Weekend Excursions

This weekend was a fun one, though Jason had to work on Saturday. We bought a memory foam mattress topper for our bed on Saturday night at Costco as my shoulders and hips were hurting from side-sleeping in our very firm bed here. I'm now past 4 months along, where you're not supposed to sleep on your back anymore, and our friends highly recommended theirs so I thought it would be a good idea. Well, it's pretty nice to say the least! So far, Jason's back isn't bothered by it, and it's helped keep the bed from being cluttered with pillows around me, and waking Jason every 30 min with my tossing & turning, so two wins! It will also welcome you nicely the next time you come to visit J&J's B&B:)

On Sunday we ventured into the Dandenongs. We took a short road trip into the foothills of this pretty mountain range which gave us a nice view of the city and Port Phillip Bay and winded us through a few quaint little towns. Sassafras was our favorite, with fun shops and a yummy lunch at Flippin' Pancakes, a cozy, Bavarian-style sweet & savory pancake house just outside of town. On our way back down into the city, we stopped for a short hike to a very small waterfall through a fern & gum tree forest. It was so nice to breathe the fresh mountain air. Most of the trees' bark was falling off, leaving a smooth trunk which was very interesting. Not sure why this happens, but all of these trees were in various stages of it.

We drove back into the city along the beach through St. Kilda, which looked like a really fun place to come back & visit, especially in the warmer Spring months. It had a couple of cute piers with restaurants along the beach and an amusement park across from the water. We've also heard that this is where the mini penguins come out at dusk from swimming during the day. We still have to check that out--we'll keep you posted.

We arrived back at home in time to head to the church down the pier that meets in the upstairs of a brew pub. It's called City on a Hill, and reminds me a bit of New Community, the church I went to during college in Spokane. Jason and I were thinking, "Okay, as this is a younger, city church, we'll probably hear a broad 'Jesus loves you' message with little meat and focus on the Word," but we were pleasantly surprised with a clear, challenging message. It was on the first part of Colossians 3 where Paul urges the Christians in Colosse to live their lives to please the Lord, putting to death the earthly ways they used to walk in & struggle with and instead clothe themselves with the attributes of Christ as they are new creations in Him. The pastor brought up the quote from Brennan Manning which says, "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today are Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable." He challenged us to think about something that we're struggling with that isn't Christlike, put it to death and allow God to change us to be more like His Son. It was rich to focus on how we're choosing to live this life he's given us.

It's been fun to skype with family & friends this week--how amazing it is that we can keep in touch in this way for free.
Goodnight for now!