A few more pictures of SLI

Here's three more pictures from Gambell.


The Walk for Life that we organized, mostly young people joined us. WE walked one mile across town, from the school to the church.

A carver friend of ours showing one of the carvings that I bought. Frequently carvers would stop by the church to show us their latest carving and find a buyer. The teacher's housing is probably the other most popular spot to find buyers. Sorry, I don't know how to rotate the picture upwards.

Squeakums enjoying some playtime on the school's new playground. It's a nice one.
And this year roads were put in around the town, for their ATV's. Now you can drive faster, not that it's necessary. Everything is within a mile or so. Before the trails were through gravel which still is what all the side roads are made of. It's a lot faster to walk on the hard road too. NExt year the plan is to cover it with asphalt or something.

Saint Lawrence Island

Upon our return home, BearCub's accent increased! His 's' sound has become 'sh.' Though now almost two weeks later he goes in and out of the accent...so perhaps it's starting to wear off.

Pictures:
1. Dinner with some local foods: Whale blubber raw and cooked (mungtuk) - it's not too bad when it' pretty fresh, just rubbery texture. Nice dipped in soy sauce. Also had bearded seal.

2. A couple friends that came by frequently to visit.

3. The mounain behind the village, you can see some of the coffins above ground there. THe graveyard is nearby. I understand that due to the frozen conditions sometimes coffins are placed onthe rocks.

4. Games with some of the kids, might have been an afterschool time or sunday school hour.

5. A few drummers during a traditional eskimo dance on the weekends.

6. ONe of the boys that came by, the boys love to wrestle.

7. Photo taken from the beach back toward the housing.

8. Praying at the beach facing north, this is also where I saw Russia from on a later day.

Back in Gambell

I, Calalily, saw Russia the other night. The horizon was clear at sunset, so I ventured out across the gravel paths to the beach where I could clearly see snowy mountains beyond the water. It's 40 miles from here.

I gave a haircut to a local friend here. My first time on curly,wirey hair. It wasn't a masterpiece, but it works.

Half of our YWAM team has colds. But taking Tuesday as a day of rest helped, so we could catch up on some sleep. Our next big event is Saturday's Walk for Life that we're planning, at the last minute.

BearCub, our 3 year old, is homesick still and reminds us daily that he's ready to go home. SUddenly in the last two days he's picked up the local accent, probably from playing with the kids here. It's the intonation that's so noticeable. RoseCheeks is fairly happy, but way out of sync in her sleep cycles and diet. She has a real hard time going to sleep at night and is very hungry, not eating the food we have here very well. At first she was constipated - there's hardly any fruit or veggies on our menu. Most food is what we could ship up here and light weight if possible. So rice, bisquick, canned soups, etc. We brought some apples and oranges to give away, in an extra cooler. They've been popular. A couple evenings I've cut up apple slices and shared them with the kids visiting us in the evenings. The apples are eaten as fast as I can cut them.

Being here a second time means some people recognize us. The young people are more trusting of familiar faces, so this time the youth are opening up to me when two years ago none of them did.

Got to get back to the crowds and changing RosieCheeks diaper.

Grandparents with RosieCheeks

We just finished a delightful two week visit from CallaLily's parents. We hiked, went to the beach, built a greenhouse, toured a wee bit, and spent lots of time at home. Squeakums got his second fish, this one teeny tiny.

We hoped RosieCheeks would take her first step and start walking while they were here. And she did take a step, while they weren't around to watch. But hasn't started walking.

First Flounder

Squeakums had his third birthday and received a kid's fishing pole from daddy. He excitedly went down to the pier for a first attempt at real fishing. As daddy cast and reeled over and over again, Squeakums liked to let his bait (cheese) just wait while he sat on the stony beach. On his final cast, both parents were silently praying that he'd catch something. The young fishermen all around us were pulling fish in left and right, while we had nothing yet. Then there was that familiar tight line. And a slow reel in revealed a nice sized flounder. Good job, buddy.

"Our kids grew up together"

Now I'm beginning to understand the depth of the phrase "our kids grew up together." It's not just a marker of time, or an era, or even of which kids know who.

It's more like a bonding experience. Having timeouts during a playdate. Giving their kid a timeout at my house. Apologizing for the screaming of my almost 3 year old, who is learning to deal with frustration. Giving one another advice on the parenting stage we're struggling with. Encouraging one another through the phases we remember, or recalling something I read in a book somewhere that might help. It's all a bit like being in the trenches together. We're combat buddies.

House Blessing Party

We're moved in enough to have our house-warming party, which we called a house blessing party. We gathered to pray blessing over the property and home and to bless God for his amazing work in providing us the home.

A good number of friends came by, some even had to park on the street. Rootbeer floats and banana bread topped the afternoon. It was a good feeling to know we have so many friends here. Though we've been here three years, I still feel like I'm new in town sometimes.

RosieCheeks is saying Mama and Dada already! What a delight. She signed and said Dada at the same time which really clued us into the reality of her communication. She's eight months old and on the verge of walking too! She's been crawly for over two months and now can hold her balance standing, very briefly. So she's getting into thngs. WE had to train her to understand the word "no" which she learned very quickly.

Have an older brother makes her childhood different than Squeakums. As a mom, I spend a lot of time keeping him at bay. I perhaps am too protective of the baby. Maybe I shoudl let them duke it out and learn to play together rough 'n tumble. Squeakums is almost three and loves to jump off the couch, wrestle with dad, and kiss his baby sister.

We are celebrating our anniversary this weekend through a friend's generosity. We are enjoying a local B&B, with massages and hot tub! A YWAMer is watching our son while RosieCHeeks stays with us. She still nurses every few hours and doesn't take a bottle yet. Speaking of food...she has mastered swallowing now and is eating well. I presume she'll gain weight soon and get back up to an average weight. She is a joy to everyone and a beauty to behold. Even strangers say how pretty of a baby she is. We agree. ;)

Golden Anniversary

SO many things to write about. In our new location I may have some wifi access, which means more frequent postings. Yay~!

Last weekend was our golden anniversary. Six years on the sixth. And our big present was...moving into our new house! That was God's present to us. There were so many miracles along the way of GOd making it possible for us to buy a house here that I hope to write the whole story someday soon. Suffice it for now to say He gets all the glory.

The house was builtin 2005! Three bedrooms and one bath, a garage, small fenced back yard...great for safe kid play area. And a decent front yard with southern exposure where I plan to grow lots of veggies 'n stuff. We have a view of the bay and mountains. PLenty of sunshine comes in the windows. Energy efficient appliances. We're liking the new paint colors we chose...always a risk. And our kids are doing great at adjusting to the move. Doens't even seem like there was an adjustment for them.

Moving day marked the first real blizzard this winter I think. Though Friday night there were blizzard warnings too.

Our second night here we woke at 5am to a beeping appliance...turns out the snow drifts had blocked off the exhuast vent for the propane heater. CallaLily dug out the snow and let her husband stay in bed! Kudos to me. He gets up plenty for crying baby.

We are well and blessed. HOpe to post again soon.

Growing kids

They grow up so fast, faster every day. My little girl is six months old now. She's started holding herself up on hands and knees, ready to start crawling soon. And my squeakums is approaching three years. he's quite a climber. We encourage him to be active and climb most places, that others parents wouldn't! Like on the back on the couch for instance. I hope that by letting him be a little boy as much as possible, he won't go do risky things behind our backs. Or take naked time for instance. He's allowed to be naked at home as much as he wants. We have never had a problem with him stripping down out in public...until a week or two ago. He wanted to take his clothes off during a YWAM meeting. But daddy said no, and he obeyed. However, he then wet his pants within the hour. Being naked makes it easy for him to take himself to the potty. So we should have clued in to that 'signal' and taken him to the loo at that time.

We are really close to closing on our home purchase. It's hard to wait to hear back from underwriting...the final hurdle. But God has totally had this thing in his hands the whole time. We believe He is blessing us with this home. And so I keep waiting, trying to overcome my own thoughts. We've chosen colors for most every room, it's currently all the same off white blahhhh. Then there's a lot of little details we want to fix. But it's a great house, at an amazing price. God was holding it out for us in the right timing.

Moose in my Compost

Today I took a broom out onto the ice, to clean up the mess left by a moose yesterday. Since it’s been thawing out in Homer, I think the smell of the YWAM compost bed escaped. It’s a lasagna bed which means we layered fresh kitchen scraps (nitrogen) with dead leaves or shredded paper (carbon) in the fall. By next planting season it SHOULD be a lovely raised bed full of compost…except for the disrupting moose. She ate through one burlap cover and dug into the layers below.

Today Squeakums looked out his bedroom window and saw two female moose (mom and yearling?). Probably one of which ate the compost bed yesterday. We watched out the windows as they nibbled and peed in our yard, then crossed the street to the neighbors place.