Sleepy time
I know it was Mother’s Day today, but I saw this Father/Son duo and couldn’t help but snap the photo.
Pensive child
…although, it could be boredom. I can’t tell if he was posing and making sure that I snapped a few photos of him, or if he was bored and didn’t care that I was photographing him.
Oh, and for those of you who are new here, he’s my son.
Is it awe…or ahhh?
My son and I went for a hike Monday and we had a great little walk and talk. I have to admit that I’m more out of shape than I’d like to be, but I am working on it.
My son, however, kept telling me how tired he was, but spent the entire hike swinging a stick at everything and taking three steps for every one of mine. He exerted himself far more than I did and then came home to jump on the trampoline. I came home and sat down on the couch.
The photo above is him checking out our local cedars. They’re always beautiful and smell so great. He was ooh-ing and ahh-ing over their height.
Lime Cream Cheese Tart
This was what my daughter wanted for her birthday cake. She and I have been cooking together for a long time. She is turning eleven in a couple of days and since she was old enough to help, she’s been my assistant in the kitchen. I had her smelling spices and stirring batter and cracking eggs at age three.
So when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday cake, I should have expected her to say something like this. What I wasn’t expecting was how long it would take to make it. It was worth it, though. It might be the best “birthday cake” I’ve ever made.
I realize this is not my best photo ever posted, but it certainly is one of the tastiest.
Snowflakes + Star Wars = AWESOME!
I love Christmas Holidays. It gives me time to “craft”. And…
Ha! Hahahahahaaaa….no seriously. I don’t “craft”. I take photos. That’s my hobby. But when some evil genius designs Star Wars snowflake templates, I jump into action. For my son…yeah…not for me…my son.
Here’s the details. Anthony Herrera, a graphic designer, has designed a bunch of snowflake templates that appeal to the Star Wars geek in me. If you want to download the designs and spend hours meticulously cutting them out with a scalpel and a self-healing cutting mat, here’s the link: Star Wars Snowflakes.
BTW, if I’ve not said it already, Anthony Herrera is AWESOME!
Here’s my NOON hour food prep
I roasted a turkey today. My family was coming over and my parents are leaving in three days for Guatemala for six months. They started working there years ago and have formed their own missions organization, Love Guatemala, wherein they show love to people through meeting practical needs – housing, water filters, clinics. We (kind of) had Christmas today, as they’ll be away when Christmas actually occurs. I’ll miss them a lot, so it felt right to do a big family dinner. I made roasted potatoes, carrots and parsnips, stuffing and gravy.
So, I roasted a turkey today. I like to cook and doing a turkey is fun. I know, that makes me weird. What you see above are the herbs that were combined with garlic and olive oil and then massaged into the bird, under the skin and then over. The oil adds a nice golden-ness to the turkey. The herbs are Italian parsley (I’m not sure what makes it Italian), thyme, rosemary, and sage. I love fresh herbs and the chopping is particularly satisfying. Something about wielding a big knife that appeals to the neanderthal in me.
Oh, and this week’s Photo Friday Challenge is “Noon“. Seeing as I was chopping these around noon in order to get the turkey ready for dinner, I thought this might meet the challenge.
“Look what I can do!”
I took these three photos and stitched them together. The vista of my backyard, the mountains in the background, the umbrella on my deck were too tempting to resist. I snapped a good number of photos while on my deck, admiring God’s handiwork. It’s like He came down on Sunday night and said, like an excited four year old clutching a crayoned piece of paper, “Look what I can do!”
Pretty cool.
Please feel free to click on it to see the full size version in detail.
Beauty in Decay
A couple of days ago a friend of mine came to speak at my school. She was awesome. She said a lot of things our girls needed to hear. When I was saying farewell to her, a cool breeze blew through the school’s parking lot and thousands of leaves all flew off the surrounding trees. Kate looked at me and said, “I think Fall just started. Right now. Right here.” I laughed, but since then the leaves have been falling off all the trees around our house.
The leaf in the photo above comes from the park across the street from our house. The kids rode their bikes while I ran. At the end of our time in the park, we walked through all the fallen leaves. As we walked, we quietly listened to the crispy and crunchy leaves under our feet. It was a great zen moment. There is beauty in the decay of Autumn.
WordPress Photo Challenge: Faces
We did not go to the Buddhist Temple this summer and I kind of miss these guys. The face above belongs to one of many statues depicting the “Lohans” of Buddhism. My kids love going to the temple and it’s a cool way to experience a culture outside our own. But there are lessons to be learned in a temple that go far beyond culture.
A couple of summers ago, when we took the kids to the temple in Steveston, BC for the first time, my son was doing his best to exercise self-control. He walked instead of running. He spoke quietly instead of excitedly shouting. He kept his hands behind his back. To this day, when I need him to exercise that same restraint, I say to him: “Ben. Buddhist Temple.” And that’s all he needs. Buddhist Temple.
Oh, and this week’s photo challenge is “Faces“.
Weekly Photo Challenge, part two: Up (in the air)
When we bought the trampoline last summer, my son was at times curious about it, at times petrified. The most he would do was bounce and only when no one was on with him. This summer he seems to think that he’s Dick Grayson (the original Robin in the Batman comics) of the Flying Graysons. He’s gone from terrified to a holy terror on the trampoline.
As a kid, I never had a trampoline, so watching my own kids is full of terrifying excitement for me. I’m always curious to see what they’ll do next, with my thumbs ever-ready to phone 9-1-1.
Weekly Photo Challenge: UP!
The kids and I had a wonderful weekend, with a lot of activity. This is but one. It’s not the most beautiful photo from a technical standpoint, but it’s one of the most beautiful photos I’ve taken because it’s my daughter executing a possible broken neck over a sprinkler shooting through a trampoline. Not a great backdrop, nor is it in the best focus, but it’s fun.
Oh, and she’s UP.
Beach + Children = fun parenting
This was the most fun aspect of camping in Oregon. My kids love the beach, the water, the sun so camping on the Oregon Coast is dead easy. We spent most of the days running in and out of the surf, lying on the sand, building sand castles and flinging floaty pieces of wood into the waves. There was no need for discipline. There was little need for parenting skills. The kids never fought as long as they were on the beach. It was awesome. I need to somehow move a beach into my house.
Parenting takes love and courage
“In spite of the six thousand manuals on child raising in the bookstores, child raising is still a dark continent and no one really knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck – and, of course, courage. ” – Bill Cosby
Above are my two beautiful children. I love them more than my own life. But they have spawned in me some complete confusion and inspired love. Let me give you a couple of examples:
1. When we were traveling to Oregon only a scant two weeks ago, my children made me so proud. The happily dealt with a full day of traveling, followed by five days of bliss. They got along. They saved small aquatic animals from death. They found utter joy in throwing a stick in the ocean, only to chase it down the beach, rescue it from the surf and throw it right back in. They comforted me when, in a fit of stupidity I thought I was younger than I am, I hurled myself into and over a railing, leaving a sizable dent in my shin. They were stupendous. And for a brief and amazing moment, I thought, “We’re amazing parents. We should write books.”
2. My children decided last night that they wanted to sleep in our basement in our original three-man tent. At 10:00, my wife found them lying in the tent with the lights out but their Nintendo DS’s fully engaged when they were supposed to be fast asleep. After a stern, but amused, talking-to, they went to sleep. At 2:00 in the morning, my daughter came upstairs to the living room, where my wife chose to sleep so she could “hear the children”, to inform my wife that she could not sleep. My wife made her way to the basement, where she slept in the tent on the floor so that the children could continue their adventure. This morning, after a dearth of sleep, my children proceeded to fight with each other at such a volume that even I could not ignore it. And for a brief and groggy moment, I thought, “What were we thinking when we thought we could be parents?”
In the span of two weeks I’ve gone from proud and maybe a little arrogant parent to a bewildered and short-fused parent. I love my children, but this parenting thing? Well, I can’t have one without the other.
Whose steps will you follow?
As my son walked across the sand in front of me, I wondered, “Who will he follow?” Will he follow his friends and not make his own decisions? Will he follow his parents into education? Will he put others before himself? Will he lead and not follow?
I think these are pretty universal conundrums faced by parents everywhere. I did not anticipate, before becoming a parent, that I would be that worried about how my children would turn out. But now that my daughter is ten going on fifteen and my son is seven and a perfect combination of anxiety and over-confidence, I think about these things. I think it was easier for me when I was their age because I was in the middle of it. My parents, however, must have thought the same things I am thinking about my own kids.
I guess I’ll continue to influence them as much as I can and hope for the best.
Would you save a starfish?
I teach student leadership. There’s a story that I tell my students when they start to feel a little down about how much impact they’re making in our school. It goes like this: Many starfish washed up on shore. A young boy started picking them up and throwing them back into the ocean. Someone saw what he was doing and told him that it was pointless, that there were too many to save, that it wouldn’t make a difference. Throwing another starfish into the sea, the little boy responded, “It makes a difference to this one.” I’m sure you’ve read this story before, or heard it told by someone who was encouraging you that your small efforts were making a difference. There are also many more elegant versions, but the idea is the same.
While I was watching my kids on the beach in Oregon, I watched my daughter, with all of her innocence and curiosity, trying to figure out what would happen to this little starfish as the tide went out. It left itself stranded in a tide pool and Hannah wandered over to me and asked, “Should I move it?” I told her it was up to her. She did and I hope that she’ll continue to make a difference in even the smallest creatures as she grows up.
Love is so cute…
I visited the Alexandra Bridge on Sunday. It’s about a half-hour drive north of Hope and ten minutes from Hell’s Gate. And, yes, you read that correctly. British Columbia has some funny name places.
While photographing this suspension bridge, this couple came up and paused, nicely, and waited for me to take a photo. I informed them that they were never going to walk across this bridge if they were going to wait until I was done shooting this bridge. I also, in passing, that they could walk on as long as they were okay with being on my photoblog.
They were so cute. They were holding hands and being all googly over each other and making me a little jealous. My wife and I have been married for seventeen years. We have a ten year old daughter, who was accompanied on this trip by a friend from school, and a seven year old son. Marriage and kids are great. I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world. But this couple, walking by themselves, holding hands and canoodling whenever they wanted, made me remember a time when I could grab my wife’s hand and not be joined on the other side by a sticky, melted ice cream covered hand.
It’s a Lego Disaster Zone
“I don’t know who made this mess, but I’m not cleaning it up.”
My son and I took on the task of rebuilding all of his Lego minifigures today. I started in the afternoon. After dinner, we took on the task of finishing the building project. We’ve not quite completed the job, but the count is at 145 at this point. We don’t have many left to put together, but I think the number will be well over 150. On one hand, that seems like a ridiculous number. On the other, they take up almost no space and, on average, are made up of four pieces plus an accessory. That doesn’t sound near as crazy.
Either way, I’m jealous of the collection of Lego my son gets to play with on a daily basis.
Speaking of being little…
It appears that, when it comes to parenting and steering and guiding children, it doesn’t matter into which culture you’re born. I’ve personally done the “iron-hand-hold-walk-this-way” method of steering my children when they were in places of worship or formality. It’s like a universal parent language. Firm, but not constricting. Commanding, not a suggestion. Quiet, yet loudly speaking about what is right and wrong. Physical touch can communicate so much.
Photo Friday: Sharp Focus (oh, and Happy Canada Day!)
Happy Canada Day! Today, my one day off between school ending and exam marking beginning, I finished putting together my herb garden planter and planted the seeds. It’ll be a lovely mix of mint, oregano, dill, rosemary, thyme, sage and…something else I’m forgetting… It looks alright. I had to cut a few extra pieces of wood for the base before laying in the fabric and rocks and planter soil, so I pulled out my new circular saw. I got it for Father’s Day from my kids and wife and have not had the time nor weather to use it. Today, I got to be all manly and absolutely destroy a piece of wood with no effort whatsoever.
On a side note (or not so side, seeing as how it’s in the title), Photo Friday’s challenge this week is “Sharp Focus.” I figured, with the saw out and all, that if I focused on the blade, that would be a sharp focus. Ha.
WordPress’ Weekly Photo Challenge: Worn (out)
These are my son’s jeans. They are worn out – in the knees, anyway. My wife, with her wonderful sensibility, has relegated these jeans to only certain jobs, like washing the car, working or playing in the yard, and (maybe) visiting family on the weekend. Definitely not church or school functions.
For me, they bring me back to my style of clothing in twelfth grade. My “uniform” in my grad year was worn-out, torn jeans and offensive t-shirts, somewhat hidden under plaid, flannel shirts. I looked like a refugee from a Nirvana concert. Yup, so cool.
Oh, and this week’s photo challenge on WordPress is Worn. Check it out.
Happy Father’s Day!
Today was Father’s Day. I got to watch my son and daughter sing on stage at church. I had barbecued burgers for lunch. We all went to the driving range to knock out a few buckets of golf balls. Then I came home and had a nap for, like, an hour. It was a great day.
The photo above is of my son. He decided, a few days ago, that if he was going to sing in front of the entire church, he was going to need a tie. He went with the black shirt/tie combo, which is pretty much my uniform when it comes to formal attire, so we dressed alike today: blue jeans, black button front shirt, black and grey tie. I have to say, I’m pretty proud.
Thanks, family, for the awesome day. It was a happy day for this father.
WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Morning
Perhaps if every morning started with the words “Magic Morning”, every morning would be a great morning.
This photo was taken, as I’m sure most of you’ve guessed, outside Disneyland’s entrance. When the Family B visited Disneyland last March, we had a five day flexpass and we were given the choice of mornings to go in an hour earlier than the general ticket buying public. We did this on my son’s birthday so we could get to certain rides before everyone else – the submarine ride, Space Mountain.
It really was magic.
Contemplative? Pensive? Thoughtful? Exasperated?
I really don’t know what she’s thinking.
We, my daughter and I, went for a walk tonight. While walking, we heard bagpipes so we followed the sound. The further we walked, the louder the pipes got. We found the pipers were practicing on Canadian military grounds and we’re not allowed to trespass on their land, so we had to walk considerably farther to get near them. Part of the old Army base (the base has been greatly reduced in the last ten years) has been turned into a presentation center for a local housing development, so my daughter and I sat and listened as the bagpipes (complete with kilts) played near us. I managed to capture a few shots of her, but I liked this one best.
I really don’t know what she’s thinking; maybe this is a “choose your own emotion” photo.
