Last week, we (along with Dana) led our congregation's youth group on a mission trip to Nikiski, Alaska. Nikiski is a small country like town on the Kenai Peninsula. It was a really good week and we took SO many pictures. We're planning to burn CDs for each of the teens. But for the blog I tried my best to just give a snapshot of the week's activities without going overboard. Still it's a lot of pictures, but it only proves that we did A LOT in just one week.
This is our group when we left last Saturday from Juneau (complete with the stuffed polar bear in the background).
This was our Sunday morning worship service--inside the belly of the big fish. Can you guess what the VBS theme was?
On Sunday night, one family hosted our group to a hot dog roast in their back yard.
The first part of our week was mostly spent doing work projects for some of the elderly and widows of the congregation there.
The second part of the week was primarily spent helping the congregation put on their VBS program. The main part our teens did was the daily skit telling the story of Jonah.
Our two little kids enjoyed VBS too. They especially liked the crafts and games.
We also had plenty of time to relax and play. We were so blessed to all be housed by wonderful families from the church that all lived on the same road and lake. Having our group so close together gave the week a sort of summer camp feeling. The teens were often out on the lake when we had down time.
One evening we took the teens down to the beach of Cook Inlet. We were able to see Mt. Redoubt across the inlet in the distance. This is the volcano that recently erupted and caused a lot of air traffic troubles a few months ago.
Elijah, the youngest chaperon.
We saw moose almost everyday. This is a little different for us Juneau-ites because we don't have any moose in Juneau. But they were everywhere on the Kenai Peninsula--walking along the side of the road, through people's backyards, or trying to cross the road in front of our van!!!!
One evening Shawn and Carly went out fishing in the lake with our homestay host, Chris. You also might like to know that this picture was taken at 10:15 PM! It stayed light SOOO much later than we're used to in Juneau.
On our last full day in Nikiski, Chris pulled whoever wanted around in an inner tube behind his boat for a few hours before VBS started. I was really glad that Carly was brave enough to take a turn. She rode with Brittany and had a great time.
We also took one day to make a day trip to Homer, Alaska--with a stop in Anchor Point at the KNLS radio station that our Juneau congregation is involved in supporting.
Look out TMZ--we had a celebrity siting in Homer. Do you know who this guy is?
No, Geoffrey didn't fly up to join us!
This guy just happens to be Jon Hillstrand, the captain of the
Time Bandit, a crab fishing boat on
Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch reality show. The Time Bandit's home port is Homer and they just recently opened up their own gift shop along the main tourist shopping lane. We just happened to be in the Time Bandit gift shop at the right time. Dana was able to get him to autograph a copy his book. You'll have to ask her how the inscription reads. (And then wash her mouth out with soap!)
And finally, we were back on the plane headed home to Juneau. Whew! It was a great week full of great work, but it's good to be home.
Last week, Shawn went fishing with a few other guys from church and they were successful. Shawn caught the two smaller king salmon in the picture above and Matt caught the big one. That morning's catch was a great source of excitement that evening around the dinner table. We also had some fresh crab to enjoy, so it was quite the Alaskan dinner. Carly and Isaac literally oohed and aahed after every bite. Shawn thought they reminded him of a scene from "What About Bob" when he was oohing and aahing over his dinner. Does anyone else remember that scene?
The other night, Shawn thought it would be fun to go down to the DIPAC dock and try to catch a few king salmon. Here he is with a fish on.
Once we got it up near the dock, we realized that he had snagged it in the tail. Since he didn't catch it in the mouth, he had to throw it back. Bummer, but no biggie. It was still fun for all.
After a little while, we moved down to the beach to try casting from the shore. The bugs were pretty bad down there, so I put the long range lens on and enjoyed photography at a little distance. (I also had Isaac on my back, so that's why there's no pictures of the two of us.) This is Lee casting for a fish.
Carly looking "lovely"
There were a lot of eagles down by the beach, scavenging. Most of the pictures I got of them were blurry. This was one of the better ones.
Brothers casting
Shawn in the channel
UPDATE: I should also point out that Isaac's two new words of the night were "eagle" and "chilly". They were very appropriate for the evening. He is getting to be such a talker--even more than before, so he's REALLY talking. Last week, he said what I'm counting as his first official sentence. We were shopping at Fred Meyer and he was riding in the cart and said, "Momma, boot fall." Noun + verb = a sentence in my book! And he was right, his little red boot really had fallen off his foot. He is such a smart little boy and big source of joy for his daddy and me.
