New Assignment and Rememberings

Well, the time has come to start a new missions assignment. Fortunately, this assignment does not come with a change in location for us, since we really love living in Palmer. Starting in 2009, Bryan will be assisting the Alaska District Council of the Assemblies of God with building assessment and repair/construction. Currently, missionaries Odis and Debby Ganey are doing this job alone, so they are excited about us coming to help. Odis broke his leg this summer and came to realize during his recuperation time that he shouldn't be the only person taking care of such a large job. We have been good friends with Debby and Odis since we moved to Alaska, so it will be a pleasure working along side of them.

This also means that Bryan's busy time will be changing. No longer will we be itinerating all summer as we have been the last few years. Instead, Bryan and Odis will be working in the state during the "warmer" months of the year and itinerating in the "colder" months. Bryan will be traveling to the Lower 48 in February and March to do some itineration. Unfortunately, the girls and I won't be able to join him due to our school schedule.

The girls are excited that we won't be gone for the typical 2 months this next summer. Rachel is very excited to plant flowers and a garden. She has been wanting to plant flowers for two years, but we never can since we are gone. We will be gone at least one month since we always go visit both sets of parents in California and Texas. We always look forward to our time with them.

Yesterday was our 13th anniversary. I was remembering our anniversaries when we were in Fort Yukon. One year Bryan had gone to Fairbanks and was coming back on our anniversary. Whenever one of us went to Fairbanks without the rest of the family, we always had to bring back food from a restaurant. That year I had a huge craving for McDonald's french fries and chicken nuggets. So that is what Bryan brought back. When he got home with the stone cold food, I put it in the toaster oven to get hot and crispy, and we had a delicious anniversary meal.

Most of the time when we went to Fairbanks, we would order Chinese delivery from our favorite Chinese take-out place and have them deliver it to our gate at the airport. If we were all together at the airport, we would sit there and eat our food, but most of the time, whoever was in town would bring it home to the rest of us. What a treat that was when we had eaten only our own cooking for weeks without a break. It was always interesting to get on the plane and smell all the different food that people were taking home to their families: pizza, burgers, fried chicken, etc, and to see the eager family members waiting for it at home.

I am thankful to live near grocery stores and other conveniences now, but I do miss parts of living in the village.

This week in Palmer the temperatures are around -20 degrees. It feels cold, but in Fort Yukon this week it is -60 degrees, so that keeps things in perspective for us. The hard thing about living in the city when it is this cold is that you have to use your vehicles to get around. If we haven't plugged our car in, it doesn't like to start up at this temperature. I am thankful we have a block heater and battery heater, but the last few days the plugs have been completely encased in ice. Bryan finally took a welders torch outside and melted the ice. Our truck battery is dead since one of the doors wasn't shut all the way, and since it is so cold, our battery doesn't want to charge up. When we lived in Fort Yukon we didn't have to worry about cars and trucks. If our snowmachine wouldn't start, we just walked wherever we needed to go. Of course, the cold brought other issues in Fort Yukon, like the heater not working when it got really cold or having to keep a space heater on the washing machine so it would work.

Ah - the good ol' days. :)

We are glad to be in Palmer now, but we will always have good memories of living in Fort Yukon. It sure was an adventure!

Happy New Year!