Easter Hope

"One thing I ask of you
This is what I seek

That I may dwell in your house

Feel your pleasure wash over me

And I am confident of this one thing

That my eyes will be blessed

When they gaze upon your beauty

And my lips will be sweet

When they whisper words of Praise

And my heart will be dancing

When it knows that you are with me

And I will see your goodness

In the land of the living."

-Waterdeep-

"I am still confident of this; I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."

Psalm 27:13

This verse has been such a source of hope and joy from this weekend through today. We hope that you experience His pleasure wash over you, as we seek together His goodness in the land of the living.

Some pics from our weekend:

This Past Weekend

This last weekend rocked. It was one of those weekends when you don't really mind going back to work on Monday because the weekend was so wonderful. Smile.

Jenny and Brian brought our buddy Josh to Dallas, because they were heading to Colorado to go skiing!! We love him so. He really enjoys bath time - which is fun, because we all crowd around the sink and watch bath time!

We spent Saturday at the Arboretum. SO beautiful. Having a place like the arboretum in Dallas is really wonderful, it's a bit of an escape from the city. We enjoyed the day with our good friends Chelle, Grant, and little Miss Emory.

Here's Grant offering Emory to the tulip Gods, with Chelle in the back documenting the whole ordeal.Look how big Abi is getting!!! (we're experimenting with spellings of her name) Emmy's cool view of the ducks...

This peaceful pic was taken right before we got kicked out by the "arboretum police." Apparently the wedding that was about to happen didn't want us in the background.

Reflections on China

Wow...sorry it's taken us such a long time to get this post up. Originally we had gone through all the pictures and decided which would be "blog pictures" - but that was taking so long - so we've just posted the link to Picassa.

What a fantastic trip. Both Donald and I had been wanting to travel to Asia, and the chance to visit our good buddies Steven and Jodee offered us that wonderful opportunity. They were certainly the highlight of the trip, it was such a pleasure to get to know Jodee more and enjoy time with them as a married couple! They are uber-fantastic (Steven - that uber was for you) and we can't wait until they move back to the USA. China was certainly an interesting country - a place booming with "newness" and a seemingly capitalistic society - yet controlled by communism. Not being able to really communicate on any level was a humbling experience - marked with laughter and some uncomfortablity as well.

Apparently Beijing has "manners police" to prepare them for their role as host to the upcoming Olympics. Some of their lessons include 1) Don't push people in lines (yep, experienced that-who pushes pregnant women anyway??!!) 2)Control your belching in public - kinda gross (heard that quite a bit) 3) Hocking (sp??) loogies isn't really pleasant (I agree) and 4) Children going to the bathroom in public is somewhat uncomfortable for others - that was the highlight of interesting things that we saw! And yes - we're meaning both "numbers" and sometimes in front of informational signs in the Forbidden City.

Now, all of this sounds incredibly ethnocentric - it was so different from our western culture - and that was so fantastic to be immersed in! It's kind of sad that there are manners police, embrace the differences! We were able to be there for the end of Chinese New Year, and therefore experienced the culture of the people on a somewhat elevated level perhaps. Everyone had time off from work, so the parks were always crowded with people just enjoying each others company and presence. We loved that. Family is so important, and it seems as though the older generations truly value community. Our favorite aspect of Beijing were the Hutongs (the old style of living where the family lived together in various buildings surrounding a common courtyard) - it is a style of living that is sadly dying - mainly staying perserved because of the increased interest presented by the tourism industry.

The Great Wall was unbelievable, it was so surreal actually walking and standing on something so ancient that I have seen so many times in text books and professional photographs; I hope I don't forget that feeling. We hope to return to China again - it was extraordinary.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Grasigma/China?authkey=hxBeAs3ULNA

Helping out Sophia

Don't get too excited about the title - for those of you who aren't animal lovers - you'll be disappointed. Sophia is a CUTE puppy. Her owner, a friend of mine at the zoo (pretty cool though - he's a chimp and gorilla keeper) is her owner, and she's a finalist at hallmark.com for this card contest (I don't reallyunderstand the whole contest - so that's about it for an explanation). Anyway, if you follow the link, you can vote for her card (she's an uber-cute Jack Russell Terrier) and if he wins the most votes - he wins 1000 dollars!!! You can also buy Sophia's card in hallmark stores beginning in June.

www.hallmarkcontests.com/vote

BUT, to remind you of ultimate cuteness...