Saturday, December 31, 2011

wonderful:

adjective
 
1.excellent; great; marvelous: We all had a wonderful weekend.
 
2.of a sort that causes or arouses wonder;  amazing; astonishing: The storm was wonderful to behold.

Monday, December 26, 2011

merry christmas

christmas kinda blew me away this year. 
there wasn't anything overly special about this one though I guess I was a little less busy than normal. I just had so many moments where I was in love with how we get to celebrate jesus coming. 
this celebration didn't have to be this way. 
Yet, the world celebrating our savior coming is made up of everyone stopping, gathering, and being incredibly generous to each other. 
i love it.

Monday, December 19, 2011

tree hugger.



hug your christmas tree today

gingerbread feeling. literally.



note the gingerbread ninja.  christina's cookie cutters.


our little chalkboard

Sunday, December 11, 2011

feeling that gingerbread feeling


more pictures from my house in ohio at christmas.  just because I can.  And because, like in the words of songs from home alone, I want you to 'feel that gingerbread feeling'.

we normally put up two trees. this picture is the slightly more ghetto tree.  the village is a pop-up book, it has the macaroni ornaments and the ones made out of colored paper that my mom doesn't like putting on the extra nice tree.









a fun thing about my dad is that he makes a point to decorate the back yard as well.  His thinking is that you can't see your front yard in most of the house, so he decorates the back so when you're washing the dishes, or sitting at the kitchen table, you can look out at lights.  The lit up deer were considered too cheesy for the front yard, but perfect for the back.  He put in a little pond this year and in the pictures I've seen of this years backyard, the little fake deer are drinking out of the pond.  good stuff.  

SIDE NOTE:  everyone.  download the home alone movie medley.  holy cow, that's some heartwarming stuff. Thankfully I've also included it on this blog so you can listen to it RIGHT HERE. 



SIDE NOTE 2:  Have you watched the video of Mariah Carey and Justin Bieber singing 'All I Want for Christmas is You?'  Mariah is pretty sketch in it...like, really innappropriate considering Justin is 17, but at the same time, I personally find it really hard to dislike Mariah Carey.  

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

it's christmas which means......

...i can  post excessive amounts of christmas imagery.   
look out. 

not the greatest photo of mi casa


ahhhh....home.



-soooooooo pretty!!!!!

Sunday, December 4, 2011

stories from the side of the road (in action)

we didn't keep the horse.  We're classier than that.


we almost kept the stickers.



christina.  our getaway driver.



there's no way to make this look good.

while stalking stuff, we stumbled on a good view.


christina and our good view.  we do appreciate some nice things.


that's right.  we're a good looking bunch.  you'd be happy to see us prowling around your neighborhood.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

banksey's christmas.


I live in australia where thankfully Black Friday does not exist. I don't miss it.  In all the news sites I follow, Black Friday was all over the headlines and I can't explain exactly what it is, it just all seemed a lot more sinister this year.  I read about stores opening at 9pm on Thanksgiving day and being open all night and I thought, wait...9pm?  Isn't that the time you're supposed to be spending with your family?  What in the world could be so important to purchase that people would need to shorten one of the best family holidays there is?  As someone who grieves missing those unique family times, it blows me away that you would have the option to be there, and choose going to...WalMart instead, with all it's terrible lighting...

I absolutely love Christmas. To me, it really is the most wonderful time of the year!  My Christmas's were literally out of a movie.  Beautiful decorated homes, huge family gatherings with lots of good food, and gifts and more gifts and more gifts.  I'm so thankful I grew up with that. I'm in no way against the giving of gifts, or spending money to get something special for someone you care about. It's a very real way of expressing love, one that my family is so good at. I actually want to be more like that. I want to be more generous with my money. I want to value my relationships so much that at times I'm willing to spend extra money to show that.  I see that displayed around me by people who don't stress about how much a meal costs because the return of having spent 2 hours with people they care about was more than worth it. My dad is a lot like that.

As a lot of Americans are realizing though, the pursuit of more stuff as a main reason for existance is just becoming sad.  There's no relationship attached to the spending. It's stuff for the sake of stuff.  This Christmas season has that feel.  Everything you read talks about how retailers are worried about their books balancing, so they're encouraging people to buy more. In our times where family isn't coming through as much as it has in the past, I doubt most of that spending is happening to better a relationship, strengthen a father/daughter bond, or bless a home.  

Banksey is a famous graffitti artist from England and I found this picture of Jesus by him.






 

movember.

In Australia, the month of november is fondly known as 'movember'.  In the states some people do 'no-shave november', but it's kind of informal.  In Australia, it's something very, very official.  The whole nation participates in 'Movember' where the guys grow out their 'mo's' and raise money for prostate cancer research.  You can upload your photo to the official website and people can sponsor your mustache.  If you don't believe me, you can check out the website:  Movember Australia.  

The guys in the house we live in always get on board.  I didn't get the best photos of the mustaches and some of the guys hadn't trimmed up the rest of their facial hair recently...but you'll definitely get the idea. 

Take a moment to admire some mo's.

Mr. Jesse Lee (USA)

Mr. Sam Street (Australia)



Mr. Andreas from Sweden

Mr. Josh Irwin (Australia) and Mr. Stevie Lujan (Hawaii/Australia)
Mr. Jeff...something (Hawaii)


Mr. Jack Narvel (USA)

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Stories from the side of the road Part #2

Here are our lastest photos of stuff we found on the side of the road.

the wide shot. 


scategories and a collection of really terrible c.d.'s.  Like Evanesence and Alanis Morisette.




trying otu a heavy duty file.  Jesse says no shed is complete without one.



christina with our painting collection.  Does it seem like Jesus is looking at you?
what will hopefully be our new t.v. cabinet.  After we paint the fake woodness out of it.

Items we found were:  a canvas of an Indian looking boy (girl?), a potential t.v. stand, a side table cabinet thing, a painting of Jesus, a metal file, scattegories, various c.d.'s, and a vaccuum cleaner (still don't know if it works). Another successful outing.
'Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
 '-Mark Twain

Monday, November 28, 2011

thai.

doesn't look like much.  the food was gooood.


cooking it in front of you

Thai food is a variety of food I did not experience until I lived in Australia.  Side note: along with thailand, there are a whole bunch of countries I was not very aware of until I lived in Australia, such as almost all of south east Asia, and almost all of the Pacific Islands.  Anyways.  There are lots of Thai people due to Australia's close proximity to South East Asia.  And. let me tell you.  As someone who grew up on Chinese as our Asian food of choice, Thai is way better.  I spent the night at my friends sisters house and she treated us to thai for dinner. 

hanging with the gaffneys


eating breakfast


mrs gaffney


walk on the beach

daniel and his sister alyssa     


on Sunday morning, i got to hang out with a really great family.  Back in 2006, I staffed Daniels DTS and we went to Fiji for our outreach.  He had a great school with this particularly great group of guys.  Daniel lives in Canberra, Australia and even though it's been 5 years, we still get to hang out every now and then!  This time it included almost his entire family which was even better.  They took me to breakfast at a great cafe and then we walked to the beach.  The whole time I got encouraged by what Daniel's doing with his life.  He's an at risk youth worker in his city, as well as a leader at a youth group and he is going for it!  These are a few snapshots of our morning!

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Daytrotter.

Are you guys aware of daytrotter?
Its a pretty amazing music website its $2 a month, has one of the best iphone apps i've seen in a while*
They have some amazing sessions free to download from a bunch of up and coming bands its a great website to just cruise around and check out new music.
There are sessions from the Local Natives, Thrice, David Bazan, Someone still loves you anymore Boris Yeltsin, recent favourite is a band called The Lumineers shown to me by a friend.



*haha i wrote that like i know something about phone apps, i dont... but this one is still awesome

coming soon!

We've been a bit behind on the updates sorry. but we have a few posts in the works including two more 'stories from the side of the road'
here is a preveiw.


Brandon Reid

This is Brandon Reid, He makes fine music. follow the link and listen/buy is music.
I met him about 3 years ago in Alaska. He is a wild man, a traveller a poet and a good cook!
He also is responsible for my stick poke tattoos and teaching me how to cook asparagus. He was the highlight new years eve 2010.
Good guy.

Friday, November 18, 2011

stories from the side of the road (#1)

So.  There's something Christina and I, and a few others secretly really love. Twice a year, every suberb around us has their designated large item trash pick up from the city council.  You can put out items like televisions, old fridges, couches, tables, lamps, etc. Being the economical, thrifty, not wanting to consume more than what we need people we are, we've found these weekends are great for getting furniture items we need for our houses and rooms.  

It looks like this:  Around 10pm on a Sunday night, we head out to the designated area, drive around and look at the tree lawns.  Items I'm specifically looking for right now are:  a t.v. stand, a set of drawers for the end of my bed, and more chairs for our kitchen table.  Items we've found in the past are:  my kitchen table, a really cool bedside cabinet, tents, a christmas tree, and more.

Anyways, we drive around, check things out and bring home what works.  We look crazy (example:  Jesse was sitting on the hood of Christina's car wearing a head lamp), but we find some great stuff!  

Here are a few photos of our recent finds.



vintage suitcases!  Anyone getting married soon?  these would be great in your engagement photos.  why the wombat?  i was looking for practical furniture items.  Christina was looking for anything animal themed. You'll see...



along with the animals, there were pots EVERYWHERE.  we settled on one that wasn't giant and that looked a little bit Mexican.

 
like i said, more animals.  This is for Christina's door. 




 
This butterfly....what can i say about this butterfly.  It lights up and sings an asian techno song.  Score. And another animal for Christina.



an illustrated dictionary (it only goes A-K...that's a bit of a problem) and there was a box FULL of cassette tapes!  I started to love Cat Stevens because someone gave me a cassette tape of him and then I spent a lot of time in a car with no c.d. or MP3 player.  So this time we grabbed the Beatles 1's and Cole Porter. 


cleaning a set of drawers that I found that are pretty useful.  Everyone walked by and said 'it looks like...' and then said things like 'siding', 'window shades', 'bee hive'.  side note:  holy heck our building looks ghetto. 



a sampling of our stuff!

ok. let's be honest. we picked up a lot of crap. but we had a lot of fun doing it and so far everything we've picked up is being used.  The dinosaur and wombat and vintage suitcases decorate Christina's room.  I use the set of drawers.  We listen to the cassettes while driving. The butterfly...ok. i don't know how that is being used. It's just weird.  but it's made a lot of people smile so it's been useful that way.

look out for next weeks treasures!


 

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Support Wikipedia
I totally just donated to Wikipedia, no i have not been hacked, i truly think its a great cause.   

pete bjorn and john



while home, i won tickets on the radio to see this band (thanks 88.3 the sting!). I hadn't listened to them much aside from the song most people know that intros gossip girl (guy whistling: 'do do do do do do do do do do').  I grabbed a friend, we stopped at a great little bar called 'La Cave', and then saw this fun band play.  They're swedish, have been together for awhile, and it was really good show! I was just going through my blog photos and I saw that I'd saved a picture of the concert poster, so I thought I'd write a little blurb.