Monday, August 29, 2005

Back to life...Back to reality

Well my vacation is over...and tommorow I get back to work. It has been really great to spend much desired quality time with my wife and close friends. Before we left for vacation we enjoyed watching our close friends Nate & Kristie get married. (see picture) They had a wonderful ceremony and an awesome outdoor reception--which included some yummy fruits and cheescake...drool! They wouldn't tell me where they were going for their honeymoon, but they get the priviledge of spending the next 8 months out at Briercrest in that wasteland they call Saskatchewan (obvious sarcasm about it being a priviledge). I can't wait to get them home over Christmas so that Chairty and I can do a double-date. They are such an awesome couple...and Nate if you read this...I love ya bro!

After their wedding Chairty and I drove down to Portland for our vacation. Needless to say that the best 2 days of weather were the days we drove down their and back again. We spent some time downtown cruising the malls...lots of shopping=FUN. We did get the chance on Wednesday to go west to Cannon Beach. This place is AMAZING. WOW...this was such a spectacular place to just relax and de-stress. I hope that these picutres give at least some small window into how magnificent this place really is. The rock formations that appear on Cannon Beach are called "Monoliths" The largest monolith on Cannon Beach is called "Haystack Rock" It truly is something spectacular to look at. Charity and I enjoyed a great picnic lunch on the beach, and then layed in the sun for a while. A little while later it started to get quite windy so we packed up our stuff and headed down Hwy. 101 towards Lincoln City for some Outlet Mall Adventures.

For those of you who wonder if we did indeed do everything I said we were going to do: according to my last post...here's a recap.

We did visit Cannon Beach. We got to go on the Jet-Boat Ride (sorry no pictures: water+camera=not a good idea) We visited Pittock Mansion...and wow was that amazing. We did not get to eat at the sushi restaurant...but that's ok...it's not like I can't get sushi here. And we had the most romantic dinner at the best table that Portland City Grill had to offer. We had 180 degree views of the Portland Skyline. The food we ate was amazing: here's what we ate.

Tyler had: Dungeness Crab crusted Butterfish (Oven roasted with savory crab crust, saffron caper sauce, asparagus, and garlic mashed potatoes.

Charity had: Parmersan Crusted Seared Jumbo White Prawns. (With garlic mashed potatoes, roma tomato coulis, basil infused olive oil, and ginger balsamic reduction.

Needless to say this was an amazing meal. Overall it was a nice vacation. Too short..but often vacations are. It's good to be home, but we had a wonderful time in the Portland area, and were extremly grateful to our friends Matt & Becky for allowing us to stay at their place while we were down there...you 2 are such great friends! After we got back into Langley, the very next day we attended the wedding of two great friends Dave & Annie. It was a lovely wedding ceremony, and an even lovelier wedding reception held at the Inn @ the Westminister Quay. The meal was catered by "The Boathouse" restaurant...and boy was it mmm mmm delicious. It was so great to see such amazing friends get married.

Needless to say this was one CRAZY week. I think our wedding quota for the year has been maxed out with having 2 weddings on back-to back weekends. Today I went out to lunch with my friend Matt Davies who was in Ottawa for the entire summer, and then we went back to his place and played GT4 & NHL '05 on his 50 inch TV. It was a lovely way to spend my day off. Well I think this post is long enough, so I'm gonna stop typing now...

Cheers,

Ty

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Vacation...WOO HOO

This will be my last blog posting for a while since Charity and I are heading down to Portland & Cannon Beach for a vacation. We'll be down there for just under a week. I am really looking forward to getting away and having a time of relaxation & refreshment.

But...

If you really know my personality...there would be no way I could just simply go on vacation without planning much of the week in advance. So here's a couple of the things that we'll be doing while down in Oregon:

1) Visiting Cannon Beach
2) Going on a Jet-Boat ride on the Willamette River
3) Visiting Historic Pittock Mansion
4) Having lunch at the most amazing All-You-Can-Eat Sushi Buffet: Todai
5) Dinning at Portland most spectacular Restaurant: Portland City Grill
6) SHOPPING (Oregon is TAX FREE) I would link you to a site, but we're going to so many places...it's not really worth it!
...and many other exciting things.

I'll post some pictures and write more about it when we are home next week. Please pray for a safe drive there and back, and that Charity and I can have a well deserved & needed time of relaxing.

Bu-Bye:

Ty

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Creation Fest West 2005 Recap...

*Well it appears that I can load pics onto this site again...so here's a tweaked + pics version of the update I did yesterday*


Creation Fest was an amazing time...as it always is. I was able to have lunch on the way up with the entire group from the David Crowder Band (see the picture above). Needless to say this was a pretty wicked way to start off my trip. Two things I realized after sitting down and chatting with David:

1) The guy is sooo skinny!
2) It almost seems like hair explodes off his face!

One of the dads in our group requested that they play "Oh Praise Him" which they did that night. And I was uber excited becaue I wanted them to play "Come thou Fount" which they also did!

I was a little dissapointed that Shawn McDonald wasn't able to attend. He apparently had a family emergency and was unable to perform at the Late Night Café. Also I did not manage to get down to see Cademon's Call. Two groups that really impressed me were Mercy Me & Casting Crowns (whose flight was cancelled on them, and they only managed to play 4 songs of their set). Overall the music was good. There were deffinately some bands that weren't there that I would have enjoyed hearing...but I can't be too picky. God did amazing things in the lives of the students that went down. This is always a highlight of their summer (mine as well).

I enjoyed being able to hang out with a bunch of the bands in the Interlinc Youth Leaders Only VIP tent. This place is amazing. They give you unlimited ice-cold pop and water all the time, and the entire place is AIR CONDITIONED!!! You also get to connect with bands and youth ministry guru's like Duffy Robbins. (see the picture above) It was awesome to connect with someone who has been doing Youth Minsitry for over 30 years! I appreciated all that he shared.

One of the best memories I have from the trip was our GIANT water fight on the Thursday. Oddly enough after the water fight they really began to ration water quite severly...some say they were having trouble with one of their wells... I think we just used up all the water...oops! We went at it for over 2 hours with absolutely everyone from the group getting soaked by the end of it. Nothing beats the intense heat of Easter Washington with a good soaking!
Charity and I went down to the mosh pit to go check our Starfield (a great Canadian Band)and as we were standing there only feet from the stage we began to notice that the drummer looked really familiar. It turns out that it is a friend of ours from Briercrest: Gordie Cochrane. (see picture below)After the concert we yelled to get his attention and were able to chat with him quickly before they went to an autograph sinning. It was really amazing to see him finally get the chance to drum in such a great band. If you've never heard of Starfield I reccommend that you link to their site above and listen to some of their tunes...or better yet just go by their CD...you won't be dissapointed. These guys are deffinately a band that God is blessings immensly.

There is so much more that I could write, but I am just so blown away at how refreshing this time was, and how God was so present in the lives of the bands, speakers, and organizers. I deffinately look forward to the next Creation Fest. If you've never been...GO.

Blessings,

Ty