New Adventure of Life

It's getting close to baby time. I'm 32 weeks pregnant now. Only 8 weeks to go, unless he decides to come early... Hopefully not to early since we are still working on getting everything we are going to need. I mean we don't even have diapers yet. Hopefully I will be buying some in the next week or two. I've been trying to figure out what the best type of diaper would be for Payton, but it's kinda hard when he isn't even here yet. So I'm going to buy at least 2 different brands and do a little testing of the diapers. We did think about cloth diapers, but right now they are not an option for us, since we don't have the greatest washer and we have hang all of our clothes to dry right now.  We got our car seat and stroller in the mail a couple weeks ago, thanks to my mom, older sister, grandma, and two aunts. We also got a johnny jump up in the mail. That was the only thing James really wanted. When he saw it in the store when we were registering he got e

Well the holidays are coming, which means I'm gonna be a little emotional. Haha shocker. Poor James has had to deal with me going from laughing at something he said to crying the next second and not knowing why I'm crying. So this holiday season is going to be a blast for me with all the tears. Anyways, some exciting news. My mother in law is coming up for Thanksgiving this year. She will get to Bethel on the 18th and then James' uncle will fly down on the 19th to pick her and I up and take us to Aniak. We will spend the week there celebrating. James will fly up that Wednesday. Praying that he makes its since he will be flying non rev. He will have two chances to make it that day. Hopefully he will make it on the first flight that way he can spend some time with his mom. I'm really excited to be able to go up there for Thanksgiving. Haven't seen the family since July. We most likely won't make it for Christmas this year since it falls on James' work schedul

If you are friend with me on facebook, then you probably already know that James and I are having a boy. We surprised our parents when we called and told them. No one knew when we were going. Originally it was going to be at the end of the month, but when I went to my 19 week appointment the PA told me I could come back in 2 weeks or continue with my every 4 weeks. After my appointment I went to the waiting area to talk to James at what we should do. We decided to come back in 2 weeks and that we should keep it to ourselves. Haha that was hard to do especially when I was talking to my mom  after that appointment. She was like "so when do you find out what your having? Isn't it at the end of the month?" I was like it's sometime in October. She was like okay and the topic was dropped. Everyone that would ask me I would tell them sometime in October. It was hard not to tell my best friend when we skyped. She really wanted to know what day it was, but I told her I was no

Well planning for the baby has had its ups and downs.  We decided that we are going to buy/register everything in mostly neutral colors. That way when we have more children we can just reuse some of the bigger items instead have to buy new every time. Plus we won't have to store extra stuff if our next baby is a different gender then the one we are having.  We are also trying to decide if we want to by a crib or just get a pack and play for a crib and buy a crib mattress for it instead. All these designs are driving me crazy. We don't have a lot of space for a crib, but can make do if that is what we decide to do. It's just going to take some reorganizing  things to make it work. We have actually begun to do all that. Unfortunately we have a lot of totes that we have to figure out were to put. We are slowly emptying some of them and combining them with others, so we can stack the empty ones.  We are going to be finding out what we are having sometime in October. :) We a

Well I am getting back into being involved in the church. I was asked to help teach Sunday school with 2 other ladies. We will be rotating every week so no one has to be there every Sunday. Myself and one of the other ladies will only be there for a few months. The other lady is due just before me. I'll stay on until February. After I'm gone it will only be the one lady for the last couple months of Sunday school. This is new for me as I have yet to teach Sunday school, but hey there is a first for everything, right? So I ask prayer as I am to teach for the first time this Sunday. I also decided to get brave and volunteer to help out in Awana. It was really hard for me to decide if I want to do this or not. I didn't want to throw myself into so many ministries that I get burnt out. I've gotten burnt out before and it was hard to say no,but I always knew that I needed a break. Well after talking to James for almost 3 weeks on and off I finally decided that I can do Awa

Well I am finally pregnant. I know a lot of people were praying for me since all I wrote about at the beginning of the year was about how much I wanted to be pregnant and to start a family with James. I found out that I was pregnant at the beginning of June. Right around the time I stop writing my blogs. It was hard to blog without talking about the baby. Now that we told family and made it "facebook official" I can write about it here. I lost weight at the beginning because I could hardly eat. I was always sick to my stomach. I couldn't eat meat or stand the smell of it cooking. Poor James had to stop eating bacon for breakfast because it would make me sick. With me barely eating, I would become shaky. I had to miss a few Sundays at church because I didn't feel good or because I was to shaky to go. I went to my first prenatal appointment when I was 15 weeks. Yes I know that is a little late for the first appointment, but we tried going sooner. We went to the fami

People have asked me different questions about my internet. Yes i know that is a strange thing to ask, but when I tell them I can't do something because we don't have much usage left they are like what? Today is the day that starts a new month which is why there is very little shown. When I skype with my best friend CiJi, we normally talk for about 3 hours since we only skype once a month it takes about 1.5 bars just for the 3 hours. Sometimes we do great and have 3 bars left at the end of the month other times we are cutting it close. If we go over it cost us more money. We are already paying a big chunk of money just for this amount of usage. When we signed up for it there was a cheaper plan but you get hardly enough internet. I was talking to my sister about how I was watching Gilmore Girls through netflixs, but I had to get them in the mail. She was like you can't get it through your Wii? I told her that if we do streaming it would you a pretty big section of internet

So it's been awhile... I have been going to church on Sundays which is nice. Slowly meeting new people there. The pastor told me this past Sunday that people will start coming back and everything will pick up so James and I can find some ministry to be involved in.  It's still a little hard going to church without James, but I'm making it. I found out that there was a men's Bible study on Wednesday nights and I found out the time and came home and told James about it. We emailed are pastor to see if it went on during the summer since everything else was done. Found out it does go on during the summer. James went there tonight. Hopefully he can start meeting people also that are not coworkers. It will be great for him to be around other believers.  So last week James and I went grocery shopping and I decided that I needed to go get some birthday cards for my mom and my nephew whose birthdays are next week. Well I saw some post cards write next to the card, so I started

Sorry that I haven't blogged recently. I didn't know what to really write about. The last couple weeks have been long. I wasn't feeling well so nothing got done around the house. Thankfully my husband understood and helped clean and cook.  I  have missed the last two Sundays from church. The first one I wasn't feeling well and it was raining so I told James to go ahead and take the truck. Yesterday I ended up getting up and took James to work so I could have the truck. But when I got up my legs felt really shaky. This was the second time it had happen to me in the last couple day. I think I need to get up early to eat breakfast so I don't feel like this anymore.  Hopefully I can make it next week.  Well I have come to realize that  James and I have now been in Alaska for a year now. Can't believe that it's been that long. I still have a year to go until I can go home and visit my family. For my sake and the sake of my family I hope it's not as hot as it

So the other day James and I were doing laundry and we opened our window downstairs to help dry the clothes faster since it was about 70 degrees outside. Well that was a mistake. We don't have a screen in that window and so the mosquitoes decided to come in and make themselves at home. My right arm feels like it is covered with bites. I have probably at least 8 on that arm alone. I also have some everywhere else, but my right arm is the one with the most. The night that we had all these mosquitoes we were up until 2am killing as many as we can. We would be almost asleep and then we would hear them fly around our head. It's been about 2 days and we almost got them all. there maybe be about 2 or 3 left. We can't open our downstairs window anymore which is kinda sad because it's gets so hot when I cook our meals. It's also has been so nice lately that we want to open the window to the fresh air, but we don't since we don't want to get any more mosquitoes bites

Well last Friday, June 1st, James went and looked at a truck and decided to buy it. Yes we did discussed it, but he wasn't sure if he was going to buy it or not when he went to look at it. Well this past Thursday we got the title and all that fun stuff switched over in to James' name and now I can drive it legally. Which mean I can go to church for the first time in about a month and a half. I'm looking for to be getting out of the house and around other people. Here is a picture of the truck

I'm always so bored when James is at work. I was talking to James about cleaning the apartment while he is at work. I was telling him that maybe if I broke the rooms in sections and do one room a day while he is at work. He was okay with that idea. It only takes me maybe 2 hours to clean the whole downstairs. (kitchen, living room, and bathroom) And then up stairs which is our bedroom always gets clean if I can find room for stuff.  Well last week James and I ordered a shelving thing that is suppose to be like a closest outside of the closet. This thing came in the mail earlier this week and I decided that I would go set it up.  As I was putting it together it was get taller then I expected it to be. We had to move our dresser down a little bit and put this shelf in it's spot.  I'm glad we got this shelf unit. I can actually take care of our clothes and we won't have to live out of totes anymore.

Well tomorrow (May 22) I will celebrate 2 years of marriage with my loving husband.  We have "big" plans for our anniversary  :) Chinese, brownies, ice cream and watching a movie. I'm looking forward to getting Chinese since that means that I don't have to cook.  Here are a few pictures from our wedding and a couple that are more recent. Happy 2 Year Anniversary James I love you!

I just got done watching the mother's day service from Impact Church. That is the church that James and I went to just before we moved to Alaska. I was debating if I should watch it or not because James and I only get so much internet per month and if we go over we have to pay more. So I'm always watching how much we are using. Well I figured it would be okay for me to watch since we had about half our internet usage left. I'm glad that I watched it. I needed the connection with "people". Even though I had to watch it online two days later, it was still nice hearing God's word. I haven't been to church in about a month. Right before James and I went to Anchorage a month ago, he found out his schedule at work was changing. When we got back from town he worked his last Monday -Thursday. And then that Sunday he started his new schedule of Sunday - Wednesday.  Before James' schedule changed we would walk to church. It was about a 35-40 minute walk from o

Well James and I got back from Aniak on Sunday and James got sick. He had some kind of head cold all week. Now he has a cough, but his head is finally feeling better. I on the other hand believe that I am coming down with whatever he had. Not excited about that. Anyways here are a few pictures of our trip. James and I got up on Saturday morning to watch the sunrise. Well some of it. We got up and left the house by 5:45 and the sun had already started coming up. By 6:15 I was cold and falling asleep since I didn't go to bed till midnight the night before. So we went back to the house. Made coffee, James played a video game, and I read my kindle. Everyone else didn't get up for another hour or so. At leas they didn't come out of their rooms. When everyone was up the fun began. We finished getting the house ready for the graduation party. 

Well James and I are in Aniak this weekend for our cousin graduation. James' grandparents are also up here. We are enjoying spending time with family. As I  am writing everyone is singing. It's so nice to be back here and listening to the singing. It's been so quiet for James and I in Bethel. I've been taking pictures with my new camera that James got me in when we were in Anchorage a couple of weeks ago. I'll try posting pictures next week after I get home.

Here are a few pictures of our apartment.  The living room Kitchen Living room looking into bathroom View from the stairs Don't mind the mess. Our room/ Upstairs  Front door Entry way  Hope you enjoy some of these.

Well James and I made it to Anchorage. :) We had an awesome day today (Friday) We got all of our shopping done. We will go mail it all tomorrow. Also James took me out to Olive Garden. One just opened up here in Anchorage. It was amazing. I'm happy to get out of the village for a few days. I've enjoyed living there. I'm looking forward to going back home. But I need to get out for a little bit. So when James and I were driving to go to Olive Garden his aunt called me to ask me to pick up something. While I was on the phone with we missed our exit. That is the only thing we can think of that happen. We kept driving and driving. The mountains were beautiful. James and I were in awe of them. Finally we turned around after driving for at least 20-30 minutes to head back to see if we could find the road we needed. We found it right away. We felt like we needed to go on that small drive. It was amazing to see God's beautiful creation.

I have 1 year and 1 month until I get to go back to Michigan. My second to youngest sister will be graduating high school, and I told myself (and James) that I have to be at all my sisters graduations. I know it sounds silly, but that is the one thing I want to do for them. It also gives me an idea when I get to visit family. Not what I'm going to do when my youngest sister graduate. I still have about 4 years until she graduates and then I'll have to think of reasons for visiting my family. lol Once the time comes closer to next June, I'm gonna be so excited. I have tried thinking of ways to be able to go home and visit, but I don't have the money to really do that. At the same time I think it's a good thing, that way I'll cherish being home visiting everyone. I know James gets at least one week of vacation so we have to split our time between Michigan and Illinois, but that's okay. I don't mind visiting in-laws. It will be nice seeing everyone. I know

Last year when my sister and her family moved in with us, I notice my brother in law cutting box tops off of some of the boxes of food I just bought. It turns out that they would send them to school with their oldest son. So as the months went by I would give them my box tops to help out. When I move to  Alaska I was having a hard time being away from my family at the beginning. I decided that on some the stuff that I would buy had box tops, so I decided that I would collect them for my nephew even though I was gone. Well it turns out my niece was taking some to school too. Now when I get at least 10-12 of them I send them to my niece and nephew so they can take them to school. I send them every few months. I'm still collecting them for Carter and Kenna. When I send the next batch of them I'll probably have a little more then they other times since I look for items with the box tops. I enjoy helping them out even though I'm in Alaska and they are in Michigan. I've been

On Monday (3-26) James and I had enchiladas for dinner. As I was making them I remember the first time I made them. My dad called me into the kitchen to help him make these things. Knowing me I probably put up a fight. Anyways we started making these. I had to help brown the burger, warm up the shells, put the meat in the shells, add the cheese, put them in the pan. Over the years, I was probably early teenage when my dad first called me into the kitchen, I have come a long way in making them. My parents would send me to the store to buy the ingredients and then have me make them. Which was fine since I liked them especially the next day for lunch. I remember sometime in the first year of my marriage (i'll be married 2 in  May) my dad called me up saying he bought the ingredients. He wanted me to come make it for them and then told me that James and I could stay for dinner. Also fine by me since it was a free meal even if I had to cook. :) When I make them I learn that flour tortil

Last Saturday, (3-17-12), James and I moved Bethel, AK. We had a lot of fun with having different experiences when we first got down here. We had very limited items. We have 2 plastic plates and plastic silverware and napkins that we got as a wedding present from my best friends mom almost 2 years ago. Why we still had everything 2 years later I don't know, but God knew we were gonna need them. We have to wash our plates every meal  so we have something to eat on. All of our plates and bowls are in Illinois sitting in my mother-in-laws garage. We still have stuff in James' aunt and uncles cache to so we are kinda all over the place. When James and I first got here we had to go to the store and get some groceries. We bought and onion, not sure what I used it in, but I just remembered that I had to use a leather man to cut it on my plastic plate since I don't have a cutting board. It's been in an interesting experience to say the least. On Monday my knife set came so no

Well a lot has happened in that last week. James surprised me a bought me a kindle. He called on a place to live in Bethel. He met with the landlord today, paid a deposit and now we have an apartment in Bethel. He moved his few belonging in there tonight after he got done with work. I might be moving this weekend with him. We are going to talk about it more when he gets "home" for probably the last time. I'm excited to be moving. I'll miss everyone here, but I'm look forward to being with James again. We haven't lived on our own in almost 1.5 years. We have always lived with someone else. I can't wait until I can cook meals for him, so he doesn't have to eat soup or canned food for awhile. I would take pictures if I had a camera, but I don't, so you all will just probably have to wait until I get one. Well I just thought I would update you a little with the move to Bethel.

I think last week or the week before about wanting to get a new camera. Well this week I have really been wanting it. I know I  can't get right now, but if I had one I would love to share the pictures that I could take. It has been snowing every morning this week. It's a beautiful snow. I know some of my family back in Michigan might be jealous while others are thankful that they didn't get much this year. Back in October when we started getting snow, I was like this is too early. But then I have to remember that I live in Alaska now. Well now that it's March I'm thankful for the snow. We didn't get much snow fall in December and January because we were in the -40s almost the whole time. I think we even got to -50 one day. Yeah I know that is cold. I was loving it outside when it got up into the +20 and 30s every now and then. I felt like I could go with out a coat. A couple of Sundays ago I wore a skirt to church. It felt amazing being able to wear a skirt an

Today I as I was sitting around doing nothing, but being on facebook. I realize I don't really have a "life". I get up, do "nothing", talk to James then go to bed. 4 nights out of the week I don't have a life. I try to help out around the house when I can, but I don't like being around when school is going on because I feel like I am in the way and I'm a distraction. So I sit on the computer. Sometimes I watch movies or play the wii. I will occasionally read a book. I just haven't been in the mood lately to read a book.  When I talk to James at night he always ask me how as my day. The answer is normally the same. I got up, got dressed, got my cup of coffee and checked facebook. Then I will eat lunch with the family then go back next do for a little bit. I then go to the post office and sometimes the store. I come home then go watch a movie or check facebook again. Then I come over to see if James aunt needs help with dinner. I eat then I go back

Back in December I took my camera outside and some snow got into it and I didn't know it until just a few days before Christmas. I have been lost without my camera. I will be driving around and want to take a picture of the sun reflecting of the snow, or the mountains in the beauty of the snow. James has know that I want a camera since the day I found out mine is no longer in use. I got onto Amazon.com to look at their cameras and to price check them. I thought about getting one that was similar to the one that I have know, but James told me he wasn't going to buy me that type of camera again. It cost us about a $100 and the clasp part that holds the battery broke about 7 months after I had the camera. Duck tape became my friend then. I got the camera to last about 1.5 more after the clasp broke. I had it for 2 years so I got my good use out of it.  This is the camera that I want to get.  http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51-Pu6pHHxL.jpg James told me I might be able to

Earlier this week I posted about butchering and packaging  moose on my facebook status. Some people wanted more information on the hunting part of it. Here is a link that will explain more to you. I tried asking James' uncle and it was too much information to write down and have it make sense.  http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=hunting.general   I hope this helps you. Sorry I took the easy way out, but there is more then I even know and it is easier to let you read it. Hope you enjoy.

My last post was about me not blogging for awhile. I wasn't planning on blogging for a few weeks, but I have had some family members tell me they enjoy reading my blog and about what is going on inside of me. My sister-in-law and my aunt told me I should write about what goes on out here in the bush and how things are different, and what other adventures I can possibly have living out here in bush Alaska. So today I am going to tell you what I have learned about shipping grocery's from Anchorage to the bush by mail. I personally have not gone in to Anchorage to buy grocery's. James' aunt and uncle go to town every once in awhile. What I have learned from them is if you buy anything liquid, you should tape the top of it so it doesn't leak and the cap stays on while going through the mail.  Something else I learned is that you should put all your freezer and refrigerator items into two different totes and bring them back as your checked luggage. Also pack all your d

Almost every night I have a hard time falling asleep. Half of the time it's because I just am not tired enough to fall asleep, the other half is because my brain won't shut off. I always have different things that I want to write about in a blog, but then by the morning I forget about it. During the day I think oh I should write a blog.  I told James that I want to write one blog per week for the whole year. He just laughed at me and said, you'll run out of things to write about. Right now I feel like he is write, but on the other hand I feel like I can write a lot. Everything I want to write about is getting pregnant and the separation period with James being in a different village. So I guess I won't be writing a blog for awhile, since my last I don't know how many blogs have been about getting pregnant and my separation time. I don't want to bore all the people that might actually read this. So unless I can think of something else, you might not hear from me

"Don't pray when you feel like it. Have an appointment with the Lord and keep it". ~Corrie Ten Boom~ I read that quote in my devotional book last week.  I pray whenever I think of something or someone to pray about.  I feel like I don't spend a lot of time in prayer, but at the same time I feel like I do. When I pray I ask God to help me through a certain situation. I also thank Him when I pray for the things He had given to me. I love God's creation. I love thanking Him for making the mountains, the sunsets, the SNOW. I Everything in nature comes from God. This past month my prayers have been ones about wanting a baby, but also wanting it to be His timing. I've gotten so stress in the last few months that I was emotional. I have gotten a lot better with my desire/ stress of getting pregnant. Yes I want to be pregnant, but I'm not stressing about it anymore. I have several other things in my life that our stressful, that I don't want to make getting pr

So last week James started his new job in Bethel, AK. It's about an hour flight from the place we live now. While James is working down there he is suppose to look for a vehicle and a house for us. We know that this is where God wants us, but it's a little hard waiting and see what he has planned for us. I'm hoping and praying that James will be able to find a place for us to live and a vehicle to drive, so we can be reunited again as husband and wife. I get to see him Friday- Sunday, but it's not the same as seeing him everyday. Trying to have important conversations on the phone because they can't wait is hard. Last night I was started crying over some of the important yet silly little things. I really wanted him here with me so he could take me in his arms and tell me everything is going to be all right, instead he had to tell me through a text message. Another on my waiting game is getting pregnant. Last night I just cried and poured my heart out to God about it

I love my husband. I can't stand being away from him overnight. Our whole dating relationship was long distance. He asked me about 2 weeks before I had to leave to go to college. So I didn't see him until I would go home on break. I feel in love with him through talking on the phone and texting each other everyday. When I came home that first break I knew I was in love with him. I hate be separated. Always have. We had five months together with me not be away at school and it felt great. Then we got married. I was hoping we wouldn't have to be separated much. We both went on separate youth group retreat and I went to Tennessee for 5 days about 3 months after we were married. That was the longest we ever had been separated in almost a year. Now we are going to be married for 2 years this coming May and I still hate separation. You think I would be use to it since the beginning of our relationship we were away from each other, but no I can't. I did pretty well today when

For awhile now I have been wanting to get back into studying God's word. I occasionally will read my Bible when I feel that I need some advice or some sort of comfort. Back in November I got a catalog from Baker Book House, which is a book store in Grand Rapids, MI. Anyways I came across this devotion book by Joyce Meyer called Love Out Loud. It's a 365 days of devotions about loving God, Loving yourself, and Loving Others. I am going to try my hardest to stay focus and be able to stay committed in reading this. As I am also reading this devotion I am also going to be reading my Bible. Right now I am in the book of Lamentations. Why I am reading that book right now, I have no idea. Awhile ago I was doing really good at reading my Bible everyday and I read Galatians- Colossians, which there are also two books in between those two. After I got done ready them, I was trying to figure out what else I should read. Well I randomly decided to read Lamentations and I only got though tw