Got Brackets?

During this last month, which has been pretty busy for both of us, we have somehow been lured into the madness of the NCAA basketball tournament. Between friends from home, buddies from Wheaton, and a campus pool (no money involved. It's a Baptist seminary remember.), we have been following seven different brackets. We've been able to watch part of just a couple games online but we have kept up on the results, and crossing out our wrong picks and circling our right picks. Some of the brackets have not gone well at all (many more crossed out teams than circled ones), but Stacy's for the seminary was fourth out of probably about fifty until Saturday, and another one could win against some other friends if Memphis beats Kansas tomorrow night. So go Memphis! And thank you March Madness for a fun outlet.

This is our bracket door.

My Dear Dad

As Josh and I were on our way to the beach on Easter Sunday we stopped to take pictures at a sign that we had stumbled across on our first trip to the beach months ago. This sign takes me back to my childhood. You see, I remember sitting around the dining room table after we scraped the food off our plates and we were listening wide eyed to stories that we loved to picture in the imaginations of our minds. I remember loving to hear stories about my dad's childhood when he and his brother and dog, Tippy, would run through the woods and cross trees over the river and play "King of the Jungle". This playground of trees and water and exciting stories are not so far from home anymore.

This is Forest Knolls. It is about 20 min. from where we live and is where my dad grew in his love of the outdoors and God's mighty Creation. He and his family were one of the few houses on the knoll and since they were still feeling the effects of the war, a huge forest was the perfect setting for his siblings and him. With his dad painting in the city at San Fransisco State there was plenty of time for exploring when he was gone during the week.

It is amazing to think what an impact this setting has had on my dad's spiritual life and values and how I never thought that I would live so close to some of my roots.

Thank you dad for passing on a love for the outdoors and giving the Creator all glory for His beautiful works, for taking us to Lake of the Woods so many times, for teaching us how to climb and repel down moutains, for being a park ranger one summer, and for still being astounded by the magnificience of the clouds and birds.

So thank you dad for the fasinating stories then as they still live on now . . .

And these are our friends on our own little knoll on campus!

Josh and I cannot be more thankful for the godly heritages that we are both blessed to have!
And on that nastalgic note, Dad Mathews, this one's for you . . .

We couldn't pass up the chance to capture this Riviera in all her glory.

Resurrection Day

This morning we had an Easter breakfast at church. It was a wonderful time together as a church family celebrating this most significant of days. We really are growing to love our church more and more.

The Easter egg hunt for the kids


Easter breakfast


Gary and Dave. Great leaders, great men


Yael, Ling, and Nadav


After church we drove west and then north on highway 1 to Bodega Bay and the beautiful beaches up there. It was a perfectly clear and sunny day but pretty cool and windy. We had to keep reminding ourselves that it is only the second day of Spring. More sun and warmth are coming!

Green

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

March 1st!

March first will forever stand out in my mind since 2008. It was a beautiful day in Jacksonville, OR and two amazing people joined their lives together in marital union until death do they part. My sister Cynthia is now Kenneth Ebi's wife!

Leading up to the event (I was able to go up 4 days early) we were madly putting finishing touches on all of Cynthia's (and mom's) hard work. And we snuck in some family time too.

A few of my favorite family times were:

1) sister's day where the four of us and my niece went shopping. We were each in our own dressing room popping out to get advice on our outfits. It was so fun and felt like old times (I still can't believe were are all grown up and so spread out around the world).
2) Dad and I also had some great time hanging out wrapping mini cakes for the wedding favors.
3) Also sitting around some dessert at Olive Garden with Cynthia and her close friends celebrating this special event.

I am so grateful that Josh was willing to make the trek up to Medford before light, after a hard week of studying and Seminars, to be at the wedding. He got there just in time for pictures.

Cynthia looked absolutely beautiful in her dress that she designed and sewed and it fit her style perfectly. She was so calm the whole week and day of the wedding, it seemed as though her and Kenney were just taking it all in.

The pastor emphasized their diligence in waiting for one another as it is rare these days for a 29 & 34 year old. It was such a God-honoring day and so wonderful that the Lord is already glorified by their marriage.

I am so excited that they can enjoy one another and start this wonderful adventure together in Italy!!!!!

Here are some pics that explain better than my words just how beautiful everything looked.

Congratulations Kenney & Cynthia!

A Day to Remember!!!

Since it has been forever and a year since I (Stacy) have written a blog and Josh has so kindly not left you back in October of our blog lives, I am excited to write my favorite entry (besides Josh's birthday). No, not Valentines day, although it did entail roses!!! I am proud to announce that we have completed two years of marriage (that sounds so textbook). We had an amazing anniversary!

The day started out with Josh teaching Bible study (Oregon style this means Sunday school) and doing a great job! The guest speaker who was preaching came up to Josh afterwards and said that he was so impressed by the indepth study and notes that Josh had put into it and I agreed. And we give glory to God for Josh being able to use this gift for His glory in a practical way. (You can pray for this Sunday as he will be teaching again.)

Back to the day, we left Church and did our usual Trader Joe's grocery run and ran home to change and take off for a Sunday drive. The sun was out and it was warm and beautiful! And of course we forgot the camera so we went back and finally ended up at Stinson beach for a fun walk on the shore amidst children playing and foreign people flying a kite for the first time (funny).

Then off to our long awaited dinner!!!!!!! I ate the most expensive meal of my life and had more fun cooking it than ever! A big, humungous shout out to Sara Mathews for the perfect Christmas/Birthday/Anniversay gift to Josh. We had a romantic four-course meal at the Melting Pot (a fondue resturaunt). There were roses waiting at the table for me with a card from the Melting Pot. Dinner started out with cheese fondue, then salad (not just any salad either), thn the main meat course (chicken, lobster, filet mignon, shrimp, pork, pasta, veggies, and all kinds of batters and sauces), and finally chocolate fondue with strawberries, cheesecake, brownie pieces, etc to dip in it. We chose the carmel and pecan chocolate because it was flambé style. Needless to say, after eating that many little pieces of food over the course of three hours we were so FULL and HAPPY!

Our waitor was a cute little older man who told us about his website, his garden with about 100 herbs, and who gave us the history of the resturaunt which used to be a brick factory. It was such a fun experience and a memory that we will not forget.

Thank you for reading all of these details, and there were many more unwritten that made up a beautiful celebration of the Lord's astounding goodness! We both know that we could not be experiencing the goodness of beeing married if it were not for His kindness.

What does the Academy Know? A Lesson for the Mathews

Last night we went to a movie. After a busy week we thought it might be a fun and relaxing way to spend a couple hours. Boy were we wrong in this case. We saw There Will Be Blood. It's up for academy awards and from the description it sounded interesting. We are highly recommending that you never watch it, either in the theater or on dvd. It was a good lesson for us and we will be watching fewer movies for a while just to minimize the chances that we'll have to sit through something like that again. In hindsight we should have gotten up and walked out 30 minutes into it, but we both expected it to turn some kind of corner and at least become a little entertaining or interesting. Nope. Not only did it have disturbing and depressing (not to mention sacrilegious) themes, but it also was quite slow and boring, not very visually interesting at all, lacking a discernible plot, and way too long. It had very little if any of the typical things that would have kept us away--like language, nudity, or excessive violence--but was full of stuff very contrary to what we ought to fill our minds with as Christians. I had to apologize to Stacy for taking her and I didn't really want to confess on here that we saw it, but we wanted to do our part in trying to keep 2 1/2 hours of your lives free from that trash. Please don't see it.