NYC

I have a very special wife.

One of the things I love to do (and don't do very often) is plan a surprise for Ruth. I used to surprise her with special things more often when we were dating - of course. When you're dating you're trying to show the other person that you're worth spending time with, that you think of gifts and plan trips ahead of time because you care for the other person. Then you get married and you stop "dating". I vowed to never stop dating Ruth. I haven't been very succesful in the last few years. It's hard to plan surprises that cost money when you share a bank account.

Especially a surprise trip to New York.



I sometimes still can't get it right. Like for instance, planning a trip to New York in the middle of winter, right after a blizzard. That said, we still had a great time. We loved the city and would love to go back. The first part of our little adventure was figuring out the subway system.




The break dancing guys had nothing to do with figuring out the subway, they were just down there, so I took a picture. We figured that every city should have subways that run thorugh the entire city. I don't know how anyone could live without them. Buses are dumb. Subways - cool.

But this is what we had to do every time we prepared to step outside...



Bundle up! It's freezing! It actually warmed up a little over the week and made the walking a little more pleasant. But we couldn't wait to get back to the "warmer climate" of Seattle. Bring on the rain! It's better then blowing snow!



The thing we enjoyed most was the beautiful architecture.








We took the ferry to Stanton Island and back. The was the free way to see the statue of liberty!

Ruth took that last one. Nice shootin!

Ah yes, Dunkin Donuts on Wall St. The other thing we were dissapointed in was the lack of espresso. Starbucks was literally the only option. Dunkin Donuts was ok, some of the capaccino in Little Italy was pretty good, but there were no decent, home grown, espresso stands anywhere. These signs kind of cracked us up...

It was like starbucks for dummies, "did you know you can customize your drink? One shot, two shot, three shot". Why don't they mention four shots? I've had that before. It should be an option.

Ground zero. The freedom tower is in processes.

And then there was our hotel.

It was a hip little place just down the street from the Time/Warner building and CNN. The room was tiny (150 sq ft) but it was still amzingly comfortable to crash at the end of a long day of walking.

We missed a lot of pictures. Both times we were in Time Square, Grand Central station, and at the top of the Rockafeller building were 'no camera' days. It wasn't easy to bring along all the time.

All in all it was a blast...

...of cold wind. Looking forward to a summertime follow up. And for the record - Dunkin Donuts just taste like Tim Horton's donuts. Nothing special there. But the italian food is a whole other experience.

Caleb and Amanda

Sorry for the lapse in posting. Ruth and I have been busy as usual, and blogging has slipped down the priorty list. And it shouldn't! Bloggin is fun and important!

Well the most recent event that left us with something worth posting was Caleb and Amanda's wedding. Ruth and I shot the whole wedding by ourselves. It was a big job but we had fun and ended up with some fun pictures. Here are a few of my favorites.







Congratulations to the happy couple! Enjoy the motherland ;)

Praying Saints

Please help me in welcoming the newest inhabitants of the invertabrate apartment on my desk.



Saint Luke and Saint Catherine; the patron saints of artists. Thanks to Mark Lautenbach for the names. It does seem appropriate to name two praying mantises after two monks.



Apparently they're expecting more of a long term bed and breakfast. I better go buy some crickets.

This is a picture of the pretty girl who lives at my house.

Fully Man

Well...it's nearly upon us. Just a few more days till the wrapping gets recycled, the turkey becomes leftovers and the flood gates of guilt over sweets consumed, burst open. And thank goodness; what else would drive us to the gym? This will be our first Christmas in our new house. It should be fun.



I picked out a tree and nearly had to dip into savings to pick it (I'm thinking of quitting this animation stuff and growing Christmas trees for a living). 55 Dead presidents so I can spend an entire evening on my back on my front porch trying to get our tree-stand to keep our tree upright while saying words that I don't think baby Jesus would care for. I'll be happy if I don't have to do that again for a whole 12 months.



But the tree is up! So are the lights. So are the random Christmas decorations. So is the Nativity. Which brings me to my thought of the evening;



The reason we sin is because we have a distorted view of God. We don't see Him as our Saviour. We don't see Him as our guide or our judge or our counsellor or our helper. I was sitting looking at the beautiful Nativity that our family bought for us last year and I realized that I've never seen a Nativity with a real baby in it. I don't mean 'live' baby, I mean real. A baby that's covered in slime and blood and screaming because it used to be warm but now it's cold. A baby with it's eyes shut to the light and the noise. A baby fully aware of the world it just entered.



Instead I usually see this. A blue eyed, blonde baby Jesus looking as though He's carrying the invisible gift of Salvation in His hands. The Bible says that He was "fully God" and "fully man". If He was truly fully man, He would've come into this world the same way the rest of us did - through pain. I don't think it questions the "fully God" part of his being, to be hungry, or cold or sad.

I don't actually think there's anything wrong with these Nativity's. They're almost all beautiful. I just think it's good to take a break from Christian coloring book every now and then and look in a real crib with a real baby in it, and remember what exactly it meant for Jesus to become "fully man".



Merry Christmas from the Lepps!

R.I.P. Hillary

I'm kind of fascinated with insects.

Ruth knows that there are certain things that will turn me into a little 8 year old boy. Comic books, reptiles and bugs, and big narly trees that seem like they were designed by God for climbing.

So recently I decided to commit the next 4 years of my life to drawing comics, while being kept company by a Dynastes Granti Rhinoceros beetle on my desk as a pet. This little guy went with me to work and back for the last couple months. Despite the obvious horns that are only found on the male of the species, one of my co-workers decided to name the beetle Hillary. Not sure if it was named after the 2008 democratic candidate or not, but the name stayed regardless of the beetles political leaning.



I ordered this little soldier from an online breeder. That's right; got him in the mail. What the breeder didn't tell me was that these beetles are seasonal. They literally never live past December. And so, last weekend Hillary gave up his spirit and died. He was a gorgeous little bug.

Hillary left an empty cage on my desk, so I'm back online ordering a pair of little invertabrate friends to inpsire my comics. I'll take pictures when they arrive. ;)

Halcyon

Well, if it's not obvious from the first picture, last weekend me...


...and Ruth...



...decided to drive up to...


...and treat our parents to a weekend at Halcyon hot springs resort. It's a place a where you eat, sleep, read books, maybe watch TV...but mostly... you sit in the hotsprings, surrounded by a fog of steam while snow flakes fall on your head. I would have pictures of that, but there were strangers there also and I assumed they wouldn't appreciate pictures of themselves in swim suits, with snow on there head...on our blog.





The chalet was great. There was plenty of space for us all, a beautiful view of the lake and the mountains, and no internet or phone service and only 5 channels.







Thanks again for getting the time off work Moms and Dads! Let's make it a tradition!

David Fields

David is my best man. He stood as my best man at our wedding, but to this day he continues to be my best man. He is the man who says he will pray, and then he does. He's the guy who's yes means yes and no means no. He's not just the guy who wore a matching suit and held the rings for me, he's the man who will call me up if ever hears that my marriage is in the rocks, and say "Royden, you made a covenant."



David is also a musician. We used to play in a band together called 'Skrap'. David was the guitarist. I was the lead singer. David still plays, he actually leads worship at his church. He's almost done his masters in divinity.

David and his family are avid hunters. They get their meat for the year from the forest. We used to practice in the cold room in the basement after a hunting trip. We'd be bundled in warm clothes, playing next to skinned, gutted deer hanging upside down beside us. I wish I had pictures.



While David visited, he convinced me to re-record an old song we wrote while we were in highschool. So we recorded a track of guitar and vocals onto his laptop, and then he took the recording to our old friend, bass player and back up singer (who is now in a real band about release their second album http://www.doubtingparis.com/) Ben Rogers. He sang some backup. David recorded a few more tracks of guitar, and the song never had any drums so we didn't call Shaun (sorry Shaun). I just heard the recording and it turned out really great.



Mark stopped by to jam and I thought this was a great picture of him. I'm testing out a flash for my camera.

David saw the decrepit state of my guitar and decided he'd re-string it for me. Well he didn't just restring it, he practically refurbished it. It was awesome. Thanks David, I'll try to play more for Ruth.



David's lovely wife Kathryn couldn't join us last weekend but we were able to visit them both on our way through Kamloops this past weekend where they fed us homemade deer stew. It was awesome.

We love you both. Please come back soon.

Proof

Just to help validate Ruth's post below...

VENT

Today I had a bad day. It started bad. It ended bad.
1. Woke up at 4am to the alarm clock that my beloved mistakenly set to 4 instead of 5
2. Got up at 5am after an hour of tossing and turning to hear a message from Ben Rogers asking where in the heck Dave was since he left our house at 3pm and hadn't made it to his house in Langley until sometime after we went to bed.
3. Left the house 15 minutes late for the gym and couldn't find my purse with my greencard in it anywhere. We're going to Canada *soon* and I need it to get back in the country.
4. Got to the gym and realized that I had my sports bra on backwards. Getting dressed in the dark has some disadvantages...but I actually thought it looked pretty hot on backwards. Since Roydie wasn't at the gym with me I decided I better put it on properly ;)
5. Finished my workout and hurried to shower and get to work only to find that the shower does not have hot water that early in the morning. I waited and waited and finally decided it was better to have a frigid shower than be late for work. It was finally warm when I rinsed. If I wasn't awake before I certainly was after all of that!
6. Got dressed and thankfully took a peek in the mirror before leaving the change room and realized that I had my shirt on backwards. That shirt, on backwards...not so hot.
7. Got to work and somehow got off on the sixth floor instead of the 5th.
8. Realized that my assignment at work and my mental state were not compatible and thankfully got my assignment switched but not before a few tears were shed. How embarrassing. Unfortunatly the person who swapped me didn't want my assigment either but gave me grace.
10. Sat in traffic for 3.5 hours to get home because no one in Seattle knows how to drive in the snow.

OK OK---It wasn't all bad:
1. 9am my beloved found my purse under the bed
2. 10am was relieved to learn that Dave arrived at Ben's alive and well (it only took him 8 hours to drive 2)
3. I laughed pretty hard with Dr. M in the procedure room this afternoon. We talked about the great deal he got on his Tommy Hilfigure (sp?) tie at Mervyns and arranged marriages (he's from India).
4. Listened to 'Move It 92.5' on my crazy commute home from work and danced it up in the driver's seat. I'm sure everyone around me driving 2 miles per hour thought I was nuts. I so want a disco ball for my rear view mirror
5. I don't have to cook dinner tonight since traffic was so bad. We're going to go out. As soon as Royden gets home. It's 9:30 pm and he's still in traffic, not even halfway home yet. He didn't sound so happy on the phone. I think he needs a disco ball.