“The fashion of the world is the standard by which men in general regulate their conduct: but the Christian takes the word of God for his guide, and the example of Christ for his pattern;“
Charles Simeon (1832-63)

My dream is to one day go mountain biking with my son. And now, we are one step closer to that dream as Matthew is now riding his first bike.

We bought this bike as an early Christmas present. It’s basically the one big item that he would get him Christmas. We didn’t get one for his birthday because he wasn’t really ready for it, and we figure now he’s ready.

Claire’s a lot of fun to push because she looks back and gives that cute smile to show that she’s really enjoying the ride. She doesn’t care for the helmet so much though. We eventually just decided to let her ride without it since the seat has straps that keep her from falling.

At first, helping Matthew ride is a little hard on our backs. You can see Jenn reaching over and holding the handlebars. Matthew was having a mild panic if we let go. I think he was mainly panicked because he realized that he didn’t know how to use the breaks. So we focused on helping him learn to use the breaks. Which basically amounted to me pushing him to experience going fast. I would then encourage and later yell at him to stop, peddle backwards. Then I would reach down and manually push his foot backwards so that he associated and experienced stopping with the backwards peddle motion. He somewhat understood during our training sessions, but was still mostly panicking. Suddenly, one day without my coaching, he pushed the peddles backwards hard, stopping on a dime. And I’ve seen him use the breaks several times to avoid running into things. Now he loves using the breaks so much that we have to ask him to stop using the breaks!

When I first bought the bike it needed some minor adjustments to the seat height and the training wheels. In the photo above, Matthew is stopping to “pretend” fix things. I think on this adventure we even brought the wrench because Matthew wanted to be prepared to fix the bike along the way. Don’t tell him, but actually, there was nothing wrong with it. Ssshhh!

We had originally planned for Matthew to be a construction worker, but when Jenn was at Old Navy looking at costumes, he saw the mouse costume and became enthusiastic about being a mouse.

It’s funny how sometimes with kids, the most fun is when you don’t try to plan things and just let the fun happen. In this, case Matthew had lots of fun being a mouse, something we didn’t have to plan for at all.

And here’s Claire as a pink poodle.

One of our neighbors was very scary with her real live snake around her neck.

Another neighbor had setup his sideyard as a haunted house experience, complete with animated skeletons and scary sounds. It was the most crowded house on the block when we first arrived, with literally around 50 people flocking around the front and girls were screaming with terror.

Click Here to see all the Halloween Photos

We visited 2 pumpkin patches this year. One was actually more of a fall harvest at a small farm that something of a lone ranger. Prusch Farm is not really a farm. It functions more like a playground, petting zoo, community garden, event place. We ran into some neighbors that we had just met the week before and were later invited to their house for a birthday party. The harvest festival was fun although we did have to hide out from the rain at times.

Matthew had a chance to fulfill his tractor fantasies.

Did you know Jenn is shortly becoming a tree hugger? For now, she’s a tree shaker.

I think Matthew looked at practically every single pumpkin in this patch and eventually I had to coax him to pick one and get it over with. Yes, it was still fun and a lesson in patience.

We also got to pet some cute bunnies. The same type of bunnies from last years festival. The 4-H club brought these T-Rex bunnies that are so unbelievably soft.

There’s more photos of the petting zoo and Jenn standing in the rain. Click Here to See All the Festival Photos.

I recently got a matching pair of Bibles for Jenn and I. They are made by R.L. Allan, not a well known Bible maker in the U.S., but they do have something of a reputation among those searching for quality made Bibles. The company that makes is in Glasglow Scotland, bound in Highland Goatskin. They look like glowing bricks of gold. I took a few photos.

Click Here to see all the Alan ESV Bible Photos.

“Woe to those who rise early in the morning, that they may run after strong drink, who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them! They have lyre and harp, tambourine and flute and wine at their feasts, but they do not regard the deeds of the Lord, or see the work of his hands.“ (Isaiah 5:11-12, ESV)

I’m reading through Isaiah lately. It’s seemed like an intimidating book and I was wondering if I might be able to understand any of the prophecies. But considering I’m a Christian and the Holy Spirit is given to me to help in understanding it, and I have shelves full of commentaries in this computer, I figure I should give this book of Isaiah an honest try. This verse above stuck out to me because for a period of my life my days actually match this description.

Not only did I go late in the evening, but I even rose early morning for strong drink. The reason was because I would sometimes be hanging out all night drinking in downtown San Jose. Past 2 am the corner store stops selling alcohol. So as soon the stores were open for liquor again, we would go for a walk down to the corner store, get some snacks and another 40 ounce bottle of Mickey’s or whatever. Yeah, those were some crazy nights. And you can imagine, just as the verse in Isaiah suggests, I had no regard for God. Although God had given me life, and by his grace I had the the enjoyment of the fruits of the land that He made, in the form of shelter, drink, food, clothing, yet I paid no attention to Him. Woe was me indeed!