Last night at 6:43 pm… while waiting for the Friday service to start, which I was set to preach at, I discovered- much to my horror…. that all my recent Trinity Camping and Oregon pictures had been deleted by accident by me yesterday when clearing my computer desk top. I’ve kept the in a folder there as I worked on them. BIG MISTAKE!!!! UGH!!!

I tried as best I could to put my head back in the game and actually preach last night, while internally totally distracted and reeling in despair. I had to do some repenting actually cuz I realized I put a lot of value- perhaps too much value- in the joy I get from pictures. I mean, I could lose it all one day in a fire or something. That would suck… made me really evaluate where I put my peace… and I didn’t like the answer- cuz I find a lot of the time it’s in my stuff.

Anyway… I did my teaching and then went home and tried to figure out if it was all lost beyond repair. I figured out that I still had all my originals from Oregon on my camera- so for that part, only the hours I’ve already spent sorting and editing them was lost.

For the trinity shots… most of my originals were gone. I recovered about 90% of them I think off my hard drive with an emergency purchase of this software. I use this company’s software to back up my hard drive too, but hadn’t done so since I got back from camping. Thank the Lord for people who have my back and for whoever created recovery software. I owe you huge.

Anyway….. I spent most the night unable to sleep, trying to figure out what I really lost… turns out most of what I lost was my time. Which if I had to choose between my time and the photos themselves, I guess I’d pick my time. All the pictures now have to be resorted and organized. I lost all the photoshop collage masters of this trip however, but I still have the jpegs from them. As near as I can figure, I think I only lost one collage completely… but I have the stuff to rebuild it I think.

Here’s one I reclaimed like at 4 am. Guess the rest of my trip will take a little longer to collage now. Maybe next week.

Today Tyler got rushed off to the dentist at 9am for the horror of big needles and 2 cavities filled. Yuck. When it was over, he was NOT happy.

This however… is how Tyler looks when he is genuinely HAPPY!!!! I love it when high school kids laugh in my ministry. I love it when my own 3 kids do. I think laughter is a personal value of mine. I need to do it more. However, ironically… I cried several times when looking at my pictures of my kids this vacation. They are very happy. I wish I could make them this happy every day.

Thanks Will, Tom, Cass, and Zach for towing them all over Trinity lake to bring true joy to their world. As always… you can give the picture a click if ya want to really see a big smile fill your screen!!

While camping, one of my favorite things to do is to get in a little hiking. One short mile long hike that we as a family do every few years is to a place called Cherry Flats. It’s a brief walk up a fire road/trail to a place right off the road in a cold snow melt fed creek. The boys all jumped the 10 or 12 feet off the rock into the swimming hole this year. Even the dog went for a swim. I took a grip of pictures. Here’s some of them jumping, hiking, and even a few photos of our friends the Raby’s. I personally think I could make some money off the photo of Cassidy kissing her nephew.

Well, the blog silence was due to a much needed vacation with my wife and kids. We left on Wednesday, July 25th and headed for the Sacramento area. We had dinner with some old friends, the Mullikins, in Roseville and then spent the night there. The next morning we got up and headed Northwest towards the Trinity Alps were we spent the week with the Raby clan on Trinity lake camping and enjoying good friendships, boating, hiking, playing, and celebrating TJ’s 10 year-old birthday. It was soooo much fun for us and our kids.

Then on Thursday, August 2nd we headed 3 hours North to Medford, Orgegon to meet my parents and visit my sister and brother-in-law and their 3 boys. We hung out, celebrated TJ’s 10 year-old and my nephew Grayson’s 3 year-old birthday together as a family, played a lot, went on a a jet boat tour of the Rogue river, and Brad and I hiked Mt. McLaughlin. It definitely qualified as worth the drive. Then after hanging out for an action packed 2 1/2 days, we power drove home on Sunday, August 4th from Medford, straight on through to San Diego…. 14 hours total- virtually all of them on I-5.

I have lots of pictures to share, but to get things started, here’s a pic of our ride all loaded up. 1726 miles and 12 days later, we’re home and full speed ahead with “normal life”.

Does somebody have something against me having any savings?