This year has flown by...as usual. God continues to bless us with good health and opportunities and the older I get, the more I appreciate both.
We enjoyed a visit this summer by Roger's dad and his new wife, the lovely Nora, who delighted us with her delight over our beautiful state. It isn't often we get family visitors OR visitors so completely amazed by Alaska. After twelve years, we tend to take our surroundings for granted. It was fun to see everything fresh through Nora's eyes.
This summer we also went to Hawaii - the Big Island -to meet up with my family. We rented a house in the south of the island and spent our days exploring the volcanoes, swimming from the black sand beach - narrowly missing the sea turtles - and snorkeling around Hilo and Kona. It was a great time.
Nate - He's 10 now, in fifth grade and loving it. He's playing house hockey this year, was voted MVP at a recent tournament and is in the school robotics club. He is growing like a weed and will soon reduce me to the shortest person in the family. *sigh* He and Roger are deep into creating Nate's science fair project about Tesla coils, which should impress his teacher (assuming Nate can explain it without Roger's constant prompting.)
Mary Grace - 17, has her own car and spent the summer paying for it while working as a landscaper at the Alaska State Fair. She's in Jazz Choir and performs in various school plays. She's also the spirit chair for her class, and on the prom committee. She and Roger have committed to building a gigantic caterpillar and mushroom a la Alice in Wonderland to fit their theme. Over spring break, she'll be joining the high school music dept. on a 14-day trip to New Orleans for a music festival and a cruise to Cozumel, Mexico.
Luke - spent this past year as a gap year, working on his airship business. He set up shop in our office and built several prototypes. He sold a handful on his Kickstarter campaign following a summer doing telemetry with Alaska Fish & Game. He spent the fall semester at UAA finishing up his gen eds and heads to Iowa State in Jan. to pursue an engineering degree. We are hoping the mental challenges there will make up for the lack of mountains to climb.
2017 will bring more changes - more travels - and challenges. As my children launch and the future seems ever unpredictable, one verse I'm praying this next year is Phil 1:6: "I'm confident in this, that He who began a good work in you, will continue to perfect and complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." The key word in that verse is work... which signals our willing partnership. God allows us to play a part in what He's accomplishing, yet carries the burden of perfection for us. As a teacher, the beauty and strength of that promise hits home time and again. We are so full of failures while He not only remains faithful, but reveals His sufficiency in using those failures to perfect us.
May you have a fulfilling 2017!
