Fun fact

I went to bed at 8:45 last night.

Leftovers

Huffing for Stuffing

On Thanksgiving day morning I ran a 5k called the 'Huffing for Stuffing' race while pushing my daughter in her stroller. When I woke up it was about -7 degrees...I almost wussed out. By race time a 1000 people had gathered and it was a whopping 9 above. We're hearty souls here.

Thanksgiving

Bulleted items that I'm thankful for:

-My smok'n hot wife. Her ability to love and laugh blesses me every day. Plus her Thanksgiving day meal was amazing!
-Our beautiful little girl. I can't imagine life without her now. She is such a gift to our lives. Each day with her stirs great gratitude in me.
-The unbelievable location of my home. Everytime I'm outside hiking, catching a fish on the river, skiing untracked snow, walking around our neigborhood lake or catching a sunset over the mountains I can't help but wisper to myself incredulously "I live here."
-Our home.
-Family who makes the 750 mile drive from Central Oregon to join us for a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner. All the rest of our family too!
-My job. The reality of seeing peoples lives changed right in front of me is something I'm soooo thankful for and I never want to take for granted. My job has allowed me to travel all over the US and Europe before I'm even thirty years old.
-All of those amazing people who partner with us to allow us to do our job. We are so thankful for the opportunity to be in the lives of college students, giving them a chance to hear about Jesus Christ. Many thanks to you all.

All that to say...I'm very blessed and very thankful.

HuckChuckFacts

Comment from small group Bible study

"Looks like it's time for a rap battle!"

OT

I've been reading the series of commentaries by Dale Ralph Davis (Joshua through II Kings minus Ruth). They are excellent. I'm never read anything like them...they have been incredibly helpful for my understanding of the OT and even just paying attention while I'm reading. Here's a few snippets from the begining of II Kings...

Second Kings begins on a positive note: Ahab is dead. You may think that is a nasty sentiment, but you must remember that Ahab was a conduit that allowed pagan sewage to engulf Israel (I Kings 16:29-34), one who tolerated injustice (I Kings 21), and who hated God’s word (e.g., I Kings 22). But the Ahabs always die—that is good news. The bad news is that Ahab, Jr., follows him. Ahaziah is a chip off the old, dead block. Welcome to Israel, 852 BC.

What do we meet in this section of the story? Above all, an intolerant God. The suave, self-appointed connoisseurs of religious taste in our time will be aghast if ever they happen on to this story. How can Yahweh in his wild, untamed holiness sentence a man to death simply for exercising his religious preferences in a critical hour of his life? Yahweh here is not the democratic son of God people crave, according to the polls.

But in the Bible we meet Yahweh and keep bashing ourselves against his first commandment (Exod. 20:3). Nor is it any better in the New Testament. Jesus goes around insisting folks must smash idols if they would follow as disciples (Mark 10:21-22). He is as obnoxious as Yahweh. Who does he think he is?

our crazy child

First turns

What amazes me about living in Bozeman, MT is the amount of outdoor recreation so close to our front door. Here are a couple of picture me hiking for some turns last Sunday morning with some great friends (don't worry we went to church on saturday night). The winds were about 120 mph on the ridge but the sun was out, the snow was good and it's Montana! It's a secret spot...I can't tell you.

dress compatability

I've learned that being married requires me to have a conversation about 'dress compatability' before we leave the house to head out on the town (i.e. saturday night church, going out to eat) You see one of us cannot be more dressy than the other. Having dress compatability issues could lead to the wife having self conscious thoughts like "I bet people are thinking, 'how lame is she, she thought they were on a hot date, and he just thought they were out for a casual evening'." The couple has to be evenly matched in dress...which usually means I have to go change my clothes into something nicer.

In a related note I think we're going to start shopping here.

so hardcore

This weekend a bunch of students and I went for a hike up at Sacajawea peak in the Bridger Mountains. There was a lot more snow than I expected in fact a ton of people were skiing. All we had were our avalanche shovels to sled on. Good times were had by all

cool

cheerios gone bad

Calling in sick

I'm taking the night off tonight...skipping Cru because of the sickness I've acquired from my germ infested daughter.

I've started watching the BBC series Planet Earth. It's amazing, although I could have done without all the bats in the "cave's" episode...especially after our run in last month with bats in the Lewis and Clark Caverns. Anyway, so far the series is amazing...I consider myself fairly educated on geography and random trivia about the world, but I had no idea about a lot of the stuff in this series.

Check it out