Speedy Delivery

And this, my friends, is the method by which a particular 6-year-old boy at our house chose to deliver a bag of dog food from the van down to the barn. Can't fault him for lack of inventiveness.

For the record...

Jacob is tired of being called a "little boy."

"Evweyone calls me a little boy, and I'm not. I'm a medium boy. But evweyone still calls me a little boy, and I wish they would stop, 'cuz I'm a medium boy now."

Ed. note: We're not sure to whom "evweyone" refers, but this comment was made on Sunday afternoon, so perhaps someone at church persisted in referencing him as "the little boy." But his request has been duly noted, at least among family members.

Baby's Eye View...

More of the Iditarod...

After watching from downtown for a bit, we headed to the outskirts of town where the teams go right by. These are some happy dogs!



















Know who this is? It's Jeff King, a relatively famous musher, who has won the Iditarod four times. He came in 12th this year. Anything in the top 20 is remarkable...more people have climbed Mt. Everest than have successfully completed the Iditarod. (Sorry I can't quote the statistic, but we heard it on an Iditarod documentary. Have I mentioned that Andrew is learning about dog mushing for his first 4H project? Yes, in Alaska, dog mushing is a perfectly legit 4H project-don't laugh).




















Okay, I know these pictures are impossibly hard to see like this. But I would encourage you, if you're even just slightly interested, to click on it to open it larger in a new window...because it's really cool to see the second-by-second progression as they come around the bend. And you know who this musher is? Lance Mackey. Yup, the champion this year. Oh, and he won it last year. And the year before that. Do you suppose I should put a clear copyright on my pics? :)

The Iditarod Race, 2009!

Gearing up...to be spectators! (Gotta love this picture of Jacob)...















We started out downtown right near the starting line. Of course, this was just the "ceremonial start," and the real race began on Sunday, Mar. 8th, out of Willow (N. of Anchorage).















We had a great view of all the teams as they went by!

Mark's Birthday!

We celebrated Mark's birthday (over a month ago, now!) in stages! The Wednesday before his before his birthday, the boys and I baked a brownie cake to share with our Bible study group. Such troopers, the boys...joyfully making brownies for daddy, knowing full well that they wouldn't get to have any of the dairy-laden goodness. Then on Thursday, for Mark's gift from me, we went out to eat and then to hear Ravi Zecharias, live in Anchroage! Then on Saturday, his actual birthday, we went to Anchorage to see the start of the Iditarod Race, which will be a whole other post in itself!

Haircut!

In early March, I gave Anna a "real" haircut. Up till then, I had just trimmed her bangs. But her hair was long and straggly in the back, and I finally decided to even it out. Now it curls up nicely, especially when it's clean!

More over there...

In case some of you who are looking for pictures of our kids don't hop on over there very often, my sister Tricia has lots of pics of them on her blog lately!
A few weekends ago she watched the three kids for us on a Friday night while we went to dinner with some friends, and she does a remarkable job of keeping an eye on them and taking care of them through the camera lens. :)

View from the top

Here's the new property on which we're privileged to live! From left to right, there's our house, then you see the neighbors house, then the brown barn on the far right will be transformed into the church! We need lots of labor and dollars to get it done, but it will happen!
Our church has been praying, asking God for this property to become the new church land for three years...God is faithful!

Scouting

After a week or two in the new place, we decided to take a break from settling in and head to explore around us. The parsonage and church sits on about 2 1/2 acres, but is bordered on the south by what is essentially state land. So, we use it for our own play place!

It was a beautiful sunny day...the cold snap had lifted, but we hadn't yet started again getting lots of snow. Peek-a-boo, Jacob...no luck hiding from the camera!

This would be a great I-Spy photo. Do you see two goats and one dog in the picture above. :) Yes, we took the goats for a walk. Until spring comes and we can get an outdoor pen set up, we get them out as much as we can. Besides, they're hysterical to watch when they get to capering around! We did keep Butter on a leash for most of the time, just because she can be strong-willed. But Sally is my baby and stays right by me, so she just trotted right along with us, as did Abby. We also kept Sophie on a leash, just because she's, well, a puppy. And a young one back then, too.

How do you get a good group shot of 3 kids, 2 goats, and 2 dogs? Not very well, that's how!

Evangelism Conference

In January, we went to the AK Baptist Convention's annual Evangelism Conference. It's always a good time of teaching, encouragement, and fellowship...and they always provide childcare! It also means 2 nights in a hotel, which the boys love. But between the newness of sleeping in a hotel (not that Mark and I have trouble with that part!) and the services that run pretty late, we all get pretty tired out!

Jacob's Friends

Jacob's imagination isn't limited to his own dress-up escapades. Here are his three faithful companions (all of whom best be present at bedtime or we've got issues)...Larry, Elmo, and Stewart (a.k.a. "John the Gerbil" in his pre-"we just read Stewart Little" days). I found the three of them launched in these "boats" of Mark's slippers.


And apparently Stewart is quite the climber. I must say, I did quite the double-take when I came into the living room and saw this!

Ta-Da!

I did it! I finished posting about Christmas by (almost) the first week of April! Catch-up should get quicker from here on out.
I hope it hasn't been too confusing for those who just pop in and out occasionally, to find Christmas posts when they thought surely that it was spring...

Volcano Stuff

The Alaska Volcano Observatory posted some of my sister Tricia's pics!
You can check them out here: http://www.avo.alaska.edu/volcanoes/volcact.php?volcname=Redoubt&page=images&eruptionid=610&limit=3, one of hers is the one with the little red car in it, and then the one diagonally below to left of that one. Of course she's got tons of really neat ones on her blog, too, but it's just neat that they used hers on the "official site."

The pics I took on Friday are still on my camera, and I hope to get to them sooner than later.

Andrew actually got to see Redoubt go off when he was outside playing at my parents' house on Saturday. Now that's not something many six-year-olds can say! (Not to worry, my mom made him come right in the house). Fascinating stuff, this volcano. But I must say I think I'm over it now...I'm ready to be done with checking the "ash forecast" before we do anything!