Myers' Funniest Pool Videos

Yesterday we spent the afternoon with experienced grandparents and very gracious hosts Ann and Jim Wills. Next week, they will host a "40 Below" BBQ for City Church of Honolulu, for singles and families in that age range. So they invited us over to "preview" their condo facilities: a fourth-floor outdoor playground, swimming pool, picnic area, tennis court, and two grass dog runs, complete with decorative fire hydrants.


Ann took videos of the kids' pool antics, so we're posting a few here for your enjoyment. Jim is in the pool in one of the videos; you will hear Ann's voice off-camera. A couple of the videos show the fruit of Daniel's swimming lessons; others show Ryan flirting with death . . . or at least a hernia.





Thanks to everyone who prayed for Ryan's sermon on Sunday! He did very well. Pastor Andy was out of town, and our elder, Simpson (that's right, we have only one!), called in sick at the last minute, so besides preaching, Ryan had to run much of the service by himself. Rocky led worship, and, at Ryan's request, sang "Rock of My Salvation," a favorite from our time together at Astoria Community Church.

Ryan says he will absolutely NOT be posting his sermon on the blog. Guess that means everyone will have to come visit the next time he preaches. We'll see you here!

Bean Bags and Band Aids

We went to a garage sale in Manoa this weekend and Sophie and Daniel each got to spend a dollar. Sophie got a "beanless (i.e. inflatable) bean bag" that came in what turned out to be an ant-infested box. Daniel got a lightsaber. I don't think real Jedis are allowed to get their weapons at garage sales. Although, come to think of it, maybe that's why there weren't many left by the time Luke Skywalker showed up.



Last week, Ryan took Sophie and Daniel to a winter league baseball game in Pearl City. The Waikiki Beach Boys vs. the Honolulu Sharks. They wore their Brooklyn Cyclones and Mets caps and still got a ball to take home.



Sophie finally finished reading her entire children's Bible (700+ pages) and thus earned her Daddy's permission to begin reading Harry Potter. I've pointed out many times that since the last Harry Potter book actually quotes the New Testament - in two places! - not to mention that Harry himself is sort of a Christ figure, the series is probably not going to lead her down the path of perdition. But making Sophie read the Bible first is Ryan's way of hedging his bets.



Please keep praying for Ryan as he preaches this Sunday! Thanks for praying for me as I played piano these past Sundays. It was a fun challenge, and I'm very glad to hand it back to the professionals!

Upcoming event to keep in prayer: This week our church will be participating in a ministry called Family Promise, cooking meals for homeless families who are being temporarily housed in local churches. A group will be staying at our host church, Central SDA, this week.

Here's a picture of Daniel praying. Actually, it's a picture of him trying to avoid having his picture taken. (He fell at Sophie's school and got a small bump and scratch, hence the band aid.) But it makes a much better ending to the blog if we pretend otherwise.

The Good News, The Bad News

As most of you have heard by now, Ryan did not pass his exam. The exam committee felt that he needed more time and focus on some specific areas of Bible knowledge. The good news is that the committee encouraged him to study more and come back in March. The bad news was that he had to stay until all the Presbytery business was over, at 10:30 pm. The Presbyterians really love their meetings. The good news was that he got to go to In 'n' Out Burger right afterwards. The bad news was that the burger tasted like a salad with a little bit of meat for garnish, instead of the other way around. It is never good news when you get nostalgic for White Castles.

On Saturday, we finally made it to Waimanalo Beach, after several people had raved about the swimming and body boarding there. We picked a bad day. Besides the Portuguese man o' war warning in effect, the surf was incredibly rough. Soph caught one wave back to the shore, got scraped across the sand, and couldn't even make it back out without getting knocked over by another wave. Daniel wisely sat out most of our barely twenty minute swim attempt. But the scenery alone made the trip worth it.













The kids and I have been playing this week with Stockmar modeling wax. Our friend Ann Wills, who runs two art stores in town, recommended it to us. Made from beeswax, it's completely resusable, environmentally friendly, and pliable when warmed in your hands, and its colors seem to glow. Sophie made a baby in a basket floating on the water, a la Moses.




Monday and Tuesday, thanks to Pastor Andy, who had some gift certificates he passed along to us and the Higas, we all enjoyed an overnight getaway at the Makaha Resort, which is on the leeward side of the island, nestled in a valley between two mountains, overlooking the sea. After a weekend of Presbytery meetings and exams, Ryan really needed this break!





We swam in the freezing cold pool, played tennis, ate garlic chicken and musubi, ordered from the world's perkiest waitress, and saw our first mongooses (mongeese?) darting in and out of the bushes. Ryan and DeShannon proved their manliness at the batting cages. Sophie dashed through the golf course sprinklers. The staff came at our whim, day or night, to give us golf cart rides to our destinations. We got quite lazy.


Even better than the guest services are the views from the poolside. Behind, forming the point of a triangle, the green mountains rise straight up, and in front, the clean cerulean of the ocean disappears into the horizon below.



Last week during our planetarium visit we learned that Hawaii has one of the widest views of the sky on the entire planet. In Makaha, far from the city lights, there are so many visible stars that the night sky actually has depth - we could see the bright point of Venus and tiny, blurred clusters of stars dusting the sky from millions of light years away. It was both humbling and awe-inspiring: visible time.

Ministry news: Ryan is preaching next week on John 15, The Vine and the Branches. Pray for him! I am joining a mom's Bible study on Fridays, and looking forward to getting to know the other women better. We are reading John White's The Fight: A Practical Handbook for Christian Living. Also, our regular pianist is on vacation, so I filled in last week and will play this week again for the Sunday service. Pray for me! And this weekend Sophie and I will go to a bridal shower for Lisa Wagner, a fellow choir member who is getting married soon.

That's it for this week. Thanks for your continued prayers as Ryan considers how to move forward with the licensure and ordination process. Our little surfers salute you!