how fun are these humpbacks?

this question was asked of me by a child, who i can only guess suffers from ADHD, as he ran around the deck of a boat on a recent whale watching tour. a friend and i drove up to anacortes washington (north of seattle about an hour from the us/canadian border) hoping for two things...good weather and a whale sighting. here are pictures of the trip....


our home for the day...Island Explorer 3


we got wish number one...beautiful day! you really can't beat weather like this at the end of october...it was amazing!


we saw lots and lots of birds, but these two bald eagles were by far the most spectacular. Kate, our naturalist, told us that this was a male and female and that eagles mate for life, so...these are lifelong mates.


at one point some porpoises came to play. they followed the boat for awhile, swimming along and then playing in the wake.


how fun ARE these humpbacks? we got our second wish...whale sighting. not one, but two humpback whales.


here is proof that i was actually on the boat. it got pretty cold on the water, especially when the sun went behind the clouds.


this picture was taken in the marina. i thought it was pretty cool with the reflection in the water.

this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down...

in a post on july 17, 2007 i talked about a trip i took to clovis california for world changers. i was a last minute chaperone and had never met most of the 30 people that went with us. now, over a year later, those people have become a huge part of my life.

in this past year i have been working alongside a team of 17 adult leaders who minister to the students at Greater Gresham Baptist Church. this past weekend 16 of us went to Madras, Oregon to hang out, get to know one another better, and talk about how we can more effectively reach those students.

here is a picture of us at the Cove Palisades, at about 7:15 in the morning, where we watched an amazing sunrise. it was freezing cold, but well worth it.


Back Row (left to right): Jordan, Nicole, Me, Lance, and Brian.
Front Row (left to right): Tim, Jeremy, Megan, Sheila, Abi, Crystal, Nicci, Sara, Ken, and Wendy.

do you read like a girl?

call me a nerd, but i'm so excited because this week i went to my first meeting of the "read like a girl" book club. it's a group of about 10 girls, some i knew previously some i did not, who love to read. we'll get together once a month and discuss the book we unanimously chose to read. a book club is one of those things that i never knew i always wanted to do, if that makes any sense.