"A warrior has a vision;...

he has a transcendence to his life, a cause greater than self-preservation...

The quality of a true warrior is that he is in service to a purpose greater than himself; that is, to a transcendent cause." (Wild At Heart)

No matter how distracted we become or how deep into denial we crawl, the reality remains that we are in the midst of a gruesome battle. There are people dying around us - and worse - receiving wounds for which they know no healing! The good news is that there is not a creature God created that does not contain a warrior within. We have all been created with a warrior and a fighter woven into our DNA...God has created us to fight! As I look at my battle scars, I am moved to tears of joy because I know, and have, a personal healer and that the wounds I receive will not cripple me or destroy me! What a gracious God we have! Oh that we would stand up and fight with confidence...that we would fearlessly look into the faces of our enemies and invoke fear into the heart of Satan the way Jesus does...that we would share our God (and our confidence) with those around us! There is a war being waged daily for the hearts of men, and we have a vital part - be proud to stand under the protection of our God and fight fearlessly for the crown of the one true KING!! My prayer for us all is that we would become engrossed in the story that is much bigger than any one of us, but incomplete without our contribution. "Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." (Moses talking to Joshua in Joshua 1:9)

Go and fight with courage, for the Lord our God is with YOU!

Finally!!

I know you have all quit paying attention to this because it has been over a month since we have posted anything...time flies when you're having fun! Allow me to catch you up in a VERY quick manner:
School has started and I am loving the academy where I am teaching. I have 93 Gifted and Talented students throughout the day divided into 6 periods. My largest class is 18 and my smallest is 12. I am coaching the 7th grade B football team. We are 2-0 and on our way to a district title -- yes, they actually have one for the 7th grade B team. Erin is staying at home with Charyse and loving it. We have recently started distributing AdvoCare (if you haven't heard of it you need to call Erin ASAP), and we are making enough income off of it to afford Erin staying home. If you are looking for more energy, better health, or more energy in your life, then you need to talk with my wife about AdvoCare.
Now on to the really exciting news: Charyse. She has been growing rapidly and continues to learn new words and new signs everyday. We have been working on potty training for about 2 weeks now, with slow progression. We have been working on walking since Alaska, and she is more than capable of doing it on her own but refuses to walk if you are not holding her hand...until today! The footage below was my first glimpse of her walking...which was not only awesome for obvious reasons, but was even sweeter because she was walking to me! Take a look:



Now, if that is not pretty stinkin' cool then I don't know what is! Of course, she is not perfect yet - we're giving her through the weekend to be running - so we still have to downplay the falls that occur occassionaly (when she gets distracted). Our terminology for these slips is "BOOM." It fits in nicely with our "FUMBLE" for when she drops something...I had nothing to do with the designation of these terms. I was a mere bystander, but I have agreed to use them anyway. Here is the BOOM in action:



I promise we will be better about actually posting things on here at a more frequent rate...so, until next time, God speed and Good Football!

Heading Home

Believe it or not, we are actually going back to Houston. After an incredible summer full of incredible experiences we are finally ready to take our renewed spirits and perspectives back to the hot and humid H-town! As we have driven back south God has blessed us with more of his beauty as reminders that he is not just in Alaska...



Pretty obvious why it is called "Big Sky Country"

After driving from Calgary, Alberta, and crossing the border into Montana we decided to stop in Billings for our first sit down meal in a week. Little did we know that the Motorcycle Ralley in Sturgis had just ended. As we pulled into the Outback parking lot we were instantly surrounded by motorcycles and Harley Davidson clad characters. Charyse was fascinated. She was so impressed with the bikes that she could not focus on any one in particular so she just kept pointing and spinning around like a squirrel on speed. Of course this attracted the attention of many of the bikers - one who was so entertained by her that he let her sit on his bike...

that is the true look of satisfaction. Which was quickly followed up by screaming and fussing when we picked her back up. :) Needless to say, she continues to make friends everywhere we go. I don't know where she gets the brave audacity to initiate conversations with all of these people, but if I had to guess I would say it comes from her mom or her grandparents.

We are in Denver tonight, but we are planning to drive to Dallas tomorrow night and then on into Houston on Sunday. We will continue to post as we get closer to home, and we have decided to continue using this as a means of keeping you all informed with what God is doing in our lives and how He continues to grow our daughter beyond just this trip...so stay tuned - - :)

We are still alive!

Just a line or two to let everyone know we are still alive. We are in Fort St. John's, British Columbia, and will be back in the States on Wednesday. We are having a great trip - Charyse is enjoying the drive the most :) See you all soon!

The highs and lows of fishing...

You all have heard about the amazing fishing that exists in Alaska - salmon, halibut, crab, etc. What you probably don't know about are the lows. After several hours of fishing the Kenai River a few weeks ago for king salmon (see blog from July 9) and coming up empty, we are back for more. Yesterday we decided to try our luck with the red salmon because we heard, "They are running really strong." I am not sure exactly what that means, but I have my assumptions. After hearing a commercial fisherman say that the fish were running so thick at the mouth of the river that they were literally forcing each other out of the water and up onto the bank - - so much so that a boy was running along the bank picking them up and throwing them onto the shore - needless to say, my assumptions only grew. Which bring me to our fishing trip yesterday.
We were standing on the bank casting out into the river from the same spot you saw the eagle tearing into his fish a few weeks ago. The sun was shining brilliantly overhead and the water was running crisp and clean. After about 10 minutes of enjoying the scenery and repeatedly casting upstream, Erin snagged into the "first catch"! She set the hook and begin reeling fervently. With what seemed to me like little fight from the fish, she lifted the tip of her rod high into the air and her catch come rushing upward breaching the surface of the water! Truly the most amazing catch I have ever seen!

How you hook a rock with only one crack in it is truly more amazing and lucky than snagging old fish...at least that is what I told her. :)
Today, after church of course, we decided to try our luck with the kings again. Three hours and no bites later we decided we would go back to trying for more rocks (or reds). With not nearly as much excitement or grandeur I caught the first - followed quickly by two for JR.

Believe it or not, this is the biggest fish I have ever caught...until tomorrow - -

You asked for it:

After several request, I have figured out a way to load video on here. So, have a look below to see for yourself the video of Charyse crawling.

Enough about Mom and Dad!

It has been awhile since we have posted anything about Charyse or any pictures with her, so I will attempt to catch you up with the daily changes that have been taking place in her life as well as ours.

She is incredibly mobile now crawling up and down steps and pulling up on everything. If we hold her hands she will penguin walk (legs locked out straight) as fast as she can for as far as she can...30 yards is the current record!

Along with her increased mobility she has learned several new words, both as signs and orally spoken. Her favorite is cheese, which sounds like "chsss." We have now had cheese for every meal of the day (obviously not all in the same day) but mostly for breakfast for some reason. A close second to the infatuation with cheese is her obsession with peaches, or her sign for them...which looks like she is scratching behind her ear. The actual sign is to rub the side of your face - like peach fuzz. She has manipulated most of the signs to her own liking, whether because she is unable to copy the actual sign or because she wants to do things her own way is still being debated. She is defintely a "Strong-willed stubborn little booger," as someone has once stated. Whatever it is, she is a happy litle girl with a cornload (formerly known as "crapload" - there have been lots of vocabulary changes since the little one has started to become a parrot :) of personality!

The ones she will hate us for:

At the zoo with Dada and Pops:

Along with cheese and peaches she has learned to sign cookie, blanket, and a way to tell us her teeth are hurting. She can say (kinda) teeth, down, up, outside, book. In addition to what she already knew, she is building quite a vocabulary for herself...mostly revolving around food :)

On a side note; Erin is not feeling very good today. She could be coming down with a cold - please pray for her. Thanks, love you all!

The True Story...

Erin and I left Sugar Land for the summer because we wanted to have a great adventure (and avoid the heat in Texas). Little did we know that God was preparing the adventure for us...


There have often been times in my life when I have run away from something, usually a situation I find myself in and don't know how to handle. Only after I have run far enough away can I look back and see that I was actually running from something completely different. In our attempt to escape from all the traffic, heat, and business in Houston, we actually discovered that we were escaping from something else altogether - a cycle of futile thinking. In case you haven't been around, the last year has been pretty taxing on Erin and me. While Charyse is an amazing blessing and we love her more than we could ever explain, she was not what we had planned at this point in our lives. Thus, through our efforts to adjust to having a child we unknowingly sacrificed other areas of our lives - namely our spiritual lives. Like a 4 legged table with one leg a foot shorter than the rest, everything else became unbalanced as well. By the end of the school year we were in need of more than just a break from the chaos...we needed restoration. In a fashion exclusive to our God, restoration has come at just the right time.

It is amazing how quickly you can fall when you are not making a constant effort to stay focused on what is right. I learned a long time ago that God is the only thing I need. Unfortunately, I have become so distracted (by things often of God or from God - more on this in a minute) that my lifestyle has reflected my dependence on many other things. God has showed me that when we focus on him, and him alone, he will give us the other blessings this world has to offer: friends, $, toys, children, ministry opportunities, etc. - - all good things! But if we are not careful to keep our focus on him we will become distracted by these blessings and begin to pursue them instead of him. It is painfully obvious we cannot sustain any of those things on our own, and they soon begin to slip away. If we were smart, we would recognize this and quickly turn our focus back to God...instead, we squabble after the blessings trying not to lose them. Only after our efforts have gone in vain are we back in the original position with only us and God again. Imagine the possibilities of where God could take us if we didn't have to keep relearning this lesson over and over.

For Erin and me, this cycle fully demonstrated itself over the last year...God blessed us with great friends, an awesome life group, a great church, higher salaries, a great home, and a daughter! In our foolishness we quit focusing on God and began trying to be better employees, more encouraging friends, and great parents. While those are good desires they are unattainable on our own. When our focus and pursuit are solely on God we will be all of those other things as well; because it is not by our ability that we become great people but by God's working in us. Our greatest achievement is to stand naked before God and recognize our inability compared to his unfailing power to do all things! From there God can truly begin to bless us and work not only in our lives, but in the lives of those around us - through us. Is this not our goal to begin with...for God to be active in our lives and to use us in other's lives? And is that not the promise God makes us throughout scripture..."I will be their god and they will be my people and I will live among them..."?

The restoration God has brought to us this summer has been more than amazing. We have a new zeal for life, more confidence in our parenting, a better understanding of each other, and a renewed focus on Him. Not because of any new skills or secrets we have acquired, but because we openly recognize our inadequacies in virtually every area of our lives. We are anxious to see what God does from here...not what he blesses us with, but what he does through us! He promises that His power is made perfect in our weakness. Would any of you care to join us in being his captive audience?

Fishing with killer whales

Ok everyone, this video was posted to the Anchorage Daily News website last week -- it's legitimate footage of a killer whale chomping on a hooked king salmon while the angler tries desperately to reel in his trophy fish. :) Click here to watch the video, but be aware that there is some profanity -- understandably so. Let's hope this doesn't happen to Heath on our fishing trip next weekend, or we'll never hear the end of it!!!
Love you all!

Resurrection Bay -- from a kayak!

For those of you who don't know, kayaking is quite possibly one of my favorite things to do -- particularly here in Alaska, where there is always something gorgeous to look at while you paddle. That being said, I was not excited when the morning of our kayak tour dawned cold and drizzly. Obviously kayaking involves getting a little soggy, but the prospect of being wet from above (rain) as well as wet from below (waves) was not particularly appetizing. Sea kakaking is quite different from lake or river kayaking, but I won't bore you with the details -- suffice it to say that both Heath and I were a little nervous about getting dumped by a wave, especially since the wind had made the bay choppier than normal. :) The good news is, we stayed upright as well as relatively dry, thanks to our spray skirts and some expert maneuvering by Captain Heath (he sat in the back seat or our two-seater and worked the rudder). We had an incredible time, and got to have some great conversations with our guide, Danielle, along the way.

This is Danielle in her kayak, paddling out into Resurrection Bay from Tonsina Creek -- a safe haven from the waves that threw us around for the first part of the trip. We saw several silver salmon jumping out in the bay, getting ready to make the long trek up the creek to the spawning grounds. Interesting tidbit about salmon: they go back to the same creek where they were born to lay their own eggs. Incredible!!! And their offspring will be born, travel out into the ocean, and years later come back to the same creek again to spawn. Out of all of the millions of possible creeks in the world, how do they know which one is "home"? Just goes to show that God had a lock on GPS before any of us ever even thought about it!

Me and Heath in Tonsina Creek -- you can see the raindrops on the lens! :) We headed up the creek for a half mile, then turned around when it became to shallow. Our next stop was a beach just on the other side of Tonsina Point, where we saw some really unbelievable driftwood:

We hiked from the beach into the woods to eat lunch, and enjoyed checking out the northernmost rainforest in North America (and possibly the world, but I'm not sure). This region of Alaska gets a ton of precipitation in the summer, and you can see the huge clumps of moss hanging in the trees:

Don't you hate it when people point out an obscure speck in a picture and say, "That was an (insert interesting subject here), but you can't really see it"? Well, this is a picture of a sea otter, but you can't really tell. :) He was floating on his back and eating a snack, and we actually got to get quite close to him before he dove under the water.

Us human types also had an interesting snack -- Danielle fished some edible seaweed out of the water and offered us a piece. And we thought, what the heck? It sort of looks like a little pickle. For those of you who are interested, it did not taste like a pickle at all -- it didn't really taste like much of anything, once you got past the icky texture. At any rate, we were starved after 4 hours on the water, and were only too happy to go in search of some real food. :) Regardless of the weather, we had a GREAT time on our paddle, and are looking forward to buying our very own kayak gear (as soon as we move to a more kayak-friendly location, that is). :)