Sunday on the Windward Side

Today we went to church on the other side of the island.  Just getting to the other side is a beautiful drive through lush mountains.  The church is a good PCA church, in some ways similar to Westminster, in some ways different.  It's nice to go to a different church, just to remember that we have brothers and sisters in many places and that we all share a common bond in Christ.  After church we went to a small group at the home of a family from church.  They live on a kind of peninsula, so we stopped by the beach on one side of it before we got there.

Their house is right on the beach on the other side of the peninsula.  Prepare to be amazed--the last picture here was taken from their back yard!

 

It was a good day, enjoying church and Christian fellowship in an amazing place.

It's So Beautiful!

Just a couple pictures from the beach today.

I'm here

Thursday I arrived safely in Honolulu.  Some of you already know my story.  For those of you who might still be wondering what I'm doing in Hawaii I'll try to explain it the short way.  Some friends of ours from a former church are stationed here right now.  I volunteered to come and be extra hands, help with the kids, etc. while their dad is deployed.  I'll be staying for about a month.  It's been fun and good to have a change of pace.       

Here's me with the kids in front of the house right after I got there.  They gave me a lei--it was so sweet!

I have already told people that I would try to blog more often while I'm here, and I will.  So stay tuned.

Cape Lookout

I know I kind of disappeared again, but I have something to talk about now! This might as well be a travel blog since I'm most likely to post soon after I've gone somewhere. (And sometimes I haven't really gone anywhere for a while...hence the silence.)

Last weekend we went back down to Cape Lookout where we had the church campout last August. We stayed in one of the three cabins they have there in addition to the yurts and normal camping spots. The cabins are kind of off by themselves, which is nice. They're set back in the woods a bit but you can still see the ocean from the windows. They're very small, but they each have a full bath and a little kitchen area. There's no stove or oven, though, so our cooking options were the microwave and the gas grill. We decided to take advantage of the grill and have steak dinner.

We were hoping we would get to experience a big storm while we were there, but the first day actually ended up being fairly nice. It started to rain overnight, but overall the weather was pretty mild. It was great trip.

That's Cape Lookout proper in the background of this picture.

A winter ocean.

Our little cabin.

I thought the bench on the porch was a nice touch.

I think the inside is so cozy looking. They're real log cabins and I love the natural wood walls and ceiling.

Happy New Year!

It's been a long Christmas break, but I'm finally back into school this week. Those weeks off were eventful in their own ways. Christmas itself was quiet, though, and it was good just to spend time as a family. The day after Christmas we went on a drive down the gorge. We stopped by Multnomah Falls on the way home, which is where the shot below is from (with a little desaturating in Photoshop). The wind chill that day made it feel incredibly cold, and you can see the frost around the falls. I love the gorge, and it's always nice to get back out there.

It's hard to get back into a more structured schedule after quite a few weeks off, but it's also a good feeling to know that the day was full of mind-stretching work. Sometimes I struggle with wondering what my motivation to do college classes is--after all, I don't consider myself the "scholarly type." I can do it, but it's not my passion. I know, though, that God wants me to keep expanding my mind and gaining skills, and this is one of the ways I can accomplish that. So I will press on! I have yet to decide on a particular track, so right now I'm still taking this and that. This quarter I'm taking another online class from Clark: Introduction to Database Design Using Access. It's another computer class; enough said (I really do find it interesting, though). I'm also taking two Whitefield classes: New Testament Survey and Ethics. Altogether, I think these are going to keep me quite busy for the next few months!