Moose!

Today as we were driving on base we passed these Moose twins. As big as they are, they are still quite small...for a moose. They are so amazing!

What I'm Listening To

This is the best Jars of Clay CD EVER. It's also one of my all time favorite CDs.

What I'm Listening To

This soundtrack is just beautiful.

What I'm Reading

This is an amazing book. It has been wonderful to read through some of these prayers before bed at night. I am also doing the Breaking Free Bible Study with some friends. I really appreciate and enjoy Beth's gift of teaching God's Word. I've felt as though Beth has discipled me from afar. I hear the Holy Spirit speaking right to me when Beth opens her mouth to teach.

Updates N Stuff

Bradley had a birthday party with his friends--or friend as it turned out this year. He got to pick out his own cake. That is an ice-cream cake from Fred Meyer (very good). It is chocolate cake with chocolate ice-cream and chocolate frosting. I'm still amazed that we all survived. Death by chocolate is a pretty good way to go. Bradley will be 8 this month. Time flies with children. Bethany is 10. Double digits already. She's also tall. They just keep growing whether you feed them or not. Dan is still off saving lives, rendering safe bombs. We all miss him terribly. Being a happily married single parent is pretty tough, both physically and mentally. It's not always easy being mom and dad. Usually there is a point in the day when I can take my full time parent cap off and rejuvenate. This is usually within an hour of Dan coming home from work. He's been gone all day and enjoys being with the kids. I don't have to monitor all behaviors. I don't have to think up appropriate consequences. I don't have to answer any questions about water, or dinner, or why... There is no more break. Somehow I have to manage to get through the whole day as mom--homeschooling and all. Then I have to be prepared to be mom and dad in the evening. The only way to do this successfully, I've found, is to rely heavily on God. And I still mess it up. And, of course, I don't make as good a dad as Dan. He is just specially made to fill that role and he does it excellently. I find that I am more exhausted with him gone. Too many roles to fill. Too many chores to do. (Well I personally think there are always too many chores to do.) We can't wait to see him again.

Still Snowing...

Spring?

Just another snowy April day. This snowy day, happening in April, brings our winter month count this year to eight. Eight months of winter. I'm beginning to wonder if our winter will ever end.

Ice Championships

John Leguizamo attended the opening of the ice park here in Alaska. It is a pretty major event when anyone of consequence comes to Fairbanks, Alaska. But even more so when they come in the middle of our harsh winter conditions. Ice sculptors from around the world converge here every year for the championships. In addition to the beautiful art they also build an ice park for the kids. You have never seen so many beautifully sculpted ice slides. The kids have to wear snow pants or bring cardboard boxes in order to enjoy these. This year the theme of the ice park was Ice Age 2. So, in accordance with this John Leguizamo arrived to promote his new film in which he is the voice of Sid the Sloth. It was great fun to see him arrive via dog sled and "cut" the ice ribbon with a blow torch. Definitely an event to remember.

Update, Finally

Look, it's been forever since I updated this site. I feel as though I should type something...anything. We have lost our foster son. He has gone back to his mom. I have lost my baby. My husband has been deployed to Operation Enduring Freedom. So, I have been quite busy adjusting, running, denying, grieving, surviving, adapting... God has been good to me. He always is. Daily He walks me through--carrying me at times, I'm sure. It is an odd sort of feeling when you are surrounded by both trials and blessings. So painful on one side, yet so wonderful on the other.

-40 Degrees and Ice Fog

For three days it has been -40 degrees with ice fog. What is ice fog? Well it is very similar to regular fog. Only imagine that the fog freezes in the air. You can see all the ice particles sparkling and reflecting in your headlights. We still don't have much light. Sunrise 9:45 a.m., sunset 4:19 p.m. This is the time of year when the temperatures and the darkness really start to drive you mad. The first 3 months of winter are survivable. It's expected...winter--3 months. Come January your body and your mind are screaming for warmth and light. Here in Alaska you usually only get one or the other during the winter. If it is clear and sunny, it is freezing (and to clarify freezing--for those of you in California--freezing is colder than -20 degrees, not 30 or 40 degrees above zero). We long for the days when it is warm enough to snow. If only it could be 5 or 10 degrees above zero. When the temperatures start rising again (30 to 40 degrees)--somewhere around March--you will see Alaskans begin to celebrate the warmth. We stop wearing jackets and start wearing t-shirts.
But January and February are tough months. People still function. We still go out to the store, fill our cars with gas, etc... But we do it quickly and begrudgingly and only because we have to.
When it is -40 it hurts to breath. You can't touch metal doorknobs (or really anything metal) without burning your hand. Weird lights in your car come on for no reason--Airbag, Check Engine. People leave their cars running while they rent movies or do their grocery shopping. If you can't leave the car running you need to plug it in. (The heater in my car never quite makes the car warm and can't keep the windows from icing up.) The tires on a car left outside will freeze. Whatever part of the tire that is pushed flat from sitting on the ground will stay flat. You'll drive around bouncing on squared off tires until they thaw. And really cool...you can take a pan of hot or boiling water outside, throw it up in the air and it will freeze before it hits the ground.

Bethany's New Hat

Dan is off on one of his many adventures. Bethany got a new hat. This was the best way to share it with him. I mean other than emailing it which would have worked just as well. But then you my devoted audience would not have gotten to share in this beautiful moment.

Family Updates

As Christmas is approaching and the madness will be increasing this seemed the best time to give an update on our family. Dan is currently in Hawaii. Those of us left behind are more jealous of the fact that he is somewhere warm and sunny than that it is Hawaii. Well, it could be a tie. You'd be amazed how crazy we all get about sunlight up here in the winter.
Hopefully Dan will have the week after Christmas (mostly) off. He will probably have briefings (the military word for meetings) on his deployment that week. This deployment is coming too quickly. (And lasting too long.)
Our foster son is still with us. He is now completely ours in our hearts. The doctors think he might be having seizures, so he is going to get some tests done. The birth mom is letting me make the appointments. They are starting to transition him home now. He is having home visits once a week with his mom in Fairbanks. Christmas eve he is going to have his first overnight visit. This is one of the hardest things ever! We know that he won't get the care that he needs once he goes home. The mother only needs to be adequate to get him back. This means that she will have to take him to his Occupational and Physical Therapy appointments but it doesn't mean she has to work with him at home.
What a roller coaster ride this has been. I am still working to trust God in this, by faith and not by sight. I cannot even come close to expressing what this experience has been like for us or how much of myself I have poured into this.
Our bio kids are doing great! I am loving homeschooling. I wish I had a few more hours in the day and an extra heaping of energy, so I could keep adding more and more things to do with them. It has been so much fun exploring all of these subjects with my kids. They (my kids) are so amazing and fun. We read Romeo and Juliet out of a book called Tales From Shakespeare, then we rented the movies. It was such a kick to see my 7 and 9 year old not only watch the movie but follow it and enjoy it. It is so exciting to see them learning and growing.

Wherever I Go

Okay, it's been almost a month since I last updated this blog. I'm sure that most of my (two) faithful readers have given up on me. But life has been pretty full for me lately. It's difficult as a stay at home mom to find any time for myself and usually when I get the time my brain is pretty fried. I'm usually only able to sit on the couch and drool. I'm not able in those moments to opine on the world around me or come up with anything of remote interest. "But none of your previous blogs were of interest," you say. True. I'm sure this won't be either. I was just talking with a friend the other day about my blog title...Wherever you go. It is amazing that even when God sends you to Alaska, you take yourself with you. You'd think your junk would be held at the border of Canada. Or that it would at least get frozen solid--something you could stick in the freezer and look at every once in awhile. But it really seems that instead of freeing you of your junk, Alaska has a way of bringing it all out. It is a very isolating place. When it is -25 outside you don't...well you try not to do anything really. It is currently getting dark here. Very dark. The sun rises at 10:45 a.m. and sets at 2:42 p.m. That gives us four hours of sunlight a day--when the sun comes out. Dark, cold, lonely days sitting inside your house to avoid freezing to death give you a lot of time to think. What kind of person am I? How is God ever going to be able to use me? Am I lovable? Why am I so irritating? Why am I so insecure?
I would love to be free of it all. I would like the struggle of life to end. It would be wonderful if God could just say "Hey, you need to stop being angry." And voila! You're perfect. Until then I trust that God knows better than me. And maybe someday it won't be such a disappointment to take myself, wherever I go...

Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful that my foster son is still with us. I am thankful that Dan is here and our family is going to be together tomorrow. I am thankful for my healthy, smart, beautiful kids. I am thankful for my puppy dog. I am thankful for a God who loves me. He is always giving me the strength I need to get through each day.

link pic 2

link pic

Whatever

Well it appears the image for my link has gone caput. Tonight Dan and I are heading out to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. This movie is based on my favorite book so far. Not so much because it is an important book filled with symbolism, depth or clues (Chamber of Secrets, Azkaban, and HBP are more suited to that) but because this book is the most fun. It is non stop action from page one. It is also the turning point in the battle between good and evil. I can't wait to see it.

New Link

I am so excited to have added a new link to my "links" section. It is a link to the Ambleside curriculum that I am loving for homeschooling my kids. It has been such a rewarding and challenging curriculum. Hope you enjoy checking it out.

Foster Info

We didn't get the transportation for two visits for our foster son. However, the new worker did get rid of Wednesday visits. They are making Monday's visits longer by an hour but I'm hoping that will be manageable. I'm really hoping and praying that one less visit will be enough relief. I really wanted to get it down to one trip into town. So, I am praying that what God has provided will be enough. I don't want to be flying at exhaustion a hundred miles an hour every week. Also, I really want to be able to focus more on homeschooling with my kids.
We were given some more info on our foster son and the circumstances that brought him into care. The new social worker has been really great. In addition we now have an idea of how long he will be with us. Halloween--Yes. Thanksgiving--Yes. Christmas--Highly Probable.
On the difficult news front we just learned that Dan will be deploying earlier than we thought and for a longer time--Eight Months!
Unfortunately this means that I will probably be on my own when it comes time to re-unify our foster son with his mother. This will be challenging.
Interesting to note: In my study with Beth Moore I just watched one of her videos that spoke to me on this very thing. She was talking about submitting to God's will both before and after. She used Jesus and Job as examples. Job submitted to God's will after all of these difficult circumstances came into his life. And often times things do tend to hit us out of the blue (i.e. infected teeth) and it is sometimes difficult to submit in those moments. Sometimes, as with Jesus, we are able to see the challenge coming. In our spirits we can see that this circumstance is going to be very hard. We may not know how hard but we know beyond a doubt that it will be hard. Jesus came here knowing that he was going to have to die for me and you. He also knew that it wasn't going to be a pleasant 'fade away in your sleep' kind of death. He saw the suffering and the temporary separation from God that was coming. He had to submit completely to God in this circumstance before it occurred, knowing the cost.
I feel as though this is where I sit right now. Staring down the barrel of eight months separated from my greatest friend and lover. As well as eight months of doing everything on my own as a single parent of sorts. I know that this is going to press me and pull in ways I've never been tested before. I am so thankful that I do not have to go through it alone. God is going to be there with me, helping me to take 'baby steps' to get through each day. I am so thankful for people in my life who consistently pray for me and remind of the goodness of God. Sometimes I forget. But God never forgets me.