Poor Baby

Poor Kellan has had a rough winter. It seems like every time I turn around the kid is sick. He came down with the stomach flu 5 times in just over 6 weeks and seems like his is always battling a cold. A few weeks ago, I noticed a red spot on his stomach in the morning. By the afternoon, his knees were all swollen and hot. And by the next morning, he looked like this. He was covered head to toe with hives for almost a week. Made me want to cry just looking at him!

Way Behind!

Well, I certainly am behind on my blogging. December up until now has been a blur. You can catch up on our Christmas on my blog. I thought I would do a bit of a photo update for what has been going on for the last few months.

Christmas fun




















We were in Salt Lake to bring in the New Year with Jason's family. It was fun to all be together again. The kids got to go sledding with the boys while the girls went shopping. Aren't those mountains amazing?
















We headed out of Salt Lake the week after New Years and were hoping to make it through our old stomping grounds of Baker City, but between our car needing some work and the amount of snow heading through the Northwest, we decided to head straight home.

We were home just over a week before we all headed out on a trip to Portland. Jason attended a large missions conference in the area as a NTMA rep. We tried to include a little bit of family fun and headed out a day early to take the kids to the zoo. It happened to be cold enough that day that it was snowing right about the time we got around to the elephant exhibit. Go figure! The good news was that we had the zoo almost to ourselves. We had a great time seeing friends while we were there too.



















The end of January brought an INSANE amount of snow. The schools closed down for a whole week for the first time in 20 years, there was a state of emergency declared for eastern Washington, and I was stuck in the house and didn't drive for over a week. AGH! Cabin fever!!
The city was so unprepared for the amounts of snow that it took 4 days of heavy snow before the city got around to plowing our street. Jason had to take my car to work because he couldn't get out of our neighborhood without all wheel drive. The snow in our street was up to my knees. What an initiation to winter!



























We had an awesome sledding hill out of snow in our front yard.















The good news about all of the snow was that Jason celebrated his 34th birthday on the slopes in lieu of a present.




















We had 2 weeks to recuperate before Grandma Arizona came for Mirielle's birthday. We now have a big 5 year old in our house!

I finally got a picture of Jason with most of his guys together. These are all but 2 of the students he has worked with since the start of the school year in July. The day before Thanksgiving marked the end of the semester. Due to the winter weather conditions here in Spokane, the flight program flips their school year to have a winter break instead of a summer break.

Jason will continue to work at school throughout the winter break getting guys caught up when the weather permits. He and the other flight instructors will start to receive training for flying the Kodiak airplane (read about it here). We are also hoping to start to work on raising our support level this winter. So we plan on staying busy!

I have to say that the students in the flight program are pretty amazing. They definitely get a chance to stretch their faith while in school. Many of the guys are married and several of them have kids. A normal schedule is a 9 hour school day, which doesn't include those special 5 am flights in the summer or the recent night flights. Most of them juggle some kind of employment outside of school while balancing their families and most often some kind of ministry through church, etc. It boggles my mind how some of them make it through.

There was a small commissioning on the last day of school for some of the seniors that are headed out on an internship over the winter break. In order to graduate, the students must do a 6-8 week internship with a missions flight organization. One of Jason's students it planning on going to Bolivia for 2 months. He and his wife have had to work through lots of decisions including whether or not she should accompany him (she is staying here in Spokane) and how they would be able to cover the cost not only of the trip, but of his time away from work. It is amazing to see the work these guys put and the sacrifices they make to finish the program. Keep them in your prayers!

Happy Thanksgiving

Thankful for so many things.

Thankful for each other
Thankful for our kids
Thankful for a faithful God that is always showing us his love
Thankful for being here, now
Thankful for all of you