Its a Good Day

I know I need to take some pictures of the area to show you, but so far, we havent had much time. We have been really busy trying to get a house to rent and getting things set up for us. We now officially have a phone, electric, gas, and water accounts in our name. For those of you that want to call us, email us and we will give you the phone number. It wont be active until Friday sometime betwen 9-5 CST.

Today we are waiting on 'severe' thunderstorms. Our kids have no clue what those are like after living in Alaska for all of their lives. It will undoubtedly be an experience for them to encounter. The weather here changes often. Yesterday was bright, sunny, a bit windy and probably 70. Today is cloudy, windy and still warm with thunderstorms lurking.

We are looking very forward to tomorrow when we will finally be in house again. We are all excited to be able to do the things you take for granted such as cooking. We are so tired of eating out. I am surprised that it came so quick. Granted, there are lots of places we havent eaten, but we are also trying not to spend. We have found that the local Wal-Mart is a grocery store and we can eat in the hotel pretty cheap from there. Also, for all you folks in Alaska, a 10pc 2 side dinner from KFC goeas for 15$ it feeds us nicely. Maybe not as healthy as we wanted, but it is cheaper than McDonalds believ it or not.

Tomorrow will be pretty busy, but I promise to take and post a couple pictures of our new home. Have a great day everyone.

In the Prayer Room

We finally made it to the prayer room for one of Misty Edwards sets. Dont get me wrong, all the musicians are tremendous, but we have some of her CD's and listened to them for abot 3000 of the 3600 mile trip to KC.

Kassidy was studying scripture on the laptop, Galatians 5 to be exact. Kenny is praying for a friend of ours, Marci. For some reason he has been burdened to pray for her and who are we to stop him.

Right now as we sit here at 930pm, I am thrilled that this environment even exists to sit in 24 hours a day. There is so much ick out there to get caught up in, at least here we can sit in a safe place and worship, pray, meditate...just be.

Today we tried to get a PO Box and a new drivers license only to find out we are nobodys without a proof of residency. We are really wanting to get our roots planted a bit deeper, but for whatever reason, it is taking a bit longer than we had hoped. Tomorrow we hope to make more progress.

On a high note, we tlaked to our realator in Fairbanks and she informed us we could likely be closing next week. We werent expecting to do so until the end of April so this is really great news.

One other tidbit of news..or at least news to us, we were awakened at 1:18 last night with what was to us a powerful thunderstorm. We heard what sounded like an explosion and then an alarm went off in the hotel. We were told it was normal that it happens, but it sure wasnt normal to us. I am sure we will see more powerful storms, but that was a rough way to be awakened.

Oh yeah, another cool note, we found a place here in KC that allows for what is called shared branching. This is when you can go to a bank here in KC and for all inents and purposes it is like we are walking in our credit union in Fairbanks. What a blessing. The manager of the branch is friendly and the credit union is pretty close as well.

All of this said, day by day we are growing more accustomed to the area, the lifestyle and what is to be our future. Our kids are settling in well and we ALL are looking very forward to having a REAL house... thanks Rachel and Marcus!!

What a week

It is Sunday night, abot 10PM and I finally have a few minutes to reflect on the week that just transpired. One week ago today we were in Edmonton, Alberta weathering out the worst snow storm of the season and waiting for our replacement credit card.

We finally got out of there and headed south for KC. The week went fast dricing lots and takiing in what sights we could along the way. The Battlefield of Little Bighorn left a big impression on me. Here are a couple more pictures from there. You can click on the pictures to make them larger.



































we left the battlefield and headed south. We went to see Mt. Rushmore, but as our son said, The Presidents had thier heads in the clouds. Instead we got to see some sheep along te road and we took a picture to prove that we made an attempt. Hours later, we stopped at a rest area and i got a foux picture of the monuments.

KC - Dust Settling

Today was a day totally unlike what we expected. We were thinking that we would do errands. Instead, we were shown around the local area. I am shocked by the way te area has rolling hils and lots of different types of trees. Around IHOP there isa park with lots of trails and other parks connected. It is a really cool area and tere are several subdivisions that are nearby with We even saw some budding leaves, green grass and all sors of birds. We spent te majority of the day touring, and then we were able to drop off our Uhaul so that I am not having to pull it around anymore. Praise God!

Tomorow will be more errands, loking for a bank, a post office, that sort of stuff. We hope that by mid to late next week we are al but settled. On the 31st we are able to get into the hosue we are going to rent until June or so.

Kansas City, Here We Are!

Ok so we are in Kansas city. We had a great day today. It all started here:
















Cabelas in Mitchell, S.D. I told a friend of mine it was like Disneyland for me. A very hard place to leave. We did good though and only browsed...well except for a few tid bits. Then as we were leaving the register person said that there was a store in KC that is 2x the size. How great is our God :)?

We left Mitchell for the trek to KC. It didn't take long at all before we had turned south onto I-29 and blew through Soiux City. Shortly after, we were passing through Council Bluffs, Iowa. This is right across the river from where I spent 3 years, Omaha Nebraska. I am very glad I am not there anymore.

As the sun was setting we saw a truly magnificent sight. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of migratory waterfowl flying north up the valley as we entered Missouri. The sky was actually darkened by the birds. I have never seen that many birds in one place. It was wonderful to see.

We are settling in to the hotel we are staying at and going to be taking the next few days to get acquainted with the surrounding a bit. I am also going to posting some more pics that I didnt ahve time to post before and finish the story of what got us here to begin with. Keep praying everyone. Oh for those of you who get up early, or read this often to keep up with us.. leave a comment :) We like getting to know people.

Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota All In A Day

Yesterday, we left Hardin Montana headed for our first stop, the Battlefield of Little Bighorn. This place was facinating. I cannot wait to rent a movie of this event and watch the story unfold. A great line I read while there was, "Custer didn't lose this battle, the courage and bravery of the warriors won it." We had the entire monument to ourselves making the place that much more sacred. Here are some pictures.









I will post more abot yesterday later tonight or tomorrow. The internet connection here in South Dakota is very slow and loading pictures and stuff takes a long time. If all goes well, we will be in KC tonight. Keep praying everyone!

Battlefield of Little Bighorn

Tomorrow morning, 15 miles after we leave our hotel, we are going to be taking in the battlefield of Little Bighorn. Today's drive was a beautiful trek from Shelby, Montana down Hwy. 87. I would highly suggest this route to anyone going either north to Canada/Alaska or like us, south.

As we drove we saw a lot of antelope and deer. We even caugth ourselves singing Home On the Range. If anyone out there wondered where Black Angus Beef come from, I can tell you that a lot of it is right here in Montana off Hwy. 87.

This is no doubt Old West country. As we drove down the highway through Great Falls, and Billings you could tell that the buildings were old and likely had been there since the towns were founded. This is the land that Lewis and Clark explored, the land that General Custer made his last stand, you can easily imagine what it must have been like not long ago.

Those who know me well, know that I have a huge heart for Native peoples, especially those in Interior Alaska where I grew up. I am loking forward to paying my respect at the battlefield tomorrow. If only they knew then what we know now....

God Bless America!

We made it back to the United States of America today. We arrived in Shelby, Montana about 15 minutes ago. Time for a bit of rest, some breakfast and another 400 miles or so. We should be in Billings or some place further east on I-90 come sundown.

The truck, my wife, kids and dog are all doing fine. I am doing pretty well too. I am VERY thankful to be back in America. Canada treated us well, but growing up in America, even simple things like road signs make me feel much more at ease. Rachel and I both laughed at ourselves as we passed the sign saying MMMMOOOONNTTTTAAAANNNAAA WOOHOO!

Goodnight everyone, keep praying as we are for you!

Unbelievable and Abominable

First is the unbelievable, I shaved off my beard. This only occured after discovering the beard trimmer was lost in the depths of the Uhaul trailer and my not wanting to scare the locals when we arrive in KC by looking worse than Grizzly Adams.
This was the headline of the newspaper at our hotel this morning. It is one soupy mess! We walked abot 2 blocks to Denny's for brunch today and were surprised by the slop. It looks like the weather should hold for a few days. Now if we just get our package from the credit card company we can actually resume our trip. I do have to say though, anyone coming to Edmonton should seriously give thought to staying at the Comfort Inn on 100th Ave. When you do, say hi to our favorite Desk atendant Deanna. She has made the stay very nice and even likes our dog :)

Edmonton STILL

For those you reading along at home, I thouhgt I would post an update to let you all know that we are still in Edmonton. As I stated before, we lost our credit card and had to cancel it, then have the company send us a new one. We were told that it would be here on Saturday. That was false information. Now we ave to wait until Monday at the earliest as DHL does not run on Sunday.

We have also had a record snow storm hit that I am thankful I was not driving through. I would guess it dropped somewhere betwen 8 and 10 inches.

Really we are doing well all things considered, but we do want to get going on the rest of our journey.

Edmonton - The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

Today we spent the majority of the day at the largest indoor waterpark in the world, located in the largest mall in the world.

The GOOD:
The slides were a blast. The whole family thoroughly enjoyed them. The wave pool that you see pictured was a hit as well.

Another good thing was that by arriving early, the whole family got in for $40, equallying about 1/2 of what we thought we were goig to have to pay.

The BAD:
On one particular slide, one that is not that fast or anything, yours truly, managed the impossible on the same run. I broke my watch and lost my credit card. This meant us having to spend abot an hour of our day calling the card company, trying to close the account and arrange another sent to us before we continue our descent toward KC. This means that instead of hitting the road agin in the morning, we will be waiting until most likely Sunday morning.

The UGLY:
I slipped and landed flay on my back scraping my back and elbow and feet. All of which have the appearance of road rash. Not too much longer, I slipped again, this time catching a toe in a drain grate and tearing off a nice portion of meat off a toe. This set of injuries to go along with those received while emptying our house in Fairbanks, (the separated rotator cup, the sprained/strained elbow, the sprained strained wrist), all make me one walking clutz. My parents would say they knew it all along.

All this said, we really did have a good day. We are enjoying our time together as a family. We are doing things we may not have otherwise done, and after it is all said and done, we can thank God.

St. Patty's Day will see us taking in some of the other attractions around town such as The Space and Science Center, the museum, the zoo, and the botanical gardens. It should be a great day. Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone.

West Edmonton Mall Amusement Park

Today we took in the amuzement park. It was a blast. We also just happened to be here on Wednesday, or whacky wednesday as they call it. We were able to ride all the rides we wanted all day for 40$ Canadian. That is little Kenny standing on the star in front of the Mindbender, triple loop roller coaster.
We let the kids run around in the playgrund a bit. On one picture you can see the train that goes around the whole park (which I recorded a video of while we rode). The pther picture is of the kids and Rachel siting in the yellow bubble you can see on the playground.



































My nephew will get a kick out of this one

So we had a blast again today, my feet are sore and my hips hurt from walking so much. My stomach hurts thanks to Tony Romas. I am going to sleep happy. Rachel and the kids are already in Neverland. We pray everyone is doing well and we miss you.

Keep praying and keep emailing us. We love to type :) For those trying to reach Kassidy, please go to my profile, shoot me an email through there, and I will then give you her email address...this means you Kaylea :-)

Edmonton - DAY 2

Today was a bit of relaxation and relocation. We stayed last night at the West Edmonton Travelodge and I can assure you that is a place a will not stay at again. We relocated to the Comfort Inn and comfort is appropriate. We feel quite at home.

We finally made it to the West Edmonton Mall for a survey of the Worlds Largest Mall. See the pics below. All we did was walk around for abot 4 hours and eat at one place. Tomorrow we are actually going to take in the amuzement park to include he worlds largest indoor 3 loop roller coaster!

In Fairbanks he is not! In Edmonton he is!

ALCAN Chapter 3 - EDMONTON

We made it to Edmonton tonight. This marks the 1/2 way point of our trip. We plan to spen a at least 2 days, perhaps 3 here taking in the West Edmonton Mall and other sights.

The trip from Fort Nelson to here was pretty uneventful. We did see a couple white tail deer and some eagles. The roads were good for the southern 2/3 of this leg. The weather was windy and snowy.

I am beat. I will talk to you all tomorrow. Keep praying!

ALCAN Chapter 2 -Mostly pictures

These two pictures are from day one on the Alaskan/Canadian border.

These pictures were on this lake, I think it is called Lake Bruwash. It is in Kluane National Park. There were sheep on the road at one of the most curvy and narrow parts. It was right at sunset too. What a beautiful sight.

We had been driving for a LONG time and I was praying that we would see something interesting. We came around a corner and we saw this herd of buffalo. None of my family had ever seen wild buffalo before. What a treat!

About 5 minutes after we saw the first herd of buffalo, we saw a second herd. It is where the picture of the cow buffao and her calf were. Then just a few more miles ahead we saw this deer. I think it is an elk. It is interesting to note that it is radio collared. There was another one with it too.

We also saw a coyote, a black wolf, and a wolverine. What a day on the road!!

We made it to Ft. Nelson. We are now 1200 miles into our trip in two LONG days of driving. We plan to make it to Edmonton tomorow, but we may just find a place closer and call it a day. Only time and my patience for driving will tell. Today the roads were through the Northern Rockies. Very beautiful, but very twisty and icy. There wasn't much high speed low drag action to be had.

Keep praying everyone. We know you all are!

ALCAN Chapter 1

We drove over 600 miles today. We left Fairbanks at abot 7:45am and headed for Whitehorse. The drive was pretty uneventful. We had beautiful weather. We saw 7 mountain sheep on the road by a very large lake on the highway. I will post a picture of that tomorrow. We took some awesome shots.

So far, everyone is doing great. We are settling into our hotel for the nights rest and then another 600 miles tomorrow hopefully ending in Ft. Nelson, British Columbia.

Up, Up, and Away

I thougt I would title this today in honor of Mr. and Mrs Reeve. The latter having departed earth today.

Today is also the departure of Ken, Rachel, Kassidy and Kenny. Officially, we are leaving town Thursday morning with one last stop at Mocha Dan's Espresso for a latte made by the lady that I dont even have to tell my order to. I will miss the coffee and the two way chats and blessings alot.

Fairbanks holds a special place in the hearts of Rachel and I. Having both been raised and Rachel born here, we have lots of memories and friends here. This past Saturday and Sunday our church prayed over us and 'sent' us out on this journey. We were very touched by the prayers, support and the entire service. We have known the people in this church all our lives. Their excitement about what God is calling us to do, and our desire to come back and 'sow' it back into the church was overwhelming. Sowing and reaping, its a good thing. The folks in our church have sowed into us for decades. We are thrilled to be able to call ourselves, and to be called some good fruit from the seeds they planted all those years ago.

Unless I am able to find a vacant computer enroute to Kansas City, this is likely my last post for a couple weeks. Please be praying for us for a safe and fun journey, for an easy time of settling in to our new lives, and for the people that are remaining in Fairbanks to continue pressing in to all God is doing in their lives. Until later........

Oops...OUCH

I havent been posting due to an accident that occurred last Sunday. We were delivering the furniture that we sold in preparation for our move to KC. In the process, we dropped the couch. The problem was that I tried to play hero and catch it. Our couch was a double reclining sofa so it was heavy. When I caught it with my fingertips, I did damage to the rotator cup, the tendons and ligaments in the elbow, and the tendons in my wrist. I am now getting to wear a sling and a brace for the next several weeks and take motrin until it comes out my ears.

To try and top me, my wife had her lower wisdom teeth removed 2 days ago, surgically. She is all bruised and sore and I feel horrible for her. All of this has slowed our plans a little. We were planning on driving out of Alaska at first light Monday morning. We are now looking at Wednesday.

All the while, God is working in and around us and we are literally praising God for all He is doing. We have gotten to spend some great time with the best man at our wedding and his new WONDERFUL wife. They even came to cell group last night ans we all got to gush over their newlywedness.

Even though I am sore, stiff, and genrally uncomfortable, I can asee God moving in ways that are nearly miraculous. I am going to try and post another time or two before we head out, but if not, LOOK OUT KC.. a whirlwind from the north is approaching.