More Arizona Pics

Some more pictures of our time with our family in Arizona.

Here we are at Aly's volley ball game. As you can tell, everyone is watching the game intently, but half the fun of going to a game is just hanging out with family.



Aly and Dori, her Laberdoodle...(a mix between a lab and a poodle.) Dory is an excellent hunting/retrieving dog, but sheds less then most dogs and Aly like her father is an excellent hunter. You should see their trophies hanging in their house. It is amazing.

We went to a little town called, Oatman, where there are "wild" burros all over the place. They were brought in for mining years ago, and after the gold ran out they were let loose. As you can tell they don't look too wild to me. Especially if you have carrots to give them!

Jen trying to find some shade on a sunny day!

Behind me on the rocks are ancient Indian drawing. I love this kind of stuff and would go miles out of my way to see them. Sadly no one knows what the drawings mean anymore.

Me just hanging out with my Aunt. Unlike Jenny I try to find the sunniest spot to sit in. I've been in school too long and it is time to get out and lose some of my pallor!

Isabella learning how to steer a boat by Uncle Ward. It gave me a little glimpse into the future when she is going to be wanting to drive the car...Pretty scary!

We have so many more pictures of our trip and so many that I want to share, but this will probably be the last post of Arizona pictures for now. We have been in California for over a week now, and it is time to get some of those pictures on here as well! We really enjoyed our month in Arizona and are looking forward to visiting there again.

Our Time In Topock

Our time in Topock with my family went by really fast. Part of that was because we were only there for a week and the other part was because we stayed so busy! They live right next to the Colorado river and so we went out on their boat several times. So fun and relaxing...and you are amazingly tired when you get home! With that went fishing, swimming and wake-boarding. Isabella made sand castles and tried to reel in a carp that weighed almost half of what she does! We have so many pictures from there, but I guess that the limit is six pictures on at a time, so I will put some more on in a day or so.

My cousin Aly, the dog Dory, my Aunt Eve and my Uncle Ward. (And of course Bella!)

Uncle Fred and Isabella making their sand castles.

The finished product. Pretty good, with a bridge and all!

The Three of us soaking up the sun!

This is me trying to wake-board. This is about as far as I made it out of the water...

Jen got pretty close to getting out of the water, but not quite. You can tell by her face that she is enjoying it!!!

Pictures Of Our Time In Phoenix

Isabella, Auntie Jess, Miai and the cat. Auntie Jess is who we stayed with most of the time we were in Phoenix. Miai is the little girl she was a nanny for.

We went to a baseball game. You could tell that we are "country mice"! All of our eyes were super wide as we walked around.

We have been good friends Auntie Deb for about 5 years now. She works with the organization that I took the Biblical Discipleship class with. We met Deb in Bible School and have been close ever since.

Auntie Jess had a birthday while we were there. We met Jess when Jen was pregnant with Isabella and she even came to her birth. So needless to say we are very close to her as well.

This is my class. It is amazing how close you can feel to people after you spend a whole week with them. We had a really good time together.

Well, I figured out that I CAN post pictures with just a dial-up connection...it just takes forever. I kid you not, it has taken me over an hour to post these five pictures. So I will post some of my family...tomorrow...

Good-Bye Arizona

( I just found out that the "Enter" key doesn't work on this computer here...so this post will look a bit funny...) Our time in Arizona was...well great. Four different cities...all vastly different. It was amazing that we were in the same state for all that time! And the experiences were as varied as well. When I was looking for pictures to post on this I realized that I had soooo many! I will never get all the ones that I want on here! Another wrinkle is that the computer that I am on now is dial up...So I don't even know if it can handle posting pics, so after I get this on the blog I will work on pictures. My class in Phoeinx went really well. They call it an intensive...and boy is it ever! About eight hours a day for five days. I told them that it felt like I was trying to drink from a fire hose. But really good stuff. It is a Biblical discipleship course and gives some real practical, biblical ways to work through issues in life. I am excited to bring it home and share what I have learned. Already two of my brothers have said that they will sit down with me and go through it. I think it would be really beneficial for all of us. After we finally left Phoenix we headed west to the border to visit the first "real" family member on our trip. My Aunt Eve, her husband, Uncle Ward and daughter Aly. I think this was the fourth time in my life that I have been down to their house. (How sad is that?) Last time we went (and Jen's first time) they were hosting the family reunion so we weren't able to really hang out with just them. I have to admit I was a bit apprehensive walking up to the house, but those feeling disappeared quickly. Family is always going to be family and we fell in love with this family all over again. The only other time I had ever spent one-on-one time with them I was a kid, so it was awesome to get to hang out as an adult...with a family of my own. Isabella had a wonderful time as well. She got to go to the river, swim in the pool, feed the dog...do what all three-year-olds love to do! Also there was another uncle that just moved there...Uncle Fred. One can't help but love Uncle Fred. Everyone loves him. Isabella even named her new stuffed animal after him. :-) I can't wait to get some pictures up about this trip. Well, we are now in California. Finally made it to the West coast! Yeah! Our Oregon plates on our car don't attract so much attention anymore! We will be here for a couple weeks hanging out with Jen's grand-parents and then up to Oregon. I'll update as often as I can and I will try to get pictures on right......NOW.

Divine Appointment?

We were supposed to leave Flagstaff today. We spent last night as well as today with our friends Eric and Amy who are heading to the mission field as well. It is about a three hour trip between here and Pheonix so we were going to head back down this evening.
But at the last minute we decided to stay for their son, Adin's, birthday. So that means that we now have to get up at 5AM to get packed and leave in order to be at church by 10. I was worth it just to spend some more time with our friends, but then something interesting happened.
There was a family friend there that we met. It turns out that he is from Missouri about an hour or so from NTM's campus and he and I started chatting about this and that.
He then looked at me and said that Isabella had come up to him out of the blue and told him about Anarazell and he wanted to know how we were. He went on to say that about 16 years ago he lost a son at two months old. Jen came into the conversation about then and told us that today is the 9th month since Anarazell's death. We ended up talking for quite awhile. The first time in a while that someone who has been through our situation have talked to us. And he actually asked serious questions that most people tend to shy away from.
After we talked, he looked at some pictures and then he mentioned that he first didn't know why he had decided to come to the party when he had been asked.
And we still don't know why Isabella went to the only person in the room that had been through our situation to talk about Anarazell.
Maybe a God thing?

Change in Temperature

We left Phoenix on Tuesday and drove about an hour and a half north to a place called Camp Verde, where we went to the castle and stuff. In Phoenix it was 95-100 degrees the day we left. Camp Verde was a bit cooler, but still 80-85 degrees.
We got into Flagstaff last night dressed in t-shirts, shorts and flip-flops...and were met with55 degrees and rain.
55 stinking degrees! That is like a 45 degree drop to what we have been living in!
WHAT THE WORLD!!!
It felt like winter in Oregon...only we are still in Arizona!
We have know Eric and Amy since Bible school. Jen and I were married for only a month when we met them and they had been married for two years. We considered them the old wise ones because of their two whole years...and here we are six years later.
We are also visiting a young lady who Jen met in Jr. high in Oregon. Her family have been good friends with Jen and I for quite a while now. Jaime is finishing up her masters degree here at Northern Arizona University and it is cool to be able to spend some time with her again.
For some reason Blogger won't let me upload pictures right now, so when I get that worked out I will put some more pictures on.

Ok..I figured something out, what I did I have no Idea, put here or some more pictures!

Our friends...Josh, Heidi, Micah and Mariah.

Jen and I at the Montezuma's well. On the left of the well are some houses that you can see below. They are made right into the wall. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Fun in the Arizona Sun

We have been enjoying our time with our friends Josh and Heidi. They are missionaries with NTM as well and are planning on heading to Mongolia the middle of next year. They are staying with Heidi's grandmother until then, and it has been a relaxing time with them.

Went to see some pretty cool sites today. A place called Montezuma's Castle. As we were heading there I was trying to figure out why it was called by the Aztec Chief's name, but I guess that when it was first seen by white settlers they thought it was part of his culture. It wasn't, but the name stuck anyway.

I love finding out about ancient cultures and things like that. If I had time in this life to do many things I would like to be an archaeologist. Searching for and finding places that have been built hundreds of years ago and trying to figure out what the people were like and how they lived. I find that fascinating. I wanted so bad to get into the castle, but that is only for cool people I guess... About 60 years ago anyone could go into it and the grandmother was able to back then...
Lucky...
One picture to show you how high and far away the castle is.

And then here is a close up of the castle. Crazy to think that about 600 years ago there was a group of people that was here and used this place to live out their lives!


The only things that live on the cliffs now...birds.

After we went there we went to Montezuma's well. A hole in the ground that 1.5 million gallons of water pump out of every day! All year long the temperature stays exactly 76 degrees. Crazy! An amazing amount of water pumping out into the middle of a desert!
But for some reason I can't post anymore pictures on this post....So I will post some of those later.

Internet!!!

I can't believe it! I am actually on-line! I did not realize how much I use the Internet if it is available. But since it hasn't been available...I have been missing it!
I think the thing that has been missing the most is communication. The friend that we have been staying with in Phoenix works full time and at her work she has Internet access...so she doesn't bother getting it to her house. She also has a cell phone so she doesn't have a land line coming into her house. So until she gets home we don't have contact with the outside world.
But I'm fine..I'm fine now.

It has been relaxing... and that has been really nice.
We are thankful that this past weekend was a holiday because that meant that our friends were all off work for three days and we could spend time with them, and we really had alot of fun.
We also got the opportunity to speak in a church this past Sunday, and that was a huge blessing.
The congregation is simply called Scottsdale Church and they are a wonderful group of believers. It worked out that Sunday was a Pan-cake breakfast as well, so we were able to spend some time fellowshiping with people as well as sharing.
I wasn't sure if we should spend as much time in Arizona as we first planned, but now that we got the opportunity to worship with this church I am glad that we are staying because now we have a few more Sundays to spend with them.
We have left the heat of Phoenix for a few days and are going to enjoy friends in the Flagstaff area. When we get some more pictures we will post them.

Arizona

We have been in Arizona for almost two weeks now. The houses we are staying in don't have really good internet access, so I have to think of creative ways to update my blog.
Some friends that we have spent the last two years in training with are staying for a year in Arizona, so we got to go to their son's 3rd birthday party. Micah and Isabella are good friends, so it was fun for them to be together again.

Mariah and Isabella. Isabella loves little babies.

We had a water baloon fight. We thought that it would be fun for the kids. It was at first, but when the moms and dads started throwing them at eachother...the little ones started getting upset! But it was fun for us!!

Micah's and his loot.

The cool cake that was made.

The three year olds and their cake!!! What the party is all about when you are this young!