Summer Vacation

This summer, Steve and I took a long over due vacation alone. We had not done this since our honeymoon and really had not left the kids but for a couple of over nighters since Jason was born. We went up to Santa Barbara for 5 days and left the boys in the very capable hands of our friend Rena, with the help of dear friends who took the boys on some fun excursions while we were away. We stayed at the El Capitan Canyon for a night where we enjoyed "camping" in a private cedar cabin and then followed it with three nights at the Oceana Hotel in Santa Barbara. We had a great time full of uninterrupted conversation, a couple of movies and really goo

d meals out. We visited a couple of wineries in Santa Ynez, went for a couple of bike rides and strolls along State Street. For any one who has kids, this is something so important to do. The best part was simply just having fun together and realizing what great friends we are.

These are some pictures from Sunstone Winery in Santa Ynez.

The drive into Santa Ynez

The view from the trees in El Capitan Canyon

The Grapes of Wrath



Artiste Winery

The Hotel Oceana

The way home

Summer Party

Here are some photos from Heather's birthday party. No, Heather is not the cute little blond in the pictures. She's cute and blond, but she turned 25 or something like that. I can't really keep track of how old she is because she's younger than me but acts way more mature than me. Have any friends like that? The cute little blond in the picture is Peyton D. She's slightly younger than Silas and her parents are in our small group.

Probably one of the best things we've done as a married couple is join a small group. This particular group consists of the people we mainly "do life with." They all have kids around the same age as ours. We meet together on Wednesday nights and talk about married life, parenting, family, God, and trying to live like one who follows Jesus. We consider it a gift to have friends that spur us on to live in a better way and hold us accountable to how we want to be. Not to mention, they are super fun to be around.

Summer - Judah

Judah is now 14 months and still scooting. This past week, he's gained some strength in his legs and appears to be on the highway to walking. We'd better dust off the video camera to capture his world famous boot scoot before it becomes a distant memory. His vocabulary is expanding more and more every day too. He now says "mama, dada, yeah, no, mmmmmi (for milk)" and a slew of other baby noises. Sometimes he talks and talks and talks as though he is telling a very important story.

It's hard to imagine not having a baby in the house anymore. In a few weeks, I'm sure he'll be toddling around and turning our world upside down!

Summer Photos

Summer was awesome. Here are some photos from 4th of July. We participated in the Nugent family's annual bash in El Segundo. Fireworks were amazing and right in front of our eyes at the baseball field directly accross from their house. The coolest part was my cousin Laya (from Iran) joined us. She had never seen fireworks live in all her life. It was another reminder of the things we take for granted in our lives in the U.S. Not only freedom, but the little things in life that bring us joy.

Summer - Steve's Birthday

We celebrated the big "35" on July 31. Had a few friends over for dinner, but the real party was in August with Ben Harper at the Greek Theater. We joined Ben with a few of our friends for the best concert ever. One of the things I love most about Steve is his love for music. My pallet of musical taste is always being expanded thanks to him. Last night, we went to see AFI in Long Beach. Didn't realize what a fan I was until I heard them live. Their performance was so passionate which explains their fans as well. Great people watching and great music, followed by PF Changs.

TWLOHA

I picked this up from Zach's blog. Definitly worth spreading the word...

Gentle and Quiet Like a Bull in a China Shop

I've always had a big hang-up about the description/goal for the Godly woman of a "gentle and quiet spirit." When I first heard these words tossed around, I was a junior in high school and at about the furthest I've ever been from a gentle and quiet spirit. I remember the first person I thought of that depicted such qualities was Susan Wadley, my youth pastor's wife. At the time, she had long flowing blonde hair, piercing eyes, a soft-spoken voice and a humility that put most of us girls to shame. She sought after the presence of God, prayed with her husband (often caught in the act by nosey high schoolers) and was sweet to every one she met. Even several years later, my friend Laura described her as "not of this world" when we encountered the infamous Mrs. Wadley as we were each preparing for marriage.

Since then, Susan remains at the top of my list of gentle and quiet women, even though I did eventually come to find out that Susan is also a passionate woman, who works hard for the Kingdom and obviously has a lot of chutzpah for gathering her family and moving to South Africa to serve the oppressed in the heart of the AIDS pandemic.

Today, Chris' series on Ephesians continued with more of that ugly "s" word as he unpacked the roles and responsibilities of wives and husbands. What stuck me most was at the end of the message when Chris' wife Anne joined him at the podium to pray for the wives and marriages at King's Harbor. As she was praying, my mind started wandering on to the passage in I Peter 3:4 that Chris had read from moments before:

"but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious."

I realized today that this phrase was used in the context of marriage and Peter was actually exhorting wives to be gentle and quiet in the ways we relate to our husbands. Gentle and quiet looks different in each woman and is displayed differently through each unique marriage. God wants us to focus not on outward things that make us attractive and pleasing to our husbands, but on incorruptible and intangible traits that are formed in the depths of our souls and make us pleasing as the bride of Christ as well as our earthly husbands. Peter was describing the inner beauty of the Godly wife who submits ever so gently to the husband that loves her. True submission in a marriage is not an action without warrant. Rather, it is a re-action to love, protection and responsibility received from a husband who cares for her. A woman can be as expressive, bold and as intelligent as God created her to be. She can be celebrated and included for the unique ways that her Creator designed her to be. Her gentle and quiet spirit, is just that - the spirit - that is behind her words, her actions and her attitude. It is a spirit that rises from the pursuit of eternal things.

The way God designed marriage when looked at through the lens of Christ and the church makes the term "gentle and quiet spirit" much easier to get my mind around. The church is more effective when it is a gentle and quiet force in the community, helping her husband, the Savior of the world, carry out His leadership over the Kingdom.

The S Word

This weekend, Chris is going to be teaching on the topic of "mutual submission." That ugly word just doesn't seem to go away. I've had the privilege of participating in a few conversations lately on the subject and what it comes down to, is the concept itself, totally designed by God is a beautiful thing. It's the actual word that causes stomach turning, lumps in throats and hot flashes. Especially in newlywed circles, this becomes a hot issue. I'm sure in the next few weeks as we progress through the book of Ephesians, submission between husband and wife will be unpacked a little deeper, but for this week, it's simply the idea that all of us, the entire body, are to be mutually submitted to each other.

In my effort to find another way to phrase it, I went straight to the thesaurus. There, among synonyms were several that I can't picture God having in mind (i.e. passive, backdown, bowing, cringing, docility) were a few that I thought were a little more palatable. Here are my favorites ranked in order:

1. Yielding
2. Servility
3. Surrender
4. Acceptance

After picking my favorites, I decided to look them all up in the dictionary and was disappointed by their definitions. This to me, was a reminder that the world looks at relationship much different that God intended us to.

When Paul opens up his letter to the Ephesians, he clearly addresses "the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus." Clearly he is addressing a group of people who believe in the risen Christ and are doing their best to follow Him. He encourages them to "submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ" The Greek word "submitting" in this context does not refer to being under the absolute control of another but, in this context, to voluntarily placing oneself under the authority of another. At 5:21, Paul sums up how living a life filled by the spirit manifests itself in community and then he transitions into the next section on how a community of believers should relate to one another.

It seems that most of us, especially women, come to a screeching halt when we hear the word submission because we start to feel the oppressive force of "the man" above us. I am convicted by this beautiful and often overlooked description of how to love one another in a Christ-like way.

In chapter 5, Paul begins by exhorting the Ephesians to be "imitators of God." I believe he means to love in an unearthly way that is beyond our human capacity. Here is the Suzie Standard Version of how Paul is describing relationships that are marked by love that is an extension of the way God loved us with first:

1. Imitate God. Follow the Rabbi. Get caught up in the dust of His feet.
2. Walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us (who is doing the submitting now?)
3. Be sexually pure.
4. If you have to justify your speach with "just kidding" a lot, you should probably rethink your communication skills.
5. Say thank you a lot.
6. Don't compare yourself to each other, it only leads to sinful thoughts and actions.
7. Speak the truth in love.
8. Now that you walk in light, make sure you distinctly stand out from darkness. Be in the world but not of the world.
9. Try to do and say things that you know will please God.
10. Confess your sin out of secrecy because it's the only way it can be overcome.
11. Watch how you walk - Do you display wisdom of a follower of Christ?
12. Don't let your energy, vitality and drunkenness come from things of this world but of the Holy Spirit that bears much fruit.
13. Speak to each other with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Speak God's word.
14. Say thank you a lot.

Vacation all I ever wanted

Steve and I are looking forward to a much needed vacation next week. We haven't gone on a vacation alone since our first year of marriage. This will be the first time that we have left our kids for this long or the baby at all for that matter. The anxiety I am feeling about leaving the boys is over shadowed my the necessity of going away and simply having fun together. I'm looking forward to sleeping in, walking to Starbucks, reading and running out of things to talk about.

Happy Birthday Judah!

The sunshine of my life, Judah turned 1 today. I can hardly believe a whole year has passed since he was born. If I had a quarter for every time someone told me to "enjoy this time" with my kids, Steve and I would be able to go to Hawaii next week. The other day, an older lady at Trader Joes told me enjoy my boys, so I told her that I was trying. Really and truly, I try every day to enjoy them. It can be very challenging though, with all of life's demands, days that are so hot you want to scream if sticky hands pull on you and when they scream and fight and run around while you have a napping baby, it's hard to remember to "enjoy this time." But days like today, when it's 80 degrees at night and we stay up late laying on the trampoline...Watching Judah devour a cake, listening to Jason tell us he doesn't want to go to college because he'd rather stay home with us, watching Silas reenact out his entire day in gag reel format, makes it all worth it.

P.S. Happy Birthday to Ryder Ray Barbara who now shares the same birthday as Judah!

Here are some recent photos taken at home with the boys.

6.6.6

Pastor Paul Viggiano has a fairly new weekly column in the Daily Breeze. In yet another brilliant article he addresses the (in)significance of today's date. If you are interested, you can find it here.

Robin Williams, wearing a shirt that says "I love New York" in Arabic.

I got this in an email today...

You gotta love Robin Williams...... Even if he's nuts! Leave it to Robin
Williams to come up with the perfect plan. What we need now is for our UN
Ambassador to stand up and repeat this message. Robin Williams's plan...(Hard to
argue with this logic!) "I see a lot of people yelling for peace, but I have not
heard of a plan for peace. So, here's one plan.

1) "The US will apologize to the world for our 'interference' in their
affairs, past & present. You know: Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo,
Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, and the rest of those 'good ole boys;' we will
never 'interfere' again.

2) "We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with
Germany, South Korea, the Middle East, and the Philippines. They don't want us
there. We would station troops at our borders. No one allowed sneaking through
holes in the fence.

3) "All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and
leave. We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days, the remainder will be
gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of who or where they are.
They're illegal!!! France will welcome them.

4) "All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days
unless given a special permit!!!! No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed
in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum
would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or 7-11
cashiers.

5) "No foreign 'students' over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If
they don't attend classes, they get a D, and it's back home, baby.

6) "The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy-wise.
This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy, but will require
temporary drilling for oil in the Alaska wilderness. The caribou will have to
cope for a while.

7) "Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing countries $10 a barrel for
their oil. If they don't like it, we go someplace else. They can go somewhere
else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage
sites would be enough.)

8) "If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will
not 'interfere.' They can pray to Allah, or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement,
or whatever they need. Besides, most of what we give them is stolen or given to
the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.

9) "Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need
the spies and fair-weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good
homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10) "All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can
call us 'Ugly Americans' any longer. The language we speak is ENGLISH...learn
it...or LEAVE."

"Now, isn't that a winner of a plan?" "The Statue of Liberty is no longer
saying, 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.' She's got a
baseball bat, and she's yelling, 'You want a piece of me?' "

GOD BLESS AMERICA

5 years

Our oldest son Jason turned 5 last week. It's so strange how suddenly he seems and looks so much older! I'm doing much better now but have to say I was experiencing a mild depression over the whole thing. The last 5 years have gone so quickly and in the Fall he'll be going off to kindergarten... all day... 5 days a week. I'm sure I will get over it, but in the mean time have felt a sense of urgency to soak in every moment possible.

The party we had for him was super fun. We did a military theme and had a special appearance by our friend, Captain Clay Humphreys (Thanks Clay!). He was definitly the highlight, especially when the rain thwarted our plans for an obstacle course in the back yard. The rain broke just in time for the good Captain to run drills with the boys & Lily until they were worn out in time for cake and ice cream.

The night of Jason's birthday, we stayed up late watching Star Wars: A New Hope. Until his birthday, Star Wars was Jason's favorite movie he'd never seen. Finally after much anticipation, a promise was fulfilled and Jason was allowed to watch it on his fifth birthday. Through out the past week, he's been taking in the trilogy in stages and has been able to validate that Darth Vader is indeed, his favorite bad guy.

Cottage Businesses

Both of us have always had a desire to own a business some day. Because that's not a reality for us right now, I sort of live vicariously through others that do so. If we have a friend starting up a business, we like to do what we can to support their endeavor. If you look at our links to "fun stuff" you can see some of our friends that have stepped out to do this. Another way I live vicariously through people is with those who have the gift of creating beautiful, unusual, one of a kind items that they start small businesses. I came across this website Mommies with Style last night that has a collection of products offered by moms who are trying to start small businesses at home. You should check it out and see if you can find those Mother's Day gifts I know you have already begun shopping for!

Opening Day

Today was Jason's very first Opening Day of his Baseball career. It was really exciting on many levels. Baseball goes deep in the Lind family. It runs through the veins. He's been looking forward to playing baseball for quite some time now, but I don't think nearly as much as Steve has been looking forward to watching Jason play! The boys were so cute in their little uniforms getting ready for pictures. Silas was walking around the whole time carrying the baseball bat, saying "I want to play baseball!" It's hard to believe he's still two years away from swinging the bat officially. We've got a great team and a wonderful coach which makes the first season all the more great.

During the ceremony, it dawned on me once again what a blessing it has been for us to live in San Pedro. I've lived in the South Bay almost my entire life but never realized what a jewel in the crown San Pedro is. Families have lived here for generations. It's got that small town feel to it in that so many people know each other or know of each other. There are names that you hear every where you go (those usually ending with a vich, cich, etc!). People take pride in supporting local businesses as well as the sports.

When I am in situations like today's, it's hard for me not to want to pop my head in to every store front and introduce my family and try to establish an instant bond with the proprietors in an effort to feel as connected as these locals! However, I know these things take time and I'm actually very thankful for that.

Awakenings get props

The Daily Breeze did a great story on our new favorite coffee joint. Check it out here

Nowruz

In case you didn't know, we are an international family. I was born in Iran and Steve is Italian/Danish/American. So, now we have these kids that are half Iranian and half EuroAmerican. Every now and then, someone will ask me a question like, "Do you speak Farsi to your kids?" The answer is no... Only because I don't really speak it much myself. I am almost fluent orally, however the only time I ever speak it is to certain family members. English was my first language, the one that comes naturally to me and the one I think in. It doesn't stop with the language though... Since I've not been back to the mother land after escaping the madness in 1979, I haven't done much to go back to the roots for myself, or my kids.

Lately, I've been inspired. Particularly by Fatemeh of gastronomie. I came across this blog while looking for a recipe for gormeh sabzi. While browsing this blog, Fatemeh had some photos and information about the upcoming holiday Nowruz or Nowrooz, (depending on how you choose to spell it) otherwise known as Persian New Year . Nowruz falls on the first day of spring (in Iran). This year, Los Angeles will celebrate it at 10:30am on Monday, March 20th. I have a lot of fond memories of this holiday. Mainly as a child, I looked forward to skipping school, being with my family and receiving monetary gifts. Another tradition that I loved, was the requirement to wear something new on that day. What young girl wouldn't love that tradition?! As I got older, I realized more and more that this holiday was the equivalent to Christmas in the western world in terms of uniting families and symbolism.

Like most holidays, Nowruz has a recongizable symbol which is called the haft sinn.

"Haft Sinn, the heart of the Persian New Year
Every tradition has a material
element that symbolizes that holiday to its followers. The Christmas Tree,
Easter Basket, Shamrock... you might even call them the very best marketing
icons around.
Well, for Persian people the world over, the Haft Sinn (or
"Haft Seen"), an "altar" of seven (haft) things starting with the Farsi letter
sinn, is the immutable, immediately recognizable symbol of Nowrooz."

Seeing this beautiful display on Fatemeh's blog has inspired me to do the same this year. I'm not sure how far I'll get, but I'm going to try. Look for photos and updates in future posts. Until then, you can work on practicing your greeting "Sal eh now mobarak!"

The Magic Kingdom

We recently went to Disneyland along with Gigi, Papa, Uncle Zach, Aunt Holly and Ava. It was a really good time. Nothing beats seeing the wonder in a child's eyes as they "experience the magic." My favorite part of the day had to be Star Tours with Jason and the Buzz Lightyear ride with Silas. Jason is completely enamored by anything star wars and Jason's favorite person of the moment is Buzz. It was so fun to see them enjoy their favorite characters and action come to life (sort of).

Awakening

We do a date night switch every Thursday with our friends, the Ludwigs. It's been a great thing for our marriage to have 2 nights a month that we for sure get some time out alone, without having to pay a babysitter! Plus, our kids love Lily and Sofia and it's a fun little tradition they'll have growing up together.

So last night, after dinner, we stopped by a new coffee house in Lomita called Awakenings. This proprietors fine establishment are some friends of ours who actually pastor a church, Vineyard Xtreme . They have a great kid's room that takes up half the square footage, stocked with chalk board, coloring supplies and toys. They also have wi fi and around 7 computer terminals set up with free internet access.

The Olsons had a twin purpose in opening the coffee house, not just for business, but also to use as a means for building a church outward to the community. VX meets at Awakenings, has all their various meetings there. It is truely an innovative way of doing church. The VX community not only has church there on Sundays, but they also hang out there throughout the week. Awakenings feature artists and musicians that draw people from the community from all different backgrounds. Not only does it create an environment in the city that is peaceful, tranquil and family friendly, it also provides a place for someone who may be curious about Jesus but doesn't particulary have a desire to go to "church."

We talked a lot last night about the concept of making disciples and spurring others on in the Christian life. VX has a sense of burden for not just saving the lost, but for leading others on to the path of Jesus. Teaching people how to leave their idols and surrender their lives to follow Christ and hear God. There is also a strong sense of wanting to be among the people and bridging the gap between church and city. It seems like if you are part of the VX community... church is basically a conversation, or experience that takes place in a coffee house. It's pretty cool. If you are local, you should check out Awakenings. They make really good chai lattes.