Try... try ... again...

I am just not so great at this thing called "blog". Again it has been almost a year since my last post and again I have a renewed sense of passion for it... we will see how long this one will last. Our church here in Alaska is the reason for my newest drive to start blogging again. You see our church is participating in a month long series to help revitalize marriages and make couples and singles aware that sex was created by God. We all have a book that we are doing together as couples and each night there are different questions and challenges that are to act as an aid to help bring intimacy and Godliness back into all aspects of our marriages... and I mean ALL! This month Michael and I committed to the 30 day sex challenge in hopes that we can become closer and more intimate with one another. We are onto day 3 and already I have felt shifts happening. I realize it is going to be extremely hard to keep to this commitment because honestly there are times both of us are so wiped for one reason or another all we want to do is zone or zonk out! Not converse and be intimate but I know that there will be great things ahead because of our faithfulness... I can already see changes! During this time we are supposed to journal and take moments for reflectiveness this has been a great reoccurring theme this last year... it seems like every time I turn around I am being told by some person or study that I need to be journaling. I must admit that my first response was rebellion but now I can see the great benefits of it... and now I am very thankful for those people that pushed me to do this in my life ... it's literally like free therapy... So now I figure I have been better at that I can be better at this... our church has a specific blog for the great month of sex (my wording not theirs) anyone who reads my blog should seriously check it out. Anyway... time for a little bit of catch up...

Well, obviously we are still here in Alaska this last year has been another one filled with big moments and winter( had to throw that in because anyone who has talked to me recently realizes how much me and winter do not get along ) . After my brother moved here my parents realized there was no reason for them to be in Oregon without any family so they packed up and had their own little mini adventure on the ALCAN and came to the family was. We moved into our new house and started school work and school for me and things were going at a steady hectic pace. Until... I had to have knee surgery which halted everything in a matter of a 30 minute doctor appointment. I spent three months of winter on the couch recovering, during that time I made so many important self discoveries... I mean really what is there to do but to be self reflective when sitting on your bum for three months? It was a really hard time but I must say that I am really thankful for it... I realized that I wasn't living my life the way I wanted to (busy, stressed and overwhelmed) and that things needed to change. Also because of this injury God blessed me with an incredible friend whom without I wouldn't have survived those months( I mean probably not so dramatic as death but I think that my sanity might not have been intact). After the three months were up I resumed life with a knee that almost works and the decision to homeschool my children...I know that many at this point would be like whoa how did you get from that to here... let's just say thats the way it works in my world...Mike and I both decided that changes needed to happen and one of them was how we were going to educate and prepare our children for life. This was what we thought would be best for our family at this time. So now all of my focus for the last few months has been on curriculum and planning. I am also trying to finish up my last 8 classes for my education and praying about the next step after these 8 classes are finished... that is if I can ever pass my math class...All in all I feel like things are going well for us here... we have found a great church family and Michael has even preached a couple of times. We have started our own small group and this group of people are like family to us. My brother has a very serious girlfriend we all love and adore her. Michael is doing an amazing job at work and although this one could cause the most amount of change and upheaval I am excited to see where it is going to take him next... however until then we have decided that this summer will be our summer of adventure throughout Alaska... we are going to try and explore as much as we can.

So I am going to end here but hopefully I will be much more faithful to this form of communication. I know it is a great tool for all of those family and friends that are so far away... I think if I make a scheduled day to blog I might be better at this whole thing( I do good with schedules)

Up to now...

Lots of things going on since we took our trip to help my mom recover. Just so you know... she recovered well and she is feeling great. Thanks everyone who prayed and sent out good thoughts our way. Well, most of you know that my bro and the kids and I took the long journey on the ALCAN to get home it was pretty uneventful and we made the trip in 3 days..woohoo...we are super stars! Once we got back home it was back to work, school and getting Ty settled in. Got the kids finished up with school and me enrolled for two classes for summer. This was our May. June rolled around and we had fun with Noel's 7th birthday I cant believe my baby is 7!!!!Had a fantastic luau themed party with a bunch of giggly funny little girls and one boy besides her brother. After the crazy two weeks of birthday stuff we started getting ready for my friend and her son to come visit from Colorado we had lots of fun showing them around Alaska. They stayed until July which now is the current month we are in...July has been a little hectic I am finishing up my English and Philosophy classes and we are moving into a new house and we are trying to get ready to go back to school and in the middle of all of this we have normal stuff like dentist and doctor appointments AGGG!!!!I feel a little crazed I must admit ...but I love my life and wouldnt have it any other way! I really am going to try to be better at this blog thing I know I have said it before but I keep reading my friend Allison's blog and she inspires me!

On the go...again...

When we moved to the Arctic J we thought things were going to be a lot slower and slightly boring for us, with all of the long dark winters and not knowing any one, and for the first few months we were correct with that assumption and it was more than a little boring. However now it feels like we are so busy we don’t even have time to catch our breath. The kids keep us on our feet with all of their comings and goings and Mikes job is pretty demanding as of right now and I myself work now, so it feels like at times we don’t see our house and that has been our life.

Then we get into the month of March…and April…and May….and all of a sudden we have even more on our hands. In March and the first part of April we had family come our way and it was great! We did a lot of really cool things and it felt we were constantly on the go. When they went home we were on our way to getting back into the same old routine until …my mom calls and tells me she has to have surgery at the end of this month so what do I do????I pack up hop on a red eye flight without my husband and with two kids whom have never flown before …I should also mention at this point in the story that my brother decided that this would be the perfect time to go ahead and relocate to Alaska so that he could drive back with me and the kids to and then he wouldn’t have to travel the ALCAN alone (I had said that that the one time that I did that trip would be the once in a lifetime trip so now it is going to be a twice in a lifetime) and I planned all of this in week WOW I make myself tired ….and that is where my story becomes up to date.

 

We arrived in Oregon yesterday morning at 5:30 am and with the exception of just being utterly exhausted the flight went really well the kids loved it and slept almost the entire time while I looked on longingly wishing I had the ability to sleep wherever my head lands. After we left the airport we had a pretty big day ahead of us (my mom is trying to show us as much as possible before she is laid out and cant do much of anything) so our first stop was Multnomah falls I must say at this point that I absolutely love Oregon and I have for many years it is still as impressive as I remember it…even with the massive amount of rain that was coming down upon our heads… next stop build a bear for Noel to add to her collection after that we were on the road again this time heading to Astoria and if anyone knows me at all you will realize the importance of this to particular town to me…It is an amazing little town that I would defiantly retire in….after this we traveled along the coast to get to Salem to my parents home.  After a quick bite of some really good pizza they drove me past the old criminally insane asylum that was featured in One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest they are about to tear it down so it is now empty but amazingly photogenic it is very sad that it wont be around much longer. After we were done with my picture trip we finally rolled up to their driveway about 9 pm at this time I think I was up for over 32 hours and I was feeling it.  Even with the lack of sleep it feels really good to be here with my family and I am seriously happy about my bro coming home with me.  So with all of that said… here we are on the go …again…

Long time no blog...

I can’t believe it has been 6 months since I have written anything. I have a couple of friends who blog and now I have this renewed sense of passion about it. I realize it is a great tool for all of the friends and family that it is so hard to keep up with. So with that being said I don’t even know where to begin. These last 6 months have been busier than was expected. The transition has been more difficult than I had anticipated. The moment we got here in October it started snowing and getting dark and I must admit the darkness got to me and the feeling of being isolated was really hard to adjust to on the positive side Mike and the kids fit right in it seemed like they had been here their whole lives. However it took a couple of months longer for me. I think the turning point came when I met some wonderful girls they really have kept me sane and got me out of my house one in particular and you know who you are J and I got a job at the school my kids go to! And I finally have some focus on what I am going to do to finish up college so things have started to feel like they are going better. And now that I got through the winter and I can see the first glimpse of spring and all of the great adventures we can have here I now understand why people put up with the long dark winters. It is absolutely gorgeous. The all day light is so not going to be a problem with me! I am going to put up some pictures of my favorite moments thus far. I do feel like I have already got to experience and see some pretty amazing things. I am defiantly going to try and be better about my blogging from now on. Until next time…

Just a quick update...

We got to Alaska safe and sound on Thursday. My suspicions about not being able to blog was correct after Yellowstone we were in some pretty obscure places I am working on my blog on the rest of the trip and hopefully within the next couple of days I will be able to post it along with pics so keep checking in hope everyone is well!

Here we are on the road...

We left Junction yesterday and traveled to Wyoming just outside of the Grand Teton National park. We didnt do much but drive we did get to see the Flamming Gorge in Utah which is absoultly beautiful. The first half of Wyoming wasnt too impressive(side note , can anyone tell me what those random fences are all over the Wyoming countryside?)Anyway, we stopped in this little town and had dinner ,I mean this was the picture of small town America. we went into this local mexican resturant and every head turned when we walked in they could tell we werent from around there. This morning we woke up bright and early and headed into the Grand Teton and Yellowstone now this is an absolutly amzing part of Wyoming these parks were so amazing! You could seriously spend weeks in these places and never get bored. The kids had a blast they werent so excitied at first at the idea of being on a super volcano(we watch way too much national geographic) but once they saw Old Faithful and the rest of the geysers the were pumped! We finally made into Helena about 10pm they do not believe in signs of any kind in the state of Montana! Well I am really tired and I have a REAL bed calling my name! Hopefully I will be able to post more tommorrow!
Sorry I know I got a little carried away but I had to share!

countdown is over

So we are off today. It has been a long few weeks the movers came and loaded all of our stuff the week we got back from our house hunting trip so we have been living in an empty house for awhile now. Its sad when you cant wait to get to a hotel so you can sleep! We were suppose to leave last week but his company delayed once again. We had a lot of emotional moments and a couple of mile stones like me turning 30!!!!!!AGGG!But then again I heard 30 was the new 20 so I can celebrate that one in about 10 more years:)! And I got really sick so it definitely hasn't been boring while we have been waiting. But we are finally at that time. So for my last blog in Colorado I decided I am going to list the 5 things I am going to miss most about this place since I am on a limited time frame it can only be 5 but there are lots of things I am going to miss.

1)The Colorado skies

2)My home 3)Being right next door to Utah

4)Fall

5)And most importantly my bro and friends we love you guys...


It really has been a blessing living here....