Funeral for a soldier

George Lepp decided he wanted to take a bike ride to visit his friend Marie. The trip was many miles but I'm sure it was the sweet smile of Marie that made the ride seem only a few minutes. So when my immediate family stood around in the back room of the church I grew up in last Saturday, the church I was baptized in, the church I was married in, and we numbered ourselves at 71 I had to laugh at Uncle Ken's comment in my ear, "all of these people, just because Grandpa wanted to go for a bike ride." Mary (Marie) Lepp died January 2nd around 4:10pm. The first death in a family of 71.

She was 82, and she was a soldier. My greatest fear with her passing is the lack of prayer going to God on my behalf. Selfish isn' t it? There is nothing else to do but pick up where she left off. On January 2nd she put her sword and her helmet down for the first time, and now we pick up ours with renewed inspiration

What a faith we have! A faith where the same song was sung at both my wedding and my grandma's funeral, by my Dad. Faithful one. So unchanging.




Two of her most worn books.

After the funeral, all the cousins (grandchildren) and their kids (great grandchildren) met for an evening of games.

For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

2005 is an empty bottle

And so is all that's left of that delicious Shiraz. Bill and Addie and Caley and Lauren and Colin and Josh and Brenda all agreed to pack themselves into our tiny apartment, and then only make it seem smaller by eating tons of food. We brought in the new year with wine and stinky cheese. Ruth made a baked brie with carmelized onions and peach preserve, along with curry pork satay's, and thai shrimp rolls with homemade peanut sauce. I married up. Everyone else brought various cheeses and dips that made a meal out of a table of appetizers. God poured His blessings on us in 2005, in 2006 I resolve to know Him more.

Christmas

Christmas comes and goes about as fast as good skiing conditions. Which we did this year thanks to my Father in law's birthday which falls on the 25th of December. We took him skiing twice while we were home to cover both Christmas and Birthday obligations. Christmas was full of food and family. And I've got pictures to prove it.



This is what I did after every meal too.

Snowshoeing in Canada was on the agenda for this weekend. We checked it off our list right after this picture was snapped. Thanks for that Annie! A few members of our community group were there with us. It was a blast. Grouse Mountain was the location. A little money trap just north of downtown Vancouver. We stayed with big sis Joanne (even though she wasn't home for the weekend), she let us crash at her place in White Rock. We returned in time for the 7:00 oclock service on Sunday with less money, more memories, frattata fueled, and ready for the week. Except me. I came home with a cold, which gave me a day off work today so I could blog.

Yes, her future is that bright.

This one of the two times Aaron had to stop to pick a snowball out of his left ear. He decended the climb with a bleeding nose from one of our snowball ambush's. Kudos to Mark for the idea.



That's always been my strategy. Catch it so you can throw it right back.



There goes our chances of trying to catch the "rugged outdoorsmen" look.

The view from grouse at dusk.

No other way to end the night than with cocktails and and a visit to Death by Chocolate. We ran into Trevor (see sf59 post) in HMV, and he helped us close out the weekend. Thanks Trev.

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

American turkey tastes the same...

For all you Canadians who are reading this blog, this last weekend was American thanksgiving. Ruth and I went to sample the miller teams ( http://www.themillerhood.blogspot.com/) turkey feast. It was delightful. Cooking kudos to Brenda for an amazing turkey in the event of a broken oven (scroll down their blog for the whole story) Ruth brought her amazing sunshine yams, that made me yam happy. So I'm going to answer some frequently asked questions by Canadians concerning USA thanksgiving as I did with the Canadian thanksgiving, just to be fair. ;)

Q- Why do they have thanksgiving so late?
A- It's kind of the kick off holiday to the money=love Christmas season! However the Christmas decorations were out way too early this year, someone did a kick-off behind our backs.

Q- Do they eat turkey?
A- Yes they do. However, since a farmer in chilliwack recently found a duck with a runny nose hanging around his chicken coupe, and the americans decided to pull a 'mad cow/sick bird' law into effect, it's likely that none of our turkey's were canadian birds this year.

Q- Can you really buy beer at the grocerey store?
A- Yup. Even on holidays.



We ate out on the deck because it was the only place with enough room for all ten of us. So Josh rented one of these outdoor industrial heaters. You could light a cigarette from the mouth it. It totally rocked!

Commuting

It's a part of life in Seattle. Just thought I'd document it for some reason. Don't try this at home kids. Shooting pics at the speed of 25 mph is for professionals only.

My commute..well I don't actually have one. As Ruth often points out, I could ride my bike to work if I wanted. Ask me how many times that's happened. Ruth is the one who has the mildly sucky drive to and from work every day. Still, I felt the need to take my camera in my car last week. There was Frisco-like fog that morning.


Ha! I shot him before he shot me.

SF59

Who? Well only one of the greatest bands I've known. Starflyer 59 played at the Paradox this last weekend and they rocked. This band has inadvertently become the soundtrack to my life. I don't get to talk much about Starflyer59 so I'm going to now. It's what blogs are for is it not? I hope I don't embarrass Ruth. If you still don't think I'm a nerd then skip this post, I am about to geek out.

The first SF59 album I bought was when I was with Ruth at a Christian music festival up in Vancouver. We had just started dating. The Cd was an EP called She's The Queen. The next album was the Gold Album. A frequent topic of conversation between Ruth and I was what we were going to when we graduated. We can't get married! We'll be too young. We have to go to school, probably not the same school, so what then?
I was singing the lyrics to Dual Overhead Cam on the Gold album - She's got a hold on me / She better wait for me long.

The Americana album came out later in highschool. Similar songs for similar conversations - time moves you knew it would

Highschool Graduation. As a parting gift to the guys I used to play in a terrible band with, I bought them each a copy of the 12" vinyl, Goodbyes are Sad.

College came. Ruth went away to school in Kamloops, BC. Even though we were not technically dating I drove there to see her every chance I got. I was working and looking into film school. I took a couple of road trips to Vancouver to check out the school that year. One rainy weekend when Ruth was home, she and I went to dinner at our favorite restaurant out of town. While we were there I stopped by the Christian bookstore to pick up the new album Fashion Focus. On our way home I got into a car accident and bent up my little rusty BMW. The first song on Fashion Focus is called I Drive A Lot.

Film School in the big city. I was making mistakes. Ruth was making mistakes. And we were talking on the phone every night trying to figure out if we would ever be able to bring our relationship back together. It wasn't looking good at that time. Those were sad days. One day in the color lab I took a break and decided to surf the internet. I went straight to the SF59 website thinking that I hadn't heard an album from them in a while. The splash page was the cover of the new album. Bright yellow with a bold white title. It was called Everybody Makes Mistakes. I sat at my computer and cried.

Soon after the 'Best of' compilation came out entitled, Easy Come Easy Go.

May 2003. Ruth and I get married. Funny thing, the new album, Old, gets released the month before. So I order a couple copies for my groomsmen as gifts. (same guys I bought the Goodbyes Are Sad album for). We crack it open to listen to it the morning of the wedding as we're getting ready. One of the songs was entitled New Wife, New Life.

2004. I'm beginning to realize that late night drawing and a wife don't mix. The only good time for drawing is early in the morning before work. I Am The Portuguese Blues is released, with the song I wake Up Early.

One of my favorite songs is the one I still come back to often from the Leave Here a Stranger album. It's called Give up the war.

I read what they write

God's men of before

It's simply that I am still afraid

To give up the war

I've played all the chords

And I guess I get bored

I want to do it right

Be someone like Paul

It's simply that he was not afraid

He never gave up the war

And live when you're down

And live when you're always leaving

I want to be things

Always living

Pressing on

Our good friend Trevor, from highschool came down from Vancouver for the show. It was a fun weekend.

Lauren's Birthday

A few weeks ago, Ruth and I had a birthday game of cards with our close friends Lauren and Colin. Lauren is a skilled, texas hold'em card shark. So much so that she came in second at her own birthday game. Not totally surprising. The girl knows when to hold'em. Ruth played a better game then she's ever played before. She really thought out her hands. However she was still forced out early by a few strokes of badluck, so she was able to hang out and snap pics. Good times guys!