"I am full now, not empty. I am in Love Himself, not lonely. Strong, not weak. You shall be the same. Come and see. We shall have no need for one another now; we can begin to love truly".

- C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

So I have been thinking recently about switching to this "tumblr" thing which seems to be so popular in the blogging world but then I realize that I could never leave this lovely blog behind.

³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[m] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans: 8

Whether it be the vastness of a galaxy of stars in which we are only a small fragment or the beauty of something we know is not of ourselves we are drawn back into the glory of a God much grander than all that is this life. Lost within this world that seeks to confuse us, cloud us with uncertainty and overburden us until we focus so on ourselves that we cannot see a Christ whom redeems all these things. Although we may stumble in the battle, the Lord is near and promises that if we persevere, none of these things can separate us from Him.

On my mind...

Wishing I could go to Costa Rica to visit these two!

Loving the season of Autumn which means colorful leaves and a perfect time to drink Caramel Apple Spice's from Starbucks!

Get to see this beautiful girl in just 2 months!

Missing Schladming... Why do you have to be so far away Austria?

~Greece~ (finally!)

Colorado

Already missing you guys!

Italia

VideoBlog update from Italy!

Barcelona!

So the travels have been going very well so far. I cannot believe how blessed I am to be in so many incredible places and I often catch myself asking "is this even real?". Alas, it is!

Currently we are in Barcelona and I absolutely love it here. After bouncing around Italy it has been nice to just relax and soak up the sun without worrying if we will make it to our train on time, if the airline we are flying really exsists or how to make arrangements to get out of hostels that are not really hostels at all...

Barcelona, you have been good to us and it has been wonderful to be here.

Croatia

Here is the blog update from our travel weekend to Croatia!

I have been trying recently to keep updating videos on the video blog but Tasha and I have really realized that we are worse at video-blogging that we thought. So hopefully you can still enjoy the updates via video despite our lack of talent.

Video Blog 1 -

Video Blog 2 -

Hello folks!

Here is the first post from Europe. Soon Tasha and I will post an update from Austria. The video is not anything too thrilling but I just thought that it would be more interesting than a Facebook album so enjoy!

More to come soon!

To watch a bigger version of the video click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpNQyO5SQL4

Gone Going

Lately I have been reading Donald Miller’s blog. This is mostly because I read two of his books while away at school and I completely fell in love with his writing. Something about his simplicity and quirky writing style helped me to feel he was humble. Obviously I do not know him personally so I cannot really say for certain, but as I turned page after page I experienced a type of “coffee-date-comfort” as if we were just sitting around Tim Horton’s discussing God. The ease in his writing melted away my desire to “study” and rather encouraged me to just “soak up” his thoughts and opinions.

In January he wrote a post describing how to live a meaningful life. Lately, with working full time, living in Tsawwassen and floating around while most are away at University, life feels anything but meaningful. It has been diced with routine and things that used to give me such joy have been set to the wayside because of awkward work scheduling, especially, attending church.

It is interesting however, because this lifestyle has left me examining things in more fine detail. When one spends every day doing practically the same thing over and over it becomes much more memorable when something unusual occurs. I savour time with friends and family and anything else that occurs because it isn’t the “same old same old”. It has provoked a desire to savour everyday moments into making them memorable. I make an effort to engage because I have noticed that all to easily life can just cruise on by while I am on auto-pilot. As put by Margaret Bonnano, “It is only possible to live happily-ever-after on a day-to-day basis”. Taking three minutes to talk to co-workers, old friends or my little sister have become somewhat important to me. I want to dig deeper, cherish those people and make sure that they know, in that very moment and every moment to come, how much I love them and being around them. This means, sometimes working past tough issues, taking risks that would be easy not to take and making the extra effort to show you care.

I know I am about to leave again and set off to an adventure where things will always be exciting and changing so I hope I can carry these same desires with me still. I am so excited at the prospect of meeting new people and also of seeing old friends which I love so dearly and could not picture my life without. So, not letting yesterday take up too much of today, I am relishing in each moment to make it memorable and meaningful.