Spiders and Sin

The other day Matt and I were going to work in the yard (I'll post about that later) and I walked outside to start helping him, only to see a HUGE black widow on the outside of our bedroom door. This happens to be the door that our A/C unit is rigged into...so the door isn't actually closed all the way. It also happens to be the door that my glider is right next to, yes, the same glider that I feed Skylar in some 5 + times a day.

That poor spider is alive no more. I definitely squashed the life out of her....

However, later that day as I was sitting there (literally 1 foot away from where I killed this massive spider) feeding Skylar and I got to thinking about that spider lurking in our doorway. I thought how similar that is to sin. Sin lurks in the doorway of our hearts just like this spider lurked in the doorway of my home. It occurred to me that it is super important for us to examine the creepy crawlies at the door of our heart...you never know when all this time something deadly or something that can very quickly cause you pain could be right there waiting for the chance to slip in and start its destruction.

Just a thought...but I think I will start examining the door to my heart and to my home more often!

Here she is just before getting squashed. Do you have any creepy crawlies lurking that need squashing?

In shape?

The time has come to put all excuses aside and get in shape!
As many of you know, I wasn't able to do much in the way of exercise (or anything else, really) while I was pregnant with Skylar. After she was born it was the middle of winter and quite frankly I didn't want to go outside. Here we are now living in Southern California in a town that has nearly ideal weather everyday.
After not working out AT ALL since last June its time for me to throw my excuses out the window...so here we go!
Matt and I have run 6 days in a row and it is getting easier by the day. We are starting small, but hope to up our distance every week. Wish us luck!

Hiking

This weekend Matt had to fly his plane to San Diego for maintenance. Rather than staying down there for a few days without us, he chose to ride the Amtrak back up the coast (4.5 hours) so we could spend part of his weekend with him.

Yesterday we went hiking at Rancho Sierra Vista, which is a small state park about 20 minutes from our house. This was Skylar's first hiking experience. Although, we didn't actually have to carry her the whole way because we started walking and then realized that the trail was good enough for our beast of a stroller, so Matt ran back to the truck and got it.

While hiking we saw a baby hawk, a full grown hawk that was hunting (so cool), and a really nasty looking coyote. I have never been afraid of a coyote before, but this one was walking towards us and didn't scare off until we were about 30-40 feet away from it, at which point it nonchalantly turned and walked off.

Matt's plane is supposed to be finished today (sadly), so he had to spend the rest of his "weekend" riding the train back to San Diego.

Here are a few pictures from our first hiking adventure.





Looking towards Point Mugu and Sycamore Canyon


All smiles


Our little family


Skylar decided to have a nap part way through the hike.

Life

I've started writing a blog post multiple times, only to be interrupted by a crying baby, a telephone call, etc. That said, I think I'll just say a couple things and leave the rest to pictures in hopes that I will actually get this one posted!

First of all, we moved. Matt got a job at Skydive Coastal California so we are currently living in Camarillo, CA. So far we've enjoyed going to a few different beaches and trying to figure out what this place has to offer. Although it has been a little hot from time to time, we really like the weather so far.

Skylar is growing up a lot! She currently has two teeth that have grown in this past week. She is starting to link more consonants and vowels to make more "words." She is getting bigger all the time. She is eating solids 3 times a day and her favorite thing so far is avocado....affectionately referred to as "cado" thanks to our cute nephew Caleb.

In this mess of pictures you will see: Skylar's first horseback ride on Gran-B's horse "Little Brother," Skylar's first 4th of July/6 month birthday, first roping lesson, fun in Seattle with her cousin Caleb, hanging out with Uncle Jon and Aunt Katie just before moving from CO to CA, meeting her Great-Grandma Betty, and a few from our little vacation to Laguna Beach.