A smattering of photos

We were so fortunate to spend the last two weekends with family! I invited my mom and sister down for a concert at our church with Rebecca St. James. It was a really fun concert and time together with the girls! Then on Saturday we spent the day in San Clemente! We walked Del Mar, hung out with the Eckerts, ate a delicious lunch at the deli and then ended the day with the Guties! The next weekend Melissa and Eric were in Newport for their annual bible study retreat and guess who got to babysit while they were listening to the teaching - you got it! Auntie Jenny! Cade and I really enjoyed our time together :) I realized that in all my photos I don't have a picture with Cade! I am the one behind the camera usually - so the Matthews need to come back so I can get a photo with the cute boy. A smattering of photos from the weekend are below in no particular order!

Mr. Weston in his seat! The boy loves to bounce

The Matthews and the Eckerts with the babies - born just 2 days apart

Don't you want to just eat those little toes?

Uncle Matty and the Cade-Man

Grammie and her first grandson

What a face!

Mostly about Matt :)

The tradition started our first Valentine's Day as married people. Matt made me a poster sized card! I was so surprised and loved it! He continues to make them for me every year. I'm not so surprised anymore, but I greatly anticipate what he has come up with! This was my card this year. (pics taken on a very cool iphone app that takes Polaroid's! You even shake the phone! I love it!)

Matt has had some big events the last couple of weeks. He received a job offer from Beckman Coulter and then had another interview with Taco Bell and had a very important decision to make all within a couple of weeks or days actually! The timing seemed crazy scrunched to us, but we know better. Our God had this timing in mind long before we were here! Well, we decided on Beckman Coulter as his future place of employment. Which means a lot of things....we stay in Orange County, we need to find a permanent place to live, we continue our ministry at Compass Bible Church, I say good-bye to Red Oak Elementary and resign (I was on a leave)... More importantly, it means we praise God for making our near future clear to us! We are so thankful for another piece of the puzzle and are excited to see what else there is for us.

I got him this shirt for his interview because everyone should feel their best on interview day, right?

This is the email Matt drafted to announce his decision. I love my man - he has such a way with words:

Dear Family and Friends,

We're writing to share some exciting news with you!
As many of you know, about two years ago we embarked upon an incredible journey back into the student life (for Matt), which brought us to Irvine, California for the full-time MBA program at UCI. We've loved learning together, and exploring the many possibilities that post-MBA life could bring.

After a dizzying recruiting season that began in October of 2009 and included countless interviews and hours of dialogue and prayer, we now know a little more about what life will look like for the Poladian's after Matt graduates in June. Yesterday afternoon, he enthusiastically accepted a position at Beckman Coulter, a global medical solutions company headquartered right here in Orange County. Starting July 1, he'll be working as a Senior HR Specialist, reporting to the company's Chief Diversity Officer. The job will be a perfect launching pad for a career in Human Resources and Organizational Development, and we're both very excited. What's more, Beckman Coulter is a growing (and profitable!) company that has made huge strides in diagnosing disease through blood tests. In fact, Beckman Coulter machines are used every six months when Jenny returns to USC for her routine check-ups to make sure her thyroid hormone is stable.

As you can imagine, this decision was bittersweet for us. We love Orange County, but we also miss living in Los Angeles where we both were born and raised, and where so many of our family and friends still reside. But, we are certain that this is exactly where the Lord wants us to be, at least for now. We have developed wonderful friendships in Irvine, and established a fruitful ministry at Compass Bible Church in Aliso Viejo. We will be looking to move from our on-campus apartment to a more permanent location somewhere in Orange County during the month of June, so we'll be sure to keep you posted. We look forward to hosting everyone from near and far!

Many thanks to all of you for your faithful prayers and support.

Much love,

Matt and Jenny

Another trip to the Mountains

It never gets old...you know what I mean? One of those places that no matter how often you go, it never is boring or redundant. Just familiar. Comfortable. Like an old friend. That is how we feel about Lake Arrowhead.

Here are a few pictures from our weekend with our old friend and some favorite people.

The Bishops and us!

Cute shot of Brian and Rachel

Believe it or not - McDonalds makes a pretty mean latte! And then we had to have some Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory fudge. Delicious.

The Boys did this...

The girls did this...

Work is always better in an office like this one!

Matt taking the opportunity to shovel the driveway..doesn't happen in Irvine!

Lots of snow!

The necessary cozy fireplace

The view of the still lake

Give Thanks

I have two reasons for this post. The first is better than the second.

First. Matt and I have been making a concerted effort to give thanks. We are commanded by scripture to be thankful for He is good (1 Chronicles 16:34). The Lord is the giver of all good things and we are the recipients of so many! How can we not be thankful! We participated in a goal setting workshop at our church given by the leaders of Thrive, the marriage ministry we serve in. They mentioned that they have a thankful journal that they write in weekly and review as a family. We loved the idea and immediately stole it! Thanks Ryan and Chiara! When Matt and I talked about starting this habit in our marriage I immediately got excited. Something creative! I ran out to find the perfect journal and the Lord blessed my efforts. This cute black journal was on clearance at Target for $2.50! I used whatever crafty things I had to make a label and so I present Our Thankful Journal! It sits on a chair on the way up our stairs with a pen, ready to be written in and help us set out mind on things above. Oh - I'm going to go write that I'm thankful for whoever reads this blog!

Second. I started a photography class! It has been kind of interesting. A friend in the class with me described our teacher perfectly. "He is an oversharer" she said. And she is right. He shares a lot of stories. Sometimes more than he teaches if you know what I mean. But, I still feel like I'm learning more about my camera. So when taking the picture above I used the AV setting with a 4.5 F stop to make the background blurry and the subject in focus. Does it sound like I know what I'm talking about?!?!? I don't. Because when I was loading it onto the computer and saw the picture big I became confused. Why does my many megapixel camera look like it took a grainy picture? Oh no, did I do something wrong. Then I remembered...I changed the ISO to 1600 during class and he said if we did that the picture would look grainy if blown up. Yea! I am learning. Don't ask me why a 1600 ISO makes a picture grainy..it just does. And I understand if you don't want me to take a family photo that you intend to enlarge and hang over your fireplace.

Ni Hao!

That means hello in Chinese. ONE of TWO words we picked up while traveling. Hard to believe that after 8 days in a foreign country I would only pick up two words - but nothing sounds the same in Chinese! In fact, I'm pretty sure that the whole time we were there no one ever repeated a word. Right? That has to be the reason I didn't learn more!

Well, anyway. I learned a few things while wandering through mainland China.

1. The US is known as "Beautiful Country" to the Chinese.

2. Every Emperor that ruled over China was crazy (my own conclusion). Especially the Emperor Qin Shi Huang. He constructed an army of over 8,000 terra cotta warriors to guard him in his afterlife. You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army

I'm telling you - he was crazy! But cool for all of us to see! These warriors are over 2,000 years old and were just discovered in the 70's by a local farmer. Oh, the farmer was at the museum to sign books and stuff. He became a celebrity overnight and now he sits at a table at the museum all day. He wasn't posing for pictures though...bummer.

3. I have an appreciation for Chinese calligraphy. It is a beautiful art.

4. If you don't speak the language they send you to the worst table in the restaurant. Matt and I arrived about 10 minutes before some of our friends and tried to tell the hostess we needed a table for 6 (remember we only know TWO words - so this involved a lot of hand motions, pretty funny if you picture it)! They took us up a flight of stairs, past the kitchen (which I deliberately did not look at for fear I wouldn't want to eat), up another flight of stairs and sat us at a small table in a very drafty room. Once our friends arrived, our treasured Chinese speaker let them know right away we wanted another table. In minutes we were down the stairs, past the kitchen and seated at a nice big table in the warm restaurant. Hummm....

5. In China, all prices are negotiable and up for bargaining except cars. Here, cars are one of the few items we bargain for. Funny.

6. I have an aversion to loudly clearing your throat and spitting what you just cleared anywhere you please. Especially if it is near the vegetables in the market I'm shopping in.

7. When you step into a taxi you are saying "I understand completely that I am putting my life at risk and that you do not follow basic rules of the road, such as lines and lights. Pedestrians and bicycle riders are just obstacles in the road and may or may not be hit by this taxi."

Traveling in another country is a funny thing and I'll admit that I'm not good at it. I get uncomfortable quickly, immediately nauseous at the inevitable strange smells, and confused by the language. BUT...traveling in a foreign country with Matthew is fun! He never feels uncomfortable, can stomach the smells and tries hard to learn the language. He learned to bargain with the best of them, communicate with the taxi drivers and navigate the streets and eateries of Beijing, Shanghai and Xi'an. I loved our trip because we were together.

Here are some pictures to commemorate. Notice how cold we look... well, we were! It was freezing! Click on the link and it will take you to our online album.

http://gallery.me.com/mattpoladian#100494

Cade has arrived!!

The day after I left to join Matt in China, Cade Jeffrey Matthews arrived!! I was so sad to miss his big day, but thanks to cell phones we were kept up-to-date and saw pictures shortly after his arrival. He is super stinkin' cute and melted our hearts the minute we saw him. We love the little guy and are excited to see him grow. Some pictures below!

The Matthews Family with the new edition

Cade

Daddy, Mommy, Auntie Jenny, Cade and Uncle Matt

(Cade was our first stop when we were fresh off the plane!)

Cade Jeffrey Matthews

6 lbs 7 oz ~ 19 3/4 in ~ Dec 16, 2009

Perfect!

Our Pastor wrote this excerpt this week and I loved how it summed up the meaning of Christmas! I wanted to share it with you! Merry Christmas!!

God's Christmas Plan - Christmas was required in God’s plan because the righteous life he requires was not attained by Adam or any of his fallen descendants. God, prompted by grace, chose to fulfill the holy human standard himself. The incarnate Deity chose to live the life we should have lived – the perfect childhood, the spotless teenage years and the righteous adult life. Had we been able to present to the Father the righteous life he requires so that we could perfectly enjoy his presence and his presents, God would not have needed to become a man and live among us. But we couldn’t, so he did. Were it only our sins that needed a payment, Christ could have arrived on the day of his crucifixion. But our deficiencies were more than our acts of transgression (doing the things we shouldn’t do), our problems included the “falling short of his glory” (failing to do the things we should do). It is with gratitude that we celebrate his advent as an infant, because we know that as our sins were atoned for on the cross, so it was that all our human deficits began to be rectified by one perfectly-lived life starting that very night in Bethlehem.