“I may be speaking to some who can say, with an emphasis, that they oftentimes find great crops of thistles springing up in their hearts, and they have to keep the sickle of sacred mortification going to cut them down, and they try if possible to dig them up by the roots. But thus it is; you cannot expect a perfect life of happiness in an imperfect world Eke this. No; your Savior carried the cross, and you will have a cross of some kind or other to carry after him. “?Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.?” Spurgeon, C. H.

My Christian Life Doctrines class ended just last week, the garden is more established and doesn’t need as much attention. So I finally managed some free time to process some photos. I did a small photo session with Claire and Matthew back in May. It’s just photos of them around the house. Here’s one of Claire up against our couch. She wanted to crawl away, but I kept propping her back up against the couch.

It’s easy to get some action shots of Matthew, he’s running most of the time! And he has wild and crazy hair.

Click here to see the Clair and Matthew May 2008 Gallery

Recently a young man from our church had a diving accident which has broken his neck. He was diving into area of Hume lake that was too shallow and he hit the bottom and broke his neck. Jenn and I only know him as the drummer we see on Sunday’s in the worship band. His parents are writing daily on a blog and currently I’m glued to reading the day by day trials and sufferings this family is going through. They provide several updates a day, relaying both their physical and spiritual struggles. Please visit their blog, read about their son and pray for them.
Connor’s Blog

Never been to the Holy Land? Well, Google’s Satellite maps can give you a bird’s eye view of just about anywhere in the world. Check out the following link that has a very good tour of Passion Week. The days from Palm Sunday through his resurrection. Zoom in to see the street level view and also click on each day on the left hand navigation area. It will take you through each day and give you a little summary of those locations and days.

Click Here for the Passion Week Google Map

Click Here for the Original ESV Bible Blog Article

Downtown San Jose has a fun park with lots of rope structures to climb on. It’s been there for a few years, but Matthew was still too young to try it. We decided to give it another try. He mostly liked playing in the toddler area with the other smaller kids.

Here’s Matthew and I attempting to climb the rope dome structure. We sorta got stuck at the top and needed a few more hands to help get Matthew back down. I guess Matthew’s still not quite old enough.

Of course, Claire was looking cute as usual and able to hold onto the ropes.

Click here to see all the photos in the SmugMug galleries

I’ve been making attempts at latte art lately on our new espresso machine. It’s now much easier to make latte art in the steamed milk and espresso with the new machine. Here’s an attempt at creating the traditional rosetta design in the milk. The design is made by swaying the milk stream from side to side as it pours into the mug. This causes waves of brown espresso and white milk foam to form the leaves of the rosetta pattern and then at the very end, the stem is formed by dragging the milk stream right through the middle of the leaves.