Sunriver 09

Ali and I are finishing up our vacation at Sunriver with her family and what a restful time it's been! We've enjoyed the typical stay here with much biking, swimming, reading, eating and playing games. I learned how to play bridge last night but can't for the life of me fathom why there would be a game where one person doesn't get to play each round?!!! I don't think bridge is for me; I'll stick with whist.

I haven't snapped too many photos but the sky and deer have been fun to shoot. Here are a few of my favorites.

More to Come

In another post I said more to come... and I can't leave you hanging forever.

Pictured here is a image of joy renewed and lives that continue. I am happy to tell my blogging world of the engagement of my dad and Denise. Here they are on their trip to Arizona, stopping for the O-so-great-but-overrated In-n-Out. 

They are to be married on the 17th of May.

New Year's Eve in North Portland

After a semi-wild day of playing Assistant Apartment Manager (not assistant to the...where was I?), Ali and I traveled to North Mississippi Avenue for a few places she's been wanting to go.

The Meadow: We stopped first here where Ali had read various Portland food blogs raving on the selection. I being a coffee and wine guy, I should assume that there would be many varieties of salt, but this blew my mind! They have 2 walls devoted to salts from around the world with samples of each. My favorite were the salt blocks (pictured). Supposedly you can cook food right on the block! With equally great a selection was the wall of chocolate. A bit of chocolate is a great way to head of to a taco dinner.

Por Que No Taqueria: This fun place just became my new favorite taco joint. Pay no attention to the poor image quality, but trust me in the quality and taste of the pollo asado (chicken) and pescado (fish) tacos. Ali had a small salad topped with three slices of avocado and we shared some fresh baked chips.

If you ever head down to Mississippi Avenue, and I recommend you do, you may also want to eat at The Mississippi Pizza Pub. We found them while spending time over at Emmanuel hospital with my mom last year. One evening we were all there and asked the nurses if there was any good pizza nearby. Sure enough, they were right.

We're back home now and ready to stay up all night...well, at least to midnight anyway. May God bless you in this new year, 2009.

Big snow & ice

The big storm did indeed come. With 12" drifts outside our front door, 8" most other places and a good coating of ice on top of that, it made for some tough walking around town. Ali and I headed up to the grocery store for a few veggies and of course some photos along the way.

Probably my favorite of the bunch, this crab apple tree outside our apartment stands out with it's red fruit showing through the ice. If it were not so cold, I could stay outside and take ice photos all day long!

That would be the 1/4" of ice covering the snow. It makes quite a crunch when you step through it to the snow below.

Think I'll be driving anywhere soon? As I write it's snowing more and they say another 2-4" of snow tomorrow! Are we on Mt. Hood?

Kitty stays in side with all this snow. This is her just about to yawn face. It kind of looks like her just about to bite you face. She has that face much of the time.

More Snow!

Could it be that the weathermen & women of our fine town could be correct twice in one week?! I sure don't mind.

Seeing as we are supposed to get 6" of snow and then freezing rain on top of that later tonight, we went downtown for photos & shopping. Man, I'm sure glad we've got a Subaru. She sure loves the snow!

While we were out, we stopped at Pioneer Courthouse Square for a couple photo ops. Here are a few from our morning.

Snow Day (week?) 2008

What a great day! We woke up not knowing if snow would be here...and it wasn't...alright...get up and go to church. Just a half-hour later the snow began to fall and didn't stop for at least 8 hours! Needless to say, we canceled church.

We couldn't really drive, in fact you'll see that our street was one of three closed by the city of Portland, so we walked to Starbucks with Annie & Matt. After a warm cup of coffee, we walked through Gabriel Park, then over to Ali's parents to borrow some sleds.

It took 6 hours, but we finally decided to come inside to eat and warm the bodies.

Now for the rest of the week....who knows, we aren't supposed to get above freezing until Saturday, with snow coming Wednesday & Thursday. Yikes!

Here are a few pics of the day's adventure.

Old School Math

No, I'm not talking about the way we used to do math compared to how they teach kids now. I'm talking about our weekend.

Last Saturday, Ali and I took a walk through Multnomah Village to look in all the shops. We came to Paganwood Restoring, a wood restoration shop with plenty of antiques. Entering Paganwood feels a bit like going to my grandma Geist's house back in the day.

Ali's eyes immediately found a 1920's era mechanical adding machine. Being an accountant, she wanted it for her office. The cool thing is that it still works! After coming home, she looked it up online and discovered how to use it (in a very convoluted way) to subtract.

If you're looking for a touch of something from yesteryear and a good walk, come on down to Multnomah Village.

 

Mexico Media

I finally have some more stories from Mexico, but this time it's not just from me. Yesterday, our Mexico team used the sermon time during our church services to share stories of what God did in and through us.

You'll find the 40 minute session along with our PowerPoint slide show links next. I've also embedded the 4 minute video slide show that Zach made. Soon, I'll post the 20 minute version that he and Caleb spent so much time creating.

The PowerPoint file is in the 2007 version. If you don't have that version, click here for a 2007 viewer.

Mexico Sharing Audio - MP3 File
Mexico Sharing PowerPoint - PowerPoint 2007 File
Mexico Pictures - These are the 'best' 500 out of the 1600 taken!

Mexico - Beauty

I just went through all my pictures, taking out the dust marks. Seeing all those pictures makes me miss my time there. I could stay for a while longer. The last few days have been filled with laundry, cleaning, trying to rest up and later I'll go in to work for a few hours before a meeting.

There is no way I can post further reactions to our trip and or give a sampling of pictures all in one post. So I've decided that I'll post under multiple categories...hopefully one a day, but if you're an avid reader of this blog, you know that may not happen :)

Besides the fact that there isn't much greenery, and you're surrounded by poverty, dirt and penetrating dust, you can't help but marvel at how beautiful this area of Mexico is. From the hills to the bay of Ensenada and even its people, Mexico is very beautiful. It truly is a Psalm 19 place, where everything about it is declaring the glory of God.

Here are some pictures of the beauty and wonder, taken by Sara L., my dad and myself:

Sunset over an island in the bay

Sunset over a peninsula in the bay

A red ant on Lucas' arm

Our daily view

Again, our daily view

A squirrel enjoying the view at La Bufadora

Nighttime at our living quarters

One last look at the sunset

Las Vegas Photos

We made it home safe and are sad that vacation is over. Here's a small sampling of the photos we took on our trip. To see the pictures in their full size glory, go here: http://picasaweb.google.com/aarongeist/LasVegas.

Mi Amigos

Saturday night, Ali and I were treated to Kabobs made by Justin over at the Ubel's. It really doesn't get much better than a night with friends, our Goddaughter Brooklyn, great food, some backyard disc golf and a game of whist.

But alas, it is Monday morning, and I—as I'm sure everyone else in reach of the early Northwest Summer—am not ready to go back to work. I'd rather have another kabob.

Breakfast & "Mr. Buddy"

Ali and I took part in our traditional non youth event Saturday morning activity: Breakfast & Starbucks. With the weather being so nice, and us only wanting to be outside before it hit 80, we walked. I'm going to miss the hot drinks for the season, but I enjoyed my iced caramel macchiato, and Alison, her iced Americano, all of course while attempting the Saturday crossword.

You'll notice pictures from the walk of various flowers and of course, Mr. Buddy from our backyard. Alison named any squirrel we see Mr. Buddy, because they become our cat's buddy. He was up in the tree, a little angry that I was taking pictures of him instead of providing his morning diet of roasted peanuts.

Dinner and a walk

Alison and I used a gift card to enjoy Manzana's happy hour on Friday which helped us escape the 96 degree heat for the evening. Owning an air-conditioning unit that doesn't fit anywhere in our house is unfortunate to say the least. We enjoy the sun by day, but the heat makes us wish for the winter by night.

After dinner, we walked around Lake Oswego—which happens to look nothing like the portrayal from 24. It was beautiful, and gave us another chance to experiment with the camera and take pleasure in God's creation.

Back in the saddle

An eternity past once again. Life has been busy. This past month has been great, but with plenty of preparation. We took our High School group to the beach, had our first Mexico Mission training session, co-taught an Understanding & Parenting Teens seminar, alongside what just seemed to be a busy month anyway.

I'm sure I'll blog on all of these things soon, but alas, I've got some work still ahead of me today.

But, what I've got to share is our new camera. Prices on Canon's Rebel XT line are falling pending their discontinuation, and I've got a few friends with the same camera. Compound that with our 6 year old camera throwing a green swatch of pixels into every shot and it was time for an upgrade.

I'm not terribly well versed in the language of aperture, exposure, and shutter speed. But from what I know, I thought I'd try some shots in manual mode. What the heck! I mean, it's digital right?

Anyway...enjoy.

Spring er...Winter Break

Yes, it's March 27th and it snowed last night. Not much, but enough too make this Oregonian very happy! Right now, I'm sitting at Starbucks watching inch-wide flakes fall in front of blossoming trees. It's one of those moments that can only stop and make you thank God for His beautiful creation!

The Weekend Update

I realize it's been a while since my last post, but, 'tis the season. Ali was involved in a wedding on Friday and Saturday, plus she/we made the picture slide show for the rehearsal dinner. It was a good time. Here is Ali standing by the wedding cake. Mmm mmm good.

Honduras, Thailand, and the Columbia Gorge

Vista House & Beacon Rock

Last weekend our church was visited by Victor a missionary national we support from Honduras. Victor has planted about 40 churches in the last 10 years, discipling their pastors. He ended up staying at my Dad and brother's house for the weekend while in town.

While Alison was busy at work, the four of us went to the top of Council Crest to enjoy the view of a clear day. We then headed downtown to Misohapi, a Thai and Vietnamese restaurant for some delicious Chicken Pad Thai! That was great...a couple of Americans at lunch with a Honduran ordering Thai food!

After that, we headed out to the Gorge and to Multnomah Falls. It wasn't a chilly day, but the closer we got to the water, the colder it got. I think it was a bit too cold for Victor.

It was a beautiful day! Watch the slideshow below, or click on it to view full screen pictures.

Protesting Geeks

As one who codes in HTML/XML, I found this quite amusing. Thanks to Marko.