Radical 80's Party!!

We attended an 80's party last weekend - talk about FUN! Big hair, bad outfights, over the top make-up...it was righteous!!

Here's Tamara and I...sweet girl and rocker girl...who knew? Here I am with a rockstar who wishes to remain anonymous! :)
Jeremy feelin' the love!

Hannah's hair, Hannah, and myself

The groupies.

School of Prayer 2009

Pastor Tamara and I recently went to Minneapolis, MN for Lynne Hammond's School of Prayer. The only thing I know to say is that I will never be the same!! We had half teaching, half put it into practice for 3 days, which means we were praying 3+ hours every day; I can't put a price on it. To have such solid teaching combined with that much prayer; there's a spiritual plane that was reached that I'll never go back from and I cannot wait to see how God uses it! One of the things that had the biggest impact on me was the balance between the things of the Spirit and the Word. Lynne's husband Pastor Mac Hammond said it best when he said:

• "The experiences you have with the Holy Spirit are mean to equip you to go back and CHANGE the natural realm, not ESCAPE it. If you use it to escape the natural realm then you become a flake and actually become a stumbling block to the Holy Spirit in the lives of other Christians."

On a solely natural note, we got to do some amazing shopping - lookin' good! :)

The Don't Song

Summer Doings

Jer and I have been busy this summer - here's some of the highlights!

Sam, Tony, Me, Jeremy - Kayaking in Halibut Cove Some sort of Starfish

Jeremy and I waiting for the water taxi to take us out to Halibut Cove to kayak.

Fireweeed in Homer - August 2009
Johnathan Hillstrand - Captain of the Time Bandit - Deadliest Catch

Pamper Pregnant Kendra Day!!

My dear friend Kendra is within days of giving birth to her first child (a girl). Amanda and I took her out for Pamper Pregnant Kendra Day!!! We ate at Snow City Cafe and got manicurs and pedicures. My cell phone will now stay on at night so I can make sure to know as SOON as anything happens! Congrats to Kendra and Andy - God is good!!

Kendra & Olivia

Amanda & Kendra

The 3 of us downtown.

Dipnetting

Jeremy and I had the priviledge of going dipnetting with Pastors Brant and Tamara. We caught 58 fish!!! Here are a few pictures:

Olivia The Salmon Slayer

Jeremy the great Alaskan Fisherman!Tamara got hit by bird poop!The Man - Pastor Brant

The Death of Elmo; Round One

One of my birthday gifts from Jeremy was an Elmo Pinata...here's round one. If you have young children who are Elmo lovers, I'll warn you, this is graphic!! :)

My 30th Birthday

Wow, has it been a long time since I've blogged!! And what better to blog about than how long I've been alive! 30 years, yipee!!! I had an absolutely fantastic birthday: it was a blind-folded arm wrestling, pinata pounding, cake eating, Frisbee throwing, Wii playing, plenty of laughing good time! The Lord has been so good to me the last 29 years and I am convinced it has been prep work for my 30's; I'm excited to start this new phase of my life!

My Olivia the Pig Birthday Cake!

The boys playing Frisbee in the park

The Death of Elmo (I'll post a video later)

Me and my dearest Jordy

Getting wooped by my boss (and pastor!) at blind-folded arm wrestling! :)

Must see!!!

So for whatever reason I can't embed this, so the link will have to do. If this doesn't move you...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Things you don't say to your wife

Oahu!!

God is GOOOD! Jer and I were very much in need of a break. I had been asking the Lord for just a few days of rest, and long story short, some friends of ours flew us to Oahu for 4 days!! We got there 1) on standby 2) without a single delayed flight and 3) despite Mt Redoubt!!

We had a fantastic time on the beach, driving around the island, and getting old fashioned sun burned and getting to know Mark and Monica better! :) We got to see Pearl Harbor, found the main beach where LOST is filmed, and had a close encounter with a sea turtle, and had a visit from a pigeon who stayed on our balcony and just wouldn't leave...even when I practically sat on him!! With Facebook being the rage, I'm not even sure who all checks this blog anymore, but none the less, here are some great pictures!

The beach right outside our condo:

The USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor:

The LOST beach:

A sea turtle sunbathing:

Our friend Bird who would not leave...and my sunburn! :)

Ravi Zacharias

Dr. Ravi Zacharias came and gave a lecture last Thursday here in Anchorage. It was an outstanding 2 hours...I need to re-listen to the CD just to absorb it all. As if the privilege of sitting for one of his lectures wasn't enough, we also had the wonderful pleasure of actually meeting him! God is GOOD! Dr. Zacharias is truly one of the most kind people I have ever met and there is absolutely no questioning his intelligence. He defends Christianity through intellect and critical thinking against the crushing tide of an increasingly hostile culture who believes Christianity is for the weak-minded, and he does it brilliantly! He is absolutely anointed in his ministry and I pray God continues to bless him.

I got this from his website...unsure if it is just an article, or an excerpt from his book The End of Reason. Either way - "In an attempt to escape what they call the contradiction between a good God and a world of evil, atheists try to dance around the reality of a moral law (and hence, a moral law giver) by introducing terms like 'evolutionary ethics'. The one who raises the question against God in effect plays God while denying He exists. Now one may wonder: why do you actually need a moral law giver if you have a moral law? The answer is because the questioner and the issue he or she questions always involve the essential value of a person. You can never talk of morality in abstraction. Persons are implicit to the question and the object of the question. In a nutshell, positing a moral law without a moral law giver would be equivalent to raising the question of evil without a questioner. So you cannot have a moral law unless the moral law itself is intrinsically woven into personhood, which means it demands an intrinsically worthy person if the moral law itself is valued. And that person can only be God."

Running of the Reindeer 2009

Today was the 2nd Annual Running of the Reindeer in downtown Anchorage as part of our Fur Rondy Festival.

It kind of takes after the running of the bulls in Spain...only Reindeer antlers are soft and grown inward, so you have less chance of getting gorged...thank God!

Tony convinced Jeremy to run with him...and here they are! :)

(photos courtesy of and copyrighted by Jennifer Wolf)

Jeremy...looking over his shoulder at the approaching reindeer...

Jeremy...again looking over his shoulder for the reindeer (plural)...

Tony...oblivious to the approaching reindeer!!

January Weather

So the Chinook came through Anchorage this week. About 8 days ago, we had temperatures in the -30's. Then, almost overnight we jumped up to the +30s and all our snow began to melt. We also got a lot of rain, turning all the snow-packed roads into skating rinks! Anchorage School District closed school for the first time in the 5 years we've been here. Followed by the Chinook came 3 days of 80mph+ winds. Our neighbor's tree blew down...it was GOD that it didn't hit our house. We did have to replace a few shingles on the roof though. It's nice to have the warmer weather...I'm sure it'll get cold again before we get the REAL Breakup...It is only January afterall...

The neighbor's tree snapped off....

...and took out his fence.

Geoff and Jeremy checking out the roof.

Replacing the shingles.

Midtown Anchorage from my roof!!

The Battle of the Jack's

24 and LOST are both back this month...the Jacks are back!!!!!!!!!

Christmas II

I cannot even begin to tell you how blessed we were to be able to see our families for Christmas. And considering it was Snowpocalypse while we were there, it can't be denied that God's hand was upon us.

After flying into Seattle, we picked up our rental car and drove to Portland where we spent a few days with Matt and Janae. We met our niece Elliana for the first time and Carol threw Jeremy a surprise birthday (32nd!!) party! It was wonderful to see everyone.

On the 23rd we drove to Seattle where we spent the next 5 days with the Miller family at Becky and Stewart's. Sam also flew down from Anchorage; I think it's been 8 years since the entire Miller family, including spouses has been together for Christmas. It was SUCH a blessing and we had a lot of fun!!

All together...God is SO good!!