Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!
As of this time that I'm writing I only have one new year resolution. It is something that has been on my heart for some time and it is time that I set out to do this. I try to memorize some scripture during the year and this past year I memorized a couple of passages. One being Ps 121 which means a lot to me. It starts of with, "I look to the hills, but where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth." I love the mountains and living in Kenai for many years, my hubby and I would go out to the bluff in town and watch the sunset whenever possible. We had the view of 3 spectacular volcanoes. I flew to King Cove on the Alaska Peninsula this summer and flew over numerous mountains. King Cove is located at the base of mountains right next to the ocean. There is probably only a couple of football fields distance from the base of the mountain to the ocean. From King Cove you can view a dormant volcanoe and 2 spectacular active volcanoes. Living in Anchorage I see the mountains that surround the city everywhere I drive. I am reminded each day of the amazing and sobering thing: that the God who made these amazing, powerful mountains is the One who helps me, who is interested in me, who loves me, and the list goes on and on. He is always astounding me in the ways He shows Himself each day.
With all of this said, I resolve to memorize 2 Bible verses each month. My friend Margaret is going to be doing this with me, so we have accountability. I'm thinking that I will start the year off with the last 2 verses of the Bible, Revelations 22:20-21 (which will count for one verse) "Jesus, the One who says these things are true, says, Yes, I am coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all, Amen." In this wicked corrupt world, we are given the hope that Jesus our savior will be returning soon!
Have a Happy New Year and my prayer for you is that your relationship with the Lord grows, He is soooo good.

Boys shoes

Julie sent this video to me while we were on the web cam this am. It needs to be shared! :)

Christmas Day evening

Jim and Jordan by our short little tree. I bought a small prelit tree this year and filled it in with a few floral decorations, candy canes and ribbon. There was no way that I wanted to unpack all of my Christmas decorations (long story), so I went and bought a few festive decorations and made our little place look like Christmas.
My sisters Lillian and Shirlee and me at our brother's house for Christmas dinner.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day was snowy. After our breakfast of the traditional eggs benedict we got ready for a walk on the coastal trail. The weather was perfect for a walk. Jim and I dressed in our snowpants, wool socks and wool hats. Jordan had on his hiking boots, Jeans, and a windbreaker with a hood. He is used to being out doors for serious hiking, so a short walk didn't require him to dress as warmly as we had to. There weren't very many people on the trail which made the walk very pleasant, plus the fact that Jim and I were dressed for the occasion










I liked the effect that Jordan's red coat had with the white snow covered trail and trees.

Merry Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas! May God bless you in the year to come and may you see Him at work in you and around you. He is soooo Good!

Family secret revealed

It was so fun watching baby James play. His mother didn't know that I was capturing him on the video. Little did I know that I was also capturing a "family secret"! :)

Mackenzie's excitement with a gift

Sorry that this is so dark, but to capture Mackenzie's excitement and unexpected comment is priceless!!

Baby James loves climbing

Baby James (7months old) just loves climbing. Jonathan and Jami surprised all us by meeting us all in Phoenix for a few days before Thanksgiving.

Mackenzie singing in the mirror

Mackenzie pretended that the headband was her princess crown and did this little thing looking in the mirror. Her mom and dad don't know where she got this from. (I guess, it's just her creativity) She wanted her grandpa to watch her do this.

Happy Thanksgiving

Mackenzie with her usual delightful pose!!
(purse on her arm and grandma's heels) :)

Happy Thanksgiving

Isn't this the most pathetically adorable baby face!!

I have so much to be thankful for. I'm so thankful that my whole family was together for a couple of days here in Phoenix! We all planned to meet here for Thanksgiving except for my son and his wife who live in New York City. Anyways, he and his wife surprised us all by meeting us at the airport as we arrived. They were only able to stay a couple of days and a good time was had by all. My brother Kenny and his wife and daughter will be here to celebrate with us, so it will be a wonderful time. We were able to bring Alaskan King Crab, salmon, and halibut down with us, thanks to my brother, Kenny. It has been enjoyed by every one and the highlight of the Thanksgiving feast will be the crab salad!!!! Thank God for families!!!
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Craft projects

Here are some of the things that I have been working on! I do a lot of my knitting on the road. The bag needs some buttons added to finish it off. It was a lot of fun sewing. I did a lot of creative stitching on it. I meet with a number of creative ladies every week and one of the ladies presented the bag as a project. Most of the ladies there make quilts and WOW there are some creative women out there! It is inspiring. In the mean time I take time to teach a couple of friends how to sew and I am totally impressed with what they have done!!!! Little did I know that when I was learning to sew in high school that at this age I would be teaching others. It is very rewarding. My fabulous sewing teacher is now in heaven with the God she loved so much and I want to thank her so much for the patience she showed me and my other classmates how
to sew--it took a lot of patience teaching us "active" high school students! My most memorable project that I did was a pink paisley dress. I don't have a photo of it and wish that I did. It was beautiful. I wonder what grade I got on it. :) You know what? I'm going to pray that God will provide a photo of me in that dress. He is so amazing-I know that He will do it!!!

As a side note: I have been praying for a number of years for a photo of me in the dress that I graduated from 8th grade in and guess what???? I finally got the answer to my prayer this summer!! God is totally GOOD to me! Thank you dear God.

Berry jelly

Here are some of the berries that I made this recipe for jelly with. I made one batch with only the small mossberries-it turned out so good and tasty. This batch had the rest of the mossberries and the alpine blueberries. This turned out so good. Actually, I must say that this was the best jelly I made in a LONG time. I used the pectin that "Ball" sells.

House sitting

This is a photo of the house we are staying at during the week in Soldotna on the Kenai River. My friends, Debbie and Margaret drove down from Anchorage last Thursday to spend the day with me. We took this photo from down by the river. We had a fun day with me showing them all that the area offers. They were very concerned that I would have no place to go around here. I took them to the local hospital which has been recently been added on to with a $50M
addition and has a wonderful cafeteria. There is a fun shop called Donna's that we enjoyed shopping at. It is sort of victorian and is loaded with interesting and beautiful things. We went on over to Kenai and spent time at Veronicas, a funky coffee shop. The berry cobbler was delicious. I showed Debbie and Margaret the bluff that overlooks the inlet and river. We spent a lot of time at the Kenai Visitor's Center. It is a beautiful place with varied displayed. You can check them out at http://www.visitkenai.com/content.asp?CAT_ID=24

This will bless you to your toes!!!!

Little Princess

I taught Mackenzie how to sew--she thought it was pretty cool. She was a good student.




According to Mackenzie, these shoes are her's and she is sharing with me. She walked in them with no problem at all.

Our time at the waterfront was wonderful. The weather was beautiful.

Any excuse to sit in the baby chair is a good one!!

Mackenzie was soooooo delighted to get her toes and fingernails painted. It is fabulous having a little grandaughter!!

Look at those precious toes!

Look at that darling sweater Mackenzie's grandma Ginger knitted for her.

My two styling girls!

Here is the kusbuck I made for her.

Mackenzie being mischievous with the cat's water and her ball. She loves having her princess tutu on, no matter what else she is wearing. Her cat is fabulous with her-they are comrades in crime. The cat's name is Tava, a shortened Russian word for comrade in crime.

Mackenzie loved having me feed her breakfast to her and I loved doing it!!

TOTALLY a little princess!

miss kenzie dancing

Time with the family

Mackenzie turned 2 years old on August 15th. Here she is with a friend who turned 2 a week before she did. They celebrated their birthdays together.

Here is little miss curly locks getting into some sort of the usual mischief!

I'm here in the Seattle area with the family and Mackenzie is having a ball with my shoes. She says that they are her shoes. I tell her that they are mine and I'm sharing with her. After being here for 4 days she is now saying that they are her shoes and she is sharing with me. :) She loves to hear them bang on the tile floor. Here she is watching the shoes as they make their "lovely" noise.

Lunch time

I'm having a wonderful time needless to say. I will be back home on the 13th and will get more photos up of our fun time.

Labor Day 2008

Jim and I went up to Arctic Valley pick berries on Labor Day. The day was perfect for picking berries. We ended up hiking quite aways up some trails then headed up the mountain side. We couldn't believe the amount of berries we saw and passed as we hiked halfway up the mountain. When we decided enough is enough, we settled in and started picking mossberries and alpine blueberries. The blueberries looked spectacular and were so tasty. The mossberries make the most delightful jelly and pie you will ever have. Enjoy the photos of the scenery and berries!












It was challenging climbing up to the place we wanted to go for berries but I dreaded getting down the mountain side. Amazingly I made it without twisting an ankle and I didn't get sore muscles!!!! I was just blessed by the beauty of creation that day. I just couldn't help but give thanks to Father God for so much in creation to enjoy. I'm so glad that I have Him to thank because, believe it or not, Mother Earth doesn't have ears to hear!!

Explaination of posts of trip to King Cove

Ok, I think I have it all figured out so that my posts would show up in chronological order to make sense of my trip. It was a major ordeal.
On my post you will see on August 26--Back from KC Aug 9th -16th
Just ignore that post since it showed up before I made this presentation.

NEXT:
You will see dates starting from August 25th and going backwards for my trip. I had to do that because of the way I made the draft.

ANYWAYS: Just enjoy the show and ignore all the dates cause I made the trip from August 9-16.

(16) Adventure to King Cove, Alaska

On August 9th I headed off to King Cove. The trip was beautiful with views of numerous mountains including volcanoes. You can check out Alaskan volcanoes at this very informative site:http://www.avo.alaska.edu/ . King Cove is located at the end of the Alaska Peninsula, it is also where I was born and raised. As you can see, travel to King Cove is by small aircraft. The one from Anchorage to Cold Bay is called a Saab and carries about 20 people. The flight takes about 2 1/2 hours.
I couldn't help but remember what Psalms 121: 1-2 says, "I will lift my eyes to the mountains, from where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." Those mountains are so majestic and beautiful. My goodness, if God has the power to form these - He certainly has the power to help us in our every day lives!