A trip to Seattle and no cheese for a month!

I'm taking a break from reading Harry Potter (don't you dare tell me what happens) to give another overdue update. This summer is turning out to be busier than I expected!

A week ago I traveled to Seattle for a retreat with the other Fuller extension staff from around the country. It was a fantastic retreat and I really admire and enjoy the people I work with. We did a scavenger hunt around Seattle, one of the few main cities in the US I had not been to. We even got to visit the first ever Starbucks! We also went up in the Space Needle, which was much smaller than I thought it would be. It's dwarfed by the impressive Seattle skyline, but still quite a sight. The picture with the troll was one of the scavenger hunt items, it was the oddest, largest statue I've ever seen tucked under a bridge. We then stayed at a retreat center right on the Pugent Sound and had a great retreat.






Unfortunately, because of an illnes I wasn't able to enjoy any of the Seattle coffee shops - and they were everywhere! After returning from Seattle I went to the doctor to try and figure out why I've been getting sick to my stomach so much in the past 6 months. One thing she asked was had I been under stress the past few months, to which I replied with a list of the life-altering changes that have taken place since last summer. It's a bit overwhelming when you list it all at once, so I'm trusting that 2007-2008 will be much more stable. Most of the changes have been positive, don't get me wrong, but I'm looking forward to a year of not so many "firsts."

The doctor's conclusion was to do blood tests (ugh) and take me off dairy for a month just to see if that might be causing the pains. I'm now hoping I get sick this month just to prove that it's not dairy! On the way home from the doctor's office I went to the store to buy soy milk and soy creamer for my coffee - and of course I was craving cheese, yogurt and ice cream just because I can't have them. I had my first Starbucks mocha with soy milk and it was better than I expected, just tasted a little like wood. If anyone has non-dairy advice, I'd gladly take it, although I'm hoping this doesn't last longer than a month. Dietary restrictions have made me rethink some things that I eat and drink. For example, I assumed that coffeemate, which I put in my coffee every morning, was a milk product, thus the purchase of the soy creamer. But when I read the Coffeemate ingredients, it's mostly high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors. Ick. Margarine is not a milk product but just a bunch of oil clotted together with, again, artificial flavors. Yuck.

On a nostalgic note, my dad called a few weeks ago and asked that I come collect 6 boxes from college that he had pulled out of the attic. I guess now that I'm married he thinks I'm an adult enough to store my own junk. Darn. I had no idea what to expect when I opened the boxes, and I really enjoyed going through them. It was strange to look at the stuff I thought was important 4 years ago, like a 3 liter Dr. Pepper bottle and a bunch of stuffed animals. I found countless pictures of close friends doing goofy things I had forgotten about, and enjoyed looking at pictures of college friends who I hadn't thought of in years. I found jars full of Canadian and Japanese money, which will be given to people returning to those countries soon. Again, what was going through my mind when I packed that away for years? I had a lot of fun looking through stuff from my first visit to Japan, and I cracked up at the stuff I saved because I thought it was so novel. I had no idea when I first visited Japan that a few years later I would be living there. The Japanese newspapers that I wadded up for packing material in one box were carefully folded and preserved in another box just because it had Japanese writing on it. It's fun to look back on things like that and see how I've changed. It gave me goosebumps to read letters from some Japanese friends before they became Christians and how they talked about how fun it was to practice English and learn new words. A few years later letters from the same friends talk about what God is doing in their lives and how they love going to Bible study and learning more about Jesus. So cool!

As summer comes close to the end, Danny and I are both traveling, but to separate ends of the country. He left yesterday for Alaska with 15 high school students. They will be putting on a VBS for a small church in a remote town. I would appreciate prayers for his safety and stamina! Later this week I head to Williamsburg Virginia for the wedding of one of my Japan teammates. I can't wait to see the team again and celebrate Leah's wedding!

Now back to Harry. Leave some love if anyone is still reading my ramblings!

15th Favorite Movie - A Walk To Remember

Make sure you have read the first post in this series ("My 50 Favorite Movies") before you read on...

I fully expect to take heat from some people for this. And I don't mind that... as long as those dishing it out have actually SEEN the movie first. If so, then fire away...

While I argued that When Harry Met Sally was not a chick flick (see #20), I can make no such argument here. This is probably the consenus favorite movie amongst girls in our youth group. The bottom line is most chicks dig it and most guys scoff at it. But here's the thing that separates A Walk To Remember from the rest of the chick flick drabble: it does not just entertain, it does not just talk about how girls and guys are different, it inspires. It is a chick flick with substance.

I think what appeals to me so much about this movie is the character of Jamie Sullivan (played by Mandy Moore). The teenaged daughter of a widowed preacher, Jamie walks to the beat of her own drummer. While other students at her school are out to impress their peers by spending money on nice clothes and cars, she wears the same sweater and takes the bus to school every day. Other students sleep in on Saturday mornings, she gets up early to volunteer tutoring little kids. It makes me glad that so many of our high schoolers like this movie because Jamie Sullivan is a great role model. My hope is that the students in our youth group would have compassion for every human being like Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking (#47), that they would take a stand for truth and justice like Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird (#31) and that they would not get caught up in silly high school stuff but care about the things that really matter in life like Jamie Sullivan in A Walk To Remember.

And it probably doesn't hurt that Switchfoot, perhaps my favorite band, does the soundtrack.

First anniversary Celebration Continued

We milked our first anniversary for all it's worth! Since we couldn't go out of the town the weekend of our actual anniversary, we went the next weekend to Sausalito for an overnight and relaxing day. For those of you not from the Bay Area, Sausalito is a sleepy seaside town right across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. It's main street is right along the water with a great view of the city and Alcatraz. That is, if the sun is out. It was 80 degrees when we left Hayward (wearing flip flops and shorts) and this is what the bridge looked like when we got into San Francisco.



We thought we were in a time warp and were suddenly in November. You couldn't even see the tops of the towers! Danny was worried it would ruin the weekend, but the weather was actually really fun to watch. This is the view from our hotel room. We had a corner room with a great balcony. Beautiful views of the Sausalito shore but San Francisco was veiled almost the whole weekend.




Eventually the fog lifted and all of a sudden we could see The Rock right out our window! It was foggy but still cool.


The next day we read magazines in bed until about noon when we had to check out, and as we started cruising around town the sun came out and the weather was perfect. We walked from one end of town to the other, ate fish and chips in a window seat with a great view of The Rock and The City, and did a lot of window shopping. I can't believe I'm posting this picture, but Danny thought this store name was so funny he made me pose with it.



After walking around and seeing all there is to see we randomly decided to go see a movie. We bought a paper and found out that Live Free or Die Hard was playing in a town we knew was about 15 minutes north of Sausalito. The movie started in 20 minutes. We just hopped in the car for a little adventure, crossing our fingers that we would be able to see the theater (or at least the street it was on) from the freeway. It was a long shot. But, it worked! We found the theater and rolled in right as the previews started. The movie was a lot of fun and it was a great relaxing day!

For dinner Danny surprised me with reservations at The Melting Pot. It's this amazing fondue restaurant that I've wanted to try ever since I had dessert at one in Dallas with my posse years ago. It did not disappoint my high expectations! The food was incredible (and fun to cook!) and we had a private booth in "Lover's Lane" which we thought would have made us very nervous if we weren't married. They even gave us a centerpiece of red roses and let us take the flowers and vase home as a gift. It was a five star meal all the way around! See our dessert below - they call it Yin and Yang because it's dark and white chocolate together. It was almost too pretty to wreck by dipping stuff in it, but that didn't stop me. Fabulous!

16th Favorite Movie - Raising Arizona

Make sure you have read the first post in this series ("My 50 Favorite Movies") before you read on...

Raising Arizona is a movie that I think I will watch again every year or so for the rest of my life. It is that enjoyable.

The film begins with H.I. (played by Nicholas Cage) being thrown in jail for armed robbery. He has a bunkmate who rambles on and on about his childhood in a "Bubba" sort of way: "and when there was no meat, we ate fowl. And when there was no fowl, we ate crawdad. And when there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand." In a movie full of memorable secondary characters, this guy is my favorite. H.I. gets out of jail, robs again, gets thrown back in jail, gets out, and decides to propose to Edwina, played by Holly Hunter, who works as a guard at the jail. They get married, and try to start a family, but as H.I. tells it "her insides was a rocky place in which my seed could find no purchase." Edwina gets so depressed she quits her job at the jail and mopes around all day. Then they hear about a couple in Arizona having septuplets, and figure the mom and dad "got more than they can handle", so they set off to kidnap one of the babies.

And that all happens before the opening credits, in what has to be the longest intro in cinematic history.

Like all Coen brothers movies, the ingenuity here is in the writing. Here are some of my favorite lines from Raising Arizona:

"Do these balloons blow up into funny shapes and all?"
"No, not unless round is funny."

"Ya hear that? We're using code names."

"What would happen if you went outside and got run down by a truck, then how would Ed Jr. be provided for?"
"Yeah, honey, what if you get run over?!"

But my favorites come from the mouth of Nathan Arizona Sr.:

"No leads!? Everybody leaves microbes 'n what not!"

"I don't know what his *dang* jammies looked like! They had Yodas and *stuff* on 'em!"

When asked for his comment on the theory that aliens took his baby, he says, "Son don't go printing that. If his momma reads that, she's just gonna lose all hope."

This movie has pretty much everything you expect to find in a Coen brothers movie: great dialogue, funny accents, memorable facial expressions, dream sequences, a ridiculous plot, an element of fantasy, John Goodman and Frances McDormand. I don't think they had discovered Steve Buscemi yet.

Week of Celebration

I'm way overdue for a post, I know, but honestly nothing that exciting has been happening lately until this week! Certainly nothing photo-worthy has happened, and I'm sure you're all tired of my babbling with no pictures to break it up. So, finally, some fun stuff to share and I'm even including pictures!

Sunday was our first wedding anniversary. I can't describe how strange that feels! It hasn't been that long, we're still newlyweds right? We are both amazed at how quickly a year went by. Saturday we got to celebrate the wedding of some great friends and fellow servants, and we had the most fun wedding reception table we've ever sat at! Becuase of our friends' wedding, we didn't go out of town for our anniversary so we're going to Sausalito this weekend (more stories and pictures to come, I'm sure). But we still celebrated the whole weekend!

Friday night I arrived from a business trip to Sacramento (complete with the longest Sacramento Rivercats game in history - 16 innings! We finally left at the bottom of the 14th at 11:30 at night, but we had a blast. Moving on...) and we met my parents and sister and sister's boyfriend (Grace, I didn't say "family gathering" in your honor) for dinner. My mom was gracious enough to pick up our free anniversary cake from our wedding baker, so after dinner we came home and got to eat the cake that we never got to eat at our wedding. It was fantastic! I would imagine it was worlds better than a year-old frozen cake. Although, we took the leftovers to church for the high schoolers on Sunday and told them all it was the actual wedding cake that we had been saving for a year.

Sunday Danny and I went to dinner at Shadowbrook in Capitola after visiting friends in Santa Cruz. It was such a relaxing day and we were pleasantly surprised at how warm the coast was. We arrived at the restaurant a little early so I could take some pictures. This restaurant is the only restaurant in the country that you access by cable car. It's so cool. We took a friend's advice (thanks Janelle!) and walked down to the restaurant through the gardens and then took the cable car back up to the road.




My favorite part of the gardens was the herb garden. As I was standing there snapping pictures a waiter walked past us, hopped the fence, and started plucking herbs for the kitchen. That was fun to watch.

Tomorrow, of course, is July 4th, one of my favorite holidays. We're just so glad to have a day off together that we didn't plan much, but we'll be going to the A's game! We weren't even planning to do fireworks, but Danny came home tonight and suggested we drive to the A's Coliseum to see the fireworks after the game. So we watched the A's win on TV and then hopped in the car. We love living only 15 minutes from the Coliseum! I was very impressed with our spontaneity since we're usually about as spontaneous as a snail. We drove right into the parking lot and sat in the car eating more wedding cake while watching a spectacular show. The best part is we get to stay home tomorrow night and relax. We're planning to watch a movie like Gettysburg or Saving Private Ryan to actually commemorate the holiday. I don't know why getting drunk and barbequeing is the regular practice to celebrate our nation's independence, but I'll save that soapbox for later. (For the record, I do love BBQ on the 4th!)

I hope you are all having as joyful and celebrative week as we are! More updates to come, including stories from our weekend away. Happy Independence Day!