Fun sightseeing with the family

Since we have family here, we are taking them everywhere to see the sights.  It is really fun for me too.  They could probably care less, but I am really getting into it. ha.

Yesterday, we visited Portage Glacier, the Nature preservation, visited the little hippy town of Girdwood, and made a stop at one of our favorite pizza places in ALaska.  The Coast Pizzeria.  It a hole in the wall place that Kyle always stops at one his way home from snowboarding.   It was a fun day.  The ultimate highlight for me was that while we were in Girdwood we saw several cars stopping by the side of the road.  In Alaska that usually means everyone is stopping to take pictures of an animal like a moose or something.   I looked and right next to the suburban was a Mommy black bear and three bear cubs.  If we had not been driving I could have reached out and touched them.  They were so cute and cuddly looking.   It was totally the highlight of my day and almost year!  I have lived in ALaska for almost 2 years and never actually seen one bear in the wild.  Only like at the zoo or something.  It was awesome.  Now I can say I saw a bear while living in Alaska!  :)

I'm a fisherwoman

This is funny.  I just bought my first ever fishing license with an Alaska King Salmon fishing stamp.  I hope I catch some.  I can't wait to cook it up! :)

 If you know me at all you know that I am more of shopper than an outdoorsy gal, but we are going fishing next week.    It was so funny to me that I just bought a fishing license that I had to text my sisters to laugh with them and then call Mom.    They laughed with me of course!  

The way of life in Alaska is so laid back and casual.  It is sort of breath of fresh air sometimes. 

Hiking, fishing and just enjoying a good coffee is what it's all about! 

Nooma Rain

We started a new PWOC Bible study today.  It's a DVD  series with a talk for about 10 minutes then you discuss the topic.  It's simple and to the point.  You can check it out on youtube.  The series is Nooma by Rob Bell today the topic was "rain".  Why God allows His children to go through hard times or "rain".   I found myself getting really frustrated during the DVD.  I was thinking why don't you just cover your child?  He had huge fleece on and he could have easily zipped his child in the fleece.  Good grief! :)  The kid is screaming.  Finally he does, not in the timing I wanted. ha. 

It is such a great modern day parable about how God allows us to go through rain.  The whole time He is telling us we can make it and that He love us.  I have felt like that little child in the video to the point of crying out to God so much and so loudly that you almost feel like you are yelling.  Not disrespectfully but just with urgency.  During the "rainy" seasons in our life, you really want God to just make it stop or at least pull out a huge umbrella and let it rain on everyone else accept you. :)   Those rainy times are what God wants us to go through because it's a chance to be nearer to Him.  So good.  You gotta watch the clip. It's only 10 minutes. 

Alaska summer fun

Our next wave of company has arrived.  Kyle's Dad and his two brother's, Cole and Conner.  They will be staying with us the rest of the month!  It's going to be a fun time.  Kyle is off for two weeks! yeah!   This could possibly be our last summer here in Alaska, so we are trying to make the most of it.    I want to go to Denali, go on a glacier cruise, and fish for salmon before I leave.  I also want to fly up to Fairbanks sometime in the winter and see the Northern lights.  And then I am good to go to the next assignment.   

I am so excited that my sister and brother in-law, Kara and Andrew, are coming for a week in July!!!  Kara works for Southwest Airlines  so she flies anywhere southwest flies for free.  She is catching a flight to Seattle and then they paid around $35 to fly from Seattle to Anchorage. Which by the way is unreal cheap.  I can't even fill up my car with gasoline for $35 and my car gets good gas mileage!   I already have a list of things we are going to do while they are here.  This is a fun summer!  A little better than last year when Kyle was gone!  Just a little! :)

the joys of homeownership

We have been working our "fool heads off" as my Mother would say! :)  Kyle and I enjoy home improvement projects.  We always have.  I am just about sick of "home improving"!   

The piles of rock in front of our house now look a little more intentional and not just random. We sort of turned them into landscaping pieces if you will.  I planted some perennials in between some of the crevices to create a sort of rock garden. I guess that what I should call it, there is still a lot of rocks and now some flowers. We have so much rock in our soil.  I guess because we live in the mountains.  Rather than removing all the rock, we decided to just try to work with it.  We shall see what will become of it.  

Our kitchen appliances actually somewhat match!  We have lived here for almost 2 years with a cream fridge, a white stove, a black microwave and a stainless dishwasher.  I really didn't understand or like it when we bought the house, but it was one of those things that you think you can fix.  Thanks to George W refund money, we are finally getting to do that!  I have researched this completely and knew exactly what I wanted. Easy Care stainless steel that do not show fingerprints! Whoever invented that is probably making the big bucks.  We also bought them during Memorial day weekend so we got a 20% military appreciation discount!  yeah, baby.   

Our stove couldn't be delivered today because the Lowe's guy said it looked like it had been smashed by a truck.  Which really bummed me out, because it is annoying to have to plan your whole day around one delivery.   Then they told me they don't install built in microwaves!  I was sort of bummed about that too, because Kyle and I then spent the next four hours installing it! agh!!!!  I could write a whole blog about the microwave installation alone.  It was insane amount of drilling and templates and holding until your arms want to fall off.  

The refrigerator is beautiful, but I found a small ding in the top right corner.  After I had already unloaded all the food out of the old one, and loaded the new one with all our groceries. God is definitely trying to teach patience.  I guess I am not getting it.  I don't want to be a grouchy customer, but seriously, I want my fridge to be perfect after the amount of money I paid and the amount of time I waited to be able to purchase a fridge that actually will match the other appliances in the room! :)    I called Lowe's and they are going to replace it.   

It's no big deal really.  I am just pressuring myself, because I know we have Kyle's Dad coming Tuesday night staying for 3 weeks and I want my kitchen back by then.  It has been chaos for the last two weeks with all of this kitchen mess.    It's worth it though.  I kept turning around tonight when I was sitting on the couch and Kyle's says "what are you looking at?"  I said,  "my fridge!" and then I just burst into laughter because of how weird that really sounds.  I guess I am officially an old homeowner when a  FRIDGE brings me that much joy!

help!!!

I am creating a dvd slideshow for Father's Day for our service.  I need help!  I cannot come up with a good song to play during the picture slideshow.  Something about Dad's.  I thought about Bob Carlisle "Father's Love", but that is so ancient.  I would really like something a little more recent, but yet good.   I am up for any and all input! :)

old age, and just life

I don't feel old at all.  I feel like my age...30.  But, sometimes people say things that make me think maybe I am just living in denial and I am really getting old. 

Example of crazy things said to me: one of the contractors working on our kitchen saw a picture of Kyle's cousin on our fridge who is graduating from HS, probably at least 17 years old.  The guy asked if he was my son.  I said, "no".  But, I was thinking are you crazy? :) Do I look like I am old enough to have a 17 year old son? I wanted to be a smart mouth and say, "yea, it is my son, I gave birth at age 13!"  Come one people.  I think he might have been smoking some serious crack. 

I know we are all getting older, but my daughter is really getting big to me.  She is in the climbing, telling on other's and getting onto things stage.  Funny times.  Last night, she managed to get into all my children's ministry bag with watercolors.  When Kyle walked in the door from turning on the sprinkler, she came running around the corner with a paint brush in each hand saying, "I'm painting".  He was a little psyched out at this point and thinking of the worst possible scenarios. :)  He says, "show daddy what you painted".   She led him to the bathroom to show him she had painted the toilet and the door jam.  Not too bad, because it could all be easily washed off.   This has just suddenly happened because she has never been a child that gets into things.  Her babysitters would always tell me that they were surprised how she doesn't get into things.  It has changed I guess! ugh! Since Emma likes painting so much, I am taking her with me tonight to Color Me Mine to paint pottery with some girlfriends.  This could be really fun or a disaster! 

The exercise is over and I am glad.  I feel like we worked all weekend.  Probably because we did.  Friday my kitchen was a disaster with the counter top install, Saturday we put the remaining plumbing stuff back together and worked in the yard until I couldn't stand it any longer, Sunday was NOT a day of rest with preparing and then going to church.  Today I feel a little like I have been hit by a truck. I still have some yard work to do this week.  It never ends when you have a house.  Sometimes it makes me weary, but I love it.  I love the sense of accomplishment of finishing a project.  The sad part is, I have about 10 projects going at the same time.  I'm not exaggerating. I think just about everyone I know is like this too.  We all get in way too deep over our heads with things we think are important that we accomplish.  

 This morning before even getting out of bed, I had a list of things to do ticking in my head.  But, I was reminded of the verse, "one thing is needful".   There will always be a million projects to do, bills to pay, groceries to buy, clothes to fold and meals to prepare.  But, only one thing is really a necessity for a great life.... spending time with our God.