Serving the Lord

I apologize for my "absence" from the blog world for the last week or so. For those of you who may not know we are currently in Nikiski, Alaska on the Kenai Peninsula with the teens from church on a mission trip. Right now we are smack dap in the middle of a VBS. Earlier in the week we helped out with a lot manual labor jobs around the homes of some widows and elderly from the congregation here. The teens are doing a GREAT job and are really showing Christ's love to all. We are so impressed with them.
As usual, I've been taking a lot of pictures, but we didn't bring our computer, so I haven't been able to download them and post them to the blog just yet. Dana (one of the other chaperones), took this picture on her phone and emailed it to me.
Shawn is roasting a hot dog over a campfire. The other night one of the families here hosted our group to a hot dog roast at their home. The girl across the fire from Shawn is Ashley. She is a teen from Nikiski and is such a sweet girl. We have enjoyed getting to know her as well as so many other Christians here. God is blessing us so much this week.

Love to all! I'll post more from Juneau in a few days.

The Beach at the Glacier

Yes, that's right we went out to the glacier to lay out and play at the beach. It was another beautiful day which deserved another trip to the beach. On a Juneau version of a hot day, the small pools on the edge of the Mendenhall Lake (which the glacier sits at) warm up very nicely and are just right for kids to wade in. Plus the sand--or rather glacial silt--is so soft and perfect for kids to play in. So that's what I did with the kids on Saturday. We only had about 3,000 cruise ship tourists in town that day, so even though Shawn was working, I took the kids out since we'd have so few tourists to gawk at us. (A normal summer day had around 10,000 tourists and I've heard shocked remarks from lower 48-ers every time we do this. So the fewer the better for this type of outing in my opinion.)

This was about as deep as it got where we were. It was up to Isaac's knees. He loved that he could freely walk around in the this water, and that the surf wasn't trying to pull him out to sea.

Yes, he does eat all the time.
He also tried to offer a yogurt raisin to the park ranger as she was telling us about the current no food policy at the glacier. Whoops! Didn't hear that one. Good thing he was eating his last handful as she was telling us about it, otherwise she probably would have confiscated the food right out of his hand. And let me tell you, that would have made one very cranky little boy.

We pretty much go out to the beach at the glacier at least once a summer. Here's some pictures from past years.

Isaac, 7 months old-summer 2008

Carly, 3 years old--summer 2008

Carly, 2 years old--summer 2007

The Beach at Auke Rec

Last Friday we met some friends at Auke Rec for a final playgroup get together. It was another beautiful day and we all enjoyed soaking up the sun. (I actually got a little bit of a burn.)
The highlight for the kids was playing in the sand and playing together. The highlight for the moms was chatting together and getting a few moments of quiet. (Unfortunately, the kids didn't all give us quite moments at the same time. They made sure they took turns freaking out. Ha! I suppose I should at least be thankful that we didn't have everyone melt down at the same moment.) We had a great time and hopefully we'll have many more sunny days to do this sort of thing this summer. So far, I have a lot of hope for a fantastic summer to continue.
Oh, did you notice the ferry ship sailing on the horizon of the picture above?

Thoughtful Matthias

Playing in the "surf"

Yum--tasty sand

Group effort

snack break
The guy behind Isaac was taking off a wet suit. He had just finished a huge swim out in the inlet.

Ready, aim, fire
Isaac loves throwing rocks into the water.
That's what Isaac thinks water is for--throwing things into.

Three friends

Treasure Hunter

Footless

Goofy Michael
(I wouldn't be surprised if his personality continues in this direction and he acquires a high school nickname about being goofy. He's really a funny boy.)

8 is Great

Today is our 8th anniversary! It doens't seem like nearly that long. We are both so blessed to be together. We hope many of you have fond memories of our big day: June 9, 2001.
This is us tonight, June 9, 2009

A big thank you to our friend, Brittany. She saved the day for us. Lee was going to come over after work and watch the kids for us, but JPD proved typical and he was held over to take care of a warrant. So we scrambled for a few minutes calling several people only to have no one answer. Then I remembered that our friend Brittany was back in town visiting with her grandparents. She baby-sat our kids often until her family moved to Fairbanks in February. I was so glad that she was home and willing to come right over and watch our kids so we could at least go out for dinner.
And that's just what we did. We went out to the Island Pub in Douglas that serves brick oven pizza--yum. It was a nice night and we watched one of the cruise ships sail out the channel to open water for their next destination. Then we topped it off with an ice cream cone from McDonald's. It was a little quick, but we're thankful for the time we had together, because it almost didn't happen tonight.
But even if we hadn't had our dinner out, we'd still be thankful for our 8 years together. These past eight years have been filled with lots of changes, moves, and activity, but I don't think we'd change a thing. So here's to eight more, and then eight more after that, and then...well, a whole lot more after that. (I'm getting a bit too tired to count!)

And a Happy Birthday to our niece Alexandra who is 9 today. She shares our special day with us, and we're very glad for that.

Another Airport Walk

The Mendenhall Wetlands/Airport Trail is quite possibly my favorite walking trail in Juneau. The other day, when my parents were here and the weather was GORGEOUS, my mom and I took the kids down for a picnic and walk. (My dad, Shawn, and Lee were busy with more boat stuff.) It was SO nice. It was actually so hot, that I was afraid we'd be sweating and semi miserable. But there was a nice breeze blowing off the channel so it was perfect.
I only had one take at the picture above thanks to my son who was raring to GO. So it's hard to see the glacier that is behind them. This is the same one that we live near, but from this trail there is a nice look out area where the trees open up and you see the glacier over a finger of the channel.
The next couple of pictures are of the kids blowing dandelions. I don't really consider them weeds up here, but more like wildflowers. They are so colorful and big. This was another time that Carly enjoyed showing Isaac how things are done. Fortunately he usually doesn't mind. As long as she doesn't take it away from him while he's trying! Actually I've noticed lately that he's calling her by name and saying at least one word that explains what he needs help with. For example, the other day he was playing with the buckles on an extra car seat that was in the house near the front door. When he had it buckled, he couldn't unbuckle them to enjoy buckling them again. So he ran off to the kitchen (past me), calling for Carly and saying "buckle" in his own little way. It's so neat to see them love each other.


Lupines are some of my favorite wildflowers in Alaska, and they are starting to bloom now. I've taken pictures of them probably every year that we've lived here, but I couldn't resist another for this year. I'm sure I'll take more this summer too.

Along the path

Lonely lupines
(usually they are in a little bigger clusters, but maybe some just haven't bloomed yet)

Towards the end of the walk, I let both of them out of the stroller and they picked several dandelions along the path. Carly has started doing that sweet little girl thing of picking flowers and giving them to her momma. So of course, Isaac usually copies her in a matter of minutes and momma has lots of flowers.

The cherry on top was getting to see this big Alaska Airlines plane land right in front of us. I don't know for sure but it was probably a 737. That is usually the plane type that is flown between here and Anchorage or here and Seattle. Anyway, the kids thought this was just great, and I thought it was pretty impressive too.

Yeah for summer days!

Busy Days of Summer

I realize that my last post may have caused some of you to get your hopes up that I would have something new on the blog every day this week or at least every other day. Well, sorry if I gave any of you false hope, but with our BEAUTIFUL weather we have kept very busy--so busy there hasn't bee time to blog. But I'm resisting the urge to fold the pile of laundry calling my name in the family room to update the family blog.
These pictures were taken on Tuesday. We stayed home pretty much all day and just enjoyed the fun of a summer day at home. So that meant some gardening and sprinkler running. Isaac and Carly are posing by one of our garden boxes that my mom and I got planted on Monday. We planted snap peas, carrots, spinach, lettuce, beets, a few herbs, two tomato plants, strawberries, and once again I'm trying zucchini--we'll see about that one. Since this picture was taken I've covered it with bird netting--but not to keep out the birds, it's for the cats. They like to roll around in my freshly sown garden soil and use it like a litter box. So until the plants are bigger, they will stay covered. Both of the kids had fun helping plant things. Isaac also helped me plant some more flowers in the front flower bed. I was putting in some perennials this time.
And sprinkler running is a little hard to do in Juneau. It often isn't really warm enough to brave the frigid tap water coming out of the sprinkler. But if I remember correctly, it was about 84 degrees at our house on Tuesday. Much warmer than a usual summer day, so the kids were able to brave the water temp. As with most things, Carly enjoyed showing Isaac how to do it. In the next picture they look like they are asking each other who is going first.



I'll have to catch up on other pictures from this week in other posts. So for now, I hope you enjoy these pictures.

Car Wash

Look out blog readers! The forecast for the ENTIRE week is sunny and clear with highs between 70 and 80. That means we'll surely be doing lots of outdoor, summer activities in the next few days. Which means I'll probably be posting pictures a bit more often. I don't know what it is, but I always tend to post more frequently when the weather is like this. So, you have been warned.

Today we did a lot outside, but the funniest part of the day was watching my car washers. Shawn was washing my car and his truck and was getting a lot of unrequested help from Isaac. He wanted Isaac to go inside, but suggested that Isaac get his own bucket and wash his truck. Carly thought that was such a great idea that she got her own bucket and wash cloth to join in on the fun. So I got to watch all three of them wash their cars. It was very funny, especially with Isaac spilling water all over himself every 3 minutes when he went back to Shawn to fill up his bucket.





Here are a few pictures of some of the flowers in my front flower bed that are coming up--tulips and aliums. I've been getting a lot of compliments on our front flower bed from neighbors and friends that stop by. It doesn't take much to improve on how it was before though. Last summer with a little baby and the summer before that with a pregnant belly, it was more of a weed bed than a flower bed. Thanks to a big team effort from Shawn and I last fall, we got weed barrier laid, bulbs planted and mulch over everything. It's a big improvement from before.