Saturday Evening Outing

Since the sun came out, we decided to take a break from our homework and head out for some fresh air and exercise. Here's a taste of the beautiful scenes around Bowman's Bay on Saturday evening.

Click the above picture to get a better view of some of the wonderfully designed rock variations.


Some people stop watching the sunset as soon as the sun can no longer be seen. If you do this, you miss the glorious pink skies that tend to follow.


I love Ryan's eyes. Should we have biological children, I'm curious to see whether they will get my dominant brown eyes or his.

Edible Flowers

My mom made these and brought them over for Valentines Day. I thought they were so cute that I wanted to share them. They are strawberries dipped in melted, red chocolate. The leaves are carrot tops.

I substituted for another teacher last night so no big V-day plans for us. Ryan was wanting to go to The Melting Pot (fondue restaurant), but that will have to wait until the crowds mellow out. Plus, it's a hike to get there from here.

Things on this end are most of the same--school and work. We're still looking at what to do this fall as far as going overseas or if school is even an option (such as Ryan doing classes at Western WA and then transferring the next quarter to UW).

The past couple of days have been a bit stressful with some issues at work. Hopefully things will mellow out there soon.

That's about it for now. Now back to the grind. : )

Helpful Links for Marriage and Life!!

These are some wonderful messages that I heard a few years ago that have now re-aired and I highly recommend listening to them. I know we're all busy, but try listening while getting dressed in the morning, cooking, cleaning, etc. The first two are a two-part audio drama of a couple having very typical marital problems from Family Life Today. They get to experience life through their mate's emotions. FLT does a good job of explaining common struggles and how to understand each other, though they go a little far with making men look like they are struggling sexually all day long. I know that many do, but there are many that are not walking testosterone bombs either (this is from the mouths of men who I've heard say how they're offended when all men are portrayed this way). Listen to Brian's first and then Angela's. These messages are a part of a 10 part series that are all good if you want to listen to more.

Brian's story http://www.familylife.com/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=dnJHKLNnFoG&b=3789887&ct=4954631

Angela's story www.familylife.com/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=dnJHKLNnFoG&b=3789887&ct=4982893

There were some great messages on Focus on the Family recently on abortion. One speaker, Scott Klusendorf, gives some very helpful, apologetic arguments against abortion that can be used when talking with anyone. He does not use scripture since there will be people that we talk to who won't be persuaded by that. Please listen!

http://www.oneplace.com/Ministries/Focus_on_the_Family/Archives.asp?bcd=2008-1-24

Pizza and Games

We recently had some of our international student friends over for homemade pizza and games. We had two from Thailand and two from Hong Kong. This was their first time making pizza. I should have told them to use more sauce since their pizzas were a little dry I think. It was interesting to see how all four used so little of cheese. Ryan and I think that we put light cheese on our pizza but not in comparison to them. It makes sense though as neither the Thai nor Chinese diet has much (if any) cheese and very little dairy in general.

We had a few sodas saved from a party with my ESL students. It's a very rare occasion when we drink soda, but I made sure to put them in the fridge in case any of our guests wanted some. They all wanted water with no ice, just the way I have it too. Why have a cold drink in the middle of winter anyway??

While the pizzas were cooking, we played a few rounds of Uno. The Chinese had a few extra, more intensive rules for this game that made it a little more difficult which was fun. Later we played memory with the Uno cards and Ryan showed them his favorite card trick. It was hard to find games that would work with English language learners, plus we don't have a lot to choose from. We didn't think the Newlywed game or Bible trivia would work too well! Too bad we didn't have the game Apples to Apples as that would have helped with learning some more vocabulary for them since it's basically a game of nouns and adjectives.

We want the weather to get nicer so we can take them hiking!! That'll be awhile yet though!

Little Birdy

We have a large window outside our front door that birds frequently fly into. Ryan opened our front door while we were cleaning this weekend and found this little guy lying on the ground. Ryan took him to a safer place so that he'd be able to fly away without further obstruction. The poor little guy must have been in shock. He just sat in Ryan's hand. Ryan eventually put him down on the ground and came in to get him some birdseed. When he went back outside, the bird was gone. It looks like he was able to fly again. : )