This is the Universe. Liberally daubed with chocolate. Apparently Josiah got it in his head that he wanted to paint the Universe, and this is what came out.

I think that's pretty neat for a five year old.
Enoch just turned three, but for me their growings are so gradual I don't notice any difference. It takes a Iphoto trip down memory lane to remember when Enoch was still crawling, & when Josiah and Jaelle were the only ones talking.

Just finished finals. Can't believe I got a B- on the European Art History final, but I guess that's what happens when you don't study. Sure I did well on stats, and in West & The World, pretty sure about Greek but then again there are those two homework assignments I never turned in. Not really worried about it.

Climbing Mt. Si tomorrow, Lord willing, that should be fun.
I took a week off of work so we should be able to find some fun things to do with our family time. I also intend to go back over all my Greek work to make sure it all settles in the Cerebrum where it belongs. Since one of the main reasons for going to school for Classics was to gain the ability to read the NT in Greek, I hope to make it more than just a class.

Wierd dreams the past couple of nights. Last night I led a group of people to a new planet after earth was destroyed, and the night before that I was walking from a futuristic Seattle to Centralia and stumbled across my friend from 3rd grade Benjamin Clary's family farm, which was also futuristic. He was my age (which makes sense) and had red curly hair (which doesn't, he had dark hair like me back in 3rd grade) but I spent the night at his family's place and ate a big farm breakfast before heading back out on foot. And there were Lions in the Lewis County woods.

Dreams are inexplicable. But then again, we live in a crazy-looking universe with liberal chocolate smears.

I had to explain to Josiah the other day what a transvestite is.

We were taking a family outing to the mall, and as Josiah and I were walking apart for a bit, I stopped for some reason or other and knelt down, as I did a transvestite came walking past, and I saw josiah do a double take, and stretch his neck out like he does when he's trying to get a better look at something unusual. The poor misguided thing walked past, and josiah watched it go with his little eyebrows scrunched up. Then he patted me on the back and said, "Dad, dad - that guy was wearing girl clothes!" So I said yes, he was, and explained that a small percentage of the population is messed up in the head, and because they don't know Jesus, and they don't know God, they don't know up from down either and want to be girls and want guys to like them so they dress like girls 'cause they think that will help. Josiah shook his head, with a half smirk and raised eyebrows, and laughed again at the silliness of the idea, and said - "ha!, a guy! wearing girl clothes! that's just wierd." Then he asked why the guy didn't believe in Jesus and I told him I wasn't sure, but that there are a lot of weird things like that in this world because lots of people don't know Jesus. Then we re-joined Brandy & the other two kids and headed for the gumball machine.

A little bit of life
Strangeness upon strangeness
Got a call today from the St Paul Police department, there was a little girl that got molested in a library basement somewhere there the other day, and when they searched the records of cards for witnesses, they found that among others, my card had been used that day.
IN ST PAUL!!!
What the heck??? I haven't lived in St. Paul for a year.
So I gave them all my info and dates of when we moved - it's horrible. I guess that's a lesson that even library cards aren't safe to throw away, makes me feel like buying a shredder.

I've been spending the last week in training with the WACLEA campus security training group for IED recognition, an overview of terrorism, bomb squads, gangs, sexual assault and rape, and all sorts of depressing things.
I found out there is a gang problem in WA (still not like Minneapolis), got some info on the local gangs/sets/cliques, watched graphic videos of gang violence, and learned the origin of the major gangs and their symbols/codes.
Before and after that we saw graphic footage of people getting blown up trying to defuse IED's (NOT pretty! people looking fine one moment on video, then with half their face blown off and body on fire the next, still twitching in shock)
We learned that Bin Laden's 100 year plan for war is going just as He predicted and that when we pull out of Iraq & Afghanistan they will follow us here, as that's the next phase in his long-term plan. So we will have to deal with domestic terrorism more and more frequently as a nation, and especially as an extention of law enforcement.
The IED/terror presenters were an englishman who has been dealing with IRA terrorism for the past 15 years or so, and a trainer for the FBI academy who's seen a lot of action out in Afghanistan/Iraq, they let us know that the IRA, of all people, have been training all the terrorists around the globe in explosives, and that Thailand is the worlds hotbed of IED terror right now, and it's -you guessed it-musilms who are responsible there too.
Anyhoo, I am now paranoid. I had to look up a bunch of verses on fear, courage, death and immortality to regain some larger perspective on it all.

Then Brandy calls me and tells me she got a suspicious package in the mail with my name on it, she was afraid to open it - so much that she decided to conquer her fear by...OPENING IT!!!
I asked her never to ever ever do that again, and that I want her whole, not in pieces. There are better ways to overcome fear!

The package turned out to be some saldalwood "worry beads" that my dad sent me from Korea. Oh yeah, he's being forced to come back to the states to re-up his visa, so I may actually see my dad for the first time in a decade and a half sometime soon!!!

Well, there's a lot going on. We've been visiting with my wonderful relatives down in Centralia, we camped out in their front yard (they live on a wooded hill overlooking a beautiful valley in lush green WA) and Brandy spend the next couple days down there while I would go to the classes here in Lacey and come down in the evenings.
Got to chop up some dying fruit tree branches with my cousin Aaron, that was fun. I like Aaron, it seems like we have a lot in common but he's even quieter than me and he's got a girlfriend he really loves so I never get to talk with him. So that was good stuff.
My aunt is using E-Harmony.
My other cousin is leaving for London on Saturday, going to her going-away party on Friday
Got to hang out with my old friend Ian last week, we ran six miles and swam in Lake Washington, then went back to the house & ate curry & drank some champagne, played the Wii for a bit (video games bore me easily) then we went out for some midnight frisbee with his glowing UFO disc out in one of U-district's stunning parks while all the constellations set the backdrop.

My Aunt found an old audio tape of my dad's worship songs, which I converted to MP3 and burned to disc. I am very very happy I have them.

Currently reading:
The Jesus I Never Knew (Philip Yancey)
The New Testament Text, It's Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (Bruce Metzger)
Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis (C.S. Lewis)
He Shall Glorify Me (Oswald Chambers)
1 Chronicles (Jewish inspired compiler)

And I finally finished 1st responder training and got certified for all kinds of emergency medical stuff.

Overall, it's been a very, very busy couple of weeks.
But I think I said that already.
Well, that's the update so far, or at least a small summary.