K is for Kitty Cat

Doesn't this Kitty seem so precious and innocent, like it couldn't hurt a soul. Well, it probably is until you get it around Carter and then this sweet little kitty becomes a trigger for not being able to breath clearly and a whole bunch of sneezing. Poor Carter is allergic to this cute little thing so a cat is something we can never have, but honestly that doesn't bother me all that much.

J is for JUST ENGAGED

Clayton (the brother-in-law) is now engaged to Sarah Jacobs who is an absolute sweetheart and we are so excited for them. It happend on Sunday and they are planning a January wedding.

Lakefair Fireworks

Olympia has a big festival called Lakefair and they end the long weekend with a fireworks show. We took the youth group to the fireworks and before they started we hung out for a few hours on the Capital lawn and played games and fellowshiped. When the sun started to go down one of the parents got us permission from a place he worked to let us sit on their roof to watch the show. This was awesome because the building was one of the tallest in the area and it sat right on the lake where they were shooting off the fireworks. The view was amazing and we all had a lot of fun.

Olympia has a big festival called Lakefair and they end the long weekend with a fireworks show. We took the youth group to the fireworks and before they started we hung out for a few hours on the Capital lawn and played games and fellowshiped. When the sun started to go down one of the parents got us permission from a place he worked to let us sit on their roof to watch the show. This was awesome because the building was one of the tallest in the area and it sat right on the lake where they were shooting off the fireworks. The view was amazing and we all had a lot of fun.

I is for Ice Cream

This is my favorite summer treat, although I enjoy it all year long. My favorite is Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, or Rocky Road. Carter is a solid Mint Chocolate Chip fan.

H is for Heat

Now I know that it is Washington here, and HOT weather really doesn't exist. But let me tell you that most places here don't have air conditioning. So, when the weather is in the upper 80's and low 90's like it has been the past couple of weeks it is absolutely miserable when you are in the house. So your choices are to turn those fans on a little higher while sipping something nice and cool, or go find a place that does have air. Who knew that air wasn't standard everywhere???

G is for Gourgeous

This is the Gourgeous view of Mt. Ranier from Delano Bay Christian Camp where we counseled at a few weeks ago. This is Carter's home camp that he loves and talks about all the time so I was excited to get to experience it first hand.

F is for Far Away Friends

One thing about being gone for the summer is that I am missing all of my friends and I can't wait to see a lot of them again. The sad thing is that some of my friends have moved onto their real lives and I won't get to see them as often = (

E is for employment

Now that Carter is employed for December I am starting to see what kind of positions they have available in North Bend, Coos Bay area. However, I am not really finding many jobs that I would be qualified for, and more then enough that I am over qualified for. If there aren't positions for nurses or business majors then there are positions for house cleaning, and sales associate positions. I'm not getting to distrought about this yet though because it is still too far out to actually consider a position so I'm just hoping that a really good one will appear around December!!

Birthday Trip

For my birthday Carter planned a suprise for me that I didn't know of even as we got in the car with his family on the 5th.

Our first stop was the the Ferrry which I finally found out took us to Seattle. So my trip consisted of this..ferry to seattle, eat at Red Robin, look around Pikes Place Market (something i've been wanting to do for a while.) It was a fun experience and something I've wanted to do for a while. So now I've officially been to Seattle...

The Market

The first ever Starbucks
He is throwing a fish

On the Ferry

Seattle
My birthday Sundae

Carter is a Youth Minister

Well, at least he will be in December. We decided to officially accept the position at the North Bend Church of Christ in Oregon. We are ecstatic about this decision and are so glad that God has blessed us with this great opportunity. The location is great and the congregation is amazing. We look forward to this next step in our lives and can't wait for Carter to graduate!!

You can check out the North Bend congregation at
www.churchofchristnb.com

Road Trip

We got back from North Bend at 11:30 Pm and we left the next morning at 6:00am to start our drive to washington. I tried to take a picture in every state, so here is my snapshots of the states we drove through to get here. We drove about 17 hours the first day and 12 the next. We arrived tired but excited to be done with the trip!!

Kansas

Colorado

Wyoming

Utah

IDAHO-we were dissapointed by the lack of potatoes we saw~

OREGON

WASHINGTON

Finally, our trip to North Bend

We started off our big trip to North Bend, Oregon by waking up at 4:30 on Thursday morning after a whopping 4 hours of sleep, which was awful coming off of our 2 day packing frenzy. We were tired and anxious all at the same time. After about 8 hours we hopped on a little puddle jumper from Portland to North Bend which was less then an hour flight. We were lucky though because our pilot decided that since it was so nice and clear outside we would fly up the coast and we flew the whole time right over where the pacific met the land. It was Route 101 in the air basically so it was amazing, especially since I haven’t seen the ocean like that in almost 4 years.

Once we landed in the airport we though we would have some time before meeting our hosts who we would be staying with, but as we go off the plane (that we had to walk outside to get off) we realized we were delivered straight to our hosts without so much as a potty break and makeup fix. The couple we were staying with was an elder and his wife and after dropping our stuff off at home and a brief relax time we went to dinner at a seafood restaurant to meet a family who wouldn’t be there for the rest of the weekend as well as an elder who wouldn’t be there and his wife. After dinner some of our hosts family came over and we stayed awake and congenial a long as possible.

Friday consisted of a tour of the town and then lunch with the preacher and his wife at the Casino which we found pretty funny, but the restaurant did have a great view of the river. That night we had a pizza party at the church which was our chance to meet all of the youth who all seemed rather nice.

Saturday was our day to tour the town a bit on our own and go to the beach for a BBQ with the youth and their parents. It was a gourgeous day once the sun came out and we had fun getting to know the people and enjoying the beach. Carter got a group of people to go with him to the top of a rock that he was dying to climb and had a great time. Saturday night was our formal interview that we got dressed up and were questioned by the elders, their wives, and the preacher. It really wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be and Carter did most of the work, we both felt very confident about it.

That is Carter on top of the rock (above)

Sunday morning was Carter’s time to shine as he taught the morning bible class, and then he also preached the morning sermon. He did a really great job and I was probably more nervous then him because I’ve never seen him do anything like this before. Everybody loved his sermon and we met many more people after church. We went to lunch with a group and then after lunch we were offered the position although we did not accept right away because we still didn’t know what we wanted to do and we wanted to give Olympia a chance as well.

Sunday Afternoon we took off from people because we were starting to become overwhelmed so we went to this cute little town called Bandon which is on the water and has lots of little fun shops that we enjoyed. After Sunday night church we went to ice cream with some people and went to see The Incredible Hulk.

Monday we went to breakfast with the preacher, Norm, and then headed to the airport for our 8 hour flight. It was an exhausting 5 days for sure!!