Snow bound.

Okay, enough of the heavy stuff. I've been inspired by my friend Alicia's blog to post snow pictures, partly because it's been too long since I posted a picture montage of Boogaloo and partly because Boogaloo just enjoys snow so much. :) I have never seen her frown at snow. I have, however, seen her throw a fit about coming inside.

Unlike my snowbound friend, who lives in the "frozen tundra of the north" (her words) and can afford to hate snow with a passion, we live in the Drippy Taiga (that's a real word, it means fir trees) of the West. We get inches of snow, and that's only if we've been promised a particularly cold winter. This year was supposed to be a particularly cold winter, and we've gotten six inches total in three inch increments. Three inches of snow is a piddling amount when you want to play in it.

The west is the only part of the country that is not enjoying a major dump of snow right now. . The rest of the country is buried. We have nothing. When we want snow, and we frequently do, we have to go look for it.

Pretty awesome, isn't it. This is a view from Hurricane Ridge, our yearly snow destination. Last year the we couldn't get there because the road collapsed. This year, the roads were intact, and the mountain had eight feet of snow waiting for us. There were trees buried beneath our feet. Have you ever walked over a tree? It feels like you really are on top of the world, and there's a little less sky above you than there ought to be.

Boogaloo, of course, didn't notice. She also didn't notice the 30 to 45 mph winds that were buffeting us the whole time. She climbed right up onto that snow and got busy. I think she likes the power of having a snowball in her hand. But her favorite thing to do in the snow is make a snowman. She insists on it, emphatically. And Washington snow is ideal snowman snow. It packs like nowhere else. Tada! We tried to sled a little, but it's hard walking back up a slope with eight feet of snow prepared to give way beneath you. I guess that's why ski slopes have chair lifts.

Truth about Abortion

Thursday morning a small representation of the pro-life community in Bremerton got together to begin planning our spring 40 Days for Life campaign. We were a little nervous because, to put it mildly, our last campaign was a little discouraging. In fact, in terms of community participation, it was down right dismal. We saw several lives saved, but we also filled our vigil times only because some volunteers stood by themselves for five or six hours a day. That's discouraging, especially when we read that 71% of the American populace considers itself pro-life. So we pondered, should we try to stage a new campaign, and our answer was, how can we not.

Abortion is one of the greatest evils ever visited on humanity. War, famine, tyranny, dictatorships, torture, religious discrimination, domestic abuse -- they are all awful desecrations of the sacred image of God in both the victim and the perpetrator, but abortion gives the victim no choice and no chance to fight back. Ancient armies, when they conquered a nation, would rip the babies out of mothers' wombs to desecrate their enemies. We do it to ourselves and call it choice.

Abortion is a betrayal of the most simple and one of the most sacred relationships entrusted to us (the other sacred relationship being marriage): the process of giving and nurturing life. There is nothing more precious than the relationship between parent and child and the responsibility of the life-giver to the receiver, but abortion encourages us to actively toss it aside in the name of preserving some small, piddling thing misnamed freedom and more rightly called status quo for ourselves. It's not a new thing; it's been around since before Christ. It's not a progressive development. It's a sign of social decay.

So this year, on March 9, vigils will kick off around the country. People will gather outside abortion clinics and pray for the women going in to the clinics; for the doctors, nurses, and receptionists who work in the clinics; and most of all for the babies who were denied any opportunity at life. They will pray everytime a woman walks into the clinic in her pajamas and weep everytime she limps out. And I'm asking everyone I know to be one of these people. Even if you can't go to a clinic, sign up for the prayer reminders at www.40daysforlife.com and pray for the rapid end of abortion.

The video below illustrates some abortion statistics (and their sources) that you might not have known before. It was made by a woman I know and trust. There are no violent or obscene images in it. It will help you remember what you're praying for.



God bless us all.

This is Awesome.

I got this link in an email this weekend. It debuts an amazing symbolic mural of the resurrection of our Lord. Check it out.

http://downloads.cbn.com/cbnplayer/cbnPlayer.swf?s=/vod/MW131v2_WS

Getting in the spirit.

The children's church leader has given Boogaloo a part in this year's Christmas program. I know, I know, she's not even three, but she and her nursery friends go to children's church with all the other kids and learn the songs and do the crafts. So for the past three days, I've been hearing Christmas songs around the house, and I'm not the one singing them.

This video is of the song she knows best, "Wasn't it a mighty day?" The lyrics are a little garbled, but she gets every word in there, and she loves to belt it out just about anywhere.

It's beginning to look a lot like . . .

It's December, and we've broken out all the greenery. Boogaloo is just old enough to take interest in Christmas decorations, even though she's not really old enough to help me put them up. She says "Chirshmas Tee" wherever there is decorated greenery, and she is thoroughly fascinated by one tiny little carousel horse ornament from my childhood. But she leaves the lights alone. She's a smart girl.

The following pictures are mostly for Seth. I realize that most of the people who read my blog don't really care what my Christmas decorations look like, but I'd like Seth to have something to picture in his mind when he thinks of home. That book on the corner of the table is called Famous Friesians in America. For an ethnicity that no one's ever heard of, there have been a lot of famous Friesians.

In past years, we've hung the garlands from the walls, but this year I set myself the challenge of getting all the decorations up without putting any staples in our plaster, so the furniture got covered instead. I'm particularly proud of this little innovation -- neither staples nor tape. I felt vaguely Narnian while I was wrapping up the lamppost. I wonder if the Narnians decorated their lamppost in later years.

Due to the small size of our livingroom, we usually refrain from getting a Christmas tree, but this year we thought it was worth it. It's a tradition in my family to put white lights in the middle and colored lights on the outside to fully illuminate the tree. As you can see, it works pretty well. The tree lights up this whole half of the room.

I meant to post pictures of Annika playing in last month's snow, but Blogger says it can't right now, so rather that stay up till all hours, I'll leave that for another day.

Goodnight, all. God bless.