four konings (& matty sioux!) dreamin' with eyes wide open

Abee Quotes

2010-09-23T23:38:00.000-07:00

Quote 1:

After reading a few Bible stories about the Holy Spirit & Jesus living in our hearts, Abigail looked puzzled, held up her fingers, and asked, 'Does that mean there's one, two, three, four, five. . .Jesus's?' To which Melis had the priveledge of explaining that there's just one Jesus who can be everywhere.

Quote 2:

Trying to use everyday situations to teach Abigail, I tried to seize the moment when she was eating grapes. I took a break from reading World Mag, where I was on a page that had a chalkboard with calculus on it. She asked what is that? I said, 'math.'

'What's Math?'

To demonstrate, I grabbed two of her grapes, and held one up. 'How many is this?'

'One.'

'Good.' Holding up the other one, I asked, 'How many is this?'

'One, Daddy.'

'So then if I put them together, what does that make?'

'Math!' She said excitedly.

Quote 3:

'I have boobies. Brenna has boobies. Mommy has big boobies. But not Daddy. He has nibbies.'

Life's Brevity and the Seattle Airport

2010-08-31T23:23:00.000-07:00

I don't often enough snap a wide-angle lens on the camera of my mind and look at my life from afar. From an eternal perspective. We can only look two directions in time - backwards and forwards. Of course, there's that third dimension, that razor-thin span we call the present, that vanishes as soon as it appears. The present is all we can act in; affect. Sure, I make all sorts of grand plans for the future, and I don't want to downplay the importance and wisdom of that. But we're not guaranteed anything tomorrow.

God has reminded me often over the past month how brief life can indeed be. It would have been my cousin Michael's 28th birthday tomorrow. But he only made it to 19 before he received his calling Home.

A 39 year-old physician in town died of a heart attack earlier this month. He had recently run a half-marathon and was training for another. He left a wife and three young kids. These things aren't supposed to happen. But they do. Life happens. And life, at some point, it inevitably ceases.

As I read Psalm 90 tonight, it has reminded me of life's brevity: 'Return to dust, you mortals. . .as brief as a few night hours. . .like dreams that disappear. . .like grass that springs up in the morning. . .by evening it is dry and withered. . .soon they disappear, and we fly away.'

I was hit most acutely by the shortness in life in the Seattle Airport Sunday night. As my sister Kristin & I came down the escalator I saw a gray-haired man, probably in his early 70's, fall backwards to the hard floor. My initial thought of 'what a klutz,' was quickly replaced by the true gravity of the situation. As I threw my bags down next to some chairs and hurried toward him, I was thankful that Kristin, who works on the cardiac floor in the hospital, was right behind me. As four of us (an off-duty EMT, a nurse, Kristin & myself) bent over him, two other tall men called 911. It's amazing how the world around ceased to exist in my mind as the focus was on this man. And his wife. His wife, who stood there with one hand over her mouth, said very little, other than a simple 'No', when I asked about any history of heart problems.

Try as I might, I could not find a pulse. The nurse said she was able to feel a femoral pulse, and the EMT said he had a faint carotid pulse. As difficult as it is to judge time, that ever-passing blessing of the present, probably around two minutes had gone by when it became very apparent to me that his lips were turning blue, and he wasn't breathing despite his airway being opened by the off-duty EMT. I thought of his wife, and I thought of his brain tissue. Dying. 'Seventy years are given to us! Some even live to eighty.' My inaction was becoming an unacceptable use of his time. What time I still had with him. What little time. Although the other two Good Samaritans said they could feel a pulse, when Kristin said she couldn't find one either, she & I agreed that chest compressions needed to be started. Again, I was glad she was there, having administered CPR numerous times. As she mercifully pumped hard on his chest, quite possibly cracking ribs, I was able to feel for the first time a pulse in his wrist, but only the artificial one that Kristin was creating. However blood was circulating. Another couple of minutes went by before paramedics arrived with their arsenal of tools & skills. A quick assessment by them confirmed he had no heartbeat of his own.

It took three times shocking his heart, intubation, an IV, and a central line directly into his heart to bring him back. And 25-30 minutes. Like grass that springs up in the morning. But his heart started to beat on his own, and his breathing even started to fight the intubation. He never regained consciousness that we saw, and we left some time later. We'll probably never know how he has or hasn't recovered.

As I look backward and forward in my life, it is very apparent that life is as uncertain as it is brief. A single adjective could precede most events we'll face in our earthly future: 'unexpected.' Unexpected surgery, transfer, change, accomplishment, loss, benefit, sickness, promotion, demotion, gift, death. But as life is indeed uncertain, it is also filled with challenging adjustments. Could those seemingly unsolvable problems that we too often face be in reality wonderful opportunities in disguise? Maybe that's part of what God meant when He promised abundant life. Abundant with challenges. Abundant with uncertainty. Abundant with problems. Abundant Life, brief as it is here on Earth, with Him. 'My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.' That's what I want so very badly - abundant Life, Heavenly Father-style.

I pray that you can savor these words, from Psalm 90, as I have tonight: 'Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom. . .Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love, so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives. . .let our children see your glory.'

2010-07-30T22:13:00.000-07:00

We have no greater joy than to hear that our children are walking in the truth.

Overdue Brenna Pics

2010-05-03T23:27:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Brenna's 4 month birthday a few days ago.

For more on the meaning of this, come to the OCRC Youth Group Fundraiser Film Festival at church May 22nd. Tickets won't last long for this red carpet event!

Don't Worry, Be Happy

2010-03-25T22:47:00.000-07:00

Every week or so, Abigail and I will watch YouTube videos on various subject matters, ranging from cows mooing to monster truck crashes. Today, after watching Eric Habermeyers fantastic original, we clicked on a few Bob Marley videos. She was enthralled. After our third or fourth song, she came right downstairs, picked up her guitar, and performed the following. I think even her hair looks like Bob's. . .

The Chillin's

2010-03-11T21:21:00.001-08:00

Just a few pictures (ok. . .lots) for the last little while (ok. . .couple of months). For us, this blog is a way to share life with friends & family, as well as to document life for us to see God's hand many years from now. This will probably bore the dickens out of everyone except the Grandparents. View at your own risk.

Abigail pumpin' it up!

Our jungle safari ballerina girl.

Movie night!

This is one of her first times riding her bike around our neighborhood. She loved it. By now, she's a pro.

She took good care of her new bunny from Mike & Marilyn nextdoor.

Happy birthday Daddy!

Lookin' for kitties.

Abigail Joy loves to play 'store'. We'll 'order' milkshakes, burgers, or soup and she'll merrily gather bark and 'make' our orders for us. We pay by handing her something (anything), which she swipes (like a credit/debit card), and hands it back to us. Truly a girl of the 21st century.

Here's from a recent trip with Melis, Abee & Brenna at Burfoot Park.
Brenna has been a joy, too.

She's gaining strength & stature daily, and in the last couple of days has blessed us with a few much appreciated smiles!

'Cheese', said the tattoo & graffiti artist caught in the act.

It amazes us daily how much we love our girls.

Sailboat Symphony

2010-03-05T19:19:00.000-08:00

We're just going to take a moment to brag on one of our friends, Eric. Amazing what you can do with a one-man band, creativity, a little know-how, and a boat.

True Grit

2010-02-07T21:28:00.000-08:00

Forgive me for blatantly stealing the blog post title from a John Wayne movie, but I couldn't help but share some findings from this fascinating compilation taken from centuries of findings of people much smarter than I. I think this is another example of science (in this case, psychology) complimenting some pretty basic Biblical principles. This gets long. . .but show a little grit and keep reading. . .

Here's an excerpt from the article:
'it appears that praising children for their intelligence can make them less likely to persist in the face of challenges, a crucial element of grit. For much of the last decade, [some people with a lot of time on their hands] have tracked hundreds of fifth-graders in 12 different New York City schools. The children were randomly assigned to two groups, both of which took an age-appropriate version of the IQ test. After taking the test, one group was praised for their intelligence - “You must be smart at this,” the researcher said - while the other group was praised for their effort and told they “must have worked really hard.”

[They] then gave the same fifth-graders another test. This test was designed to be extremely difficult - it was an intelligence test for eighth-graders - but [they] wanted to see how they would respond to the challenge. The students who were initially praised for their effort worked hard at figuring out the puzzles. Kids praised for their smarts, on the other hand, quickly became discouraged.

The final round of intelligence tests was the same difficulty level as the initial test. The students who had been praised for their effort raised their score, on average, by 30 percent. This result was even more impressive when compared to the students who had been praised for their intelligence: their scores on the final test dropped by nearly 20 percent. A big part of success . . .stems from our beliefs about what leads to success.'

While we all want ourselves and our kids to naturally be the smartest, strongest, or prettiest, it seems that perseverance, and the encouragement to do so, is of greater benefit than raw talent or inborn aptitude. A number of Biblical characters who demonstrate perseverance/grit come to mind - Nehemiah, Daniel, David, and nearly all of the New Testament players.

Galatians 6:9 begs to be quoted: Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

But I think my favorite (at least at this time in my life) is II Cor 12:9-10: My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. . .I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

The nice thing, as Christ followers, is that our grit doesn't have to come from within our own week, feeble bodies & intellects. We have within us One whose power has already overcome. Therefore, as it says in Heb 12, Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Puts long nights awake with an inconsolable baby in proper perspective.

Abigail's take on Daddy

2010-02-04T23:18:00.000-08:00

Last week:
Abee: 'Where's Daddy?'
Mom: 'He's at work.'
Abee: 'Oh. . .playing basketball'
(my daughter thought I was an NBA star!!!)

Today:
Abee: 'Where's Daddy?'
Mom: 'He's at work.'
Abee: 'Oh. . .yada yada yada. . .eyeballs'
(my daughter now knows the truth. . .I hope she's not too disappointed. . .I was kinda hoping she'd keep thinking of me as an elite athelete for at least a few more years. . .)

Community Vision Clinic

2010-02-02T22:43:00.000-08:00

The Olympia Gospel Mission Vision Clinic recently received a HUGE donation, as outlined below. I've found that one of the biggest challenges is getting enough quality frames - we need ideally new frames that will stand up to the beating of everyday use, hopefully lasting for years, in a wide variety of styles so that the people we serve can get adequate cosmesis (I know. . .people who can't afford eye exams shouldn't be worried about this, but it's a real factor in many people's minds, and glasses only work if they're worn) for men, women, and children. And ideally for free (though we're more than willing to give a tax write-off!). We've been very blessed the past few years since operations started to not have any big concerns about where the next frames, monetary donations, or volunteers will come from. God provides. It's fun to see it happen in such real ways. Please pray that not only will people's physical eyes be given clarity, but that also that this Clinic, and more broadly the whole Gospel Mission, would be used to open people's eyes to see the great Provider & Savior we serve. And thank Him for 295 lives affected by this clinic in 2009.

Haiti

2010-01-14T23:02:00.000-08:00

The news of the earthquake - mostly the human suffering because of it - has made my heart ache the past couple of days. Watching the images of ravaged buildings, rampant looting, and rising death counts in the midst of the world's deepest poverty literally has brought tears to my eyes. Those dead, dying, maimed and suffering are someone's sons, daughters, husbands, and wives. Loved. Maybe my soul aches because I've seen the Dominican Republic, the 'rich' country on the island, and have seen its' physical poverty. Maybe it aches because I feel guilty, undeserving, that somehow I've won the lottery and was born in the US. But as much as my heart aches, I know God, who Knows each person affected, aches infinitely more. He aches not just for their temporal physical well-being, but for their eternal well-being. He sees this blood & sin stained world as worth rescuing. He proved it - not just on the cross, but in my life. Thankfully for the Haitians, and for all those who realize they need Rescuing, as Yancey said, Grace, like water, flows to the lowest part.

Thanks Mal

2010-01-08T21:31:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we thoroughly enjoyed having Mal come over to work her magic on lil' Brenna. Not only does Mal have an adroit photographer's eye, she has a remarkable ability to mold small baby bodies into whatever position she chooses. Judging from the way she effortlessly worked with our daughter, she either slipped Brenna some sedatives or somehow cast her into a hypnotic trance. No matter. Well done, and thank you Malissa! (this is not a paid advertisement, although we would highly recommend her for any of your creative photography needs!)

Click here to see a sneak peak

Welcome to our home, Brenna Marie

2010-01-01T10:51:00.000-08:00

The events of Sunday, December 27th, will be remembered with great fondness and just a tinge of fear in our hearts for the rest of our days. Five minutes after the conclusion of church, where Melis played the piano, she felt a big goosh. After abruptly ending her conversation without explanation or excuse, she walked nervously to the bathroom where an impromptu meeting of her Mom, Michelle & Kristin was called. It didn't take long to assess the situation and quickly stop at home to gather some clothes, then head off to the hospital.

At the hospital, we waited. And waited. After Pitocin was started, we waited some more. And did a 300 piece Austria puzzle. And watched the movie Earth. After a new bag of Pitocin and some uncomfortable membrane stripping by Dr. Burtner, finally by 9pm, things were rolling.

Things got rolling so quickly, actually, that Melis nearly delivered in the middle of getting her epidural started - they barely got around to getting the drip going. As she was getting it, the contractions got intense enough that the pushing started. One push after getting laid back down on the bed, a head full of dark hair popped out. A first year resident made the catch, and the doc mosied on in a few minutes later.
Brenna Marie weighed in at 6lbs 14oz, at 19" long. Because she was four weeks early, I had a feeling she might face some difficulties early on. Unfortunately that hunch was right. After spending an hour or so getting acquainted with Mom, it was determined that her blood glucose was abnormally low, so they took her to the Special Care room for monitoring. She was strongly encouraged to drink formula as she waited for Mom's milk to come in (ok, I pretty much force-fed her). After a few hours there they released her back to Mom. But a few hours later her glucose fell again, and after four failed attempts to start an IV (poor girl), they decided to simply keep monitoring her & keeping her well fed. It took a few more hours, but she came around and stabilized. One of my most memorable two hours of the last few days were sitting in Special Care with our nearly naked baby under the heat lamps as I watched, read & prayed. She was attached to monitors that periodically started honking when her oxygen saturation, breath rate, or body temp would drop too low. Melis was getting some much-needed & deserved sleep, as I looked on nervously - helplessly - trusting that this delicate life was going to be used by our sovereign God who loves her. There's a lot of comfort in that.
This is the same hat that Abigail filled out very nicely. Brenna will need to do a little growing before it fits her. Compare to this similar pose of Abigail Joy.
Abigail has been a very loving, gentle, & curious big sister.

One Tuesday the pediatrician went back & forth in the decision of letting her come home. They were worried about jaundice (common in preemies who have had quite a bit of bruising), but she let us go about 44 hours after birth, and seems to be doing great.

Christmas pics on New Year's Eve with Grandpa & Grandma Utah.

Little stocking stuffers.

How do you have a baby and look this good four days later?!?

Check out Brenna's sour apple face ;-)Here's to a pleasantly unexpected & amazingly blessed Christmas & New Year in the Koning house.

Every Day's an Adventure

2009-12-19T22:08:00.000-08:00

Abee the mobster

Making tasty Christmas Trees at playgroup

Abee & Tom sporting some creative wrapping paper
Melis @ 35 weeks

It's been much-anticipated & long-awaited. . .but it's almost done

Abee's new big girl room

tada!

Catchin' Up

2009-12-13T22:11:00.001-08:00

Grandma & Grandpa Idaho did a great job of hosting the whole gang in early November. Yup - we're a full month behind on blogging. This will serve as a quick synopsis of a few highlights since then.

Abigail, Bailey, & Dillon

Cap'n Abee

We also had a great time here in Oly with G&G Utah for Thanksgiving. Even though we didn't get any pictures of the great goose we cooked for the occasion, Abigail did have a good time making crafts with them.

It didn't quite look like Christmas outside with as much blue sky as we've had here the last couple weeks.

After a careful inspection, it gets her stamp of approval.

Don't worry, walking on the top of the car isn't a regular occurrence for her. Of course I promised Melis I wouldn't ever take my eyes off her ;-)Is it just me, or does she vaguely resemble an evil villain?

And today we had snow. OK, so we really didn't have to shovel our deck. . .but we don't get too many chances to use our snow shovel around here! Abee was a little apprehensive, but managed to have fun for almost 10 minutes outside before bolting for the warmth of the house.
Matty Sioux, on the other hand, could have played in this stuff for hours.
You know what's coming. . .

Yup. That's my girl!!!

And now we're caught up.

We'Re NuTS

2009-11-07T21:58:00.001-08:00

As we contemplated what to do with our free Saturday, we checked the weather and saw there was only a 25% chance of rain until noon in today. So we ate a leisurely breakfast and hit the road around 9:30am, grabbed a coffee (bk), chai (mk) & choc milk (ak), filled the tank with gas and drove east, with NW Trek in our sights. We should have outfitted the car with a snorkel first though. It poured, as seen in the photo below as we first arrived.

So we ran to the Cheney Center and crawled through logs, learned about salamanders & snakes, and did a caterpillar craft.
Gopher snake (same as a Bull snake).
Then we ran to the tram for the big animal tour.
I'd like to say this was a bugle. . .but it was just a rainy-day yawn.

Thar's deer owt thar!

Pappy & The Ladies.

During dinner tonight, back in our warm, toasty house, we asked Abee what her favorite animal was. The first thing she said was the baby bison.

Golden.

Three minutes after this photo was taken, she was asleep in the car. The hot topic on the way home was a name for Baby K #2. Still undecided. . .but the choices are narrowing. 11 weeks to decide.

Weekend in Forks

2009-11-01T21:45:00.001-08:00

Facebook has taken over as the easiest place to share pictures, but there's something about a blog that seems more like a journal. Someday I hope a company like Shutterfly makes it easy to print blogsites. It's nice to look back, reminisce, and see where God has allowed us to grow physically & spiritually through life's experiences.

A couple weekends ago we went to the Olympic Peninsula for a three-day vacation. On the way we stopped at The Olympic Game Farm, where all kinds of crazy critters, like this groundhog, live.

Square-lipped rhino.

Yup. Griz.

This is the only place I've ever been where they encourage the feeding of omnivores much larger than myself.

He is, indeed, waving. For bread.

The fence was four feet high. Tops.

For those of you familiar with the Twilight series, yes, we did read the first book of the four-part series. For those of you not in the know, it's a vampire book that every high-school girl in America has read. And many adult chics too. I suffered through it, somehow. OK, Melis has a way of making even a book like that entertaining. Thanks for the good read'n, Babes ;-)

Was that a vampire?! Or an Ewok?

For the four years that we've lived here, I've wanted to get some pictures of the fog in old-growth forest like this. The forecast had called for rain & possible fog most of the weekend, and I wasn't disappointed.

A Washington icon - Sol Duc Falls.

The water was raging today, more so than the previous times we've been here. It was actually quite a feat not allowing water droplets to build up on my lens.

It was getting pretty dark as we came back. So dark that this picture was a 60-second exposure.

It rained all day the second day, so instead of a trip to Shi Shi beach, we opted for the Hoh Rain Forest. This place gets 150 inches of rain every year. There were 7 in the previous three days to us being there.

And it rained most of the time we were there. . .but Abee stayed happy, warm, & dry under the protection of the hood of the backpack.

The sitka spruce is the dominant tree in the area, but there is a smattering of maples also, see behind us here.

She really took a liking to bridges on this trip. In fact, it was hard to get her to stop going back & forth & back & forth & back & ok, you get the picture. Thankfully we weren't on any kind of schedule.

We had lunch in the Hoh campground, within 50 yards (sometimes a lot closer) of three bull elk.

La Push.

Still on day two, it was dry here at Second Beach, but being on the coast, the wind was blowing like crazy. The tide wasn't quite in our favor, but we did spot a few starfish and thousands of anenomes & muscles.

We hiked around 4 miles total that day, and Melis, during the last half mile or so, started having pretty strong braxton-hicks. I thought I was either going to have to deliver Baby #2 myself, or race back into the Forks clinic to have Dr. Cullen (for those of you well versed in Twilight) take care of business. But we took it slow, ordered in pizza for dinner, and it passed. The contractions, that is. Not the baby.

On our way home we tried to go the back way to Lake Ozette, but our TomTom took us on a bunch of dead-end logging roads that were fun & beautiful (and rather remote), but didn't get us to where we wanted to go. So we bailed on that idea and drove to Hurricane Ridge instead.

This was not Abigail Joy's best day, but as long as she was swinging around & flying through the air, she was pretty happy. So we got a good workout.

I snapped this just as we were leaving, and less than a minute after this image froze the moment in time, the clouds rolled in and ensconced the view of the mountains.

Lazy Saturday Afternoon

2009-09-26T23:03:00.000-07:00

One more trip to Rainier while the weather is holding. There are no guarantees after October. It was pretty dark in the old growth, so forgive the graininess of the pics.

It wasn't terribly photogenic today, but this is one of our favorite places in The Park - Bench Lake, near more well-known Snow Lake. This was our fourth or fifth sunset we've seen from there, and we've never seen anyone else at the lake itself. Being only 0.7 miles from the road, it's a nice final destination after a trip to another locale. On a clear day, Rainier would be perfectly centered in the background. . .but there is a certain cozy beauty to cloudcover also.

Here are a few lines we heard on the way home from Chris Rice, in his song Final Move:

It was love that set this fragile planet rolling
Tilting at our perfect twenty-three
Molecules and men infused with holy
Finding our way around the galaxy
And Paradise has up and flown away for now
But hope still breathes and truth is always true
And just when we think it's almost over
Love has the final move
Love has the final move

Summit Lake 2009

2009-09-14T21:42:00.000-07:00

After church Sunday we finally hit the road (as quickly as a herd of turtles). This became a favorite of ours last year after a tip from Mike E. Abee was happy to be back to the same meadow that she 'perfected' the art of standing, 13 short months ago.

It's only a 5 mile hike (round trip), with extra distance optional if you want to hike around the lake for better views. And the views of Rainier didn't disappoint.But the weather was being a bit peculiar. Just as we crested the ridge and dropped down towards the lake, we were socked in by thick fog. Abigail found that funny. Obligatory group shot.

Matanuska didn't mind the fog. The water was wet & the sticks kept flying back into the water. . . but the tadpoles unnerved her a little.

Here she says: 'uh, guys, I don't think I want to mess with that tadpole.'
Abee Joy had her ups and downs, but she proved to be a great hiker.
We had an immersion baptism of a few ~6 year old girls in our church yesterday. It went great. But Melis, in a conversation with one of them beforehand, was asked 'Will I still be alive after I come back up from under the water?' While a cute comment (with deeper spiritual implications than this young girl probably understood), I couldn't help but think that my understanding of the fullness of our Sovereign God is still growing, too. Lately I've been pondering how God woo's us, allowing us to 'taste and see' Him. Sure, it seems like a simple concept, but so profound. While so much of me wants to physically 'taste and see' with my own five senses, in the words of John Piper:

'The soul tastes truth like the lips taste food. Spiritual hunger cries out for rich, substantial nourishment. It is remarkable how much meat these daily portions contain.'

I suppose life will be too short a time to learn to enjoy fully the rich tastes God wants so much to share with us. But I'm trying.

Labor Day Tri

2009-09-08T07:24:00.000-07:00

I'll let the video do the talking.

Full Circle

2009-09-04T19:00:00.000-07:00

It was a mere two years ago when we introduced Matanuska to Abigail Joy. Since then Matty has been forbidden to go into her crib.

Today, Abee invited The Sioux Bear into her 'big girl bed.'

She did take a nap here today. When she woke up an hour later, she walked down the stairs wide-eyed, saying 'I went nigh-nigh in my bed!', quite proud of herself.

We'll see how much sleep we get tonight. . .

Musings For My Children

2009-07-31T23:57:00.000-07:00

More Than Dust

Wailing, gasping, connected so delicately

The cord is cut, but your grip on life is not your own

It never is. You're more than dust.

Growing, learning, gaining speed

The rain will come, thunder will roll, and you'll tighten your fist

Choose carefully what you hold, whom you trust.

You'll climb, you'll summit, you'll bring hope

Love will seek you, will shape you, will define your life

Coose what you love carefully, employ more than worldly lust

The race is on, your first breath was the gun

You'll want to quit, to coast, to blend right in

But don't. Please don't. You're more than dust.

Your heart will ache with every shifting glance. It should.

Let passion drive you faster, harder, dangerously close

Go when others say stop. Know Whom your trust.

Don't be snared, shot, caught by the prowler's deceit

The way Home isn't well lit. The road to to Death is full of laughter

Joy trumps laughter. Be effective. Be just.

Speed. Get beat up, bruised, with pride wear tattered clothes

Finish the race careening sideways, in flames, eyes wide open

Anticipating the prize. You're much more than dust.

2009-07-27T22:04:00.000-07:00

Our trip to Flaming Gorge was fast & furious, and very enjoyable.

On a small island not far from camp were some nesting osprey, with young in the nest.
True to its name, Flaming Gorge was toasty enough to fry the crawdads on the rocks, but thankfully Melis's parents & cousins had enough gear to keep us all feeling pretty good in the water.

There were 8 kids between the ages of 8 - 13 there, and all but Tyler (below) were girls. For some reason, Abigail took a special likin' to 'Ty,' as she called him.

When I wasn't getting dunked in the water or pushed off the floating trampoline, we were 'hopper boppin' - catching grasshoppers in the bushes near camp. Abigail especially liked it when we put a grasshopper in her hand, just to let it jump away.

Somewhere above Sheep Creek, on the Utah side of Flaming Gorge. We spent most of our time just over the border in Wyoming.

'Who cares about the scenery? More red vines, please.'

We saw about 8 of these guys in Sheep Canyon.

It's worth mentioning that on our drive to the dam itself, we stopped at a lodge for lunch. With almost no warning, a storm moved through and started dumping rain and lightning. One flash that produced instant thunder must have hit the ground near one guy standing outside of our building who had his feet in a puddle. We didn't see it happen, but this guy was real shaken up, complaining of lightning-strike type symptoms. There were enough people around helping him that we didn't get too close, but he looked pretty shaken up. Yikes.

Thanks to everyone who helped make the camping trip possible! Other highlights include fishing, riding in the boats, riding the quad, catching the horney toad, hanging out around the campfire, catching & eating crawdads, enjoying air-conditioned RV's, & getting to know family that we've never spent much time with. We had a great time.

Tonight, we got a little sidetracked when watering our yard.Predictably, this ended badly.

But thankfully she recovered quickly.

There are certain things a dad has to teach his kids, and how to drink from a hose is pretty high on that list.

She caught on pretty quickly.

Of course, Matty was eager to join in the fun, too.

The ended up as a wet, tired, & very happy little girl.

Camp Muir - 10,100' up Rainier

2009-07-20T20:18:00.000-07:00

Mike, Kristin & I cruised up to Paradise (5,400') after church, and started hiking around 2:30pm.

We had to keep a pretty brisk pace going up, but there was a lot more dry ground that what we encountered last month when we got weathered off the mountain. This is the type of terrain we were on most of the last half.

Mt Adams.

Mike, just above Camp Muir, elev 10,100'.

Campers bedding down before a summit attempt the next morning.

Kristin taking it all in.

It's a little washed out, but you can see the very top of the mountain here. Doesn't look that far away, does it? 2-D photos don't quite do it justice.

Coming down sure is easier.

OK, it might not be easier to keep your balance, but it's definitely faster ;-)

Glisading.

Somewhere near Moon Rocks.

Kristin, you're looking a little nervous here. . .

Mike feels the need for speed.

Definitely my favorite pic of the day. A big thanks to Mike for pointing out this photo op.

Mike's choice to wear his Foxy Cologne paid dividends.

And again, giving credit where credit is due, the next 3 pics & video are from Kristin. Thanks, sis! Looking down on Camp Muir.

'Someone tell me where the shutter trigger button it?!?'

Whales, Grandparents, Flowers, Fun, & More!

2009-07-11T20:30:00.000-07:00

We had the pleasure of having G&G K come up for a quick trip late this week. I took a couple days off, & one day we took a boat ride from Port Townsend (on the Olympia Peninsula) to Friday Harbor (in the San Juan Islands). The air was crisp, as it should be on open water. But the sun's warmth made it a perfect temp.

Crazy shadows & clear water.
We got skunked with Orcas - they were likely busy feeding on the massive numbers of salmon gathering at the mouth of the Puget Sound, getting ready for their annual run. But we did see a number of Minke whales (rhymes with 'Stinky'), once of which swam right under our boat! Another time we saw the white belly of one swimming on its back. So cool ;-)
Sailboat & one of the San Juan Islands.
Getting up early makes a baby tired. And a daddy too ;-)
Balance beam-walkin' baby!

The crew.

Playin' hard before bedtime! It's also worth mentioning that I took home the trophy for Father/Son/Daughter golf tourney at Fort Lewis Golf Club.

We planted some oregano & cilantro in this planter, and enjoyed a few minced leaves on our gourmet mac & cheese tonight.

Dahlia

Hydrangea

Another dahlia

Puppy-pile on Matty Sioux!

Expiration date: January 23, 2010.

Firecracker Triathlon

2009-07-05T18:09:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago David asked a handful of us if we'd be interested in doing a sprint triathlon on the 4th of July. I thought my excuse of 'I swim like a lead weight' would suffice, but he kept twisting my arm until I consented. I'm glad I did. I borrowed a bike from Bill, Melis's swim goggles, and had to get some biker shorts. I knew that I'd be towards the end of the pack in the swim (I was), but I was hoping to make up time on the bike (I was). I had passed about 25 people on the bike before mile 7, when my smooth-riding bike got bumpy real fast. A blown back tire had me walking until a guy named Lance (I doubt his last name was Armstrong) lent me a tube & a tire changing kit. It took me a while to figure it out, but 19 minutes after I went flat I was racing again. Before the race started, I had hoped to finish before 1:30 in my first tri, but I still came in at 1:33. . .so I'll take it! Thanks to Abee (& Melis) for making a sweet sign to root me on. It helped!

I'm sure there are some spiritual parallels to be found the race. Trials, tribulations, being helped out when you can't help yourself, continuing on even though dissappointments may come, the blessings of supportive friends & family, etc. Granted, this is a small-scale race that doesn't mean anything. But participating in it sure was rewarding, much like this journey we call life.

Camp Muir. . .almost

2009-06-14T15:08:00.001-07:00

As much as I'm missing Melis & Abee Joy (visiting her folks in UT this week), I'll be honest - I was pretty stoked about this hike. Darrel, Mike & I left after our softball game (we won 14-0) and camped at Cougar Rock campground, near the entrance to Mt Rainier NP. Mike treated us to dough boy's & a killer breakfast. On Saturday morning we were joined by Kristin, Steve, and Jeremy for the assault on the mountain. We were headed roughly for the horizon behind the two tall trees on the right.

We started at 5,400' elevation, on a mission to get to Camp Muir, which is at 10,100'. Attempting a 4,700' climb in June takes a bit of luck, as the weather at that elevation is always a wild card. For a couple of hours, it was beautiful - about half sun & half clouds. But the clouds kept building, and soon we started hearing far-off thunder. Around 8,300' the clouds moved in pretty thick. Below is a group trying for the summit. Is that a ghost?! Oh. . .just you, Kristin.

As we sat & grabbed a bite for lunch, we started getting pelted by hail, which sent us scrambling for our jackets. Shortly after that, the lightning got a little too close for comfort, and chased us down. I think we could have endured the pounding of the hail, but none of us wanted to have to explain to someone else's family why we didn't turn back when the lightning started.

It hailed on us for ~45 minutes non-stop, with plenty of booming thunder - a reminder to how quickly conditions up at elevation can change. We were all pretty soggy before long, but had a great time on the way down. Steve here demonstrates perfect glisading technique.

Darrel, Kristin, Steve, Mike, Jeremy, Brian

And, just as we got back to Paradise, most of the clouds on Rainier broke, and it looked like the weather was pretty decent up there again. Typical.

As Darrel pointed out, it's nice for the mountain to win once in a while. It breeds a healthy respect for the wildness of Creation, deepens the legends of those tough hikes, and gives you a good excuse to go try it again.

Mtn Biking the Mount Tahoma Trails

2009-06-08T22:31:00.000-07:00

No. . .the road wasn't like this for long.

Trillium

Cooper Creek Hut

Mount Si & Waiting for a Return

2009-06-07T23:01:00.000-07:00

After dropping Melis & Abee off at the airport (heading for UT), I took Matty & climbed Mount Si. It's a Seattle favorite, and despite the crowds, a pretty good hike. Here's the view I was met with at the top.

Looking close, you can see the skyscrapers of Seattle just left of center, with light glinting off the waters of Puget Sound on the right.
Matty couldn't have done better. We moved a pretty brisk pace, which probably made her more willing to stick by my side most of the trip.

Melis snapped this one a few days ago, as Abigail was waiting for daddy to come home. Now the roles are reversed ;-)

Let me leave you with a stimulating John Piper quote that Tom shared with us in Sunday School today:

"From all eternity the ever-existing, never-becoming, always-perfect God has known himself and loved what he knows. He has eternally seen his beauty and savored what he sees. His understanding of his own reality is flawless and his exuberance in enjoying it is infinite. He has no needs, for he has no imperfections. He has no inclinations to evil because he has no deficiencies that could tempt him to do wrong. He is therefore the holiest and happiest being that is or that can be conceived. . .

To share this experience - the experience of knowing and enjoying his glory - is the reason God created the world."

Saturday Close to Home

2009-05-31T15:59:00.000-07:00

Chronicling a few poses in the life of abee joy:

layin' out a blanket. . .

practicin' her quarterback pose. . . bein' silly with the daddy. . .

chillin' out on the perch of daddy's shoulders

and just when we thought she was too tired to play any more, daddy got on his bike and impressed her with a few wheelies & other tricks. she's pretty good for my ego ;-)
go daddy go! yaayyhhh!
she might be a bit small for a big bike now, but she won't be for long!
the following two pics were taken at burfoot park by ashley m, who is a great photographer (obviously). thanks for picking us up when we forgot our camera!

abee & lauren

isn't this what going to the ocean is all about?

and finally we leave you with a shot that was taken at the state capital a couple weeks ago. when we look at this pic, we are reminded that we have a little girl now. . .not a baby anymore.

Ski to Sea 2009

2009-05-26T21:13:00.001-07:00

I think the video is pretty self-explanatory. I wish I could have gotten more footage of the road bike, canoe, & mtn bike legs. Well done to everyone on our two teams!!! Hopefully, David will have more footage before long.

1/2 Marathon & Mother's Day

2009-05-17T20:23:00.001-07:00

Three months ago, when Melis & I ran the Valentine's Day 1/2 Marathon together, I had made up my mind that I was done with long-distance races for the year. Well, in a wild turn of events, I decided 3 days ago that I'd go ahead and run this year's Capital City 1/2M again. I play basketball once in a while, and a few times a month I'll put in an hour or so of cardio at the gym, but I haven't been training like I should for 13.1 miles. But I was kicking around the idea of running 8-10 miles to prep my heart for the 4 miles of XC skiing I plan to do in the Ski to Sea race next weekend. If I was willing to do that distance, I may as well put in a few extra miles and get a nice shirt out of it (I got the shirt for Melis, by the way ;-) I thought I'd have a nice run with Michelle (who wanted to finish in 2:30), and David & Jeremy, who both wanted to finish between 2:10 & 2:20. I had strict orders from Melis (in light of my last Capital City 1/2M) not to come anywhere close to killing myself ;-). Little did I know what speedsters I was running with. It was a very enjoyable run, but truth be told, I couldn't keep up. Michelle & Jeremy both finished in 2:04, and I came in at 2:06. David came in a few minutes after that. Oh ya. . .Kelly smoked us all with 1:44. Well done, Kelly!

I started cramping around mile 10, but after sucking down a couple waters at the last aid station, I felt pretty good. Until the end. Thanks Michelle & Jacob for helping me untie those knots in my legs!

On Mother's Day last week, we took out some of the scraggly bushes in the back corner of our backyard, and planted a dogwood!

It's a bit on the small side now, but trees don't stay small for long out here.

Just liked this pick right out our back door. We love our yard, because it's pretty low maintenance - cool stuff just comes up!

A couple weeks ago Abee had her first dentist appointment. She had a great time there, and had an even better time with the 'ba-oon' they gave her as a parting gift.

Proud Wife Post

2009-04-25T19:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a very special day for our family!! While at a conference in Kennewick, WA, Brian was given an award for:

Young Optometrist of the Year

in Washington State!

Brian had no idea about this, so let me fill you in on a little background.

Several months ago, Dr. Tosland and his wife, Jamie, along with Susan, the Office Manager, asked me to help fill out some paperwork because they wanted to nominate Brian for this award! This award is for optometrists who are doing an exceptional job serving in their practice, the profession as a whole, and mostly in the community.

Already I was so honored on Brian's behalf that they felt him worthy of such an award. Of course, being his wife, I think he could get this award every year though because of what a great doctor and person he is! : ) Realistically though, I knew that there would be many other great nominations as well, and I was excited just to know that people held him in such high regard.

I enjoyed writing down so many of the things that he is part of! So...I'm going to brag.

Brian absolutely LOVES his profession and has such a huge desire to help people see...both with their eyes, but he also hopes he helps others see God's love for them. Because of this, he naturally does things to reach this goal by doing presentations for retirement homes, doing school screenings, or by giving special eye talks to kids. He has been Society President of the his Optometric Society (OPW) for 3 years. He loves serving at our church in several ways, and this past year also helped dream up the No-Cost Vision Clinic at the Union Gospel Mission.

I didn't hear anything since the nomination was sent off, so I figured that he wasn't selected this year...that is until about a week ago. Susan called me to tell me that he indeed was chosen for the award, but she and I were sworn to secrecy or the committee chairman said she'd have Susan's head. :)

So...Susan and I schemed a plan to get me there without Brian knowing. Brian left for the conference Wednesday evening, thinking he wouldn't see me until late Sunday night. I wasn't going to go because what do you do with a 1.5 year old for 4 days at a hotel when she doesn't like to swim! Little did he know! I talked with him each evening, letting him know how much Abee was missing him and that maybe we could skype while he was there. He bought it all!

Friday morning Abee and I made the long drive out there. We got there a little early, so we spent some time at the local McDonald's Playland. Yes, Abee was in her fancy Easter dress playing on the slides!

We waited there until I got a call from another co-hort in crime, Donna, saying that it was safe to sneak into the conference center. We listened outside the door, waiting for several other business speeches and awards, and then finally they presented his award to him.

The presenter first went through a list similar to the one I gave above of some of Brian's accomplishments. Brian said that he thought it was a little funny because each thing matched what his story was. It didn't take long for him to figure out they were talking about him.

As he went up to accept his award, all the doctors and conference attendees gave him a standing ovation. So neat! Then...Brian had to give a little speech! I felt a little bad for him because he had no idea, so he didn't have time to prepare anything, but he did a wonderful job thanking them for the honor, understanding that there are many other worthy candidates out there. He also thanked those who help out with the vision clinic at the Gospel Mission. He then while looking around more, started saying something like, "I'd also like to thank my wife..." and mid sentence said, "Holy smokes! My wife is in the back with my daughter! When did you get here?!"

Of course everyone looked back at us and we waved while those around giggled!

And that was it!

So...Brian says that there have been only a few times in his life where he has been bamboozled, but that this definitely was one of them!

Brian, I am so proud of you! What an incredible honor! Thank you for allowing God to use your life to bless others around you! I love you!

From the Mountains to the Sound

2009-04-11T22:15:00.000-07:00

This is going to simply be a picture blog. . .at least for now. . .

Visit from G&G K with Grams Great!

2009-03-26T22:19:00.000-07:00

It sure was fun to have G&G K & Great Grams up for a long weekend recently. It was a nice, relaxing time with a lot of hanging out, numerous games, and a couple hours spent each day in a park or on a short nature trail. On Saturday, we went to the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.

Geese are right up there with my most hated animal on the planet. Canada Geese are slightly more tolerable, and Melis was glad that I didn't get the chance to pick a fight with any of them ;-)

Chillin' in the afternoon sun.
Abigail had no fear when it came to these big birds. She walked right out towards them, and they didn't really seem to mind the little 'critter' coming at them.

Grams' 80th bday is coming up next month, so we thought we'd celebrate early. Happy Birthday Grams (or Great Grams, depending on your perspective)! On Sunday night, we spent some time at the kitchen table getting a family history lesson of the generations in the Koning & VanderStelt family long before we got here. Thanks Grams!

Gramps/Dad was pretty excited about the cartoons Abee was watching.

Today Abigail got her first haircut. I've been lobbying for this for a few months now, but Melis is afraid her curls won't come back once they're cut. Abee looks a little nervous herself.

Tonight I was putting a little thought into a possible weekend hike. Hopefully I can impart a love for maps & exploration to my daughter. She pointed to the South Fork of the Skokomish. It might just be the perfect hike for Saturday!

Comedy quote of the day (Melis saying to Matty Sioux): 'You may die someday of rotten teeth, but you won't die from lack of love.'

The Ides of March & other Miscellanea

2009-03-15T12:15:00.000-07:00

This was the scene this morning from our front porch. The weather predictions sure missed this one - even the newspaper, which I had to dig out from under 4 inches of snow, said nothing about snow today. But it has now turned to rain. Here's the spring-like weather we'd like to see more of, taken last week.

That position doesn't look terribly comfy. It's a good thing babies are made of rubber - Abee's taken a few nice tumbles recently.

2009-02-28T22:43:00.000-08:00

A little fun with a new computer program, with a photo from lunch at Millersylvania Park today.

Another Saturday @ Rainier

2009-02-21T21:22:00.000-08:00

Melis & I have had the pleasure of being able to take care of Michael, an Army Officer, after a recent extensive surgery. He's doing great, but to give him some peace & quiet from the normally krazy Koning house, we decided to take advantage of the nice day & head up to Rainier.

First stop: the new visitor's center. 'Hmmmm, what mischief can I get into?' Abee was pretty happy with herself that she could climb all the way up to this telescope. . .

. . .but she had a hard time figuring out exactly what to do with it.

OK, I admit it. I cheated on this photo. I know it's not hard to tell ;-) But I still like it!
We didn't spend a whole lot of time outside. It was pretty warm (a sunny 35-40 degrees), but she wasn't too wild about walking on the slippery hard-pack snow.

' Mommy & Daddy, can we go home to see Matty Sioux now?'

Dancing Abee

2009-02-19T22:34:00.000-08:00

Melis & Abigail have a morning ritual - movin' & groovin' to Ellen at 10:00am. To you sign language novices, the sign she does once the music stops is 'more'. We think she gets her dance moves from her puppy ;-)

ok. . .I after realizing that I'm not very good at videos, I think I finally have this figured out ;-)

2009-02-16T13:31:00.001-08:00

The following event takes place from 10:00-10:10 am.

Hi! I'm Abigail Joy!

It's for me again? I guess I have time to take it!

Oh, yes! Hi Grandpa and Grandma!

Well, I have been very busy singing songs about fishies,

practicing my dance moves, and reading about brown bears.

Can you guys tell me what the snake says?
No, no! That's what the monkey says! You guys need more practice!
Ok. Here's a joke for you. What do you get when you drop a piano down a mine shaft?

Ha! Ha! A Flat Minor!! Ha! Ha! I'm so funny!

Oh no! We lost our connection! This must not be Verizon!
I didn't get a chance to say good-bye!

Can we call them back? ...Please!

Ohh! That's a neat camera!

Ok. It's a good thing that I'm easily distracted!

1/2 Marathon in 2:01

2009-02-08T22:50:00.000-08:00

I couldn't have been more proud of my wife today (this one's for you, babe!). She's been faithfully training with Traci & Jocelyn (& the kiddos!) for 3 months now to run these 13.1 miles. The total mileage for the last three months has been almost exactly 150 miles (and she's been keeping pretty good track!).
When we got to the race this morning, the temp was 32 degrees. Chilly. . .but not much risk of heat stroke ;-)

Melis might add more details about how the race went tomorrow. . .but I'll just give the Cliff Notes version: it went awesome. After running with Melis in training runs, I thought that a best-case scenario might put us at about 2:05. . .but that'd be pushing it. We got to the 1/2 way mark at exactly 59:57. . .and we finished in 2:01 exactly. A pretty amazing race for the three 'cheatah's' first 1/2.
The significance of that crazy yellow bandanna? That's a part of the shirt they cut off me that I was wearing during the last 1/2M that I ran and got heat stroke. One part spite, one part redemption, and one part thankfulness for another shot at it.

The official name of this was the Valentine Marathon & Half. Hence the cheesy shirt.

A big thanks goes out to the ladies for keeping me entertained the whole race. At different points we all told stories (the childbirth comparisons lasted a little long for my liking), but the ABC song game was a little more enjoyable. Melis gives a big shout out to Abigail Joy, who put her 'stroller face' on for roughly 80 miles (including one 9 mile run), helping the Mom train.

Not a bad 31st bday.

Fireproof & Kennedy Creek

2009-02-07T16:40:00.000-08:00

Melis & I rented Fireproof from Redbox last night. Once you get past the slightly cheesy acting, we highly recommend it. Cleared out our lacrimal systems quite nicely. My favorite quote (roughly): 'Tomato juice!?!? Man, you gotta know there are some serious repercussions to that!'

After doing our taxes this morning (yeah for refunds!), to stretch our legs, we went to Kennedy Creek. A few months ago we went there to see all the salmon coming back upstream. We saw a few very decomposed carcasses today, but otherwise enjoyed the whole area to ourselves. Abee has been enjoying 'scaring us' by poking her head around a corner and saying 'BOO'.

Matty enjoyed the stream while Abee enjoyed trying to throw rocks. She still throws like a very little girl. . .but I'm working on that ;-)
Gotta love those shaggy trees.

We were woken up at exactly midnight last night to the noise of music. It took us a minute to figure out where it was coming from, but upon closer inspection, it ended up being from Abigail's room - she must have flipped a switch on her alarm clock/radio sometime yesterday. As I opened the door to her room, I realised the music was actually a lot louder than what it sounded like from our bedroom. I was prepared to find her crying and needing a big daddy-hug. Turning off the music, I found her very much awake, but with a grin on her face & clapping her hands to the rhythm! I re-wrapped her, and she fell right back asleep. That little girl does love her music.

Lookin' Back @ '08

2009-02-01T22:04:00.000-08:00

Here are some of our favorite nature-only pics of '08.

Recognizing Brilliance

2009-01-25T10:44:00.000-08:00

Today in church Pastor Mark shared a story that I thought was very telling of my life. Maybe you can relate. Here's how it goes (parts of this are me summarizing, and the parts in italics are unapologetically plagiarized from here:

Two years ago an experiment was conducted. Joshua Bell, one of the finest violin virtuosos that walks the planet, dressed in average street clothes, took a 1713 Stradivarius to the subway in Washington DC. He opened his case toward the crowd, and tossed some change in just to get things going. For 43 minutes he played some of the finest and complex music that has ever tickled the eardrums of man. The acoustics of the subway station turned out to be surprisingly good, according to the man who regularly fills the biggest & most famous concert halls of the world.

During that 43 minutes, exactly 1,097 people passed by. What was the reaction? In the words of Bell himself, "It was a strange feeling, that people were actually, ah . . ." The word doesn't come easily. ". . . ignoring me." Bell is laughing. It's at himself. "At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cellphone goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when someone threw in a dollar instead of change." This is from a man whose talents can command $1,000 a minute. The final tally for the nickels & dimes tossed his was was $32.17. Some people rudely even flipped a few quarters at him (not at his case).

As it happens, exactly one person recognized Bell, and she didn't arrive until near the very end. For Stacy Furukawa, a demographer at the Commerce Department, there was no doubt. She doesn't know much about classical music, but she had been in the audience three weeks earlier, at Bell's free concert at the Library of Congress. And here he was, the international virtuoso, sawing away, begging for money. She had no idea what the heck was going on, but whatever it was, she wasn't about to miss it.

Furukawa positioned herself 10 feet away from Bell, front row, center. She had a huge grin on her face. The grin, and Furukawa, remained planted in that spot until the end.

The take home metaphor is simple. How often do we fail to recognize, appreciate, & marvel at the glory of the Creator of the universe, whose Symphony is constantly being played out amongst us? For myself, I should more often sit - front and center - with a huge grin on my face and in my heart, marveling at the glorious things God is doing right in front of me.

Spoilin' da sista's @ Alderbrook

2009-01-20T22:29:00.000-08:00

Here's the photos of our weekend at Alderbrook on the Hood Canal, a long arm of the Puget Sound about 45 NW of us. It's late, & I've had a nice, long day (just got home from presenting to the Shelton Lions Club about the Community Vision Clinic), so I'm heading to bed soon. Melis will add some color commentary tomorrow if she gets a chance.

bk's favorite non-people pic of the weekend.

New Year's in SoCal

2009-01-07T21:30:00.000-08:00

We'd be the first to admit it, but we're pretty blessed. After spending time in Utah for Christmas, we got the chance to celebrate the beginning of 2009 in Southern California. It sure beat hanging out here in Olympia where it snowed and snowed and snowed.

The first day we were there we got picked up from LAX, and were swept away to the Reagan Reagan Library, which is really a museum, and included the real life Air Force One that was in service for 28 years, beginning in 1973. But. . .we didn't get any pics of that.

The second day (or was it the third. . .I was on vacation and could have cared less about time) we went to The Living Desert & Botanical Park, which I'd highly recommend for anyone visiting Palm Desert.
The Butterfly House was cool, but it also had all kinds of wild plants & animals from anywhere in the world that has deserts.
Anyone recognize this guy? He's what gave this sleeping med its name.
They had a small petting zoo, which mostly consisted of goats. Abee was pretty hilarious in there. She was very happy being around the goats, and didn't mind sitting right next to them, but there was no way we were going to get her to touch one. She simply refused. We wonder if it could have had something to do with her experience outlined in the second paragraph of this.

You'd think we spent some time on the Serengeti. Nope. Just Palm Desert.

Abee was a trooper, and enjoyed picking at all the bushes along the way. She even added a few more animal noises to her repertoire.

Then after seeing Marley & Me, which is a fairly good flick (the book is way better), we ate at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Riverside. Love that pasta!

Livin' it up with Gramps.

Hangin' out around the Mission Inn.

Melanie worked for quite a while on a banner for their church. It turned out great, and Mel even got a few props from the pastor during the service.

Grams (or Grams Great, from Abee's perspective) treated us to a great Sunday dinner before heading off to the airport.

If you haven't caught the weather today, it's been raining cats & dogs here in western Washington. All the rivers within 100 miles of here are at flood stage, I-5 is closed just south of us, and I-90 is closed over the passes. Our rain gauge has collected over 6 inches of rain in the last 24 hours. Last year floods caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage around here, so pray that doesn't happen again. Thankfully, our house is halfway up Tumwater Hill, so we're fine. But a lot of our friends are a little more nervous. Right now our power is flickering, so I better be done with this post. . .

Christmas in Utah (and ID, MT, & WY)

2008-12-29T22:17:00.000-08:00

We were blessed to be able to go to Melis's folk's place for Christmas this year.

We couldn't resist dressing Abigail up in her Santa Baby outfit again, to the delight of Grandpa & Grandma.Our Christmas present from them was a trip to Yellowstone - in the thick of winter! What a thrill (& chill!) it was to see the area covered in snow.
We took a snow coach in (pictured a few pics below), and learned a lot from our tour guide, who doubles as a park ranger during the summer. Of the many interesting things we saw was the Madison River (any guesses who it was named by?), merely inches deep, doesn't freeze all winter!!! It was 5 degrees when we were there, and it gets a lot colder than that. Any other river would freeze - but this was is heated by crazy hot water flowing steadily into it by the geysers & other geothermal features that help make this place famous. This makes it a haven of life for creatures big & small, like these Trumpeter Swans.
Firehole Falls.

On the loop near Old Faithful.
The obligatory shot of Old Faithful herself going off.

The Lion Group, which I thought was more impressive than OF.

We found out that you can tell the temperature of the water by the color of the algae. If I'm not mistaken, this orange/brown color was roughly 150. It's amazing how a frozen tuft of grass can live there, too. I love God's creation!

After walking around the Old Faithful area for an hour & a half, we jumped back on the snow coach and rolled down the road to our next stop.

Beautiful wife & daughter. Abigail handled the trip quite well. I don't know that she'd readily sign up to do it again tomorrow, but the dozen or so layers of clothes kept her quite warm. She even fell asleep toward the end of the OF area. As I took her into a warm yurt they had set up, I was met with the stares of about 15 senior citizens - one of which even grabber her camera. I nervously unbundled my wide-eyed daughter, and was relieved to find her warm from head to toe. Here's a fun fact for you: When it gets cold outside, Elk need to start burning body fat at zero degrees to keep warm. Bison can stay cozy until 20 below, but moose (yup, our favorite animal!) stay plenty comfy (e.i., don't start burning their fat reserves) until the mercury dips below -50 degrees! In fact, they stay so warm that they're one of the few animals that actually goes up in elevation for the winter! Gotta love those moose.

On our way back we saw plenty of wildlife, like this coyote.

And this cow elk, gleaning a few remaining nibbles before a long winter.

And another coyote, who was enjoying what looked like some unfortunate frozen animal. Speaking of coyote, Abee is learning qutie a few animal sounds (not too many words in english yet - we're still at the animal sound level ;-). One of her favorites is the high pitched 'Ooouuuuwwwwww. . .' howl of the aforementioned canine.

Sun Dog (on the right) above the Madison.

Just had to add this pic of my hot wife & sweet kiddo on the snow coach with the sun going down.

At the entrance to Ellowstone NP.

Coming back into West Yellowstone, where we spent two nights.

Yup, I'd say Abee enjoyed herself.

And because we're just a little crazy, we thought we'd go snowshoeing with our old Salt Lake church's Youth Group in Big Cottonwood Canyon, just above SLC. We went to one of Melis & my favorite places where we often went when we lived there, Willow Lake.

One of the things we miss is the aspen trees, which aren't to be found on the west side of the Cascades (at least not that we've found).

I think this might be my favorite pic of this post.

Finally a little blue sky! But it didn't last for long.

Group shot, with Solitude Ski Resort in the background.

It didn't show up quite as clear as we wanted, but can you see the name of the HS YG? Impact.

Melis gets credit for pointing out this rather funky lookin' tree as we made our descent.

Hope your Christmas adventures were enjoyable and safe (but not too safe ;-). And mostly I hope that you were struck with an increased appreciation for the power of God and His overwhelming grace for us.

December in Oly

2008-12-17T17:07:00.000-08:00

Just a few pics from the past couple of days. . .

'Awww, come on, mom & dad. Don't squish my face!'
Our Tuesday Night Bible Study showing our true colors. Earlier we went to a nursing home to sing Christmas carols to the residents. Our Santa Baby warmed the hearts of all who were there. We were so proud of her as she waved to the elderly people living there, even going up to a few and touching their hands. Abigail also enjoyed singing songs with us, especially when it came to 'fa la la la la, la la la la.' Then we came home to make english muffin pizza. Tasty.

'Uh. . .guys. . .what's up with all that white stuff out there?'

Yeah for snow!!!

Abigail tolerated her time spent outside, but Matanuska (aptly named after this glacier) would have loved to have spent all day playing with us in it.

My two snow angels.

In other news, it appears we have coons under our deck. Any coon huntin' ideas other than a late night stakeout?

Thanksgiving & Providence

2008-12-09T22:06:00.000-08:00

We had the pleasure of getting the whole Koning clan together for Thanksgiving. We took advantage of the nice weather to head down into the Snake River Canyon, as we often do.

I think we'd all agree that the best part of the trip was getting the two Smackeroo's together - Dillon & Abee, especially with their Grandpa & Grandma K.

This pic might not show it too well, but they actually played very well together. We sure enjoyed seeing them interact.
Abigail was pretty impressed with something here. . .

Dillon is one strong galute. Abee enjoyed having him pull her around on this horse. Unfortunately for Dillon, she wasn't able to return the favor very well.

We also went out to Dierke's Lake and some of the Hidden Lakes around there. It's just a mile or two from where this famous event happened.

Don't be fooled - they aren't displaying their scholarly abilities with this thick book in hand - it's actually the Cars dvd case. They did get quite the kick out of that movie (as did Kristin & Serena, judging from the background).

On a different note, I've been actively seeking more donations lately for various items for the free Community Vision Clinic at the Gospel Mission. One of those items was a bunch of reading glasses. I sent out a handful of letters to online vendors, hoping to get donations from one or two of them (it is the end of the year after all, and I was hoping to get a couple of businesses who are in need of more tax deductions!). A package of 55 reading glasses & sunglasses arrived at my office today from a company in Colorado. The owner had included a note saying that her brother had lived for quite some time as a homeless man right here in Olympia! Somehow, she said, he had obtained glasses, and she was glad to be able to give to a cause that is taking care of people like her brother. Who knows. . .maybe it was even this clinic who had helped him see. It's interesting how God works.

Koning's Go Wild

2008-12-05T20:44:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Abee Go Boom

2008-11-18T22:00:00.000-08:00

So far in life, Abigail hasn't experienced too many big bumps or bruises. She's had her share, but not quite like these. In fact, two nights ago she fell out of her 'race car' (a big diaper box) & hit our coffee table, causing the smaller area of eccymosys near her lateral canthus on the temporal aspect of her oculus dexter (Melissa just called me a nerd ;-). Last night she simply crashed into our glider chair, thus creating the dinosaur egg above that same eye.

Thankfully, after getting loves from Mom for a few minutes, she almost looked proud of her battle scars ;-)

Sat @ NW Trek

2008-11-15T21:09:00.000-08:00

Melis has had a 'girls day out' pencilled in on the calendar for over a month now. They went up to Trader Joe's in Tacoma, shopped for a while, and had a nice lunch. But it was a nice day, and not wanting it to go to waste, I packed up Abee & our stuff and set out for NW Trek.

The first thing we had to do, of course, was eat a juicy burger. Greasy might be a better word. Nothing short of dripping with lard. Poor Abigail is getting clogged arteries already at 1 year old. But she loved it! And the fries too ;-)

We took the stroller, but she wanted nothing to do with it. She was there to walk. And walk she did. She would hold my hand sometimes, but often shook her head 'NO' when I offered a finger. I suppose you have to work those calories off somehow.
Baldy.
Grandma Koning's favorite animal ;-). I don't think she'd mind me saying she was pretty bummed when they decided not to allow the hunt in Idaho this year for them.
Practicing what they learned in french class.
Shroom & fall colors.
Abee spent a good 5 minutes playing with this piece of moss and a few others near it.

This is as photogenic as the grizz wanted to be today. I never did see his head.

'Daddy, I'm a big girl now - watch me push the stroller. . .if I could just reach it.'
After an hour and a half walking around, making animal sounds, and climbing on benches, she started to get pretty tired. And tired girls don't follow directions very well. She didn't want to be held. She didn't want to ride in the stroller. She wanted to walk down the areas where small children aren't supposed to walk (must take after Mom that way, right?). I couldn't help but crack up when she kept pointing near the 'no' in this sign as I tried to coax her back to the main path. I think she understands that word far better than any 14 month old girl should.
We caught the Golden Eagle on our way out.

And finally. . .she gave in and rode. And slept most of the way home.

In other news, we were quite proud of Abee last night, as we visited Camp Quixote, a homeless camp that is fairly well organized, with a pretty interesting mission. It's not a destination for homeless people to stay at indefinitely, but something to help them for a short time as needed. Regardless of how one feels about homelessness, it's a reality, and we were there to make sure the residents got a warm meal and few extra smiles that night. Even though it was a bit dark, with some interesting faces around, Abee warmed up to the experience after a while. We pray God used her, even at this young age, to bring joy to the hearts of His children.

Speaking of bringing joy, that little girl has taught me a thing or two about my relationship with God. One of those little lessons is about our duty - our opportunity - to bring Joy to God. He doesn't need us. He doesn't need our obedience. He doesn't need us to be thrilled & enthralled with Him. But He wants us to. In the same way that kids bring joy to their parents, we have a great opportunity to bring Joy to our Creator who loves the dickens out of us not because of what we do. He loves us just because we're His kids. And that's all that matters.

Trick or Treat & Kennedy Creek

2008-11-01T14:39:00.000-07:00

It's been a great autumn around here. The colors have been great! I overheard someone say this was due to a few early (& light) frosts, combined with a general lack of precip for the past month. Some old timers have said this is the best year for fall colors they can remember. We'll take it! So will Matty. We decided to take a quick trip to Kennedy Creek today to check out the November Chum Salmon run. And to check out the massive maple leaves. And to let The Mighty Matanuska run wild & run free - just the way a puppy should live.

Abigail has been fun lately. Sure, she has her moments, but it's fun to see her develop. For instance, this morning in the living room she handed the cracker box to Melis, saying 'dgish' - which has become her standard word for everything from 'what is this' to 'I want this.' Melissa told her to get a plate to put some one, so she walks confidently into the kitchen where I am, and starts looking in the tupperware cupboard, where she grabs a tupperware and brings it right back to Mom for her bowl of crackers. Kids learn so fast!But I digress. Here we all pose for a big-happy-family shot.

My three favorite girls!

Finally Abee gets let out of the backpack so she can run wild & run free too!

This area is about 15 minutes NW of our house, just off of Hwy 101. There's a thick web of old logging roads that go every different direction once you get back in there a ways. But we didn't go too far past the area best for viewing salmon. Supposedly, there are around 30,000 chum salmon that come up this small creek every year. I'm not sure how they all fit! This is still pretty early in the season, so we only saw a handful of them. Anyone care to make a puzzle out of this? Melissa was thinking of Halloween a month ago already. She saw this tiger costume in Costco and couldn't resist. For the last month, we've been asking Abee 'What sound does a tiger make?', to which she often replies 'Raaawwwwrrr!' (with varying degrees of ferocity).

Melis & I took her over to our neighbors house, where we visited for quite a while. We reminisced about Halloween three years ago, when Melis & I got access to our newly-purchased house. We spend the evening cleaning the floors, walls, & anything else that needed it. I seem to remember us both having sore backs for the next few days. Yeah for our house! She wasn't a big fan of the hood, but tolerated it for a few pictures.

She isn't always this happy when she's tired, but after a while, she'd just lay her head down on the couch or the floor for a bit and rest, before regaining her energy for a few more minutes.

Pumpkins & Leaves

2008-10-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

After a trip down to a conference in Anaheim for me (hi Koning & Vander Linde clan!) and a short week in Utah for Melis & Abee (hi everyone in Utah!), life is back to normal (as normal as it gets for us). We were greeted upon our return with great fall weather.

Capitol Lake is a great spot to run, play or just enjoy a nice day. Melis often walks/runs around it, and Abee was thankful for some time outside of her jogging stroller! She and her friend Lucy are enjoying the crispy leaves.

Practicing those runnin' skills!

An old piling in front of a railroad tressel.Our veggie crop was pretty meager this year. Abigail didn't really help it out too much. . .but she does enjoy both picking and eating tomatos!
Our TNBS (Tues Night Bible Study) carved pumpkins again this year. We're still finding seeds in places like behind our toaster. I wonder how they got there. . . ;-)

The fruit of our labor (or are they veggies?).

A 30 second exposure of the clouds lit up above Oly.

Lattin's Cider Mill

2008-10-20T20:54:00.000-07:00

A trip to Lattin's Cider Mill every fall has quickly become a family tradition for us. And for good reason. Not only do they have a petting zoo with all sorts of farm animals, an apple sling-shot that you can aim at a target in a field filled with cows (the target is optional), a tractor/hay ride driven by a wild-bearded old farmer, award winning apple cider, a pumpkin patch, but they have hands-down the best apple fritters on the planet!

Unfortunately for Abee, the most humorous part of our trip involved a goat in the same pen as pictured above. She'd fed a few sheep with the grain I'd pick off the ground, and seemed to enjoy the animals licking her palm. But when one particularly large goat became frustrated that Abigail wasn't standing close enough to easily get the treat, it let out a deep grunting sound. I personally didn't really know goats could make that particular sound. Abee didn't either - she fell back into my arms, and a few seconds later decided to let the goat know that making that sound was definitely uncalled for. The tears falling down her face helped emphasize her point.

Pardon the plethora of kid pics below. . .but I thought the fam might enjoy them. Kisses!? What's up with that?! Get those yucky wet lips off my cheeks! That's my girl!
On the wild-man's hay ride, with Brian, Hudson, Jocelyn, & Bristol.
Now this is what I came for! Give me more of that fritter!!!
I know, it's a little early for a boy to have his arms around my daughter on a park bench. . .so I'm glad to say she looks a little skeptical (no offense Hudson).

We have a park a couple of blocks away that we often go to on a whim (like we did tonight). We're often the only ones there. It has plenty of grass for Matty to romp around in, and Abee loves the tennis courts and the play area. Here you get a flash of Matanuska fur in the foreground. Hmmm. . .what mischief can I get into?
Speaking of mischief, she's quickly learning what no means. When she gets told 'no,' she'll shake her head no, leave what she doing (usually), and get a big smile on her face. I'm not sure if the smile is from her being proud of herself for understanding what we're saying to her, or if she's just being a stinker. I'm afraid it's probably the latter.
Yup, she does love her books.
And she gets quite a kick out of playing peak-a-boo.
On a not-so-happy note, we found out two weeks ago that our pellet stove has a hole in the exhaust pipe, and the repair man recommended not using it. We were hoping to replace that anyway in the next couple of years. If that wasn't enough, our gas furnace stopped working a few days ago. So after a few failed attempts to fix the furnace (my best guess what that the flux capacitor wasn't getting the 1.21 gigawatts that it needed), I turned my attention to the pellet stove. There's something motivating about waking up to a house that's 57 degrees, and no way to warm it up! The good news is, I spent $12 on materials to patch the exhaust pipe behind the pellet stove, and that's up and working. The bad news is that my fears about the the furnace came true. That's going to be a $600 fix. Ouch. Maybe I can talk Melis into using only the pellet stove for heat this winter ;-)

Saturday @ Rainier

2008-10-12T11:52:00.001-07:00

Ohanapecosh & Bench Lakes

2008-09-14T16:43:00.000-07:00

On Friday morning, our friend Malissa was gracious enough to do a photo shoot at Tumwater Falls with our family (including Matty Sioux). We know that anytime you're dealing with a kid, you never know how it'll work out. From our perspective on Friday, it didn't work well at all. Abigail didn't cooperate, and it wasn't until the very last pic that Mal took did she even think about giving some semblance of a smile. But she's good enough to even make an unhappy baby look good. Check out a few of the photos she got here. All of them are amazing, but my favorite is the B&W one.

On Saturday we took advantage of the nice summer weather that's holding out for us, and headed up in the Corolla with Kristin & Michelle to the SE Corner of Mt Rainier NP. None of us had been there before, but it came highly recommended by some friends. Now the little stinker decided to give us some smiles. She's all about doing things in her own timing. Something this week clicked with her walking. She's been capable of it for a few weeks now, but this week she made huge improvements, and she was glad to show those off wherever we allowed her to.
' Uh. . .Auntie Kristin. . .don't you think this is a little big for me?'

Some hot springs on the way to Silver Falls.
Silver Falls itself.
Thanks for holding still for a 1.3 second exposure, Kristin!
'Hmmm, what trouble can I get into around here?'
Walking in the woods with Mom & Dad.Smilin' with Mama.
With the Aunties
'Guys, I promise, you can let go now.'
'See, I told you so!'Some of the alpenglow just above Snow Lake, not far from Paradise.
Upper Bench Lake, about 1 minute after the sun went down. . .about 30 seconds after we arrived, out of breath.
Thanks for being a trooper, Abee!
We had plenty of moonlight to walk back with.
The final remnants of the day get swallowed below the horizon (it took a 20 second exposure to capture this shot with as little light as there was there!).

Backpacking to Lake Ellinor

2008-09-07T21:44:00.000-07:00

When Dave asked me a few weeks ago about backpacking this weekend, I was a little bummed, because I had already committed to give a talk to a Lions Club about the InfantSee Program. Thankfully, my talk was at 9 am, which meant I'd just leave a few hours after everyone else.

The destination was Lake Eleanor via Grand Park, leaving from Sunrise on Mt Rainier.

I was glad to have Roger join me on the way out. Here's a shot of him as we approached Grand Park, which is a unique plateau 1 1/2 miles long, and 1/2 mile wide. Because it's nearly all meadow, you can almost imagine that far off bush being a elk or a bear. But that's all we could do - no large wildlife was spotted on the way out, although we did hear some elk bugling in a valley nearby.
Lake Eleanor in the morning.
These camp robber birds were actually a bit annoying. They'd dive-bomb anyone with food, and didn't mind landing on your hand for a nibble of whatever you had to offer. You wonder how they got this fearless ;-)
Dave tried his luck at fishing, but only pulled up some of tin foil.
Mark & I stayed nice & cozy in here.
Dave, Mark, me, Bill, & Roger.

Grand Park & Rainier on our way out this morning.
One of the numerous small falls along the way.
Bill shows his balancing skills navigating the slippery rocks.
The wildflowers were mostly done, but some bear grass was still hanging around.
We hiked this whole valley to the plateau on the far end, about 9 miles total each way.

Marmots were plentiful in this area. It's hard to see, but this guy is chubby enough that he'll have no problem making it through this winter.
Frozen Lake, near Sunrise.
About 400 yards from the parking lot, a bear cub crossed out trail in front of us. We watched for a while for mamma bear, but never did see her!
Thanks for the great weekend, guys! And thanks to Melis & Abee Joy for letting me go!!!

Lewis River Camping Trip

2008-09-01T21:48:00.000-07:00

Labor Day weekend has often meant camping or hanging out with friends, but this weekend it was just a time for Melis, Abee Joy & I to hang out and enjoy some solitude. We sought this solitude in the Lewis River valley, about halfway between Mt St Helens and Mt Adams. Out first stop was near Ape Caves, at the Trial of Two Forests.

The Trail of Two Forests is so named due to the hundreds of huge potholes (see above). We first trudged off through the woods without having seen an explanation for what they were. I was bamboozled, until an interpretive sign said that they were where trees had been over-run by a lava flow on a previous St Helens eruption (not the most recent one). Here, a downed tree was turned into a cave, quite similar to a typical lava tube.
Guys, did you know I'm one now?
We did a short hike up to Middle Falls.
More Middle Falls.
I hate slugs. In fact, just tonight I killed two of them for eating a few of my last remaining radishes. Slugs love radishes. And beans. And peas. And pumpkins. And squash. And spinach. And now I love to hate slugs. Geese used to be my animal of choice to hate, mostly because of their aggressive antics on a particular running trail I had in Portland. But 'gooses' can rest easy now - my choice of animals to despise has changed. So I got a pretty big kick out of seeing this guy with a bunch of pine needles sticking out of his tail end. And nope, I didn't even put them there!
Upper Falls.
Two chicks & Upper Falls.
Two chicks & a dude at Upper Falls.
It got pretty cold, but only a few sprinkles fell on us one day. The nights were in the low 40's, and we wrapped poor Abigail into numerous layers of clothes, then wrapped her in a few more blankets. But she slept 10 straight hours in her pack & play both nights, and woke up warm from head to toe! Thanks kiddo!
We drove quite a while down some gnarly roads in search for Little Niagara Falls, which the map depicted in a certain location. We found this certain spot with a very high degree of certainty, but there were definitely no falls. Other than this. Not quite what we expected. And I'm not sure it was quite worth all the scratches to our rig. But as Melis said with reckless abandon, 'We don't have a 4x4 for nothing!' That's my girl!
We drove on from the invisible falls, down more forest roads, and finally met up with some pavement. Shortly after, we hit Big Mosquito Lake. And thankfully, there wasn't a bug in sight!
Melis was an awesome navigator on this drive. We criss-crossed forest roads (the very thinnest lines on our 90-page Washington topo map), and headed down any that looked like it had the potential to be cool. Melis told me to turn down this particular 2-track, which took us to the top of Lone Butte. Well, almost to the top. Lower Falls. We camped only 150 yards or so from this one, but didn't go see it until our second evening.

I think this is my favorite scenic picture of the weekend. Simple. Elegant. Just. . .cool.
Abee watched the Olympic gymnasts, and said she'd like to start training for Seattle 2024.
Nothing like Mom & daughter, just chillin'.
This is the end of the line for salmon swimming upstream from the Pacific. The Indians used to hang out here during the salmon runs, and get tons of fish, and dry it for winter.
We camped at Lower Falls Campground #9 (I write that here for our future reference). We're convinced it's the best spot in the campground. It's so big even our cathedral-sized tent looks small.

No babies were harmed in the making of this picture.
We learned this is called Chicken of the Woods. It's edible when young, but this was too mature to eat. I don't mind picking just about any berry here in the PNW, but it'd take me a while to warm up to the idea of eating anything called 'chicken' that looks like this.
Abee loves hats. She loves to take them off, then give it right back to you so you can put it back on, and start the whole cycle over. If only we were all satisfied with such simple pleasures.
Upside-down baby!

Weighing In

2008-08-29T08:59:00.000-07:00

I've never used this blog for political activism before, but I feel too strongly about this topic to let it go unspoken. Allow me to vent.

I had a short conversation with a woman yesterday who was reading a magazine (I think it was People). I used the typical conversation starter, 'How are you?', which started her on a monologue about how amazing Barak Obama's acceptance speech the night previous at the Denver convention was, and how he was going to be such an amazing agent of needed change in government and for the common person on the street. By the way her face lit up, I was pretty sure she'd seen angels from heaven descend behind him as he gave the speech, with celestial choirs announcing him as the savior for the world. However, despite her emotional outpouring, she never took her eyes off the magazine. Hoping the change the subject, I asked her what she had found so interesting in her magazine. She started to turn the page to me, and I caught a glimpse of the title - something about how a mom had recently killed her young son - but she quickly jerked the magazine back to herself and closed it, saying something to the affect of 'oh, it's such a sad story, I don't want to put a damper on your day.'

I now wish I would have started a conversation to help her think through what had just come out of her mouth. But I didn't. I sat stunned for a moment at the hypocrisy of being abhorred with a mom killing her own toddler, yet being so in love with a man who's life's work includes trying to make this very thing possible, the only difference being the age of the baby. Younger than 9 months old? Sure, go ahead! Kill 'em! Older than that? Well, that's somehow a different story.

Here's a short video on the stance that Obama's taken in the past. The heartless cruelty is enough to bring tears to my eyes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypDwNpgIUQc&NR=1

Above your paygrade, Mr. Presidential Candidate?! I pray that God shows more mercy on America than he showed to many nations in the Old Testament days when he ordered the nation of Israel to wipe them out completely, in part due to his sheer disdain for their worship of the god Molech, who they sacrificed their infant children to. We think we're pretty advanced in technology, thought, and culture here in the 21st century, but how much has really changed over the last 3,000 years?

Abigail's 1st, & New Deck

2008-08-27T22:02:00.001-07:00

We've enjoyed having family out here quite a bit recently. A couple weeks ago, Melis's folks came for a visit, and this past weekend my parents came. However, we made them earn their room & board here. We'd wanted to replace our old deck with a new composite one, so we jumped at the chance to use them as slave labor. The picture below doesn't do justice to the number of slivers, rotten boards, and holes that awaited the brave soul that ventured out on to it.

I obviously didn't quite do all my homework, because when we ripped out the stairs, there wasn't a frame at all. So the job got bigger. Jobs like this always have a way of doing that. But Dad provided the brains for framing the stairs, and now they're so solid you could launch a rocket from there without them budging!
Steve provided the braun of the demolition operation.
Mom provided the nourishment for the baby.
Abee provided. . .well she tried to provide some pictures. . .but had a bit of a hard time figuring out how to make this camera work.
Matty provided comic relief. . .and licks. . .and someone to throw the ball to. Just what a good pup is supposed to do.
On Sunday, Abigail turned one!!! Happy birthday daughter!!!
She actually decided it was time to take her first steps the day before her first b-day, and ventured out far enough once to take 11 steps in a row! But she really hasn't done many since.
We teased her about eating cake like a 'girl' - she was a little hesitant at first, but finally got the idea that the point of eating cake on your first birthday is to get more on your face than in your mouth.
Enjoying a new toy. She loves the sirens! Just like Grandpa's cop car!
The deck project took a solid three days to finish. We were hoping to get it done in two, but the stairs were more than we bargained for. On Sunday, after church & the birthday celebration, it started pouring right as we went outside to start working. But a little rain isn't going to stop this Northwest girl!
Good job team!Nothin' quite like a kiddo sleeping on your shoulder.
We actually don't have any pics of the completed deck. . .and there's actually a few loose ends to tie up before it's 100% done, but it sure will be nice for many years (decades?) to come! Thanks so much for all your back-breaking, knuckle-busting, shin-jacking, finger-smashing help!!! It was great to see you. Abee misses you already.

Summit Lake

2008-08-16T22:16:00.001-07:00

When the weather is nice, I look forward all week to the weekend. And often I spend more than a few minutes most weekdays scheming about where to go. This week I thought that the Carbon River trail, leading to the Carbon Glacier on the north slope of Rainier would be the ticket, but I knew the wildflowers should be in bloom now (a couple weeks later than normal, due to the cool weather in early summer). This trail was going to be mostly in old growth forest - cool, but not many flowers. After mulling both Bearhead Mountain and Summit Lake, which are both in the same relative area, I took Eekhoff's advice, and took the fam & the aunties to Summit Lake.

It didn't disappoint.

We hiked up around 1,200 feet in elevation over roughly 3 miles to the lake. Towards the top, there were acres of open meadows with wildflowers - especially bear grass - at full bloom.
No, Abee isn't quite walking. . .yet. Although she is confident enough to stand up and hang out for a while without anyone standing nearby.
She even had the paparazzi chasing her.
This was one of the more relaxing days on the trail we've had in quite some time. We set up 'camp' next to the lake, cooked a nice hot lunch for everyone, and even had blueberry cheesecake for dessert!
It was a toasty day for sure, and as crazy as Matty is, even she needed a break in the shade once in a while.Summit Lake in the foreground, with Bearhead Mtn in the back, which was one of the other options for the day. But on a hot day like this, hiking up to a lake sounded better than to a summit.
Speaking of summits. . .
Melis doing her best Lewis & Clark pose.
The lake must be spring fed, because there were no inlets and no outlets.
There were insects all over the place. This was one that we actually enjoyed having around.
It's a little tough to see here, but Abigail is crashed in her backpack. Surprisingly, she actually sleeps pretty well back there.
Back to the beargrass-filled meadows, with Rainier in the background.

Girl's best friend.
She got a little sleepy again, and slept a good chunk of the way home.
This post wouldn't be complete without mentioning the gnarly road we had to take to get there. It was reminiscent of some of my firefighting days, taking old desert roads that hadn't been traveled on in years (or so it seemed). We pitty the poor hikers who will came back after us to find their car at the trailhead with a flat tire. Bummer for them. The pic below doesn't do it near justice, but the rocks, washouts, ruts & gullies were big, and I'm hoping like crazy the scratches on the side of our rig will buff out, but that's what we have this thing for. No one hurled (although Kristin was looking a little green), and Abee even seemed to enjoy all the bumps! That's my girl!

Tolmie State Park

2008-08-14T23:37:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday we decided to have a little picnic on the Puget Sound. We knew there was a chance of showers, and true to the Koning Rule, those showers found us. Abee says calmly, 'Uh, I don't care about my wet hair, and don't even really mind my hot dog bun getting soggy, but this mustard on my lip is really starting to annoy me.'

Michelle, is there some news you'd like to fill us in on?
The rain soon let up, we packed up the soggy Lays, and went down to check out the water.
Abigail says, 'Dad, do you actually know what you're doing here? That fall looks like it could hurt.'
Melis & I keeping up our little tradition on bridges.
'Mom is a lot more fun to ride on - she has plenty of hair to pull.'
Just a few more Abigail pics on the footbridge.

The poor girl has had a rough last few days. She just got two new teeth on the top, and has two more that look like they could come through any day now. It's amazing how much we love that little gal.

Chinese Olympics 08.08.08

2008-08-09T12:05:00.000-07:00

Guys - check out the exploits of Charlotte Wang, our good friend here from Olympia (who we also knew from Dordt). She was selected as one of around 30 people out of 10,000 applicants to translate for the USA Olympic Committe. Just in the last few days she met numerous famous olympians, including the Williams tennis sisters, and other famous people like Ralph Lauren, the CEO of Old Navy, and many other notables.

http://charlotte2008olympic.blogspot.com/

Kayaking Sequim Bay & Dungeness Spit

2008-08-06T20:45:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we decided to worship with a kayaking trip out of John Wayne Marina (named after the Duke himself) on Sequim Bay.

We rented doubles for a couple hours, and caught the tide at low, which always brings better views of wild sea critters.
We saw a lot of good sized crabs, like this one. I even got one to grab my paddle with it's big pincher (anyone know the real name of those mean-lookin' claws?) and I hauled it out of the water for a few long seconds before it let go and splashed to safety.

I decided this one would be a little tastier after cooking for a while.

Plenty of dive-bombing gulls to watch out for.
I think I had the best view in the Bay.
We also saw quite a few GB herons.
We cruised through some old pilings before heading back to the docks.
That night we took a short walk out on the Dungeness Spit, a pretty neat little area that sticks out a few miles into the Straight of Juan de Fuca.
View of the crew.
Sunset shot of the chicks.
Abigail put up with a lot out here - it was cold and windy, and the spray from the ocean was enough to chill the bones. If she could talk here, she'd have said 'Shiver me timbers! Guys, I'm sure this is fun for you & all, but maybe could we come back and check this place out on a warmer day?'
Yeah for being back at the warm car!
Thanks for being a trooper, Abee Joy!

Hurricaine Ridge

2008-08-04T22:09:00.001-07:00

Log Bed

2008-07-28T21:40:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I get the hankerin' to work on a manly project. I remember fondly things like chopping wood out behind the chicken coup on the dairy growing up. And helping Dad built calf hutches in the commodity shed. And building that 'raft' to float down the canal out of those blue 55 gallon drums (not sure if I ever asked if I could use those, Dad. . .sorry). There's something about producing something with your own hands, sweat (and sometimes blood) that simply gives you a sense of satisfaction.

We had these logs delivered to our house a couple of months ago. They were hand picked by a 'lumberjack' that I know. They come from five different Red Cedar trees that are roughly 80 years old, having grown at high elevation just NW of Mount Rainier under an existing canopy of trees. Therefore they've grown slowly, and their rings are tight, making them a bit prettier. Or so I'm told. Here Matty asks, 'uh. . .this project isn't going to take away from play-time with me, is it?'

We stripped them (the logs, that is), and let them dry for a month.

The first layer (cambium) was pretty easy to remove. But I had to use a draw knife to get down to the deeper layers to show the grain.

Most carpenters measure twice and cut once. I measured about 16 times. . .then thought about it for a while. . .then measured a few more times. . .then cut. . .hoping to only need to cut once. It may have taken me a little longer, but it worked pretty well. Most of this was done by hand. Not a lot of fancy power tools except a drill. Melis helped a ton with sanding, holding the logs in place while I whittled away, planning the dimensions, and hauling the logs around.

One of our favorite parts about this project was actually the smell of the freshly-cut wood. Cedar smells amazing! After using the chisel to make the tenons (pegs), I'd often pick up one of the wood chunks and just take a sniff. Looks like I sniffed one too many times here. Here she is. Although it's not quite done yet. We still need to add the vertical smaller logs on the head & foot boards. That's why they call it a foot board. There's feet on it.
Some of the detail.
There's still a lot of work that needs to go into it - most of the logs aren't sanded very well yet, and then we'll add a clear coat. But it sure feels good having it set up now!

Logs for the bed: a little over a hundred bucks. Eight-inch lag screws to hold it all together: $1.25/each. Making your own bed with your bare hands: priceless.

2008-07-20T12:17:00.000-07:00

Camping was in the works for this weekend. But with Melis helping out with Music & Drama camp at church, we needed to be back on Sunday, which meant just a quick overnighter was in order. Evidently everyone else in Washington had the same idea. When we called to reserve a campsite a few days ago, we found out that the only way we would get a campsite was to run into the middle of camp yelling 'BEAR' at the top of our lungs, hoping people would leave.

So no camping meant hiking. After consulting a few hiking books and websites (I love trails.com - it's too bad they make you fork over some dough to use it), we decided on the Glacier View trail on the west flank of Rainier. We knew snow was a possibility, but we got a little more than we bargained for. Thanks to a detailed topo map, a gps, Kristin's navigation skills, and a dog with a nose for the trail (and birds, and squirels, and baby's bottoms), we were usually able to keep our feet near the trail.
We followed a large meadow for a while, but when it became obvious that the trail was on the other side of the river running through it, we had to get creative on a place to cross. Matty thought we were being a little picky.

Melis almost ended up as wet as Matty just after I took this picture, and I nearly threw the camera down going to help her. That log that her walking stick is planted on. . .not very stable.
Goat Lake was a small lake we came to that was still frozen over. We got a late start on the day, and planned to have dinner up here. But there weren't any grandiose views. So we decided to forego dinner in hopes of reaching a place with views.

The crew at Goat Lake.
We climbed and climbed until we were sure we should turn around given the time, but I kept asking for 'just 5 more minutes.' This is what we were rewarded with.

There were Avalanche Lillies all over, but this flower growing right out of the rock impressed me.

Kristin looking towards Mount St Helens, visible in the distance. We stayed at the 'top', near Gobblers Knob for 5 whole minutes before bustin' a move back to the car, racing the setting sun.

Abigail was a champ. She sang sweet songs of praise to God out loud (sometimes very loud - but they were all happy) for most of the first half. At the halfway mark she got a little grumpy for a while, but after a diaper change and a bottle she just chilled most of the way home.

In front of Mount Beljica.

We made her carry that pack, which she wasn't a huge fan of, but if that was the cost of going hiking, she'd do it any day!
We got back to the car just as the sun was setting.
8 miles round trip, plus a little extra due to some minor navagational difficulties on the way out, getting back just before dark. Perfect timing.

Glacier NP

2008-07-06T21:42:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a week in Glacier with the Koning side of the fam. It was fantastic, refreshing, and spectacular. Our first stop was at Sakuma Farms near Mount Vernon. Nate met us at their big fruit stand a mile of I-5, and hooked us up with the best strawberries that this fertile earth has every produced!!! I've had plenty of berries in my 30 years on this planet, but all pale in comparison to what those Sakuma Bros grow right here in WA.

They had some fun toys for the kiddos, and Abigail didn't hesitate at all climbing right into the cockpit and drivers seat. Look out Amelia Earhart and Danica Patrick.

We stayed the first night in Revelstoke, BC, at the Frontier Hotel. It was an old-west style ya-hoo good time, with a great breakfast! We put Abee to bed and Melis & I played frisbee in their mostly-empty parking lot until it was too dark to see. Melis tossed the disc out into the highway once, but I hit our car twice before we called it a night.

From there we went into Banff and drove up to Morraine Lake where we grabbed lunch and walked out a ways, admiring the deep turquoise color.

Taking advantage of light that kept the day awake until 10:30 at night, we did a bunch that day. We drove the Icefields Highway to the Columbia Icefield in Jasper, and forked out the dough to take the bus-on-steroids up onto the Athabasca Glacier.

I was again reminded why I'm convinced that ice is the most beautiful part of God's created world. For any of you that haven't crossed off 'walking on a glacier' from your bucket list (it ought to be there if it's not), I could write pages trying to describe the depth of the blue that exists deep in the crevasses in a glacier, but it wouldn't be enough.

Melis dipped our Nalgene (yup - we still use 'em dispite all the warnings against them) into the river flowing through the ice and we enjoyed sipping on the 32.1 degree high quality H2O.

Abigail did great on the ice, but we were glad we put on her extra layer.

From there we drove back to Banff and saw the iconic Lake Louise. The Abee Joy wasn't all that impressed. She slept great all the way to Calgary that night.

Then came the main event. We drove from there to Martin City, just outside of Glacier NP in MT. We met up with the Koning side of the family - those from ID, SD, WA, CA, & even CO ('sup Steve!). Here Grams Great enjoys making Abigail smile.

Aaron, Serena, & Dillon at Avalanche Lake.

Cousin Dillon had a blast in the water, but Abee wasn't quite so sure about that lake water. And she was pretty sure there was something a little fishy with the slimy mud between her toes.

Uncle Steve got quite the smiles out of her.

Enjoying just a few of the many waterfalls that cut down from the peaks.

Check out the tongue of this bighorn sheep. Beargrass, anyone?

I enjoyed tinkering with a new lens that I got recently (I owe the idea to Malissa Eekhoff - thanks!). It's a simple, inexpensive, fixed-focus lens that has the ability to have a very wide aperature. The affect is a single point of focus, with everything else blurry. I'd be happy to go into the physics of why this happens. . .but I don't want to put anyone to sleep.

The group shot near the Many Glacier area. Coming back through this area a few hours later, we saw 4 bear in this general viscinity.

A small peice of Redrock Falls, aptly named.

The place we stayed was awesome. We had three cabins, and had a great time. It was a rustic area a ways off the beaten path. Abee seemed to take to the area well. As long as she didn't have to touch the grass.

She has grassophobia.

My two cute chicks.

She got a handful of slivers crawling around on the porch, but didn't mind at all. After all that time in the car, she was just happy to be a free baby once more.

Fence & daisy with the new funky lens.

After getting particularly dirty one day, the cousins got a badly-needed bath. Together.

Blongo ball was a favorite pasttime.

The whole clan again.

As we were leaving, we put Dillon & Abee in an old wagon they had on the property. I'd say they loved it!

After everyone else headed home, we climbed up to the Apgar Lookout, an old fire post. It's 1,850' in 3.5 miles each way was mostly through areas burned out by the 2003 Robert Fire.

Great 360 views.

We could look down to the east and see Lake MacDonald, which we'd taken a boat tour on a few days before.

This fine young buck sporting stubby velvety antlers bid us farewell just before heading home.

We sure appreciate our family! We miss you already.