Thursday we celebrated Thanksgiving at the Clarks. The evening was filled with good food and drink, chess, wii, and much laughter! Mom and Aunt Karen Uncle Mark Tasty! Pink Lemonade..... :) Eric Grandma trying out the wii!
Friday Caleb called me and asked if I wanted to head up to the moutains. I looked at the forcast, "partly sunny", that was better then anything we had had in two weeks so we went for it. It ended up being an amazing day.
The mountains were beautiful! God truly is the best artist around! Caleb At the top
Saturday I got to go sailing for a little while with Titus Wenger and Jake Bumstead at Firwood. The wind was a little slack, but we still had a fun time on the Hobie Cat.
My Jesus. Family. Friends. Sun. Pictures. Road Trips. Africa. Sunsets. Water. Cars. My Church. Schooling. Tea. The Ocean. Conversations. The Sun. Mountains. A Bed. Worship. Food. Bikes. Music. Shoes. Books. Parents. Thanksgiving. Phones. Travel. Power. A Healthy Body. The Bible. Siblings. The Rain. Sailboats. Adventures. My Pillow. Music. Silence. And much much more....
Oh how I hate to say no! Whether its saying no to an adventurer, activity, or friend I always find it hard to say "no"!
Two days ago I came up with the great idea that I could spend Tuesday night (last night) in Park Butte fire lookout with some friends. I called them up and after some convincing and switching of schedules we were set. Zach Swanson, Chris Ludeman, and I left yesterday directly after school so we could hopefully finish the short three mile hike before sundown. Due to the elevation of the trail head and the fact of the recent snow, I knew we would hit some snow on the fifteen mile access road. What we didn't realize was that the snow was at elevations a LOT lower then we thought! It was low enough to close the road five miles from the trail head we had hoped to park at....our three mile hike became an eight mile hike and it was already 4pm.
We set out, knowing that it wouldnt be the wisest choice to try to make it all the way to the cabin. After two miles of hiking; we decided to make a group decision, do we continue? Yes(expecting more snow, and probably not getting to the cabin until 10pm); or No(wiser, but way lamer)!
None of us wanting to face the fact that it wouldnt be that good of an idea to continue. "No" was our conclusion! Each of us was slightly ticked at the whole situation as we turned around, but after a few minutes of silence we decided to each say something we are thankful for following the alphabet from A to Z.
We made it back to the car safely and had a fun time hanging out at Chris' for the evening. However, all the more I realize how much I dont like saying "No" to things!
Why did I think this was worthy enough for a blog post? Recently I have seen how this concept of saying "no" applies to all parts of my christian life! Both to saying "no" to sins AND to saying "No" to some "godly" activities! Countless times I have great opportunities to serve or fill my time with "godly" things, but more and more I have seen how many people are too busy in the rat-race of life doing "godly" things! They eventually dont even have enough down time to spend a few minutes a day alown with God and grow in a relationship with him.
Some Pics from the trip.
A sign on the way there.
Zach was very excited about the sign!
Getting ready to start our hike.
Dont give me that look!
On out way home. Donuts always make things better!
I love taking pictures however I struggle to find good ways to share my photos with others. This is a way I will be able to get some of my pictures, which I haven't printed or uploaded to fb, out for others to see! Hope you enjoy the upcoming posts.
Last week my sister and I went to watch the Lynden Lions Football team defeat Blackhills. A friend of mine from Box-T, Ben VanderHoek, is one of the Lions leading defensive players; he played great game and the team won 14-7. They went on to defeat Sequim this week and now they are playing in State semifinals next week in Seattle! Below are some pictures taken from last week's game.
Ben receiving
Getting in on some action!
Nolan Gudde
Celebration!
"Not this way, Bub!" -Ben(ok, well he didnt really say that but....)
Caleb and I made it up for a little early season snowmobiling on Veterans Day. Although we never made it into the alpine, the fresh snow was beautiful!
The set up
Ready to hit the trail
Nice Caleb! (this was a PAIN to get unstuck...thankfully some other snowmobilers passed us and helped us lift it out!
Zach and I had planned to go sailing after school last week, but since there was no wind we decided to go down to Chuckanut. He took me to this amazing beach I had never been to on the south side.
An idea has been floating in my head for a while about making a collage that would look something like what is above. Until just recently I couldn't work up the patience to make such a picture using Gimp(gimp is a photo editing software which allows you to do in-depth photo tweaking similar to Apple's Photoshop). Just recently however, I was introduced by a friend to picnik.com which is a light, easy online editing site. The pictures in the collage below were all edited with picnik.com and put together using Gimp. Hope you enjoy!(open in new tab for better resolution)
If you read one of my previous posts, you know that I was stuck in Portland Oregon for a couple hours due to a missed train connection. At the time it was kinda annoying since I had to figure out different travel plans and wait around for 4hrs, but looking back it was nice being forced to take a couple hours and slow down. What do you do when your in an unknown place with your camera? Take pictures of course!
This first picture is taken in one of the many nice river-front parks in Portland along the Columbia River.
This second picture is taken from the 5th floor of a parking garage I spotted just a little way from the park. I had taken a couple panoramic shots at the park but I didnt really like how any of them came out; thankfully with my higher position, this picture proved worth while! (click on the picture to get WAY better resolution)
Going though more pictures from this summer and came across some from when we took my sister, Michelle, to the airport to see her off to Africa. Michelle is currently in her 3rd month of a year long internship in Zambia where she is spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ and teaching AIDs awareness.
Mom looked pretty fly on the drive there!
Bank Robbers?
Michelle: 1. I love you. 2. You rock 3. Your in my prayers. 4. You better be having a good time over there. ♥
A good friend of mine asked me up I wanted to go snowmobile trail scouting with him today! This normally would be a "no duhh" answer...but today I woke up to a nice down pour outside(don't worry, im used to that). After talking with Caleb we decided to go for it; we would be taking his grandpa's rhino 660 up on some logging roads by mt baker. My partner in crime.(hey, arnt you suppose to be driving!)
My stylish outfit.
Getting ready.
We got to the parking lot and unloaded in a steady drizzle. We ventured up the old logging road for an hour exploring any side trail heading up! We wanted to find a nice meadow at higher elevation to come back to later in the season on snowmobiles.
After about an hour and a half we started to see some snow on the ground. We kept driving and eventually were in 6inch of snow.
We ended up exploring both sides of the valley driving until the rhino couldn't make go further(about a foot of snow). We didnt find any meadows, but we also weren't able to make it to the end of the road! The plan is to keep exploring this area on snowmobiles when we get some more snow.
This past weekend I had the opportunity to ride the train down to Oregon where I was able to hang out with some good friends and meet many new ones. The main reason that I headed down to Oregon was to talk with some folks who I possibly will be heading over to Africa next summer with to do missions work. Me attempting to surf
Thursday I left in a whirl wind right after school finished to catch the afternoon train heading south. The ride was nice and I was able to do a little reading and even catch some wonderful zzz's. I pulled into Salem late in the evening where I was picked by Rachel Swanson(boxt friend), then we headed to Sheridan where I spent the rest of the weekend.
Friday I had a late start to a relaxing day with little planned. Jonathan Bigelow and I decided to head out to some falls about half an hour away...an hour and a half later we finally found the falls located on some gravel back road. The short hike out to the falls proved worth while; there was a steady stream of water cascading down the probably 60ft free-fall. It was beautiful and very peaceful. After the hike we headed back to the dorm for some dinner which was followed by a surprise birthday party for Jake Bumstead.
Jon-o and I at Niagara Falls
Saturday morning I got to meet with Dan and Regina Bumstead(the folks who I might travel to Africa with). The Lord blessed our time; I was able to learn a little about what they are doing in Zambia, and they were able to learn a little bit about my vision and who I am. After my meeting Jono, Rae, some others, and I headed out to the Pacific City on the coast. The drive over was amazing, and the beach was even more beautiful. Unfortunately the waves weren't the best, but Jonathan, Titus, and I all got to do a little surfing(it was a blast).
Rachel
Sunday we went to church which was followed by a potluck. Church potlucks rock! Unfortunately I couldn't stay long because I had to catch the train back to bham from Portland. I planed to get to the station about 15 minutes before the train left but....there was steady traffic all of the way. We pulled into the station and I ran to catch the train but....you guessed it. It had already left. Lame. Eventually, after many phone calls to my sister and parents, I figured out that I could catch the 7pm train and be in seattle my midnight. Carla was nice enough to come pick me up and drive me back to Bellingham. Thanks Carla! Since I had a couple extra hours to kill in Portland, I was able to take a couple pictures of the town(I'll post some soon) and even meet a nice homeless man named Richard.
