Feeling Better

Thanks for the prayers. I'm feeling somewhat better. Last night was the first goodnight's sleep I've gotten in about a week. Between not being able to sleep because my throat hurt so bad to coughing all night it's been rough. My body needed sleep but couldn't and I had to keep going. Joleesa still is feeling rough so if you'd continue to pray for both of us as well as Jessa is sick again. The girl's been working so many hours she doesn't know if she's coming or going and she's gotten so rundown she is sick again. She'll not be able to go to the assembly either. She just really needs her prayers.

We leave out tomorrow night and I still don't have everything ready. I've never been so last minute, but life just hasn't slowed down at work, home or church.

We had 11 young people go to a park for a youth night Saturday night. We had 13 in SS on Sunday. Our church was 3/4 youth. How awesome is that. We had a great SS class and I know that they've had great time fellowshipping (Isaiah and Micah were here for Josh and Jackie's wedding reception). It's been a good but busy weekend.

I won't be posting now until labor day. God bless everyone. Have safe travel.

The Bug Has Found Me

Please pray for me. The bug that everybody had a couple of weeks ago finally found me. Sore throat, chest and head hurts. I can't be sick. Between work, home and trying to get ready for the assembly I don't have time to be sick. They let my co-worker go. She just wasn't cutting it. It's a long story but they asked me first because they knew I'd be the one covering most of her desk. I reminded them of my vacation before they did it and we all agree later would be worse. So here I am sick, I have to get my own desk caught up and get ahead AND cover her's too. But at least I'm not my boss, he has to cover both of our desks while I'm gone AND his boss is gone getting married at the same time.

Saturday I went and did a little shopping, went to Jenna's company's dept bbq and the met Heather, Matt, Codi, Joleesa and Jenna in a lot of laughs by playing I Buy. I won, because they didn't finish the game. I always lose in the last round. I'll take the win.

Last night Brother Nowling and I went and visited the Textures. It was a good visit. I find I spend so much time with the youth that I haven't spend time with anyone else. I've got to get more balanced. We then drove around town for a little while as we knew that the youth were at our house and just enjoyed the two of us being together. When we got home we had the pleasant surprise of Rusty Cabelas being here. He's here for training. So it was Tim, Larry, Heather, Rusty the girls and us. I'm not sure who gave us more laughs my husband or Rusty. Usually at my expense or the girls...but you know what it was ok. I love him any way and they'll come a time I'll get Brother Rusty.

Well, I think I'm going to eat and go to bed.

A Quiet Weekend

UGH! OK I lost my post and I couldn't restore it...so I'm going to bed. I'll have to post another time.

Our Journey Through Wittier

Tuesday night was such a pleasant evening (read my previous post for more details). See us enter the tunnel, surrounded by cave walls, driving on railroad tracks, and seeing the "light at the end of the tunnel". Ryan, the young fisherman that you'll see turns into our tour guide and Brother Nowling had a great time having Joleesa with them trying to get her interested in "fish"(yeah right ~smile). The tall building you see is where the residents of Whittier live (with the exception of Ryan and one other guy who lives up the mountain in two seperate cabins). Whittier's post office and clinic are in there too. The walkway way is an underground pedestrian tunnel that gets walkers across town. Notice all the waterfalls going down the mountains all around the area. The river was gorgeous, the buildings unique. My girls looked beautiful and happy by the beautiful blue water. And the last picture is my favorite person in the world looking a part of the perfect diet Coke commercial.

Enjoy our evening. (Ugh - I forgot blogger reverses things; I attempted to switch some...so just explore).

A Great Evening

Jody and I have been like ships passing in the night the last few weeks with his working Wednesday thru Saturday nights and sleeping days and me working days, and then company and all. We've not been able to do anything together. So I checked into going to Whittier. There is a 2 mile long tunnel that you have to pay to go through and it is a one way tunnel so it's got a schedule as to when cars from the different directions can go through. My boss helped get all the information and for a whopping $12 toll and gas (no big deal it's just about 50 miles away) we had a great evening veiwing Whittier and the Prince William Sound portion of the Ocean with lots of glaciers. Jessa and Joleesa went with (Jenna chose to stay home, but as you read then wished she had gone, and being Joleesa doesn't spend much time with her family we insisted she go). See, I don't mind the girls going, I enjoy them going that way when there's something Jody would rather do usually one the girls will stay with me.

Anyway Whittier is another place where the world ends...you get there and all you can do is turn around and go back because all roads end at the ocean there. It's got all kinds of shops but more importantly we met a cute and polite young man (17 year old Ryan). Ryan's dad is a phsyciatrist and his mom a CEO of a bank and he has 12 brothers and sisters that all live in Anchorage but he has chosen to live in Whittier the last 5 years helping his uncle run his fish processing/gift shop business. He owns a cabin up the mountain. He was out fishing and Jody started talking to him. To shorten things up some here, I asked him if he had time to be our personal tour guide and so he took on underground pedestrial tunnel that led to the side of Whittier where the 14 story building was that housed most the residents, the post office and a clinic. They have mobil community church, no banks or bars (but a liquor store), and a school that has about 27 students. They get abot 25 feet of snow so they have underground tunnels that they use in the winter. On the other side of these buildings and 100's of boats is the mountain and river and the most gorgeous waterfalls coming right out of the mountains. It was a peaceful, unique place and I thoroughly enjoyed myself and Ryan was awesome. Brother Nowling introduced himself as Pastor Nowling and it opened the door for questions. We thought he may be mormon, but not so. He seemed very interested and may come out to services, but before school starts I hope to take the youth to Whittier for a day of hiking and roasting hot dogs and we'll call him so he can join us. I had Jessa get his phone number and email address (Joleesa is too close to his age although he was having a great time telling her about fishing and teasing her along the way; with her dad's help).

Anyway, the night was perfect except for two things...my camera had no flash card in in it. Grrrr. Someone had taken it out to download pictures on to the computer. Fortunately Jessa had her camera with so we put her flashcard into my camera, until the batteries went dead (unfortunately my camera doesn't let me know how much life is left in the batteries). So back to Jessa's camera until her batteries went dead (before you think I was smart enough to think of switching batteries too, her's only takes two mine four)and the second bummer was the stores were closed there so, no we couldn't even buy batteries. It was 8 pm by the time we got there but one of the first places we went to was Ryan's store (by the way Joleesa came out quickly saying it stunk of fish ~ go figure it was a gift shop but there's a big sign on it that said FISH PROCESSING ~ Ryan was standing there talking to Jody and I when she came out, how perfect for HIM). There were a few other stores still open but we started our looooooong walk (to me it was long, and I don't even hurt this morning) and by the time we got back we were so thirsty and the only thing open was the liquor store and he assured us we didn't want that kind of drink (dah~grin)so he went into his store and got us some pop and tea. Jody insisted on paying for them.

Like I started out it was A GREAT EVENING. I went to bed PTL and in awe once again of his creation.

2 Place

I don't know if I already bragged (yes, I know that's what I'm doing) about having the 2nd highest sales in June for ADN advertising. I was quite surprised as my month started off really sluggish but it picked up in the last two weeks. Then on Thursday I had my 6 month review 4 months late. It was the best review I've ever had. Out a possible 5 I received 4.2. On the quantity of work handled I received a 5 and I got nothing lower than a 3.75. It's hard to believe as the first couple of months I thought I was in over my head and wasn't sure I was where I should be. But now I really like my job MOST the time. As I did I've been covering two desks as my co-worker is out on FMLA due to her health. I actually put in 3 1/2 hours today as I had gotten behind and at the pace of the newspaper business, if you get behind, you may drown. I got sooo much done with no phones or email.

I came home though and it was just Jody and I and he'll be going to work. I was feeling the empty nest syndrome as the girls are all doing their own thing and I have nothing to do and I'll actually be here alone tonight as Joleesa is spending the night with a friend. I hate Jody's schedule. I hope the next bid allows him weekends because otherwise we're just ships passing in the night. I DON'T like it. But I thank God He's provided and keeps providing for us.

It seems like blogland is quiet. I'm going to work on IYC devotions.

Jenna's Caught the Bug

Please pray for Jenna. She is now down sick. She even called into work. Head, chest and cough. Jody, Jessa and her have all had some form of this. I've been taking airborne and emergence-C to try to keep from getting sick. But I haven't slept well for several days so that doesn't help. My co-worker is actually in d-tox (the truth is finally coming out) so the burden at work is quite heavy and I can't afford to get sick (not that we ever can). Pray for her too if you would. Things are really messed up for her. She came to our ladies retreat. I just don't know how to help and/or family except through prayer.

By the way, if anyone's heard the news of a bridge in MPLS collapsing that is so scary. That is the bridge near the airport. We've crossed that bridge many times. It's been under construction forever it seems. The traffic on that thing gets really heavy during rush hour and it collasped at 6 pm, the hight of rush hour in that area. I pray for the people involved. What a mess.

Hope everyone has a great day.

Everyone is pretty much recuperated

I thought I better let everyone know that Brother Nowling is feeling better and so is Jessa. Brother Nowling actually made it to church Sunday night and Jessa headed out to Bethel today to spend a few hours with Sister Jacquelyn and Sister Annette, hopefully berry picking.

Saturday Jenna and I took Jeremy to Aleyeska and took the tram up the mountain. Jenna and him hiked on up the mountain while sat at the outside pavilion of the restraunt until I saw some paragliders gettin ready to take off. So I went down the mountain a little and sat on a rock and watched the rich people (it cost $189 for about 15 minutest)take part in it. It was beautiful to see them in the air, but I couldn't take any pictures because Jenna's camera was dead so she took mine hiking. Ugh, kids these days.

You all heard how Sunday went. Jeremy hung out with the youth without me, Sunday afternoon and Monday night so I rested Sunday and then Monday went to co-sign for Joleesa's car. Oh by the way, I've been feeling real old these days as we helped our youngest, our baby get her first car. She bought a 2002 silver, Dodge Stratus. It's a very nice car and she's lovin' it. I believe too she's having a hard time believing she's at this time in her life.

Joleesa and Jenna have just left to take Jeremy to the airport. Brother Nowling and I had a heart to heart, open and honest conversation with him regarding his moving to Alaska. We know the seriousness of his being in the will of God. We had prayer with him and we'll probably be seeing him soon. For the last 3 weeks we've had company for the last 3 weeks, so will life be back to normal? I don't know that I've ever established what normal is, so we'll see.

Outside of things being busy at work, and OH I took 2nd for the highest sales for the month of June. In January I took third, I don't know that I'll ever get first but I'm greatful for 2nd. It means BONUS. PTL.

Other than preparing for my cabin time for IYC not a whole lot of plans between now and then. That actually sounds good.