On the Purple Couch

An update and a recipe

2011-10-18T10:50:00.000-07:00

If you're wondering why there has been little activity on here regarding our house (I know I know, there's been little activity at all) the reason is because we hit a bit of a snag on the house momentum. There are lots of boring details, but summation would be that the basement and foundation was trickier than it should have been. We have finally gotten things underway. The basement walls have been poured and the slab is being poured this week. (for those of you who have no idea what slab means, think basement floor) This weekend we

tore off the back porch and sunroom so the framing can begin in the next week. If all goes according to plan (yea right) in about four weeks we wi

ll have a new roof, new doors and windows, basement finished, and framing finished or at least close to finished. Here's to hoping.

Inside of the basement walls

Addition where the stairs will go down into the basement

Used to be the back of the house, will now be a sunroom and Pearce's room. (See last blog for a picture of what the back of the house used to look like)

And now for the recipe. Every now and then I throw a little recipe action up on this mug. I posted a picture on facebook and instagram of a pizza we made last night and there have been a few requests for the recipe. So in the interest of consolidating communication I'm putting it on the blog.

BBQ Chicken Pizza with caramalized onions and arugala

We made our pizza dough from scratch bc I'm a little nuts about whole wheat and I didn't feel like driving to Trader Joes for their dough. So you can either make your own too, or just buy an already made crust or dough.

Here's our whole wheat dough recipe if you care

1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour

1/4 cup white flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbs yeast

3/4 cup very hot water

combine all dry ingredients add water until it forms a doughy ball. Knead for one minute and then let rest for a few minutes. Roll out on a floured surface to whatever thickness you prefer. If you like a crispier crust throw it in 450 degree oven for 3-5 mins before you put toppings on it. After you put your toppings on bake it for 10-15 mins

You can really top this however you want, but all we did was throw on some caramelize onions (if you've never done this I'll explain in a minute) cooked chicken, spread bbq sauce in place of marinara, and top with cheese. Mozzarella on Shawn's half and goat cheese on my half (thank you Loah for at least tolerating goat cheese.) Then after it's out of the oven cover with some arugala for a peppery bite. Seriously. Delicious. Shawn was skeptical bc there were leafy greens on his pizza and boys are weird about leafy greens in general, but especially if it's on pizza. But he ate the whole thing so I think that speaks for itself.

The caramelized onion situation:

This part makes the pizza making process much longer than some of you might want. But I have to say it MAKES the pizza. If you have to skip this step go for some thinly sliced raw red onion. But I really can't emphasize enough that you should do the caramelized. I really don't love onions in general, but I could eat a pile of caramelized onions with a spoon. Is this convincing you yet? (p.s. how many times can I say caramelized onions in this blog?)

Here's how you do it. Thinly slice an onion, heat a tablespoon ish of olive oil in a pan on medium low add the onions. You will probably need to adjust the heat so the onions don't brown and then burn. This is the slow and low concept. You cook them on a very low temperature... slowly. Stir them every ten or fifteen mins and keep cooking them until they become a beautiful, caramelized brown. They are soft and mushy and amaaaazing. It takes about 45 minutes give or take. You won't be sorry folks.

I hope you all make this. I really do.

House Update

2011-08-10T12:37:00.000-07:00

We finished the mother in law house renovation a few weeks ago. Here are the promised pictures...

Seriously, I love this house. And I love that one of my best friends in the world lives there. We may or may not be creating a commune complete with shared patio with a fire pit.

Here is the update on our house. We have started clearing the jungle that had overtaken. Pearce got a little ride on the bulldozer (which he talks about every time we stop by the house now. "see bulldozer. see bulldozer")

And we hope to start on the basement/foundation next week. That part takes a good 4 weeks to finish, so the progress will feel a little slow. But once that's done it rolls along much more quickly, or so I'm told anyway.

Long car rides and one two buckle my shoe

2011-08-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

This would be hour six on our drive to the outer banks for the Stinson family beach trip. ALL of the Stinsons. It's like 20 to 30 people, so it's worth the trek out there. But Pearce had reached his limit. And I had too.

Newest guilty pleasure

2011-07-20T14:26:00.001-07:00

Kettle Corn!

The Stinsons (and our roommates the Kunkles) have been really killing some homemade kettle corn. I'd say we have this an average of 4 times a week. It's just the perfect after dinner snack. Or middle of the day snack. Or your basic wholesome breakfast. Just kidding, I haven't gone that far yet. But a non dairy eating lady really has to get creative on desserts and this has been my go to lately. Here is the recipe for you folks. You won't be sorry.

Ingredients: 1/2 cup of popcorn kernals, 1/3 cup of sugar, 3 to 4 Tbs of some high temp oil. I've been using coconut oil bc it's A)delicious B)healthy and C) it makes your basic popcorn feel a little fancy

Then just follow Pearce's lead and put the oil in and let it get hot (medium high heat) then add the kernels and the sugar at the same time. Give it a little stir to coat all the kernels. Then cover and wait for it to start popping. Once it starts popping shake the pot every few seconds. When the popping slows take it off the heat immediately and uncover, dump it in a big bowl and season it with salt

And then if your like Pearce you'll double fist it.

You are welcome :)

A public thank you

2011-06-14T12:44:00.000-07:00

I have learned a lot because of Cohen. I'm still learning a lot. I think I will keep learning because of him for the rest of my life. Sometimes I'm still not sure what happened the first year after Cohen. It feels like a fog. Cloudy. I wanted to see and understand but I didn't. Or couldn't. I try, even now, to see what exactly the Lord was doing or saying to me then. And I can see more now. Much more. Not everything, not at all. But much more. Some things will take longer to see. Some things are not as obvious or are covered with pain and questions. Those things will take more pursuit of the Lord. More of the Lord's grace.

But some things were evident very quickly and very clearly. One of those things is the measure of friendship the Lord has given me. I have the kind of friends that no one deserves. People who have known how to love me in joy and in loss in ways I didn't know I needed to be loved. I could write blogs upon blogs of examples, and maybe I should. Maybe I will. But for now, I will write one example. One example of a gift my friends have given me that has literally left me speechless.

Here is the gift.

And here is the story behind this gift.

After Cohen died, and shawn and I were still in Seattle, these friends wanted to do something in memory of him. They wanted to give me a gift that's purpose was to honor him. They tossed around the idea of planting a tree here in Charlotte. For a bunch of reasons that didn't quite work out. They have celebrated his life with me and cried with me a gazillion times since then, so I've never felt like they didn't do anything to remember him-concrete gift or not. But, unbeknownst to me, they hadn't stopped looking for a way to really remember him in some tangible way.

A few weeks ago my best friend from high school, Jackie, planned a fundraiser for a local non profit and invited us. There was a silent auction at said event. One of the auction items was this beautiful painting of two trees intertwines with deep roots in the ground (much like the above picture). I loved it. It reminded me of the boys. How they grew together and how they will always be connected. I couldn't stop talking about it. But it was not in our budget to bid on it. I talked to the artist at the event and asked what his inspiration was and told him how much I appreciated his work. But I didn't tell him my story. I just thanked him for painting it.

My friend Hillary, however, DID tell him my story. And my friends commissioned this artist to paint a piece for me to remember Cohen. He was so touched by their gift to me and the story that he painted a much large piece than they asked for. He wrote Cohen (left side) and Pearce (right side) in the roots and titled the piece Souls Live Forever.

I love everything about this painting. I love the colors, the meaning, the heart behind it. ( I even love how they gave it to me, which was hilarious bc they sat me down like they were doing an intervention and really freaked me out. I kept thinking, what have I done that they all need to talk to me about??) I love that it literally makes me joyful and sorrowful at the same time. Something that has been exceedingly difficult to master. I was and am so moved by their intentionality. That two years later they have not moved on. They have not forgotten. They have not stopped looking for ways to keep Cohen a part of our family and their lives.

It is impossible to explain what it feels like to lose a child. And though as time goes on it gets easier to live life normally, to look held together, to laugh, to joke, to be busy with your other children, it does not get easier to miss him. I do not miss him less. I do not hurt less when I think about him. But I would expect people around me to forget a little. Or to assume I am not sad anymore. That in some ways I have moved on. That maybe I don't cry anymore when I think of him. They have not assumed this. Two years later they found the perfect way to set Cohen, visibly, in our home and in our family. They thought to do this because they were paying attention. They were watching me and listening to things I wasn't even saying out loud. And because of this they have helped me stay steady. Because of this they have given me a gift that even they probably don't really understand the depth of.

Thank you Jackie. Thank you Hillary. Thank you Leighton. Thank you Lauren. Thank you Drew.

Thank you Lord for these friendships that I have not earned.

Life and a project

2011-06-07T11:10:00.000-07:00

Life’s been a little bit crazy. More than a little bit, but I never know things are a lot anything until I’m knee deep in them. And boy are we knee deep in it. We bought a house, tried to sell our house to no avail, rented our house, had a baby, have been rocking said baby for about two months straight, moved the church to a new building, moved into my parents house, and are building a new house. Knee. Deep. In. It.

Usually when I get even a little bit busy the first thing to go is my writing/blogging. Actually, maybe cleaning is actually the first thing to go. I just get so tired. But for some reason I feel kind of energetic about blogging again (oddly enough I’m not equally energetic about cleaning. Weird.) With that said, here I am with some pics of the new house that needs so much work it’s hilarious and the cute little baby that needs so much mommy attention that it’s not hilarious. (Perhaps the trials of that situation are for another post) I thought maybe the progress on the house and some stories about moving back into my parents house after ten years away would make for a fun read along the way. By the way, TEN year?? Um, when did I get so old?

We bought this house for a steal and are now redoing the whole thing (obviously). It's the house that Lance crackers started in! Isn't that cool? They literally started baking the crackers or the peanuts or something in this kitchen. The house is on an acre of land so the kids can grow up with a giant backyard to play in. And I can have chickens so I can have fresh eggs every morning. I'm not kidding about that.

And here is one of the cutest little sun bather on the planet

Introducing...

2011-04-18T11:28:00.001-07:00

Loah Lea Stinson... aka the reason I'm going dairy free :)

this is Pearce about to kiss Loah. Which he wants to do every few minutes.

It's been so long...

2011-02-09T09:24:00.001-08:00

since I've posted a blog that you wouldn't believe all that's happened. Pearce got married!

Just kidding obviously. He was a ring bearer in one of my best friend's weddings. It was an all around awesome wedding and I have to say Pearce was a big hit. Lots of break dancing on his part. I have no idea where he learned this from...

I think I've apologized too many times for blogging hiatuses so I won't waste the breath. I'll let you assume all kinds of reasons why I haven't blogged :) But here I am again with a cute Pearce update to ease myself back in. Hope you like it!

You'll forgive me...

2010-08-18T05:55:00.000-07:00

I was getting pretty good at blogging once a week and I know you're probably annoyed with me that we're going on almost three weeks without a post. but you will forgive me when you see this news that Pearce wants to tell you.....

see, big news! Pearce is very excited even though this picture looks a bit like I'm forcing him to raise his hands in jubilee.

Two weeks ago I got a stomach virus that quickly spread to the rest of my family. Then I got a cold that turned into laryngitis that turned into pink eye that turned into a sinus infection all while my whole family was throwing up, and just in time for the morning sickness to kicked in. Needless to say it was a rough two weeks. We're all finally healthy but I have to admit I haven't rebounded totally on my energy level so my blogging took a hit. I am truly sorry... but this is the best way to apologize. throw in some good news like this and who can be mad!? There is another post coming with a bit more reflection on this news, but I just wanted to make the fun announcement first.

Bread Baking Goodness

2010-07-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

I've had a few friendly requests recently for some food/recipe blogging. So, I thought I'd post some pictures of my most recent cooking venture. I've been baking our bread for the last month or so instead of buying it. The reason is multi faceted. One being that Pearce is allergic to walnuts which means we have to avoid tree nuts bc of cross contaminations. You wouldn't believe how many things are made in a tree nut factory. A lot of bread being one of them. Plus, I like knowing what is in my bread and if I make it, the list is about four ingredients long. And also, have you ever had fresh baked bread?? seriously. delicious.

The book:

In my research Peter Reinhard turned up everywhere as the whole grain bread baking guru. And I have to say, it seems "they" were right. This whole wheat bread is pretty awesome. Even Shawn says so, and that's saying something. I would just post the recipe here, but A) I fear I'd get arrested or something. I think there is probably a copyright issue with that. And B) It's a lot to type. So if you're really intrigued I recommend buying the book.

It does take two days to do this bread, but don't get intimidated bc it's not hard in the slightest. You just have to mix some of the dough the day before and let it rest for 12 hours. But it takes approximately 7 minutes to mix this dough, so calm down about the whole 2 day process.

And here are the deliciouso resultos.

I usually make two loafs at a time and slice it all up and freeze the other sliced loaf. Shawn eats bread for every meal and every snack. Shawn's super power is to turn carbs into energy more efficiently than any other human on the planet. I think he survives solely on carbs. Pearce has seemingly inherited this gene.

Speaking of Pearce. You're welcome for this shot. This is how excited he is about his mom's bread baking ability.

Beach Trip

2010-07-16T08:16:00.000-07:00

Forgive the blogging break. We've been at the beach for the annual Stinson family beach trip. I haven't been spending much time on the computer. Here are a few pictures of what I've been doing instead :)

A response

2010-07-01T12:51:00.000-07:00

My friend Tess, who I called the best writer I know in an earlier posts, wrote me an email after my last blog. I've wanted her to do a little guest writing on my blog anyway, so I thought this was a good start....

"I just read your thing about grief and I feel heavy and weighted with your pain. At the same time there was the same old hopefulness about it that reminded me of you before you were a mother. Before you were a grieving mother. I remember you saying recently that you now understand, deeply and thoroughly understand, what it looks like to need God desperately. That we have this in common now. Your ration of grief is unbearable alone and would be worthless and purposeless without the intention of a god that also rations joy in abundance.

Don’t you think we were born with grieving hearts because we were born human and so far away from god? We came out behind the eight ball. From birth we were already bearing an unending cross of deficit and grief. It’s like you said, if you were comfortable in this pain then it would be home. But this is uncomfortable because this acute pain was not the intended norm. I think about “hell” (excuse the quotation marks, it just seems odd to write that word so officially and blatantly, like it’s the town 20 minutes away) and that it would be feeling pain intensely and in solitude and that would be so normal that we would be disturbed by peace. So, naturally that would make “heaven” (the next town over, about 45 minutes away) feeling no pain and even the thought of pain would be upsetting.

We know darkness. I hate this for you and I hate it for me and I hate it for how it puts a rash of sadness on our souls. I can look at some people and see their sadness, you know? You can’t really see people this way until you have drowned in it yourself. You look at someone and think, damn, they are just white-knuckling the day and praying for bed and begging for mercy. I become infuriated with god that he seems negligent and absent-minded for not tending to these people immediately. Why let them suffer? Do you need them to cry to know they are weeping? I can see it, why can’t you God!?

I think about my own life and how hopelessness floats in on a breeze and then dissipates. How my mind is tangled and wired wrong and I know this and have no control over it. How I have known for years that there was god but could not reach out to him. How my sin overwhelms me and makes me hopeless…even when I am not actively involved in it.

Yesterday I was talking to Laura and she asked me if I have ever “felt okay in my own skin.” I don’t think I have, if I have it was fleeting and forgettable. As discouraging as this sounds, it also makes sense to me. Why would I feel “okay” at any point…I was not created to just settle here. To be okay with crushing loss. To be satisfied with milk and bread. To be drawn to retirement as if it were the “big goal.” None of this makes me feel okay, yet this is how I live. I live like I can arbitrarily brush off the sorrows and chalk them up to “shit happens.” I live like I am self-sufficient and all knowing and all doing and all okay. I live like my main objective is to be comfortable when I’m 60. As if when I get there I will all the sudden be okay in my own skin. Which would be odd, because by the time I’m 60 I will be wrinkled and probably have lung cancer and probably have 30 cats. The thought of it makes me want to plan a Thelma & Louise cliff drive at 59 years old in order to avoid the whole ordeal. The point is, although we will see grief come to fruition over and over, we will not get to see joy do the same thing, at least not while we’re here. It doesn’t necessarily comfort me to think “there is joy in heaven,” because I am a shortsighted human that can only project in terms of years rather than in terms of eternity. The only thing that softens the blow is that I am not expected to watch the sorrows cascade around me by myself. And as far as we can define it here, this is joy."

Good Grief

2010-06-22T07:16:00.000-07:00

You know that phrase, "Good Grief!"? I don't think people really say it too much anymore. Well, people like my dad do. He says all kinds of funny old timer phrases like that. Like, "Judas Priest!" My friends used to think that was so funny in high school. I think also because his name is Bob. It's just fitting someone named Bob would say phrases like that. Anyway, I feel the need to explain it's meaning just in case no one actually does say it anymore because it really isn't obvious. It's one of those oxymoronic euphemisms. Grief does not in any way seem or feel good. Trust me. You say this silly old phrase when you're really annoyed. You can't believe something happened the way it did or someone said something they said. It's like a really annoyed, "Are you kidding me!" You're probably yelling when you say it. I think the time my dad said "Judas Priest" was when I got caught breaking into my neighborhood pool at like midnight one night. (peer pressure ok?) So it's similar to that.

I think about grief fairly often. I think about it fairly often because it is somewhat the backdrop of my life. It colors my days. And truthfully, I've found the reason for my grief and my process with it to be very much "good grief" the way my dad always said it. I literally have felt like yelling, "are you kidding me!" a million times. It has annoyed me to no end to not have "why's" answered or not see what I was hoping to see the way I was hoping to see it in grief. But I just didn't know what grief was. I didn't know what to make of it. I remember writing, when grief first introduced itself to me, that I was not well acquainted with it. I didn't understand it. I'd say I'm well acquainted with its presence now, more familiar with it. Sometimes because it is so familiar it seeps into the fabric of life and it isn't glaringly obvious. Maybe it's like getting used to having a dull headache. You don't even realize you have the headache anymore, unless it hurts more than usual or it completely disappears and you remember what life without pain feels like. Sometimes being familiar with grief is like that dull headache. I can still laugh and smile and enjoy life even with the dull headache because I can kind of ignore it and even sometimes not quite notice it. But in other ways I'm still surprised by grief. Like how quickly it shows up with intensity for me in ways it never would have even glimpsed itself before. A commercial, a song, a thought, a memory, someone else's story. And then when it does show up with such commanding presence I'm surprised by how it colors everything. My mood. My thoughts. My actions. My perspective. My heart. My hope. And it doesn't always feel the same either. Here is one of the most surprising things about grief for me... it isn't an emotion.

Grief is not what I thought it would be. I've studied it-both before I knew it and after. Before I knew it the way I do now, I "studied" it in grad school. As a counselor you have to know aaaaall about grief. I could have told you the process of grief and what to look for in that process. The mechanics of grief I understood. And when I thought of the mechanics I thought of it as a process of emotion. On this side of knowing, I'm certain that the grief itself isn't so much an emotion as it is a presence. It's like a person standing next to you. I can literally see it walking towards me. You know when you're at the beach and it's perfectly sunny but in the distance you can see this dark wall of clouds headed towards you? That's what it is like. Just like that. I'll be playing at the park with Pearce, or watching him run around the house, or hear him laugh, or see a set of twins, or hear a story of a friend who is suffering in loss like mine and I can literally see grief stepping onto the scene. And depending on the form it will take or the energy I think I have I will either brace myself or let it level me. I don't always know what that wall of clouds will do. Because, you know, sometimes at the beach it looks big and scary and intimidating but it blows right over and it's sunny again. Or it thunders like it thinks it's so awesome but then it just sprinkles a little and moves on. OR it parks over you and dumps every last drop of water that ever existed. So sometimes it comes and it feels like pain. I'll remember the day the boys were born and my heart physically hurts in my chest. Sometimes it comes and it feels like longing. Longing for the way I envisioned my life. Sometimes it comes and it feels like anger. I'm angry that God won't let me see the glory of his sovereignty more obviously.

But sometimes, every now and then, it feels like a heavy encouragement. This suffering and the subsequent grief is not what we were intended for. If it was I would feel completely at home in it. But I don't. We weren't meant to be in a broken world and be broken people and feel such broken things. And that dark wall of clouds is a large and loud and obvious reminder that this isn't what we were made for. And the encouragement for me is that there is an eternity coming in which suffering and loss and grief and pain and broken things are not present and never will be again. I think without a wall that dark I might be inclined to make here home. The bible says in 1 Peter that we are grieved by trials so that the tested genuineness of our faith (which is more precious than gold that does perish) will result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So that means that my faith WILL result in praises and glory and honor (the very things I'm hoping it will do) because its genuineness has been tested by being grieved. And it will result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus, which is in and for eternity. Here is not where praise and glory and honor are fully realized, but it is coming. And when grief is a reminder that hope and glory and honor and praise are coming it is an encouragement. And in those moments grief is literally and actually good grief.

Pearce's Birthday

2010-06-08T13:32:00.000-07:00

So just pretend it's May 14th and not June 8th, so I'm actually on time with these birthday pictures.

We did a Curious Pearce birthday party. You know, like Curious George. Bc pearce is very very very curious and also bc he loves bananas. My bff Jackie is starting a party planning business and she offered her expertise on decoration and theme. She went above and beyond if I do say so myself. We had banana related foods galore. Banana daiquiris (non alcoholic for the kids, don't worry folks), banana pudding, and bananas dipped in chocolate. I'll put a few food pictures on here bc it was so good and cute.

And the mantle was decorated with some fun cut outs and pictures of curious George and Pearce framed.

And then there was lots of playing. He slid on his new slide from Mimi and Papa, and rode on his new car from Aunt Staci and Uncle Tanner and Aunt Denise and Uncle Mark, and he carried around his balloons the entire party. Weirdly obsessed with balloons... I dont know. He carried them around the house for the entire week.

I'd say, if Pearce could remember his first birthday he would agree it was probably the best birthday he'll ever have. Good thing I have this blog to prove it to him later.

Three months later...

2010-06-01T07:56:00.000-07:00

Oops. Sorry. Customizing a blog is not my forte, clearly. I tried for months to figure it out and then Shawn just does it for me in like ten minutes. Lesson learned: ask Shawn to do any and everything remotely internet related. Except blog headers. Blog headers like this one are done by my friend Shelly Moore.

So let's just all agree to forgive me for my tardiness and I'll explain the blog title and then throw in some Pearce birthday party pictures just to smooth everything over. I'm pretty sure no one can be mad at me anymore after you see him.

Ok, blog title:

Outside of titling a blog your own name, it's kind of hard to come up with one. You have to ask yourself all these questions about what you want to write about, what the point is, how will you put a piece of yourself in the title? "On the Purple Couch" actually goes all the way back to college (all the way back to college IS actually a fairly long time ago now people. I'm like a month away from 28, which is practically 30 which means freshman year of college was NINE years ago.) At App State there was a particular coffee shop that had a giant, comfy purple couch. I think in Charlotte coffee shops in general started getting really popular sometime at the end of high school (which really qualifies as a long time ago now). But App was ahead of the game on the coffee shop front because they are so mountainy and granola-and I mean that as a compliment. So this coffee shop was perfectly equipped with couches and big arm chairs, not just tables like some coffee shops, which is the biggest failure and oversight in the solar system if you ask me. Anyway, I found that purple couch on like the first day of college and kind of set up shop there for the entirety of my four years. Studying, reading, conversation, writing. Some of my most important conversations and insights from the Lord happened on that couch in that coffee shop. One of my best friends, Tess (who I met in college and have more to say about than this blog post has room for) and I spent so much time on that couch talking, crying, laughing, passing our journals back and forth that we thought we would write a book one day called "On the Purple Couch." And maybe we will when that life story feels like it has some form of a resolution. You are so curious about Tess right now you can't stand it can you? :) Maybe I'll have her write a post in here one day. She's the best writer I know. Hands down.

Anyway, I think that couch is where more depth was added to me both in relationship and in thought. Obviously it's just symbolic, but still I have such an affection for it that when I moved back to Charlotte I was a little sad to not have a place like that anymore. And then Starbucks came to the rescue. One block from my house the best Starbucks in all of the land had a purple couch. So more conversation with old friends and new friends, more writing, more conversations with the Lord, and more studying continued. Now, five years later Starbucks decided to renovate the best Starbucks in all of the land eliminating the purple couch as well as the signature hot chocolate-don't get me started on that please.

There isn't a purple couch anymore, but let's be honest-now that I'm a mom unless there was a purple couch at my house I'd rarely get to sit on it and do any sort of reading and writing and conversing. And I don't have a purple couch... I have a lime green couch (it's very cool). But the symbolism of the purple couch is still true and I still do all of my reading and writing on the couch, in my house. And it's where most of my insights, conversations with the Lord and people, and blogging will be happening from. Just the color has changed. Ooooh, that was poetic wasn't it? "The color has changed" I could write a whole blog series on how the color of my life has changed. I better stop myself right now before this blog turns into 1,000 pages.

So there you have it. The Purple Couch. I might take a moment and acknowledge the obvious therapeutic connotation of this title. I was a bit hesitant to use it because I'm a counselor and I thought it was a bit much... but come on, blogging is therapeutic so just go with it.

And now for Pearce's birthday party pics. I should probably dedicated a post to this party because it was so awesome. A curious Pearce party. Because he is so curious, and also is obsessed with bananas. It is one of his four words. And it sounds more like baaaa then banana.

Pearce Walks!

2010-03-02T16:09:00.001-08:00

Our buddy took his first steps!

Hiatus explained

2010-02-22T11:31:00.000-08:00

So, I (kalle) am revamping the blog. Shawn and are parting ways...just on the blog front, not on the marriage front. I'm going to start blogging on my own, and maybe shawn will too. But if you think I was unreliable as a blogger, you haven't seen anything yet if Shawn takes up blogging completely on his own. But maybe we'll all be pleasantly surprised!

anyway, the name and background will all be different. I will let you know when it's up and running. and feel free to offer some new names seeing as we are no longer westward bound...except in our hearts.

aight. peace out for a while.

Photo Shoot with Ryan Flyn

2010-01-22T06:39:00.001-08:00

There are so awesome. Thanks Ryan!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2247783&id=29702637&l=81a02e3b54

I thought this was going to just create a link you can click on, but apparently it doesn't so I think you'll just have to do the good old fashion copy and paste with this one. Sorry folks.

Shawn:

We're really thankful for Ryan's gifted eye and artistic talent. Check out his work on his website. And if you are in Seattle, go see him! Thanks bro!

http://www.ryanpflynn.com/

p diddy learning to walk

2010-01-12T04:01:00.001-08:00

Uh oh... we're in trouble. Pearce is on the road to walking. And apparently grocery shopping. A man after mama's heart

How to Enter oh-ten. Or is it just 10?

2009-12-31T09:10:00.000-08:00

"Some resolutions are petty, but most resolutions make a profound statement."

I just read a fantastic piece by David Powlison on New Year's resolutions, and I won't comment much about what he says for fear of taking away from his eloquence.

The problem with resolutions is that they are simply behavior changes or moral modifications, without the foundation of a heart and motivation change. By themselves, they have no power and no worth apart from our human effort and weak self discipline. Drink less, Read more, Sleep more, sleep less. Behavior A is not good, but behavior B is ok. Resolve to do more B than A. Powlison writes, "Whether petty or profound, New Year’s resolutions as such merely express good intentions."

Tell me what you think of his article, and if you have a resolution amended I'd love to hear it.

A New Christmas

2009-12-19T04:03:00.000-08:00

It sure is great to be back in Charlotte for Christmas. I've read a few blogs recently about Christmas, and loved what Jason said so much. As I was reading this morning, I read two things that gave me new understanding of Christmas in light of the past year of trial.

Like Jason said, I too love the feeling and excitement of Christmas. My mom bakes and cooks like crazy, and I eat at least 2 batches of her Reece's bars. I never outgrew my love for toys, they just get bigger and more expensive. Christmas gives me a time to play with toys again. I love giving gifts, love the Christmas Eve luminaries, and Christmas Eve party at the Schauer's. I love my family, and I love Grayson chewing on his new bone in the living room as we sit around the tree.

But this year I've come to see the emptiness of the tradition of Christmas without the presence of Jesus. We have walked for 7 months in the pain and darkness of losing our son Cohen. The one thing I long for is to sit with my son, who I knew so briefly. I want to sit with him and talk to him, enjoying him and loving on him. So I read Isaiah 9 this morning:

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined... For to us a Child is born."

In this season of longing for our son Cohen's presence with us, we have felt the deep darkness, the darkest night of the soul. We have walked in the sadness, day by day. And the one thing that has sustained us is the presence of Jesus.

He has been our solace, our comfort, our strength, and our joy. After living in the pain and suffering, the joy for us this Christmas is that Jesus came. He came as we so often hear, "God with us," which is much better news than we realize. Jesus entered the darkness of the world, and darkness of our hearts to dwell with us, sit with us, and love on us. While we mourned our loss, Jesus entered our lives in a tangible way, his presence. He met us at our most vulnerable and fragile state, and he pierced our wounded heart with his love for us.

So as we think about Christmas, we can look back on the year of pain and hurt, the tears and sadness. Enter your sadness. Dwell in the pain of the world. Consider the sin of your life, the sin of your family, the sin of the world. Mourn the sickness and disease. Cry with the widows, and mourn for the fatherless.

Then thrust your eyes to the cross and resurrection of Jesus. Rejoice for the savior has come. Place your hope solely in the return of Jesus. Put all of your strength into the celebration of a small baby, the redeemer of the world, who bore our sin and sickness that we could enter into God's presence.

While the long awaited savior of the world has entered as a baby, he comes back with a sword. Let's spend this Christmas looking forward to Jesus' final comeback in Revelation 21, sword in hand, tattoo on his leg (King of kings, Lord of lords), his robe dipped in blood, on his white horse, his eyes like a flame of fire. Let's worship the redemption of God, the work of Jesus, and the deepest longing of our heart, the presence of God with us.

"He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son... And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death." Colossians 1:13, 21-22

Two items of business

2009-12-13T11:16:00.000-08:00

1) I guess we have to change our blog name now seeing as we are no longer westward bound (except in our hearts:) ) so suggest away please

2) I will now make a list of things I love about Charlotte in order to help with my transition.

-Chick Fil A

-People with manners

-The weather (ie the sun)

-Warm beaches, with sand

-Cracker Barrel

-The panthers

-Carolina Basketball

-Mellow Mushroom

-Harris Teeter

-Dunkin Donuts (Except the coffee)

-East Blv Starbucks

-My house

-My family

-East coast friends

-Freedom Park

-Boone

-Fall

-Queens Rd West

-Redemption Church

That sort of helped:)

Updated Graphics for Redemption Church

2009-11-11T20:13:00.000-08:00

So with the impending move coming in mid-December, some friends have been working on graphics for our church (Thanks Jay and Nick). This is going to the printer tonight, and we will have 1,000 postcard sized cards by Friday (Thanks John). This design business is pretty slick. What do you guys think of it? More to come soon. The website should be up by Sunday as a temporary site. See you guys soon. We can almost taste the Goodberry's ice cream and Char-grill cheeseburgers. Mmmmmm. Oh yeah and Mellow Mushrooom. I love Pizza.

Moving and Halloween

2009-11-04T20:26:00.001-08:00

Just a few photos for you boos..

This is what packing for a big move looks like with a baby.

Apparently he loves hangers.

Pearce's first Halloween.

Look at him sticking his hands in that kiddos face. Not totally sure what that's about. Dragons beat bears. "Bears, Beats, Battle Star Galactica" (If you know what that quote is from then I'll kiss ya" ***Blog Edit: after I wrote this I was informed by my husband and roommates (the cowans) that I would be kissing everyone bc "everyone" knows this quote. if this is true then that means I have picked good, quality friends... but I probably won't actually kiss all of you***
Mama's little dragon
Also, I'm aware that P is not smiling in any of these pictures. But we woke him up to put on this costume and go trick or treating. He wasn't thrilled about that.

Pearce's growl

2009-10-27T09:44:00.001-07:00

For everyone that doesn't have facebook here is Pearce's newest trick. He has discovered he can growl.

A coffee date

2009-10-20T12:05:00.001-07:00

I know I promised to be better at this. I do have a running, growing list of things I've wanted to blog about. But I haven't, obviously. Partly because I haven't wanted to. I mean I've wanted to, I just haven't wanted to make my brain think on some of the things on the list. And partly because I'm never totally sure how vulnerable to be on a blog. A blog is weird right? It's like kind of a journal and kind of a public forum. Most of the list, as of late, is made of deeper, sometimes hard and sad things. I'd much rather post pictures and videos of Pearce. But let's be honest, I haven't even really done that well either.

So I guess I'll just bite the bullet and post something from my list. I think I know that most people who read this do actually want to know how we're doing, even when it's hard. And although a blog is a little impersonal, it's also as close as I can get to sitting down to a cup of coffee with some of you. So everyone get your coffee out and I'll get mine and I'll just pretend you asked how I'm doing...

Months ago I think the answer to this question changed by the minute. Literally. I could smile in one minute and cry in the next. Some time has passed now. Not a lot. But some. And now the answer doesn't change quite as quickly. I can go for days with the same answer. This feels a little refreshing when it's days in a row of smiling or laughing. But the flip side is days at a time of sad. A kind of sad that I didn't know existed really. I mean you see sad like that in the movies, but it's the movies, you know? So here's the kind of awkwardly vulnerable answer on the blog...

I had a really bad week two weeks ago. I mean really bad. Movies bad. Cry in the shower bad. Sit on your couch staring at the wall sobbing bad. And I couldn't snap out of it. I tried to muster up every ounce of stubborn will in me to pull myself out of it. And I couldn't. This is completely unfamiliar to me. Apparently everything about grief is unfamiliar to me. Usually I can make my brain win out over my emotions. Not the case anymore. All I could do was literally pray over and over again, "Help me." I don't even totally know what I wanted the Lord to help me with. I wanted him to say something. I wanted to actually, audibly hear him. I wanted him to come sit on the couch with me. I wanted him to be that close. That present.

Here's the thing about me- when I read the bible I read it to know the Lord. To hear from him. To be changed by him. And I really believe that it is truth and that it is living and active and that it pierces us and teaches us and changes us. But I can't think of many times that I've read it and felt like that specific verse was literally written to me in that moment. I most often read it like the words were written to whoever they were written to whenever they were written. (maybe a little bit the curse of seminary??) They are just as true now as they were then and they are applicable to me, but they weren't written TO me. This is not totally wrong. But I don't think it's complete either. This way of reading isn't full. It's not taking into account the holy spirit at work in the pages. I don't know that I ever really noticed that this is how I read the bible until Cohen. The thing is, I don't know that I've ever needed to hear the Lord the way I need to now. Before I could just glean the wisdom and truth and knowledge of God in scripture as it was written then and it spurred me on and fueled me and excited me. But now I find myself in a foreign land of desperation. That sounds so high school girl dramatic, I know. But I really feel pretty desperate to have the Lord close. Not just big and huge and sovereign. But near. So close that he feels like he's sitting on the couch with me. So near that I can actually hear him talk and even smell his breath. Except he probably doesn't have bad breath, right, because he's perfect and all. I need him like this. So I need the bible not to be just words that I'm supposed to read and get knowledge about him from. I need the bible to also be him speaking. To me. Right to me. Which it does.

So that's where I was that week. Asking the Lord to speak like that. Right to my heart. And here's what he said...

In Acts 8 there is this itty bitty account of the disciple Philip. The Lord sends an angel to tell Philip to go to this desolate, desert place. The angel literally just gives him the location in the desert place to go to. So Philip goes and he comes across this Ethiopian man who is reading scripture in his chariot as he is traveling. He's reading a portion of the Old Testament that is prophecy about Jesus. So Philip walks up to him and says, "Do you understand what you are reading?" And the guy says, "No. Not unless someone explains it to me." Then Acts says that in response to the Ethiopian wanting it explained to him Philip, "told him the good news about Jesus."

So I'm the Ethiopian at the moment. Feeling like, "Lord, I can't understand anything right now unless you explain it to me." That's what I meant when I said "Help me." And in that one verse I heard the Lord. "And Philip told him the good news about Jesus." The good news about Jesus. That's what the Lord started talking to me about. Jesus. I'm crying on my couch asking for help and he says to me, "Remember the good news about Jesus." Jesus is what makes earth and this life not what I hope for. Jesus makes eternity what I hope for. If this was it, if this world is all there is, then I've got nothing to hope in except a life full of being sad with the occasional week of smiling and laughing. The good news of Jesus is that I am saved and redeemed for an eternity of good and joy and perfection and purpose. One of no pain or sadness or anxiety or confusion. Because of Jesus brokenness and death will end and I will experience the fullness of joy. I will see in full what I don't really even see in part now.

I think I keep mistaking the brokenness of this world, Cohen's death, as a lack of God's love for me. But Jesus is the evidence of the depth of God's love for me. The depth of his love is too much for me to comprehend and it is why I can't always see that his sovereignty is also full of love. How I long to see in full. Until I do, the Lord has to remind me of the good news about Jesus every minute of my day.

There it is. Our first virtual coffee date. You might not ever ask again how I'm doing. Or to get a cup of coffee with me for that matter:)

and just so you can have a picture of Pearce I'll tack one on of me and P Diddy from our recent trip to Cannon Beach..

Pearce Rolling

2009-09-22T08:14:00.001-07:00

Pearce figured out how to roll and now he can't stop

Apology

2009-09-17T15:33:00.001-07:00

Sorry people... we haven't been blogging. Here's the confession: I've been cheating on my blog with facebook. I've been addicted to updating my facebook status and i haven't written a darn thing on here. So to make it up to you I am going to attempt to update this blog everyday. Ok, that's too lofty a goal, but I'll write something much more often, even if it's boring... just to prove a point- the point being I haven't divorced this blog. Today I will fill you in on Pearce with a photo collection of his four month old cuteness. And tell you that he sucks his thumb something fierce, rolls over, laughs a lot, has started reaching for things- but it takes a lot of concentration, and he sleeps through the night-and i mean THROUGH the night-as in 5:30pm to 8:00am. And if you wake him up before he's ready he is maaaaad. It's a little hilarious.

Check out the thumb sucking...

And the awesome string of drool
About to roll over
Playing in the mirror

This might be my favorite face he has ever made. WHO does he think he is?! :)

pearce smiling

2009-08-14T11:11:00.001-07:00

you're welcome grandparents:)

Photo montage of firsts...

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

Pearce's first major league baseball game.

First of many Shawn and Pearce doughnut outings.

Please not the sheer number of doughnuts and Pearce's obvious lack of interest in said doughnuts.

Kalle's first tattoo

Shawn and I got tattoos of Cohen's name in Hebrew. Cohen is the hebrew word for priest. When we got to the tattoo shop we had a print out of the word and the tattoo artist walked up behind us and saw the print out and said, "Cohen." I freaked out a little about that and she said, "I speak Hebrew." She lived in Israel for five years... pretty awesome.

Pearce's first forth of July (and mom's birthday)

Goodness?

2009-07-02T22:19:00.000-07:00

It's long... be prepared.

I’ve had conversations with Jesus since Cohen. Lots of them. Most of them are full of unanswered questions and tears. But I’ve had conversations. I’ve talked. But he hasn’t talked. Much. Or at least I haven’t heard. I’ve tried to hear. I’ve tried to hear answers to my questions. And to those, he hasn’t responded. Or at least I haven’t heard.

In my head I know of his goodness. I know it because I’ve spent years knowing it, reading it, saying it. I’ve still believed in it even through all of this. He is good. I can say it now and believe it now. And knowing it for certain, knowing it outside of circumstance and emotion is what belief is. So I know it. I do. But until this week, I haven’t felt it yet. I haven’t felt his goodness in this. I keep hoping for an answer to “why” because I think the answer will help me feel his goodness. If I could understand, if he would tell me why this is good, then maybe I’d feel it.

But an explanation is not what goodness feels like. It’s not. Goodness feels like. Like. I don’t know what goodness feels like. Comfort? Love? Compassion? Answers? Maybe goodness just feels like the voice on the other side of my conversations. Maybe goodness feels like Jesus’ voice. That’s why I keep having conversations with him. Why I keep trying to hear. Keep waiting to hear.

I’ve been waiting to hear and I thought I was listening, but maybe I wasn’t. Or maybe I just couldn’t listen. Couldn’t hear. Pain is loud. Really loud. So loud he has to come find me in it or I’ll never be able to hear him.

Twice this week he has come to find me, to remind me what his voice sounds like and to show me what his goodness feels like. Once in the grocery store, in the dairy section, and once in a quiet conversation in my heart during my counseling session.

I take walks a lot to talk to him. I walked to the grocery store the other day talking to him the whole way about wanting to understand and how much I missed Cohen. I told him how sad I was and how unfamiliar he seemed to me these days. I was pushing Pearce through the dairy section when this woman came up behind us and peeked in the stroller and said, “Oh he is perfect. Look at his face.” I smiled politely and said thank you and told her how old he was. Then she looked me square in the face and said, “He’s a miracle.” She didn’t say it in passing or to be polite. She told me what he was, with purpose. I said, “he actually is. There were twins, but his brother was stillborn.” I don’t usually tell strangers this, but she knew he was a miracle somehow so I agreed with her. She put her hand on my back and said “And you’re so sad.” I nodded. Then she looked me in the eyes again and said, “He’s with Jesus.” She didn’t say it in passing or to be polite. She said it with purpose, again. I said, “that’s the only thing that makes this bearable.” And she said, “It is the only thing. Because you have never felt grief like this.” She didn’t ask me, she told me. And she is right. About everything. And I knew, for a moment, God’s goodness bc I know that woman was from him. No stranger in Seattle ever puts their hand on your back and no one ever says “Jesus.” Maybe followed by a cuss, but not in reference to eternity-and not to a stranger.

I told Shawn about this when I got home and he said, “Oh, she was an angel.” I think maybe she was. The bible says that angels exist to minister to us. And I needed to hear someone tell me those things. I needed someone to TELL me. Tell me like it was the truth. I needed to be familiar with his voice again. That was his voice, I’m certain.

In my counseling session this week my counselor asked me to picture myself on the day Cohen died and he had me ask that me what I needed. I said, “I need this to not have happened.” He told me to picture myself holding Cohen, walking down a path in a green pasture. Then he said to picture Jesus walking towards me. He asked me what I wanted to do or say when I saw him. I said, “I guess I want him to hold us. But then I want him to bring Cohen back to life.” “What do you want to say to Jesus?” I thought in my heart, “Why did you do this!?” And I heard Jesus say, “It is my plan and I promise it is good.” It wasn’t my voice. I know it wasn’t my mind that created that answer because I hate that answer. I haven’t been a real fan of the, ‘It’s his plan” answer so far. But there was something profound about him saying, “I promise.” Something loving and compassionate about, “I promise.” He doesn’t have to promise me anything, but he does. He promises things in scripture and they are true. And I heard him say he promised this was good-even if I can’t see yet. The counselor said, “Tell him his plan hurts you.” So I told Jesus that. Because it does hurt me. Terribly. And he said, “I know.” It wasn’t my voice that said it. It wasn’t my mind that came up with it. It was Jesus telling me he knew it hurt and it mattered that it hurt. I could even hear how he said it. With depth and weight and sadness and love.

It was the first time since Cohen's death that I FELT God's goodness. And it felt like comfort. Like love. Like compassion. Like an answer. Like Jesus' voice.

Father's Day Visitors. And Pearce Lately.

2009-06-21T16:09:00.000-07:00

This week we had some friends and family in town. Shannon got in Tuesday, and crashed with us for a few days before getting settled in her new place in Seattle. She also started a blog for the summer. Denise got in Friday, and Staci got in last night. We had a breakfast this morning to celebrate Father's Day and fun visitors.

We love Portage Bay Cafe. Kalle and I found this place last Valentine's, and have frequented the organic breakfast spot ever since. Stuffed french toast, chicken sausage scrambles, and coconut milk pancakes (vegan) top the list. We've never been disappointed eating here, except for today's 2 hour wait.

Also, here's this week's pics of Pearce. I know it's all people want from us anymore. We love you all. Thank you for the sweet notes and calls. We miss you all.

Pearce's Day Off

2009-06-13T16:22:00.000-07:00

We finally worked up a few videos of Pearce this week. The first one is him sleeping for like 4 minutes. It's not that interesting, and I apologize in advance for the weird part looking at Kalle's eye. We get loopy when the video is on, and when we sleep in 3 hour intervals for a week.

The second is him taking a bath in our luxurious kitchen sink. Like I said, not interesting unless you are a grandparent ;).

Also, you can wish a happy birthday to my mother, @CindyStinson, and no she's not on twitter. But you could send her a little email.

Goodbye NICU

2009-06-09T21:04:00.000-07:00

Dear NICU,

Thank you for taking care of our sweet baby Pearce. We really loved knowing you and felt comfortable in room H for our three and a half week stay. And we know that he is home because of all of you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Pics of Pearce leaving the NICU and his first day out with mom and dad...

Pearce's NICU room

First ride in his car seat. Tiny little baby:)

Pearce's cute outfit

Out at breakfast

Home Stretch

2009-06-07T10:59:00.000-07:00

So assuming that Pearce doesn't have anymore breathing events-which means he doesn't have any long periods without taking a breath- it looks like he will be able to come home on Monday:) Here are a few pics of how Pearce feels about that...

Pearce

2009-05-30T22:15:00.000-07:00

Just a few pictures to introduce Pearce. He is a pretty mellow babe, but has a heck of a strong will. He eats like his daddy (hardly breathing) and he hates being woken up (like his mama.) We gave him his first bath today. I was nervous bc he is so tiny and fragile, but he loved being warm in the water. Also, I think he's going to have blonde hair! I hoped for this and Shawn thought it wasn't possible bc of his dominant black hair, but I think I won.

To Cohen, Love Mom

2009-05-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

Kalle wrote a letter to Cohen that Kelly read during his service yesterday. We hope to upload the video of the service for our east coast friends and family, but for now I hope you can see in her letter how much Kalle loves her sweet son Cohen.

Cohen, my sweet boy, I love you. I haven’t wanted to be alone since you. I have been afraid to feel the depth of my love for you because I’m not able to say it to your face or show it to you on earth. But even in my fear, I want to feel it and know it well and I want to tell you even though you are not with me.

I don’t get to be your mommy here like I longed to be. I wanted to be your mommy so badly. I wanted to hug you and snuggle you. I wanted to teach you and play with you. I wanted to raise you knowing Jesus and watch you grow into a strong but humble man. I prayed for you with my hands on my belly asking the Lord to be with you even then while you were nestled in me. I prayed that you would be familiar with His voice and presence. I believe that you were then and I know that you are now. You are more familiar with Jesus now than I am. You know him more intimately than I will for some time.

I miss you more than I knew possible, but to wish you here is to wish you from the place I long to be too. But my heart still wants you here. It still wants to be your mommy here, now. I want my prayers for the kind of man you were going to be and the gifts you were going to have and for how your daddy and I were going to love you to be realized. My whole life is different without you. I dreamed of life with you and your brother and your daddy. And now I have one empty car seat, one empty stroller seat, one empty bouncer, another little boy who misses you snuggled next to him, and a heart that will always be broken that it didn’t get to know you more or for longer. I miss you. I will miss you every day for the rest of my life until I get to meet you and Jesus, together. I want you to know how your daddy and I loved you while we were gifted with you here and how we will keep loving you for our whole lives.

You have been loved from the moment you were made, you were loved even before that, and now you know love that is incomprehensible to us here. You know in full what we know only in part and though I ache to have you here, I rejoice that your sweet soul gets to know how wide and long and high and deep His love is. I can’t wait to be with you again, to know this love that you know. I am so thankful I am your mom and that you are our son.

I love you.

Two Rooms

2009-05-21T10:38:00.000-07:00

"We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies." 2 Corinthians 4:8-10

We've been praying this verse a lot this week, wondering why this happened as it did, and wanting to believe that we are not forsaken, and not driven to despair. We feel both the life of Jesus at work in us, and the suffering as well. Paul captures the joy and pain of life, made real for us by our two sons. This week has been an all too vivid reminder of all of our lives. We have a real hope and life waiting for us in heaven, but exist in the body only for a little while on earth. We are praying that our suffering (which doesn't feel light or momentary) will be producing something beautiful for us when we meet Cohen and Jesus together.

This past week has shown Kalle and I the most painful parts of life, as well as the most beautiful. We have been switching between two different rooms in the hospital. Our regular room is where we have cried together over Cohen (below with our hands). We held his body. We snuggled together on the bed. We prayed with him. We mourned over his life. We celebrated his peace and joy with Jesus. We longed to meet him in that place. We sought the mind of God, perplexed by such a sudden loss. I've never seen Kalle as sad as she is when she holds her son.

Our other room is (for the next 4 weeks) a small suite in the neonatal intensive care (NICU). Kalle and I feel at home here with Pearce. We know the nurses and doctors, and make small talk about the weather and corporate policy. We read the Bible to Pearce, praying for his strength and faith. We snuggle together in the recliners as Kalle "kangaroos" with him (seen below + daddy's finger). We have a 9:00am meeting called "rounds" where we meet with all the people helping Pearce get stronger (dietician, doctor, nurse practitioner, nurses, social worker). I've become a regular at the watering hole. Fresh coffee is always brewed (I've asked for an IV drip), ice cold cokes, sandwiches, and ice cream complete my heaven. I've never seen Kalle as happy as she is when she holds her son.

Update: Pearce is now breathing at room air. We are so thankful for him to be completely off respiratory support. He also is off his IV for fluids, and totally reliant on breast milk from mom.

Kalle is famous around here for her milk. She's already filled up our reserve freezer and our mini fridge in the room. They are now asking us to store milk at home. I wish you could see the setup for the pumping operation. One word: fembot. Think Austin Powers. I laugh every time I see it.

Love to all. Thank you for more calls, texts, and emails. We love hearing your prayers for our sons, and us. We also love hearing Scripture you are praying for us and the boys. Please keep sending it!

SKPC

Update from the NICU

2009-05-17T22:19:00.000-07:00

Thank you, everyone, for your sweet notes, calls, and texts. Thank you for praying and for mourning and rejoicing with us. We want to try to keep you all updated about Pearce because we know you are praying...

He has been on something called a CPAP which is kind of like an oxygen mask. He is breathing on his own but his lungs are very immature so he needs help getting enough oxygen. The first 48 hours are very difficult for preemies, mostly bc of their lungs, but once they get over that hump things usually start to get better. Today has been his best day yet. The goal is to wean him off that CPAP as his lungs get stronger and today he is very close. He is still in the incubator so we don't get to touch him very much. A lot of stimulation causes him too much stress, but today because he was making progress we got to hold him a little through the arm holes and change his diaper. Hopefully more good news tomorrow.

Searing Loss and Deep Joy.

2009-05-15T12:55:00.000-07:00

We want to thank you guys for your prayers and support over the last eight months.

Kalle gave birth to two sons yesterday, Pearce Dean Stinson and Cohen Robert Stinson. This was an emergency c-section, as Kalle went in for a routine non-stress test on the boys’ hearts Thursday, and found out that Cohen’s heart had stopped beating Wednesday night.

We have been balancing the joy of having a son, and the grief of losing another. Both Kal and I are really sad, and feel the very sharp pain of losing a family member. We have been able to grieve and hold our sweet baby Cohen.

We named Pearce Dean after Kalle’s mom’s dad, Phillip Pearce, who passed away last year. His middle name was given in honor of my dad (Dean). Pearce means rock (from Peter), and Dean means “church official.” We have prayed for his strength and faith, that it would be used for the poor and weak, and used to build up the church.

Cohen Robert got his name from Kalle’s Dad Robert, meaning “bright light”, and the Hebrew word KOHEN, which translates priest. We have prayed that Cohen would love people well, and serve others before himself. We continually pray Philippians 2 over him, that the mind and attitude of Jesus would be in Him. He served and loved his brother well, and we look forward to meeting his sweet spirit when we get to meet Jesus.

Please be praying for Pearce as he will stay in the NICU for ~4 weeks. His lungs look good, and we are praying for his respiratory functions to get much stronger.

We’re going to take some time as a family, and will keep you posted on how we are, and how you can pray for our new family.

We hope that the goodness of God will be evident in this painful time. We love you guys.

Shawn, Kalle, Pearce, and Cohen

Happy Mother's Day!

2009-05-10T07:36:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to write a short blog about my sweet wife and soon to be mother of my babes, and it seems like Mother's day is an appropriate time.

"An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels... She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness."

Kal has worked so hard in the past 8 months. Not only has she successfully grown two boys (Stinson boys at that, which are apparently harder than any other boy), but she has worked counseling foster kids up until a couple of weeks ago, finished her last classes and completed her internships to graduate from Seminary. When she finished work, she received very sincere reviews and lots of praise for her diligent work with a lot of tough kids. The kids trusted her, and shared a lot of their life with her that wasn't seen in an our of clinical counseling. Kalle was able to connect with so many of these kids that are hurting and wanting support, and yet turning in all the wrong places. I'm so proud of her for loving her kids well, and working faithfully because of the kids, and not for the money or for school reasons. And let's be honest, we all know how well social work pays.

Now, I like to say I work hard, but in all honesty, my standard mode of operation is "lazy." Sure I put in a full week at work, unless the NCAA tournament is on, but Kalle works harder than me. There I said it. She is always thinking, always moving, always going. Now she has a piece of paper that says she is smarter than me. I'm done. In her time in Seattle, Kal managed to take six classes at two different schools and finished two internships so she could finish her counseling degree before she had kids. To say it simply, I'm super proud of her.

A couple of weeks ago Kalle and I took a class on multiples and parenting. We had to fill out questionnaires about our relationship to our partner and why we were glad we were having kids with this person and not another. I had just gotten home from work, and was not in a mood to come up with good answers, and I didn't give her good answers until later (this morning). I'm glad Kalle is having my kids because she cares about our boys growing into men and knowing Jesus. Her faithfulness in school and work are mere glimpses into the care she will put into shepherding and loving her kids well. I am delighted by Kalle's perseverance and faithfulness in her relationships, and I know she will develop deep trust with her boys as well. Kalle is always authentic in her relationship with Jesus and with me, and I'm so happy our boys will grow up with a godly woman before them, so that one day they will find a woman that works as hard, and loves as well as their strong mother.

Also, we are thankful for such great mothers as well. Thanks Moms! You have both worked hard and given up so much for your children, and we hope our kids know of your great love for us, and for them! We love you.

Shawn and Kal

Weekends before parenthood

2009-05-04T16:35:00.000-07:00

Recently Shawn said, "I guess we should do some of the the things we won't be able to do once we're parents, huh?" This list is pretty short considering I get out of breath standing in the kitchen making dinner at this point. I guess hiking Mount Rainier is out. But in about three weeks we probably won't even be able to make dinner bc we'll be feeding and changing babies like what.

*side story-we just took our first, and probably only, multiples parenting class where we learned that twins go through twenty diapers A DAY in the beginning... I mean do you even have time to do anything but change diapers at that rate? We also learned some other nice tid bits such as-and I will quote our instructor here, who by the way was the identical twin in looks and personality to Rachel's boss on Friends who Chandler couldn't break up with bc she was so scary and forceful- "People think that when they bring dinner over it's their entry into your house for hours. The way to keep them from staying is to answer the door in your bathrobe and messy hair. Never let go of the door handle and thank them for the food." This lady means business and I have zero doubt that she has done this herself, although likely saying something more obvious like "Go away!" Also, another hilarious note from this multiples class is that it was at the University Of Washington Hospital and Shawn and I were very lost on the campus trying to find it. We pulled over to ask these nice ladies if they knew where the main entrance to the hospital was and when they saw my belly they freaked out and were like, "OH!! Um, yes! It's just down this road!" I think they thought I was actually going to have the babies in the car. I didn't have the time to correct them so I just let them think that. I probably gave them a great story to tell their friends.*

So anyway, this weekend we took advantage of the weather and the pre diaper changing chaos by hanging out by the water in our great little town of Kirkland. Enjoy the photojournalism folks...

A well intentioned, but not so camera savvy passerby offered to take our picture. He was not familiar with the zoom feature apparently- he did, however, get down on one knee for this shot:)

pictoral

2009-04-27T16:12:00.001-07:00

thirty one weekos.

Timelapse of Franklin St.

2009-04-07T23:54:00.001-07:00

I remember this four years ago. I told Craig he got a National Championship for his birthday this year. Not a bad gift!

27 weeks you little bebitos

2009-03-30T19:45:00.000-07:00

I had a fun girls night with my bff Jessi last night. She came to spend the night with me because my husband is out of town FOREVER and then she went to my dr appointment with me this morning! It was the most fun I've had in a long time. So we can all thank Jessi for this photos... Thanks Jessi:)

Men. Put your cups on.

2009-03-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

Men need a swift kick in the pants. Seriously. All the ladies are already nodding their heads. Hey guys, I'm on your side. Nonetheless, rarely will churches (and pastors) stick their necks out on Sunday to say some of the things that need to be said, such as "You are an idiot." Well, thanks Mark for taking a swing on Sunday.

We men are so hard-headed and stubborn that eloquence and alliteration aren't usually as effective in preaching when it comes to taking responsibility for our families and our lives. We men understand simple words like meat, sex, and beer. So Mark is wise in using other simple words to describe us: stupid, lazy, and imbeciles. Ok the last one is a little longer.

Now, I recommend all men listen to this. Take an hour and hear Mark. He's generally a gracious guy. However he cares about his church, so when people misrepresent Jesus, he doesn't have much room for gentleness. To say the least, he loves his people, and wants them to grow up and act like men. I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts below, especially those who were at MH on Sunday.

Pregnancy Photos Round Dos

2009-03-11T21:34:00.000-07:00

So I think I'm going to post tummy pictures every two weeks or so for the most dramatic results:) But who knows maybe the farther along I get, the more dramatic each week will be.We will just have to wait and see... I've never done this before, you know.

so this is 24 weeks...

And this is me eating ice cream, out of the carton, doctor's orders. I do this everyday now and I feel pretty good about it.

Side note...do you know what season it is?? It's GIRL SCOUT COOKIE SEASON. The excitement is two fold. One, it reminds me of childhood. And two, since I'm supposed to eat all these calories I can eat as many as I want. This does not remind me of childhood. Bring on the Samoas and Tagalongs you little girl scouts you.

Adorable Pregnant Wife

2009-02-27T11:17:00.001-08:00

For the past month Kalle has learned to fall asleep next to me on the couch around 9:00. It's almost impossible for her to stay up late anymore like we used to. Nonetheless, I enjoy having her next to me, as I watch the usual CSI, Office, and Heroes as she sleeps with the babes.

A couple days ago, I found her passed out on the bed in a fetal position. She was finishing the fourth Twilight book, and had her finger holding her place, the book collapsed around her hand, sound asleep. To be honest, those books would put me to sleep too.

Final story. A couple of nights ago, she was uncharacteristically perky around 12:30. We had been at community group until late, and were chatting about life. So we get into this game called, "What would you do for $1million bucks." It starts out like the typical game. Would you eat a jar of mayonnaise? Would you jump out of a three story building? Would you makeout with your best friend? Sorry Craig.

Then Kalle says, "Would you punch Kanah in the face?" To which I die laughing. Kanah is Jason and Kelly's sweet twin girl, who has the killer smile full of teeth, and a face that's always excited. Then before I can finish laughing she says, "What about Nana?" More erupting laughter from both of us. Nana is my mom's mom who is the nicest person you will ever meet. She's a southern belle that lives in Greensboro with her prince-in-a-shiny-Buick, Pop.

All week, I've been texting her about who she would punch for a million dollars. Now the question is posed to our readers. Who would you punch for a million dollars? (Feel free to ridicule and harass Kalle for her terrible, depraved, and violent comments towards two nice people.)

Belly Photos...finally

2009-02-23T20:44:00.001-08:00

We finally got our card reader back so here are the promised pictures of my belly. The first is me at 20 weeks and the second is me at 22 weeks, just so you can see the change semi week to week. Also, I am aware that I am wearing the exact same thing in both pictures. It was inadvertent and I will probably not wear that shirt again for a while people. And is it ok that I am showing my bare belly on my blog- is that even appropriate?

Things Shawn should never say again...

2009-02-21T16:53:00.000-08:00

I assume I will have many more things to add to this list...

Kalle-standing in the doorway looking out over the beautiful water.

Shawn-standing in the kitchen drinking a coke, in a bad mood because Carolina lost, staring at Kalle.

Shawn says out of nowhere- "You're butt's getting wider."

Kalle spins around and says, "What!? Really??" and then runs to the mirror to look while Shawn laughs and drinks his coke.

Stupid Shawn.

First try is always a test.

2009-02-19T00:39:00.000-08:00

Here's a little video fun of Kalle and I putting together a bookshelf for ancillary baby clothes, diapers, and other things that might need to be stored by our "office." And by office I mean desk, which happens to be in our living room/kitchen.

Kalle is quite the woodworker, and I was impressed with her attention to detail. Unfortunately, that attention span is very short.

See next video for the final product.

Getting it right.

2009-02-18T23:44:00.001-08:00

Ok, this time we were set to go. BTW, fantastic glasses Kal.

Final Product

2009-02-18T23:25:00.001-08:00

After Kalle's impressive handiwork with the router, I assembled the pieces with her help, and (while she made dinner) I tacked the finishing trim pieces to the shelf. We got it painted and moved the next day. Great job Kal. You're going to be a great mom to boys. You can teach them all about "davors."

I have replicated myself

2009-02-17T13:59:00.001-08:00

No I'm not talking about cloning, but this might be the closest I ever come to recreating my face on another body. Not even Mr. Prettyman could photoshop this good.

Our doctor today said this, "Kalle, I'm wondering what part if any you played in this pregnancy." So I have all kinds of testosterone running through my blood. I feel very proud as a man, and I'm going to go hunt and gather for dinner tonight.

Also, other pictures show twin a (shown) having twin b in a headlock. This is WWE for the medical world.

Because you sweets keep asking...

2009-02-13T10:20:00.000-08:00

I promise a picture of my belly is on the way. Our card reader broke and we have to wait for a new one to be sent to us. As soon as we have it, I promise to post a picture of my pregnant belly.

Also, Shawn wants me to do a "Things I'm into list" too. I'll even one up him and do a "Things I'm NOT into list" Wuahahaha!

Things I'm into-

1) Sleeping nine hours

2)The bible

3) My husband-he's good at being a husband

4)American Idol ( I don't care if it's getting old!)

5) The Sun- "Was that place, THE SUN" name that quote and i'll give you a treat

6) Protein Shakes-ok so I'm not actually into these, but I HAVE to drink them, so I'm trying to convince myself that I love them

7) my Vitamix blender

8) Cribbage (It's a card game that everyone should learn)

9) The idea of graduatingggggggg

10) feeling my babies move

Things I'm not into-

1) Never feeling hungry

2) Being tired

3) Onions

4) Not having renters for our house

5) My to do list

6) Cold weather

7) Tyra Banks- (denise, she is definitely on my list)

8) Bending over

9) cleaning

10) seattle drivers

Things I'm really into right now. (Shawn)

2009-02-07T13:05:00.000-08:00

1. Classic Coca-Cola, in an ice cold can

2. College Basketball

3. Drip coffee on an IV drip into my veins

4. The Bible, namely the book of Nehemiah and James

5. Documenting Kalle popping out of her clothes (pictures to come when our card reader gets fixed)

6. Apples to Apples (the board game)

7. Eschatology (don't ask, I don't know)

8. Leather (e.g. chairs and jackets)

9. Reading about church planting and preaching

10. Learning to raise boys to men. Without singing "... back again..."

Can you hear me now?

2009-02-06T14:06:00.001-08:00

I'm not sure what's funnier, the stoner snowboarder or the construction workers in the snow.

Stoner wins.

R.I.P. Ford Exploder

2009-02-03T10:18:00.000-08:00

Today at 9:15 our Explorer passed away. The Explorer lived a long life of 192,813 miles. It was a faithful companion to his brother Jeep on our road trip from Charlotte to Seattle last year.

The Explorer had a terminal illness since last year as his timing chain had been plaguing his health. His family had hoped he would have made it through this year, but he had been taxiing foster kids all over the puget sound, and his time was today.

It was a usual Tuesday morning. I started him up and heard the usual tin can rattle (more like a jack hammer). I scraped a little ice from the windshield and headed off to work. Before I pulled onto the highway I realized he was trying to shut off repeatedly, so I had one foot on the gas and one on the brake in neutral to keep the engine on. When the light turned green, I dropped the tranny in drive and pulled around the on ramp. As I approached the highway, I realized my speed had topped out at 35 mph. The "check engine" light and "check gauge" light were flashing back and forth at this point. This is when the car shut off, and I slowly eased him over to the shoulder.

Washington state incident response was on the scene in less than 5 minutes, and after a quick call to AAA, the tow truck had him back at home in under an hour.

When I talked to the southern gal from N.C. AAA she asked me what road I was on, and in what city. I said I-405 in Kirkland, WA. She said, "The state! Oh hunny, I'm going to have to transfer you. You sound like you are right next door." Of course she was talking about my southern drawl. I guess it comes on thick when I talk about cars.

Oh it's such an eventful life isn't it? Gotta love it.

Driscoll on Nightline

2009-01-28T08:05:00.000-08:00

Last night Nightline featured a quick piece on Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill. Click here to view the video. It was a fairly nice piece, despite making Mark look like a maniacal preacher on red bull. He really doesn't yell constantly in preaching. We came to the conclusion that it was a much nicer piece that the NYT article a couple weeks ago, "Who would Jesus Smack Down."

This is my new counseling technique.

2009-01-22T16:41:00.001-08:00

Just kidding.

Driscollicious

2009-01-19T16:46:00.000-08:00

For the record, I have never called Mark Driscoll the subject before, but it was too good to pass up.

After all the controversy, see the New York Times article here, over the previous series Peasant Princess (a study on sex, marriage and relationships from the Old Testament book Song of Solomon), we started a new series last week called Trial. The series is a study of first and second Peter, and how the Christians Peter wrote to were being persecuted and hated for their faith. It wasn't the usual fire and killing, but rather what we would today call tolerance, diversity, and religious pluralism.

This week's sermon was how to rejoice in the hardest times, not simply curling up to die or having self pity, but knowing the result of trial is perseverance, character, salvation, and the point of his sermon, joy inexpressible.

If you haven't listened to Mars Hill, now is a great time to start. Driscoll has a passion to see people's lives changed for Jesus. I have rarely met someone who doesn't gain from hearing him speak, even those who don't like Jesus. So check him out, and if you get inspired check out the previous series which is great for people who are married, considering marriage, or might get married (statistically 90% of people will marry at some point in life). Or if you are single. Really valuable.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts who have never heard Driscoll preach before. Notice his correct use of the word "y'all". Shout out to the South.

Oh, and don't worry about the business on the front end of the sermon, unless you dig that kind of thing.

"The Seattle Freeze"

2009-01-17T11:30:00.002-08:00

"There's a term for the city's standoffishness: 'Seattle Freeze.' Newcomers have said the people here are cold, distant and not trusting. They say Seattleites want you to 'Have a nice day, somewhere else.'"

See the quote in today's Seattle Times' article here.

For a year, I've been trying to figure out how to explain Seattleites. Have a nice day, somewhere else. That is it! People aren't rude, but they won't go out of their way to be friendly either. Unfortunately, I have picked up a lot of this attitude, and I have to confess I kind of like it. I can go throughout my day and do what I need to do, not expecting any conversations, and not distracted either. It's extremely efficient.

Living in Charlotte is slightly different. If I go to East Blvd. Starbucks (arguably the best SB in town), there is a strong likelihood that I spend 2 hours in conversation before I ever get work done. I think that's what I like it so much.

There was this library in college called the "Undergrad library" or UL for short. It's the one with the dance party mentioned earlier. I could go to study Organic Chemistry, and instead spend hours talking to friends in every nook and cranny of the library. Craig was always smarter than I (that's why he went to law school). He would hole up in the stacks of Davis, the 8 floor monster library where the smart and studious went to study in perfect silence and dust. That is except for Brad, who went to pester Littleton into a round of disc golf and a round of Mountain Dew.

I'm pretty sure the weather has great effect on the tone of the city. You can go months without sunshine around here and forget what vitamin D feels like. I thought we had great weather over Christmas, and Kalle reminds me we never had sunshine over Christmas. My next thought, "At least it didn't rain."

So while I enjoy the Stoic and efficient culture of Seattle, I miss the relationships and connection of the city of Charlotte. To the credit of Seattle, Mars Hill is a source of life and intimate community in a city that shuns connectedness. So well done MH in breaking the cultural understanding of community, and breaking through the "Seattle Freeze."

It's a....

2009-01-14T23:43:00.000-08:00

BOY! which means, they're both boys... seeing as they are identical and all. Totally excited about this news. Twin A wouldn't stay still for the entire forty min ultrasound. He was tossing and turning and flipping all over the place. He probably has Shawn's restless leg syndrome, so I can probably anticipate being kicked all day every day for the remainder of my pregnancy. Twin B was a bit more mellow, just snuggled up against my uterus. Shawn thinks he must be more like me:) I don't know though, Shawn REALLY likes to snuggle.

Name suggestions may commence now, although we won't tell you if we pick your name until they are born. Or maybe we will if you promise not to tell anyone... or if you give us a large sum of money.

Scott Littleton suggested "Serge Zwikker Stinson," and I vetoed this immediately. I have infinite veto power. Also, "Rumplestiltskin Stinson" is also vetoed (Brad).

She confessed!

2009-01-12T19:03:00.001-08:00

When I get home today, Kalle is sleeping on the couch. This is not unusual. When she comes back to earth, she says to me, "I ate a whole bag of chips today."

Shawn: "What...?"

Kalle: "Yeah someone at the office told me I couldn't have salt when I'm pregnant. But I didn't believe them, so I went to the store and bought a whole bag of sea salt and vinegar Kettle chips. I thought I would just have a couple chips.... then I ate the whole bag."

Shawn: "That's probably why you don't feel good and have acid reflux."

Kalle: "What are you doing over there."

Shawn: "Nothing."

Kalle: "Richard, what are you doing?!"

Shawn: "Writing an email."

Kalle: "To who?"

Shawn: "Your mom."

Kalle: "What are you doing!" (As she throws Multi-grain Cheerios at me.)

Shawn: "I'm blogging about how you just ate a bag of chips. Can we go workout now?"

Kalle: "Will you dress me?"

Oh the life of a pregnant father.

Working hard or hardly working?

2009-01-08T08:57:00.000-08:00

I realized something significant about myself yesterday. I perform better when I don't stop. Seriously. I get more done when I have more to do, rather than when I have time to get everything finished. When I stop, I sleep. When I sleep, I get lazy.

I met with some guys yesterday in a preaching seminar to help each other developing messages focused on redemption, the Gospel, and Jesus. As we talked about life, a guy asked me if that was all I had going on this year (in a really sarcastic way). I realized Kalle and I have one heck of a year coming up. The twins are due in June. Definitely no rock and roll marathon for me. I'm working on finding another job for the year. We are working towards planting a church in Charlotte at the start of 2010, and we hope to move cross-country (again) in November. And I'd like to finish Seminary sometime before the next ice age. Or before Mike Tyson's next fight. If that ever happens. My friend said I was pretty cool about all of this at once. He apparently didn't see the killer anxiety inside me, which has been brewing for months.

So I feel really good about this next season for Kalle and I. She is such a strong wife, with such great discipline and perseverance, and I am so grateful for her in my life. I doubt I would be able to support myself without her. I'm not sure what I did for 23 years before her. My middle school fashion sure shows my weaknesses. Who wears short sleeve button downs anyways...

As this year has started, I've been working on trusting God for all these things. It is the simplest spiritual discipline, and yet the most complex. One night I wrote down everything that I felt anxious about for this year. Enough sleep to care for our babies. Enough money to pay the mortgage. Enough energy to get through a workout. Enough love to share with my Jesus, my wife, and my sweet babies.

I find myself continually repeating Paul's words, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Peter also writes, "Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God... casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you."

So I'm practicing gratitude and thanksgiving (minus the turkey) everyday. And I'm enjoying being "in Christ Jesus" as Paul writes. I'm looking forward to an awesome year, and I'm glad to share it with supportive family and great friends.

Here's to '09!

The New Year

2009-01-04T19:59:00.000-08:00

Mr. Muscle...

In late November, after the pregnancy and twin news started to bear into me, I decided to get back into working out. Now Kalle has been (subliminally) trying to get me to eat better foods, run with her on Saturday mornings, among other health tactics to convert me to her Nazi-like workout routine. I knew it was always a selfish motive for her. She really digs guys with big biceps and pectoral muscles (only the showy muscles that have no real value). So for a long time I've been absent from the meathead scene. I worked out well the first month we moved here, and then didn't want to fork out the monthly fee, and kill myself 3 days a week after swinging a hammer and hanging sheetrock, among other physical parts of building houses.

So when I decided I wanted to live a long life with my wife and kids, I went to the gym to get a membership. The dude hooked me up because I told him I only wanted the free 24 day deal. He gave me the free 24 days before our holiday, a free month after we got home in January, and I got away with a $1 joining fee and $28 a month after. There was no longer the saving money issue, because he was giving me the gym for a couple months.

Since November, I've been consistent about working out three times a week after work (sometimes grueling). I got a new pair of running shoes to support my back, and my parents hooked me up with a new workout iPod for Christmas. My friend Regi recommended a good multivitamin for active men, and I even bought some protein powder for an after workout snack. It's delicious like a vanilla milkshake. I feel like I broke the cycle of laziness and am finally starting to get into a shape besides round.

Everyone talks about resolutions this week, and I never make them, but I've set up these goals to be healthy for a long time. If you're trying to be healthier, what are your plans to follow through this year? I'm really into seeing people get into shape with me, so maybe this could be a big group effort. Comment if you have some good tips for holistic health. If it involves organic cotton, I may sensor you ;).

New Years Eve pregnant style...

So the day before New Years Eve Shawn and I realized we had nothing planned. So, I called Trellis, this really cool restaurant in Kirkland where the guy owns like acres of land and uses all his own produce. This is a no brainer for me. Good, organic food...duh. Now, I don't look very pregnant yet, but I feel very pregnant so I still have to convince myself that I look cute. I had a great outfit planned out. Just dressy casual and then literally fifteen minutes before we're leaving Shawn says, "I want to wear my tux!" I thought that was fine until I realized it meant I also had to dress up, dress up. So I did. And I think I did ok for just fifteen minutes! It's probably the last time I'll wear that dress in...oh I dont know, ever. We went to dinner. It was awesome. I got salmon and Shawn got a steak (of course) that didn't have a price listed. Which is d-a-n-g-e-r-o-u-s. But who cares, it's new years eve:) Then we went to the Cowans to ring in the new year. I DID make it to midnight! But not a minute past. I think I fell asleep on the couch right as I was kissing Shawn Happy New Year. I fell asleep on the couch in the middle of the little get together while everyone else stayed up for another good hour and a half talking and laughing all around me. I didn't even notice. Apparently I can fall asleep anywhere these days. Except a plane. I can NOT sleep on a plane and it makes me want to kill myself.

Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone! It's gonna be a good one.

Im in it to win it

2008-12-11T17:55:00.001-08:00

I'm completely in the Christmas spirit. So much so that I don't even care about all the traffic, or lines, or crazy parking issues at the mall. In fact, I LOVE it. I love it all! I cant' even drink coffee right now and I still want to buy a Starbucks just so I can walk around holding their Christmas cups feeling all festive and warm. Honestly, I've never confessed this before...but I get in the Christmas spirit as soon as November hits. I am not one of those people who hates that Christmas decorations go up so early. I secretly love it. and I also secretly love it when people go crazy on their Christmas decorations. There is a house down the street from us that just went utterly insane. They have massive amounts of lights. A light up nativity scene, a light up baby Jesus, a light up Santa, and a light up Snoopy. I will take this moment not to comment on the strange combination of light up plastic figurines. Anyway, I even love that! If you're not in the Christmas spirit yet, you're in trouble mister because Christmas is basically tomorrow. But I'm here to help you... here is my all time favorite Christmas song by one of my all time favorite artists to get you in the mood. It's Oh Holy Night and it's Kelly Clarkson singing at the Rockefeller tree lighting. ( I love Kelly Clarkson and no tabloid rumors will stop me (*echem, Angie*) :)

p,s I also love the Rockefeller tree lighting. i tried to go when I lived in NY but it was so crowded I couldn't see anything, so I watched it at home on my t.v. exactly one block from the actual lighting. nice.

Straight Funk 2002. The beginning of the madness

2008-12-10T18:13:00.001-08:00

Exam times were never that fun for me. You had your usual overachievers spending far too many hours in the library, and the constant moan of someone saying their parents were going to kill them for not passing Organic Chemistry or Calc 2.

I found it easier to play disc golf for a week after the end of class to destress, and cram the night before exams so the pain wouldn't be so prolonged.

Sophomore year some friends and I talked about doing a library dance party to break up all the tension. The Davis library was notorious for the midnight streaking the day before the first exam, and although that sounded voyeuristic, we opted for a less noticeable (and less felony) route.

So in December 2002, we instituted Straight Funk 2002. It was simple. We gathered about 30 people, a small boombox, and a burned CD of two songs: "Play that funky music white boy" and "brick house."

At the time I had this killer wig (as seen in the shaggy outfit a couple blogs ago) and some sweet bell bottoms. We dressed up like we were going to be extras in Saturday Night Fever, and around 10:00pm we let loose on the UL (Undergrad Library) in the exact spot you see this video taking place.

Ours lasted about 3 minutes and didn't get too much attention, except for the people on the second floor balcony laughing and pointing at the goofballs in costume. So props to the man (because no woman is dumb enough to do this) that started this little party. Here's to more like it in the Spring.

our babies

2008-12-03T22:22:00.001-08:00

This was our first appointment at the twins doc. They do a super cool 3-D ultrasound and Shawn made this video out of it. What a sap:) It's super sweet though, seriously. Now let me put your fears to rest...I realize they look like they are attached at their backs. but of course I made sure the dr told me that they were two separate babies. So the update is they are in two different amniotic sacks, which is REALLY good news. And they share a placenta which means they just have to watch those bebes closely. So there will probably be lots of pictures after this one. Babies are healthy and we are realllly glad.

Thanksgiving Pics

2008-12-01T09:41:00.000-08:00

Practicing:)

Our name tags. so cute right?

The Spread

Just a few Thanksgiving photos to show you what we did for the Holiday. The Cowans (not Jason and Kelly... Jason's parents) invited us for Thanksgiving b/c they are incredibly welcoming and generous. The food was awesome and the people were too.

A thank you

2008-11-30T19:31:00.000-08:00

Wanted to thank all of you for your sweet comments on our blog! A) I'm proud of all of you who never comment and B) I'm just thankful that you are in our lives and that you care about us and now our two new bebes.

Thanks for loving us and we'll keep the posting coming.

kal

Cigarettes and a Half Marathon

2008-11-28T18:41:00.001-08:00

Last year before we left for Seattle the girls ran the Thunder Road Marathon (half) for the second year in a row. Tanner joined them this time, and Tess captured the excitement with her little video camera.

As of late, I have been looking at video cameras so I can tape everything from Kalle's pregnancy through our first kid's wedding. I thought this footage would be great editing practice for later. I had to compress the footage for the sake of YouTube storage and time, and I apologize for the grainy parts of the video. If you want to see full quality, I can show you on my computer later. I also apologize for the annoying demo stamp. Somehow that program ruined my video. I can't get it off.

I'd like to highlight how funny Tess is. And Ally. They really make the movie, and were even more hilarious the day of. I may look disinterested, but I was crying on the inside. Those chicas are just so darn funny.

And Tess, when are you going to kick the habit?!

Enjoy.

To those of you who never comment...

2008-11-21T13:37:00.000-08:00

This is the post where you come out of the commenting closet. I know I always have an excuse for why I haven't blogged in a while, but this is a reeeeaaaallllly good one. I have only been able to think about one thing for the last two months and if I had come anywhere near this blog I would have written about it. But I had to wait until I was officially allowed to talk about it. So here it is...the news.

So if you've never seen one of these before, it's an ultrasound. An ultrasound of my uterus. An ultrasound of my uterus with babIES in it. Let me help you see this. The black circle is my uterus and the two white splotches in there are TWO babies. Count them with me:) AAAHHH!! right??

We went to our first dr appointment just expecting to hear the heart beat. But the dr says "I'm going to do an ultrasound to measure the baby so I can get an accurate due date." So we're all excited looking at the little heart beating and the the dr. moves that ultrasound thingamagig and says, "Oh wait a minute!" and Shawn and I freeze and I think I said something like, "What!? Is there another one?!" and she says, "I think so..." Think??? Well that looks a lot like the other bean looking baby I was just staring at. And then she says, "Yes. It's another one!" So we're literally speechless. Happy speechless. Then Shawn says, "Um can you check and see if there are anymore please?" Lol shawn. She said, "I looked like a hundred times"

Two.

Babies.

Two Babies.

We just found out on Tues and every day we have to look at the pictures again and again to believe it. This does explain why I've been so sick and so sleepy. There's two in there:)

Good news right???

So comment away you non commenters!

Our church is growing.

2008-11-18T16:46:00.001-08:00

Being a part of a church like Mars Hill has been a revolutionary part of Kalle and I's life. Significantly, church attendance has been around 8,000 these past few months. It is amazing to see the growth, not simply Christians finding new churches, but people that aren't Christians coming to church and having real, transforming change in their lives because of Jesus.

Some cool things that have been going on lately:

1. Our podcast on iTunes recently went as high as third in Religion and Spirituality. The only higher ranked feeds were Oprah and Joel Osteen. All comments aside about them, Mark has been preaching through the Old Testament book "Song of Solomon," a study of christian marriage and sex. Most recently they the tag line for the sermon was this, "We labor to replace Christian porn, adultery, and divorce with hot hetero covenantal monogamy." You can see why so many people listen. If you have free time, it is worth a listen. Click here. I'm mostly happy that we passed the Mormon church's national conference on the list. One for the good team.

2. Second, for the last year our church has been working on a social networking site for all the members. It's a place where you can post events, talk to your different groups (community groups during the week or groups that serve on Sundays), as well as post prayer requests for others to see. It's an amazing tool, and looks similar to other networking sites. It turns out that this program, made completely by volunteers and staff over a couple months was just sold to a huge Christian publishing company for a cool $4 million. Yeah unreal. I am amazed at the work that so many people (lots of volunteers) put in to see this thing go well, and now it will be available for churches all over the world to use and connect their members. To see the article click here. To see a video demonstration of the city click here.

So to be sure, we are learning so much about being better husbands and wives, mothers and fathers. While I don't think a "perfect church" exists, that people look for decades to find, I do think there are some great churches to be a part of, a community to connect with, and a place to use your talents and gifts for others. That's what matters in the end. Did you use your abilities and passions to love the world? For Kalle and I, we want to tell people about Jesus. He is good, he is faithful, and he is a perfect example of a man who lived in the same world we do. Husbands and men would do well to follow his example and love the way he loved, in sacrifice.

Water is Wet. Fire Burns.

2008-11-03T18:21:00.000-08:00

Two news stories caught my attention today, both related to health. I was shocked when I heard the headlines. Shocked that the editors let both of these stories through. Do you ever wonder if the people who do these studies have never lived on earth before. Like they just discovered sliced bread, in 2009. Judge for yourself.

Sexually Charged TV might Raise Risk of Teen Pregnancy

Risks: Extra Pregnancy Weight Tied to Big Baby

Conversation of the Study Administrators

Man 1: It seems like the size of the baby at birth is directly correlated to the weight gained by the woman in the past 10 months.

Man 2: Interesting theory. I think we need to do more tests.

Kalle in Uwajimaya

2008-10-17T21:21:00.001-07:00

At 5:00 on Friday there is little I want to do. My idea of a good Friday night is a couch, a bag of chips, and Real TV's caught on tape special.

So when Kalle got home and said we were going to the Asian market, you can imagine my excitement. Her idea of "date night" (which she sprung on me) was to go to this store and learn how to cook Asian foods. She was at the bookstore, found a book on Chinese food, and you guessed it, got inspired.

So off we go to the flagship Uwajimaya in Seattle. For your enjoyment these are actual pictures of products in the store. If you have a weak stomach, please close your browser window.

Picture 1 Beef Tongue

You can see the taste buds if you look closely on the right side of the tongue. This thing was the size of my waist.

Picture 2 Pork Colon

No comment.

Picture 3 Chicken Feet

Nails are free of charge.

Picture 4 Kalle looking for Szechaun Peppers

So we spend an hour in this store looking for 5 items in our recipe. Now Kalle is still cooking, and it's 9:30. I'm starving. Ok dinner is ready. Gong bao chicken here I come.

Ode to my husband

2008-10-09T01:39:00.001-07:00

It's late. All day today, all I wanted was to sit at Starbucks with a glorious cup of coffee. I thought about it all day. As soon as fall hits, that's what I want to do. Well, actually when fall hits I want a cup of hot chocolate from Starbucks, but I never actually get that, so coffee it is. But, I digress... I wanted Starbucks all day is the point. I didn't get to it until about 9 tonight. After dinner I dragged Shawn there with me and practically asked that cup of coffee to marry me. Shawn wasn't jealous. He understood. But it was 9:00 at night. And it was not decaff. So now it's 1:00 am. And that's how I ended up here with all you fine people.
So, since I'm up, here's a blog for ya

The other day Shawn came home from the store (he was picking up some grocery items per my request) with one white rose for me. I said, "Is something wrong?" He said, no "I just love you?" That's real sweet of him, huh? This got me thinking of all kinds of things I love about him. I will share some of them with you.

I love that...
1) Most of the time I can see exactly what he was like as a little boy. Once he was playing online poker and I look over and he has gotten out real poker chips and every time he bid online he would throw real poker chips into the pot at his desk, just to feel like he was really in the game. That's basically playing pretend anyway you look at it:)
2) He has switched to sugar in the raw in his coffee. It's slightly healthier, people, and this is a big step!
3) He goes to the grocery store for me when I'm in a cooking frenzy and have forgotten an important ingredient. This happens frequently and it's usually when shawn is comfortably sitting on the couch in his sweatpants. He still gets up and goes!
4) He makes up words when he can't remember the actual ones. It's particularly funny when he does this with names. Ex. There is a wonderful woman at church named Urcela. and Shawn couldn't quite remember her name so he says to me, "You know that woman you met, Urgoondoo?" Close Shawn, very close.
5) He buys me Haganaas coffee icecream bc he knows I'd never buy it for myself
6) He lets me cook healthy for him, but follows EVERY meal with a giant bowl of cereal no matter how full he is or how good the dinner was.
7) He notices EVERYTHING and always wants to talk about it in detail. Once we were driving past a house with a very short and oddly placed fence and he actually wanted to have a serious conversation about why he thought that fence was there. It went something like this, "Isn't that fence so weird right there? It's right in front of their door. why do you think it's there? Only thing I can f igure is they wanted to grow some vines on it or something.." I don't think I ever got a word in, nor did I really ever even notice that fence.
8) He gets excited about almost anything. It's really fun to watch. It's like every day is his first day on earth. I really love this feature about him. It makes life really fun and it makes me smile 98.9 percent of the time. The 1.1 percent of the time that it doesn't make me smile is when it is in the morning. I can't be expected to be excited about anything in the morning.
9) He literally tells me I'm beautiful every few minutes.
10) He really listens
11) He's really easy to respect
12) He loves people
13) He went on a four mile run with me the other day. He hates to run. But he went anyway. I could equate this to Shawn making me sit through the Apple key note speech. That's love.
14) He thinks he would be best friends with George Clooney and Brad Pitt. And I'm not making fun of him for this bc I'm pretty sure I would be best friends with Kelly Clarkson and Sandra Bullock.
15) He actually thinks he can do anything athletic without an ounce of training. Once after I had literally just crossed the finish line of a half marathon that took me two months to train for he said, "I think I could run a marathon without any training. I think I'll just run one tomorrow" The thing is, he probably could.
16) He loves Jesus and wants to be like him
17) He reads books about poker, blogs about Apple, politics, and the stock market and still has room in his brain for theology
18) He really loves being a husband and he's real good at it
19) He's fuuuunnny. Really, he gets funnier by the day. He is particularly into puns lately. (I take some credit for him being funnier, but I take absolutely no credit for the puns) The best part is how proud he gets of himself after he comes up with one. He says things like, "come on, you couldn't pay for jokes that good" I'm not sure what that means...but it's funny all the same.
20) He's a really good friend. In fact, he's my best friend.

Okay Ill stop. But there are plenty more hilariously awesome things about him. Feel free to add to the list

VoVina

2008-10-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

As many of you know Kalle has been working all week preparing some dishes for a restaurant to open around the end of the year. It is a vodka (pronounced wad-kuh) wine bar in Kirkland called VoVina which will be right near the water. She has worked real hard on the food, so I took some pics before we went to the big party last night. There were about 15 people there and they really liked all of her stuff. I think she is a creative chef and cooks great food. I'll highlight my favs.

The first is a garlic and white wine marinated shrimp with an avocado mango salad. Delicious and light.

Next is her mediterranean stuffed tomatoes including cornbread, feta cheese, panchetta, mint, oregano, corn and fresh spinach.

Not pictured are the best sun-dried tomato crostini's ever with caramelized onions, mesculine mix, light balsamic, and beecher's flagship cheese. These things are so good.

Another popular dish was her avocado lime sauce with ahi tuna. I have to give my mom credit for this sauce, although Kalle adopted it slightly.

So great job Kal. Don't stop cooking. Please.

Vesper Peak

2008-09-29T22:48:00.000-07:00

Hello friends. Kalle and I have been slightly MIA lately. NC was great, and Craig and Meredith's wedding was a fantastic weekend. Now it's back to usual.

This week Kalle has been refining her recipes and breaking out every ingredient in the house to create some dishes for a friend who is opening a vodka/wine bar in Kirkland. I've eaten like a king all week: veggie panini's, 4 types of hummus, unique pesto's, and really good pop-overs with mascarpone cheese and nutella. My favorite. You can see how happy she is. I'm glad she likes being in the kitchen.

Saturday we climbed Vesper Peak in the Cascade Mountains east of the city. The place is absolutely beautiful. Check out the glaciated lake and Glacier Peak behind us. Some dude was keeping his PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) cold in that river. You know you are a serious camper when you bring PBR for the night.

There is nothing like this on the east coast. It is a climber's paradise out here. Hope you enjoy the pics. Notice Jason's essential kit at the top of the mountain: McDonald's egg Mcmuffin, Mountain Dew, and a Snickers. Could you be healthier? Not sure what Kalle and I were doing when the camera caught us. More pics on Picasa.

NC Bound!

2008-09-18T19:31:00.000-07:00

Kalle and I are boarding a red eye for Raleigh in 2 hours! We can't wait to be back in the United States (Seattle might as well be a foreign country). More specifically the south!

Craig is getting married Saturday and we couldn't be more excited for Meredith and him. This is the most excited I've ever seen Craig in 19 years. Only comparable to a 2005 UNC Basketball National Championship. But not really close ;).

Not surprisingly Kalle has planned every meal for the weekend to get the most out of being in the South. All I care about is Mellow Mushroom pizza. Mmmmmmm.

Most importantly I look forward to hearing people talk normal again. The beautiful laziness of the southern drawl. People out here think it's ignorant. What do they know y'all?

See you tomorrow.

Food for Thought

2008-09-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

Most people use some version of Microsoft Windows. Thanks to Bill Gates, and now Jerry Seinfeld.

How has everyone failed to realize the tragic irony of this operating system?

How do you turn off your computer? The start menu.

Unbelievable.

Memories of Being Mormon

2008-09-10T00:03:00.000-07:00

Since Craig is getting married in t-minus 10 days, I have been sending him pictures for his slideshow and such. Perhaps my favorite picture thus far is the Halloween in college where we dressed up as Mormon missionaries. See above picture complete with Book of Mormon, backpack, bike helmet, elder name badge, along with the white shirt and dark slacks. There are a couple other pics of us holding Bud Light's. Now that's good religious humor.

The previous year we "dressed up" for Halloween wearing bow ties and dress shirts (Craig, Shawn, Brad).

The year before was the scooby doo crew complete with Fred (Craig), Daphne(Rebecca), Shaggy (yours truly), Scooby (as himself), and Velma (Kelly).

I refuse to mention or post pictures of my delusional freshman year costume when I was a Hooter girl. In all honesty, no picture exists, besides the random person on Franklin St. who wanted a pic. Lord help me if that ever gets exposed.

A Dropped Cookie

2008-08-29T22:29:00.000-07:00

Tonight I’m on the couch in a pair of Shawn’s sweats snuggled up to a cup of coffee and this blog. (p.s. do you know Microsoft Word spell check doesn’t recognize “blog”? It gives me the red squiggly when I type it. Get with the times Microsoft) Shawn’s at work and for the first time in probably three months I have no reading or writing to do for school. Today I wrote my final paper for the final class of the slew of them I took this summer.

I haven’t contributed much to this blog as of late. My excuse is my schoolwork. Actually, it’s not as much the schoolwork itself, but my determination to finish it. I’ve realized something about myself lately that sheds some light on this so called, “determination.” I get incredible tunnel vision when I have a goal. It’s total preoccupation. Maybe to all of you who know me better than I know myself this is not such a surprise. Maybe I am just embarrassingly less self-aware than I thought, but this is a bit of a surprise to me. I’ve always considered myself quite the multi-tasker- sandwich in hand, cell phone earpiece in, talking to a friend, reading direction as I drive somewhere. But turns out, when I have something to do or something on my mind-that’s all I see. This isn’t such a great thing. I think I’d like to trade myself in for a newer model that doesn’t have this feature- and maybe upgrade to one that has a little more compassion and humility while I’m at it. It’s certainly an efficient quality, but it’s actually ugly if you really look at it, or even if you just glance at it. Essentially, I’m preoccupied with myself.

My list. My life. My pursuit. My thoughts.
I wonder how many things I’ve missed that I should have paid attention to?
A friend. A parent. A husband. Jesus.

That Jesus though, he knows how to poke holes in the walls of those tunnels. And seriously, praise God that he pokes instead of just knocking down the walls in one fell swoop. Being aware all at once is too much for any of us, or ate least for me, to take. Even when one little ray of light pokes through one of those holes I have to shut my eyes real tight and just crack them open until they get used to the light and stop hurting.

Slowly, but surely, I’m getting a little more use to being aware. But I’ll tell you, awareness in general is not as fun as unawareness. I absolutely hate being cliché, but man is ignorance bliss. I mean, it’s bliss for the one who’s ignorant. Everyone else is generally pretty annoyed by it. But it feels so much better to not see. I’ve started to see things I didn’t before. Things about myself- my tunnel vision and how it hurts people. Things about the world-fallen relationships and broken hearts. It’s all kinds of yuck. The more I see, the more I really feel the weight of things not being the way they’re suppose to be.

The other day during a particular moment of seeing I started wishing for the days when the only awareness I had was about whether or not Santa was real or whether or not I could have ice cream for dessert. Those days seemed easier, much less painful. But then my mind went to this little boy I saw at Mt. Rainier last week.

My friends were in town so we took them to Rainier to hike for the day and on the way up one of the trails there was a sweet little family. Dad with baby on his back, mom walking next to her little boy. The little boy was munching on a pretty awesome looking cookie when without warning it fell out of his hand onto the path. He fell to his knees next to it and with the most genuine sadness cried out through big, wet tears, “Why did that happen!? I REALLY didn’t want that to happen to my cookie! Why did it happen?” At the time I smiled one of those, “oh kids” smiles. But now I think I understand him. I think I am him. My awareness is of different things, because of my season and because of the particular holes the Lord wants to poke in my walls, but it’s awareness all the same and it feels the same. Things aren’t the way they are supposed to be. That cookie was not supposed to fall to the dirty ground. I’m not supposed to have such tunnel vision. Relationships aren’t supposed to fall apart.

But remembering that little boy changed my distaste for awareness, because what I wished I could do was go back to that trail and pick up that cookie and hand it to him and tell him what I am aware of that he is not yet. And that is that though things are not the way they are suppose to be, there is Jesus. There is the truth that because of Jesus those things can and will be redeemed. That cookie can be picked up and dusted off. My tunnel vision can be transformed. Relationships can be restored. And one day it will all be the way it is suppose to be for eternity. That dropped cookie is making awareness less scary because it's awareness that lets me know this truth.

Ubiquity. What is it? It is everywhere.

2008-08-29T09:38:00.000-07:00

This is really cool, even for those of you who are not "techies."

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Caption Contest

2008-08-29T00:49:00.001-07:00

For Craig's Bachelor weekend, the boys headed to Topsail beach. Brad is seen here showing interesting form. Feel free to offer Jayson, Brad, or Scott's thoughts (pictured left to right).

Song we're listening to right now

2008-08-29T00:37:00.000-07:00

Zac Brown Band "Chicken Fried"

After four days of rain, we are trying to remember what it's like to live in the South. Apparently the South has had a deluge as well. It doesn't get much better than this song. Download it for free on people.com.

Also, Kalle forgot to mention that the pictures were from Mt. Baker, an 11,000 ft. glaciated volcano just north of where we live (2 hours). It gets like 100 ft. of snow a year. Isn't this the coolest place ever?!

camping pics

2008-08-24T21:57:00.000-07:00

And I'm back in the game...

2008-07-31T19:24:00.001-07:00

So apologies might be in order to anyone that still cares about me contributing to this blog. At this point the web address for our blog should probably just be shawn.blogspot.com. I have not written a blog in a really long time and I am sorry. I've been a little busy taking way too many classes, writing way too many papers, and getting stuck in NYC. Shawn wanted me to tell my side of the nightmare that was my trip back to Seattle. I think he kept you all pretty up to date on what happened, but here are a few extra tid bits for your entertainment...

So my first flight is canceled out of Charlotte bc I was going to miss my connection in NY due to weather. So I get up at 5am to fly out the next morning. Land in ny at 9am. Board my next plane at 11:30am. We sit at the gate for a good hour bc of weather. They finally close the door and say we're going to head to the runway and wait in a line of 16 to take off. (this should have been my first clue that things were not looking up) Five hours later, we are still sitting on the runway waiting for the "storm to pass". Um, excuse me pilots- I think at this point or perhaps three or four hours ago you might have been able to tell on your radar that this storm is in fact not going to pass. I appreciate that you have cable television on this flight, but I would much rather be watching it from the comfort of my living room, so please do not make any more jokes about how you hope we enjoyed the in flight entertainment. p.s. we were not "in flight" to anywhere.

I think I should add at this point that I'm sitting beside a twenty year old Jewish girl who was just moving back to Seattle after a year in Israel. She had been traveling for 19 hours already and had left her boyfriend in Israel. She literally whined and cried for the entire five hours. There was a brief and glorious hiatus from this constant tearful complaining when she fell asleep. She did however wake up whining though. It went something like this, "why the %^&$#^ are we still sitting here!? I've been traveling for @#%@#$ hours. I'm $%@$ freezing. Excuse me, why the @#^ are we still sitting here! Let us off this plane!" Then every twenty minutes or so she would call her mother crying and screaming and saying the same thing every time. "We're still sitting here. WAAA. I've tried everything mom! @#$#$ Everyone is freaking out, I have asked the flight attendants what we are doing and they won't give me a #$^#$ answer!" I think there were a few choice words for her mother in their as well. She yelled a the flight attendants a time or two and she might be the reason the captains finally turned the plane around. There was a girl sitting on the other side of the whining Jewish girl who used to work in HR and she was talking about how she would hate to be the flight attendants during this bc customer service is the worst and then she said to the jewish girl, "If I had to deal with you I might have hung up by now" and I said, "Yea, I think I probably would have killed you." The jewish girl thought that was funny and then explained that she is not normally like this. Really? It seemed to come so naturally...

Anyway, when we got back to the gate I had to wait in a two and a half hour long line to figure out how to get home. They canceled so many flights that the place was packed with stranded people. I get to the desk and the woman tells me there are no flights out to seattle until fri (today was sun) and that she actually can't help me because I bought my ticket with points and not money and they don't deal with points here. I needed to call the airline. Does this strike anyone else as strange? I'm physically IN your airline right now and you can't help me? I can't get through to the airline bc of the number of calls coming in and so there I stand in the middle of thousands of angry people, crying because I can't get anywhere. I can't even leave the airport.

Shawn comes to my rescue and gets through to the airline and gives them an earful about what they are going to do. He gets me a flight to Boston and then Seattle on tues night. By this time I'd been in the terminal for another five hours and my bags are long gone from the baggage claim. They tell me they are stored somewhere and they'll get sent to seattle eventually. So I'm stuck in NY for three days with only the clothes on my back, no food or hotel vouchers from the airline. And I might mention that I am traveling in sweatpants and a tank top. This is not a cute outfit for anything other than flying (and even then it's questionable) and I'm about to walk around NY for two days in it. Awesome.

I ended up having fun bc I have some good friends in the city and there is lots of good food there. Which I ate a lot of.

Here are some lessons you can learn from this experience:

1) Jet Blue is only good for one thing and that's in flight television. They win the award for worst customer service and least number of flights traveling to Seattle. Just don't fly with them, ok? If television is that important to you, bring a lap top and a few movies or hope that you get to sit next to a jewish girl moving home from israel-that's about as entertaining as television.

2) Perhaps don't wear something on the plane you are embarrassed to wear outside the airport. I'm not sure why I think the plane is the equivalent to my house and that I can essentially wear my pajamas. Lesson learned.

3) Always pack a pair of underwear in your purse. Men, I don't know where you will pack your pair of underwear, but figure it out because it's very important. I mean just pack it when you're flying, you don't have to carry a pair around all the time, although maybe after this experience I will just carry one at all times. I didn't have this foresight on this trip (this is one of those things I should have believed my mom about when I was growing up). I did remember to carry on my phone charger though! I suppose now you see where my priorities are. But let's be honest which is worse, your phone battery dying and not being able to call your husband about how in the world to get home or wearing the same pair of underwear for three days?

4) Having a husband is really helpful. Having a husband is helpful and good for lots of reasons, but I'm adding to my list that they are very helpful in times of distress. Thanks Shawn.

5) Have some friends in NY. This one is more difficult to do, but if you have the opportunity you should take it. I think JFK in general is a chaotic mess and since airlines or at least jet blue, does not give anyone vouchers anymore for being stranded somewhere, it would serve you well to have someone to stay with in ny. It's much cheaper this way. If you do get stuck in ny you should call me because I can at least make it worth your while by telling you some good places to eat while you are there. Eating makes everything a little better I think.

Ok... there you have it folks. The nightmare that was my trip home for your viewing pleasure. Please enjoy this story and will also consider joining my I Hate Jet Blue Fan Club. I don't think they really care if I hate them or not, but it makes me feel better to have all of you hate them with me.

It's good to be talking to all of you again. I hope you enjoyed the flight.

Good News. Kalle comes back in two days.

2008-07-27T20:12:00.000-07:00

Looks like it's going to be another thrilling couple of days. Let me preview my dinner for you tonight:

Overcooked peas

Underthawed Burger (it cooks on the grill, I hope)

Kraft Macaroni and Cheese

Extra Fries

Basil Hayden

And the movie tonight is... Rounders.

I'm doomed without Kalle.

My call has been routed to Salt Lake City, UT

2008-07-27T16:40:00.000-07:00

After yelling at the mormon travel guide, she now says she is working on a Tuesday flight. We'll see if she comes through or not. I wonder if Moroni told her how to get an earlier flight on his golden tablets.

Dear Jet Blue: Please Return my Wife.

2008-07-27T16:02:00.001-07:00

Kalle's flight was scheduled to return Saturday night (yesterday) around midnight. However, due to weather conditions and poor flight scheduling, Jet Blue says the first flight she can get to Seattle will be Thursday or Friday of this week! Are you kidding. A week after her alleged "return flight." If you know how to deal with these people, or get Kalle home faster, could you shoot me an email or call me. I'm afraid this is going to take drastic measures. Unfortunately, they are not answering their phones right now. Which is probably better for both of us.

Dear Jet Blue,

Get my wife home soon. Or else.

Sincerely,

Shawn

What a strange world.

2008-07-25T21:40:00.000-07:00

This story happened six years ago. Nonetheless, it's pretty funny. Not sure why someone would do this. See here.

Johnny Bunko

2008-07-24T15:39:00.000-07:00

I've never been the comic book type. I think I had a handful of Spiderman comics that I never wanted to read, in fear that I would damage the pages. So I always left them in the wrapper. I bet they are still in my parent's attic. All eight of them.

So the book to the left is a recommendation from a friend, and upon picking up it from the library, I realized it was all black and white comic style (Manga, if you are into that stuff). It's the type of comic that you constantly feel like the characters are yelling at you. It seems all nice and friendly, until one character gets bold text, their mouth turns into Dracula, their eyes get giant, and your eyes get blurry. Anyone remember Pokemon?

Nonetheless, I read it in 30 minutes, and laughed the whole way through. The premise of the book is a recent college grad slaving away at an accounting firm (I think we know a couple like that?), hating his job, and unsure of why he decided to go that way. He ends up getting some food late night, and a Japanese tinkerbell shows up to teach him six lessons on careers, and more significantly for Bunko, life.

Quick quote from Diana (Tinkerbell):

"But it never works that way... No life isn't an algebra problem. Well, actually, it's like an algebra problem painted by Salvador Dali. X might lead to W and W might lead to the color blue. And the color blue might lead to chicken quesadilla."

This quote was from lesson 1: There is no plan.

So for the six other lessons go to the website or go get the book at the library. Probably the easiest solution for most, unless you are into Manga. Or check it out on Amazon. And no I don't get commission for selling it. I should look into that.

The insufficiency of Christ? And a Bachelor Update

2008-07-21T20:28:00.000-07:00

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church..." Colossians 1:24

Bachelor Update

I am continuing in my pursuit of the ultimate bachelor lifestyle this week. I just finished some "I Luv Teriyaki" takeout, which contained broccoli, lettuce, chicken (I hope), and some good sauce. You know it's made for men when they include all the necessary parts of a meal: food, dishes, plastic-ware, napkin, cookie, and handy trash bag. Let's face it, when it comes to take out, we are lazy people.

Problem

Now, how many times have you read the above verse, and puzzled yourself to figure out why Jesus was not good enough? How could the hero of the Christian faith be lacking? It seems that Paul has contradicted all his other words. Did Jesus himself not say that "it is finished?" How about Hebrews 10:14, "For by a single offering he has perfected for all times those who are being sanctified." Isn't the work of Jesus complete in itself?

The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus was fully clothed in humanity: born of a woman, walking, breathing, eating, and (my favorite) living as a carpenter. Seems simple. Yet the Bible also affirms the absolute perfection, divinity, and preeminence of Jesus (better than all others, surpassing everything). How is it that Paul would say that his own suffering (and ours!) would complete what is lacking in Jesus? There exists an indescribable and beautiful balance in Jesus, living in the world, and yet coming from a place that was much greater. Jesus gave up the goodness of living in the presence of God, to come to broken, hungry, and shattered world. How could Paul write that we are required to fill up that sacrifice. Surely we have nothing to add to Jesus' sacrifice. Or do we?

Context of Christ

The context of Colossians 1:24 is crucial. The previous verses are some of my favorite in the Bible, and the most powerful description of the greatness of Jesus. Colossians 1:15-20:

He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of Christ.

Paul writes these great things about Jesus, and then one sentence later (a long greek one) says that we fill up the lacking things of Jesus. This is quite amazing that anyone, being fundamentally human and flawed could complete Christ's work. Jesus was perfect. Can we really add to perfection?

Work of Christ

This is perhaps the greatest work of God, using broken bricks to build a church. Jesus' works are complete and satisfactory for the sanctification of man. His death was and is sufficient to bring all of humanity back to God. The Bible says once we were far from God. We were strangers, "having no hope and without God in the world"(Eph. 2:13). But through Jesus, who suffered for us, he has completed the union between the world and God forever. "He is the propitiation (appeasing God's anger) for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2). Jesus came to bring fullness to the world. He came that all of humanity would be complete and brought back to God. He brought us to our loving father, our good father who loves us so completely. It is through the suffering of Christ that we are brought into an intimacy with the person who created us, God himself! This is the fullness of Christ's suffering in us.

The Body of Christ

Ok, so this is how we fill up Christ's affliction. Church.

Stay with me for those who have hated church as a second grader, or now as an adult.

The Church is referred to as the body. It is the body of Christ. Although the physical body of Christ was raised three days after his death and later went to heaven, the body of Christ exists today all around the world. The body of Jesus is here on earth in the form of the Church. This is where we complete the work of Christ. When humans are brought back to God through Christ, Christ now lives and resides inside us. We have become an extension of Christ's work. We no longer live for our simple and vain pleasures of the world, but the life of Christ moves us and compels us. 2 Cor. 5:14 says it this way:

"For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised."

Scope of Christ into the World

In short the sufferings of Christ Jesus were not lacking in content, but rather insufficient in their reach into the breadth of humanity. Only through the body of the Church can Christians embody the suffering of Christ. The suffering of the Church (individually and at large) evidences and proves Christ's existence to a skeptical and disbelieving world. The evidence of suffering for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ in my life and in yours causes the growth and extension of the kingdom of God, in the form of his body, the church. So for the people who think they can be solo Christians, living like James Bond 007 rogues apart from the body of Christ, the church. This is proof that you cannot.

Only the concerted united work of the body of Christ as a whole will radically change culture. Think of a lot of small creeks or a waterfall. Both may have the same amount of water, but the power of the church is when the creeks come together for a concerted power. This is no free flowing lazy river. The church is a powerful and intensely violent waterfall coming to a head, and exploding below with great force and great influence. This happens only by the suffering of the body of Christ. And we are all invited into the significance of suffering for the sake of the world, by following the example of Jesus.

Gospel of Christ

This is the gospel we give to the world. That Jesus Christ created everything. He is the author and perfecter, creator and completer. He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. His life is more than sufficient for us to be made whole and complete. And He alone can accomplish the greatest work in the weakest of all people.

Final thoughts

You need to be a Christian. A Christian who takes joy in suffering. And not because I said so.

You need to be a Christian because the sufferings of Christ are lacking. They must be filled up in the world with normal everyday people dying to their selfish lives, and suffering that the world may find hope in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their is no life in ourselves, only the life of Christ living in us.

The world is desperate for life. Desperate for healing. Desperate for renewal. Desperate for salvation. And the church, the body of Christ, is the agent of change created by God for the wide scale assault on death, sin, and Satan. And when you suffer, rejoice. Consider it joy, knowing that your suffering is completing the work of Jesus around the world, through the power of the unshakeable Church, the kingdom of God, forcefully advancing being founded on the suffering of Christ.

"Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church..."

Checklist for the next 10 Days

2008-07-17T22:57:00.000-07:00

After I dropped Kalle off at the airport, I knew I better hit the store quickly. If I didn't I might not have survived the first 72 hours. Below are some items I put in my shopping basket:

Buy 1 Get 1 Free Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Lucky Charms

Triple Pack of Frozen Pizzas (Pepperoni)

Widmer Hefeweizen

Cinnamon Rolls (2 packs)

Tostitos Chips

Tennessee Bourbon (George Dickel)

Bread

Milk

Tennessee Bourbon (Gentlemen Jack)

I remember when Nick blogged daily when his wife was gone for a week, and it was quite funny. I'm not going to be doing the play by play, but if I go away for too long, someone should come looking. I don't fare well without my vegan wife to take care of me.

Twitterific

2008-07-17T10:12:00.000-07:00

First of all, I apologize to our faithful readers who have been dying for an update (Stabi). I also forgive you for sending the hate mail. Since the sunshine and 85 degree weather came for the first time since last October, we have been inside only to sleep at night. The water and mountains and tennis courts have been more appealing than staying inside and blogging about life. I'm not sure there is a more beautiful place on the planet when the weather is like this. Also, there's nowhere else I'd like to live (for weather reasons). As Kalle says if it was like this year round it wouldn't be fair to the rest of the world. See pic above of us being ridiculous on one of the great hikes, Mt. Si. The second pic is the city from our balcony. The moon was setting late one night after work, so I snapped a shot. It is quite a staggering city, even from afar.

It's cloudy today and Kalle leaves for Charlotte tonight, which may mean more frequent blogging from me, or more generally a newfound hobby: It's called Twitter.

Does anyone use this (dumb question)? Better: If you use this, can you teach me? I'm just learning, and I feel like a grandpa already asking his kids to teach him how to use instant messaging.

If you want to tweet me, @stinsaur. If you didn't know that nickname, it just kinda happened. Pronounced like dinosaur, with my name in front.

Last Three months of Renovation

2008-06-30T15:11:00.000-07:00

I haven't written much about my construction work lately, so I took some pics for you to see the progress. Most of you know I took at job at Ruth's Chris as a server assistant (glorified busboy), in hopes of growing into a full on server. It has been a busy few weeks managing two jobs, and I have scaled back my work at the renovation accordingly.

Nonetheless, here are the pics. We finished the dining room floor and kitchen floor. It's a pretty simple wide plank hardwood with a mosaic tile inlay. The pictures show the dining room.

I also finished a cathedral ceiling in the downstairs bedroom, framed out with metal studs. There will soon be an interesting suspended ceiling in the center hole (wood or metal).

Also there are some pics of the kitchen to master bath renovation, as we installed the tile, vanities, and fixtures. We still have some work to do with the marble around the shower and walls.

I included this picture for the sake of nostalgia. You may remember the hilarious dream I had months ago where I tried to put the wire in Kalle's heart. Perhaps this image will help you understand what I was doing. To say the least, wiring a house with new wire after using conduit 30 years ago is quite a tedious process.

Finally I finished most of the interior trim including door casing and doors. The process is definitely moving in a good direction! Hope you enjoy the pics.

I also hired myself out to my parents in August to do some work for them in exchange for good meals and a roof for 25 years (past). So maybe more pics in August.

Midnight Meal

2008-06-27T00:42:00.000-07:00

So the other day at midnight Shawn calls me to tell me he has missed the bus home. (He tried to chase it...hilarious). So I told him if I had to get off the couch and out of my pajamas to come get him all the way in Seattle then we were going to do something fun while I was there. So we found a 24 hour diner that specializes in TWELVE EGG omelets. That's a lot of eggs. One dozen to be exact. Now I don't know if you know Shawn but there is not a chance he would not get said omelet. I was not that hungry, nor that thrilled about being that unhealthy at midnight, so I agreed to share it (and by share it I mean eat about two of the twelve eggs) if we got the veggie omelet. We got that one, but to even out the healthiness of this veggie fest Shawn had to order two enormous pancakes in addition to the dozen eggs and all you can eat hashbrowns. I was certain he was going to slip into a food induced coma that night so I gave him a good night kiss in case he never woke up.

A lot of food

2008-06-27T00:31:00.001-07:00

Please enjoy...

Mild case of Insomnia

2008-06-12T00:59:00.000-07:00

Since I started work at Ruth's Chris, I have been drinking my share of espresso, straight. Unfortunately for me, tonight I am completely wired at 1:00 am. We went to bed around midnight, but my mind feels like it's going a million miles a minute. Maybe I should lay off the six shots of espresso any time after 9:00.

So now I'm playing online poker with the rest of the jokers who are up late with me.

As for life lately, Kalle has given up blogging. I think she got bitter after the last vegan comment and gave up writing. Also of note, we are getting depressed because it won't stop raining. Everyone keep telling us about the great weather and sunshine in North Carolina. I promise it makes us feel great about being here. In our sweaters and galoshes.

I also feel like a Jew lately. Have you read the part of the Bible (Numbers 11:4-6) where the Jews get angry at God for dragging them out of Egypt? They are upset because they don't have the free meals of Egpyt, the cucumbers, melons, and comfort of "home." And yet this is the same place they begged God to rescue them from.

I have enjoyed the challenge of this new city immensely, but I'm thinking that the honeymoon phase of Seattle is clearly over, and the rain is no longer the unique characteristic of the city, but rather the gray sky in the morning, and the constant wetness throughout the day.

Spiritually I have also taken on this climate. Occasionally I get this great day of sunlight, but life has been mostly gray out here. This has been a hard season for us, and while we have loved working on our marriage, both Kalle and I have realized some significant areas needing growth in both of our lives. So there is clearly hope in our lives for great things in the next season, but perhaps we are learning to "count it all joy... for we know that the testing of our faith produces steadfastness." Rain or shine we are coming to the end of ourselves and acknowledging the Lord as great in us. So even in the gray times, the hope we have does not fade. And this is why we live for the sunshine, hoping a season is coming soon, where our joy will be complete, and our trials will have produced what we could not do in ourselves, the completion of God's work in us. At the end of the day, all we can say is that we are becoming more like Jesus, and less like ourselves. This is our hope in the rain, that the Son is coming. I'm really sorry for that pun. Well, not really.

"For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."

As to the poker, of 90 people in the tourney, I am in the top 12 with a good chip stack.