So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Good Night

To all our friends in California: we will miss you! Thank you so much for all that you have done for our family. We will never forget our time here.

Don't Make Me Come Over There

Whatever you are doing right now, stop! I have something very important to share.

Are you paying attention? Excellent. Here you go:

I POSTED ANOTHER YOUTUBE VIDEO!!!!!!

Wait - what? Where are you going? No, no, no, you don't understand: IT'S A VIDEO OF EDEN!!!

Okay, now I am thoroughly confused. Is there some kind of problem here? You're make it sound like all the videos I post are of Eden.

Oh. Well....

BUT!

This one is special! In this one, Eden is at a park!

No, no, not the park on the beach. Yes, I realize I posted two videos from the park on the beach. This is a different park.

Look, whatever. If you really have something SO IMPORTANT to do, that's fine. Go ahead and miss the world's most brilliant, athletic, adorable and all-around-perfect child CLIMB A LADDER ALL BY HERSELF.

See? Got your attention now, don't I? Sheesh, for a minute there I thought you were implying I was one of those crazy parents who thinks everything there kid does is absolutely amazing or something.

Anyway, glad we got that settled. Now, sit back and enjoy this brand-new video of Eden, future mountain-climber-extraordinaire, demonstrating her already spectacular athletic abilities at Pasadena's own Memorial Park.

(Seriously! As soon as you see it, I think you'll agree that what she does is absolutely amaz---....)

Oh. Heh. Ummm....enjoy the video!

Because Nothing Says Family Fun Like Being Stalked By A Tiger

As promised, here are a few photos from day 2 of our 10th anniversary trip to San Diego - all taken at the one and only San Diego Zoo.

Eden's first petting zoo experience.

I highly recommend that you enlarge the third photo in the above series. Eden is, what at least one parenting book refers to as, "assertive." I'm not sure exactly what she was about to unleash on this poor innocent boy for touching her hippo, but I'm glad Peter was there to stop it.

We might have been kicked out of the Zoo forever.

One of the things I really love about the San Diego Zoo is that many of the enclosures are designed to allow you a chance to get right up next to the animals (if they so choose) without bars or moats in the way. The tiger enclosure has several walls made of very thick Plexiglas-like material. When we first stopped by one of these enclosures, nobody else was crowding around so we let Eden out of her stroller so that she could get a good look at the tiger standing at the top of a little hill.

This apparently gave the tiger a chance for a good look at Eden as well. He decided to mosey on down...

Eden called the tiger "Sheba."

I'm pretty sure the tiger was looking at Eden and thinking "snack." Thank goodness for Plexiglas.


Ah, San Diego. We love you and will always think of you with great affection.

I think we're okay with leaving "Sheba" behind though.

Once Upon A Time

We went on a 10th anniversary trip to San Diego. Then I forgot to tell you all about it.

The End.

Kidding! I guess I really did completely forget to post about it though, which is surprising because we had an incredibly fun time. I think, perhaps, that we had so much fun that I just forgot about everything else entirely, and then it was back to work and laundry and last minute trips and it just slipped completely off my radar.

I was actually downloading pictures off my camera in preparation for an entirely different post when I saw all the photos from our anniversary shindig, and it crossed my mind that maybe I had never actually done anything with those pictures or told anyone about our Great Adventure.

So, better late than never:

Remember how we recently celebrated our 10th anniversary?

Well, for a short time many months ago we were planning a trip to Hawaii to celebrate the big event, but then the earthquake in Haiti happened just as I was beginning my exploration of what it could mean to live a non-consumeristic life - a life that was about giving, not taking. And I knew that if I wanted to even begin living a life like that there was no way I could spend a chunk of money just to go to Hawaii for a few days while one of the worst disasters in modern history was playing out right in front of my eyes. It really was an important decision for me personally at that moment. Sort of an are-you-really-serious-about-this-or-just-full-of-hot-air moment. Honestly, I knew that for my own sake I needed to put my money where my mouth is (er, was).

So, we donated the money we would have spent on/in Hawaii to the relief efforts in Haiti and that was that.**

Except that we have awesome friends. Friends who decided that 10th anniversaries should be celebrated in special ways, regardless of whether or not they are celebrated in Hawaii.

Thus in early April, at the end of Pete's spring break, we got to spend a night (just the two of us!) in a really nice hotel in Pasadena, and then the next day we got to pick up Eden and drive her down to San Diego where we spent another night in a hotel right by the harbor AND got to go to the San Diego Zoo (one of my favorite places) the next morning before driving home.

It was so much fun! We thoroughly enjoyed the trip and will we remember it for a long time.

And now for pictures!! I actually don't have any from the hotel that we stayed at on the first night, which is too bad because it was really beautiful. But I have a ton from our time in San Diego - so many in fact, that I might actually split this post up in two.

So, without further ado, here are photos from the first day we arrived (with photos of our trip to the Zoo coming tomorrow):

This is what our hotel looked like from the back. Isn't it pretty? It was right on a canal (or some sort of waterway) that led into San Diego Harbor. There were a lot of hotels in a row along this canal and there was a very pretty running/walking/bicycling path that ran in between all the hotels and the water. Gorgeous!

Looking left from the back of the hotel.

Looking right from the back of the hotel. It's very hard to see when the photo is this small, but can you spot the tiny bit of red next to the building in the very back, directly above the boat?

That is this - the tail of a cruise ship departing from San Diego Harbor!

The walking/bicycling path in front of our hotel also ran along the harbor, so we went for a little walk that evening before dinner.

Eden loved the boats and the water. Being a child, and just herself, she also greatly enjoyed throwing things.

Here she is looking for something good to throw.

Found some leaves - back to the water!

Good times.

But little did Eden know that heaven-on-earth was just around the corner...

Here I present to you A Playground. On a Beach. Next to Water with Big Boats. And (although you can't see it) within view of a freeway with Big Trucks and even the occasional Big Bus. Meanwhile, we are close enough to the airport that Big Planes would often be just overhead. I thought Eden was going to explode from happiness.

Unfortunately, there is a limit to earthly happiness. Especially when your mom is too busy taking pictures to be at the bottom of the slide to catch you. (She's gone down a slide safely 100 times before, people!)

This is probably a truly terrible thing to say, but I wish I could zoom in on this picture (like I can on my camera) so that you could see the perplexed look on her face right before she sails off the end of that slide, backwards and going at a nice clip, into the sand.

If it makes you feel any better, I felt horrendously guilty.

That did not stop us from sending her down the slide again, of course.



Before you call the authorities, I would just like to add...



She had a really, really good time.


Thank you so much friends-who-want-to-remain-anonymous!! It was wonderful!

**Peter and I actually used our donated money to start a little competition with the kids at his school. Each class competed against each other and against the faculty to see who could raise the most money for Haiti - with the result that Peter was actually able to send a little over $10,000 to a large relief organization working in Haiti. That did my heart good. :)

Monday Morning Message

Peek

A

Boo!

Hope you all had wonderful weekends and are ready for another week!

So Purty

New template is up! What do you think?

Also updated my blog roll - lots of new mommy blogs to browse for those who care and have the time. On an administrative note, I'm currently in the process of trying to update my labels so that they're consistent across the blog (can you say O.C.D.?). I'm hoping republishing those old posts won't cause them to reappear in your reader (if you use one). If so - my apologies! They are not new and the content of the posts themselves has not been edited. I feel like I should also create and post an "About Me" section - it's always the first thing I read when I'm browsing a new blog, and I get kind of miffed if it's missing - but for some reason writing one feels about as fun as scrubbing the broiler pan after fish night. I don't know why.

Summer is here! We're off to Hollywood today! More about that later.

Happy Saturday, friends!

Ponderings

I finally finished No Greater Love by Mother Teresa back at the end of May. It took me quite awhile - I had to renew the book at the library more times than I care to admit. This was in no way due to the book being difficult to read or uninteresting. I just found Mother Teresa's words so thought-provoking that I could only read short chunks at a time before needing to set the book aside and reflect for awhile.

It goes without saying that Mother Teresa was an amazing woman. I think anyone who has ever heard of her would take that as a given. After reading this book though, I feel confident in stating that she was also a woman who epitomized non-consumeristic and counter-cultural living, as well as the giving-not-taking lifestyle that I so much want to emulate.

Below are just a few quotes from the book that stuck with me. Taken as a whole, I think these words very much represent the kinds of thoughts and ideas that seem to be constantly swirling around in my head in this season of my life.

"Words that do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness." (pg. 16) (Gack! Knife. To. The. Heart.)

"I believe that if God finds a person more useless than me, He will do even greater things through her because this work is His." (pg. 66)

"Jesus will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your weakness." (pg. 87) (Wow. I could sit and thank about this sentence for forever. It is so true, so powerful, and gives me so much joy - yet it is also so challenging.)

"You in the West have the spiritually poorest of the poor much more than you have the physically poor. Often among the rich are very spiritually poor people. I find it is easy to give a plate of rice to a hungry person, to furnish a bed to a person who has no bed, but to console or to remove the bitterness, anger, and loneliness that comes from being spiritually deprived, that takes a long time." (pg. 94-95)

"One day there springs up the desire for money and for all that money can provide - the superfluous, luxury in eating, luxury in dressing, trifles. Needs increase because one thing calls for another. The result is uncontrollable dissatisfaction. Let us remain as empty as possible so that God can fill us up." (pg. 95)

"Poverty is freedom. It is a freedom so that what I possess doesn't own me, so that what I possess doesn't hold me down, so that my possessions don't keep me from sharing or giving of myself." (pg. 96-97)

"If you want a happy family, if you want a holy family, give your hearts to love." (pg. 132)

"The work that we do is only a means to put our love for Christ into living action." (pg. 147)

"We will allow only God to make plans for the future, for yesterday has gone, tomorrow has not yet come, and we have only today to make Him known, loved and served." (pg. 148)

What more could I possible say? Amen!

The Big Reveal

So I think that I might have built The News up a little too much.

I think this because I'm realizing that the vast majority of you already know what The News is, either because we've had a direct conversation about it or because you're facebook friends with Pete.

So now, when I post it on my blog with a dramatic ta-daaa and jazz hands, you are going to be seriously disappointed. I apologize for this. But in my defense, I think you'll agree that it is all social networking's fault. Facebook + secrets/surprises = no bueno.

Anyway, without further ado:

Peter got a job as an associate pastor in Illinois!
My last day as a librarian was Wednesday!
In less than a month we will say goodbye to Southern California (our home for the last 8 years!) and move our daughter, two cats, and all our worldly possessions to we-don't-know-exactly-where-just-yet!

Ta-DAAAA!!! [insert jazz hands, fireworks, something surprising here]

Well, I feel better at least.

Here's the back story:

We never intended to settle in SoCal. In fact, I think we both assumed that we'd move back to the Midwest as soon as Peter graduated from seminary. That was five years ago. We talked about it many times and even came very close to just picking up and moving a couple of times. But "things" just never seemed quite right. There was always something left to finish here, for one or both of us.

Until last fall. Then, all of a sudden, we both just felt like it was time to go. Nothing really happened that made us feel that way, at least not for me. We just suddenly felt confident that this chapter of our life was finished. So we decided to move as soon as Pete's school year was over. And in January, when the Intent to Return forms were circulated among the faculty at Pete's school, he officially informed his supervisor and co-workers that he wouldn't be back.

At the time, neither of us had jobs lined up or even any sort of certainty about where in the Midwest we should move to. But then, with little to no effort, things began clicking into place. The next thing we knew, Pete had interviews scheduled with a church just across the Mississippi from St. Louis (where my brothers live). And again, early on we felt a confidence that this was the right choice for us and the right place for us. (Perhaps a little too early on, since the length of time between our readiness and the official job offer started to feel like an eternity by the end - thus inspiring my waiting-is-for-the-birds post.)

And now the waiting is over, the plans are made, and we are just tidying up the details (the seemingly endless details) required to move halfway across the country and start a new life.

Eden and I will fly out of LAX on June 28th. Pete will follow on the 30th in the moving truck.

We won't be here to see the Fourth of July fireworks at the Rose Bowl, or celebrate Eden's second birthday with all of her dear friends, or welcome the new school year. We won't get to laugh at the crazies lining Colorado Boulevard on New Year's Eve or watch the flyover before the kick-off at the Rose Bowl Game on New Year's Day. I won't ever help another patron find a book in the beautiful maze that is the Pasadena Central Library.

I'm sad.

But also, crazy, crazy happy. And excited. Because I'm hopefully going to see Fourth of July fireworks with my family. And we're going to celebrate Eden's second birthday with her grandma and grandpa and aunts and uncles and cousin and new friends in a new town where the grass grows green without the help of water piped in from other states and where lightning bugs and stars illuminate the evening instead of helicopter search lights and miles and miles and miles of city.

Once again I am reminded. It's a mudluscious and puddlewonderful world we live in, friends.

Here's to new adventures!