Sherry and I celebrated our 41st anniversary yesterday. It began with me letting her sleep in. Very good thing! I have this hugely powerful rule inside me: “Thou shalt not wake a sleeping woman” that goes back to pre-verbal times. But this went even beyond that. It made our hugs and kisses greeting even warmer :).

Church was good. Jay preached and when he spoke of Christians needing to grow up, he used a photoshopped picture of a cute baby sitting down with my head on top. It’s shown up from time to time and never fails to get a laugh. My love for babies is very well known because of my use of grandgirl pictures. This one of Elizabeth shows why!

After a good nap time, I took Sherry on the surprise adventure. We got in the car, headed west on Burnside to a destination unknown to her. As we got closer to the US Bank building, she suspected the Portland City Grill on the 30th floor of the building. That was right and good.

The view looking to the South and East was exquisite. Showers and sun were playing with each other. Patterns formed in the Willamette River between the I-5 and Hawthorne bridges. The tiny fruit fly on the window dropped by from time to time, serving as a QC inspector. He was quite satisfied. Peking Duck and Chinese buns were perfect both in preparation and connection to our love for Taiwan and anticipation of our upcoming trip to Shanghai. The salads (with chilled forks) and entree were set off by the hearts on the table and the welcome card signed by the restaurant staff. Even though we were quite satisfied, the celebratory dessert was outstanding, especially set off by the perfect coffee (one day Sherry will learn to like fine coffee!).

Midway through dinner, motion outside caught my attention. It was a large hawk swooping. As I watched he swirled around, up and down, beautiful in the bright afternoon. I pointed him out to Sherry, but he was behind and she couldn’t see him. After a bit, he responded to my request and flew right in front of the window so Sherry could join in the LORD’s wonderful exclamation point on an outstanding date day.

We tried to remember previous anniversaries. Our fifth was in our first year at seminary. We probably couldn’t even afford McDonalds! Our tenth was at Fuller but not memorable. Our fifteenth was a trip to the Oregon coast. Our twentieth was spent apart. I was teaching at Ecola Hall and Sherry was working. It was super special because Cyndee and Debbie arranged for 10 roses to be delivered to each of us! Twenty fifth was celebrated two years late with our Alaska trip. A highlight was the visit to Glacier Bay with many connections. Our thirtieth was therefore 2 years early with our trip to Israel. Our fortieth was nearly a week at Depoe Bay and the post is on this blog! I highly recommend multiplying anniversaries, especially with total trust and deep love.

Makiya continues about the same. I was teaching at our Sacramento site last week, so I haven’t been down to see her yet. I’ll update her status when I can.

I’m putting a journaling page on the blog (see it to the right). It will be some posts of just stuff so closer friends can know what I’m thinking and doing.

Enjoy Jesus!