It was a birthday!

Yesterday was Jared's birthday.

In the morning we went to Bible study and church.  Roy got connected with the youth group, which has a couple of other persons his age.  And it sounds like in addition to the Saturday morning Bible study, they also do a lot of other things.  Next week they're going to some type of youth rally near where we live, and I think he's pretty excited.

After church, we drove up to one of the roads which goes into Rainier in search of snow.  We parked where the snow was barely extant, because we did not want to get stuck - no tire chains and low clearance on our little Honda.  Then we hiked up the road until the snow got deeper.  At which point Jared and I strapped on our new snow shoes and got quite the workout.  Roy was able to walk in tire tracks, so he never had to walk in snow more than a few inches deep.  Jared and Roy and a couple of other guys helped some people in a minivan (which had tire chains!) get unstuck.  And it was beautiful - we had views of the Olympic Mountains, and it was pretty warm - I'm going to say a degree or two above freezing where we were.  Roy said it was a day he will remember for the rest of his life - it was his first time to see snow!  Jared and I hadn't seen snow in almost two years, either.

Then we came home, and Jared's cousin Emily and my brother and his wife came for dinner.  It was a fun, fun party, nothing fancy.  I only regret that in the midst of the conversation, I forgot Paul's admonition in Colossians 4: Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt...  And instead I found myself in the situation Paul mentioned in Romans 7: I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh.  I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do....

And, Jared's birthday also became the birthday yesterday of my blogging buddy's daughter Tabitha, who made a miraculous and healthy entrance to the world after nine months of intense and apparently insurmountable medical drama.