Colorado

Just thought I would write a quick update and share some photos from our recent trip! We had a whirlwind trip to Oregon to visit family, look for housing, look for a new job and prep for a new position, followed by a quick trip to Colorado for a conference, some hiking and a fun snowshoe adventure with friends.

The photos from Oregon don't speak the required 1000 words, so how about some conference pics...

Graduating Fellows

Graduated Fellows... Good Friends

Graduated Newlyweds

Beki and Tobin

A little afternoon history trip to the cliff dwellings - amazing

This is a three story residence with the corner broken off, the large hole is the door, the small holes are for missing floor joists!

They had many modern conveniences like the kitchen with built in grinding stones...

Construction included rebar...

Halls...

Doors

Windows (door proximal and window distant)

Some thoughts - this is several hundred years old and their "brick and mortar" is mostly intact - they must have had an awesome view as it is near the top of the cliff possibly also making it easier to defend as well!

Evening with everyone from our school!

My Date!

More Photos to follow in another post...

Quick weekend up to Oregon!

I found out sometime early January that George Fox was having a May Serve Reunion during their Homecoming weekend reunion. Some of my best friends were going to be there, and it would give me a great excuse to go see my long lost nieces and nephews that I dearly miss! So I looked at my calendar and at a plane ticket, and by God's amazing miracle I was able to go!

Since it was such a spontaneous trip, I decided to keep it as a surprise for my sister who would not suspect a thing, because with my two jobs, living in So Cal, the chances of me visiting are slim to none. Plus, she already knew that Tobin and I will be visiting in March...so even more reason for me not to be coming in February. So with the help of my amazing brother-in-law, I flew into PDX, Feb 5th, rode the Maxx downtown, and enjoyed a cup of joe at Starbucks, while AJ and Maryanne drove up to Portland for a "day of shopping." Facebook even came to my aid, as Maryanne conveniently and promptly put up a post, "We are on our way to Portland!" She was excited to get to spend some Christmas/Birthday money...little did she know her sis was there waiting for her. Kudos to AJ for getting everyone out the door early so they could come meet up with me. Well, the surprise was a success. I wish I had a photo, but your imagination can probably generate a close enough picture. I was sitting in Starbucks, trying to scan the area and see them walking up, but I had no idea what corner they would be coming up (due to parking). Anyways, I was trying not to look like a nervous stalker (by continually scanning everywhere and everyone). I guess I wouldn't make that great of a spy, because I got bored, started playing a game on my iphone, and wouldn't you know that's when they walked in, and I missed them! The next thing I knew, I heard AJ's voice say, "Hey!" I turned around, and the look on Maryanne's face was priceless...absolute bewilderment. She couldn't get her mind to grasp that her sister was sitting having a cup of coffee in a Portland Starbucks! It was such a great moment. I love my sis, and I love Porter who was also a bit confused, but happy for whoever would play peek-a-boo with him!

We then shopped around Portland that day, I got to finally use a Nordstrom gift card I had gotten for my birthday back in October (that's Marty!). We went back home, stayed up late, and had lots of fun. Mostly having Porter entertain us! He's such a cute kid!

Then it was off to Fox, for a May Serve Reunion. Every May, Fox sends a International Serve Trip to various countries. God blessed me with the opportunity to go May 2003 to Brazil! It was a life changing experience for me, even though I had intentions on going and changing other people's lives, God shaped my heart to continually love and pray for those a far!

A few photos:

Homoncles Reunited! So glad Sarah got to come all the way out from New York!

It was great to see both of them and my beautiful extended family nieces!

Jane and I

We then had dinner with the May Serve Team that went to the Phillipines, lots of catching up, seeing old friends, and just enjoying being together as Believers in Christ...amazing fellowship!

Then we went to a Bruin Basketball Game! We missed the girls game, and we sat on the old people side...so it was a little hard for me, but good none the less! =)

The Boyz

Cheese!

This short three days was packed! I wanted to get it all in! So on Sunday morning Maryanne and I went over to the Miller Redhead Household! It was wonderful to see all those little redheads running around and being able to play with them! Love them!

Porter loving the swing!

My newest niece, Kate...hadn't seen her since she was just a few days old!

The whole gang, minus Andy and Ruth making faces in the background. Thanks to my amazing brother's photography skills we got this photo!

Go to this link

because you can only see a portion of it here...the photo's too wide for this blog.

Then just before leaving, we walked over to a close neighbor's house, Jana and JJ, for a little preview to Superbowl. Maryanne and I had to leave just about when the game got started, so she could take me back to the airport, but that was ok...we got to chat a bit more on the way up without a little one making noises in the back (we love you Porter, just not always in the car).

Love the baby backpack!

Can't wait to be back there soon...more on that to come!

Let the Good Times Roll...

... and the boys get muddy;)

Christy is visiting family and friends in Oregon, Jenna is busy feeling pregnant, so Josh and I opted for a morning bike ride in the So. Cal Rain. Having thought ahead, borrowed a bike, and laid plans to cover a significant amount of single track in the hopes of another epic adventure - we awoke to Someone raining on our parade! We opted to make the best of it and packed up for a wet, and potentially muddy ride.

On our drive to the park we had opportunity to listen to a wonderful SEVERE WEATHER WARNING broadcast for the very region we would soon be riding in! They promised rain to pour down on us at rates of 1 inch per hour and that the mud would have potential to slide. Our response was along the lines of "thats interesting" and to "press on" as we are men not mice (btw where do they go in rain like this, every depression I saw was full of Mud or water).

Upon arriving at the base, we quickly donned our gear and started riding up the hill (hoping to stay warm) and just as quickly found that the mud here is similar in consistency to glue that is just about to set and deep enough to crest the sides of our shoes as we quickly found peddling difficult on a bike standing still. Luckily for us, the rain appeared to have only half the power predicted and the torrent running down the concrete drainage ditch combined with the strength of a good hill was less powerful than fresh legs coupled to the minds of hearty weekend warriors! Alas, the ditch only covered half the distance of the hill, leaving a couple of now significantly wet bikers to become significantly muddy pushers who stole the nicely graded gravel road that used to be in this very place.

Upon reaching the top of the hill, the planned route had shrunk and thoughts of maintaining high ground were second only to the thoughts of burning lungs (despite the downpour). We scraped a few pounds of mud off our bikes and again took to the saddle for a cross country ridge ride on single track. The first hill captured our attention as the increased body weight on our tires only added additional layers of mud and more weight to the bike which further perpetuated the more weight = more mud until being scraped off on all sides my our trusty forks. This was quickly forgotten as the steepness of the hill found us wanting the brakes that had by now been packed full of mud! To top it off, the less viscous mud - though decidedly more tenacious was fetching a ride on a mud ferris wheel to suddenly release it grip and attack the offending weekend warrior from both sides - which altered the riders ability to both breath and see! After surviving the first gravity challenge and again clearing ourselves and the bikes of a couple inches of mud we were able to begin legitimately riding again - thoughts of high ground having prevailed. It quickly became apparent that braking power would continue to be an issue as each downhill portion was very slick and the friction of the brake pads just as low!

Thats about when Someone decided that since lying was bad and that since a SEVERE WEATHER WARNING had ben issued - they better provide the truth to the broadcast. I am quite convinced that 1 inch per hour was a conservative estimate and wouldn't you know it, as I began powering up the next hill, the chain got jammed against the frame stopping forward movement quite suddenly. Now when your riding you don't really pay attention to the direction of the rain but standing on an exposed hill with a bike whose chain is not compliant with the idea of forward motion (though it claimed to have been attacked by some dark brown goo) - it becomes quite apparent the rain was moving faster horizontally than vertically and that it appeared to be more like a waterfall than mere rain!

Fixing a mutinous chain

By now it became quite apparent that deep inside each hearty weekend warrior is a little boy who really just wants to play in the mud, and that the evidence would be manifest as ear-to-ear grins when the advancing mud troops weren't looking!

Clearing the Brakes of Muddy Glue

Josh riding the ridge

Our Trail Down

Having succeeded in navigating the muddy single track, and finding our way back to some perceivable evidence of a road, we headed back towards the truck. The torrential rain by now having flooded the normally dry stream beds, the road had turned into a secondary means for the water to get downhill. While at first this appeared to make things more difficult, the water had removed most of the mud, leaving behind gravel and rocks. This made it possible then to ride or trusty steads back up the road if willing to ride in the stream of water flowing down the road - though straying from this stream invited another attack from the deep mud silently waiting for us. As we neared the apex of the hill again, we found evidence of someones apparent "theft" of the gravel road we know was formerly in the same location as the muddy stream we now traveled. Though not conclusive, the Muddy Caterpillar (the rather large yellow kind) hiding in the bushes and partial tracks on our stream seemed to point out the nefarious characters who secretly tried to prevent a couple of warriors from fighting a muddy battle, prevailing, and returning as smiling boys.

The lead stead covered in muddy gore!

The borrowed stead having survived the onslaught!

Gotta Love the Single Track!

Ahh... the joys (and aches) of awesome single track!

We decided to go for a cross-country mountain bike ride after Church, since we both had the day off! Tobin got the opportunity to Mt bike here yesterday (with Brian) and enjoyed the experience so much he just had to share it with Christy! We have been running and biking here before but never tapped the vast network of single track available - still have only ridden about half of it! The ride starts with about a half mile of nothing but pure muscle burning up, then rapidly becomes exciting - as if our hearts are not racing fast enough already. The first drop into the single track is along a very steep grade with a fall on the downhill slide that would certainly be more excitement than most anyone would desire. The rest of the trail remains anything but mellow as the combination of recent rain, heavy cows and the only passible trails makes for a bit of a bumpy, smelly (think cow + diarrhea) and undulating ride through the hills. We rode up hills, down hills, across hills, through streams, up more hills, then had the opportunity to herd some cattle - one of which appeared to still have diarrhea despite running down the trail in front of us (I don't want that bug). After leaving the cattle behind the ride back and mostly downhill was quite exhilarating. We managed to stay in one piece even if our backsides are slightly more sore than anticipated! Here are a couple of the pictures we took along the way...

Christy enjoying the cross-country style single track!

Perhaps this is what So-cal considers woods?

Beautiful... yes the view as well;)

Mediocrity

Today, I am feeling less than mediocre. Do you ever feel like you work harder than ever to do things correctly, but in the end you found your intentions, accuracy, and hard work to be for naught. I feel that I have a strong work ethic and try to be a witness within my work place, but recently, I feel that I will make poor decisions, my documentation could have been better, and I keep missing things that seem like work tasks but in essence are critical to the way my work role functions. For instance, today was suppose to be a nice relaxing day off, and now has become more stressful because I found out that I missed documenting and submitting encounter charges from patients I saw in September! And wouldn't you know that all documentation from that was either accidentally saved over, or I have already gotten rid of sheets from that day. So this morning was spent scouring my records, emails, and loose papers, but all for naught - therefore feelings of me just being mediocre and continually messing things up. I know I cannot be perfect, but I have been continually doing things by routine to make sure things are missed. It's disappointing when you see that fail. I am not looking for sympathy, I don't know what I'm looking for, but I felt writing about it might help.

Just recently, I was also going through an old email file, and came upon an email from a very good friend from nursing school. Reading this reminds me that even though the problem I mentioned above seemed enormous and makes me want to crawl into a hole and quit, I realize how selfish and self-centered I can become. This letter below was written April 2008:

Dear friends and family,

I apologize that some of you will be hearing this news for the first time through email, but it seemed daunting to reach everyone by phone. For those of you who have already heard the news through others or from me, I apologize for the redundancy – I just created one distribution list for this and future emails.

A painful lesion developed on the side of my tongue a little over a year ago. A biopsy at that time was negative for cancer, but the lesion did not go away. After ineffective medication therapy, an excisional biopsy was performed a couple of weeks ago to remove the lesion and confirm the previous benign diagnosis. Unfortunately, last Friday, I was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue. This is rare for men my age. It has traditionally been found primarily in smokers and heavy drinkers over the age of 50, but apparently the diagnosis is on the rise in younger people without those risk factors.

I am scheduled to see a head and neck surgeon at Vanderbilt on May 8^th at 4pm to begin the process of staging the cancer, which will determine its severity. So, I cannot give a lot of details concerning my treatment at this time. Whether or not I will need surgery only, surgery and radiation, or radiation and chemotherapy depends on the stage.

I know some of you have been concerned as to whether or not I feel okay. I’m running in the Country Music ½ Marathon this weekend, and unless my treatment schedule absolutely prevents it, I plan on running the Rock ‘n Roll Marathon in San Diego as planned on June 1^st (and, more importantly, meeting my youngest niece, Miss Olivia Tafao). In other words, I feel fine – I’m not sick. Actually, my tongue feels better than it has in a year due to the recent surgery – just sore now. Chewing without pain is definitely underrated. J Now, we just have to take care of this cancer thing.

This cancer is now a part of my story, and I trust God is in complete control of how the story will unfold. God doesn’t promise us perfect lives, but He does promise us (in Deuteronomy 31:8) that He Himself will go before us and be with us. He will never leave us or forsake us. I’m so glad those aren’t empty promises!

It’s tempting to ask, “Why?” at times like this, but I believe God has already answered that question. We are told in scripture that our ultimate purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. If my life’s purpose is to glorify Him, then the purpose of this cancer is to glorify Him as well. Therefore, I trust that He will indeed be glorified through this process. And, if so, it will be most worthwhile.

I realize I may see rough days, but God knew the details of today and all those that lie ahead long before I was ever born. He will not be caught off guard. I know that [He] can do all things; no plan of [His] can be thwarted. (Job 42:2) How amazing it is to realize that we serve a living God, the creator of the universe! I am comforted that He will see me through any challenges I may face.

Even more amazing is the truth that He has invited us into a personal relationship with Him through the sacrificial death of His only son, Jesus Christ. For all of you who have a relationship with Jesus already, don’t let even one day pass without cultivating it further. If we fail in this area, we have wasted precious time.

And, for any of you who have not entered into a relationship with Jesus, don’t be deceived. We are not a cosmic accident. We are the intelligent design of an intelligent, loving-kind and unchanging creator. We were separated from God by our sin, but Jesus closed that chasm through His death on the cross. He longs for a relationship with all of us, but will not force it. He gives salvation from sin (and eternal life with Him) to anyone who is willing to follow Him. I know all this might sound far-fetched if you are skeptical. If so, I’d love to attempt to explain it further. Don’t write off Jesus because of the many failures of those who claim to follow Him. Discover the Man Himself before you make your decision. John 3 and Romans 10 are great places to start. Done preaching … for now. J

Thank you to all of you who have been praying for and encouraging me and my immediate family. The support has been incredible already, and I am grateful. I am so richly blessed to have such unbelievable immediate and extended family and friends. I love you all and will try to keep you updated. Feel free to forward this to others.

Blessings,

Daniel

Daniel passed away just a short 6 months later, not once doubting the Lord, but always always trusting God had a plan, and whatever situations, illnesses, or healing God had in store, Daniel trusted and walked daily with that hope! I guess my shortcomings are just a reminder that I am not perfect, and it's how I react and deal with those situations that becomes my witness, not whether I'm perfect to begin with. This morning, I didn't do a very good job, but I will take that mistake, learn from it, and continually strive for improvement. It's funny because in high school, I was always the one to receive the "Best Improvement" award in Sports...that was because I was so bad, clumsy, and unskilled to begin with; anything would be an improvement! My carnal nature, wishes I could just be like those individuals who always have a natural tendency to be amazing at whatever they do, but that is not what God wants for me. Looking at the big picture, I see that God wants me to depend on Him, and not just think I can reach perfection, if I have all my ducks aligned. Definitely not the case. In light also of things going on in this world, earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding, droughts, famine, suffering, wars, my daily shortcomings are important, but not "world-ending." I pray that I won't get caught up with myself in the day to day things, but will look to Christ as He is my joy, my strength, and my All.

I'm reminded of a hymn that speaks volumes to this very concept:

1. When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
   When sorrows like sea billows roll;
   Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
   It is well, it is well, with my soul.
2. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
   Let this blest assurance control,
   That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
   And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
3. My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
   My sin, not in part but the whole,
   Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
   Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
4. But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
   The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
   Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
   Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!
5. And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
   The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
   The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
   Even so, it is well with my soul.

Here's to a better morning, with a better perspective!

Early Bird Gets the Powder!

Saturday Morning at the local Southern California Mountain High Ski Resort! We got there early and enjoyed a great day of powder, especially in the morning as we beat the traffic (read minor plugging of the roads for 4-5hrs due to So Cal drivers and snowpack mix). We were able most of the morning to make our powder runs and very quickly get back on the lifts. This was quite enjoyable but wore the Ladies out completely - I (Tobin) even have to blog the events due to Christy already cutting ZZZZ's;) Thanks to a week of rain in So Cal, the mountain was completely covered in light, fluffy, cold (high of 30), snowy greatness!

The Three Powder Musketeers!

Boom and Christy Holding each other up!

Christy and Tobin Enjoying the Scene

Christy Getting First Air! - She even stuck the landing;)

Which always brings out the smiles!

Thought I might throw in an action shot of one of Booms Wipeouts!

Proof that I was getting plenty of powder runs!

Christy Ripping up the Powder in the Morning Sun

Christy and Boom on the Ridge Run

Snowboarding...in So Cal???

So randomly we got the day off...on a Thursday....and so did Boom. We decided to go up to Bear Mountain, which was actually instigated by a few of my nursing friends who planned on going. It was a amazingly warm day...I've never boarded when it was so warm before. Could have nearly been in shorts. Here's some of the photos of our day.

If you look closely you can see Tobin going off a jump

The boarders

Hopefully we'll go again soon!