The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe

Here we are representing a fine literary work at the church where Jen grew up, First Christian.
It took a little explaining, and required that we all stand in a line, but people got it, and seemed to like it. The lion definitely had the best costume (Nana Beth made it for her). We didn't have to explain that Cecily was a lion. We did however, have to remind people that SHE is a girl. My costume... the witch was a bit tricky. People thought I was Queen Susan the gentle. But no I was Jadis, Queen of Narnia. The problem was that I could not be too scary, and I had very limited resources. I remade this dress out of a wedding dress I found in the local thrift store. All the material I gleaned from the scraps in my mom's sewing room. And I had to do all sewing by hand. So a little was lost in translation, but I was trying to look like a snow queen. I just turned out looking like a nice snow queen. The Wardrobe was a large box that Jen drew an adapted version of the wardrobe on.

It was funny because every time a sugar high super hero walked by Rory they felt compelled to kick or punch the box. It was pretty funny to watch all these little boys walk by and automatically hit the box on their way past.

Rory felt a little confined standing in the box all night. He said it was a good social experiment. I have never seen him stand in one place for that long, especially in a social gathering.



Our little lion sure likes to walk around. Looks like she lost a bootie... surprise, surprise!

Grampa Noel was all ears. Cecily is telling him a good story.

The wardrobe got thirsty. Here he is getting a drink.

Look at all my cute teeth!

The Wardrobe was playing mini golf. Look at him parting the Red Sea with this five iron.

The Lion and the Snow Queen pause for a picture. Looks like someones getting tired.

The dress before it became the gown of the Snow Queen.

The Birthday Club

Birthday song-- adapted by Rebekah:
Happy Birthday to ... US
Happy Birthday to... US
Happy Birthday Jimmy, Rebekah, Jen, Genesis
Happy Birthday to US!

We had a fun time celebrating our October Birthdays at Round Table Pizza

The Aunties were happy to see their little niece.

Time for a family photo...Everyone Smile!
Cecily really looks up to her big cousin Austin Bear.
Here they are... the Birthday Girls with their hip purses. These purses are made out of genuine seat belts. Yes... seat belts like the ones in your car. Pretty cool.. even the round table knight is giving the ol' thumbs up!

We weren't kidding about that pink teething toy!

Got Teeth?

Take a look at Cecily's new trick. For some reason she likes to put this teething toy in her mouth and just leave it there. She has a green toy just like it, but she only does this with the pink one (so far). The other day she had it in her mouth for over a half an hour. As you can see in one of these pictures, she also tries to get more then one toy in there... while maintaining a firm bite on the pink teether. Such a funny girl!

Bittter-Sweet Beginning

As many of you know, our church building was damaged beyond repair in a fire on Palm Sunday 2006. The building was old and charming on a beautiful location. It was also unsafe, too small for our congregation and had a total of three toilets. Before the fire our congregation had already purchased some property with the hopes of building a new, more functional home in a more accessible location. Since the fire we were able to sell the old property with the damaged building on it for a wonderful cash sum. We have also settled with the insurance company and then contiuned to raise support from within our congregation. With all that though, money doesn't go as far as it used to. We will be building a 10,000 SF building that will be up to code and easy to expand on. It will have a 250-seat sanctuary and will have 9 toilets!! We hope to move in to our new building this coming summer..... or even fall would be nice. We haven't broke ground yet... so we'l see!

Anyway for those of you who have been following our story, I wanted to post some pictures of the old building. The new owners recently demolished it. It was a bit sad to see it gone. It is strange to drive by and not see that old building standing there. As you can imagine a few old-timers in the community are a bit bitter towards our church for selling it and allowing it to be torn down. However, despite their strong opinions few of them realized the extent of the damages. For our church body while the loss of the building has been sad....we see that there is sweetness to be found with our Father in Heaven. "Don't store treaseures for yourselves her on earth where moths and rust will destroy them... (Or Fire!!)... and thieves can break in and steal them. But store your treasures in heaven where they cannot be destroyed." Matthew 6:19-20

Happy Harvest!

We hope that you are enjoying a healthy dose of crisp fall air, Pumpkin Spice Hot Chocolate, Carmel Apple Cider and the swish of Autumn leaves beneath your feet. We have been enjoying ourselves. Rory and I love the fall. Our fall celebrations have included--making various pumpkin desserts, a nice walk to the farm, a high school football game, and nice, toasty fires in the fireplace.

As is par for the course we have set out to prepare ourselves for the power-outages that come to visit this time of year. However, since we are prepared, we did not lose power in the last wind storm. But we did have a tree fall across our road, which was exciting enough.

Cecily is growing and teething and growing and teething. She seems to prefer to get her teeth in spurts. She is currently cutting four teeth. We are enjoying a little reprieve now that the little buggers have made their way to the surface. I felt like a walking zombie for a while there!

Rory has been hopping busy with the church lately. He also got an additional job as a site co-ordinator for a math mentoring program at the local high school. Jen has been busy with Sprouts, the play group for the church, and the women's Bible Study... that has sprung up from the play group. She has also been really busy helping Rory with the new Welcome Center for the church and the youth website.

We hope all is well with you and we will try to blog again very soon! R, J & CJ

Good-bye Summer!

Where did the summer go? We've already packed up our summer clothes and pulled out our fall sweaters.

Now we find ourselves thinking....where did the summer go?

So I thought we would have a recap.

June

Cecily's Big Adventure: Jen and CJ went down to Oregon to see their family and meet up with a long-time friends- the Stringhams. We had fun seeing everyone, but CJ would only let Jen hold her... so it made for a tiring time for Jen. But Cecily did smile at everyone from a distance.

Cecily's Dedication: We invited family and friends to join with us in our commitment to be examples and teachers of Jesus and God's Word to Cecily every day.

Rory officiates a wedding. Rory ran into some friends from high school who were in need of a minister to officiate their fast approching wedding. Rory did the job! It was great! Here is a picture of him getting ready. What if he really forgot to put on his suit pants?

We Celebrated our Anni-WORSE-ry- Jen was experiencing extreme pain in her right side. Naturally the doctor sent us to the hospital. But long story short- she still has her appendix. For some reason we have felt the need to celebrate Mono (Jen had mono at the wedding) each year as we mark another year of marriage.

Rory went to camp. He came back with awesome stories. The kids are still talking about how great that week was. CJ and I went out to visit him. Do you like the hat the kids gave him? It says Rookie Dad.

CJ went to the zoo for the first time! Jen started a play group through the church called Sprouts. It is for parents and their children age newborn through kindergarten. Each month we get together and have a lot of fun. At the end of June we went to the Zoo and decorated the strollers for the Fourth of July.

Steph and Charlie got married in Port Gamble. It was a very special wedding and very pretty. It was fun to reconnect with long-time church friends from First Christian. Here is Jen with BFF Kristen, friend since age 4.

July

The Hartshorne Greats- We enjoyed a lovely visit with Jen's Aunt Ruth and Uncle Jerry as well as with her Aunt Susan and Uncle Michael. CJ had lots of fun with them.

Cecily got her first teeth. The two bottom ones popped right on through... to her great dismay! Our ears were ringing... poor little dear! Then a few days later she figured out how to roll over. It was a full week for such a little four month old!

Meeks in town! Our friends from Nicaragua came for a visit. We got to meet their little boy and they got to meet CJ. It was fun!

Jen and CJ spent some time with Jen's parents in Levenworth. They were later joined by Rory for a couple days. A fun time was had by all!

Squeezemate Reunion: Jen's college roomies got together (all except two). The house we lived in was called the Squeeze. We had a great time catching up. And we found out that two of the girls are pregnant and due on the same day!

High School Buds! Rory got to reconnect with a few buddies from High School at Eric and Jennifer Barry's wedding. (It was beautiful.) Rory's friend, Jason Rubottom, was a groomsman.

VBS- We had an awesome week at VBS. Rory led the games and Jen helped lead the songs and took lots of pictures. God did awesome things that week!

Baby Camp Out- We went to a family reunion in Foster Lake, Oregon. Foster Lake is a family-friendly RV park where we could all visit and be very comfortable and the kids could go swimming and have a campfire. We got to stay with Grammie and Papa in the condo. It was very fun!

August

Sister/Brother Picnic- We got together at Wright Park in Tacoma with Rory's siters--Genesis and Rebekah! Jimmy and Austin--Rebekah's family--were there too. We had a blast.

Elephant Reunion- We got to meet up with Rory's college roomies too! A few of the guys who lived in the Elephant House and their families got together. The boys played basketball and the girls had fun too! There are a lot of little elephants now!

First Camping Trip- We went tent camping near Multnomah Falls with Rory's sister Rebekah and her family along with Rory's dad. CJ did awesome and experienced sleeping in a tent!

Bellingham Blitz- We took a few of our high school students up to tour Western's campus. It was a quick trip, but lots of fun!

Jen's sister, Cara, came to visit from California for a few days. It was great to see her and she really enjoyed CJ.

Rainiers Game- We went with some families from the church to the local baseball game. CJ was not impressed but soon settled down for a nice nap.

Getting this Blog thing down

Well, It has taken me a little longer to update this than I would like... but what can we say.
I am going to try to update every week (hopefully each Tuesday). But for now.... we will do our best.

We hope you enjoy our updates!

Love,

Rory, Jen and CJ