

Last summer the kids and I took a trip to the beach. We like listening to waves crash against the rocks.

When the water hits the rocks it sprays high into the air.

The kids enjoy climbing around on the giant rocks.

The kids found a lot of great hiding places among the rocks.

The trees on this beach are fun to climb.

While the kids climb high into the tree, I stand guard to make sure they stay safe.

We also love to meet the crabs, starfish, birds, and other friends that play at the beach.

Watching the wildlife is one of our favorite things to do at the beach.

They usually don't try to hurt us, but I am still cautious around them.

They make funny faces and act all goofy.

I can't help laughing when I hear the sounds they make.

Also, when wildlife are around, we rarely need to bring our own food.

We always have a good time at the beach.

That's My Girl!

Anyone who really knows me knows how important music is in my life. So I was really pleased when I found out my daughter shares my like for music! We enjoy listening to music together.

She really enjoys the earphones. When she sees them, she tries to grab them so she can hear the music.

I know she likes the music, but I also think she is fascinated with the 'now you hear it, now you don't' aspect of earphones when you take them on and off.

Often when she hears music, she will swing her hand like she is keeping the beat. We also enjoy dancing to sleep or just sitting and listening to relaxing music to help us get to sleep.

Hanging out on the sunny day at the beach this year. Unfortunately the day these pictures were taken, she was kind of miserable with her first cold, but she seemed to soak in all the new sensory information she experienced that day anyway.

Well, I'm off to go listen to some music with my daughter!

Polarizing Effect

I remember playing with polarizing filters in Science class in High School. I thought is was cool how they darkened the sky or removed reflections depending on which way you turned the filter (to allow only certain light waves to pass through).

Since then, whenever I played around with photography, I always wished I had a polarizing filter.

Well, my wish came true this Christmas, and now that the snow, ice, rain, wind and cloudy skies finally took a break, I had the opportunity to experiment a little bit with it.

This is "without" the polarizing filter (actually the filter was on the camera, just not turned to only allow the rich colors to come through).

This is with the polarizing filter. It really brings out the dark blue sky.

Without. Notice how yellow the tree needles are--probably from all of the random light rays reflecting off of them.

The polarizing filter made the colors more rich by filtering out the random reflected light waves.

Although our camera has Auto adjustment features, I like to use the manual settings to help me learn how to control the picture. I learned that the polarizing filter darkens the subject so you have to adjust the speed or aperture to compensate. Our camera has a built-in light meter to help indicate when adjustments need to be made.

This demonstrates how the polarizing filter can reduce reflections. Notice the solid colors of the creek. Without the polarizing filter, the water would have a whitish haze, particularly over the top right corner of the photo, as it reflects the sky.

A polarizing filter is a nice little tool to make colors rich and reduce unwanted reflections.

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.

Christmas Candy Train and other Pictures

Christmas Train made out of graham crackers and some of my favorite candies.

Interesting icicle structure. The icicles dripped from the snow on the roof, but the snow started sliding off the roof and curled around.

I haven't posted a 3-D picture for a while. Here is a 3-D picture of the Christmas Train.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Church got cancelled for today due to snowy/icy weather.

After snowing non-stop all day yesterday, before it started raining at 5:30 pm, we got about five inches of snow!

Granted, that's not much snow, but when church is at the top of Oregon Coast's "Little San Francisco", you can begin to understand.

The other problem is that it’s not practical for small towns like ours to invest in plows and other snow equipment for such rare occurrences.

In fact, the unplowed, un-salted, and un-sanded streets made it all the more special. Driving through downtown, with the snow-packed roads, the Holiday decorations, people crossing the street bundled up in winter coats, made me think I was in a scene from 'It's A Wonderful Life'!

The other problem with this area is the potential for freezing rain (that is the most dangerous winter weather here)--nature's ice rink maker. It’s too warm in the sky to snow, but its freezing on the ground so the rain coats everything and freezes into one giant, clear, smooth ice sheet draped over everything.

Regardless of the potential problems with snow and ice, everyone seems to be playing it safe and careful.

I really enjoyed the snow this weekend. It's been exciting and peaceful. I loved seeing the crystal, white carpet. I enjoyed examining the delicate, complex snowflake designs. I enjoyed playing in the snow. It's just been a real treat for me this year!

Alaska Visits

The weather has been quite unusual lately. Usually the weather is fairly moderate and uneventful (meaning not much other than rain and occasional moments of sunshine) on the north Oregon coast.

However, last year at this time we nearly blew away and this year the migrating birds are pulling out their maps trying to figure why they still haven't left Alaska. Its been a week of icy, snowy, below-zero weather with more in the forecast for Christmas week as well. Maybe we will have a white Christmas this year!

Even though its quite unusual weather for this area, we are still very blessed. Its enough to make the season a exciting, but mild enough that everyone is pretty safe and able to stay relatively warm. I know there are other places that are much worse...in fact just east over the coastal range, there are several problems with snow and ice. Go even further east and you will find sub-freezing temperatures, snow, and no electricity. We pray that everyone will endure the storms well.

Snow on the Beach (with shipwrecked Peter Iredale in the background)! I had to see the snow on the beach for myself because in my experience, its all but unheard of in this area.

Santa Baby!

'Shrinky-dink' ornament. A five inch drawing on plastic (# 6 plastic) with colored Sharpies, shrunk to about two inches by baking on a paper-sack lined cookie sheet for ten minutes or so at 250-300 degrees.

Love the Lights!

I really enjoy trying to capture Christmas lights and glowing ornaments on digital 'film'--even though it never comes close to how magical it is live.

If you've been to the Caretaker's Cabin lately, you already saw this dragon and the jaw-dropping alligator (below) from the Oregon Zoo Lights.

The Oregon Zoo Lights were spectacular. In the field in front of the stage they created a whole animal world of lights.

This year we made snowflake ornaments using beads and pipe cleaners. I like how the lights reflect and refract through the clear beads

Each year this house is very-well decorated for the Christmas Holiday--every year it seems to become more and more spectacular. They even play Christmas Carols through loud speakers. (Click to see a bigger picture.)

Gratitude

I hope you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving like I had. It was nice to take time to think about things I am grateful for such as family, church, friends, and many temporal/spiritual blessings in my life.

I tried to think about the things I usually take for granted and about how significant those blessings really are. All too often I complain about what I don't have and don't respect what I do have.

I've learned that gratitude helps you refocus on what is really important in your life, fills your heart with respect and love for those who blessed your lives (including Heavenly Father, the primary giver of those blessings,) and gives you the desire to help bless others in whatever ways you can. Gratitude also helps immunize you from behavioral blindness caused by selfishness and greed.

I hope I can always be grateful for all of God's blessings in my life large and small.

Happy Thanksgiving...the perfect kick-off into the Christmas Season.

Courtesy Post

Sometimes I'm not in a blogging mood. Especially on extra tired days. Because I tend analyze everything I write to make sure its really what I want to say and how I want to say it.

But at the same time, I don't want to let my few, periodic viewers down by not having anything new to look at.

Maybe that's why I like pictures so much. They take less word-smith energy and are often more interesting than anything I could write.

A rare Moss Grove picture.

Rare for two reasons: (1) it was sunny and (2) it was early morning.

Blue Moon

Baby's first taste of cereal in all of her whole eternal life.

Apple-Turkeys to kick-off Thanksgiving week.

What are you thankful for?

Courtesy of our youngest son, this is one of my favorite Apple-Turkeys this year. I call him 'Sputnik'. Can you find his head?

By the way...why is more than one turkey spelled 'turkeys' and not 'turkies'?

A Pet Peeve

I'm not usually one to complain vocally, and I try to keep my posts positive; but today, I just need to vent a 'tiny cucumber bit' (to borrow a phrase from my 3rd grader.)

Our boys usually walk to school. However, since the rains drenched us this week, resurrecting Moss-lake in the front yard and bringing to life Moss-bog in the back yard, we've been driving the boys to school for the last few days. And that is mainly because we know water and boys instantly pull together faster than even the strongest magnets--and its just as difficult to separate them once they come in contact.

So for this week we open the back door, the kids buzz around and in and out of the van, until they finally get the hint as I turn on the engine. Then we drive around the block to the school parking lot to drop them off.

As we near the entrance, I'm instantly reminded why I hate driving the kids to school. There is a line of cars stretching out from the mouth of the school parking lot going in both directions. "The parking lot must be full," you think, but then notice at least a half-dozen empty parking spaces. The hold-up isn't lack of parking.

I get extremely annoyed when I realize the reason no-one can get into the parking lot is because there is a car stopped just inside the parking lot...just sitting there.

After seemingly an eternity, the back door of that car opens. An eternity later a kid jumps out. Another eternity later another kid pops out--and if you are lucky he/she will remember to close the door before bolting across the parking lot to the school. This whole time everyone else has to sit and wait.

When the car finally moves on you get excited to finally reach your goal, but alas the next person in line does the same thing. You would think they would understand just how disruptive that is because they had to wait for their predecessor. So once again everyone is held up by one car while several spaces in the parking lot starve for someone to occupy them.

I get flustered because I have to get to work and the boys need to get to their classes. I now have to adapt to an unnecessary disruption in my flow of expectations. Granted I know that getting frustrated is a choice I make--no one causes me to get frustrated; but it certainly makes it easier to choose to be content when others aren't tempting me to be frustrated.

Finally I get my hopes up of finally getting through this wait so I can get to where I need to be. I get my turn to go through! I find refuge in one of the parking spaces.

But to my dismay I am forced to wait a few eternities (accompanied by lots of prodding)....and finally my kids get out of the car.