There and Back Again (#2)

Well, as settling in goes we are...well trying! We are so grateful to have the ability to rent the house of some friends of ours who are over-seas this year. Their house is furnished and aside from boxing their family pics and putting ours up it is a really easy way to have this whole crazy transition happen. The other night as I went to pray with the older boys and say goodnight, I caught Sam laying almost fetal and working hard to keep from crying. He was tired and well, we all feel the heavy things more when we are tired but it is kind of like that leaving Alaska and coming back to College Station and not being in our old house. Well, we expected it to not be all warm and fuzzy feeling...but its still hard and harder at sometimes than others.


our new boat on a perfect Alaska summer day!

I have been promising pics for a long time and now that we have high-speed internet there is no real excuse to keep them from you any longer (except that the battery on my camera is dead and the charger was left in AK).

Here are some pictures from the summer…my hope is that this is convincing enough for you to book a ticket and come see us on Lake Clark!

praying over one of the cadet men after he shared his life story

We had 16 cadets, active duty, wives, kids and staff come on the Valor cadet trip this summer. Our strong desire for everyone who comes is that their time in Alaska is a stake that they can put in the ground and remember that the Lord did something in their life. We spend time in the mornings looking at "A Biblical Blueprint of Manhood", serve in the community or enjoy the outdoors during the day, study a biblical model of ministry/movement building in the evening, and late into the night we hear from one of the men share his life story.

the 6 who made the summit on a perfect day for a long hike

Most of the group didn't make it to the top when we took on Tanalian...probably one of my greatest regrets from this summer. We should have been able to get everyone up on the top of the mountain but I let down in my leadership that day. If I were in Army Ranger school I probably would have been "recycled". Oh well, at least no one got hurt in the process!

We had 10 days off between the cadet Valor trip and the grandfather/son/grandson trip.  Some of it was spent with friends and some of those friends like to fish too!

Zach, Sam and Josh helped me "guide" the trip with the grandfather/son/grandsons.  They did a great job and were a huge help both to me and to the men who were our guests that week.  The only problem is that its hard as a dad to tell your 9 year old son to leave the fish in the river for the others to catch.  Even with Zach catching fish there was plenty to go around; we had a great week of fishing, 100+ fish every day. 




I will post the pictures of a few of our other trips when I can get my camera turned on!  In the meantime, here are some pics to whet your wistle until you can schedule a time to come see it in person. 

cave-falls--creative name I know..

View off the front deck of the house. Of the 100's of pictures taken of this view, not one of
them does it justice but it will have to do until we can see you there!