Hey yall,
Happy Thanksgiving! Well, now I guess I should say Happy Black Friday. I joked around with Ben yesterday saying that we should bundle up and line up at our local AC (grocery) store just to get the Black Friday feel. He wasn't so into it. Oh well, I think if I go to the store today around 2:00 P.M. I will be able to get everything I wanted to get at 9:00 A.M. Ben and I have so much to be thankful this year. We have an amazing family who loves us and has supported us on this crazy adventure on. We have friends from home and new friends that we have made here in Mountain Village. We serve a God who is sovereign and always in control. We have a warm house with a roof over our heads and food on our plates. It is my goal to be thankful everyday. If we woke up in the morning with only the things we thanked God for the night before, would we be happy? Puts things into perspective doesn't it?
Ben and I celebrated Thanksgiving with about 10 other teachers. We had a progressive style Thanksgiving. We started out at Amanda's with appetizers, we went to Melanie and Jamie's for the main course, and ended our evening at Rob and Donni's for desserts. We ended the night by playing rock band. Who knew Ben could be such a rocker. haha, I'm joking. He did get really excited about the singing portion of Rock Band. He enjoyed belting out or shall I say screaming out the lyrics to Eye of the Tiger. Never a dull moment. Ben and I have also been watching the T.V. show Friday Night Lights. To say we are addicted would be an understatement. It is such a great T.V. show. It has taken us about three weeks to get through four seasons. We only have one more season to go and had to have the conversation about what we would do once we were done watching Friday Night Lights.
School has been going well. My students are low this year, but they love learning and love coming to school. I'm so blessed to have a job where I smile and laugh everyday. I'm also three weeks into my tutoring program. I meet with third graders every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 3:30-5:00. Ben is still an amazing teacher and has started doing some pretty cool labs in his class.
Ben and I went into town (Anchorage) about three weeks ago and attended the Alaska Christian College Banquet. This is a "college" that is geared for Alaskan Natives. They have such a great vision and actually about 5 students are from Mountain Village. Anyway, here is where things get crazy. My College advisor is on the school school board for ACC and one of my old professors is now a professor at ACC. The people that we stay with when we are in town also work closely with ACC. Anyway, we end up at this banquet and see all of the above mentioned people. The bonus is that we got to see a few kids from Mountain Village. One of them was blown away that we both have had the same professor. It is very uplifting to see kids from Mountain Village actively walking with the Lord.
Anyway, we have about four weeks until Christmas break. Two of Ben's brothers and Ben's dad is coming to Mountain Village on December 27th. Ben and I are SO excited to show them a bit of our life up here. Adam and Wesley got to experience Mountain Village in the fall and now the other boys will experience Mountain Village in the winter. Two extremely different experiences. In the fall it is rainy and muddy and in the winter it is COLD COLD COLD. In the fall we take a boat, in the winter we take our snow machine. I'm hoping that it won't be too cold to go out and enjoy the amazing Alaskan land. Hoping they can also see a moose and MAYBE take one down. :)
Anyway, thanks for reading and sorry it took so long to blog once again. Please keep Ben an I in your prayers as we have some pretty big decisions to make in the near future. Details to come!
