The Life We Live

Goodbye 2010

2010-12-31T14:06:00.001-08:00

Wow, I can't believe that the year is over already. It was an interesting year for us. 2010 brought a lot of changes for our life. It also brought a lot of growth and strength for us. Jon McLaughlin released a Christmas song this year that says something about thinking back about what a crazy year it's been, and every time I hear the song I can't help but think how fitting that line is for us. We are looking forward to the new year and the changes and adventure that it will bring us as we remember all that 2010 brought. I just hope that 2011 can be a little easier on us. Here are some highlights of our year.

Enjoying skiing several times at our favorite ski resort in Montana, knowing all along that it would be our last season to be able to drive just a few hours to such incredible skiing.

Tough times at PH. Lots of tears, frustration, and prayer, all while strengthening friendships that will last a lifetime because of the common bond we all share. We are so thankful for friends who shared that time with us.

A month of goodbyes in June: Saying goodbye to the life in Montana that we had grown to love so much. What a wonderful place. Saying goodbye to kids that we had grown to love, many we had seen grow up over the last four years. Saying goodbye to those friends we had made and grown so close to over the years. Saying goodbye to a wonderful cycling group in Polson that is completely unique that we miss greatly.

A fun drive from Montana to Indiana. We got to visit Yellowstone and Mt. Rushmore again.

Struggling to find jobs in Bloomington, where we moved in with my parents while we figure out what we are going to do with our lives now. We both did find jobs relatively quickly, and John found a job that was a better fit for his education background and hopefully a better foot in the door at the school corporation that he just started after Christmas. It took a little soul searching, but we've both decided to stick it out with education and do what it takes to find teaching jobs. We're looking forward to giving it another chance. Since deciding to become teachers in college, we have both felt strongly that there is a great need for Christian teachers in the public schools, and hopefully we will be used in that way.

House hunting has been a new experience for us this fall/winter. We looked at many many houses, and we think we have found one. We are in the process of making an offer, so hopefully good news about that will follow soon.

Building connections and friendships in our new community and reconnecting with family.

Finding a new church that we love.

We've definitely come a long way this year, in more ways than one. In many ways it has been a year of turbulence, and we are looking forward to some calm and rest in 2011.

Be Still and Know That I Am God

2010-12-05T19:51:00.000-08:00

This needs to be a theme verse for this time in our lives right now. This picture is one of our favorites and we have it hanging in our bedroom. It is a good reminder to be at rest and trust that God knows what he is doing in our lives right now. We are still without a home to call our own, living on the wonderful generosity of my parents. They have been great to us, and I know they don't mind us staying, but we are just missing our own place, our own stuff, our own life. We both still feel that we are in transition with our jobs, hoping for something better to come along soon. Still we feel very blessed that God is providing for every need, even if it is in a different way than we would have chosen ourselves. We are definitely growing a lot during this time and learning to be patient and have faith. I'm not saying that it is always easy, just that we are appreciating all that God is doing in our lives right now. Our new church is wonderful as is the small group we have joined. They have been a huge support to us in this time of waiting. Even as we are waiting, God is showing us ways he is moving. John has a renewed passion for teaching and is hoping to get his license renewed so he can start looking for a teaching job in the area next fall. He is going to be starting a new part-time job as a site coordinator for an after school program (same thing I do) after Christmas. He's excited about that opportunity, but will be quitting a full time job to take something part time, so we are praying that he will get this other job through the school system that he is interviewing for on Thursday. We continue to look for a house and have narrowed down our search criteria considerably. It is such a huge decision to make, and we don't want to rush into a purchase just because we are ready to have a house. This will continue to be a time of change and transitioning for us, but we will press on toward the goal, and continue to seek his guidance for each step we take.

The Move Back To Indiana

2010-07-05T12:03:00.000-07:00

What an adventure it was moving back to Indiana. We rented a Uhaul Trailer to tow behind our Xterra, and then we were going to drive our car separately. Luckily, Heather's sister Amber and her husband decided to fly out to Montana and help us drive back. This was great because it meant we didn't have to drive each of the vehicles alone, and we were able to share the load of the 1900 mile drive.

With the help of several other staff members at the ranch we were able to load up the trailer and both of our vehicles. The trailer was a 6 x 12 foot trailer, and we used every square foot of that trailer. When you opened the door it was completely packed. Heather and I pretty much shut down during the loading process because we were so overwhelmed and we knew we were not going to be able to fit everything. We loaded what we could, and then helped our friends Tim and Lisa, who also worked for the ranch, load there 26 foot truck because they were also leaving. They ended up having quite a bit of extra space, so we didn't have to leave behind much of anything. Tim and Lisa took our grill and our dog's 400lb. dog house (not small items!) and several other things which was a relief to us.

We left on Monday to head to Bozeman, MT to pick up Amber and Shawn. They knew I was really stressed when we got to the airport because the drive to the airport took a lot longer than I thought it was going to take. This was mainly because the trailer was swerving all over the road and it seemed quite dangerous. I knew something was wrong, and I figured it was with the weight distribution in the trailer. After Shawn pulled the trailer for a few miles, he concluded the same thing. There was only one thing to do...repack the trailer.

We planned on dropping off the trailer in Livingston, MT and then driving into Yellowstone for a few days. We stopped at the Uhaul facility in Livingston, and began to repack the trailer by taking almost everything out. The whole process took only about an hour and a half, and we even ended up with a little bit more room than we had the first time. I told everyone during the repacking that I was kind of having fun doing it, and it was a challenge to see if we could make everything fit. After a test drive to test out or new arrangement, we left the trailer and headed to Yellowstone. We spent the rest of Monday evening and most of Tuesday in the park. We saw a total of 5 grizzlies, which was certainly the highlight of that trip for all of us. We talked about going white water rafting, but that was going to make for a cold, wet, and early morning that we weren't really feeling up to. We left the park Tuesday evening and made it that night to Billings, MT. The next day we drove to Mount Rushmore. The weather was getting pretty bad and there were actually tornado warnings, so when we were done at the monument and had dinner we headed to Wall, South Dakota, which is right next to the badlands. We saw a lot of lightning, but we made it safe.

The next morning Shawn and Amber took our car and went through the Badlands. We waited for them at the end of the loop because we didn't want to pull the trailer through the national park. We drove a lot that day and made it all the way to Moliene, Illinois (almost home!). The humidity was not a welcome site, and we had to use the air conditioning the further east we went. We arrived in Indiana on that Friday. We made pretty good time considering the sites that we saw, all the stops for gas, and the repacking of the trailer. It was good to stop and not have to drive a lot the next day. I had a few extra days with the trailer so I took it to Greencastle, Indiana were Tim and Lisa left our stuff with Heather's other sister. It is all now at Heather's parents house and waiting for our next home. Thanks for your prayers and all of you that helped with the loading, unloading, or reloading (lol). I will post some more scenic pictures of our trip soon. It has been 2 months since the move and I am just now getting around to this.

Weekend of Training In Wallace

2010-05-19T21:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I haven't blogged forever and a lot has changed so I am doing a few posts all at once to say what we have been doing over the last couple of months. At the end of May, I had a great opportunity to meet with fellow cyclists and triathletes in Wallace, Idaho for a training weekend. Heather was occupied at the ladies' retreat that our ranch hosts, so I decided to attend the training weekend. I knew I had to be prepared for it because it was going to be several days of intense workouts. It takes forever for the weather to warm up here in the Spring so my training over the last couple of weeks before the weekend had been lacking. I did get in an 80 mile ride the week before around Flathead Lake, which was a cool experience. I had tried to get in 200 miles of biking each week for the last two weeks but I probably only got around 150 miles each week.

The weekend consisted of a 12 mile time trial on Friday where we each raced against the clock up a canyon right outside of town. It was a hard climb out but a fast ride back into town. I finished about halfway down in the pack, which considering the group of people that I was with I was happy with that.

On Saturday we ate a big breakfast and then spent most of the day on the bike. About twenty of us rode 130 miles. It was a ride I had done once before, and it is such a cool route going across a large section of the panhandle of Idaho. I often battle stomach problems on these kinds of rides just because it is such a long, physical day without regular meals. I am constantly eating nutrition bars, using gels, and drinking sports drinks because although physical conditioning is important, nutrition is just as critical. I have suffered at times because I have made mistakes. We did have one crash at one point, but luckily despite a few scrapes, a lot of dirt, and a pretty trashed wheel we were able to make it back to Wallace. It took about 8 hours total with some stops along the way. After the ride I ran a couple of miles. The transition from biking to running is often very difficult in a triathlon, so it is the kind of thing you need to prepare for. After the run, I went and soaked my legs in the icy waters of a stream near the house where we were staying. Sounds crazy but it really helps relieve soreness. After a nice dinner, we stat down to discuss the next day....a day I was rather worried about.

Sunday was a day for triathletes. Many of the people with us were seasoned triathletes having competed in multiple ironman events. In fact, we had three current pros and one retired pro with us. That may have been the coolest thing about the weekend. These people were amazing. Some of them have sponsors that provide them with fancy bikes, nutritional bars, and top-notch clothing. Linsey Corbin was with us that weekend, and she just won Ironman Coeur d' Alene this past weekend. Now that we are living back in Indiana, I hope I can continue to train with athletes like this because it can only make me better. We spent the day riding the actual course of Ironman Coeur d' Alene. We did 56 miles on the bike (or half of the course) and then half of the run course (13 miles). It took 3 hours to do the bike portion, and it was hard because there are a lot of turns and since it isn't race day, the roads are not blocked off or labeled. I got stopped at a number of lights and made a couple of wrong turns, so I am pretty sure doing this in under 3 hours is possible. The run was very hilly and I didn't take water with me, so I started to get dehydrated the last half of the run. It was a great experience, and if I can afford it. I would like to do Ironman Coeur d' Alene in June of 2011. I don't have any pictures but you can see some at Linsey's blog and you can see the perspective of someone just "a little" faster than me. www.linseycorbin.com/node/499

Roundup

2010-05-15T20:43:00.000-07:00

Thursday we had our annual cattle roundup, and it was probably the best weather we've had in the four years we've been here. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day to be out having fun. They start out the day with the seniors and some of the older kids riding the horses out in the field to bring in the cows. The funny thing this year was that the cows were all up over a ridge pretty close to where they wanted to bring them, so they sent some kids on foot to drive the cattle out to the people on horses, so that they could then drive them into the corral. No one was thrown off the horse and injured this year, fortunately (that has been a problem in past years). After they brought in the cows, they sorted them out and we ate lunch. After lunch, the fun began. The kids go out in small groups of 4-6 and they send in one calf that they have to wrestle to the ground so that it can be vaccinated and branded. Usually the staff don't participate, but John and I both thought it would be fun to give it a try this year, so I went out with the girls from my class and John did it with the boys from his class. It was fun! The idea is for one person to get the head and the others pull on the legs to knock it down. After chasing the poor little calf around the corral for a few minutes I managed to get it around the neck and the girls knocked it down. We managed to do it without anyone getting kicked, squashed, or pooped on, so I'd say we were pretty successful. The rest of the afternoon, they take the kids on horseback rides, we eat some more, and just hang out. It was a great day, and even better since it is a day we don't have to go to school. It even counts as a school day because it is an educational experience. Its kind of like a field trip to the farm, only we live on the farm.

John's Awesome Bike Video

2010-05-05T16:45:00.000-07:00

It's Been Awhile

2010-04-24T09:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm not going to lie. We've had a tough year. I haven't gotten on here to post anything recently because I haven't really had much to post. Things are starting to look up though. We have only 5 weeks of school left and we are so looking forward to that. The weather is getting warmer, the sun is shining more, and we are enjoying getting outside and doing some of the things we love so much.

We both competed in the Grizzly Triathlon this April. It was a lot of fun.
John has raced in 2 bike races this spring, including a 53 mile race with a lot of gravel.
I've been working on my homemade yogurt, and I pretty much have it down.
We took the youth group kids to a youth rally in Havre and they had a great time.
We went skiing a few weekends ago on the last day of the season and got to see a pond skimming contest. The water was probably barely over 32 degrees.
Did I mention we are ready for school to be over and it is only 5 more weeks!
John has been making a video for a contest on Bicycling magazine to win a new bike. I'll post it on here soon. It's really pretty good.

Homemade Yogurt Experiment

2010-02-09T22:07:00.000-08:00

I read on the internet the other day something about making yogurt at home. Since we have an abundance of free milk here at the ranch, I decided I would give it a try and I was surprisingly successful! It seemed a little intimidating as I was reading all of the directions, but it wasn't too bad. Basically you heat milk to 185 degrees, then you cool it down to 110, at which time you add some store bought yogurt for the live cultures and some nonfat dry milk to help it thicken. You pour it into your containers and then you have to keep it at 110 degrees for 4-6 hours. I put the containers in a cooler with water heated to 110 and just left it there when went over to a friend's house for a few hours. I checked it when we got back and added some more hot water, left it a few more hours and in 5 hours we had homemade plain yogurt. I wish I would have sweetened half of it with honey or something while it was still hot. I think that would have worked better than trying to sweeten the individual servings as you eat it. So far we've just used it in smoothies and flavored it with vanilla and had it with fruit. I'm hoping to try using it as a substitute for sour cream in some recipes and maybe using it as a dip with some seasonings in it. John is making fun of me by claiming that I am becoming Amish, but I thought it was fun.

Skiing!

2010-01-12T18:44:00.001-08:00

We got to spend Christmas (or really the days following Christmas) with my family this year here in Montana. After spending all day in Missoula on Saturday waiting for flights to arrive, we got home and had "Christmas dinner" and opened presents. We went up to Whitefish to ski on Monday night and then skied Tuesday and Wednesday as well. That was the first time that we didn't have to drive home after skiing and it was great! It was so nice to just drive about 10 minutes to the house we were staying at and have a nice warm dinner waiting for us. We also played lots of Settlers of Catan which I loved!

Now we are back to school and back to the normal routine. Last weekend we found out that they were having free night skiing at Whitefish, so we took the youth group kids up. They had a great time. They are a fun group of kids to hang out with.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas....

2009-12-15T18:09:00.000-08:00

We LOVE decorating for Christmas. We really enjoy having our house all warm and cozy and Christmasy this time of year. This year we got our Christmas lights hung outside, even though it was 9 degrees when we were doing it. I had to keep going inside to get my hands warmed up so that I could keep going.

We are even more excited this year about Christmas because we have family coming to visit. This will be the first time we've hosted Christmas in this apartment and only the second time my sisters and brothers-in-law have been out to visit us in Montana. We are going to Whitefish for a few days for some awesome skiing and we are all pumped about that. We have a cute little house rented in downtown Whitefish so that we can ski 2 or 3 days without having to drive back up there.

Christmas is a busy season here at the ranch. Sunday was the Christmas play which John and I fortunately did not have anything to with this year. No organizing a band, or playing Mary and Joseph- we just simply got to show up Sunday night and enjoy watching the show. The kids did a great job and had a fun time with it. We also have PH Christmas- when all of the staff go to all of the houses (6 this year) all on the same day, eat way too much food and watch the kids open their presents. That will be happening later this week, beginning at 7:30 am with breakfast and ending about 12 hours later with dinner. At some point we will be having a Christmas party at school, as well as a Christmas party with the youth group Sunday night, Caroling in the community on Wednesday, a staff Christmas party and Christmas Eve service at the church. Oh yeah, and another whole school Christmas party next week. After thinking about all of that, I'm kind of glad that my family isn't showing up until the 25th and 26th... Its going to be a busy and FUN few weeks.

Turkey Trot

2009-11-29T21:28:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful, much needed Thanksgiving break this year. It was great to have a 4 1/2 day weekend, and we were able to get a lot done and get caught up on some stuff. Thanksgiving morning, we went up to Polson with our friend Dave Moe who is a house dad at the ranch, and his daughter Katie and ran a 5K in some crazy dense fog. It was unbelievable how foggy it was because there was barely a cloud in the sky in St. Ignatius (about 40 minutes away). I was actually excited when I got up because it was about 47 degrees and clear skies, but when we got right outside of Polson it was like driving into a wall of fog. Anyway, the race was fun. There were lots of people we knew from the bike club running and it was fun to have friends from the ranch running with us. John finished in 20:30, somewhere around 5th or 6th place we think. There were probably over 100 participants. I finished in 25:45, which isn't great for me, but I was pretty happy considering I had basically stopped running in August until about 2 weeks ago. I am determined to do a better job training this winter.

John and Brande crossing the finish line- Brande almost caught him.

It was REALLY foggy!

Dave and Katie goofing off before the race.

The rest of Thanksgiving we spent hanging out at a couple of the houses. John played Wii and I played Monopoly with the kids. Friday we went shopping of course. We did get some Christmas presents, and we also got some great deals for stuff we needed, like a printer, new wireless mouse, and a coffee pot. Saturday we started putting up Christmas lights outside and decorating inside. We'll probably get a tree next weekend. Its been nice to relax and not have a ton of work to do all the time this weekend. Its a relief to know that Christmas break is only about 3 1/2 weeks away and those weeks usually fly by with all of the stuff going on.

Some Favorites from the Bison Range

2009-11-14T22:13:00.001-08:00

The National Bison Range is one of our favorite places to go around here. Its about 20 minutes away and you almost always see lots of wildlife. I was just looking through pictures on the computer tonight and came across some of these pictures from various trips we've taken to the Bison Range.

Survival Mode

2009-11-10T20:25:00.000-08:00

Lately things have just been incredibly busy around here and we have gone into survival mode. The end of the school quarter is always a really busy time (though not as busy as the end of the semester fortunately) and since our quarter ended today we've been busy finalizing grades and getting the dreaded book reports all graded. John is in the other room grading the last of his geography class assignments right now. I always look forward to the first week of a new quarter before there is any of this stuff to do, and then after about a week, book reports start being handed in and then there are papers to grade again and it goes on like that for the next 8 weeks. This time we have Thanksgiving and Christmas to look forward to interrupting the monotony of the school year. We are very excited that my family is coming to visit (and SKI!) at Christmas time, and John's parents are hopefully going to be here in a few weeks for Thanksgiving.

Last Wednesday night we were in charge of putting together the Harvest Party for our church again this year. We made caramel apples (ALL afternoon with some of the ranch girls) and spiced apple cider, and planned some fun activities in the gym. No bobbing for apples of course- we wouldn't want anyone to get the swine flu. :) It was fun and chaotic. The kids always have a good time. Its good to see all of them laughing and playing and just being kids. I didn't even take my camera, so I have no pictures. I haven't taken any pictures recently, so I don't have anything to share.

We are both hoping that the rest of the school year goes a little better than this first quarter did. The kids have not been doing very well in school, and at this rate, it looks like more than half of the students will be going to summer school. Not good! Usually first quarter is the best and then they start slacking after that, so maybe (hopefully!) they have started out slow, but they are going to finish strong. I guess we'll see. Anyway, we would appreciate your prayers for us, and especially for the kids and the rest of the staff here.

First Snow

2009-10-14T16:46:00.001-07:00

It got cold here last week. We're not talking cold for October, like 40's, we're talking 14 degrees cold. It also snowed probably 4-5 inches and it stuck around for several days. I think we got the snow on Thursday night last week and it actually just melted today when it finally got above freezing and it rained all day. They're saying it is supposed to be 65 on Saturday so we are planning a big bike ride while we still can. I do love the winters here and really enjoy the snow, but I am definitely not ready for winter to come to stay yet.

Quick Recap of our Busy Summer

2009-09-08T14:16:00.001-07:00

I have been a terrible blogger the last 2 months and haven't updated at all, even though we've been incredibly busy around here. We had a great summer and I won't bore you with all the details, I'll just post some fun pictures of the highlights of our summer.

Backpacking trip in Idaho/Montana August 2009

We both ran our first half marathons this summer.

We took a trip to Glacier National Park and hiked to Grinnell Glacier.

Our Latest Cycling Adventures

2009-07-08T16:49:00.000-07:00

In May this year we went to Glacier National Park for our anniversary and we rode our bikes up Going to the Sun Road (the main road that goes up the mountains and through the park) while we were there. It was great cycling- complete with many miles of steep climbing. We did this before the road was open to cars this spring, so it was nice to not have to watch for traffic. We rode almost all the way to the top before I gave up. Someone had told us that the snow was still on the road at the Weeping Wall (an awesome place along the road where the water just pours out the rocks) and when we got there the road curved and we couldn't really see how much further we would be able to go. I was pretty exhausted by that point because we hadn't though to bring any food with us, since we had read that the road was only open to bikers about 5 miles past the vehicle closure. It was definitely open a lot further and there was nowhere to stop and even get more water. We decided to turn around at that point but were pretty happy with the accomplishment and had a great time doing it.

We also did our first triathlon of the season June 21st in Kalispell. It was pretty fun, but we were both a little disappointed with how we did. The course was a lot hillier than we had anticipated, which wasn't too bad for the bike but was hard on me in the run. It was our first triathlon with an open water swim in the lake, so we got to wear our cool new triathlon wetsuits. John finished in 1h23m and I finished in 1h32m. It was an 800 meter swim, a 12.7 mile hilly bike, and a 3.1 mile hilly run. We are planning to do at least 1 more Labor Day weekend, and possibly another sprint the weekend before that in Missoula.

And finally, on July 4th we went to Idaho to ride on our favorite trail, the Trail of the Coeur D'Alenes. John had ridden it earlier this summer with some guys from the cycling club in Polson. They did 125 miles in one day. He said it was the most physically exhausting thing he's ever done because they rode it FAST and they also rode off of the nice flat trail quite a bit and rode over some mountain passes. We rode 100 miles on Saturday. We stayed on the flat trail because I wanted to be sure that I could finish. It was really not as hard as I expected. We, of course didn't ride as hard as the guys did, but we rode at a pretty good pace. We stopped at a little town on the lake and bought some lunch and rested a little bit, then headed back the same direction. On the way back we saw a cow moose with 2 calves in a little creek beside the trail. We finished 7 hours after we started, but figured only 6 of it was riding, and the rest was stops. We hurried back to St. Ignatius for a 4th of July picnic and fireworks. We were so exhausted we took our lounge chairs to the picnic so we could lay down for the fireworks!

Glacier

2009-07-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

This summer, since I am 25 I am old enough to drive the ranch vehicles. That meant I got to drive a van to Glacier National Park this week while almost everyone else went to camp to get things set up there (which is a day I do not look forward to at all). I was a little scared about driving a 15 passenger van on that narrow, windy, steep mountain road, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. John's van did break down pretty much in the middle of the road. His group got out and pushed it enough that they got it off the road so people could at least get past it. They waited with it for about an hour and it finally started again. It was a great day at the park- beautiful weather and as always, beautiful scenery. We saw some very cute baby mountain goats, one running all over the place and calling for its mama. The summer is flying by and I can't believe camp starts in a little over a week. After camp, we are going on vacation to Indiana for 2 weeks and school starts almost immediately after we get back. I definitely haven't accomplished all that I wanted to this summer and now I only have 1 more week at home. Oh well, I guess I will still survive.

Big Sky Country

2009-06-24T22:03:00.000-07:00

We were out on a bike ride last night around 8:00 and I just looked around and said to John "I love being outside at this time of night in the summer!" It is just so beautiful the way the sun shines on the mountains and lights up the sky, and it is almost always nice and cool in the evenings. We really do live in a great place and we never get tired of seeing the beauty of God's creation around us. I just wanted to share some of that beauty with you.

This is the area where we often ride our bikes

Lake McDonald at Glacier National Park

Running Eagle Falls at Glacier

Flathead River

What It's All About

2009-06-21T19:07:00.000-07:00

Lately, especially the last month or so of school, we've been feeling very frustrated and stressed with everything that is going on. Being a part of this ministry is not always easy. Actually, it is almost never easy. We see so many kids fail to "get it" while they are here, or they do well here and fall on their faces when they leave. God has been reminding me recently why I am here and what this ministry is all about. That doesn't mean it gets any easier, but helps me to remember why I am here. We had our graduation ceremony May 31st and we had 10 graduates- 7 Pinehaven students and 3 staff kids. That is a lot for our school. Some of the students were able to stand up and speak and share how their lives have changed. John led the whole graduating class in singing "Walk by Faith" during the ceremony. It sounded awesome, and that is exactly what our prayer is for these kids and for us as staff- that we would remember to walk by faith everyday. Its not always easy, and sometimes we don't feel like doing it, but we have to remember to give God control and let him be the one in charge. Pray for these 10 students as they are back with they are entering the "real world" that they would remember that. They are going to face more challenges than they can imagine.
Another huge success we have had recently was a young boy who just finished his freshman year of high school here, was able to return home to his family to finish school there because this program has worked for him, and everyone felt he was ready to go back home! This is truly why we are here and what this ministry is all about. Sometimes it is easy to overlook the success and only focus on the failures.

Lately...

2009-05-11T18:35:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago, the bike club in Polson hosted a bike race. I wasn't brave enough to ride, but John and I did some volunteering and took some pictures. It was a tough 50 mile, very intense, hilly course. We've been out training for our triathlon, but it has been hard to get on the bike this season for some reason. John finally went up to ride with the club tonight, and we both went for a ride yesterday. We have been doing the Friday Night Time Trial faithfully this spring and are having a blast. Its a race against the clock, on a 12.1 mile loop. We went the first week after a winter of riding a handful of times on the trainer and not really doing much other physical activity. We have only been improving since, needless to say. We've both dropped over 5 minutes off of our first times over the past 4 weeks, but there are still plenty of people there WAY out in front of us (especially me). One night we got to finish in the sleet. This picture is me finishing that night- cold, wet, and tired. The other picture is the same night. I love the light.
Gardening has also been on our t0-do list lately. We've been buying flowers and plants for our new yard. We didn't really get a chance to do anything last summer because we moved in so late in the spring and then we had only a yard of mud. This year we've bought some plants to line the sidewalk and the area in front of the driveway. We're kind of holding out on planting until the weather looks a little safer. You never really know in Montana.

And last, we had to break down and give Scout a bath yesterday. He smelled awful- like he rolled in something dead. He hates baths, but he is really pretty good. Once he tries to get away once and realizes he can't, he just stands there shaking with his tail between his legs, but at least he lets us do it. Unfortunately, this bath didn't really do the job and he still stinks. I'm not really sure what to do about it.Look at that poor puppy face. He looks so sad.

Triathlon Training

2009-03-29T14:47:00.000-07:00

We've started to work on training for another triathlon this summer. It has been hard to get motivated because of the cold weather. We did a pretty good job of swimming weekly throughout the winter, but the running and biking have been sadly neglected. The cycling club in Polson has a time trial every other Friday night, and the first one was a few weeks ago. We didn't go at all last year, but thought we'd give it a try this year. Its a 12 mile loop ride with some hills. It has been really cold both times we've gone and we are seriously out of shape, but its still fun. We waned to do a sprint triathlon in Missoula this spring but registration filled up too fast, and now I'm glad we aren't doing it. We have 6 inches of snow today and who knows what the weather will be like in 2 weeks, the day of the triathlon. We definitely aren't ready yet. Now we are trying to find a training schedule that we can stick with throughout the rest of the spring and summer so that we will be ready to do another sprint triathlon in June and hopefully an Olympic length in September. We even bought wetsuits for swimming in the cold lakes! So, starting this week we are going to try to stick with this plan of swimming, biking, and running twice a week each. That will be difficult to fit into our "live at the school" schedule, but maybe it will help us get our work done faster so that we can get out of there.

Friday Fun

2009-02-23T19:37:00.001-08:00

Friday afternoon was kind of a fun day for the kids at school. I took my class outside for some pictures, and then they got to go upstairs to see a cow's heart and lungs dissected. They had a blast (most of them) feeling the different parts.

What a bunch of goofballs.

Kaatje showing the kids the heart and lungs.

When I showed this boy this picture he said, "I was just so astonished!"

So Cute...

2009-02-23T19:34:00.001-08:00

Bad News/Good News

2009-02-01T13:04:00.000-08:00

We had an interesting day last week. We had been looking into getting a new vehicle and had found one in Kalispell that we wanted to go look at. On Thursday we finally convinced ourselves to go look at it, so we took some friends after school and went up to check it out. On the way there, we saw tons of deer standing around in fields and some crossing the road behind us. All of a sudden, there was a deer coming straight at us, and John swerved a little, but still hit it. It was pretty small, so it didn't do as much damage as it could have. The deer got up and ran away, but I'm pretty sure it still died.

Anyway, we continued to Kalispell and ended up buying the new car we were looking at. Its a 2006 Nissan Xterra. We're pretty excited about it. And now we have something to drive while the car gets fixed. We're already talking about some of the places we want to go now that we have a vehicle that we can drive places our car can't go. There are so many hiking trails in the mountains that are hard to get to. Even getting home when it is snowy is a challenge in our car, so we're glad to finally have 4 wheel drive.

Youth Group Ski Trip

2009-02-01T12:49:00.000-08:00

John and I help out with the youth group for our church, which basically is for the houseparents kids from the ranch, the ministers kids, and a few foreign exchange students who live with a member of our church. We thought it would be fun to take them skiing this winter, since many of them had never gone. They had a blast! Almost all of them caught on right away and were doing several blue runs by the end of the day. There were only a couple who didn't really get it, but they still had a good time. It also gave John and I the chance to work on teaching people how to ski... That was a challenge!

Big Mountain Skiing

2009-01-17T22:52:00.000-08:00

Today we finally got to go skiing for the first time this season. With the lack of snow the first part of winter, followed by the sub-zero temperatures when we finally did get snow, then all of the Christmas stuff going on, and John being sick, we hadn't been able to get out to ski until today. We were afraid it was going to be really foggy, and it was at the base, but as we rode the lift up it just got clearer and clearer and it was bright and sunny at the summit. You could look out and see the mountains sticking up out of the fog below. It was beautiful.

Its 2009 Already?

2009-01-11T14:21:00.000-08:00

The last 2 months just flew by. I can't believe Christmas is over and its already the middle of January. It does seem that the first week of school after Christmas lasted forever though!

We had a really good Christmas this year. We had school until noon on December 23rd, so we couldn't leave until the 24th. We were supposed to leave Missoula at 2 pm but the flight was delayed and we didn't leave until 7 pm. That meant we were stuck in the Missoula airport (a friend had dropped us off at 2- we thought the flight was only delayed 2 hours) for 5 hours. If you've ever been to the Missoula airport, you know its not a great place to be stuck. After trying to decide if we wanted to get a cab and go to eat somewhere in town, we decided we would just wait at the airport and eat at the restaurant there. The sign said it would be open until 6, so around 5:15 we went down and it was closed early for Christmas Eve! We got into Minneapolis around 11, went to a hotel, and left for the airport again the next morning to finally make it to Indianapolis. Then on our return flight, we got to Minneapolis on time, only to find out our flight to Missoula had been cancelled! We ended up flying to Kalispell, which is a longer drive back to the ranch, but still got us home earlier than if we had waited for the next flight to Missoula. We were glad to be home finally.

While we were in Indiana, we got to spend time with both of our families. We drove all over the place but it was worth it to get to see everyone. We went out for dinner with our friends Lynsey and Derek on New year's Eve, and then drove up to my sister's in Greencastle. We ended up being in the car driving back to my parent's house at midnight, but we both decided we must be getting old because we didn't really care about not seeing the ball drop. I guess we haven't done that for awhile though because since we've lived here we've been at the church's party on New Year's Eve and we don't watch it there either.

We got a new camera for Christmas from my parents. We are pretty excited about it and can't wait to get out and get some great pictures. We've already taken quite a few, we just haven't had anything really exciting to take pictures of. We planned to go skiing this weekend, but John had a cold so we decided to wait until next weekend to go.

Weekend in Spokane

2008-11-21T20:42:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we had the chance to get away to Spokane. We went to a Jon McLaughlin concert which was awesome. He is crazy on the piano! If you don't know his music you should check out his myspace- www.myspace.com/jonmclaughlin He is a guy we've been big fans of since IWU when we saw him perform at FNL and then saw him at a coffee place in Muncie and then again in Indy. It's exciting to see him get more and more popular. We got to talk to him after the concert and told him we were from Indiana (he's from Anderson) and that we'd seen him before. It turns out his mom works at IWU now. How funny! So after that we spent the rest of the weekend shopping and relaxing. We bought new stuff for decorating our apartment. We went to the Melting Pot. The bananas foster fondue was delicious, as was the rest of the meal. It was great to just be able to get away and spend the weekend together away from all of the school stuff we've been doing.

Harvest Party and a Trip Home

2008-11-07T15:43:00.000-08:00

Wednesday night, John and I had the opportunity to put together a Harvest Party for the kids from the ranch and the church. We had a great time. We weren't really sure how well it would go, but everyone really enjoyed themselves. The tradition for the Harvest Party here is to have people dress up in costumes and do a skit of some sort, which has just sort of fizzled out over the past few years. This year, no one did any skits, but we did have some fun activities going on. We bought about 25 pumpkins after Halloween at our grocery store for only about $1 each and we had a pumpkin carving area. We also had some fun games up in the gym, like a football toss, tug-of-war, pumpkin bowling, a variation of bobbing for apples where we hung the apples on a string and the kids had to eat them without using their hands, and of course knockout (the basketball game) because it is a favorite of the kids. We were pretty happy with the way things went. Several people told us that it was the best Harvest Party they had been to here, which made us feel pretty good. So we got our first taste of party planning and hope to do it again next year! We were pretty busy helping out with pumpkin carving so we didn't get a chance to take pictures of all of the fun that was going on upstairs.
Also, last week we got to go home for vacation in Indiana. It was a great week. We had a lot of fun visiting family and friends. It was especially nice to be there in the fall when the leaves were beautiful in Bloomington. We spent the first part of the week at John's parents' and had a good time down there relaxing and visiting. We got to visit Bryan and Becky and meet their adorable little girl, who I amazingly didn't take any pictures of. Thursday Lynsey and Derek and Annabel (another beautiful baby I ended up without pictures of) came down from Marion and Sarah and Katie and Melissa all met us for dinner at a Thai restaurant in Bloomington. Friday, we went to McCormick's Creek with Shawn and Amber and my mom and dad. We hiked around, and found out that Ace, Amber and Shawn's dog is afraid of heights and does NOT like to hike down hills. We had a fun time that day and then that night Lacy and Steve came over and we played Wii! That can certainly provide hours of entertainment. We also went to the Great Pumpkin Launch in Bloomington on Saturday before leaving for the airport and saw some pretty cool pumpkin launchers throw some pumpkins over 200 yards! I didn't take very many pictures while we were there, but I did manage to steal some from others on facebook and other blogs. (Thanks Mom, Lynsey, Shawn, and Katie!)

Nice Kitty...

2008-10-22T15:06:00.000-07:00

"There is nothing like living in a place where you can be eaten in your own backyard."

This is a picture of a mountain lion that our friends Mitch and Kaatje came across on a horse ride last week. Their dog scared it and chased it up a tree. It has been hanging around the ranch this summer/fall, but we haven't had any problems with it so far. We just try not to be out walking around after dark. It was somewhat comforting to know that it was scared by the dog.

Not much going on...

2008-10-14T20:55:00.000-07:00

Every time I post on here, I think how I need to get better about posting more often. I tell myself that I will do it every week or so. Then next thing I know its been a month again and I still haven't posted. I guess I just can't come up with anything interesting to post about. So this time, I don't really have much exciting that's been going on. Unlike our summer, filled with adventures, our fall has been pretty routine. We have been extremely busy at school and we just can't seem to figure out what we can do differently. I guess that's what being a teacher is all about.
John is teaching a new elective this year- Geography. We decided it was something our kids were really lacking in, so he agreed to teach it. Its a lot of work. He has to spend a lot of extra time planning and grading, but I think he enjoys the class. Its fun to actually be able to teach a whole class every once in a while. I am teaching computers again as my elective. The older kids class is not fun at all. I really don't enjoy it. The younger kids class is a new curriculum I picked out last year, and it is going really well.
We are really excited about getting to visit Indiana this month. We haven't been there since August 2007, and we are ready to see everyone and just have a little bit of a vacation from school. (I know- its only the 6th week of school, but you can always use vacation from school.) We're making all of our plans of what we are going to do while we are there and we are just really excited.

And just for fun, here is picture from the Bison Range last week. Its a little fuzzy because our camera only takes good pictures in good lighting.

Pack Trip

2008-09-22T21:04:00.000-07:00

This year we got to go on a backpacking trip with the kids from the ranch again. This is something they try to do every year, but it usually gets postponed because of fire danger, and then it snows and the fire danger goes away, but its too cold to camp in the mountains. This was a good summer because we had a good amount of rainfall and the fire danger was never very high. We had great weather the whole week, which we were very thankful for.
We hiked about 4 1/2 miles into this beautiful mountain lake right on the border of Montana and Idaho. There is a pretty nice campsite that people have just put together up there. We had a great campfire area and some people had built a long table between some trees. We went the first half of the week with some other staff and about half of the girls. The boys were at another lake about 30 minutes down the trail with other staff. Then, on Wednesday, we hiked those kids out, and the other half hiked in and stayed until Saturday. So, we were in the woods without showers for 7 days. Thank goodness for wet wipes.
Actually, one night I got the idea that I should wash my hair in the lake because I was feeling pretty gross. One of the girls had shampoo with her- who knows why- and Kaatje and I went down to the lake and I laid on this raft we found down there. While John was coming to bring me hot water, yelling and making tons of noise the whole time, two big bull moose came down and started drinking from the lake right next to the campsite. It was incredible to watch them. Montana moose aren't nearly as big as other moose, but they seemed huge. We thought it was really funny that John was making so much noise making fun of me for washing my hair, and the moose didn't really seem to even notice us.
We also did a lot of hiking around the area while we were up there, which was awesome. We hiked up and over the ridge behind the lake and went across the top and then down into this other lake where we caught lots of cutthroat trout. We also found an abandoned mine shaft above the lake and were able to go down inside about 30 feet where you could see it had collapsed.

John hiked with his backpack AND carried his guitar in the whole way, just so that we could sing songs around the campfire and have devotions every night. The guys at the boys camp said they could hear us singing at night and were pretty jealous. The kids all had a great time. We couldn't have asked for a better week, and it counted as field trip days for school! What could be better?

Vancouver/Victoria Vacation

2008-09-01T20:30:00.000-07:00

This year for vacation we thought we would take a road trip up to Canada to see some things on the coast instead of flying back to Indiana. After some adventures, which included getting a friend to the airport just a minute too late to make her flight back to Indiana, all because we were trying to pack up everything at the last minute, we finally made it. We decided at the last minute also, that we should drive up north to Canada and then cut across to get to Vancouver- BAD IDEA! It took forever and we were driving through the mountains almost the entire time. It was pretty though, and we got to stop at a waterfall we had been wanting to get to in northern Montana for awhile. So, the morning after we get there, John wakes up sick. We were tent camping, so being sick in a tent is no fun. I started looking for an inexpensive hotel, but we decided to just stick it out and fortunately John started feeling better that afternoon. We got to do some really cool stuff, like a sea safari in a rigid hull inflatable boat, which was like a roller coaster ride on the ocean. We saw a baby seal on a rock that was only a few days old and got some pretty cute pictures. We also got to go to the Vancouver Aquarium where we saw a baby beluga whale, and of course tons of other sea life. We took the ferry to Victoria and went whale watching and saw a killer whale. We would have liked to stay and explore the island a little, but we were so ready to go home that we only spent one day there and then headed back home. On the way home we stopped in Seattle to eat at the Cheesecake Factory, which we were way excited about since Seattle is the closest one and its 8 hours away. So we did really have a good time and got to do some really cool stuff. It was just an exhausting, adventurous vacation.

Our first Triathlon!

2008-08-22T20:03:00.000-07:00

John and I participated in our first sprint triathlon a few weeks ago, on August 10th in Great Falls Montana. We had a great time. We started thinking about doing triathlons after moving to Montana and learning about the triathletes who practice in our pool here on the ranch. We started looking into them and thought it would be fun to try a sprint- the shortest distance of the triathlon world. We did the Harvest Thunder Triathlon in Great Falls, which had a 500 m swim, then a 12.4 mile bike ride, followed by a 3 mile run. I didn't think my legs were going to keep going by the time I got to the run. John did really well and finished in 1 hr. and 15 min. which was 16th overall (out of 110 people). He finished 14th out of all the men. I finished in 1 hr. 26 min. which wasn't very good overall, but was 12th out of the women. Overall we had a great time and can't wait to start training for another one next spring or summer. Here are some pictures of us in all of our spandex so you can make fun of us.

Our friends Jeremy, Lynnette, and Katie were all there to cheer us on. Thanks for coming guys!

A Week In Photos

2008-07-06T20:34:00.000-07:00

This past week or so we've kept really busy with several exciting things besides just work. Last Saturday we hiked to Lucifer Lake, which is the lake above the waterfall that we've hiked to several times here in St. Ignatius. It was about a 4 hour hike in, then we stayed at the lake and fished. We caught several cutthroat trout, which John fried up, and Elvan, a friend who went with us fixed some elk steaks over the fire. Yummy. Right before we got to the lake we came across a young black bear right on the trail. We didn't see it until we were about 10-15 feet away. Actually, I was in the back and I didn't see it until John and Elvan both had their bear spray out. Fortunately it just ran off, and we didn't have any more encounters. It was pretty exciting and scary at the same time.

Thursdays during the summer the ranch takes the groups of visitors up to Glacier National Park. This week John drove and I got to go with him. It was the first week that the road was all the way open. We saw lots of goats and sheep and even a bull moose! It was a really good trip.

Saturday we drove up to camp to do some salmon fishing out on the lake. One of the houses from the ranch was there for house camp, so we took the boys out with us so they could do some fishing too. We caught about 10 that we kept on Saturday, then on Sunday we only kept 4 more. They were going to fry them up at camp for dinner but we had to leave to get home. It was a fun weekend.

And of course, we have an update on our dog. Last week some of the group members were working on painting the red fence that goes around the property on the ranch. Scout was out with them and decided he needed to be on the other side of the fence, so he ran right under the wet paint. He got red paint on his back, and it kind of looked like a mohawk.

The Grand Tour

2008-06-23T16:40:00.000-07:00

Finally, some pictures! Today I got around to taking some pictures of the apartment and actually got them loaded on to my computer. We love the new place. It feels so nice and homey. We are really starting to get settled in and we are working on getting everything put away and decorated the way we want it.

Its finally summer! Or is it?

2008-06-17T12:59:00.000-07:00

We have been pretty busy since school got out a few weeks ago, but we have been having fun. We moved in to our new apartment, which we love. I still need to take some pictures to post on here, but now that things have settled down a little I should have some more time to do that. We also had a good visit with John's parents when they were here a week ago. We went to Philipsburg, which is an old mining town. We also drove up into the mountains to see a ghost town. It was pretty cool, but we wish we would have had more time to hike around and see all of the buildings since you couldn't drive to all of them.
The weather has been kind of nasty the last couple of weeks. It rained almost every day for a week and was just cold, and then last week it got REALLY cold and snowed 4 inches overnight. It stuck around for most of the day, but the next morning it was gone and it started to warm up right away. Now its about 80 and it looks like summer might be here to stay, at least for awhile. We had vacation bible school last week. It went pretty well. It is by far the biggest outreach our church does. We have close to 100 kids I would guess, and only about 30 of them are from Pinehaven, and there aren't very many kids in our church other than PH, so most of those kids are just kids in the community.
This week summer school began. Summer school here is a chance for the kids who didn't get their work done during the school year to get caught up. I am teaching the girls class, and I have 10 girls right now. It has been busy, so I'm glad its only a half day of school. John is working up in the woods with the logging crew this summer. He is cutting down trees for firewood for the winter. Now that summer work groups and school have started we are settling into our regular routine. That is until camp starts at least.

School is Out

2008-06-02T14:46:00.000-07:00

We finally got around to moving into the new apartment last week, but we haven't taken any pictures of it yet. It looks great though! We are so excited to finally be in the new apartment instead of the huge old house.

We've been really busy the last few weeks with finishing school and all of the extra stuff that goes along with that, in addition to moving into a new place. We had roundup on Memorial Day, so I will be sure to get some pictures posted from that soon. It is always a lot of fun to watch the kids tackling calves. And this year no one got hurt, so that was good. We had to finish grading book reports and finalizing report cards all week, I was making a slideshow for graduation, a scrapbook of my class for my classroom helper who is graduating, and John was working with the seniors on a song they sang at graduation.

Last night was graduation. We had 7 seniors graduating this year, which is a pretty good sized class for our school. It was a wonderful ceremony. The song that John led the seniors in (Mountain of God, by Third Day) sounded great. The kids did a really good job, and one of the girls played guitar with John. They all did an awesome job. Since we have so few students, all of the graduates give a speech each year, and they were all very well done.
Well, John's parents are here, so I should be getting back to the house. They also got us a TomTom GPS system for our car, so I'm playing with that right now. Its pretty cool.

Hot Springs, Bike Rides, and Bears

2008-05-18T21:21:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went to Lolo Hot Springs to celebrate our 3rd anniversary. This is the first time that we actually went away for our anniversary and we had a good time. We rented a cabin, did some hiking in the mountains behind the resort, and soaked in the hot springs, which was wonderful.
We also took our bikes with us, and Saturday we drove to Lolo and did a forty mile ride on a pretty nice paved trail. It was only supposed to be a 30 mile ride, but about 5 miles in John asked me where my sunglasses were. I then realized that I had left them on the trunk of the car, so we turned around to get them before someone else decided they liked them. We have been doing quite a bit of riding this spring since it has warmed up. We ride often in St. Ignatius, but we also did a 50 mile charity ride in Missoula last weekend which was a lot of fun. We love riding with groups, so it was nice to be around so many people riding. Cyclists are great people.

After we got home Saturday evening, we planned to just hang out at home Sunday afternoon to get some stuff done around the house. We have a group from Lincoln Christian College here right now, and they were going on the hike to Mission Falls, so we decided to go too. (We've only been once before today since we've been here. Unbelievable.) I'm really glad we did. We took Scout and he stayed right with us. He was great. We also spotted a bear and a cub on the next ridge. We had binoculars with us, so we could see it really well, all from a safe distance. The cub was so cute and little. It kept running around back and forth behind the mom. (The picture is a little blurry because I had to zoom it in so much.)

Altogether it was a wonderful weekend. We have 2 weeks until school is out, and a few of those days we have off from school, so the time is going by pretty quickly. We are excited for summer, and finally having warm weather (it was 90 yesterday! What happened to spring?)

Oh, and be looking for a post about moving to our new apartment any day now.

Kidnapped!

2008-05-04T20:54:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago was our friend Jeremy's birthday. He leads the youth group, so the kids wanted to throw a surprise birthday party for him. We helped them get it all together, but we couldn't figure out how to get him to our house. Sooo... the best idea we could come up with was to go up to the house where he was hanging out and kidnap him. John and two of the boys dressed up with ski masks and sunglasses and all black and stormed in and made him come with them. He of course knew who they were so he made it really hard for them and made them carry him up the stairs. It was pretty funny. They all had a good time.

Snowstorm in April

2008-04-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, we certainly did get some snow on Saturday/Sunday. Our friend Jeremy said he measured 10 inches on his picnic table in the morning. That is a lot of snow for April 20th! Living in Indiana we always thought that the weather did some crazy things there, but I'm not sure I've ever seen that drastic of a change in such a short period of time. Thursday it was probably in the 60's and Saturday it got down to 18 and we got 10 inches of snow. Incredible.

I took the younger staff kids sledding in our yard yesterday. I'll try to post some pictures later. We had a lot of fun.

Signs of Spring

2008-04-19T15:52:00.000-07:00

I know this is not a fitting picture for a post title "Signs of Spring" but even as I write this, I am looking outside at a snowstorm. I just took this picture today. It is supposed to snow most of the day with accumulation up to 5 inches I think. So far this month, it has snowed at least a little bit almost every day. There have been a few exceptions, including last weekend and we definitely took advantage of the nice weather. My poor tulips which have been coming up nicely keep getting covered in snow.

A few weeks ago we had a college group here and we took them on a hike on the ranch. It was a nice day and its always beautiful at the top of the ranch.

We went on a bike ride on Friday evening and on Sunday afternoon, John played tennis, and we went to Missoula to enjoy some fishing and shopping, and also watched part of a triathlon. We didn't catch any fish, but it was a nice day down by the river anyway. John had planned a fishing trip with another guy for today, but obviously that didn't work out. We are really looking forward to the warm weather sticking around, but are glad to have the snow because any precipitation we can get now will help this summer. So, I guess we will just wait a little longer for spring to really stick here. I think spring is the season that just gets pushed aside. One day its still winter and the next thing you know its summer. Spring is not really a season, but more of a few random days spread out through the "spring" months. We will enjoy what nice weather we do have, and appreciate the snow and rain while it is still coming. Aren't the mountains beautiful?

We have less than 6 weeks of school left! We are excited for a change of responsibility for awhile. Summer break also brings many exciting things, such as family visiting, summer work groups, camp, fishing, etc.

One last thing... This is a rough time of the year for many of our students. I don't know what causes it, but many of them are really struggling right now. Keep them (and the houseparents, and the rest of the staff trying to work with them) in your prayers.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. ~Ephesians 3:20-21

The Wait Is Almost Over

2008-03-09T18:34:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you're all dying to know about our apartment. Okay, maybe not, but I'll show you the pictures and give the update anyway. The apartment is basically finished. Unfortunately, the road to get to the apartment is MUD. One of the guys that has been working up there says that some days you can't even get back there without four-wheel drive. So, we are still waiting. It has thawed out considerably, so they are going to be getting some gravel down on the road soon. When that happens, we should be all ready to move in. We walked up there today to check it out. We hadn't seen it since they finished it, and now we are even more excited and ready to get in it. I took some pictures of the finished product. Enjoy!The awesome laundry room with high efficiency washer and dryer

Brand new kitchen table

MUDDY road

Happy Birthday John!

2008-03-03T16:21:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is John's 25th birthday. Today his class decided to have a big birthday celebration for him. This was pretty special because the students in his class planned and made everything for his party. They made taco dip and homemade tortilla chips, which were both wonderful! They also had cake and cookies and pop. It was really a big celebration.

They had planned this all week last week, and asked for my input and help in a few situations. They even invited me and my students to come over and join the party this afternoon. I was also responsible for getting John out of the classroom so they could set up, so this afternoon I asked him if he could come to my room to help me with a math activity one of my kids was doing. Little did he know that I have 3 kids in the same math book and 2 of them had already done the activity earlier that day and I didn't really need help with it at all.

We had a great time, and the kids really enjoyed planning such a fun surprise for their teacher. My students even got into it- They could barely keep a straight face and keep working when he came in for the math problem. It was wonderful to see them so excited about doing something special for someone else. It was fun to see them work so hard to pull the whole thing together. They were so giving and truly wanted to do something special for John. I know he felt loved.

I wish I had thought to bring my camera to school today, but unfortunately I didn't so I don't have any pictures.

Long Winter

2008-02-27T15:42:00.000-08:00

We have had a long winter, but the weather has warmed up a little at list for awhile. That's not to say that winter is over; we actually got enough snow to cover the ground again this weekend, even though it has been in the 30s and 40s for several weeks now. We even got out and went on a bike ride a few weeks ago- the same weekend that we went skiing. I've never done those 2 activities in practically the same area in the same weekend before.

We've been busy and the weeks have just flown by since Christmas. I can't believe that it is almost March already. Before we know it, summer will be here. It just might snow again tonight though- They are calling for a few inches, but we'll just have to see.

School is going well. Some days we feel like we get accomplished and other days we feel stressed all day and get no where. My class has been improving this quarter in a few areas. They are finally starting to get their required work done -they are supposed to get 10 books done each quarter since they all work in different books and at different levels, and my class has been really bad about not completing their work this year. I told them at the beginning of the quarter that if everyone got all of their work done we would have a party and watch a movie. I don't know if that has been the motivation or if they kicked it into gear for another reason, but they just might make it. Recently I've had some really good days with my kids. I've felt a little more relaxed and laid back and they are working more independently at times so I feel like I can give them the attention they need and deserve. Hopefully they will keep up the good work.

We are excited about spring coming and being able to get outside more. We should be moving into our new apartment soon. As soon as the propane tank is in and the road is graveled it will be ready, but we haven't been given a time frame for those things. We'll be sure to post pictures of the new place once we are moved in.

Scout

2008-02-16T10:27:00.000-08:00

We have had our dog, Scout, now for a year and a half, and I can't imagine what we ever did without him. He is really the best dog we could have asked for and we really enjoy having him. Here are some of the things we love about him, or just funny things that he does.

1. Scout is a great soccer player. He will chase a soccer ball around the yard for hours if we let him. I discovered this when I was teaching PE last year and he would come down to the field with us and I had to hold him back to keep him from hogging the ball and not letting the girls play soccer.

2. Scout is usually very playful and active, and since we live on a ranch he gets to run free and play all day long. That way he isn't really hyper when we come home in the evenings.

3. Our cat Raleigh sleeps in Scout's doghouse with him. They are best friends and keep each other warm in the winter.

4. We have a Kong toy that Scout absolutely loves to play fetch with. Unfortunately, because it is round and looks like a ball, things with this shape are the only things Scout will fetch. Forget throwing a stick, or a rope toy, or basically anything that is not round or bouncy. When we were gone at camp during the summer, Scout was with the work teams on the ranch quite a bit and they liked playing with him. Since his toys were in the house, he started finding rocks and dropping them at people's feet so that they would throw them for him to fetch. Seriously, he came up with this all on his own. Now he can amuse himself with a rock just like a soccer ball. We're only afraid he will break his teeth one of these days, but there is no stopping him now.

5. Even though he is a lab, Scout HATES water. We have tried a few times to get him in a lake or played with the hose with him, but he is not at all interested. And he absolutely hates baths.

6. When kids are in serious trouble here at the ranch, they are often disciplined by having to go out and shovel manure. Scout thinks that these kids are his best friends. He stays with them all day and plays around, then walks home with them and won't leave their side. One day, one of the kids who was in trouble was given the job of moving rocks out of the road. Every time he moved a rock, Scout would pick it up and put it back in the road, like they were playing a game. I'm sure the kid didn't think it was very funny, but the housedad who was watching him sure got a kick out of it.

7. In the summer, when bears are out, we often have several around the ranch. Scout is excellent at sniffing out the bears and scaring them away, or letting us know that they are there so that we can see them. I'm not sure I saw a single bear this year that Scout didn't spot first. It makes us feel a lot safer hiking knowing that he is with us. Of course, these are usually small black bears on the ranch. I'm not sure what he'd do if we came across a big grizzly, but I'm sure we'd be safer than if we were alone.

Christmas in Montana

2008-01-12T18:25:00.000-08:00

We've been meaning to post about our wonderful Christmas for awhile, but have been busy getting back to work at school. This year, we had the privilege of hosting Christmas with my family for the first time. My parents and Amber and Shawn and Lacy and Steve all flew out and we celebrated Christmas here in Montana. We still haven't moved into the new apartment which we were disappointed about, but the big house worked out well with all of the guests. We had a lot of fun playing pool and board games at the house, and going skiing 3 times while everyone was here. Even my parents got out and skied.

The first day skiing was a disaster. The place we went was not great for beginners, so after everybody else did the lesson on the bunny slope, we took off up the mountain. I'll spare you all of the details, but there were many funny incidents, including a pile up at the bottom of the ski lift ramp when Amber fell, then mom missed the spot to stand up and ended up jumping from about 3 feet in the air, followed by dad who also fell. The three of them ended up in a pile at the bottom. I'm sure they didn't think it was funny at the time.

We tried again a few days later at Big Mountain, one of the best ski resorts in Montana and had a great time. The beginner skiers were able to buy only a beginner area lift ticket, so there was no danger this time of getting somewhere and not being able to get down. Everyone had a really good time that day. My mom did end up with a black eye however, when she fell on her ski pole. I talked to her today and she said it is almost healed. I'll not embarrass her by putting a picture on here.

On New Year's Eve we went to the church party and brought in the new year with prayer with all of the staff and kids from the ranch and some of the people from town. It was a good time as well.

We really enjoyed having everyone here and can't wait to do it again soon. If anyone else wants to come visit, we have plenty of room and we can take you skiing!

Christmas Play

2007-12-18T15:50:00.000-08:00

Our church has a pretty elaborate Christmas play each year, and this year John was recruited to play a part. He played an old man. Enjoy the pictures.

The First Snow!

2007-11-19T20:41:00.000-08:00

We have finally had our first significant snow here in Montana this year. And it was a big one! We probably got about a foot of snow Sunday and Monday. Its beautiful. The evergreen trees covered in snow are my favorites. Sometimes I feel like I live in Narnia. I feel blessed to live in such a beautiful part of God's creation where He shows us his splendor in so many ways.
We couldn't let the first snow pass by without sledding, so we went out after school for just a few minutes and played. Scout still loves chasing the sleds down the hill but won't have anything to do with actually getting on the sled. He picked up a new game this year though- Catch the snowballs in your mouth. He is a funny dog.

Anyway, we didn't bother digging our car out this morning, and we probably won't for awhile. (Why didn't we put it in the garage? Good question. I was wondering the same thing myself when I realized I needed it this afternoon.) We only have one more day of school this week, and then its Thanksgiving Break!

With all of this snow, we are getting even more excited about Christmas. I think we are getting more excited this year because we are actually hosting Christmas for my family. We are also glad that we don't have to spend our whole vacation traveling, which can be exhausting.

Love the Poor

2007-11-09T15:53:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to love others like Jesus loves them. I am teaching a junior high girls class at church and we are studying a book called Being a Girl Who Loves. I'm sure I'm learning as much as the girls are, if not more. One topic that I have been considering the last few days is loving the poor and what that means for us today. Jesus told us to love the poor. I think we (by we I mean I) tend to replace that word love with judge. We feel it is our job to judge whether or not they have a worthy reason for being poor, and then based on that judgment we decide if we can love them or not. John and I frequently drive to Missoula on the weekends. Every time we go there is a man standing on the corner in front of Wal-Mart with a sign asking for money. Every week we drive by and I judge him, thinking he should just get a job. Maybe he should just get a job, but Jesus says love him, he doesn't say judge him. In Marion we lived across the street from a group of guys we were honestly scared of. Being a young woman, I was afraid to be at home alone. I was judging them. Maybe I was correct in my judgments, but that is not what I was supposed to be doing; I was to be loving. Occasionally these men would come over to use our phone, and once they asked for money. One particular man John really was able to establish a relationship with. He started coming over to borrow the phone, and then he would stay and talk. This happened often when I was not even home. John played his guitar for him and he loved it. He played worship music, and sometimes the man asked for prayer and John was able to pray for him. I think that this is what it means to love the poor, but considering we lived there for a year we did very little loving of these men. I only know the name of the one man who frequented our house. I never took the time to meet any of the other men, or even the random kids who played in the yard. What an opportunity we had. Its not like we didn't do anything, but I just keep thinking of how much more we could have loved these people. I also keep thinking that if I were to move back to the same apartment, I probably still wouldn't do anything. How hard it can be to love strangers, escecially strangers who are so different from us. I have a hard time leaving my comfort zone, but yet that is exactly what we are called to do.

Hunting in Montana

2007-11-02T18:55:00.000-07:00

Heather and I were debating whether or not to go hunting this year. Neither of us have ever been hunting before, and I have to admit that I was a little hesitant about the whole idea. Many of you know that the ranch where we work gets a lot of its meat from hunting. During the first week of hunting in Montana we do not have school, and the kids go out with their housedads and other staff. Heather and I decided to get tags for deer because deer tags are less than $20, and that is a cheap alternative to beef.
We went hunting one day with some of the staff from the ranch and a couple of the kids, but we saw very few deer and non that were close enough to take a shot at. Later that same week, we were going to visit a friend of ours in north-central Montana. Her dad owns a 4,000 acre ranch, so we thought this would be a great place to hunt. Central and Eastern Montana is so different than the Western part in which we live. Our friend's ranch was flat and desolate, with very few trees. Deer are more prevalent in this part of the state and since there are few trees it is easier to spot game.
On Saturday we went out shortly after daylight, and we spotted deer within the first hour. We really couldn't get very close, so we kept looking. We spotted a couple of does that were close enough that I could have probably taken a shot. I had the gun on one of them, but just didn't think I could hit it from that distance. We got back in the truck and drove some more until we spotted a herd of deer. There were probably ten deer and one of them was a nice size buck. I told Heather that she should take the shot since I chickened-out on my shot. We made it close enough and she took a shot at the buck. All of the deer except for the buck ran off, which I thought was weird but he wasn't acting like he was hit. She fired two more times but missed. She told me to try, so I shot several more times. He had been laying down but got up at this point and started to run away from us. We followed him for about a quarter of a mile, I shot again, and missed. At this point you are probably realizing how bad of shots we were. The next couples hours were spent following the buck. We would get close to him and then we would keep moving away from us. I knew that if I couldn't hit him laying down, I probably shouldn't try to hit him running. Our friend was with us and was becoming just as frustrated as we were. We felt we couldn't less this large buck just get away. Also, we kind of thought that I had hit it because I could see something that looked like blood on its mouth.
We had walked so far from the truck that our friend decided to go get it and we would keep following the deer. At one point, we met up with some hunters at a road that the deer had crossed, and they said that the deer had definitely been shot. The red that I saw on its face was blood because somehow I had managed to shoot it in the face. Yeah, I know. Who shoots a deer in the face? We followed the deer, and I was able to take two more shots that could have hit it but it certainly didn't drop. We drove around the field that it was in and finally got within 50 yards of the deer. I chambered a round and brought down the buck. The last shot I took definitely did the trick and it was pretty much dead when I approached it. At this point, we were able to see just how many of our shots actually hit the deer. I had hit it in the jaw, across the front of the leg, and then the finally kill shot. I felt horrible about this entire process. I wanted to kill the deer with one quick shot so it wouldn't suffer, but it certainly didn't happen that way. At this point, I think Heather and I had no desire to go hunting again. We were able to get the deer field dressed with the help of our friend's dad, which was a interesting and probably too graphic for this blog. The buck was a pretty good size mule deer, and he had a 4 X 3 rack. This meant a total of seven points, three on one side and four on the other.
Maybe the funniest part of this whole trip was that we took our four door car with us, so that is how we got it home. I didn't like the idea of putting it in our trunk, so we wrapped it in a tarp that I had and put it on the top of the trunk. It was extremely red-neck and definitely turned some heads on the five hour drive home. Some hunters at a gas station commented on the nice size of the deer, but I bet they were crack jokes the rest of the day about the deer strapped to the back of our car.
After all of this, Heather doesn't have any desire to fill her tag this year. We had the deer butchered here at the ranch, since there were several other deer being processed. We were able to quite a bit of meat from the deer. I don't know if I will ever hunt again. It will need to go a lot smoother if I do. I would love to get an elk since they taste amazing and the tags are just a couple more dollars than a deer tag.

Trail of the Coeur D'Alenes

2007-10-15T20:25:00.000-07:00

This weekend we set out on an adventure. We had heard of a bike trail that crossed most of the Idaho Panhandle. It is the longest paved bike trail in the United States (at least that's what we read), so we thought we should take advantage of this and get out and do it. After putting it off for several weekends because of weather, we finally geared up and headed out Friday after school. By the time we got to the trail, which was about 1 1/2 hours away, loaded up our bikes with all of our camping gear and clothes, etc. it was already getting late. We were only able to ride about 10 miles before we saw it was going to get dark soon, so we found a campground and settled down for the night.
The next morning, we got up and headed out again, with what we thought would be about 62 miles to ride for the day. The trail was beautiful, flat, and paved, so we really enjoyed it. We were, however, freezing and our toes were numb. The sun finally came out in the afternoon and we did warm up. We had decided beforehand that we would stop at one of the towns along the way where the oldest building in Idaho, an old Catholic Mission, still stands today. The sign said it was 3 miles from the trail so we went that direction but after at least 4 miles on the same road, seeing no signs, we decided we had missed something. We asked a man along the road, who gave us some directions that didn't really make sense, so instead we just decided to turn around. About a mile from the trail John spotted a tiny, white paper sign that said "Old Mission" so we turned and finally found it. It was worth the extra trip to see. The building was built by hand without tools in the 1800's. You can still see the straw and mud used on the inside of the walls. It was incredible to see what they were able to build with so little.

So after seeing this, we got back to the trail and pressed on toward the goal- Heyburn State Park. We finally made it after 72 miles and I'm not sure I've ever been so happy to eat macaroni and cheese and canned chicken.
That night we had a visitor, who also must have been happy about macaroni and cheese. We woke up to a loud bang on our picnic table around 4:30 am. We realized suddenly that we hadn't done anything with our food to prevent animals from getting into it, and we had left our bear spray in our bag beside the picnic table. We were convinced that there was a bear just outside our tent and were scared to death. John yelled to try to scare it off, but it only growled. It walked around and growled some more, then we heard noises at the trash can across the road from our tent and a chirping noise... It was only a raccoon! Before I realized it was a raccoon, I don't know if I have ever felt so helpless. I just kept praying that God would keep us safe and whatever it was would leave and not come back. It did. We went back to sleep and woke up thankful to be alive.
That morning we headed back to Mullan, which took about 7 hours of riding, resting, eating, and drinking lots of Gatorade. We enjoyed the ride and all of the adventure that it brought (except the growling raccoon). The last 10 miles were brutal and we were so glad to be back in our car and in normal clothes and to sleep in our own bed and have a nice dinner. This makes it sound like we were miserable, but we really did have a good time. Our muscles are sore and still recovering, but it was a huge accomplishment for us to take on this long of a trip in a weekend. We rode longer both days than we have ever ridden in a single day. Just call us Lance Armstrong... Next stop- Tour de France. Okay maybe not.

Back to School

2007-09-04T16:44:00.000-07:00

Summer has ended and we are back to school. We started school August 27th but we had a 5 day weekend because of Family Camp, so we will go back tomorrow after a long break. Once again we had a frantic race to get everything ready the last few days before the big day, but we managed to get everything done. The first week of testing and chaos is over and we are settling into the normal routine. I am finding that this year is going more smoothly than the beginning of last year, now that I know how everything works and what to expect from the kids. We both have pretty good classes, and are excited to see what this year brings for the students and for ourselves. It is great to see the kids so excited about the beginnning of school and to hear their goals that they have set for themselves. Hopefully as the year progresses they will be able to achieve and even surpass those goals.

Family camp was fun this weekend. It was a nice retreat from normal everyday life, and the speaker had some powerful messages about the dynamics of families. They were great for everyone to hear, but I think he especially got through to some of our kids who have been so broken by their families. We are constantly being reminded of the backgrounds of our students, but I don't think we can ever be reminded enough. In the midst of a difficult situation with a student, it is sometimes hard to remember that they didn't have the life that I had growing up, and that there are circumstances beyond their control which have affected their lives in a negative way. Not that we are to dismiss their behaviors and put the blame on others. We must teach them to move past these circumstances and to put God in control of their lives instead of their dysfunctional lives.

Fishing Adventures

2007-08-06T09:08:00.000-07:00

John and I are not really fishermen. We occasionally tried to fish while living in Indiana, but never really had much luck. This summer, John was determined to get out and fish at camp, especially after spending the money to buy a fishing license. He finally had the opportunity to go out on the boat with Bob, the master fisherman, one of the last weeks of camp this summer. Bob taught John how to fish for salmon on Lake Mary Ronan, and showed him where to go. That day he caught 3 salmon and a 16" rainbow trout. He was pretty proud of his first real fishing trip.

So after having success the first day, he decided to take me back up to camp and try again. We went out with one of the housedads from the ranch and must have just hit the right place at the right time, because we caught 18 salmon between the 3 of us in only 2 hours. We could have continued catching them, but we had to go in to check the fishing regulations to be sure we weren't going over the daily limit. By the time we got back out, the fish weren't even biting anymore. We fried up the salmon and dozens of perch that the kids and the housedad had caught and had a great dinner.

Spring in Montana

2007-05-18T21:47:00.000-07:00

Travelpod has not worked out as well as we had hoped, so we are going to try this to keep you all updated on our lives. We haven't been doing a good job of keeping in touch and letting everyone know what is going on, so hopefully this will help with that.

Lately, we have been incredibly busy with end of the school year work, but spring has been wonderful. We have enjoyed the warm weather and the chance to be outside finally. We have been riding our bikes again, which we had missed so much over the winter. We went on a hike to a waterfall in the mountains with one of the groups that was here a few weeks ago. We are looking forward to the summer when we will have work teams coming on a regular basis. I am excited to meet new people who support our work from all over the country.

School ends in just 2 weeks. I (Heather) am going to be teaching summer school for most of June, while John works with the work teams. In July, we will be going to camp to help out there, and then in August we will be able to relax finally.

We have been doing well. We enjoy what we are doing. Sometimes we get frustrated with the little things, and we see kids who are making the same mistakes over and over again. It is hard to see repeated failures, but when we put it in perspective we are better able to understand. When we come to God he doesn't make us perfect overnight. We have to go through a painful process of change that really continues throughout our lives as Satan is constantly attacking us. We cannot expect the kids to instantly be changed, especially when we consider their backgrounds. We have to see them as Christ sees them, and be patient with them as they try to change a lifetime of wrong choices, made by them and many times by their parents as well. We have to show them love, not the frustration we often feel. Christ loves them even in their imperfection and we must do the same.