Day 4: Golden Gate, etc.

Wednesday December 17th, 2008

Today was our 3rd full day and we had a full day planned. We started off in Union Square for bagels at a place we had seen our first day, Posh Bagel and then it was off to revisit two shops we wanted to poke around in, H&M and Lush (a soap shop).
After our shopping we headed to tour a Victorian House; The Haas Lilienthal House. It is in the Pacific Heights area and is one of the only Victorian houses remaining that you can tour. We had a tour guide dressed like a Victorian woman. It was a neat experience.

After touring the house we headed to the famous In and Out burger near our hotel. I have seen the t-shirts all over the country and always wanted to go. It really is just their burger fast food place. It was very good though.

It was a beautiful day outside, so after we enjoyed our In and Out Burger lunch we headed over to the Golden Gate Bridge. We figured out the bus route, by asking around and we headed out. It was probably my favorite thing that I saw because it is classic San Francisco. Everyone grows up knowing about the Golden Gate Bridge even if you know nothing else of the city, especially if you grew up in the "Full House" era.
Above is a picture of the width of the actual cable that runs up the bridge....it is massive!!!!

After the bridge we headed back to Ghiradelli square and popped in a little winery shop where Melanie did a wine tasting. It was a cute little place that owned a vineyard in the California wine country.
After the winery we relaxed some and then headed down to Pier 39 to eat some Pacific coast seafood at a place called Pier Market. I got shrimp and Mel got crabcakes...it was quite tasty, but our waitress was not very good.

And then of course, the perfect end to the perfect day has to be some type of yummy treat and this night Kara's cupcakes was the ticket. Its a cute little cupcake place in Ghiradelli square. It was good, but not as good as Sprinkles!

Day 3: Escape to Alcatraz

Tuesday December, 16th, 2008

Today was a special day. It was the most money we were going to spend and the only thing we bought tickets for ahead of time...ALCATRAZ.
We started the day though, of course, with breakfast. We found this cute little place called Hollywood cafe right down from our hotel. The food was great, the only hiccup was the Cash only requirement and the fact that we didn't have enough cash. So, while Melanie waited patiently, I ran everywhere trying to find a Bank of America ATM to no avail and finally settled on cash back from a Walgreens.


At 11:00 a.m. we boarded our boat for our Alcatraz cruise and tour. It was FREEZING! The tour was fascinating. We watched a video on the history and then took an audio tour of the cell house. It was fascinating.

Below is a view of the city from the island

After our tour we were freezing, but very near Pier 39, a famous pier filled with shops and restaurants and most of the year, docks filled with noisy sea lions.


Later that evening we spent lots of time researching Italian restaurants to eat at. The area called North beach, just north of our hotel is filled with yummy authentic Italian food. We wanted a place that had good Gnocchi and we found it. Firenze by Night. And that would not be complete without a trip to an Italian bakery for some treats!

Day 2: San Francisco

Monday December 15th, 2008

Our first stop on our first full morning in San Francisco was to buy a City Passport for our first Trolley ride. Our hotel was right beside the Powell and Hyde cable car turnaround.

We took the trolley all the way down to Union Square to eat at the famous Sears Fine Foods for brunch. It was seriously some of the best breakfast food I have ever had.







This is a picture of the largest Christmas tree I have ever seen in my life!! It was in Union square.

To the right is the Transamerica building in Union square.

Next we visited China Town. We walked down Grant Avenue which runs through the heart of the shops and eateries. We saw a fortune cookie factory and watched a lady hand make tons of fortune cookies and we spent some time in some shops buying some "authentic" made in china trinkets.


After Chinatown we headed back to the hotel for a time of relaxing before our dinner. We went to the famous House of Nanking! It was rumored that you must order what the owner suggests and it is true. Melanie went with a shrimp dish he chose, but I did choose my good ole' fave, Sesame chicken! It was so tasty!


And of course for the final step of the day we had to revisit Ghiradelli square for a delectable end to our day. This was a Rocky Road Sunday although it really just looks like a pile of whip cream. Don't be fooled it was delicious!

San Francisco Day 1

Graduation is over. I am officially a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary with my Masters degree. It was a very exciting moment to finally be done. So many thoughts on this subject, but they will have to come later because I have something else exciting to report on....my post Graduation trip to San Francisco.
I will begin by saying that it was FANTASTIC!!!!
I, as well as my roommate, want to do a full report on the trip. So, I will be posting each day starting today for the next 7 days with pictures and a full schedule of what we did each day. Since today is Sunday, it is appropriate to start with our first day, last Sunday.

December 14th, 2008

Flight #1381 from DFW to SFO departing at 2:05 p.m.
Then when we arrived we had gotten a shuttle with our great priceline deal. The weather wasn't great the first night, but our Russian driver was nice and he got us to our hotel unharmed.
Our first stop after checking into our hotel was BOUDIN Sourdough bread company for a San Fran famous bread bowl filled with Clam Chowder!!!! Yummy!
After this we walked down to Ghiradelli Square for our first of many sweet treats. We both enjoyed delicious hot chocolates as well as a sample of peppermint bark.

Gratitude Day 2

I am grateful for the colors of fall. colors that make the scenery come alive. colors that give you hope before a long, cold, winter. colors that remind me that there is beauty even in death and life just around the corner and only God can make death beautiful and only God can bring life from death.

7 days of Gratitude

The last almost 3 years have been brought some of the most difficult, ground shaking and trying times I have ever experienced. I have hurt a lot, cried a lot, wrestled a lot, run a lot, prayed a lot and asked "why" a lot. It has not always been easy to conjur up a spirit of gratitude. However, the closer I get to graduation day the closer I get to what feels like a stepping out of this difficult chapter of my life. And though this part was unbelievably tough at times, I have grown tremendously as a person and as a believer.
I have been unable to shake the message I heard at Second Baptist last week and in an effort to make peace and find closure and solace in the Lord's hand on my experiences these last three years I want to take the next seven days and for each day contemplate one thing I am grateful for about these last three years. Though it was tough and I would never elect to relive some of those experiences, with the Lord, there is always good at work and I want to take the next seven days to focus on it.

Brennan Manning says:

"The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust—not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God."

the crazy life of a cat named Olivia

<--cat without a head?












-->cat in a bag and enjoying it



























cat on top of the fridge in a basket of "clean" dish towels

a different kind of Thanksgiving

I love this time of year. There is so much to look forward to, so much to be grateful for. The hard Texas heat turns to crisp, cool mornings. The bright green turns (if only slightly here) different shades of reds and yellows. Blankets, hoodies, coffee and comfy clothes rapidly become a fixture of daily life. And the Holidays and an air of excitement begins to build. Some people like the spring and I myself do enjoy it, but there is something about Fall, about this time of year that makes me feel hopeful. And though this Thanksgiving was of a different kind, if I were to be honest Thanksgiving for my family has looked very different the last 3 years. When family rapidly changes, so does the look of the Holiday season. So, this year I redefined family. Family doesn't have to be blood because for the Christian family is a much greater and deeper reality than DNA. In this place in my life my roommate has become family to me and her family, in many ways, has become my family away from home. This year I went to Houston to celebrate with them. It is wonderful to spend the holidays with people that are of blood kinship, but there is something deep and spiritual about being welcomed into a home and sharing a meal of thanksgiving with people who are in no way obligated to do so. Being a part of their experience, their traditions, their funny stories, their fellowship was amazing. There were of course, moments of adjustment for me realizing the differences between the family I grew up in and the "family" I spent Thanksgiving with. Neither are perfect and neither would claim to be. We can spend a lot of time complaining about our families, or situations, individual members that cause problems or disrupt the peace, I have certainly done my fair share of this type of complaining, both outwardly and inwardly. I was thankful this year, but I did not really give much heartfelt time to contemplating gratefulness until I was challenged through a sermon I heard 3 days after Thanksgiving.

We went to Second Baptist in Houston and Ben Young preached (he said with no connection to Thanksgiving Day) about gratefulness. He used the story in Luke where Jesus heals 10 lepers, but only 1 comes back to thank him for what he did. He explained that ungratefulness can act like a small cell of leprosy and even a small amount can lead to bitterness, greed, a sense of entitlement, selfishness and I would argue much the bulk of American sin. I would also argue that ungratefulness IS the root of all these evils and that if a person operates in a state of gratefulness it is impossible to live in these evils. This lack of gratefulness and thanksgiving to God is much of what is wrong with humanity. It prevents us from loving God and it certainly makes it impossible to love our neighbor. It allows a pack of humans to act like animals and TRAMPLE another to death in order to provide their little Johnny or Suzie with this years latest electronics and toys (which will clutter the closets and probably the landfill by next Thanksgiving season). Its why a woman can elbow another in the face to get a tv that is marked down by $200.00 and instead of apologize scream, "Thats right! This is MY TV."

How powerful gratitude is in everything. Walking in a spirit of gratitude kills our wrong founded sense of entitlement, it makes circumstances obselete, and consumerism absurd. It redefines wealth and it refocuses our lenses on what really matters. I do not currently live my life in a spirit of gratitude, but I want to. I am frightened when I read stories like the ones from Black Friday because I have seen those attitudes in my own heart, it is simply a fleshing out of all that ungratefulness is. It is ungratefulness at its worst.

A new house and Sky

I thought for some time that I would be sad leaving my apartment in Carroll Park. The last time we tried to move I got very sentimental (this really isn't like me). As this move-out date got closer and with the short amount of time we found a new house and signed and decided to move, I really thought it would be hard.
The weekend came, Melanie's parents came up to help us out. We spent all day on Saturday boxing up our whole house and carting it over to our new house. We then spent all day Sunday loading a Uhaul truck with our furniture. We moved everything out and when I stood in the middle of my empty apartment, the only apartment I have lived in since I have been here, all I could feel was relief. A cleansing almost...so glad to be out of that apartment. The more time I have spent in the new house, the more I have realized how much I disliked the other place. Cheap rent was the only perk, but hey you get what you pay for.
So, what are the perks of the new house.....? They are endless!

1. We have our own washer and dryer and we did 4 loads of laundry on the first day. This means no more saving quarters, no more setting a timer, no more carrying laundry across the backyard, no more walking in to find that someone has lovingly monopolized every washer and dryer in there.
2. We have a backyard with a wooden fence and a two car garage
3. The walls are all painted cool colors and are not the same mental ward whitewashed color.
4. We have a full size fridge, a large sink and a pantry bigger than a broom closet
5. There are energy effecient windows and no one-inch cracks under our door. this means the air and heat the we buy actually stays in the house
6. The bathtub and sink are not made of cheap plastic that holds dirt and is impossible to clean.
7. We have big beautiful shade trees and are not sitting wide open, vulnerable to the North Texas wind
8. To take out our trash we do not need a key and hiking boots and a flashlight, we just have to walk about 15 yards
9. We live in an amazing location! Closer to my work and Melanie's! Closer to fun things to do and great places to eat!
10. And BEST of all! There is a dog next door named Sky! He is a beautiful husky and he loves attention!

This is not an exhaustive list! I know there are more things! I love going home. It is so fun to be there. Where you live really does make a difference.
I have some many exciting things coming up. Its going to be a whirlwind, but I cannot wait. I the next month i will be in 5 different cities in 4 different states.
...be enjoying my new house
...going to Houston for Thanksgiving
...GRADUATING with my Masters from Seminary!!!!! WOOHOO
...going to San Fransisco
...flying home for Christmas

These are people that I love. My sister and my brother-in-law, or as pictured here, chocolate milk. How great is this?





Hillarious! I love them!

moving......for real this time

I am posting this at the risk of sounding like a person crying wolf. I am moving for real this time. It is no farce. I kind of have to make this one stick because student housing is giving us the boot. I am not sure why, but for some reason when you graduate they want you out of their housing, go figure. So, my roommate and I kind of had this moment about 2 weeks ago when we realized we had a month to find a place to live, sign a lease and move. we looked into a couple of things and some didn't work out and then we found the perfect place. We were driving around, looking for rent signs and calling numbers and we found this little duplex house in the TCU college neighborhood. There were so many criteria a place needed to meet, not because we are picky, but because of where we are at and this place met them all. It is very close to where we live now, but it is in a better location for work for my roommate and I. It is very cute inside and out. It has a two car garage, a driveway, a fenced in back yard for the DOGS we will get!!!!! It is 2 bedroom with a washer and dryer and more importantly we were able to sign an 8 month lease. So in what will surely be a crazy event, we are moving this weekend! We might be dumb because we are in the hard push towards the end of school, but oh well, we are almost done.

Some things I will miss about Carroll Park Apartments
1. CHEAP rent- dirt cheap...its almost like stealing
2. the safety of seminary housing
3. seeing people I know (not know well, just know)
4. its the only place I have lived during this stage of life
5. I have a lot of memories in that house

Some things I will NOT miss about those apartments
1. the paper thin insulation and feeling my bought air slip right through the cracks
2. not being able to have a pet
3. the dwarf size appliances, closests and pantry
4. sharing washers and dryers with people who love to monopolize them
5. some very strange neighbors

greater things are still to be done in this city...

This song is the banner I think Christians need to be under on a day like today. We are not Republicans, we are not Democrats, we are not of the world, just in it. This is not our Kingdom, it is not our home. However, God has placed us in a certain time and a certain place, so that we might seek Him and find Him and lead others too Him. There is a lot of work to do that is not dependent upon who wins today's election.

You're the God of this city
You're the King of these people
You're the Lord of this nation
You Are

Bridge:
For there is no one like our God
There is no one like our God

Chorus 1:
Greater things have yet to come
Great things are still to be done
In this city
Greater things are still to come
And greater things are still to be done here

Verse 2:
You're the Lord of Creation
The Creator of all things
You're the King above all Kings
You Are

You're the strength in our weakness
You're the love to the broken
You're the joy in the sadness
You Are

Chorus 2:
Greater things have yet to come
Great things are still to be done
In this city
Where glory shines from hearts alive
With praise for you and love for you
In this city

- Chris Tomlin

Some final hurdles

My roommate had this fantastic idea to create a list of every task that stands between her and graduation, so that every task she completes she could mark off and find herself one step closer to being done with Grad school. I decided to copy her idea...so here it is...

1. Church Budget Project
2. Delegation Group Project
3. New Testament Exegetical Paper
4. Youth Talk
5. Student Culture Notebook
6. 6-year youth ministry strategy
7. New Testament Final Exam
8. Admin Leadership Final Exam
9. Lots of Reading

So, when I complete these tasks, one-by-one I walk one step closer to having my Masters degree, one step closer to completing Seminary, one step closer to closing out this chapter of my life, one step closer to a very uncertain future. I think I will always be glad I had this experience, but I would be lying if I said I was sad it was drawing to a close. I am weary of the fragmented life, of a life lived with my hands in 10 different things (school, part-time jobs, etc.) and not roots to speak of. I am ready for the Lord to move me to a place, a city that I can "build a house, plant a garden" in other words a place, I can invest in and focus my energies in. Though I have no idea where that place is, I trust that as I mark items of the above list, God will lead me in the right direction.

Change we can believe in...

My roommate's family was here this weekend to celebrate her birthday. We talked a good bit about politics, because two of her family members are still undecided voters. At one point her dad made a comment that really stuck out to me. We were talking about the policy differences between the two candidates and all of the areas of society that Obama is pledging to make changes in (education, health care, poverty, etc.) and he said, "It doesn't matter what kind of program it is, the government will find a way to screw it up." I immediately thought about all of the well intentioned programs I knew of that were government initiatives gone bad....welfare....No child left behind are two that came to mind. Welfare was supposed to help people for a short time until they could get back on their feet and instead it has spoon-fed many to the point of crippling them. No child left behind was originally supposed to make sure that no kids were slipping through the cracks in the education system and that schools and teachers who were slacking and not doing their job had some accountability and standards and instead the program has refocused teacher's energy into teaching to a test so that their schools don't "look bad" and lose funding. I spoke with a teacher at my school about this just Friday. She was so frustrated with all the extra stuff she has to do and how she can't teach her kids how to read because she spends all her time teaching them how to pass a reading test. She said, "The way No child left behind was designed to work, is not how it actually functions." And socialism and communism, hasn't it been said over and over that they, "Look good on paper." But in the end they turn into corrupt systems? So what is the problem? They are run by man and man is corrupt. So, what is the solution? Do we forget about poor people and do nothing? My mind was swirling with this question today. And then it hit me. What Melanie's dad said is true. It is not possible for the government of a nation this large, to hand down some fool-proof policy that works to fix a specific problem across the board. No child left behind didn't work because it can't work. The only thing that can fix education is people, individuals working together in grassroots efforts to change things. Who can change education? Individual school districts, school superintendents, school teachers and last but not least parents. If the leaders of a school do not find the drive and desire within themselves to work together and change an individual school for the better the government can hand down any kind of program it wants, but nothing is going to change. Change is like a throwing a small pebble into a pool of water; the ripple starts small and circles out....it never starts out and circles back in.
This is the same for poverty. If we want to help people out of poverty the government can't pass down a program that effectively fixes the problem. Individuals have to make changes.

Obama can campaign under the banner of change and maybe he can do some good things as the President, but there is no government program for changing individuals. The country is ready for a change. The media is rallying for a the next President to work his magic and fix this all and the moment they realize he can't they will hate him for it. We will point our finger and rally, with just as much vigor as we did when we were cheering our candidate to victory, and blame him for not changing anything. We will blame the democrats and we will blame the republicans and we will blame the ex-President George Bush, but we would never place the blame where it belongs......ME. If we want this country to change we have to change.

The Lord sends Jeremiah to writer a letter to the Exiles of Jerusalem in Babylon. He knows they are depressed about where they are and that they are wanting God to change their situation and instead God tells them:

"Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. take wives and have sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons and give your daughters to men in marriage so taht they may bear sons and daughters. Muliply THERE; do no decrease. Seek the welfare of the city I have deported you to. Pray to the Lord on its behalf, for when it has prosperity, you will prosper." Jeremiah 29:4-7

The Lord says, I have placed you here for a purpose and you will plant roots here and you will seek out the welfare of this place andn bring my name there and push back what is dark and effect change in this city.
On Tuesday, when our country elects a new President, let us not forget that the earth is the Lord's and everything in it.