Here are some more pictures of Kelly and her friends with Ethel and Olipa.

Here is a few pictures of the "AIDS TENT" that my mom wanted to get me to take. Mom, unfortunately, it was too dark on the inside. Basically the tent walks you through the lives of 3 different kids. Olipa who stayed with us was one of them. It tells you her story of how she was raped twice and the second time contracted HIV.

This is the outside of the tent.

Here is a sobering statistic. It says "2 children die as a result of AIDS every minute." That means in the time you took to read the blog, probably another 10 kids have died.

Here it says that there 15.2 million orphans in the world. 12 million of them are in Africa. While it says it is due to aids, which is a significant part of it, the genocide and wars are also leaving a bunch of kids orphaned.

After showing you these things, it seems weird and selfish but check back in a few days and maybe you can see some of my Hawaii pictures as that is where I am at right now.

Some more fun climbing pics




As we were walking along we saw this bird... actually this is our backyard. This bird has nested in one of our planters and has been hanging out for a few weeks. She has a few eggs underneath her. I know because i took one a cracked it open. just kidding. Maybe when they hatch we can share pictures of the baby birdies.

I guess this has become a "quarterly update" as I seem to only get on here once every three or four months. So for the audience I still have here are some more pictures. Living in Orange County, a major master planned community where everything is "perfect" we rarely get out into God's creation and truly enjoy nature. I have not even been climbing outdoors in a few years and spend most of my time on fake plastic holds inside a gym (fortunately, I even get that, thanks to my wife and both sets of parents i have a year pass).
We got away to good old Santa Barbara this weekend and were about to head out to the hills. It was far from a beautiful day as the fog kept us from the view, but regardless, it was nice to be out.
A crash pad makes a great place to sit and read.
Dang, get that boy a haircut, at least he has that good looking girl next to him.
Working on a problem.
Kelly getting into the action.
A foggy day at "Lizards Mouth."

Kelly and I got to take a little break from vicous So Cal winter and head to the Bahamas for a few days. Actually the weather was better at home but it was still beautiful and best of all it was free as it was an incentive trip from my job. We got to stay at the Atlantis hotel which is one of the top hotels in the world. It was absolutely HUGE! It basically was its own city. The hotel had numerous huge aquariums, ponds with sea turtles and hammer-head sharks. There were also waterslides that shoot you into a shark tank. Kelly and I also got to take a boat to a little island and play with Dolphins which was quite a fun experience. They also decorated for Christmas well in the Bahamas. It was a great (free) trip.

"The ship set sail from the shore that day..."

Ahhhh, dont ask cause by the look on my face, I don't have a clue.

What a nice looking Christmas tree!