I tried out a new pair of Five Ten Ascents that i got off Steep and Cheap last week, and they were great. A little painful when I am not climbing just because they are that tight, but that is how they are supposed to be, and I anticipate they will stretch a little to fit my feet just right. I think I am really going to enjoy climbing with them.

Climbing has been such a great motivation to work out. If you remember, I committed to get up early and work out every weekday morning. So far it has been going great. I have been doing chest and back two day, arms two days, and running on the fifth day. Last week when we were in Mississippi, since we couldn’t work out anywhere, Nethaniel and Charles and I did countless push-ups. (ok maybe not countless, we actually did about 600)

Last note, having to do with climbing, last Saturday I hiked around Umstead State Park and found the boulders that everyone talks about there. Probably Ian and I will hook up this week or next and head out there to try out some climbing on real live rocks.

They will be working for a day on a vacation Bible School for the kids there, they will be working with the printing work there, they will be giving their testimonies and singing a “special” for the church there, and most importantly they will be getting to know the Hennings better and Lord willing they will be an encouragement to them. They are very excited for this opportunity, and I am very excited for them. Jillian took our digital camera, so hopefully she will come home with tons of pictures of monkeys and flowers and all sorts of things that we dont get to see very often. The hennings live in the mountains by a volcano, and from what I hear they will be taking the girls to see the sights of Costa Rica. What an awesome opportunity.

Please remember them in their prayers, and when I hear from them I will keep you updated. Also if Jillian sends me pictures during the trip I’ll post them here, and there will definately be pictures posted here once they return home. Also you can remember me in your prayers too. The plan is to go on a ten day long starvation diet. Just kidding! Jillian made me a beautiful caserole which ranks in my top three favorites, and there is enough to last for at least 4 or 5 nights if I dont pig out and eat it all tonight. For the rest of the time I will be reverting back to my bachelor days in college of pop tarts and pasta.

Thanks for your prayers!

Here are some pictures from camping:

Our site was nice, shaded and looking down on the lake. I am guessing it was about a third of a mile from the bathouse. It was clear all evening, but the forecast said there was a chance of thunderstorms overnight so i had the fly on the tent.

This was my view when we woke up in the morning and poked our heads out of the tent. Perfectly sunny blue sky. We both slept in till around 9 or 9:30.

Here is the tent the next morning without its fly. It was 60s overnight and with the fly on it was hot in the tent, so around 2 we woke up and took it off, since by then we figured out it wasn’t going to rain.

This is the first time I have used this tent and it performed beautifully.

We had oatmeal and fruit cups for breakfast and lazed around a little, read a book together for devotions, and packed everything up. Packing up was surprisingly quick. By 10:30 we were back in the car and driving out to the eastern part of the lake to do a small section of the mountains to sea trail that runs through the Falls Lake park. The trail was nice, but would have been nice if it had spent more time down by the lake. A lot of times we would hike for a while without seeing the lake and then we would come back to it for a little stretch, then hike for a while without seeing it then come back to it. We enjoyed the walk though. Here are some pictures from our hike:

This is Jillian looking beautiful as usual.

In this one you can see we hiked through a section of the woods where they had controlled fires the week before to burn out some of the brush that builds up. It was so weird walking through it, it felt sort of like in the Lord of the Rings when Frodo and Sam were journeying through Mordor. As you can see all of the small stuff close to the ground is burned, but the bigger trees were not effected at all and still had their leaves and everything.

Another adventurous sighting was this snake. Although it looks like a black snake its tail was rattling, so neither of us were sure if it was a rattler or not. Does anyone know if black snakes rattle thier tails?

Finally here are some close-ups of some of the flora (corrected) that we saw.

Overall we had a very enjoyable time and would like to try camping there more in the future, though perhaps we will explore other areas to hike.

Jillian and I celebrated our first anniversary over the weekend by going out to Beaufort, NC for a long weekend. Friday I surprised her with the trip and we spent Friday morning packing at a liesurely pace. By 6 we arrived at The Cedars Inn, a bed and breakfast accross the street from the water in Beaufort. We had our first taste of the local seafood for dinner, including some sushi.

I asked her if she wanted to go deep sea fishing the next day and she was very excited about it, so we were up at the crack of dawn and on a boat out at sea by the time the sun rose. Although it was a little early in the year and the water was very choppy, we had a really great time pulling in fish. We each caught two sharks and a red snapper, and our big fish story for the day is that one of Jillians sharks was a 5 foot long, 100 pound sand tiger that tangled all of the lines on one side of the boat. For the record its impossible to get any of the local restaurants to cook fish that you have caught. Saturday evening we drove around beaufort a little and took pictures of some of the many local houses that are from the 17 and 1800s.

Sunday we went to an independant fundamental baptist church in New Bern about 30 minutes from Beaufort. There was preaching and the sermons were packed with scripture, although the expounding didnt follow any particular direction. In the evening the pastor announced that he had originally planned to talk about one thing but that since the service began he changed his mind and he was going to wing it. I also witnessed an alter call for the first time. Overall it left us very thankful for the church in Mebane, and at the same time we were glad for the opportunity to meet fellow christians of other traditions. All of the people were very friendly and it seemed that the church was zealous to spread the gospel and reach out to the community.

Sunday afternoon Jillian and I visited Fort Macon by Morehead City and very much enjoyed our time there. The fort is from the civil war and visitors pretty much have free range of all of the rooms and walls and nooks and cranies. It would be a great place for some manhunt or capture the flag and it would be the ultimate paint ball course. We also strolled the beach a little and took our usual Sunday afternoon naps.

Monday was a little bit rainy but thankfully we anticipated it and spent the early afternoon checking out the nc maritime museum and the boat building shop accross the street from the museum. When the rain stopped we checked out the old burying grounds and the hammock house, which was originally built for Blackbeard in 1709. Jillian also provided some entertainment for the local police crew when they filed their first ever traffic incident of a “pedestrian coliding with a car” (as opposed to one they are more used to filing, which is a car coliding with a pedestrian). With that we called it a day and headed home where we cooked up the red snappers that we caught and enjoyed the fruit of our Saturday labors.

We both enjoyed our getaway very much and we are looking forward to many anniversaries to come.

We sat side by side in the morning light
and looked out at the future together.
- Brian Andres -