Lots of Adventures

After being in kind of an adventure slump over the fall and winter, we've been out exploring again.

Marriage Retreat in Costa Mesa (April 3-5)
Our very last Talbot marriage retreat. They are held at the Ayres Hotel in Costa Mesa (ayreshotel.com). If you visit the website, you can see these are some pretty upscale accomdations. Obviously these retreats are heavily subsidized for which we are incredibly grateful. These have made for fabulous weekend getaways.

Disney Hall (April 10)
Our dear California relation, Don & Connie gave me tickets to see Esa-Pekka Salonen conduct the LA Philharmonic at Disney Hall for my graduation present. Of course, I invited Brandon to go with me. It was an outstanding experience all the way around. The building itself is an architectural gem and the music was captivating (well except for the super modern opening piece, which was a bit hard to engage with). It was also a celebration of Esa-Pekka and his career with the LA Phil as he was soon retiring to compose full time. After the concert, we enjoyed strolling through downtown, had lunch, and returned home on the commuter train. It was a lovely day!







San Diego (April 11)



Our friends Tim and Ali are both University of California, San Diego alumni, so they were happy to show us around their old stomping grounds. We started with breakfast at Pipes (www.pipescafe.com) where you can get a heap of tasty breakfast delight for cheap. The portions are so big that we had to share and were still full. We also had our first mexican mochas, which are mochas with some bonus spices in them--tasty! Then we hiked around on the cliffs that afforded some of the best views in San Diego. Somebody had apparently written me a message. They also showed us around to several other sites/sights including Balboa Park, a wall that need climbing, and this place where the seals like to sun themselves:









Santa Barbara (April 25)
We had big plans for this trip. We thought we would start off at the Botanical Gardens then go to the Mission and finish up at the Art Museum. Oh yeah, and have a nice seafood dinner on the pier. Well we got to the Botanical Garden and decided we wanted to spend the day there. It was beautiful. It had a small redwood grove that smelled heavenly, a stream, meadows of wildflowers, strange and interesting cacti, among many other natural, flowery type treasures. Living in the dense city this kind of place seems so mythical and far away, so different than our daily reality. We eventually made it down to the pier and enjoyed a cornicopia of seafood while enjoying our oceanview.













Dana Point: Capistrano Surfside Inn May 1-3
Don and Connie blessed us again with the opportunity to spend the weekend in their timeshare since they were only staying during the week. We were right across the street from the ocean. There happened to be a convenient walk over right in front of our place, so we didn't even have to fight traffic to get to the beach. On saturday we borrowed the Inn's bikes and tooled around the wharf in Dana Point. I'm pretty sure that was Brandon's favorite part. I enjoyed it too, but I also loved reading beachside. It was so good to relax together before the end of school craziness began. Sunday we took PCH up the coast and had lunch at one of our favorite places the Beachcomber. After that it was on to our friend Ali's birthday party at Huntington Beach. I don't know if you were counting, but that was three beaches in one day: Capistrano, Crystal Cove, and Huntington. This is one of the really cool part about living in SoCal.

I just bought my cap and gown!!!!

I can't believe how close graduation is! May 22 will mark the close of this season of our lives.

Having the opportunity to come to ISF has been an incredible gift for Brandon and myself. I have had the time, space, and help to heal some of the young, lonely, and broken places in my heart. Consequently, I am more honest with myself, God, and others. I am more able to give and receive love because I have been able to experience something of God's love for me.

I have been doing the Ignatian exercises this year. It has been an invitation for me to open to God's love for me, to let it come close, and to internalize it. These two verses have become so important to me in this:

The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, and abounding in love. Ps 103:8

His banner over me is love. SS 2:4

Ignatian has also been an invitation to trust God. And this has been the rub for me lately as it intersected with my class on vocation where I learned that vocation is actually more about discerning and doing God's will for me today and not worrying about tomorrow than it is about an occupation. I so want to worry about tomorrow and carve out a future for myself. Instead God is asking me to trust Him that He has my best interest at heart and will take care of me. He has called me into relationship with Him, to love Brandon, to be faithful to my training at ISF, and to care for the souls He puts in my path. Beyond that, no career or obvious success is promised. The good news is that my increasing experience of His love helps me know that His heart is good toward me and that He can be trusted to care for me. This being said, I still worry. I still forget His goodness and faithfulness. I'm still trying to walk this out.

All of that being said, I'm sure that many of you are wondering what is next for us. At this point we are trying to walk in trust and openness to the Lord as we approach post-graduation life. It is entirely likely that we will find another apartment near here, so Brandon can continue to work his job, we can maintain the friendships we have with some of our neighbors in grad housing, and I could possibly continue giving spiritual direction at Biola.

I'm applying for a couple of jobs here in LA, but the possibility we are really excited about it is the Director of Spiritual Formation position at George Fox University. It really seems to align with my gifts, talents, and passion, and we are excited about a new adventure in Oregon. However I have been told that they have received a great many applications for this position. Would you please join us in praying about this? I would love the opportunity to interview for this job, but most importantly I want to abide in God's love and care (and that is easier said than done!). Please pray that God would grant us much wisdom and discernment as we make decisions and that His care and provision for us as a couple would be evident and abundant.

Postcards for Desiree's Birthday

Postcards for Desiree's Birthday, originally uploaded by brweaver.

At the beginning of December I secretly asked everyone I could think of to send Desiree a postcard on her birthday. I was aiming both for personal cards from friends and family, and geographic distribution (postcards from around the world). We got both.

Now, it's true I just about ruined the whole thing with a TYPO in our address, but some quick eyes on the account of a friend had it corrected.

But what will happen to the cards sent to the wrong address? I'm not sure yet. Some have said they will be re-routed to the correct zip code, which is what I've been hoping for, but to date I've not seen any arrive with the wrong zip code.

Still, thanks to everyone who sent a postcard!

A Big Thanks to my Adoring Fans

I just wanted to thank all of you out there who sent me a postcard for my birthday.  Thank you for helping Brandon out with his big birthday surprise for me.  One of Brandon's friends even sent me a map of the world and some pins to mark where the postcards have been coming from.  It has been a treat to hear from so many of you and they're still coming in!  Who will I hear from next? We'll see if we can't post a few of them, so you can enjoy them as well.

Thanks again for thinking of me on my Birthday!!

dez

Thanksgiving in Seattle

Found some cheap tickets and flew up Seattle to celebrate Thanksgiving with some friends of ours. We had never flown Virgin America before, and were pleasantly surprised by how interesting they made the flight with mood lighting and music. We'd fly them again if they went where we needed to go.



We spent a lot of time wandering through the downtown area, popping our heads into various shops, checking out their central library (which is enormous), exploring Pike's Place Market, and just enjoying being outside in the rain.



Was amused by the auto rickshaw's the police used to give out parking tickets. In college, a friend of mine wanted me to make a movie about guys cruising around Wisconsin in an imported auto rickshaw. With some money and an ounce more gumption it might have happened.

On Thanksgiving day we volunteered with our friends and their church at a downtown mission, helping serve a Thanksgiving meal to the homeless. Afterwards we had our Thanksgiving dinner with their church friends, in a lovely evening of good food and company.

It was a fun to see such lush mountains. I never realized how important trees were to me until I moved away from them. Yes, they have trees in Los Angeles, but not like they do in the Wisconsin countryside where I grew up. Seattle has trees like that though, and it was interesting to learn how important logging was to Seattle's founding. My ancestors were lumberjacks, so I felt connected to my surroundings while we visited.