I am gonna get you!

Last night, our son for whatever spontaneously, babylike reason, decided to start crawling away from me. He stopped, and looked back, and when I motioned to follow him, he squealed and turned on the jets. What ensued was a "high speed" chase through pretty much our whole suite. It was the most fun I've had in a long time. I think the fact that he was wearing only a diaper made him a little faster than me (he he). Anyhow, he would stop and make sure I was still following him every once in a while and I would nip at his back to let him know I was still in hot pursuit. Ahh, he's so cute, and getter cuter all the time.

Psalm 1

I was reading Psalm 1 today and was struck by the image of the tree. It the psalm, the tree is bearing fruit and it's all good. But trees go through seasons; at least here they do. Spring is a time of new growth, summer is the time of beauty. Fall is harvest time, but winter is all bleak and dry. I feel like winter these days, but this hope is always that spring is coming soon...

Come on, Validate me!!!

So I was trying to get my journeyouth website validated, and as far as I am able, I have. I think that the final bug is in the code that runs the freewebs ID bar, which sucks because I can't do anything about that as far as I know, short of making my own little bar there that looks that same. Oh well.
It's Friday, and I'll have to admit that it's tough to get going some days. But today I have quite a bit to do, so I should get off my Hiny and do it...

Go ahead, make my day...

I just got to msn with a good friend of mine that currently resides in England. That was cool. I was the first one too. Although another friend was on the other side of the conversation with that friend. He normally is the giver of spider dogs, but in this case he'll receive one because I'm jealous.

Long time no blog...

We had a good weekend with our friends on the island. It was a relaxing weekend. Their son is pretty cute, and we were trying to get our son to teach him how to crawl. Our son was supposed to learn how to sit, but I suppose who wants to sit if you can crawl.
Yesterday, our pastor and I went for a day retreat to Rivendell on Bowen Island (here's some pics, although they aren't mine and I don't know who this guy is!) It was a good time to get away and hear from God. I built a little fire in the fireplace and had a good devotional time and my pastor and I both heard many of the same things from God in that time that we were seperate. After lunch, we did some planning. All in all it was a good use of our time and a much needed one at that.
Oh, and if you didn't notice, I've put a favicon on the page, inspired by shroomazoom's.

fun, fun, fun. fun, fun, fun.

Tonight, the senior high guys are going to Castlefunpark. I think it'll be a good time. It's a ways out there, so we'll have to leave early. Tomorrow, we're going to see some friends on the island, so our son will get his first ferry ride, and it will be the first time we've driven on the ferry. It's over $100 round-trip, what a rip-off. Can you say "bridge!"?

Ash Wednesday

I was a part of my first Ash Wednesday service last night. It was pretty neat. I got to put ashes on people's foreheads. It's hard to be consistent with it though, because inevitably one person gets a really nice, dark cross, and someone else gets a really light one, or one stroke shows up way more than the other. Oh well.
What I took away from it is that yes, we will die, yes, our lives can be a mess, but Jesus is bigger than that. He breaks into our darkness and brings life. Death is everything, and death is nothing. It is end of the beginning and although it is a scary concept at times, faith calls us to have confidence in what Jesus has done and said.
There's a story about two twins in the womb arguing about whether or not there is life after birth. I think in many ways we are like those twins, but all our questions and doubts won't be answered completely on this side of the great divide. Jesus has given us enough for now I think.

Outperforming

I ran into someone from out prenatal class at Superstore yesterday. Her daughter was born the same day as our soon, is 4 lbs. heavier and can barely roll over yet. We met with another couple from our prenatal class today. Their son is very cute, but cannot crawl yet. He is good at sitting though, which our son is not. It's hard not to compare your own offspring to that of others. Really, at this stage of development things happen so differently for each child that it is difficult to compare them in any meaningful way. We're happy with where our son's at, and that's good for us. I'm sure the other parents are happy with where their kids are at too. It's not a contest, and the best part is that we all had healthy little babies.

Mmm... pancakes...

We had a pancake breakfast this morning at church. It was great. It ran from 6:30 to 8:30 and quite a few people came actuallly. I was there the whole time and ended up having two rounds of pancakes. I made sure I didn't bring a lunch, knowing I would be trying to get over too much syrup for the rest of the day. I guess it's not called "fat tuesday" for nothing...

OK, take a look

Here's what I've got so far. Feel free to pick it apart. I did actually do most of the coding by hand. If there was something beyond me, I'd do it visually and then see how it worked. At the end, I cleaned up the code because there ended up being a lot of what seemed to be messy and unneccessary stuff (like 3 different commands telling one thing to center). I even had to do some coding after I uploaded it, so it was good to know how to do it. I do agree with Shroomie that knowing how to code is good, but I think I'll take it a step at a time.
So, like I said. Feel free to comment on what you think.

all the ml's

I continue on with my html learningness. I've been working on a site for our youth ministry. Nothing big, just for info and stuff. It's been neat learning and seeing how things fit together. I downloaded a Dreamweaver trial. I like it. It's easy to use and I can do things visually and then see the code right away, or vice versa which is helpful for me. I got a book from the library from 1999 on web design, but I get the feeling it's a tad bit out of date. I remember 1999. I was still using a 486 sx with a free juno account. Ah, those were the days...

Mission accomplishing

Last night we had our youth leader's meeting. It was good. We always make supper for them and then chat and pray and plan afterwards. We had to kick around some ideas about upcoming things and there was some good dialogue. The thing that made me feel good was that one of them said that they feel like they get a lot of input into things. The others all heartily agreed.
One of my struggles as a leader is to try and not just do everything myself, but to include others. Maybe I'm starting to get a grasp of it. Collaboration is always more difficult for me. I thank my leaders for being easy to work with and easy to trust. They make my life so much easier. Thanks...

Good Morning

I walked to work today. It takes an hour. I can't seem to shave any time off of that. It feels good to get some exercise, plus it gives me some quiet time where I can pray. Often it seems if I have any distractions around me then I let them distract me. walking leaves me with nothing to do but think and pray, so for me it's a good space to find myself in. My legs get pretty tired though, I'm not used to that much exercise!

Going... going...

The house is sold, pending the inspection today. Pretty fast, considering it was the day after the open house. But the realtor did say it would go fast, and I suppose realtors are supposed to know these kinds of things. Apparently it's a couple expecting a baby, and they'd like us to stick around. We're still wanting to move though. No news on that front.

We are doing pre-marital counselling for a couple at our church. Well, it's mostly "I" am doing it because my wife and son are busy during most of it. But I appreciate my wife's input. She read a diary entry from Dr. Dobson's mom from after her husband died. They sounded so much in love and she could barely function after he was gone. On the one hand, I don't know if I want to have a meltdown if my wife dies, but I do want to miss her and feel some sort of an emptiness like something is missing. I worry sometimes that my personality won't allow me that, or maybe it will. Hopefully I'll have another 60 or 70 years before I have to find out. The book she read from is Every Woman's Desire which I really recommend. In spite of the title, it's actually for husbands primarily, but good for wives too.