A Day at the Beach

It was the perfect day for the beach, so Andrew went on Google maps and scrolled up the coastline to find a nice, quiet beach for us to catch some sun on. Boy, did he exceed himself!!! We were absolutely amazed at how beautiful this secluded part of the ocean was! The sheer cliff faced dorpped off to the soft sand below, with incredible views up and down the coast.

We parked the car and walked down the steep slope towards the waters edge.




There was this beautiful rock that stood alone in the waves, unreachable for people, but a hot spot for the birds!




The only thing that was less than perfect was the seaweed that covered this area of the shore and was quite smelly in parts!


I cleared a small spot tucked away between the rocks for us, and there were no other people around! It was fantastic!

Andrew ventured off into the water, but when there are rocks outside the water...


Chances are, there's rocks in the water... Ouch!

I settled down to get a bit of a tan!

There were some real mansions along the edge of the ocean, towering over the sand below!

As the sun lowered we packed up and headed back up the cliff


The shadow picture!

As we got up to our car, we saw that some nice policeman had left us a gift on our windscreen! Turns out, we were supposed to pay some fee to park there, but there was only a rusty old sign that gave some intructions that we couldn't have followed since there were no 'envelopes', so we assumed it was old! Oops! Andrew decided he would plea his case via letter...

As we drove the pacific coast highway, we got to enjoy the ocean air... What a beautiful creation the Lord has made!!!

Women Discipling Women Conference 2009

Women Discipling Women Conference is an annual conference hosted by the 'Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling' Program at Grace Community Church. It is designed to equip the church with women who are competent to address the needs of other women and children with authoritative answers from the Word of God, enabling interpersonal discipling relationships in them. The keynote speakers were Elyse Fitzpatrick, Martha Peace and Dr. Laura Hendrickson.

I thoroughly enjoyed this conference and now have my eyes set on the program at the Master's Conference! Here are some great snapshots of the day...

The final session was a powerful call by Elyse Fitzpatrick to find our entire being, purpose, power, and LIFE “IN Christ”. This image was repeated in our minds over and over again as she drilled into our hearts the truths of the gospel that are so easily mis-communicated and poorly understood in the daily Christian life.

And right at the end, the Coordinator for the Conference was proposed to on stage by her boyfriend! Over 2000 women left the conference with tears in their eyes! Wonderful end to a wonderful conference!

Young Married's Bible Study

We have just had our first "Young Married's Bible Study" which will be meeting once a month for the next year! We will be meeting for dinner, going through homework and being instructed through Wayne Mack's book, "Sweethearts for a Lifetime"

The other couples joining us will be

Jeff and Lauren Eckert,

Chad and Kara-Mia Dexter,

Robert and Ashley Wauhop,

and Blake and Emily Wilson.

And our fearless leader is...

Ray Mehringer and his dear wife Missy.

They will be helped by Robert and Lucy Tubbs, a wonderful, experienced older couple with a large family who can give much practical wisdom to us novices!

This group is such a blessing because it helps us to be purposeful and diligent in our marriage and provides a template for future ministry to married couples in our own church one day.

Our Poor Camera...

Sad news! Unfortunately our camera is not working properly any more, all our pictures are coming out overexposed so I think it's done for. It has served Andrew well since before he even came out to the States, so it has done well... We will be looking for a camera from someone who has a spare one to lend us, so pray we find one! Till then, it will just have to be writing!

San Fransisco, and Frank Lloyd Wright!

Frank Lloyd Wright is one of my favorite architects, so wherever I go, I always check to see if any of his work is nearby. To my delight, there were a few in the San Fransisco area so we planned a trip to go and explore the city and the best of the buildings in the proximity.

First stop: Berger House by Frank Lloyd Wright in San Anselmo.







Next, we headed off to the great San Fransisco Golden Gate Bridge!








There was this really cool battery called "Battery Spencer" that used to guard the gate.









Once we crossed the bridge, we headed down to the wharf to get some good old clam chowder for lunch... Mmmm!









We then drove through downtown in peak traffic to go across the Bay Bridge and then make one more stop at another Wright designed building.












Another Frank Lloyd Wright House - Feldman house in Berkeley, CA!





All in all we had the most wonderful day exploring the San Fransisco area!