Faith, Fairbanks, and the Last Frontier: December 2011

Christmas is almost here! Time to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus! As we get ready for the busy Christmas weekend, we strive to remember the reason we are celebrating. Keep Christ in Christmas! I am sure you heard this throughout the last month. It is good to hear over and over again! Keep CHRIST in Christmas! Keep him as the center of your celebrations and the reason for which you celebrate. We are given blessing after blessing after blessing; Jesus being the biggest blessing of all. Keep CHRIST in your Christmas!

Christmas in Alaska:

We’ve got snow! I know some Wisconsinites are wishing they had some. Anyone is welcome here for Christmas. Please, come and enjoy the snow and yet quite pleasant temperatures. It’s been in the 20’s for the past few days. Not the normal temperature for this time of year, but well appreciated. Due to the warm up, the roads continue to be ice covered and slippery. Learning how to drive in winter all over again.

Jason has been very busy with two sermons each week, and now three for this week. He continues to LOVE what the Lord is allowing him to do. We had a friendship Sunday this past week, and had a few guests there. It was a more simplified service, with everything placed in the bulletin. We look forward to more of these in the future. I continue to play organ for church probably twice a month. I have also pulled out my flute to accompany choir and play with the organ. It is great to be playing again. We had about 16 members go Christmas caroling last Sunday. IT was so much fun! We went to two nursing homes here in town. After caroling, the director and I decided that our church choir should be way more than five people! We truly have some great singers that aren’t in choir! Other church news: About 50 members each Sunday! Ladies group Christmas party had 14 people and was a great success. Outreach team meeting and coming up with some great upcoming events. And much more!

I have 2 days left of work, then am off till January 9! I had had a trip planned to go to Wisconsin! Was going to be a great awesome surprise, but it didn’t work out. TO make a VERY long story short, I had to cancel my flight due to my principal at school not allowing me to use a personal day on a teacher work day. A bit frustrating, since it was the deal of a lifetime, but I guess it is not meant to be at this time. We will pray something else comes around. Even though life is going great, and we have been extremely blessed since we arrived, there are times I just need to see family and friends. Due to the darkness too, it would be great to leave Fairbanks for a bit! We’ll see.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Finley! He is 6 months old today! We are so proud of all our puppy has accomplished in his short life. Even though he has taken a few steps backward(in his teenage months we are told); not coming when called, not sitting on command, biting and mouthing a bit more, we STILL LOVE HIM. You’ll see from the pictures that he is growing and changing like crazy. He is close to 50 pounds, and getting darker and darker.

Sent out Christmas packages to families! Even though we think they should get them in time, we will do it much sooner next year. The post office up here is INSANE during Christmas. I am sure all are busy, but this one just seems extra busy. Have definitely enjoyed getting Christmas cards and packages; it really helps when being so far away from loved ones.

Christmas Eve we plan to spend here at home, after our service at church, enjoying our small but wonderful family. We plan to open our gifts, and probably enjoy some good traditional Christmas Eve food. If we are able, we will skype the Schmill clan around 11:00 their time, to see how gift opening is going. Christmas Day we will head to a member’s home after worship to enjoy some good company, great food, and God-willing a Packer win! I am looking forward to my break from work, and hope to get much accomplished. ON December 27, (happy birthday Angela and Beth), we are attending Mannheim Steamroller! Yes ! All the way up here in Fairbanks! See, it isn’t so bad, even Mannheim came all the way here.

We hope and pray that you and your families have a blessed Merry Christmas! May God be with you all as you celebrate the precious birth of His son!

Love from Alaska,

Becky and the boys!

Jason's Pesto Spinach Lasagna. Yum!!

He would spend all day out in the snow if he could. I don't know what he'll do when it's gone. Good thing we have 4-5 more months of it! Yeh!!!!

Being a big boy and not climbing up on our laps.

One of his favorite things to do.

Was going to be on our Christmas card, but didn't love the pic. Went with a Packer one instead.

My puppy! I love his kisses. Always thought that was gross till I had a dog of my own!

Finley decked out with his scarf and snow booties. He doesn't normally wear the scarf, he rather eat it.

Our new panini maker/grill. Decided it was too hard to start the grill in winter. Yum!

My latest achievements! I have been keeping really busy expanding my knitting skills. I have moved from scarves to hats and other things. (Can't show all my pics because some are Christmas gifts. More to come) This was a baby hat given to a friend of mine back in WI. She just had a little girl.

Baby boy hat made for a member who just had a baby boy two days ago. I really love knitting, and hope to keep experiementing. So if you have any requests, I am up for making anything. Gloves, socks, and baby booties are next on my list to master.

December thus far . . .

I know yet again it has been a LONG time since my last post. Life continues to be LIFE!

Since the last time I wrote, there really isn’t too much new. So this one will be mostly pictures.

Holiday times have been a little bit harder than I thought; more for me than for Jason. I very much miss all my friends and family. We are very blessed to have each other though, our congregation, and of course our puppy! We definitely pray the winter goes quickly, and that friends and family may be able to come up soon. My younger sister, Kimberly, plans to come up with College Choir from MLC in February. They won’t be able to make it all the way up here, we will have to go down to them in Anchorage. It will be amazing to have her in the state. Anyone is welcome ANYTIME! We know it is a HUGE expensive trip, but our door is always open.

Temperatures have been up and down. Today, high of 45 degrees! Crazy. Warmer than Manitowoc, WI. The bad thing is this is when the roads get very bad. They become a sheet of ice; so we will see what tomorrow brings.

Finley is about 45 pounds and almost 6 months old (Dec. 19) and is doing great! The pictures will show what he’s been up to!

Church work continues to go well. Jason is VERY busy with two sermons a week and lots of other work to be done. He is learning how to balance his time wisely. It is a learning experience for all of us. I continue to teach Sunday school and play organ occasionally. We have started Advent services here at Syndoulos. They haven’t had Wednesday night services for quite a few years, so it was neat to get them going again. We had quite a good turnout for our first service, as well as our soup and sandwich meal. God is good!

Friday night we went to a UAF (University of Alaska Fairbanks) Nanook hockey game. It was so much fun! WE got free tickets from a church member. We hope to continue to go to things like this. Fairbanks is a very busy city, with a HUGE arts program! There is always so much to see and do through the long winter. We are looking forward to experiencing many new things. We are in search of cross country skis and boats so that we can start trying out all the beautiful trails.

December 21^st brings the SHORTEST day of the year! We are almost there! From there, it turns around and we start gaining sunlight and minutes back. 4 hours and 26 minutes of sunlight today :(

Enjoy the pictures!

Fairbanks at -30 when the smoke from buildings can't even go straight up, because it's too cold. It goes up and then horizontal across Fairbanks.

Some members gave us this awesome big tree that they got from the transfer site (a nice name for the dump where people toss stuff they don't want), but actually people get rid of really nice stuff. Beautiful tree. Finley had just spend 4 hours playing with 4 kids, and was completely wore out, but of course had to sleep right by us.