the church geek

Today we took Ellie and Mom to Multnomah Falls. Unfortunately my photos of the falls were quite disappointing, but I did get this picture of a pool of water at the top of the falls which I enjoy quite a bit.

Tomorrow we get on the plane back to Chicago and then drive up to my hometown of Waterford, WI to visit with my parents. We’ll also take in a Brewer’s game. Somehow they still remain in the hunt with the Cubs and the Cardinals for the division title in the very weak NL Central, so it should be a great game!

We’ll return to CR on Monday. It sure has been a great vacation, but we are also looking forward to being back home.

ShareThis

No visit to Portland is complete without a trip to Powells. Four floors of books covering an entire city block!

ShareThis

Today we did some baby sitting. Aunt Lori looks like a natural, doesn’t she?

ShareThis

We stayed last night in the Clifftop Inn overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was a beautiful clear night with a full moon! This morning I woke up to take this lovely picture as the moon set in the horizon and as the sun rose behind me.

ShareThis

This is yesterday’s photo.

A view of the sunsetting on the Oregon coast.

ShareThis

Too many photos to choose from today from our trip to the Japanese Garden, but I think this one wins out.

A few more posted photos, including some stellar roses, are over at flickr.

ShareThis

This was taken today at the Portland Adult Soapbox Derby. I’ve never seen anything like it before!

More photos of the derby as well as the cutie pie niece are over at Flickr.

ShareThis

Here is Friday’s photo:

Our new niece is quite a cutie! We are in Portland, OR visiting with Lori’s brother and sister-in-law and having a great time.

Plus, this was taken with my new camera a Fujifilm FinePix S9100. I sure am spoiled!

ShareThis

Here is Thursday’s photo.

My wife has such a beautiful smile, doesn’t she? This was taken while visiting some friends in Chicago.

ShareThis

Just playing around with some of the effects in Picasa trying to make a marginal photo somewhat more interesting.

We’ll be hitting the road tomorrow, so posting here will be sporadic and probably just limited to photos for the next 10 days or so. We’re headed to visit Lori’s brother’s family in Portland OR via a flight out of Chicago.

On our way back we’ll head up to Wisconsin to see my parents and to take in a Brewers game on Sept 2nd. Looks like the NL Central is shaping up to be quite a race. Here’s hoping they’re still in it by then.

ShareThis

I wrote a little piece over at the Presbymergent website that I hope will gain a little discussion. It’s The Emergent Conversation and Progressive Politics.

ShareThis

Our favorite little place in Iowa City. Too bad for purposes of this picture that the awning was crooked and it was too hot/humid for folks to want to eat outside. But the food was good as usual!

ShareThis

Lately, I’ve been giving Lori a bit of a hard time since the last Harry Potter book came out a few weeks ago. For those of you who don’t know, my wife has devoured every last one of these books.

While she was looking forward to the release of the seventh book, she was also dreading it, because the timing wasn’t on her side. She was scheduled to preach the day after the book was released.

As I’ve shared before, Lori is one of those ministers who usually waits until Saturday to start their sermons and then stays up late into the night to get it done. On Saturday morning, she ran a few errands and since she couldn’t wait, she also went to Barnes & Noble to get a copy of the book.

As you can imagine - even though she had a sermon to write - she couldn’t keep herself from cracking the book open. At first she just read the first couple of chapters but then – apparently unable to live without knowing who JK Rowling killed off - she skipped right to the end!

Now, given the circumstances, you might think skipping to the end of a book is a rare practice for my wife, but it’s not! In fact, I often find her skipping to the end of whatever book she happens to have in her hand. And of course I tease her mercilessly for this wrong and abhorrent practice.

ShareThis

ShareThis

One of our local movie theaters where we happened to catch a show tonight.

ShareThis