...Then Seattle

In March Matthew was asked to help with new station openings for Alaska Air. This means when they add a new destination, he will go help train the ground crew on Alaska procedures before the flights start coming.  So he was sent to Kansas City, MO for a few days to learn what to do, and I got to go along! His parents stayed with the kids and dog. I'll do a post about that trip eventually, but he also got me a really nice new camera (as an anniversary/birthday/Christmas present for the next few years) so here are a few photos as I tried it out in Seattle on our way back from Kansas City. These are artistic photos, not just snapshots of our trip, thus the purposeful blurriness.
Some street photography in downtown Seattle:

This picture says that life is blurry when you're focused on men...haha
"How deep..." --New York Times

Christy has a new job...

She loves her city!

Doggy updates

It's been a while since I added to our blog, so here are a few updates!
We said bye bye to our beloved dog Bingo at the end of January. He was 15 years old, and was in a lot of pain, and could barely walk anymore, so we had him put down. :( It was a very sad day. The kids all said goodbye to him in the morning before school. Bingo was the best dog in the world! He joined us 8 years ago, before we had kids. He was abandoned by our neighbors when they moved. We kept him hoping to find him a good home, when we realized what a great dog he was and decided he could stay! He has always been loyal and gentle with the kids, and had no bad dog habits except for occasionally rolling in dead salmon!

We now have a new dog, a pure golden lab named Honey! She is almost 3, actually her birthday is a week after Ashlen and Matthew's. She was given to us by a nice family who didn't really have the time to spend with her anymore. She's a very loyal, loving dog with lots of energy. Brennen has become her best buddy! Every night she goes to the kids' room to check on them, like she's saying goodnight, and comes to greet them in the morning.

She loves to go on walks too, but is terrible on a leash! I hope I can train her, but at least there's plenty of beach by our house and a few trails to run on leash free! Not Ward Lake (where this picture is) though. I guess Bingo wasn't good on a leash either! They just pull too hard. The kids are enjoying having a more playful dog, since Bingo had really slowed down in his last years.

Matthew update

Matthew has been working on our very old downstairs bathroom. Here he's peeling off the gross plastic shower walls that were peeling and oozing gunk from behind. We will be replacing it with tile, a new tub, and new flooring!

The first day of destruction went really well until this... Isn't that disturbing!! Yikes! While quickly stapling down a piece of fabric (with a hammer staple gun or whatever it's called) that goes under the new tub, he stapled his finger. One end went through, the other into the bone! So we spent the evening at the ER!
It healed quickly!

This is a lovely picture of what I would like our bathroom to look like! Well, maybe a simpler version of it!

And without a window of course..a window would only provide a not so relaxing view of our garage. But the bath will fill from the middle of the ceiling, like this one does!
Also shortly after starting the project, Matthew got hired as our church caretaker! This year we decided not to renew his contractor license, because we feel like God is leading us to other things...not quite sure what yet, but the caretaker job came available, and he is enjoying it! Although now our bathroom is taking much longer to finish than expected! That's ok. He still also works part time for Alaska Air.

He also has been involved in starting a new ministry at our church called The Upper Room. (Similar to the Monthly Grind, for those who are familiar with that.) It is a monthly night of music and performing arts featuring different local christian musicians, and occasionally will host other visiting musicians. Ketchikan is a very "artsy" town, and we see the need for a Christian venue for this kind of thing with the goal of getting all the churches together so we can get to know each other better, and minister to the rest of the community as well! Afterwards everyone goes to the little red church for dessert and fellowship! The first one was last month featuring singer/songwriter Barry Bynum from Texas, and it was a wonderful time! Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to post because Brennen and I were home sick during it! :( But I'll put pics of the next one on March 3.