More photos of baby Lena to come!

Lena Esther with Parents for Columbian Large.jpg, a photo by gkhamilton on Flickr.

Near the end of our exhausting 100+ hour stay at St. Vincent hospital, Bo took this photo of Kathy, me, and baby Lena as we got ready to take our newborn daughter home with us!

Our newborn daughter Lena turns two weeks old tonight! I’m bummed that my paternity leave from Delta is ending in a few minutes, but I am so thankful for the time I’ve spent this past week or so taking care of Kathy (as much as she allowed me to) and our darling little baby girl.

By this point, many of my readers have been wondering (quite loudly, in some cases) why I haven’t been posting any baby updates, pictures, etc. After all, I DID announce last time that a BlogSpot delivery room recap would be posted here this week.

Friends, I have heard your cries. Lena’s lungs are doing their darnedest to drown them out each night, but I’m still listening. I briefly considered posting a caps-lock down, caffeine fueled rant about the countless hours I’ve spent trying to convince my new Nikon DSLR camera that, among other things, baby Lena’s delivery room photos were NOT taken on September 11th. Rather, I’ll keep my explanation simple:

The pictures just aren’t quite ready to upload yet. They will be soon, though. If these pictures were of anything other than our daughter’s birth, I would’ve settled for less than perfect.

Last night, I realized that I had run out of reasonable solutions to my mounting technical issues. I took a deep breath and embarked on the most maddeningly tedious process of photo adjusting that I could ever imagine. Personally, sitting in front of a computer is not how I prefer to spend my free time. But it will be a relief when I'm finally done getting Lena's baby pictures "un-messed up."


First things first, though. I think I just heard the sound of our little gift from heaven in the other room, asking for some loving attention. Daddy’s coming!

9-10-11: The Day that Lena Esther Hamilton Entered Our World!!!

DSC_0748.JPG, a photo by gkhamilton on Flickr.

Last night at 10:18, Kathy gave birth to our first child, Lena Esther Hamilton! Lena is a beautiful, healthy baby who stole our hearts from the moment that we first laid eyes on her. Kathy and I will be staying here at St. Vincent Hospital for the next few days as Kathy recovers from her C-section surgery.

I will continue this BlogSpot post throughout our stay here at St. Vincent (we've been here for 50+ hours so far), uploading additional photos and telling Lena’s story. The hospital’s WiFi network is not playing nice with my computer’s security programs, so I will add each section (including this opening) and a few select photos each time that I am able to connect online.

Thank you, friends, for your prayers and supportive words as we watched God miraculously move to bring our baby daughter, Lena, into this world!

9/13/11 Tuesday update:

For the remainder of our nearly 101 hour stay in the hospital, I didn't find a good opportunity to continue this post as I had planned. In fact, Kathy and I just got home from the hospital and have put baby Lena down in her new bassinet for the first time!! I'll post a brand new BlogSpot post here early next week.

Our Baby's Due Date Is... Yesterday?

Note: Additional photos added!

IMG_3282_edited-1.JPG, a photo by gkhamilton on Flickr.

Celebrating my birthday at Cooper Mountain

After waiting all this time for our baby daughter’s September 7 due date to arrive, the day came and went with nothing more than a small scare. When my alarm went off at 2 a.m. yesterday for my morning shift at Delta, Kathy was feeling nauseous and was experiencing irregular contractions. I called Delta to tell them not to expect me at the airport for my shift.


Later that morning, I took Kathy in to see our OBGYN. She assured us that Kathy’s condition and her false contractions were nothing to be concerned about. Before sending us home, our doctor recommended that we schedule a stress test next Wednesday, followed by an appointment to induce labor a week from this Friday. Kathy and I never really expected our baby daughter to be born by her September 7 due date, but hopefully she comes sooner the end of next week! Either way, we’ll be excited for her to arrive.

Our baby daughter’s room is all set up for the big day, and we can’t wait to finally bring her home to sleep in it.



This photo was taken by Christi Kurtz.
We have been blessed with a small army of friends and family who, when all is said and done, will have thrown us a total of seven(!) baby showers.

Our baby daughter will have enough toys, outfits, and diapers to keep her stylin’ with the best of them.


This past summer, Kathy and I have been taking advantage of our last hassle-free opportunities for uninterrupted “us” time, "me" time, and family time before our baby arrives.
Getaways such as flying overseas or driving to our family’s annual Banks Lake camping trip in July have been relaxing, but they are too few and too brief. This year, we even had to cut our Banks Lake vacation short so I could fly out in the middle of the week for Delta Care Team training in Atlanta. But next year, we’ll look forward to bringing our little one along to the lake!


We often hear about how important it is for parents to schedule “date nights” and outings with each other:

We’ll never need to be reminded to head out on the town together, but we realize that becoming parents may make our “get out” time less frequent and more complicated to pull off. Somehow, though, we’ll continue to make it happen.

Personally, I’ve been making the most of my pre-baby life by squeezing in as many hiking, trail running, backpacking, and camping trips as I can manage while juggling family, ministry, work, and social life.

Friends tell me often that, as a father, I’ll have to cut back on so many things that I love to do. I’m totally at peace with that, since we'll soon have a baby girl who is gonna need the best that we can give her. Our lives are about to change for the better!

Birthday Memories- Morro Bay Family Reunion 2010

Yep, today is my birthday. Normally I love birthdays, but last year’s August 12 was spectacularly awful for me… retake after retake of deafening blank bullets on the indoor set of an unexpectedly long 16+ hour TV show shoot, missing my late evening birthday dinner with Kathy (who first got stuck on a MAX train that was held up for a death on the tracks, followed by riding a bus that was held up by a hit bicyclist, followed by an hours long wait for me outside the set for hours, before finally leaving for home hungry and Garthless), and capping off the final minutes of my birthday night with a particularly unfortunate grub run (complete with getting hit by not one, but two clearly unwelcome “romantic” advances) all by myself in downtown Portland. Worst. Birthday. Ever.



My one-week earlier birthday celebration last year, however, was worthy of an honorable mention on my Top 5 Recent Trips countdown. And even though my monthly Top 5 countdown is on hiatus until September November, I couldn’t resist trotting out a few memories from last year’s family reunion in California.

The same week that I returned via motorcycle/bus/train/car from our 2010 Banks Lake trip, my parents picked me up in their RV from work at PDX for the drove down to California’s Morrow Bay State Park for our family reunion.




My mom’s side of the family includes ministers, teachers, and just all around good people (and I dearly love my dad’s side of the family, too!). When you have a family as wonderful as mine, every moment spent together is a highlight. However, a few things did stand out from that week:


Spending the day with my amazing cousin, Jefferson: buying camp supplies in town, munching pizza... ... and shedding campfire smoke-induced tears together as we prepared the tri-tips for dinner



The impossibly scrumptious fire-grilled food


Late night chats by the campfire


Hitting the town of Morro Bay with the cousins, enjoying coffee together, and shopping for threads and shades at the TKD Surf Shop… By the way, thanks for buying me that TDK birthday hoodie, Brian! It keeps me warm on my camping trips and those chilly morning commutes to PDX when I have my Jeep’s soft top off (like this morning).



Watching the scenery blur past me on the Amtrak ride home, from San Louis Obispo to Portland...

… Where the amusing social experiment of seating complete strangers next to each other in a dining car ended up landing me some new friends! The one in the glasses is Fram.

Those are the birthday memories that I want to remember from last year.

E.P.I.C. Student Ministry Update- Aug 2011

IMAG0851.jpg, a photo by gkhamilton on Flickr.

Summer is in full swing, and our student ministry has shifted gears to demonstrate an even greater emphasis on the importance of serving those around us.

Our E.P.I.C. Wednesday night teaching series, “Made to Make a Difference,” has inspired our middle and high schoolers with stories of young people who have made an impact in their world through their acts of service.

After a few brainstorming sessions, our students have decided that our time and resources would be best used to create and distribute care packages for the needy in downtown Portland. Other ideas for future student-led service projects are also being kicked around, focusing specifically on our local community.

Our fun summer activities so far include:
Garth and Ben climbing Washington State’s steep Dog Mountain, pounding out 2800 feet in less than 1 ½ hours




Holding a special E.P.I.C. session at Garth and Kathy’s house to plan for our upcoming urban service project

Sending in the “hands team” to assist our hands-less diners, to illustrate the importance of food distribution to the hungry




Working at Skyline Memorial Gardens for three days over Memorial Day Weekend as a student fundraiser/ministry opportunity; The “Gate 1” portion of our group is featured in this last photo

Our wildly successful Dessert Auction, featuring Jeff Buckles’ second appearance as auctioneer

Graduation parties for Kenny Degman and others (our church’s own Michaela Cochran is pictured with her older sister, former AChoG student/graduate Bethany Bird)




Celebrating the last day of school with a round of Musical Pies the following week

Going ahead with our anticipated water balloon toss, just as a surprise torrential downpour in July (!) was starting to taper off

In Christ,
Youth Pastors Garth and Kathy Hamilton

Here are a few bonus photos for this month:

Kez, Kenny, and Derek battle it out on the PS3: Playstation 3 Move "Sharp Shooter" motion controller vs. the regular Move motion controller

Students work together to build competing human pyramids.



Wow, this pie went EVERYWHERE!

Our younger students get their first driving experience at Skyline Memorial Gardens.

Sorry, but neither the terrifying student driver video clip nor the infamous “ear discharge” photo will be posted here on BlogSpot. For the love of all things decent, please hit me up for those privately.