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I got a new camera today, and Dad let me have an extra lens he doesn’t use. Amy and Dad were patient, kind, and unselfish enough to meet Tami and I and the kids at a local park and let me use all of their equipment (thank you both SO much!!). Man, I learned a lot, and got a taste of how much more I have to learn. I hope to study a few specific styles and really focus on them, but for now I’m shooting all I can.

Here are a few shots from tonight:

These all have pretty minimal post-processing done on them, since I haven’t figured out a good flow from iPhoto to Photoshop and back again, but I’ll work on it. There are a few more from the shoot on our Flickr stream if you are interested.

This past Saturday was the Nutter Corporation’s Dozer Day in Vancouver. The sun was out, and the temperatures must have hit the 90’s. There had to be thousands of people at the event this year, and the lines were slow-moving and exhausting. But the kids really enjoyed getting to drive some heavy equipment, eating hot dogs, and scrambling for candy at the Dan Jones candy-throwing conveyer truck. And I really have to commend the volunteers and drivers, because every one of them I saw was just having a blast. The driver of the excavator the kids got to ride in was laughing and looked like he was having so much fun, despite the heat and constant flow of children.

Here are some pictures and videos from the day. And as soon as I get some links to the pictures Amy and Dad took, I’ll include them here as well.

We decided a few months ago to start a very small garden this year, both for the fun and for the fresh vegetables that we hope it provides. I had seen a post on LifeHacker regarding square foot gardening and thought it looked like fun. So a week ago we bought some seeds for string beans, snap peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, and a few other things, plus a starter container of “peat pods” for 24 plants. And after about a week, we have plants!

It’s been pretty amazing to watch these things grow. We took a seed and put it in a pile of wet dirt. That was it. Maybe I’m just really simple-minded, but that has got to be one of the coolest things in the world. And to think that one little seed will give us dozens of beans, and another will provide a host of peas. Wow.

Genesis 2:8-9: And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

Thank you, Lord!

The primary difficulty in writing a summary of any seminar session or message is the complete loss of context and foundation for any of the quotes or conclusions presented. With Dr. Art Azurdia this is even more complicated, as he so carefully builds a foundation on the Bible, then articulately extracts incredible truths that are clearly based on both the immediate passage and the “meta-narrative” or over-arching story of the Bible. However, I would still like to try to present a brief summary.

Had the conference ended Friday night after the first session, we would have had enough to think and meditate on for months. But Azurdia continued Saturday with three separate sessions, the last of which was a in a question-and-answer format with Dr. Azurdia, Jeff Seavey (pastor of Living Water Community Church), and Dan Morse (pastor of Christ our Redeemer Church). I would also be remiss if I neglected to mention the incredible blessing that the music was during this conference. The songs focused consistently on the cross and the work Christ performed, and really helped establish a proper Christ-centered approach to the sessions.

The first session, from Ephesians 5:15-22, was based on the premise that the holy dignity of marriage is grounded in the fact that its ideal can be recovered by the means of the Christian Gospel. In this session Azurdia emphasized that the Old Covenant brought sin to light without any power to overcome sin, while the New Covenant provided the power and ability, through Christ, to overcome sin. The problems in a marriage are a result of the Fall, so the solution for the problems in a marriage is the same as the solution for the effects of the Fall: the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

• Husbands are not commanded to be the head of the wife. The husband is the head, and his example for how to love his wife is exemplified by Christ’s love for the church: sacrificial (Christ died for the church), exclusive (Christ loved “her” — specific and exclusive), and undeserved (love her as a sinner, not a saint).
• I don’t need to be a better husband, I need to be a better Christian

The second session on Saturday continued with Dr. Azurdia’s third point: the holy dignity of marriage is grounded in the fact that it exists ultimately for God and His glory, not for our own self-enhancement, self-fulfillment, or self-actualization.

• A healthy Christian family, like a healthy Christian church, has been designed for a purpose outside itself.
• The purpose of every created thing is to bring glory to God. As “idol factories,” we end up making idols of anything, and consistently in the American church, this includes making an idol of the family. “The family” becomes the end, not the means or channel to the end.
• You shouldn’t marry for love. You marry in love for the advancement of the kingdom.

The final session was more informal and involved Dr. Azurdia, Jeff, and Dan answering questions that had been written and dropped into a box throughout the day. There were far more questions submitted than there was time to answer. Without going into any detail, these men address issues from the “exception clause” regarding divorce, to birth control, to the benefits and pitfalls of “full transparency” in a marriage, and how to practically apply the truths learned over the weekend. For me, one of the more refreshing aspects of this time was the humility expressed as these men discussed things for which their opinions differed. There were no egos to be fed, and there was not a hint of pride or divisiveness.

On a side note, one of the quotes from Dr. Azurdia that I found quite humorous was something along the lines of “I tell my students they can preach one topical message per year, but they must immediately confess and repent afterwards.” It would be an understatement to say that Dr. Azurdia preaches expositionally, with complete and utter devotion to the importance of both the individual words and structures of the text, and the importance and and significance of any passage in its book.

As I stated above, this post doesn’t even come close to doing justice to Dr. Azurdia. There are so many more things I could write, but if I could summarize the weekend briefly, it would have to be using a conglomeration of statements Azurdia made: Marriage is divinely designed by Sovereign God, and it carries an ultimate purpose outside itself, extending to the magnification and propagation of the Gospel and the furtherance of the Kingdom of God. The supreme end of marriage is the Gospel, not the marriage, and a strong Christian marriage is characterized by the willingness of each spouse to sacrifice the marriage for the sake of the Gospel.

Finally, Living Water Community Church has made the audio from this weekend’s conference available on their web site (God, the Gospel, and Your Marriage — scroll down to May 9-10). I can highly recommend that couples devote some time to listen to this together. You will undoubtedly benefit more than you can imagine.

If you are interested, Dr. Azurdia has a series of previous messages on the Christian Family available on his web site (The Holy Responsibility Of The Christian Family — scroll down). I haven’t had opportunity to listen to these messages yet, but expect to in the near future.

Last night was the first session from Dr. Art Azurdia on “God, the Gospel, and Your Marriage,” and I can honestly say that listening to him was like drinking from a firehose. Here are a few ideas and quotes:

• “The Bible is not a magic book. We are in all was completely dependent on the illumination of the Holy Spirit.”
• “The dignity of marriage is grounded in the fact that marriage is the holy creation of sovereign God.” He went on the explain that such a grounding removes any authority man thinks he has over marriage, and any right to change it to fit his purposes or dissolve it to accomplish his desires or changed feelings.
• “We must begin with God Himself. Your marriage is not your own. It belongs to God.”
• “Eve’s worth is based in the fact that she is an image-bearer of God, not that she came from man.”
• “Marriage is not the creation of man, so man has no authority to do with it as he wills.

His text for the evening was Genesis 2:15-25, and he consistently and constantly referenced back to this text.

We’re looking forward to three more sessions today with Dr. Azurdia. In another post I will see if I can provide the words to one of the songs we sang; it is easily one of the most powerful songs about Christ’s work on the cross that I have ever sung or heard.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Well last weekend I sorta moved the fence. Actually, moving the fence might have been easier, but the grass is finally greener: I replaced our front lawn. Sure, it’s only 400 square feet, but I found out I was only in shape for about 25 square feet…

When our house was built, and the front yard was landscaped, the sod was placed directly on top of sixteen billion tons of river rock and clay. And water bottles. And fast food wrappers. And left-over concrete. So I removed the old sod, garbage, old construction supplies, and a couple of hundred pounds of rock so I could place another patch of newer, better sod.

So now I have a wonderfully even, green, smooth lawn. And that lawn will take gallons of water to maintain. And pounds of fertilizer. And gallons of lawnmower gas. It took me about ten minutes to understand the complete folly of our obsession with lawns, but I live in a neighborhood that has a neighborhood association and architecture approval committee. And I think the rules eliminate the possibility of making the front yard useful, like these folks:

Saturday was my first climb of 2008. Brother-in-law Paul and I met up with John B. and family and headed east into the Gorge to climb Dog Mountain. The elevation gain at Dog Mountain is about 2800 feet in just over two miles, though based on the condition of my muscles yesterday and today I would have pegged it at about 7500 feet! I’m very sore, and my legs don’t seem to obey my commands as quickly as they did Friday before the hike.

But despite the soreness, the climb was more than worth it. Being in the woods and breathing that fresh, clean air was invigorating, and wondering at the incredible beauty of even a fallen creation was awe-inspiring. The flowers were not yet in bloom, but I expect that in the next three or four weeks the mountainside will be completely covered with the balsam root flowers, which make this great hike even more compelling.

This is just a little fun participation in CSS Naked Day! A full 48 hours of sans-CSS bliss — it just gives me shivers!

This past weekend our family met my sister’s family in downtown Portland for some fun wandering. The trip had started as a planned visit to Voodoo Donuts just off Burnside, but the presence of “adult” donuts on their web site resulted in a change to Finnegan’s toy store and Pioneer Place.

The kids had a blast at Finnegan’s, and we waited out a rather severe deluge of snow, sleet, and rain before heading a block away to a store we saw coming out of the parking garage: Authentic Models. I had never heard of this store before, but the old bi-plane models hanging from the ceiling and the huge sailboats in the windows made it necessary to stop in. It was a nerve-wracking few minutes, trying to manage six busy kids who just left a store in which nothing was off-limits for their exploring fingers. But they did great, and we were awed by the beautiful displays and by avid curiosity as to who would spend $4600 for a mini Bugatti with no motor (!!). Here are some pictures from this place:

One of the first things I saw when we walked in was a bright red miniature ride-in Bugatti that I initially thought was pedal-powered. They also had a powder-blue version in the showroom that was just as beautiful. I discovered later that these are individually hand-made, and come ready for an electric motor that the customer has to install. The brakes are actually inside each of the four wheel hubs and linked together with a thin cable tied to a brake lever on the side of the cockpit. The seat is leather. The wheels are inflated rubber tires on custom aluminum hubs. In short, I was awed by them.

Add the hot air balloons, airplanes, dirigibles, sailing ships, and vintage-looking globes, looking glasses, miniature wooden model kits for kids, and carved “glider” rocking horse, and I was enthralled.

From there we headed down to Pioneer Place to walk around and, presumably, grab some yogurt or ice cream to mollify the kids, who originally expected donuts with cocoa puffs on them. It ends up we just enjoyed the sky bridge between the mall and Saks, got some smoothies at the food court, raced elevator travel against escalator travel, browsed the Mac store while waiting for Lindsey and Tori at Claire’s, and rode Max back to the parking garage.

And, with Lindsey’s purchase of some magnetic earrings at Claire’s, our parking in the Smart Park ($2.50 for four hours with validation) was, this time, smarter than Paul’s $5/day smash-my-window-and-steal-my-loot parking lot.

Amy wrote about this trip, too, and has some great pictures.

Disappointed with CP Hosting, I switched to 1and1. I ran into a problem with 1and1, which remained unresolved after about a week. So I switched to BlueHost, and am up and running again. My apologies to the thousands of readers out there who have been stranded.