Wow! Has it really been almost a month since our last post!? Where has time gone? Oh yes, I remember:
Way back in May when we were planning our giant summer trip across the country, Kathy and I jokingly said after looking at our schedule that we weren't going to get a break until Christmas standown. Seven months later that turned out to be correct! When I finished my Spring semester last May I took a summer class, then we were on the road for a month, then when we returned I had a couple more weeks of a second summer class I had started during our trip, and then the Fall semester started. So these past 4 weeks during the holidays was the first real break we have taken in close to a year! Perhaps needless to say, we tried our best to (finally!) do nothing for a while - and it was wonderful.
Koa is starting to become old enough to understand all things Christmas, which has made the season fun. Anticipation for Christmas morning; eggnog; Christmas lights (Portland International Raceway & Peacock Lane); Christmas music; Rudolph, Frosty, and Santa movies (and of course Veggie Tale's Christmas movies!) are now standard fair. But more importantly, he's now old enough that we can have somewhat legitimate conversations with him about Jesus, being thankful, and blessing others who have a need. Along those lines we went as a family under bridges downtown and handed out food and coffee to homeless people, and when we could, we gave people standing at the street corners new socks or hand-warmers or ponchos from our car at red lights. In fact, Koa gets upset now when we pass someone without giving them something or asking their name (hard to stop in an intersection when the light is green!). Speaking of blessings, it was amazing to see how many gifts we had under the tree this Christmas. Thanks to everyone for your letters, gifts, and cards - we are very touched by your thoughtfulness and generosity. And we'll be sure to pass those blessings on to others whenever we can.
Since we didn't get any snow during the break and we were itching to get away for a while, we packed up the family and went on a two day trip between Christmas and New Year's Eve to Bend, OR. It was about a 3.5 hour drive which should have been less if it wasn't for the snowy roads going through the Cascades and over Mt. Hood. It was then that we discovered our snow-chains were back home in the garage! Oops! Needless to say, we were thankful for our 4-wheel drive and never ended up needing anything more (though we were sliding around quite a bit). It snowed pretty hard while we were in Bend so our first day there we tried doing whatever sight-seeing we could, whatever walking around the little downtown area that we could, and whatever eating we could! We ate at "Bend's Best Lunch" which was a Thai place and then got some coffee (Eggnog Chai for me!) at "Bend's Best Coffee House" which served Stumptown coffee. Then in the evening it was on to the highlight of the trip for Koa - the hotel swimming pool! This was the first time ever that he wanted to go in the (very cold) water all by himself and we were happy to let him. Brrrr. With his floaties on, he would swim from one end to the other, climb out on the ladder and go around to do it again. We had to teach Caspian about the dangers of running by the pool. Somehow that seemed a little amusing that we had to keep talking to our little 13 month old about running by the pool. He also was very fascinated by the hot tub and would walk/run over to it and make the sign for "bath" and then walk/run back to the pool and just look at it like, "I don't have a sign for that."
Our second day in Bend we set out to do what we went there for - play in the snow! There are a couple sledding hills along the way to the top of Mt. Bachelor (Bend sits at the base of this mountain) which we heard were very good, so after brunch at a great local restaurant we bought ourselves a couple of cheap plastic sleds and a $3 day pass and off we went! Getting up to our sledding spot was tricky without snow-chains, but eventually we made it to Wanoga Snow Park and began suiting up. Since we didn't have any snow clothes of our own, all four of us were either decked out in boots, coats, and pants we borrowed from friends or found a couple days before at a thrift store! Koa had never worn so many clothes at one time in his life and so he acted like he was being eaten alive. In fact, he and Kathy had to sit in the car for a couple minutes and watch Caspian and I sled by ourselves while he calmed down and realized that not playing was worse than being bundled up. Once he finally escaped the car and began playing, he was fine. Caspian looked like Ralphie's little brother Randy who couldn't put his arms down - he could have been going on a deep sea expedition or to the moon and worn a smaller suit! To make a long story short, we all had a blast and ended up sledding for much longer than Kathy and I anticipated. Each time down the hill, Koa would get braver and start from a little higher up. By the end he was going down the hill by himself!
We took a different route on our way home from Bend, this time to the south through Sisters and then Salem, which should have been about an hour longer than the way we took getting to Bend. However, this route through the Cascades was apparently less popular because the roads were much slicker and less plowed. Our drive was long, slow, and tedious until we finally made it to Salem and I-5. We got home late from our great little trip, ate some dinner and put the boys to bed. You can see pictures of our Christmas break in the Christmas 2009 photo album.
So now we come to today - my first day back to school for the Spring semester. This semester I'm taking "Romans" (the next Greek class in which we translate, diagram, and exegete the book in Greek), "Advanced Church Growth," "Christian Theology II", an independent study with one of my professors called "Intercultural Ministry Project", and "Pastoral Internship II." 12 credits which is full-time, but still 4 credits less than a standard load! I think this is going to be a really interesting semester.
