new endeavor

starting september first i have decided to take on a new endeavor in life.

i am going to try as hard as possible to blog every day of september.

i have no idea what i will write about, but i figured that it would be a good discipline to undertake.

so, if you read my blog you will suddenly be getting more for your money (i should get paid for this!)

so until sept. 1... you will have to wait in utter anticipation, ooooh.

Backpacking causes joy & pain at the same time! yes, folks it is an anomaly.

On Friday, Audrey and I woke up at 4:15 a.m. to get a good start on my day off. We were all packed up and ready to head out. Where were we heading you ask? About 3 hours from Kemmerer, to the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming. We loaded up Maya (our husky) in the back of our Expedition and set out at 5:15 a.m. after we stopped at Maverick (a great gas station) to get some coffee.

We arrived at the trail head around 8:30 a.m. and started hiking into the wilderness at 9:00 a.m. Our plan was to hike into "Mirror Lake" spend the night, and then hike out the next morning and drive home to Kemmerer, so we could get cleaned up and ready for Church on Sunday. We saw a few people hiking out as we were going in, and they decided to enlighten us that they had seen plenty of bear tracks right around Mirror Lake. Awesome, I know.

It only took us about 2 and a half hours to hike in. The wind was very chilly even though there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the sun was out. We had some lunch (Tuna Lunchables) and then I wanted to try my hand at some fishing. Since I had bought a 0ne day license ($14 bucks cause I haven't lived in Wyoming for a year) I needed to catch some fish to get my money's worth.

After about 4 casts I had caught my first Rainbow Trout of the year! It was pretty good size. We fished for a while longer and I caught one more (and had 3 more on, but they got off). So we decided not to spend the night up there, because we would like to not get mauled by bears. The hike out when pretty quick and we decided to sleep in the back of our Expedition and cook our fresh Trout for supper.

Supper was fantastic. We had trout, pasta, corn, green beans, and coffee. A hot meal tastes so great up in the mountains. We got ready for bed, we have some sleeping bags that I bought on E-bay, which was a bad idea cause they were super cheap and now I realize why. The temperature dropped down into the lower 30's, and we were basically sleeping with nothing over us because the sleeping bags were so bad.

We had to keep starting the Expedition every once in a while so we didn't freeze to death. It also didn't help that we had hiked 10 miles in a day with packs on, we were sweaty, sunburned, and chilled to the bone. The morning didn't come soon enough. We decided to get up, change clothes, and drive to Pinedale to get some coffee. The heater and fresh coffee never felt so good!

All in all it was a great trip and I'm ready to go back when it's warmer at night! Basically next year!

Tower Rock Run

Audrey and I participated in a 10k (6.2 miles) race on saturday aug. 16. it was in manila, utah... which is just over the border from wyoming. audrey got 1st in her age division and i got 4th in mine. she won 25 bucks, and a gold medal. i got nothing. boohoo. she finished in 43 minutes and i finished in 46 minutes.
anyway, it was a lot of fun. here are some pictures from after the race was over.

It was a pretty chilly day, in the 50's with a breeze. I was just glad the race was over!

Posing by the sheep creek sign. It is a gorgeous place.

And it is also aptly named. These young mountain sheep were about 10-20 yards away from us.

working my way through ecclesiastes

i am into the third week on my first sermon series ever. I am working my way through ecclesiastes. i really enjoy this book for the real world stuff that takes place in it. solomon takes a good hard look at the world and things in it, and gives his honest feedback. i really felt God leading me to expound on this book to the congregation here. so far it is going really well. i am starting on chapter 2 this sunday... taking a more specific look at the things solomon tried to find meaning in (pleasuer, buildings, gardens, servants, music, etc...)

all of the relevant material in this book is awesome too. analogies and illustrations come so easily because tons of the issues that solomon tackled are still the same today. everyone is still searching for meaning through their job, life, people, substances, partying, etc...

yet, the answer is not under the sun... if you have never heard of the band called shane and shane you should check them out. they have a great song on their new cd, pages, that talks about getting over the sun to find the answer.

and the only answer is a relationship with Christ. and then the other things in life make sense, through God's plan.

busy-ness kills other things in life, such as blogging

since we have moved to wyoming, it seems that busy-ness has taken it's toll... especially on my blogging past time. i think my last one was in july. just one month, not too bad i guess. things have been going well here in kemmerer. there is definetely a lot to do and think about. we are looking for a house, i'm a full time pastor, we have a dog, we like to run, we like to hike, we are trying to figure out life here... the list goes on and on. but God is good, and He has provided for us so far, and i know that He will continue. Here are a few pics from a recent hike (as in today) that we took up on top of Oyster Ridge. it runs right along kemmerer, and is a beautiful place to go hiking that is only about 4 minutes from our front door. enjoy... until next time, hopefully sooner than one month.