Odds and Ends

I wanted to post a few photos of some things our family has been up to lately:

Eli is totally, 100% plane crazy. He loves, I mean loves, airplanes. A friend of mine is an airline mechanic and is working at a private hangar on several airplanes. Debbie and I were able to take Eli out there not too long ago, and he had a blast!





Debbie's mother, sister, and nephew (Connor) came out to visit for a few days in the beginning of October. We had a blast with them and were super grateful that they took the time out of their busy lives to come all the way to Montana. Here are a couple of pictures of them and the kiddos.




Last July we went to Storyhill Fest (a folk music festival in the mountains near Bozeman, MT. About 10 friends joined us...here is a pic of some of the crew that came- we took a small day hike to Grotto Falls, and had a splendid afternoon relaxing in the Montana wilderness.



Kind of a random post, but gives ya'all an idea of some the things we've been up to...we'll post again soon!

Woodstock revisited, or just plain odd?

Many of you know that last January Debbie, Eli and I moved into an 8 bedroom house with a bunch of other folks. We call it "intentional community," you may just call it weird.

So I thought I'd take just a moment to try and explain at least a little bit about why we made this decision. I cannot explain it all in a short amount of space, and I'll expand more on this subject in my upcoming second blog, which will have more journal type entries. But I figured you all deserved at least some explanation of this weird little phenomenon.

Debbie and I profess Christianity, along with 70% of the American population. And as Christians, as you might guess, we have spent a little time trying to understand what this guy Jesus was talking about and teaching in his short time on earth nearly 2,000 years ago. The scary thing is, as we moved in and around the Church (note the capital "C", meaning God's church, not a particular denomination or affiliation), we saw that maybe all of us who profess Christianity have gotten quite a ways away from the things that Jesus plainly taught. Unity for example (40,000 protestant denominations and counting). Growth through relationship is another example- We kind of believe that the way God causes us to grow is primarily through each other; other people are used by God to sharpen us. This is contrary to our private, individualistic lives we lead here in America. Third, Jesus was pretty adamant about caring for other people, even going so far as to place them before our own needs and desires, if you can believe that.

So we said to ourselves, if we are going to take our beliefs seriously within the context of our current culture, how might it look? How could we best learn to practice what Jesus taught? And so 5 years ago we began a discussion with some close friends about how we might learn these things through the vehicle of community. The fruition of those discussions was our little fellowship that formed in January. We are learning a great deal, as you might guess, and growing in ways we didn't expect.

We are discovering that community is a good way to learn how to be transparent, practice grace, and serve others. It is not the only way, but it is a way. And the community is slowly changing and evolving into its intended identity. I will keep you posted on the general happenings of our community on this blog, but there will probably will be more detailed thoughts and reflections in my soon-coming second blog.(In fact, here is the updated link)

So we're not a cult, and we're not high. Don't worry family, everything is as normal as can be. ;)

Way too long, but so goes life...

Well, life has progressed an I've neglected this here little blog. I have some valid excuses (i.e.- the birth of a child, company visiting, the end of fly fishing season, etc.) but I can't help but feel as if I've let you all down. :)

Anyway, I am kick starting this blog again with three, yep, three posts all at once. This first one is about the most important event to happen to our family in the past two years- the birth of our second son, Matthew Macrae. Matty was born five weeks early, and even though he was 6lbs 10oz he had to stay in the hospital for 10 days in order to develop his lungs. It was a long week and a half for our family, but nearly three months later Matthew is doing well and gaining lots of weight. Here are some pictures of the little guy:

This was taken about 2 minutes after Matthew was born. We didn't really get to hold him because the nurses and doc were a little nervous.

This is Matthew in the Neonatal ICU unit. He had to have oxygen and about 103 wires attached to him at all times. We didn't actually get to hold him for several days.

Big brother visiting little brother. The picture is dark because we didn't want to use our flash and wake up the little guy.

This is the two boys at home two months later. As you can see, both are doing great!