Happy Anniversary, Luke!

Thanks for three great years, Luke!

Maybe Keith and Mandy want to use this picture as their posterboard for camp next summer? :)

Renaissance: Correctionville style

This last weekend was an unexpected enjoyment.

A friend of the Demarest family wrote two fables that were set in the Renaissance era. Luke and I refused the offer to be in them at first, but then were suckered into it. We had one scene where Luke was a prince and I was a peasant. We were in love. I was pregnant, but Prince didn't know it. He left me to go explore the world. Feeling alone and without other options, my character got an abortion. I had to act "disshelved." That was a challenge, but I think it affected some people. In the other fable, Luke and I were just townspeople with a daughter waiting to partake of a feast. There was a man on stilts...this was so fun to see. These pictures feature Luke juggling, Luke/Deb/Gabe/Terri/"daughters" in line for feast and waiting, finally the tall man is standing up next to the castle. Later that night at Gabe and Terri's new digs we played Sequence and Apples to Apples, then went to lay in the road and look at the meteor shower. What a great night.

Sunday morning saw Luke attending church in Sioux City, and me in Correctionville. A tubing trip planned for Sunday afternoon and Luke's inability to go b/c of work was the reason for our split. I had some alone time in a park before the service for about an hour and felt refreshed. My church service was great and the subsequent events for dinner and tubing felt God-ordained. Finally I had the chance to talk with Terri, new sister-in-law, about faith and where she's at now. I'm so thankful she's in our family now.

So, weekend was good...got to make them count now that there's only one left until school starts.

Jerry Gazaway

I thought for sure I'd be able to find a picture of Jerry online somewhere, because everybody knows Jerry Gazaway, but alas, there is no picture, and not everybody reading this will know Jerry Gazaway. What is the world coming to??

Today I am at Panera and I was reminded of Jerry Gazaway. Jerry is a friend from Marshalltown who is best remembered by me as the man who took me and my sisters closest in age to Burger King about two Saturdays every month during the summer, and sometimes during the school year. If we were lucky, after lunch he would take us on a "who cares tour" around Marshalltown. To me, Jerry was the man who had lived in Marshalltown for FOREVER and who had a story to tell about every place we saw. Sometimes he just drove us around and showed us all the places in Marshalltown where he had put in playground equipment. Even though he had lived there so long, he still managed to get "lost" and would need our directions to get us home. He was the first person I knew to own a cell phone and it was hilarious to call Mom from the car as we pulled in. Cell phones were crazy! Jerry would also take us to roller skate at Skatetown every once in a while. What a great sport he was. I'm not sure now what he did for all those hours as we skated and danced on the floor. I'm sure he was just happy to see us having fun, and happy to give our mom a little bit of a break. Sometimes we got to invite our friends to go skating with us. That was just amazing. This is when Ashlee Duimstra was introduced to the wonderful Jerry.

The reason I thought of Jerry today was simply because I was sitting here at Panera (heavenly in itself) and I saw a man who was probably Jerry's age when he took us out (50's), sitting with four girls. They were probably his daughters, because there are probably not many people in the world who would treat multiple girls, they are not related to, to lunch on a Saturday afternoon out of the goodness of their heart. God knows we needed Jerry, maybe he needed us too.?. Anyway all these girls looked related and I'm willing to bet they got to pick Panera this morning. We always picked Burger King. Jerry would say we could go ANYWHERE, but we always said Burger King. If it were now, I might pick Pizza Ranch; the best thing to happen to Marshalltown since the Greg Roush family moved back. :) As the man left with his daughters he looked incredibly happy. That's what I remember about Jerry too, and about us as we left with our Happy Meal toys. We always ordered Happy Meals, even though Jerry would tell us it was not McDonalds. I think at some point we finally did start ordering Kid's Meals.

Thank you to Jerry.

Why must we all get older? This makes me so sad. I think this would be a good time in my life to hit the "Freeze time" button. It's a little depressing to think about how the Jerrys in my life are day-by-day getting older and I'm not there with them to enjoy our days together. I may see these friends the next time I find myself in Marshalltown, but it doesn't seem like enough. By God's grace I will be able to adequately express my thankfulness the next time we meet.

I can't think of the verse right now, but I know that somewhere in the Bible it says that if it is possible for you to give, you should give without hesitation. Give time, money, and PRAISE. I love giving and receiving praise. Time and sometimes money are a lot more difficult for me to give. I hope I can praise the Jerrys sometime soon.

Now it's time for the best part about Panera: the icy mocha. YUM.

Farmers Get a Snow Day!

I wonder if the farmers thought of today as a snow day. I get really excited when it snows and school is cancelled. Today it rained all day (first time that's happened this summer by the way) and I was excited for the farmers. I was also excited for the construction workers. They got a "snow" day! I should probably call it a rain day.

So, my goals for this summer are getting checked off one-by-one. Since this is my first summer at home since we've been married, I had many things I wanted to do that I just haven't had the chance to even think about. (Anyone who teaches may understand how certain things seem impossible during the school year.) For example, I used my bread maker and my fancy salad bowl. It seems ridiculous b/c I could have easily used these things earlier, I don't know what I've been waiting for.

Anyway, another goal I had was to kayak down the Little Sioux River. Luke and I started at Noon today and in 2 1/2 hours we had rowed 20 miles. It was a perfect day to do it--very cool and breezy, and we finished right when it started raining. I love going down the river. We've tubed before, and swam it, and gone in a canoe. This time it was just me and Luke and it was peaceful on the river. We saw blue herons and dodged sand bars. I thought the day couldn't get much better...but then there was a thunderstorm! Yes! I wished there was a video store around so that I could rent Twister.

I just got back from Texas!

AND Alaska! The top two states in size in five days...not bad.

Yesterday I flew into Dallas after a six hour flight overnight from Anchorage, Alaska.

I was a little delirious due to lack of sleep and all of a sudden it hit me that I was in Texas. I said out loud, "I'm in Dallas...I'm in TEXAS." I was only there for about an hour, but I managed to navigate my way to my gate by using something they call Skyflight (picture a tram), and do some shopping, call Kelli, and soothe my stomach.

Funny that I was so excited about being in Texas since I just spent four amazing days in indescribable Alaska. Kelli and I figured out that on our first night there (Thursday) we were up until 6 am Iowa time. The clock in Alaska was only showing 3 am, but my body knew better. I don't know how I did it, but I managed to stay awake the whole three hour drive home so that Allison wouldn't fall asleep driving. I think it helped that it was still light enough outside to see the outline of the mountains and the water. It was so amazing even at night, so broad daylight was going to be sweet.

(This is a picture of Grotto Island. We saw it on our boat tour. It is home to sea lions and puffins and other fun birds.)

We slept until noon Alaska time, and set out for a walk on the town of Seward, Alaska. This was our first look at the mountains, water, greenery. This first day was overcast and a little cold. The next three days were bright and sunny. All the regulars at Kenai Fjords National Park told us that our days there were simply amazing for weather. Maybe the most beautiful they've seen all summer? It's arguable. Allison works for the park giving boat tours and leading hikes, and working in the visitor center. She knew so much, and I feel like I took home with me about half of the information she's carrying around in her head about Kenai Fjords NP. It was great to go on vacation and learn so much. I bought a book about the park to help me remember what I've learned.

So, my favorite things:

• On our first day there we found a gazebo by Resurrection Bay. The three of us read some scripture and talked and prayed. Connection is great. I discovered the truth that when we're believers the type of conversation that uplifts us the most is when we can discuss the things of the Lord. This is us by that gazebo. It's funny that this picture was taken at like 10 PM.







• On our second day we went on a boat tour. I was looking forward to this the most. We got to see FIVE whales. Four of them were Humpback whales and one of them was a Fin whale. We were very privilaged to see a Fin whale because it is the second largest whale (after the blue whale), and they are rarely seen because they can dive very far down, and stay under water for 45 minutes sometimes. We were in the cabin getting ready for lunch when all of a sudden the boat stops and our captain, who was very energetic and informative, told us we were fortunate ones. He spotted the spout from like a mile away, and rushed to catch a peek of this whale. He had no idea where it would turn up, but God was good and we spotted the arch of his back many times. I hear we got a great view because they rarely breach or fluke. The Humpback whales, however, were much more active. Once we saw a mom and a calf feeding (see picture at right). They come up and skim the top of the water and take in hundreds of gallons of water. When they go back under the surface they skim the water through their baleen (like on Finding Nemo--did you ever notice the lack of teeth?) which filters out the nutrients. Later we saw a Humpback playing in the kelp, and then two more Humpbacks who were breeching (like in the picture if you click on the name above). Other wildlife: puffins, stellar sea lions, murres (the penguins of the north), and a sea otter (this is exactly how we saw our little sea otter). One of my favorite things on our tour was seeing the Aialik Glacier. It's a tide water glacier that was calving This was just amazing to me. It was so loud when the ice hit the water. I liked navigating through the ice covered waters. It reminded me of Titanic and it sounded cool when the ice hit the boat. Also a little frightening, but our friendly captain assured us all was well. The waters were so calm for our tour, and our captain told us we honestly had a great day for a tour: calm waters and lots of sitings. The tour lasted about 6 hours.





• On day three we went on the Lost Lake trail in the Chugach mountains. I was excited for an envigorating hike and I got it. I felt like I connected with nature and at many times longed to be able to come back to specific spots all by myself so I could really reflect. I guess I'm an introvert. There were times when we could see the bay, and the mountains, and the meadows of wildflowers. It was like The Sound of Music made reality. My legs got extremely tired and it felt good. Early in our hike we spied a black bear about 400 yards away walking where we would soon pass. Awesome to see a bear, and adventurous to think about romping in his territory soon. We yelled and sang as we passed the spot we saw him at. We never saw the bear again, but I'm certain he saw us. My favorite part of the hike was when we came across a lake that was hidden and appeared all of a sudden. We stopped to eat our lunch there and I couldn't resist taking a picture by it. We found a cabin that was in the middle of nowhere and climbed up a ladder to sit on the porch. We were like little birds perching on a tree limb to rest. The spot overlooked Seward and the bay and the rough terrain in between us and the rest of civilization. Allison has a great picture of our spot we found, and other great pictures of our hike that I will hopefully get soon. Kelli has better pictures of the whales, so I'm hoping to receive some mail from them soon.




• On our fourth day we partook of Alaskan-caught fish. Yes, it was fried because that was all our meager cash flow could afford, but I'm still proud to say I've had fish from Alaska. Halibut, to be exact, and it was so good. This picture shows one of the many crazy big halibuts that were caught in Resurrection Bay the day we went on the boat tour. This is one of the sights that awaited us when we got off our boat. The owner of the fish is the man standing at the very left in the picture. He was from TN, I think, and this was his first time fishing in Alaska. We spent some time in Anchorage at the best book store I've ever been to. It's called Title Wave Books. They sell new and used books, music, journals, cards, coffee and so many other things. It's Panera meets...best book store ever. You can trade in your books and buy so many others. I may do some shopping online!



• During our walk around Seward we saw the historic memorial dedicated to the Iditarod. This was so exciting for me because I do a unit every year on the Alaskan Iditarod Race. I guess Seward was the first starting point before Anchorage. I love my picture here under the sign that says, "Mile 0". I'm pumped to show this picture to my fourth graders next year. They will love it.

One thing I was nervous about were my flights. They were fine: freeing and toturous. It was hard to be so tired and not be able to sleep, but when you do sleep, you wake up with a very stiff neck. I enjoyed my uninteruppted time. I started and finished a book: Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry; a sequel to The Giver. I watched a movie: Bewitched. I listened to music and even chatted with my neighbors. So, I have many more pictures, and many more stories, but...you know. I'm available if you need more. :)

The sun'll come out tomorrow!

I hear the sun really does come out in Alaska, for like 20 hours at a time.

I'm leaving for Alaska tomorrow! My flight leaves at 4:30 PM. This is my first solo flight, and I'm a little nervous. I'm sure it will be fine. I just hope I don't miss a flight. I actually looking forward to the time I'll have on the planes and the lay-over time. I'm taking some books and Sudoku and an mp3 player with a screen, so I can listen to great music and even watch movies.

Of course I'm most excited for the time I will spend in this amazing state with my two friends Allison and Kelli. I haven't seen Allison for five months short of three years. It will be wonderful. I'm excited to see Kelli again too. Every time I see Kelli is nothing short of extraordinary. All three of us together will be hilarious.

So, here I come, Alaska! I hope to see mountains, water, whales, other large wildlife, and wide open spaces of grasses/flowers that go on forever! Going to bed when the sun is still up will be a fun experence. Wow, what a great opportunity. I'll miss Luke. I think he'll be ok, though. He's said many times that he's an "out-of-sight, out-of-mind" kind-of guy. Do you think that applies to wives too? Probably not.

Fall on me

I've never been so excited to hear the sound of rain!

It's raining right now...this is a sound I haven't heard for about 4 weeks, I promise. I'm sad because I don't think it's going to last very long. Seriously my lawn is dying. Bring on the rain!!