Some of the more diminuative Colorado wildlife.

Babies and other stuff

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Originally uploaded by dreamingbig.

This photo is so great to see. Shane -- across the magical dark ocean in a land of giants, hobbits, faeries, foods made of animal parts that should never [ever] be consumed, Guiness, and other mysteries of the dark forest, has this beautiful family -- the newest addition being less than a day old. We are so happy for them, and wish we could be with them to celebrate the new arrival.

Meanwhile, we continue to shore up our fortitude for the arrival of our newest little one. We are really excited, but certainly a little nervous.

Work is finally picking back up, and I'm back into working long hours to keep up.

Nancy and I have started working with the college group at Peak. So far we have met 3 Saturday nights and have a cool group of folks attending. It has been great to start talking about Biblical Community with them. I get reminded of how good God is seeing them coming into our home and starting to form a part of His Body.

Our church has been without a senior pastor for several years, and in 2 weeks our new pastor starts. We have started getting to know him and his family, and they are great folks.

I have recently become an integral part of the Heritage Christian School Technology Committee. Heritage Christian is where Emma just started attending kindergarten. It has been strange being an involved parent at my daughter's school. It feels like I should be older. I'm in the midst of helping them convert their old site to a new format and hopefully make some significant improvements in the process.

I am still the Assistant Director at CoCoa. The life-drawing group I oversee is doing well, and I am pleased with how my own artwork is progressing. I'd like to get into another painting class, I'm thinking about transitioning into still life. I'll continue to work on life drawing, since I have invested so much into that so far, made so much progress, and the style of painting I ultimately want to master involves a good deal of figure work.

Next weekend we are heading to St. Louis for our friend Beth's wedding. Karl and Kathy will be there and we can't wait to catch up with them. For those at all unfamiliar with the "intern years", when we had Emma we didn't know what we were going to do, since Nancy was making the $$ at the time and I was an intern hired for a deep discount as a youth minister. Karl and Kathy were leaders on my team at church, and when I mentioned as a prayer request that we didn't know how we were going to make it once the baby came, Karl came up afterward and said that he had a dream that we came to live with them with our new baby, and that he had talked to Kathy about it and she had said yes. We spent some of the best months of our lives thus far living with Karl and Kathy, and they remain "more than friends." We feel like part of their family, and hope they feel like part of ours.

There's a lot going on. Things are good. I need to get more sleep I think, and Corben is sick right now, but things are good.

I feel compelled to say to those I love: I love you.

State of Confusion and Grace

They say something like 5,000,000,000,000¹⁰ new blogs are popping up every day (or something like that). We've certainly seen evidence of that lately here on Westward Expansion™®©

The newest link is to a parent of a student I used to work with: Jeff. I try and be somewhat considerate of linking first and last names, simply to make people feel that their privacy is still somewhat intact. (but we all should know better by now "Muhaha.... Muhahaha.... MWAHAHAHAHAAAAA!")

By the Ear

By the Ear

Now Karl is online, too -- very cool. Welcome to the blogosphere P. Can't wait to hang out in StL.

Heart of Red Clay

Kathy is online: Heart of Red Clay

I haven't lived near the P's for about 4 years. I still miss them. Nancy and I are going to get to hang out with them in less than 2 weeks, though, and we are excited to see our friends.

Just experimenting with wild flowers.

Verse of the day

This is not going to be a regular thing, but it is what is going on with me today.

Random (or is it?) verse I happened upon (from the Bible Gateway)

“ When I said, "My foot is slipping," your love, O LORD, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul. ”- Psalm 94:18-19

I prayed that God would direct me to somewhere in scripture where he wanted me to hear from Him today.

What is interesting is that God's solution (in this verse) is not deliverance, provision, sustinence or resources, it is love and consolation.

This is Randy and the group we shot with last night. Randy and his wife Rhonda are very important people to Nancy and I. When I was just out of High School and moved out here to Colorado, Randy and Rhonda were part of First Church of God here in Fort Collins and they took me in as a part of their family over the next 4 years until we moved away. They have been such great friends and role models to Nancy and I. It would take more than I could type to tell all the ways they have touched our lives. If people would ever say I reminded them of Randy I would have become the kind of person I hope I do.

Last night was the final night in the archery league. I have a lot of practicing to do in the next few weeks, but its been fun shooting with Randy.

Go visit my tech blog

I just wrote about my current desktop, which I think rocks. Check it out and let me know what you think.

My new favorite web site

Download Squad is my new favorite web site. I’ve enjoyed LifeHacker for a while, but I think this one is updated more often and seems to be more in tune with the stuff I like to read about and try out.

It's basically a site about all sorts of software you can check out. A lot of it is very useful and cool.

Dancing with dad -- these are from John and Katie's wedding a few weeks back. The kids and I did a lot of dancing. It's so fun to have them get excited to dance with me. I was so worn out, they each wanted to dance with me, so we took turns until I couldn't go any more.

Blogger for Word

I am trying out a new Microsoft Word plugin from Google: Blogger for Word

If this works, it will be another great way to post content on my blog.

Google is cool.

On a related note, there are some other cool application free from Google that I have played with lately: Google Earth, Picasa and Hello.

One last shot after dinner. I think Mark and Jackie lived in a larger place before they moved. There were a lot of boxes. Evan (the cat) made himself at home on Mark's shoulders.

Here is Mark's family, Mark and Jackie, and Jackie's brother eating pizza courtesy of Mark and Jackie. The little guy in front is Mark's nephew Ashton.

It's hard to believe that they are actually here now. I met Mark's family and Jackie's brother. They all seem like great folks.

I helped Jackie and Mark move in last night.

Mark and I went camping this past weekend. We 4-wheeled, went up in an old fire watchtower in Roosevelt National Forest, hiked, fished, slept under the stars, shot guns, and had a great time. It was cool because the place we hiked into was HUGE and he and I were the only ones there. It's hidden way up in the Rockies and pretty hard to get to, but totally worth it. It was especially cool to me because this really tied together the life I had before I went to the Chicago area, and the life I lived once I was there. The place we went is somewhere I've only been a few times, and haven't been back to in a decade.

Mark is here now. This is the first somewhat non-embarassing photo of him. He tried to get me to delete this, but he absolutely will not make a straight face for the camera. It's great to have him here.

Scott and Jen, during their visit this week.

Steve and Jeff, during Steve's visit last week.

John and Katie, July 23, 2005

High school, college, friends visiting, drawing and reading

It's been an eventful few weeks here in Fort Collins.

UPDATE 8/3 -- I forgot to mention John and Katie's wedding in Estes Park the weekend before last. It was at YMCA of the rockies and was beautiful. The reception was fun, even though with our little ones we couldn't stay too long. I know John from my days as an intern at Willow Creek. I helped out with the college group, Encounter and he was a big part of the ministy there. He and I have spent a lot of time talking about the camp, and I love his heart.

After returning from camp, I spent a week getting some odds and ends done for Studio North, then put together a slide show for the Peak Youth Group comprised of photos from camp. We were going to play it in church, but due to technical difficulties it wouldn't run. We'll give it another go here in a few weeks and hopefully will have better results.

I was asked to assist the youth group in their weekly meetings while Rick and Angela were on vacation. I went last Wednesday night and just hung out and prayed for a few students during the prayer time. It was good to be there with them.

Afterwards I crashed their get-together and spent the evening watching "Finding Neverland" at on of their homes.

There are several graduating seniors in the youth group that we are hoping to include in the college group this fall. We are planning on hosting a weekly college-age get together starting this fall.

Last week, Steve came in from Chicago to visit my friend Jeff. I know both Steve and Jeff from my days at Willow Creek helping lead the college group Encounter. Steve is supposed to be deployed to Kuwait in a few weeks, unless his orders change. It was good to see him, if only for a few hours.

Yesterday, Mark arrived at our home. He and Jackie are in the process of moving here, well to Colorado, anyhow (Mark will be working about an hour away, they aren't sure where they will be living just yet). He hung out with us a little this morning before heading to his new job teaching 6th grade science at a charter school in Arvada. Our kiddos really took to him.

Today, we went and saw our old friends, Scott and Jen, who work with Intervarsity in Colorado Springs. We haven't seen them in years, and it was great to spend a little time with them, catch up, and share our dreams a little.

It looks as though work is about to pick up again. Things have been pretty slow for a while now, but I've just secured some pretty decent work that should keep me going for a few months, and it looks like there is more to follow.

I'm reading through The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain right now. To be precise, I'm crashing through it. I'm not doing any of the exercises, and I've made it though 2/3 of the book in 2 days. I wish I had read this book 10 years ago. If you have any inclination toward drawing (in particular if you think your skill level is little or none) -- READ THIS BOOK. Don Vogl has been recommending this book to anyone who comes to our weekly life drawing group who is new to drawing. I bought the book last fall and have left it sit since then. The book is an intriguing (albeit somewhat technical) read -- whether or not you ever intend to draw or paint. Betty Edwards has spent years exploring the difference in right- and left-brain thinking and how it affects not only our ability to see correctly, but think outside of our predetermined set of boundaries. I definitely give this one two thumbs-up based on what I've read so far.