g i double b s

Blog Fail

2010-12-07T01:47:00.000-08:00

For anyone looking for something to be posted on here, you can stop holding your breath. Sorry Mom, I guess it's time for you to get facebook... :) This just has not been at the top of our priority list lately.

To be continued...

Summer is in full swing

2010-07-18T03:46:00.000-07:00

It's crazy how the summer goes by so fast. It is already half way through July... crazy. The blog is definetly on the decline as of late thanks to facebook and twitter. Blogging takes a lot more effort. I guess we will see if it keeps going or not.

Ryley is doing great, adjusting nicely to the Gibbs family and our odd schedules. He seems to have his routine down quite nicely. He knows when it is outside time, time to eat, time to sleep.... Oh, Megan usually works on tricks with him in the afternoon. Getting him to shake was a cinch, but rolling over has been a little more amusing. Well today I got a treat and took him into the living room, where we normally practice, and he dove onto his stomach immediately and rolled over without giving him any commands or gestures. He just anticipated.... It. Was. Awesome. And so funny! I will have to try and catch it on video.

I use to get annoyed when people would constantly talk about their dog, or when a friend had a kid... and that was all that they talked about. Well, now I think we are THOSE people. Oh well.

Here is a photo from a recent disappointing outing to the Mariners game... How many days until football?

Ketchup Time

2010-06-28T00:47:00.000-07:00

I guess it is time to do a quick recap of what we have been up to before summer kicks off and we get even more behind. We just switched computers and I have yet to transfer all of the pictures and everything over to this one, so for now here is a list of the posts to come.

Megan goes to Kauai for a nursing conference
Megan gets her tonsils out & we get a doggy to help Megan's recovery :)
The Ippy's come to town
East coast time with the Flynn's and McDowell's
Hoopfest

Here is a photo of Megan and Ryley at Riverside State Park. And a link to a post by Jenny about our time together on the east coast.

Seahawks Draft

2010-04-26T06:11:00.000-07:00

There is a buzz in Seattle and around the league about the Seahawks draft. Hopefully it translates to a difference on the field, it can't get much worse then the last two seasons... so far this year is off to a good start. This excerpt from and article in Sports Illustrated pretty much sums it up.

"Seattle Seahawks
What I liked: Everything. Not many franchises in the history of the NFL have had better three-day periods than the Seahawks did, when everything seemed to go perfectly and fall just the way they wanted it to.

What I didn't: In praising the Seahawks for their selections, it must be noted that they were extremely fortunate that Russell Okung, Earl Thomas, Golden Tate, and Anthony McCoy all came to them in the manner in which they did.

Moving forward: This draft along with the trade pick-ups they got in LenDale White and Leon Washington get the Seahawks off to a great start in the Pete Carroll era, but only time will tell whether or not they can get enough production out of the quarterback position."

That's My King

2010-04-03T06:09:00.000-07:00

Not the first time I have seen this, but it is definitely worth sharing again... do you know him?

That's My King! from Albert Martin on Vimeo.

Carol is turning 50

2010-02-17T17:10:00.000-08:00

While planning for my mom's 50th birthday I was thinking about something special I could do for her... she works so hard and is so selfless I thought that I should have all of her guests help contribute towards a nice gift. She called the other day with a plan of her own, and asked me what I thought about instead of people bringing her gifts, if they would use that money and make a contribution towards Ciyanjano, a conference center in Zambia that our missionary friend Steve Allen supports and is trying to develop. I just smiled, shook my head and thought... of course you would... I wanted to send her on a cruise :)

To all of our friends and family, stop by mom's house on March 7th from 2:00-5:00 PM for an "Open House." Come for five minutes or the whole thing, we would love to see you. And if you would like to know how you can make a donation for Ciyanjano as a gift for my mom then keep reading.

Steve is a missionary with Action Zambia, and all donations are tax deductible. There are three ways you can donate:

1. Mail a check to Action International designating it for "Carol For Ciyanjano - # 71140 (Zambia)"

PO Box 398
Mountlake Terrace, WA
98043-0398

2. Donate online by clicking here and select Zambia Ciyanjano Centre (71140) as the designation and under additional information put "Carol For Ciyanjano"

3. Just come to the open house and we can make it happen :)

Go to Steve's blog, Alive in Africa for a post and short video about Ciyanjano. Megan and I were in Zambia last summer with the Allen's and visited Ciyanjano, it is a great place and has tons of potential for the community there. Scroll down for a post of our time there...

they need more boots on the ground...

2010-01-20T23:51:00.000-08:00

My friend Adam lives in New Orleans and is deploying to Haiti in 24 hours. Here is a letter that the team just sent out explaining whats going on... this all went down today. If you want to help Haiti and know where your money is going then here is a good place to start.

sonicsgate

2009-10-09T15:28:00.000-07:00

Sonicsgate Trailer from sonicsgate on Vimeo.

Fall is just around the corner

2009-09-17T01:29:00.000-07:00

Spokane is feeling more and more like home these days since moving in to our new house in April, and most of that is due to Megan adding her own little touches that make it our own. We don't know how long we will be here, but for now it's home sweet home. When we first started blogging, the idea was to be able to share what was going on with family and friends after moving to Spokane. While that is still true, the blog also acts as a journal of sorts that we can use to look back on for ourselves... while blogging isn't our top priority, it is still a fun way to keep track of all that we do.

Megan recently took a full-time position at the hospital that matches up great with my work schedule. We are both working nights right now and we get two days off together every week. (When Megan was supplemental were lucky if we had one night off together a week!) We are excited to get back in to the regular rhythms of Life that come after summer, but first here are some highlights from the past couple months.

6.28.09

I'm excited for my buddy Ryan who is getting married in less than month. I'm also excited that his future bride Emily grew up just not too far away from our house, which brings them to town once and a while. At the end of June, we got to hang out at a BBQ celebrating Emily's graduation. Afterwards we had some fun with the bocce balls.

7.6.09
For as long as I can remember Megan has had a heart for Africa. Since I started working with Horizon Air we decided to make the most of the flying benefits I get, taking at least one oversees trip a year. We try planning out trips where we know people, and our good friends the Allen's are currently in Lusaka, Zambia. So we flew south for the summer on a 10,000 mile journey that we will always remember. 1 hour from Spokane to Seattle. 5 hours from Seattle to Atlanta. 15 hours from Atlanta to Johannesburg. We spent two nights in Joburg checking out the downtown, Soweto and Nelson Mandela's house before the one hour flight to Lusaka.

Joburg

Soweto

We spent a week in lusaka with the Allen's. It was great to see Steve, Steph, Cam, Brady, Julia, Jojo and meet Rhoda for the first time! We had some quality time hanging out and seeing all that they are involved with. We visited an orphanage, school, hospital, retreat center, compounds, houses, attended a church service, I sat in on the class that Steve teaches, me met a lot of people and saw first hand some of the ways God is working in Zambia. One week was way too short... It was neat to be able to but names with face and places, to meet many of the pastors that Steve works with and hear their stories. Those are some amazing men of God.

Arriving in Lusaka

At the Allen's house after getting picked up from the airport

Lots of vendors on the side of the road. Selling everything from rocks and steel to produce and cell phone minutes

Pastor Jerry's Church

Megan with a bunch of the kids after church

Cute little girl that was fascinated with the big mzungu (white person). She sat in front of me at church and starred at me the whole time, and then followed me around everywhere after church... she was cute

Dinner the last night at the Allen's house. I'm so glad we made it down to see you guys. We had a blast. You were great hosts!

Safari
We also went on a Safari at Chaminuka while in Zambia. It was a combination of Safari, Feast, Fishing and Fun.

Not sure what Simba was snacking on

We BBQed up a couple of these Impala's for lunch...

Vic Falls
Zambia is home to one of the seven natural wonders of the world, Victoria Falls. If you combine the the height, 360 feet, and the width, 5,600 feet, Vic falls is argued to be the largest waterfall in the world. It was an amazing sight to see, it is so massive. We took the 5 hour bus ride from Lusaka to Livingstone. Our friend Owen, who was also in Zambia at the time, went with us. We took a greyhound type bus, but where there are normally 2 seats on each side of the aisle, this one squeezed in 1 extra seat just for fun, so there were 2 on one side and three on the other. So the three of us crammed in and lived to tell about it. (mind you there was no a/c and a good hour or so was spent on a dirt road) We had a great time hanging out at the falls (where we got drenched), Meg and I had a date night on a sunset cruise that went down the Zambezi River where we saw lots of wildlife like Elephants, Giraffe, Hippos and crocs. We also decided to all jump off a bridge with a rubber-band attached to our feet... this was my second jump and I loved it! This was Megan's first and probably last time. She had fun, but it took a lot of coaxing to get her to actually jump... :)

What an awesome trip! One we will always remember. We hurried home for Oma's 85th birthday celebration. Of course flying stand-bye we didn't make our direct flight back to the states to Atlanta, so we decided to go through London and then on to Seattle. Total time door to door to get home i think was over 40 hours between sitting in airports and on the plane. We got to sit by each other on each leg there and back, and oh, I forgot, we got first class going down there from Atlanta to Joburg! Thats the way to fly, but now every time we get coach Megan complains :)

7.30.09
When we got back from Africa it was back to work, so we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary a week and a half late. We decided to go camping again and headed out to Lake Pend Oreille in northern Idaho, the fifth deepest lake in the U.S. It was kinda last minute so when we got there there were no campsites left, so they put us out in a group site all by ourselves... It is great getting away and "roughing" it for a couple days. We love camping.

I think I won like 8 out of the 10 games we played of yatzee and sequence... Megan might dispute that claim.

8.7.09
Spann family reunion in Nampa, Idaho. That was fun. (time for work, need to hurry)

8.30.09
Josh and Mandy get married! I was a groomsman. That was a lot of fun. Congrats you two!

Rehearsal Dinner

Alright, the mother of all blogs is done. I'm late for work. Peace.

Busy Summer

2009-08-26T15:53:00.001-07:00

This next weekend will cap the end to a busy summer with Josh And Mandy's Wedding. After that life will slow down a little as we settle back into our normal schedules. Looking forward to back-blogging about all that we have been up to!

gardens and golf...

2009-06-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

the past week we have had very cold and rainy weather with thunder storms at night. it has finally warmed up a little more these past two days so i was able to get outside to take some good pictures of my veggie garden and the exterior of our house.

we want to purchase a little table and chairs for under the awning, but for now, our little card table and camping chairs will do :) a big thank you to carol for the hanging flower baskets...they add a lot of color.

my veggie garden...i have tomatoes, basil, cilantro, cucumbers, peppers, and squash planted.

this picture was taken when they were first planted. they have grown a ton and are now starting to blossom...i'm hoping to be able to eat some tomatoes from my garden really soon!

aaron and i finally had a day off together yesterday. i had worked a 6 day stretch, so i was ready to have the day off! aaron had planned a date night which consisted of mini golf at a little family fun center in spokane. then dinner at our new Red Lobster, and a movie. the winner of mini golf got to pick the movie. i really wanted to see the new movie "The Proposal," and aaron's pick was "Star Trek." aaron apparently was a "trekky" when he was younger. i on the the other hand have never seen an episode of "Star Trek", so i was not too excited about that. well...aaron pulled out the victory in mini golf (i was leading the entire game, but got behind when aaron had a hole-in-one, and it took me 5 strokes!)

so i reluctantly went to "Star Trek." i have to say, it wasn't that bad, but i would have much rather seen a romantic comedy :)

catching up...

2009-06-19T00:59:00.001-07:00

wow...we have not blogged in a while! sorry to all of our loyal blog-followers...we will try to be more on top of it!

so i thought i should post some pictures of the house...as promised :)

the house was built in 1946

signing...signing...signing...

the living room

to the left of the picture where the archway is is our front door and entry. we love the arches in the house that give it so much character.

the hallway...leads to our bedroom, office, bathroom and kitchen. sorry no pictures of our room, office, or bathroom.

our retro kitchen

the hutch was built with the house. we also got a new dining room table which, i am proud to say, we eat at (sometimes) :)

family room in the downstairs finished basement. we have been enjoying our new 7 foot couch...aaron loves that he can lay out on it without his feet hanging off!

guest room...so come visit! we also have one more small room in the basement that will serve as my office/craft/yoga room. i'm still working on unpacking it though :) also not pictured downstairs is a bathroom, huge laundry room, and many closets for storage.

aaron has been diligently working in the yard and garden (with my help), so we will post more pictures of the yard soon. i (megan) planted a small veggie garden in the back, with cucumbers, peppers, butternut squash, basil, tomatoes, and cilantro. i discovered there are chives that the previous owners had already planted so we will enjoy those as well. so far the garden has not produced anything, but i'm being patient and hoping and praying that some veggies pop up soon!

aaron interviewed a couple of weeks ago for a "team captain" leadership position at work...and got the job! he has more responsibilities, is the "go-to" person if a problem comes up, etc. as for me, i have been staying very busy at work with a lot of open positions and shifts to be filled...thanks to many my fellow co-workers who are on maternity leave!
one of my good friend's at work was blessed with her 5th child!

date night :)

beautiful spokane river...with downtown spokane in the background

amongst the craziness of being a homeowner, work, and life in general...aaron and i are planning a 2 week trip to zambia in july. we will be visiting our good friends, the allen's, who have been there for almost two years now. we are so excited! we will try to post some pictures of the yard and garden next week :)

on the move

2009-04-13T23:29:00.000-07:00

megan and i got the keys to our house last friday as planned. we have our lease through the end of the month so we are going to move in slowly as we get the house primed for all of our stuff. we look forward to making this new house our home...

mood explanation

2009-04-09T21:57:00.000-07:00

Last week Megan and I cleared our calendar to take a trip to the east coast with our friends Nick and Hannah. Hannah is an awesomely talented fashion designer from a small town in New Zealand. The recent photo of her was taken at Mood Fabrics, NYC. Apparently it is well known shop where a lot of folks go to get their stuff to make cool clothes :]

We took a little detour to Boston on our way to NYC. Check out the Dan and Jenny's blog.

mood

2009-04-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

hannah is just a little bit excited...

spring training '09

2009-03-07T14:25:00.000-08:00

last weekend we headed down to peoria, az for some sunshine and mariners baseball. megan's cousin lives minutes away from the stadium. awesome.

the m's won both games that we saw, hitting the ball good. the first game against the giants. we paid six bucks and got outfield lawn seats. jd and i brought our gloves and played some catch before the game... megan asked us, "what is so fun about throwing a ball back and forth?" jd and i looked at each other, shrugged, and kept on throwing :) it was pretty chill sitting in the grass watching the game, but it was hot (89 degrees) and we got burned. so the next day we ponied up and got stadium seats in the shade on the first base side. it was a fun, low-key weekend. thanks jd and alaina for hookin us up.

new house

2009-02-25T17:42:00.000-08:00

we heard that it was time to buy, so we did... well, almost. we put in an offer yesterday, today they countered and we accepted. if all goes well with inspection etc. we will get our keys on april 10th... Good Friday.

free give away

2009-02-23T18:42:00.000-08:00

Bible Study Magazine and Mars Hill are giving away 20 copies of Mark Driscoll’s new book, Vintage Church. Not only that, but they are also giving away five subscriptions to Bible Study Magazine and a copy of their Bible Study Library software! Enter to win on the Bible Study Magazine Mark Driscoll page, then take a look at all the cool tools they have to take your Bible study to the next level!

random update

2009-02-10T15:07:00.000-08:00

here is an update for the sake of updating... :) nothing much to report on. 2009 so far has not brought the snow like we had at the end of last year. when it started on december 17, we got 17 inches in 24 hours. wow.

im still throwing bags with horizon air and i started up classes again last week at moody. megan is still a shining star in the er at providence holy family hospital.

we traveled back to seattle several weekends in december and january for different birthdays, weddings, and parties. here are a few photos from then.

saying farewell to the allen's before they headed back to zambia.

megan and paige at christmas.

doellefeld christmas

good times in spokane.

new years eve, downtown spokane.

cbc youth pastors at their best... COL

snowflake lane, downtown bellevue.

kauai

2009-01-13T15:38:00.000-08:00

despite the hurricane and flash flood warnings, we had a great relaxing time on kauai...

megan and i ventured to hawaii after my mom gave us a time share for an anniversary present. we left december 9th (two days after my birthday one day after my last final) and got home december 18th, just in time for the big snow! we beat the winter rush and were able to fly stand-bye on alaska. we had a whole row to ourselves there and back on the 6 hour flight.

we spent a week at the westin princeville resort. it was definitely the sweetest hotel we have ever stayed at.

this was the view from our studio

sunset at the resort

hiking trail by ke'e beach

kilauea lighthouse

whale watching spot at the lighthouse

church in hanalei

we checked out a lot of beches for next time we go back...

kapaa beach

bubba's burgers are awesome

waioli beach

wailua falls

the only access to the napali coast is by boat, we hooked up with captain andy's boat tour and his 40 foot catamaran. it was sweet. on the boat we spotted turtles, spinner dolphins, bottle nose dophins, mantaray, humpback whales and crazy flying fish... it was awesome, the one thing we missed out on was snorkling because of all the run-off.

driftwood beach

the whole island was very chill. we look forward to going back some time soon to grab a burger at bubbas and do some snorkeling.

from tropical storm to winter storm

2008-12-18T13:32:00.000-08:00

just a quick update... we made it home to spokane today, miraculously. the last two scheduled flights from seattle to spokane last night got cancelled, and so did the first 4 scheduled flights for this morning... i dont know what to tell you, but after realizing our second flight got cancelled we caught wind of a secret, NON-SCHEDULED flight, leaving in 30 minutes that was carrying most of last nights passengers to spokane... all i can say is, wow! it took me two garbage sacks covering up my keen sandals, a frisbee to dig out my jeep, and some CRAZY driving to get us finally home. its seriously like a blizzard out there. check it out, records are being set here in spokane for accumulated snow fall.

i trucked through snow past my knees in the front yard as i made my way up to our house when we got home, this pic is taken in the back yard... we will fill you in on kauai as soon as we catch up with this snow! cheers!

autumn in spokane

2008-11-13T23:22:00.000-08:00

aaron and i decided we would send out a christmas card this year...we didn't last year for some reason. having a good christmas card involves having a GOOD picture to put on it...so we attempted to take our christmas picture this year using a gorillapod and our camera. we walked to franklin park, which is 2 houses down from our house, hooked our gorillapod to the tree branch and set the 10 sec timer on the camera...here are a couple pics that we didn't choose for the card :)

it is SO hard to take a cute picture playing with leaves...as you can see, we tried and failed plenty of times. i was determined to try to get a good one though :)

by the end of our "photo shoot," our hands were frozen and i was DONE with taking pictures...where is ryan when we need him!

tuba man

2008-11-12T11:49:00.000-08:00

if you are a seattle sports fan, then you have at one sporting event or another crossed paths with seattle's iconic tuba man. his sudden and tragic death puts a stamp on this year in sports for the pacific northwest...
seattle times article

Toilet Bowl 2008

2008-11-06T01:12:00.000-08:00

its been a tough year for washington sports. with the start of the nba season i had a hard time trying to pick out the players on the oklahoma city thunder... for those of you who dont recognize that name or know what the heck im talking about, no, that is not a wnba franchise... even though it sounds like one. no, that is in fact the new name of the once and former seattle suuuuuper sonics. sad i know. even sadder is the idea of now turning south on i-5 to the portland trailblazers to get my thug on. actually having b-roy on the squad helps a lot, but i think im going to check out those underachieving zags now that i am on this side of the mountains. a team who sleeps through a weak a** conference year after year and tanks the big hype in the big dance, year after year. but home games are like getting into lambeau field, your not getting in unless you know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody.... so... yeah. im still working on a solution.

now where as the disappointing seasons from the mariners and hawks are tough to stomach, they are edged out by this years toilet bowl for 2008. im actually taking deep consideration about packing down for this record setting season... take a look. this is truly an historic event.

cabo wabo

2008-11-04T21:38:00.001-08:00

hi, this is megan. just this last week, my good friend sarah and i just got back from a week vacation in the sun in cabo, mexico. aaron graciously allowed me to use a companion pass to take sarah with me for my birthday (aaron didn't go because he had school...and because he would have hated the HOT weather in mexico). we had been planning for over a month to go to mazatlan...we had our hotel booked and everything. well the joy of flying standby...when we got to LAX to catch our flight to mazatlan, the flight was oversold and we didn't make it on. there is only one flight out of LAX to mazatlan a day, and the flight the following day was oversold also. so sarah and i were sitting in the LA airport trying to decide what we were going to do when these two women approached us and said that they overheard us talking about our dilemma. to make a longer story shorter...they had a timeshare in cabo that they had already paid for and were not using. they offered the timeshare to us for a great price and there was a flight leaving for cabo in an hour. SO we hopped on the plane and landed in cabo 2 hour later! it seriously felt like we were on the amazing race!

who's on first?

2008-10-17T18:59:00.002-07:00

so funny.

Autumn

2008-09-23T17:35:00.000-07:00

Autumn is on it's way, and I am ready for it. We had a nice bit of
rain the last couple of days which was refreshing and reminded me of
the pacific northwest again... I am proud to admit that I am one of
those who embraces the Seattle weather and the rains that come with
it. (megan is already showing signs of seasonal affective disorder)
and as you can see, the leaves have already begun to fall and minutes
after this picture was taken we had a bit of hail as well.

School is well under way as I am entering my fifth week. So far so good, I am really enjoying it even though life has become more and more busy. For megan and I, we are learning to embrace the time that we get to spend with eachother as we often can go several days when all we can have time for is a high five or a quick bite to eat as one is coming and the other is going... But we do have each other and I know I couldn't be happier.

appendicitis?

2008-09-15T21:52:00.000-07:00

my younger brother jake was taken to the er this afternoon and they discovered that he has an Appendicitis... he is having surgery some time tonight... please pray for him and my family. thanks

horse

2008-09-09T20:05:00.000-07:00

i guess you cant be the best at everything...

trippple play

2008-08-31T17:25:00.000-07:00

all of that junk mail from comcast finally paid its toll on us and we signed up for a home phone. we have officially joined the 509... we are cutting back on the cell phone minutes so try us at home first.

509.443.5764

thanks.

busy summer

2008-08-21T00:11:00.000-07:00

our summer has been jammed pack. megan and i are both looking forward to fall... well, i know i am :) megan would probably prefer that summer lasted a couple more months... school starts up for me next week and with that comes stability to our schedule. here are a few highlights from this last month. we had some good times, lots of time on planes and the rare occasion that found us in the automobile.

this week i flew on four consecutive days. megan and i flew to seattle on monday to hang out with ryan and emily (emily it was great to meet you, even if you did try to give us mono), then flew back to spokane on tuesday so that i could work that night. wednesday i flew to seattle and picked up my friend chappy and we headed down to san fran for some quality time before he and his family moved down to nola. we stayed the night and headed back on thursday. good times with great friends!

i would tell you the name of the pizza we had, but i would need you to fill out a disclosure stating you where 18 years or older... you can only find a place like this in san francisco.

next i had the pleasure to once again make my way to daroga state park for summer safari. megan was camp nurse and i was the MC and one of the speakers. it was a great week, probably one of the best all around camps that i have been apart of. It was great to see a lot of familiar faces and some new ones. this is me and jay making up a bunch of rubbish as we attempt to explain the rules to dye wars.

the last day of camp a couple of us staff people hijacked one of the boats and got in some tube time... patrick got the short straw. on the outside of the patrick sandwich was, big bear... and bigger bear... phil is a little creatively challenged at times.

family reunion in moses lake for megan's mom side of the family. megan with cousins paige, aka "pp" and ashley, aka "munchkin".

check out the form... bowling is cheap in moses lake, we payed $1.25 each.

megan and i spent sunday afternoon at fost falls food fest to watch our good friend austin jam away with his band. it was over 100 degrees, even the shade could not keep the sweet from running off the tip of my nose. does anyone notice something different about megan...?

small town

2008-07-22T16:20:00.000-07:00

this was taken in a small town we drove through on our way home from oregon. i dont even think there was a gas station.

wallowa lake

2008-07-22T15:13:00.000-07:00

megan and i went camping this last weekend for our one year anniversary. wow. it has gone by fast. we went to megans childhood camping spot at wallowa lake in northeastern oregon. it was great. and thanks to those of you who got us the camping stuff for us off of our registry, we put it to good use.

we switched things up the last night... after dinner i did the cleaning up and megan tackled the fire. (thankfully no one was hurt in the making of the fire.)

late nite cards... who gots the better poker face?

jens wedding

2008-07-15T00:36:00.000-07:00

we all headed to mcpherson, kansas for my cousin jen's wedding... the wedding was an hour from wichita, and i could get megan, my mom, and me there on stand-bye, but jakes ticket would have been $700 on frontier airlines... so the closest i could get all of us non-reving was dallas fort-worth. (the price of the rental car and gas was half the price of jakes ticket) which was nice, cause with the price of gas and all the flying we do, we havent gotten much time on the road. we got the last four seats on the plane (none together) and had a 6 hour drive waiting for us. wichita is hot and windy, not my cup of tea... we ate good food and celebrated with the bride and groom and all the family. we left the reception at 10:00 pm and drove through a sweet lightning storm to make our 7:30 am flight out of dallas. aint non-reving great.

jen graduated from central christain college in mcpherson kansas... which just happens to be the same little college in the middle of kansas that megans dad went to. megan couldnt see what face i was making.

mom and megan doing their cake cutting thing.

jake and aaron. ushers. aka bouncers. we decide who gets in.

presenting jen and eric lemus.

all dressed up.

missed it by that much...

2008-06-30T23:22:00.000-07:00

when some people hear that we fly stand-bye all the time we get mixed reactions because we are not guaranteed a seat on the plane... we do make educated guesses based on the date, time and flight loads. but there are variables that we cannot control, such as the weather, tour groups and worst of all... cancelled flights. but if you go in to it with the foreknowledge that you may not make the flight for whatever reason... well, it makes for some great stories.

megan, my mom and i where on our way to michigan for my cousin madisons graduation party. our plan was to fly from seattle to minneapolis to travers city. after a heck of a time getting through getting checked in (two days a week nwa has a direct flight to tokyo... which left the same time as our flight. thats an extra 300 travelers trying to get checked in) we made it to our gate just as the flight began to board. while waiting at the gate i discovered that the earlier flight to minneapolis had cancelled, which meant we were not getting on that plane to minneapolis or any other that day. but by near chance at the next gate the flight departing a half an hour later was headed to detroit... a long story short, i managed to get my mom and i on the flight after much deliberation with several gate agents, but not megan... (this all happened VERY FAST! i ran over to the other gate to wake my mom up so that we could board) i told megan to wait at the gate until she saw that plane leave the gate, her plan was to try and get on a later flight. when my mom and i got on the plane (we were the last ones to board) we noticed a couple of open seats but the gate agent was on a mission to get the flight out as soon as possible, even though she knew my wife was waiting at the gate and there was an open seat for her on the plane. the flight attendants assured me that we would not leave with out megan, so the gate agent ran down the jet way to get megan (but megan was told that there was no way that she would get on the plane, so she started walking out, but turned around and ran back after hearing her name shouted from afar). so after all of that megan, my mom and i all got on the plane that was oversold... and we all sat next to each other in the same row-just another day of non-reving.

while catching our breath and laughing about this whole crazy half an hour, my mom turns to me and asks how this would affect our bags and if we would make our connecting flight in minneapolis... i said, mom... this plane is going to detroit... the look on her face was awesome. we had lots of good laughs and memories from this trip. we made it to travers city, stayed in a sweet summer house, and made it to the grad party as planned.

lake michigan looks like a friggin' ocean.

the harbor at lake charlevoix.

madison the graduate, and uncle preston.

megan getting her game on. good form.

kabobs

2008-06-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

its crazy that just two weeks ago we had snow and now its in the 80's... i thought the weather in spokane was crazy but i guess its that way everywhere this year.

it was bbq time with the davis'. i work with austin, and jaclyn is his wife. they live just a few blocks away, and also go to the same church... summer time is here and it is going to get busy.

East Coast

2008-05-28T00:38:00.000-07:00

We took on another adventure to visit some friends, Daniel and Jenny McDowell. They moved to Boston last summer so that Dan could attend Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. It is an adventure because we fly stadbye... so there is never a guarantee that we will make our intended flight, therefore we wound up arriving a day early and leaving a day later than planned... barely. (the flight out of Boston that we got on was oversold by one seat and there where 16 standbye passengers trying to get on... and mysteriously Megan and i both got on, and actually had seats next to each other... wow, it does not always turn out like that... but that uncertainty makes it the adventure!)

We also took a road trip to New York city... driving in Time Square definitely added to the adventure. New York is an incredible city, each time I go back it blows me away. Here are some pics from the trip.

"Make Way for Ducklings" at Boston Public Garden.

Grand opening of the Boston Apple Store, now the largest in the US.

Our first night in NYC was a little drizzly.

Dinner at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company.

This was the hotel we stayed at, a block away from time square...

Central Park.

Headed to Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Thank You Mcdowells.

mickey mouse land

2008-05-02T10:02:00.000-07:00

well... i remember it being way cooler when i was like 10. the roller coasters where cool, but i guess it has been a while since i have been on one because i didnt last long. after ride number 3 i was a basket case. so in between california screamin' and the tower of terror we needed to take pit stops at winne the poo land, bugs life, and pirates of the caribbean. bugs life in 3D was probably the highlight.

we joined up with team turner, which made it worth it. this place where "dreams come true" is hardly "the happiest place on earth" but i relived mychild hood through the munchkins. at that age everything is THE BEST and SO COOL! it was actually really fun to see how excited the kids get. by the time we got to the park jayson had the system down with fast passes for everything. thats the way to go if your going to do it. lines are for the ill informed.

these two girls where fearless and great encouragers when i thought that i could not go on...

goofy was getting a little restless with all the paparazzi following him everywhere, i guess enough was enough.

this was on the tower of terror... it was actually a decent ride.

hooked up some cheap tickets on stubhub for the angels game. 5 rows from the top behind home plate...

we had a nice time in LA, but i think next time we will check out the disneyland for big kids... las vegas :)

i had a visitor today

2008-04-26T01:05:00.000-07:00

my brother jake came to visit me in spokane today. we had a good ol time playing custom halo and call of duty games... one vs. one... (which is not to be confused with dan playing one vs. one poker) i was skeptical at first, but it was fun when you turn up the speed to 300 percent and make gravity 10 percent. i taught jacob how to play backgaman... and he beat me at it. dang it. but then he taught me my new favorite game that is going to take over the word, sock golf. which is kind of a version of frisbee golf, but different. i beat jake. then we played with our macbooks and watched cloverfield.
we packed a lot into little time. yeah.

drive safe jake.

bottom of the totem pole

2008-04-19T15:55:00.000-07:00

megan and i are experiencing what it means to have to work our way up in our respective fields of employment... the other day megan got home from a 10 hour shift at 3:30 am, at the same time i was getting up to leave for work at 4:30 am...
so we decided to make the most of it and had pancakes together before i went off to work and megan went to bed :)

new orleans 2

2008-04-09T21:59:00.000-07:00

at the audubon park there is a scenic drive that goes through the park and along side the mississippi river (which is nearing flood warning level right now)... as we were driving i just happen to spot something out of the corner of my eye... yeah... it was of course a giraffe... apparently there is also a zoo at this park... that was almost the highlight of the trip... a close second at least (sorry cousin, its not too often that i get to see an animal like that) anyways i thought it was kinda cool, i didnt even have to pay the admission fee...

go to kamryn's blog to see more cool animals.

new orleans

2008-04-09T15:15:00.000-07:00

so megan decided to go to boise for a few days with her mom and grandma to visit relatives... so i decided to go to nola :D to visit my cousin amanda whos birthday is next week. i flew down on tuesday and i am leaving tomorrow afternoon. a quick trip, but when you have got the benefits you gota use them up!

this is bourbon street.

this was at amanda's house 'rockin' it on the porch.

this was taken at a deserted house in the lower ninth ward where the worst of the damage was done by katrina...

the next three photos where taken at musicians village where some restoration is being done... the contrast is amazing from one side of the street to the other as shown here.

nurse megan

2008-03-13T15:52:00.000-07:00

here is a picture of megan before leaving for work yesterday...

i was looking forward to megan working as a nurse because i thought that she would have a uniform or something standardized to wear to work... not the case, she has the same freedom to wear what ever she wants at work that she has when we go out... even though she is limited to wearing scrubs, you would not believe how many different combinations you can come up with in the morning to find the right one that works with how you are feeling that day and what your hair decides to turn itself into... in the words of FORMER american idol contestant Danny Noriega it is sometimes TMTH... just kidding babe, you are very talented... and worth waiting for :)

reflection

2008-03-03T09:37:00.000-08:00

it's amazing how God works things out... i signed up to go the resurgnce conference because i have hunger to hear words from Godly men. having conversation about spiritual things, asking questions and bouncing ideas off of people really gets me fired up!

Chandler, Piper and Driscoll

i was planning on flying over to seattle for the conference sunday night, but all of the flights appeared to be full... it can go either way flying stand-bye when the plane looks full, so i decided not to risk it and texted steve, the pastor at my church in spokane (who was also going to the conference) to see when he was leaving. turned out that he had one open seat in his car. he was going with three other guys from the church, but one of the guys got over there early and only needed a ride back... i only needed a ride there... awesome. i had a chance to get to know two other guys whos names i did not even know before hand.

the road to megan and i staying in spokane was a long one... our plan was to just stay here long enough for megan to finish up school and then head out some place we had never been for a few years while i finished up my school... and then eventually move back. well, we wound up settling on spokane. megan found a great job here, and i found a program at ewu that i wanted to do. plus it is real cheap in spokane, so we figured we could stick it out here a little longer. after we made that decision i stumbled upon moody bible institute... a long story short, it now looks like i will be starting there in the fall if everything falls into place. Gods way of getting me to this place and making that decision was a brilliant. its one of those things that you hear and say, "wow" and thats all that you need to say, because... God is wow. we dont always get the privledge to see what God is cooking up for us, but when he does, it is so encouraging.

i was encouraged last week while i was at the conference... more so affirming my decision to go to moody. the bible, and Gods people is where my heart is and has been for a long time, and i cant wait to dig in! it not only encouraged me, but it opened my eyes to the sheer power of the gospel... i have a problem with criticizing the church and how we should do ministry... i have seen us fail in so many areas and seen so many missed opportunities that my thinking becomes, "well if we would have done this different, or if i would have just tried harder or changed that one thing..." and i get distracted from the only thing that really matters, which is the message and gospel of Jesus Christ. im shaking my head at myself right now because all of those frustrations that i have do have validity, but it all starts with the gospel and then all of this other stuff comes up under that. its all in perspective for me, and mine was not clear. having the gospel at the fore front of my mind in all my thinking and decision making will hum a different tune than if i did otherwise. and it all starts with my heart. only God knows my heart. and i need to take heed to that.

Resurgence

2008-02-25T16:07:00.000-08:00

I'm in Seattle for a few days for the Resurgence conference at Mars
Hill: Text and Context. the first session set a great tone for the
week about "what is the church?"

this is matt during a break...

megan loves moving... a lot...

2008-02-16T22:16:00.000-08:00

actually that is far from the truth :) it is her least favorite thing
to do, especially when it is trying to snow outside. on the other
hand, we counted and I have moved eight times since I have graduated
high school. (that was almost 5 years ago)

on a side note... megan is officially a registered nurse in the state
of Washington! we dont know what her score was, only that she passed,
and that's all we care about :)

exciting news

2008-02-05T11:55:00.000-08:00

the first thing is I just figured out that I can make posts from my
cell phone... :) (this time we will see if a I can post a photo)

the second thing is, megan and I are moving into a house! we signed
the lease last week and will be moved in by the end of the month...
this isn't the best pic but it will have to do until we get over there
in the day time...

test

2008-02-05T11:43:00.000-08:00

this is a test to see if I can blog from my cell phone...

bungeeeee

2008-01-31T00:38:00.000-08:00

the quality of this video isnt the best... i had to do some tweeking with it so that i could load it onto the blog. since it was not shot in the traditional landscape view (thanks hannah) i had to rotate it, thus making the video about half the size of the window... oh well, you get the idea. this is apparently the first commercial bungee site in the world. 150+ feet in about 8 or so seconds plus a little dip into the river... they put two bungee cords on me just to be on the safe side :) sweet az!

snowed in...

2008-01-28T21:26:00.000-08:00

anything the mcdowell's do, we can do better...we can do anything better than them...HA! just kidding :) the mcdowell's reported a nor'easter a couple weeks ago, here in spokane when something like that happens...we just call it a storm :) when we got back from 95 degree weather in Fiji, there was a couple of inches of snow on the ground. since then we have accumulated well over a foot! aaron had to work when about 8 inches of that came down on saturday & sunday... to document this eventful occasion, we got bundled up for a ten minute walk out and around the park to take some pic pics... another blog update successfully made... yessss!

p.s.
megan just informed me that i forgot to update the halo score... here it is to the best of my recollection.

Team Gibbs | "a lot"
Team McD's | "not so much"

study...study...study...

2008-01-25T17:59:00.000-08:00

my life the past couple of weeks, and for the next couple of weeks, has been taken over by NCLEX review books!

the big test is scheduled for february 9th. who ever heard of studying for 5+ hours a day AFTER you graduate from school? such a strange concept. it's been hard to get back into the study mode, but i'm looking forward to becoming a real registered nurse after passing the NCLEX and getting my license. i start general hospital orientation at holy family here in spokane on february 4th, and after passing the test, get to start orientation the following week in the ER :)

all i can think about while studying diabetic ketoacidosis, post-op care of a tracheostomy, signs of addisonian crisis, and the thousands of side effects and nursing considerations of meds (just to name a few) is wanting to be here...along the west coast of the south island of new zealand...

new zealand part 6

2008-01-16T23:14:00.000-08:00

we are home... we are actually in bellevue right now. i fly back to spokane tomorrow, and megan on saturday. i go back to work on friday, and megan begins studying for the nclex. stepping off the plane in seattle was just as shocking as fiji. in fiji the sweat starts dripping from your nose within minutes, and in seattle you are shivering within minutes :) here are a few pictures from the trip. there are many more from ryan that we are going to rely on with a few of ours thrown in... we will probably make a link an album within the next couple of weeks. cheers

after the wedding adam joined us for a little road trip to the north point of the south island. we camped, it rained, we got wet. it was sweet as cramming all of us and our luggage into the station wagon... here's a picture of the guys.

here is ryan doing his thing.

this was the most frightening part of the trip... sadly we dropped adam off after two days back in nelson so that he could make his return flight to auckland... (good times adam, good times) the rest of us headed down the west coast and then cut across to wanaka and queenstown then shot up the middle through christchurch. in queenstown ryan and i went bungy jumping... pics and video pending...

we had a real fiji experience when we went in to the town in nadi... this guy found us outside the grocery and told us that we needed to go and experience real fiji... "go down the road turn left, go straight and turn right, and there you will find real fiji experience..." so we found a food market and then headed to the bus when this guy shows up again... he says no you must come this way... he leads us down a couple of streets to this ally while talking to us about his shop and how its authentic fiji etc. megan and i begin to have second thoughts but this guy insisted... on the balcony there were three locals there to greet us, waving us up to their shop. it was very very sketch, but turned out alright. we had traditional drink called "kava" (blessing/chant/clapping and the whole bit), we chatted and bartered, and then hurried to our bus... the bus is a whole other story. there are many more stories we could share, too many stories to blog about, (im no steve allen), you will just have to ask about them in person or skype :)

this is at the hostel/resort that we stayed at in fiji... we all got a little burned in different places, continuous sweating was unavoidable...

the shitty weather (apparently this word is better received then 'crap' in kiwi land) on the west coast in NZ put a damper on our hopes for some sweet as sunsets... we lucked out on the last night of our holiday... this photo is mint!

oh, the guy in fji told us to make sure an tell all our friends and family that it is safe to visit fiji again... "there are no more cannibals... come have holiday here in beautiful fiji... peace, joy, love, harmony..." so there ya go.

new zealand part 5

2008-01-14T19:03:00.000-08:00

i guess the title of this post should actually be fiji... oh well. we are just about to head into nadi for wee bit, and then come back to the hostel for dinner. then its off to the airport where a 10+ hour flight takes us into LA. we are actually going back in time... we leave fiji at 10 pm on january 15th and get back to the states at 2pm on january 15th... crazy! the southern hemisphere was nice, but i am actually looking forward to seeing snow again, megan is not :)

new zealand part 4

2008-01-12T16:44:00.000-08:00

we are in the auckland airport, heading to nadi, fiji... its 85 degrees (feels like 95) and raining. but we got a sweet hostel right on the beach, should be nice and relaxing.

here is a picture taken on the west coast of the south island, we will back home driving on the RIGHT side of the road before ya know it!

new zealand part 3

2008-01-06T13:00:00.000-08:00

how awesome is technology... right now im sitting in an internet cafe watching the seahawks game on my laptop... brilliant!

new zealand part 2

2008-01-06T08:00:00.000-08:00

im sitting in a McDonalds while i wait for the rental car place to open... i cant tell you enough how much i appreciate high speed internet! it took me what seemed half an hour to check three emails the other day at hannah's parents house (ippy's in-laws), steve, i feel for you bro... it is the ultimate test of patience.

nick and hannah got married off, and it was oowesome (thats kiwi for awesome... two o's for double oowesome!) we had heaps of fun already (heaps is my new favorite word). we are picking up our rental car this morning and are heading up to golden bay to camp for a couple of days. then we drop off adam back in nelson and head down the west coast, through the glaciers and then to queenstown for a couple of days and then jet back up the east coast to fly out of nelson on the 13th.

the hardest part about driving on the wrong side of the road is getting in and out of the car, at least for me it is really awkward :) when we told folks here that on our first day in auckland we got a rental and were driving around in the city we got laughed out of the kitchen! they couldnt believe they give foreigners cars for hire just like that... it was quite mad, we only got honked at 3 times and drove towards oncoming traffic once (that was me). the other thing you have to get use to is that the turn signal is on the right side of the stirring wheel... we often had the wind shield wipers declaring our turning intentions while figuring out which land to go into (the wipers are where we would normally use the turn signal).

no pictures yet, i couldnt get on the wireless with the laptop... but ryan has got... heaps of oowesome photos that im sure will be on here when we get back to the states if not sooner.

we are safe and having a grand old time with our tans/sun burn (pray for ryans melon, it doesnt like the lack of o-zone layer here in the southern hemisphere :)

cheers

new zealand part 1

2007-12-29T12:32:00.000-08:00

a good friend of mine moved down to new zealand a few years ago and now he is getting hitched. thats a good enough excuse for me to travel half way around the world :) our two week excursion will primarily be spent on the south island. megan and i are meeting up with a couple of friends to travel around. and then on the way back we are extending our layover in fiji for two days. it will be quite the extreme going from 26 degree days to 85 degree days. yikes. who knows when we will have opportunities to do these kinds of things again, so for now we are going to live it up!

thanks for the photo ryan, many more to come :)

for now... spokane is home

2007-12-28T14:43:00.000-08:00

on december 9th megan graduated with her bachelors of science in nursing. a week later she accepted a position in the ER at Holy Family, located in... Spokane, WA. this was her top choice, and is really excited about starting work on february 4th. she still has to pass her "nursing boards" i think its called the NCLEX?

a number of things went in to this decision for us to stay in spokane... bottom line is that it is just a good fit for us right now. we could not be more happy and at peace with this decision. i am looking into a couple of different options for me to finish up my school while continuing to work part time at the airport. ill fill you in more when i find out myself. for now im continuing to take my gen eds through BCC online.

here are a couple of pictures of megan with her "patients" at nursing school. they had an open house for family and friends to check out at her school the day of graduation.

megan during the pinning ceremony.

aaron, megan, kendra and greg after megans graduation.

santa's little helpers...

2007-12-05T12:59:00.000-08:00

i couldn't resist posting this...you HAVE to watch it. it features aaron and i, and our dear friends daniel and jenny who live in boston. we miss you guys!

just click on the link below...

elf yourself... (please be patient while the page loads, it will be worth the wait)

just a little update for you all...

i only have one more day left in my practicum at evergreen, then i graduate on sunday, the 9th. i had an interview at holy family hospital in spokane in the emergency department last week. that went really well and they said that i was a good candidate for the job. i also have an interview at evergreen in the ED on December 13th. they had more than 50 applicants for three positions, so i don't know what my chances are of getting offered a position...but i'm staying positive, and i know that God will provide the perfect nursing position for me either in spokane, or seattle area...or who knows where else.

last week in the ED during my practicum, we were called to a "code blue" up in ICU. a code blue means that someone has stopped breathing and CPR is required. an emergency room doctor, nurse, and tech go to all the code blue's in the hospital, and my nurse who i am shadowing was on the code team that day. we go running through the halls and up the stairs to the room where the code was. there were about 15 people in the room...from doctors, to pharmacists, to respiratory therapy, to nurses, to techs, and the family of the patient. one nurse had just started to do CPR, but was tiring quickly. my nurse told me to jump in there and take over for her. the first couple of compressions i felt his bones cracking below my hands, which is expected because you are supposed to do compressions really deep and hard...but it was a gross feeling. after about 2 minutes doing CPR, the doctor told me to stop compressions because we needed to shock him. after about three cycles of CPR and shocking him, we got a pulse again. when i left the room, his oxygen level looked ok, and he was somewhat stable. that was my first experience doing CPR on a real person. there were so many emotions during and after...it was exhilirating, intense, scary, and a huge adrenaline rush.

not a bad day's work when you save a life :)

mr. airport baggage handler guy

2007-11-27T10:14:00.000-08:00

now when you are traveling this holiday season, think about the little guy. the guy that nobody sees. the guy that nobody notices... until they cant find their bag! ha! now you know what really goes on after your bag disappears off that conveyor belt at the check in counter... :) joke. i take my job very seriously, sort of.

back and forth

2007-11-15T18:20:00.000-08:00

megan and i will be traveling back and forth between seattle and spokane during the next few weeks, while megan wraps up her last semester--working at evergreen hospital for her nursing practicum (from what i have gathered, what that means is she basically works without getting paid as a part of a requirement for graduation... sorry babe, i probably spelled that wrong huh?).

i recently got the opportunity to obtain the video entertainment game halo 3, and in attempts to move our marriage along to the next phase (im not exactly sure what that might be), and to get in tune with our inner most feelings for one another, megan inquired that she might give it a shot as well. so to dan, and ryan, megan is the "friend" that joined us on that lusterous afternoon... here are some images of her in action-

it took megan a little while to get use to the controls... for a while when ever she went to shoot someone, she would wind up just spinning around in circles with her gun pointed at the ground. (for a while i thought that she was trying to see what her shoes looked like)

one she got the hang of it things started to get intense...

this is megan after she finally realized that she could go in to appearance settings and change the color of the generals "outfit" (actually i think this is when she discovered the jump button...)

life doesnt get much better than that. coming home after a fine day of work to find a clean house, dinner on the table, and my wife calling some 12 year old boy names because he keeps on moving when she tries beating him down with the spiker! shes actually not that bad. she does her best when it is spiker only rounds... uncle jerry you gota get in on this!

a year older...

2007-11-01T22:32:00.000-07:00

for my birthday (which was last friday, the 26th) aaron and i went back to seattle for the weekend. it was so nice to see our families and some friends. aaron then surprised me with my birthday present...a trip to victoria for a couple days :)

since aaron has benefits through his work, we took the short plane ride (only 20 minutes) over to victoria. our hotel, miraloma on the cove, was in a small town called sydney, about 10 miles out of victoria. the hotel was amazing! we highly recommend it. it was basically a mansion with 22 rooms right on the cove. they had to bump us up to a suite, which was pretty much bigger than our apartment here in spokane :)
we ventured into victoria for the afternoon checking out the sights...the famous empress hotel, the legislative building, and all around town. it was such a relaxing weekend...we look forward to many more adventures taking advantage of aaron's flying benefits :)

san diego

2007-10-23T14:51:00.001-07:00

On my day off last week I took full advantage of my benefits and headed down to sunny San Diego! i flew down wednesday morning and back on thursday... simple

as that :)

i stayed with my pal josh, we had some mexican food, In and Out, played old school nintendo, went to the beach and checked out some caves, drove around the city and watched transformers. not a bad way to spend your day off. good times.

these are megans socks... she had to put them on when we got home the other day because spokane really has two seasons: summer and winter. i was really looking forward to the fall, but we went from 75 degree days to 35 degree days in about a week! its pretty cold outside but there are still the colors of fall, and i would rather it be cold than hot... cold is definitely better.

double trouble

2007-10-03T16:50:00.000-07:00

i am finally done with my training for horizon, and am now an official "ramper." its so nice to have a consistent schedule now, even though i wake up at 4:00 am to be at work by 5:15 am, im done at 11:30 am, and ive got the rest of the day to myself... to get done whatever it is that i need to get done. i work friday, saturday, sunday and monday. (i traded my thursday morning shift with a guy for his monday afternoon shift... giving me a "double" on mondays)

so monday i worked my first double... i saw the sun rise from the ramp, and i saw the sun set from the ramp. 13.5 hours! my uncle larry is a mail-man and he's been getting up that early for years and working many shifts that long or longer... larry, you the man. thats tough, the reason it was probably so tough for me was because even though i tried going to bed at 10 pm... i didnt get to sleep until 1:00 am... (thats 3 hours of sleep o tizzle). so it will take my system a while to adapt to the new sleeping pattern.

im really happy with my job right now... we will see how much i like it, when i am deicing planes for 6 hours in 19 degree weather :)

-aaron

bonjour...

2007-09-26T20:21:00.000-07:00

in all the busyness of school, work, and moving, we forgot to post some pictures from our wonderful honeymoon. aaron surprised me and took me to paris and london! we spent about 5 days in paris and 2 days in london. although we were really tired after the wedding and from traveling, we made the most of our trip, visiting most of the touristy sites...here are some of my favorite memories :)

the Louvre was incredible! we were blown away by how huge it was. the building behind us was just one of the three buildings that made up the museum. this picture was taken on tuesday, when the museum was closed. so we decided to come back on wednesday after 6 pm when admission was half off...and the crowds were much smaller...

i can't remember what this painting is called, but it was pretty incredible...and massive! notice the guy in the bottom of the picture with the red backpack...just shows you how large the painting really is...

under the Louvre pyramid...

notre dame

au revoir to paris...

hello to london

our hotel, or should i say castle, was directly across the river from the london eye (the big ferris wheel). that is parlaiment and big ben in the background...

in the queen's telephone booth...

we were walking right alongside the royal band on the way to the changing of the gaurds at buckingham palace

parliament...the lady that took our picture cut off big ben on the right :(

such an amazing trip...i hope you enjoyed seeing just a few of our pictures. we definetly recommend going to paris and london someday. we enjoyed paris, but they are so mean to tourists there...so unless you speak french, expect to be treated not so nicely :) in london, because we spoke the same language, we felt like we were treated in a little better and we enjoyed the city a lot. maybe someday, we will visit again....although i'm sure it will be waaaay down the road...

hope you all are having a great week!

-megan

the real world...

2007-09-19T22:13:00.000-07:00

this last week has been very interesting and challenging...i am just now coming to the realization that we are grown up and are now living in the real world! well, i technically am still a college student, but have to start seriously thinking about what i am going to do when i graduate in december. school is winding down and i am forced to start writing resumes, looking and applying for jobs, and studying for the NCLEX...which is going to kill me. we are trying to decide where we want to live in this next phase in our life...who knows...maybe we'll end up in boston? (jenny you would love that :) among the options are alaska, oregon, california, chicago...pretty much where ever i can get a job and where ever aaron can keep his. about aaron's job...he started working this last week and his schedule is opposite of mine for the next couple of weeks as he finishes up training. we don't get to see each other all that often, but that's the "real world" right? as all of us growing up and are moving in all different directions, i am just reminded that God is in control and is guiding our every step. my mom has this quote hanging up on the cupboard in her kitchen..."lack of faith is panic." may the Lord strengthen my faith in the next couple months...because i am definitely panicking!

-megan

pdx

2007-09-12T23:31:00.000-07:00

i am in portland for the week doing training for horizon along with 23 other agents from the region. this morning there was a buzz in the lobby as we waited for the shuttle to take us to the flight opps building because of news that 113 horizon flights were cancelled today due to a mechanical air to the aircraft... turns out that scandinavia airlines had a crash landing when one of the landing gears failed upon landing... (the same model aircraft as one of ours, the Q400) so the first question we all had was, do we still have a job :) and the second was, how are we getting home on friday with all these flights grounded? for your information horizon was not required to do this. horizon is all about safety and customer service, with safety coming first. and by being safe we are providing excellent customer service!

the training is going just fine, i miss my wifey, but hubby needs to be able to put bread on the table... for now :) i just got back to the hotel after going out with my good childhood friend, adam nevins. he showed me around the city of portland, we shared a meal and talked about life together... a moment i will cherish as he is heading down to new orleans at the beginning of the new year.

"And he said to them, 'Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation." -Mark 16.15

i see people that i grew up with and people that i care about, and we are all going in different directions and finding ourselves in different places around the country, and the globe... and it is exciting! it is sad that we are not all together, but it is exciting to see guys that are being sensitive to the holy spirit and are not staying in their comfortable space where it is safe, but are acting on the passions instilled to them and using the gifts blessed to them. from bellevue to n.o. to boston and all over... there is no distance that will keep us apart, the bond we have is too strong, the one thing that keeps us united is in christ and christ alone.

HIS

love

endures

forever.

spokane apartment

2007-09-07T14:01:00.000-07:00

im not sure how long we are going to be calling spokane our home, but for now we are happy with with what the lord has provided for us. we find ourselves in Browne's Addition, a historical part of spokane, just a five minute walk west of downtown.

across the street from our apartment is Coeur D'Alene Park with basketball hoops, tennis court... it is really nice :)

and then to top it off, across the street from the park, is Vintage Faith Community; an Acts29 church, planted just three years ago, using space at a lutheran church to have a time of worship on sunday evenings. we feel so blessed to have found a church to call home while we are here in spokane, in so short an amount of time.

i fly to Portland on sunday for a week of Ground Service Agent training for Horizon. and then online classes start in under 2 weeks. megan is having a friend stay with her while i am gone. i cant believe she has been in school 3 weeks already. and we have been in spokane over a month! that just shows you how time flies... when you're happily married :)

to see the inside of our apartment, click on "apartment slideshow" over on the left column, under "pictures and videos"

-aaron

it's always better when we're together...

2007-09-06T21:14:00.000-07:00

| sander's mansion | 07.20.07| auburn, washington|

getting ready...

the wedding party...

"you may now kiss the bride..."

mmm...we had cupcakes instead of a cake

well we finally tied the knot on july 20th after 5 wonderful years of dating. it had not rained on july 20th in 120 years. what a record, huh? despite the weather, the wedding was beautiful... God is good! the dessert was amazing, the dancing was fun, and we enjoyed having our friends and families there to share in our special day.

if you would like to see more wedding pictures...go to www.ryanpflynn.com. choose "flash" if you have high speed internet or "html" if you have dial-up. then click on the "clients" tab on the bottom. the password is "spokane." hope you enjoy looking at them! contact ryan to order prints...

its been a while

2007-08-29T18:59:00.000-07:00

what once use to be a way for me (aaron) to tell about all the happenings of my time at bible school, has changed since getting married over a month ago to me lovely bride megan! so now the story continues with the both of us, starting off life together in spokane. it has been busy since the last post, but we will try and catch up here in the next week or so... stay tuned :)

coming home

2007-06-23T06:02:00.000-07:00

here is a picture with the team that went to Romania. It was a really good week, God's love is unconditional and was evident in many people i came across. Im at a hotel in vienna, my plane leaves on sunday... and the business begins right when i step off the plane. wedding countdown is 27 days and counting... gidee up!

romania

2007-06-19T14:34:00.000-07:00

im in romania right now, and turns out we got a sweet pension with high speed internet... i have posted some pictures from the trip so far on an online photo album that you can check out. there is a link under "links" on the right column of this page.

im home in 5 days!

2007-06-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

today was the last day of bible school... it has gone by so fast, but it will be good to be home, and get married, in 5 weeks, 35 days, from today... :) i leave for romania in the morning, its a 10 hour drive and then we are going around to different villages etc. for 5 days and then head back home on friday. i fly out of vienna, so im going to get dropped off on the way through... and then i will be home on the 25th. pray for me and the team, that we can put some of the stuff we have been learning the past 8 weeks into use to the gypsies, kids and at the orphaniges. thanks. see ya in 10 days!

this is me and luke (who is from idaho, also going to romania) battling in the sandpit... i just grabbbed a scoop full and am about to attempt to get some on luke :) i had a difficult time getting the thingy to swivel...

these are the roomates, jeremy and gustav... striking a pose after cleaning our room. i was fortunate to have one of the cleanest rooms at tauernhof, which allowed me to sleep good at night (i also found a fan laying around, which didnt hurt either)

2007-06-05T05:42:00.000-07:00

bible school is full of surprises... the most recent came last friday, the theme for our "social night" was ninjas and pirates... apparently this is a well known thing that if someone comes up to you and says pirate or ninja you are suppose to claim your allegiance to one or the other. so everyone was suppose to dress up for dinner and an evening with festivities. now i am about to get married right, so this whole charade seemed a little childish to me, but to disprove that i was not to cool to participate i gathered together a costume with what i found laying around (i didnt see ninja and pirate attire on the packing list). im not going to lie, it was entertaining for about 5 minutes :)

ummm, our speaker this last week, svekter weissglas, spoke on christ as life... a refreshing perspective from a guy who has been a missionary for 20+ years in greece and romania, doing mostly evangelism and speaking engagements, some paid, some not, but all for the glory of God. he talked about how we are no longer under the law, and how the church often acts like we are. i have a deep respect for svekter, not because i agree with everything that he says, but because he has a genuine passion and love for people and for the gospel. his zeal for life is contagious, and probed me to think. more than anything, i have done a lot of thinking these past weeks, critically about what i read and hear, and it has been so good.

sunday afternoon after lunch i tried to find chappy's "spot" where he would have his time with god while at tauernhof... i grabbed my pack and bible and headed up the mountain behind the school. 10 minutes turned into over an hour and i found myself half way up the mountain, and tired. chappy, i dont think i found it... :) i just couldn't stop though... theres a skt lift that just started up last week for the spring for tourists to ride, that i planned to take down once i made it to the top... and to make a long story short, i ran out of water, but came across a cabin where a guy offered me a glass of water, and i got to the top but the lift was closed! i was perched, but found an unopened bottle of orange soda beside a bench...thank you God, hit the spot! i was contemplating sleeping up there and taking the lift down in the morning, but then got cold after sitting on a bench for a while, my shirt drenched in sweat, decided that i needed to get down. then came across a gal that worked at a restaurant near the mountain peek that gave me a ride back to town. i missed dinner so i walked down down and got myself a kebab... something you must have if you are in the area... it was a crazy afternoon, but exciting and scary at the same time :)

im enjoying my time here, my appreciation and love for gods word is growing, even though it is easy to say that now. this is something that i have wanted to do since high school, but it is amazing how God's sovereignty has lead me here at this time in my life, it is so perfect. thank you to those who have prayed for me while i have been gone. it has truly been a rewarding and growing experience. 2 weeks left, followed by a week in romania.

shout out to CBC Youth! miss you guys!

half time

2007-05-22T09:11:00.000-07:00

well... i have hit the half way mark. 4 weeks down and 4 more to go, it has gone by so fast. loving it. missing mnd. anxious to get home. soaking up all i can get :) this last weekend we had a travel weekend, where folks went to Prague, Salzburg, Vienna, camping and other places... i took advantage of this guy, Hans Peter's bed and breakfast up on one of the mountains... the deal was that you work for 2 hours a day and you can stay there for free... i thought that sounded nice. we get so busy with assignments and outreach and projects that it is hard to set aside a good block of time during the week... but lets just say when i thought of a sweet bed and breakfast up one of the mountains with a sweet view, it was actually an old BARN, with a bunch of rooms in it... up on one of the mountains with a sweet view... plus a group of 16 elementary kids staying there for a weekend retreat as well... but i did have some good time of quiet and solitude, i was just a little bummed with the accommodations.. oh well.

Hans peter just wrapped up his series on revelation... 25 hours was not enough time, but it has changed the way that i see the bible. he did such a great job of painting a picture of scripture in its entirety through Jesus... the word of god is truly living and active, it is such a pleasure to meet with god through out the day. i got some mail today from the CBC youth team (thanks rene), it was a note of encouragement from my Ensenada team this year (thanks for all the nice words guys... we should get together before people start leaving). each person had a page with their name on it, and everyone else writes encouraging things about that person from the week. and then they sent each persons page to them as a reminder and encouragement from the trip. it was a real treat, brought back some great memories!

i have decided to take advantage of an opportunity to travel to Romania with some other students from tauernhof to do some outreach in an orphanage and a gypsy village...among other things. i had a week after school to do some travel, but i dont know if i would ever have a reason to go to Romania again... so thats what im going to do... and i am not one to turn down a chance to serve right? plus, i would just miss my megan too much if i was off seeing cool place like Venice, Rome, or Paris... :)

austrian life

2007-05-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

this is dani and heidi's house, my family group moms :) it is vary austrian!

randy, michelle, and amber... family group time.

this was the "bed and breakfast" i stayed in over the weekend... hans is a cool guy.

i worked for 4 hours on friday as my payment for staying there. the wook was soaked and full of knots... not too bad.

the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few...

2007-05-06T02:59:00.000-07:00

each week we have to pick a passage out of out assigned new testament reading and do a sort of reflection on it... here is a glimpse at one of the things i have been wrestling with...

Matthew 9:37-38
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Something stuck out to me the first week, when Martin was speaking; he said something along the lines of “how do you suppose you can go far off somewhere and be a pastor, or a missionary and spread the good news when you cant even talk to your neighbor?” This has really spoken to me, because the last few years, I have felt inadequate or unprepared for ministry, and then I got thrown into the ministry where I realized that I COULDN’T DO IT…alone, but Christ through me... I am never going to reach a certain level of knowledge or wisdom where I feel like, ok; now I’m ready to serve God, because I am always learning and growing… and still feel like I know nothing. I thought that I had to go to bible school or something first, get my “training” and then I would be ready… God can’t use me until then… “the things we think disqualify us from ministry, qualify us…” Rob said that this week, and it took until the end of the week, for me to realize what that meant for me. I have often felt incompetent to preach, or bring Gods word to people (my disqualification). That is exactly what qualifies me, because it shouldn’t be me, but God through me. All the time I have tried to do it on my own, it wasn’t in the spirit; but when I surrendered, it was amazing how God used me.

So how does this passage apply to me? It is true that we need senders and we need goers. What I mean is even the 12 relied on people to put them up for the night, and put food in their stomachs when the decided to leave everything and follow Him. However, while many take this task seriously, and do so as an act of worship, there are majorities who use this as the easy way to not have to “deny themselves and take up the cross daily.” The Harvest is SO MANY… and the workers… are few… I can see God using me in so many ways, in my hometown or across the globe. I feel that few people feel that tug, or the desire in their hearts. “He will give you the desires of your heart,” and when you are walking in his spirit those desires are not of your own, but put there by him. So I feel if it is there then, that is something that you need to act on. God opens and closes doors, and he puts us through seasons. I see the need out there, and I also see the need right next door… We need only walk through the doors he opens for us, and keep on going until he closes it or opens another…

pics from schladming

2007-04-28T01:03:00.000-07:00

this is a view of schladming from the hike that we took on wednesday...

alyssa and kelsey jumping for joy as we head into the dinning hall. on the second floor is peoples rooms and the "bistro" a hang out spot, the third floor has more rooms.

my room is on the other side of this building on the second floor

here is my room, i also have two roomates: jeremy from california, and gustav from germany... our room really lacks storage, but we have our own bathroom so that is a plus.

this was taken along the hike, we stopped for a moment while martin (who is the principal, our teacher this week, wearing a blue polo standing in the middle) gave us a little bit of history about the area and pointed out some other trails we could take...

this is me on the hike, hope you enjoyed a little peak into schladming. buh bye

week 1 is in the books...

2007-04-27T21:34:00.000-07:00

we just finished dinner and i am now sitting on the patio with my laptop watching the sun set over the alps. nathan is sitting under me strumming along on his guitar... it is so beautiful and peaceful here. people are just hanging out having conversations awaiting our evening lecture. we are wrapping up our series on the gospel of mark, looking at the character of christ. next week we begin our lecture on 1 and 2 timothy. each week a different book and a different speaker. i have heard great things about all of the guest speakers coming in. im pumped!

this weekend they are also having a major youth event for austria... over 400 kids are supposed to show up for it, hans peter and another dude are speaking with numerous games, activities and bands going on. i am excited to see God at work with the youth in another part of the world. one neat thing is that we have outreach teams that get to go into the local schools and basically share the gospel. we have the whole period to use as we wish. austria is mostly a "christian" country, (majority catholic though) so they dont have a problem with folks coming in, actually the kids look forward to foreigners coming in and hanging out with them... it should be cool. we just had time today to meet as a group, and we have two weeks to prepare our "class" or whatever.

i have been a little busy this week, but i think that i will be able to get a routine down so that i will have a little more time for myself, or actually just time where i can go off and meet with God, one on one... we have got weekly assignments and readings and groups activities, duties, etc... so with only 8 weeks, (7 weeks left, thats crazy!) i really need to be disciplined with my time. there is tons to do here, and a lot of people to do things with (73 other students, 8 nationalities)

besides my outreach group, we also have a "family group" with about 8 people and 1 staff, which is for fellowship and bible study. we meet on monday nights at dani's house (dani is the head cook, she lives in a 100 year old little house that looks like something out of harry potter, i think...) myself and amber are leading next, we are responsible for the evening, providing refreshments and activity, the bible study etc. i got my memory verses done today and my summary of my new testament reading for the week.

i have so much to learn, but i was convicted while reading shane claiborne's irresistible revolution "some time back we had stopped living christianity and just started studying it..." i pray that all of the stuff that i learn does not just stay stored up in my head, but that is changes me, and continues to shape me into the man that God wants me to be, to further serve and glorify him.

*the internet here is kinda sketchy so im not sure how often i will be able to get on, but hopefully at least once a week, probably saturdays i will jot down a few thoughts and post some pics. pray for me that dont get so focused on my own agenda that i miss out on what God has for me here, and also for megan as i am away... (most of the folks here are kids straight out of high school, but a few scattered up through their mid 30's and many have said that they think its amazing that i decided to come here while i am getting married 3.5 weeks after i get back) shes got her plate full with wedding stuff, so pray she doesnt get stressed out too much... all that really matters is that we both say "I DO" but you know how girls are :) i love you megan... :)

all right, off to lecture. chow.

guten tag

2007-04-21T00:15:00.000-07:00

well i managed to get out of Seattle, switch planes in Copenhagen, arrive in Austria, get a map of Austria, take a bus to the train station, find the right line to take to the hostel... get off at the right stop, walk around several blocks trying to find Geblergasse Street, arriving at Hotel Geblergasse in Vienna, 19 hours after leaving my house in Bellevue, WA. I am still a bit tired, and i really cant believe that i am over here, it is just now starting to sink in. i am not sure how much i will be writing on this thing, but i am hoping a couple of times a week, (It is nine hours ahead here, 12:oo am saturday to be exact) i will get some pictures up tomorrow. i take a train out on sunday to Schladming, where the school is, Tauernhof. Dinner on sunday is our first official function... its cool being in vienna for a few days, but i really just want to get things going...

gute nacht