downtown

Today, Josiah and I walked across the street at 10:20 to catch a bus. Bus rides happen to be one of Josiah's favorite activities. We got off at 4th and Jefferson, then walked down to the Portland Building.
Up on the 14th floor, we visited Wes's cubicle. After meeting a couple new coworkers, we headed back down and out to Pioneer Place. Josiah decided that he wanted pizza for lunch.
We ate our pizza and then headed to the waterfront. Josiah and Wes spent some time in the fountain. Then we walked up onto the bridge. Wes headed back to work and Josiah and I walked down the waterfront. Turning at Burnside, we started walking toward Powell's.
Along the way, at the park blocks, we discovered the playground. I needed a break so we stopped to play/rest in the shade. After a while, Josiah came to deliver the message, "I have to go potty." So up about three more blocks, we got to the bookstore just in time.
We spent our time in the children's section of course. I started reading to Josiah and quickly had an audience of two. Oliva and Josiah continued to pick out books and bring them to the table. I read some, Oliva's mother read some.
After Powell's Josiah wanted to go back to the park. At the park, we found his new friend, Oliva. They played while her mom and I chatted. They've been here for just this past week on a business trip. They are heading home to Florida soon.
After some more time at the park, we headed back towards the bus stop. We made a stop at the mall food court to get some cookies along the way. The bus arrived at about 5:30. We hopped onto the bus with Wes. I am beat. That is a lot of walking, pushing the stroller, for this preggie.

"spiritual gifts"

So we've been discussing the subject off and on for about a year or so. We've taken the online gift analysis. But if you take more than one, things don't always jive well. Here are two different tests I've taken in the last week. What's with the Mercy thing? Number 1 on one test and number 7 on the other. Then I took a look at the test I took a year ago. Teaching was number 1. What? Conclusion: These tests are just a bunch of bunk.

Showing Mercy 19------------15 Helps
Serving 12------------------- 13 Exhortation
Exhortation 12 ---------------12 Giving
Giving 11 --------------------12 Pastoring
Administration 11 ------------11 Teaching
Pastor/Shepherd 9 -----------8 Administration
Teaching 9 -------------------6 Mercy
Evangelism 6 -----------------6 Evangelism
Prophecy 4 -------------------5 Prophecy

The Moisture of Us '07

We went to the beach this past Saturday. The day had been planned for weeks. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't the best. We still had a great time. Josiah spent most of his time in a hole. He was covered head to toe in sand. We had a bonfire, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Kathi brought some scrumptious cakes to celebrate Brian's and Anthony's birthdays. Some dived into the ocean, but those of us who are sane hung by the fire, under a canopy, just enjoying each other's company. The wind decided to pick up later and Josiah climbed out of his hole and got cold. So after five hours (about 6:30) we headed out, found a place to stay for the night and all got hot showers. The next morning we checked out, had a late breakfast at pig n' pancake, and Josiah took his first ride on a carousel. I think my camera may forever hold remnants of the weekend, a smoky smell and sand in my favorite lens.







Kathi, Ava, and Ashby



Alex in the hole before it is yet huge.







Sarah H







Josiah before entering the hole.



Luke has been splitting wood.



Sarah and Chris go head to head in a game of teatherball.



Ava and her mommy, Laura



Brian and the kids in the fridged waters.



Humm, this looks like fun.



In the hole, out of the wind, is a solid three hours worth of fun.



Wes digs an entry way.



Water in the hole just makes it even more fun!



Ava and her daddy, Chris



By the fire







The fire is a bit on the smallish side yet.



Hunkering low, next to the fire, to excape the wind and cold.
Luke runs after the big, orange, tennis ball.
After eating at the pig 'n pancake, Josiah decides to ride the pig on the carousel. All buckled in and ready to go.
Daddy, you're riding the rabbit. It has long ears.
Around they go. Up and down. Slow at first, then faster and faster.
Hey, I can see myself in the mirror.
Stopping for the shot after the ride. Time to head home.

an answer to Stephen's 7 month old question

My brother and his wife live in Anchorage. When they were down at Christmas they visited Ethnos. There they ment some of the Ketah family. Stephen, who at one time worked with some of the native tribes in AK, asked me what tribe the Ketah's were a part of. I didn't know. Now he can find the answer on the family's new blog.

http://ketahadventures.blogspot.com/2007/07/here-is-view-of-harbor-where-my-family.html

28 weeks

Went in for an appointment this morning. It was a long one. Did the blood glucose screen. We went to the park between the appointment and the blood draw. Then we went back to the park. Then we went back to the Dr's office to schedule my next appointment. We stopped at BP & Ellie's (next door to my Dr) for cheese sandwiches, salad, and PB playdoh. Then we topped it off with a trip to Freddy's. It's rest time now.

At the park Josiah and I made some new friends, recently relocated from Missouri. Then at PB&E I saw a gal who I knew in college. Her sister lives not far from us. Small world.

My room is scary

Josiah is always giving us interesting reasons why he can't sleep or why rest time should be over. Today, half an hour into rest time, he thought it should be over.

Josiah: But Mommy, I can't sleep.
Mommy: You still need to rest.
Josiah: But Mommy, my room is scary.
Mommy: Why is your room scary?
Josiah: It just is, it's scary.

So I had Josiah go back to his room and get back into bed. I went in and we began to go over the reasons why his room is scary. He is a list of reasons Josiah found his room to be scary.

~There is a pinky sized hole in his safety rail.
~He didn't have both his soft books stacked on top of one another. (He had hidden one under the sheets at the end of his bed.)
~One of his paintings wasn't hanging up. (It's not done so I've been working on it.)
~His closet was open. (That one was actually quite reasonable.)

A sick friend

In case you haven't heard...

Todd Bowder is sick with Malaria. Please pray for our friend/my cousin's nephew. Todd attended Ethnos and our community group until he shipped off to school. He is in Africa on a missions trip. He has had a flu bug and now is dealing with this. Please pray for his healing and that God can continue to use him to do His work in Africa.

time to replace the fire extinquisher

I just wanted a snack. Instead, I started a fire. Now I have a mess to clean up. There is extinquisher dust everywhere. It's probably not the best thing for baby and I to breathe either.

an excerpt from a mom's brag book

Josiah continues to amaze me. How old is he? This morning I was working on my new bookshelves. They came in a box, in pieces. I am working on sanding each piece. Josiah starts in on what seems to be one of his new favorite games. He asks the question, "What does ____ start with?" For example:

"Mommy, what does dog start with?"

I, in turn, pronounce the word slowly and clearly. Then ask him, "What do you think the word dog starts with?"

"Um, D, maybe."

Today I decided that we would expand the game a bit. I began to ask him about the rest of the word. So I'm sanding and together Josiah and I are spelling whole, simple words. So he's learning and he's having fun doing so. He was completely amused by the fact that he was figuring out every letter of the words and spelling whole words. How old is this kid anyway? 3? Sometimes, I'm not so sure.

tangible answers to prayers

Yesterday (Friday) I got up early. I awoke at six and found myself unable to sleep, knowing that I should get moving and get myself to the Visible Grace garage sale. So I dragged myself out of bed at about 6:30.

I decided that I would get a shower first thing, a rare occurance before rest time in our house. While chatting with God, I began to think about the garage sale. Perhaps, I thought, I might run into someone who I haven't seen in a while and get an opportunity to reconnect. Maybe I'd even get a chance to talk with someone or two about Visible Grace. I simply asked God to give me these opportunities and to allow me to be open to them.

I then spent the morning preparing lunch for myself and our friends. I ate breakfast and sat down to read the Bible (also a rare occurance before rest time). Josiah got up around eight, ate breakfast, poked around, and finally got dressed. We headed out for the sale shortly after nine.

At about 10:30 or 11, Josiah asked if we could play with the playdoh. I had packed up my "Sunday school playdoh kit" for the kids to play with at the sale. So Josiah and I headed off through the parking lot. A white car was just parking and just as we were passing it, the driver said, "Hey Angie." It was Stacey, a gal who I had ment through teaching at MOPS this past year. She was Josiah's teacher and I had her son, Cooper, in my class.

Here it was, God's tangible answers to my prayers. Stacey and I had ment to get the boys together this Summer to play and give us a chance to better know one another. She's someone I've been wanting to connect with, but I just haven't taken the time to do it. I guess God seems to see that it does need to happen. We start chit chatting about this and that, how life is going. She'd taken her older daughters to BCC's Bible Camp and saw the sale and decided to stop. Turns out that she's been accepted into a Master's program at George Fox, exciting news for this recently single mother of three. The conversation turns to the g-sale, anything good over there type things. I start explaining that I'm actually there helping and I have this friend Ashby who... Now not only has God handed me an opportunity to reconnect, he has also given me an opportunity to share about VG. Oh, but there is so much more to it than I could have imagined. You see, Stacey has a dream. A dream that before yesterday, she had never shared with any adult, just her children. Stacey will be working on her master's in education at Fox. Her dream, to start a school and teach in Kenya. NO KIDDIN'!!!!

God is amazing. He uses a simple child's request for playdoh in amazing ways. If he hadn't asked, I might have totally missed my opportunity to reconnect with someone who could become a friend. I might have missed an opportunity to share about VG. I might have missed an opportunity to connect one person with a dream with another person with a dream. It really does emphazise the fact that we just need to tell people. We need to tell them about God. We need to share what he is doing through VG. You never know where a person might be at and what step they might be ready to take. In the future, Stacey could be teaching at Grace Academy!

Wes also pointed out something else, on our way out for a short date. Not only did God use me to connect two people who have dreams. He also is using VG to fullfill a dream and purpose in my own life. http://angiesphotoblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/how-last-week-came-to-be.html
Three dreams, plus one God, equals thousands of lives being changed. It gives you goose bumps, chills, and brings tears to the eyes.

over did?

I guess I over did it today. My ankles are swollen, way swollen. Too much time at the garage sale this weekend and not enough sleep.

Pregnancy insomnia

I seem to recall having some pregnancy insomnia while prego with Josiah. I also recall some of that being caused by our neighbor's parties. Here I sit tonight, exhausted, and unable to sleep for the past 1.5 hours. I did go right to sleep tonight, but I woke up at 2. So I guess I will have my first "midnight" snack of this pregnancy and spend some time blogging.

changing the sheets

Now one might not think that changing the sheets on a bed is a very difficult task, but I'm going to tell you it is. Josiah is now sleeping in a twin bed. He sleeps upon a bed frame that was once built for myself. It is a tall "captains" bed with boat loads of storage space. So we stick a couple of mattresses upon it and it comes up to my belly button. Now this bed was made to be viewed on two sides. This means that the other two sides are ugly and thus the bed is pushed up against the wall and into a corner. Which means there is no walking around the bed. So I just finished putting clean sheets onto the bed. It only took about 20 minutes and I didn't do a very good job. nothing is tucked in on the far side. I can barely reach the far side, let alone under the top mattress. Why do I even right about this? Because every time it gets harder and harder to change those sheets. My belly just gets bigger and bigger. It gets more difficult for me to climb up onto the bed as well. I didn't even try today. And the baby grumbles about it too when I'm trying to reach the other side.

Paul wants a new toy

Yesterday I had a conversation with Paul. Seems he wants a new toy, a D40. For those of you who don't know, that would be a digital SLR camera by Nikon. I asked him where he was going to get $1000 to buy this new toy. He didn't have an answer.

This morning I came up with a way for Paul to save for his new camera. He just has to give up his daily "fix" for a while. I figure he could easily tuck away $5 a day. That's just 200 short days. It's not that long. I've been prego for almost that long already.

How bad does Paul really want a new camera?

Ways Josiah has made me smile this morning

It has only been an hour since we all got up. But already Josiah is putting a smile on my face. Here are three things that have made me smile this morning

"I had to go poop. My cheese turned into poop. Now my tummy is empty." Actually, it made me LOL. A few weeks ago, for some very logical reason, I explained to Josiah that poop was made of food that your body has taken all the good stuff out of. It must have been one of the potty training necessities.

"Mommy, the tractor trailer needs help. It's going to need another truck to help it. I'm going to need some tape." Ah, tape. It happens to be one of Josiah's favorite toys right now. He does all kinds of things with it. After using it to help rescue the tractor trailer, I saw zoo keeper Zach using it to haul pieces of fence.

"Mommy, are we going to go to the garage sale to play today?" I hadn't realized that, that is why Visible Grace has a garage sale. But I guess that's why Josiah goes.

The song in my head

I have had this song playing in my head all day.

Oh what i would do to have
the kind of faith it takes to climb out of this boat i'm in
onto the crashing waves.
to step out of my comfort zone
into the realm of the unknown where Jesus is
and he's holding out his hand.
but the waves are calling out my name and they laugh at me
reminding me of all the times i've tried before and failed.
the waves they keep on telling me
time and time again
"boy you never win, you never win"

But the voice of truth
tells me a different story.
the voice of truth says
"Do not be afraid".
and the voice of truth says
"This is for my glory".
out of all the voices calling out to me
i will choose to listen and believe
the voice of truth.

oh what i would do to have
the kind of strength it takes to stand before a giant
with just a sling and a stone.
surrounded by the sound of a thousand warriors
shaking in their armor
wishing they'd have had the strength to stand.
but the giants calling out my name and he laughs at me
reminding me of all times i've tried before and failed.
the giant keeps on telling me time and time again
"Boy, you never win, you never win"

But the voice of truth
tells me a different story.
the voice of truth
says "Do not be afraid".
and the voice of truth
says "This is for my glory".
out of all the voices calling out to me
i will choose to listen and believe
the voice of truth.

What voice will you choose to listen to today?

I wonder

What are you thinking about, my friend?

More february 3-k ekids

These pictures are from Valentine's. We made two different valentine crafts. One was a hand print in a heart made from red and white model magic dough. The other was a heart that we decorated with all kinds of different things. For snack we frosted and sprinkled large heart cookies. It was a messy, crafty day.

my brother and his wife are too cute

Stephen and Amy Bethune
Dec 26, 2006







I was also just noticing how small Stephen's head is. He really does have a little head.

teaching - february

I thought I'd start with some ekids pics. These are from early February. It's a week when several families seemed to be out of town. I took pictures of the kids on the playground. Then later we acted out the story of Joseph and his coat of many colors.

Joseph's father gives Joseph a very beautiful coat.

Joseph's brothers are jealous and beat him up. (I'm afriad it appears that Joseph is rather enjoying it.)

His brother sell him to the egyptian trader. Can you see all the $ the trader is willing to pay for him?

The trader takes Joseph away.

Joseph ends up as a slave in Potiphar's palace. Here he is scrubbing the floors.

Potiphar's wife likes Joseph and puts the moves on. (Joseph seems flattered.)

Joseph rejects her. She gets mad and makes up a story to tell her husband.

Joseph is in prision. Still joyous, even in prision.

Joseph is released from prision to explain the dreams that Pharaoh has had.

Potiphar begs Joseph for forgiveness. No it's not! Andrew was playing a duel role. It's actually one of Joseph's brothers begging for forgiveness.