Here is Christian jumping off the rocks at Tubbs Hill in Couer D Alene, ID. This is my favorite place to swim around here. The water is clean and clear, the views are beautiful and the rocks are flippin sweet! Christian has never jumped off anything higher than a diving board so this was quite a jump for him but he loved it.  

Here I am in the midst of a flip off the diving board at our friends house. 

Here is Raliegh my brother Marcs son and Micah enjoying themselves at Wildwaters a waterslide park in Coeur D Alene, ID. We spent the day there and had a blast. The only lame thing is I went so fast on one of the tubes, I ended up shooting up off the side of one and landed on my elbow and side. I bruised my ribs on my left side and my elbow is hurt too. That slowed me down for the rest of the day but we all had a great time.
 

Jacob's Well

Here is a sketch of the 48x72 painting that I am having done by Matt, a friend of mine. It is a piece that I wanted done to capture the vision of Jacobs Well, our Sunday night gathering. Matt came up with the awesome imagery in the painting and it is going to look amazing in color. I cant wait to see it when it is done! Great job Matt!

There are some great shots from our youth church pool party that you can view at the Flickr page. You can get there by clicking on the picture box on the side bar. LeeElla took all of the pictures and she did a great job capturing the fun.  

Creating your own little Eden...

Here is a very cool site for turning your backyard into a wildlife habitat.
I am trying to do this on many different levels to encourage wildlife to make my backyard their home. I have a lot of visitors and squatters already...A dog, Butterflies, a family of quail, squirrels, woodpeckers, nuthatches, blackcapped chickadee's, robins, raccoons, spiders, a bald-faced hornets nest, bees and soon to be more, I hope.

I think as Christians we should be caretakers of the wild around us and as a community. It's part of the Eden mandate in Genesis. I spent some time last week in my backyard praying blessing over all my trees, shrubs, the grass, animals and everything on my property. I desire my home to be a Goshen in the midst of Egypt for us and Egypt.

The hen is rising...

Did you know that if you squeeze an egg as hard as you can in your hand, it's very unlikely that you can break it? And yet the most delicate tap can cause the same egg to break right open.

Did you know that a fresh egg can be left on the shelf for 3 weeks and not spoil? (This may not be true for a grocery store egg that has been cleaned.)

Did you know that a chick inside an egg will not live if it cannot peck its own way out of that eggshell? If it does not have the strength to escape, it will not have the strength to survive.

God has marvelously created the egg to withstand the rigors of a hen sitting on top of a cluster of them, incubating them for about 21 days, while making the egg delicate enough that the tiny chick can break the shell with taps of his tiny beak. Once I had some chicks hatching out and one could not get out of the egg. I carefully assisted it to escape, but it was never a strong chick, even with all my tender loving care. And, as I'd always been told would happen, it died before reaching maturity.
-A quote from a recent email I got from Margaret Nelson, a missionary in Uganda.

As I was reading this, it reminded me of a lot of different circumstances around me right now. There are many situations of people trying to emerge out of difficult challenges. For some I think it is life or death for them. I have been extremely burdened by so much of it and it has left me so drained, disillusioned, tired and spiritually exhausted.

But in the midst of it I have come to realize the truth stated above: that sometimes you have to let people fight it out for themselves or they will never become strong enough to stand on their own feet. I have had to let go of the savior complex and let God be God in these people's lives. I have spent countless hours trying to remove the shell and help people emerge and in the end...they can't walk.

I think the ascension of Jesus is simply the Hen leaving the nest.

I too must discover how to ascend as well.

I feel extremely blessed to be able to have places like this to take my family for recreation. It has taken me a while to get used to not having the ocean or the lush green of the Pacific Northwest but there is a rustic beauty in the Inland Northwest that is as breathtaking too. I have learned that there is beauty in all places if you have the right heart to see it.
 

Here is the swimming area at Farrugut park, ID. This picture looks so warm and inviting but the water was cryogenic cold and in a few moments we had thunder, lightning and hard rain. But at least they got a little swim time in.
 

Here is the swimming and boating area at Farragut park, ID. where we had our church family camp this weekend. The swim area is a little inlet on the left that is only 10 feet deep in the middle, perfect for kids.
 

So Grandma says something like...Oh this camping is so hard on my hair....Christian says...At your age, you should be glad you have hair. RIP Christian Blauer, 1992-2005
 

Here is a new edition in camping furniture that I saw at our church family camp...I got to get one of these!
 

Camping in July in this region is usually hot and dry and involves a lot of swimming. But this year at our church family camp it rained almost the entire time. It made it extremely difficult as a parent. The kids had fun but man...I am beat. I had to sleep in the tent because the almost new tent had water leaks. The rain and cold sent the kids into the grandparents cabin and the girls into the grandparents sleeper van. Two nights in a tent in pounding rain and a bed surrounded with puddles was a memory in deed.
 

After 2 nights camping in the rain and cold in a flooded tent, I have had it with tent camping. I determined at 35 it is time for a man to get something better to camp in than a soggy tent. I think this is most likely going to be it. I can pull it behind my mini-van and it can fit all my family as well.
 

Destiny and I saw this movie for her birthday today.
By far the best Batman movie so far in my opinion.
I will buy this one for sure. It had a few weak elements but overall I enjoyed it very much.
I especially loved the training scene with Liam Nelson on the ice, when he was talking about needing will more than training. Good stuff.
 

Here is a little feller that I thought was pretty. I have been trying to capture a picture of a beautiful Monarch butterfly that comes into my yard in the early mornings for the last week. Yesterday Christian fumbles into the house with the butterfly in his hands...He said, Hey Dad, look what I caught for my frog. I was sick to my stomach, here I have been trying to capture this natural beauty in my yard and he snatches it like a brute to feed to his fat green beastie in his room. So much for a good shot...
 

We spent the 4th of July at our friends the Olsons house and they have a pool. Here is Destiny with her goggles too tight, what a goober.
 

I found a small raspberry bush hiding in some bushes along my fence, they were tasty. 

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
-Wendell Berry

These little flowers are hiding in a corner of my yard that I dont visit that often. But I was in my yard yesterday morning trying to get a picture of this butterfly that keeps eluding me and stumbled on these beauties. Isnt that like life? We so often are striving to find one thing and end up finding something else that is beautiful too, often hidden right in our own backyard under our noses.
 

the gate to eden...

An excellent wife, who can find?
For her worth is far above jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good and not evil all the days of her life.
-Proverbs 31:10-12

I am continually amazed at how blessed I am to be married to such a wonderful woman.
In the midst of life's turmoil, disappointments, trials and challenges, the Lord has given me a refuge in LeeElla.

She does me good is putting it painfully mild. Poor Solomon probably was speaking from the place of poverty when it came to his experience with women. Because having more really makes one poor and having a ton of wives probably accentuated the lack of true quality he longed to have experienced in just one.

It reminds me of GK Chestertons piece in Orthodoxy page 55:
"Keeping to one woman is a small price for so much as seeing one woman. To complain that I could only be married once was like complaining that I had only been born once. It was incommensurate with the terrible excitement of which one was talking. It showed not an exaggerated sensibility to sex but a curious insensitivity to it. A man is a fool who complains that he cannot enter Eden by five gates at once. Polygamy is the lack of the realization of sex.
It is like a man plucking five pears in mere absence of mind."

I feel so thankful to have found the gate to Eden in LeeElla.

P.S...Plus she can put a mean choke hold on the dog too.

Here is a shot of my neighbors flowers, I think I will try to paint this shot.
 

I overheard Micah asking Austin this question while they were watching Mr. Rogers this evening...Why does he keep changing his shoes and wearing girls socks? LOL! 

Austin after I whipped him twice in PIG...he was still a good sport. He is a good shot, so I needed luck to beat him...really. 

Tonight's sunset.
In person it was really pink and I wanted to capture it but this shot doesn't do it justice.
 

My daughter Destiny turned 11 today. We had a small family party with a Hawaiian theme.
 

Our Anniversary is July 7th, we will have been married 15 years. I look forward to another 15, it only gets better! I am thankful to be married to such an amazing woman, who I am more in love with now, than ever before. God's way is the best way, don't ever let anyone tell you any different.