Our Day Mountain Retreat

This was our Fall retreat in the mountains of Big Bear State Park. It is a relief for all southern Californians because it's 20degrees cooler at 5000 feet compared to the sea level temperatures mixed with desert we get at home. We were at a small camp stuck in a valley. The grass in this picture is pretty much all there is in the area. Everyone here goes to Trinity.
This little guy gave us some words of wisdom before being baptized. He was a riot.

There are a surprisingly large amount of Ohio State Buckeye fans that attend the Church. I think they need to include that in there missions statement or something: "We worship God, recommend becoming a buckeye fan and one requirement is understanding the true meaning of becoming a buckeye."I had to get a picture of this guy. He dabbled in Agnosticism, Atheism, eastern faith and really questioned a belief in God. He put his mind to the task, asked some really hard questions, questions every "Christian" should ask themselves and over the course of a few years came away knowing why he believed what he believed. Thats something most people don't know...why they believe what they believe. I know that because I've asked them. '"What do you believe?" Christianity. "Why?" I don't know.' Ok cool, I couldn't do that but if you can, good.
This is Katie's boss, Elizebeth. She is a firecracker as you can see. Katie has already met tons of people. Like I said before there are lots of Buckeyes...I think three are pastors. Ahh, an influence besides me. It was good to see her interact with people. She is finally settled in down here. Once our budget catches up we will be officially settled in to Southern California.

A little boy anticapating a rush down a water slide.
The famous "Blob." I didn't post a picture of it. I should. Maybe next time. If you've never seen it is an inflatable big bubble lookin' thing that one kid sits on the end and another jumps from a tower and the impact blasts the other kid way up in the air and into the water.(run on sentence I think) We had a blob at "summers best two weeks" the kids camp I used to work at. On the weekends when the campers were gone and it was just staff, I would soak it with a hose and get a running start, jump the 20 ft and treat it like a slip-n-slide. If that doesn't make sense then just picture it being really fun and kinda dangerous. I almost separated my shoulder once. Another fun thing we did was simply jump off the tower missing the blob altogether and plunge into the water. I did lots of stuff without thinking at camp.
Today the high temp. is 86 degrees. That is the lowest high we've seen since our first week here. It ends a streak of 90+ that's been going for a while. The funny thing is I was told we had a mild summer. That's fine. I had the windows open till noon. It was great! '
There is so much to say. I'm going to hold back to space these writings out a bit. But topics to come: Summer quarter is over!, our Spokane trip next week, physical therapy pool party(i almost wrote "poop" party. good thing I caught that one. ha ha), my refinishing of a dresser pictures (bet you can't wait). Well, enjoy.