We're in the big city right now. We attended our mission organization's annual conference and are spending another four days relaxing (ie. shopping and mailing back groceries for another few months).

Below: I love how sweet Brad is with the girls...he's even willing to brush their hair after a swim day at the hotel.

 It's been interesting for us to walk into a store and have any item at our fingertips. I just about caught myself asking the cashier, "how much does this order cost?" during checkout. I forgot I wasn't dealing with Amazon but a real-life human being!

 City life is somewhat new to the girls. They have already been asking questions about stoplights and what each color means. While driving away from the airport Nae pondered, "Why are the cars going so fast and how come they're not following us?"

 Since we don't have television at our home the girls don't know what commericals are. During Curious George the girls were surprised (and a little irritated) when it was "interuppted" by several commercials. The kept asking why "George stopped."

 Below: This robin reminded us of Dad....thumbs up!

 The girls did great on the two/half hour flight. We prepared them to be quiet and it was fun to watch them use sign language during part of the flight to communicate to me what they wanted. Hey, as long as you know the sign for candy you're good to go!

 City life is also fun because we can take as many showers/baths as we want....no monitoring water! I've caught myself monitoring how fast I wash my hands, but then realized I could wash them to my hearts content, just for fun!  :)

 We've also been taking advantage of the high speed internet at the hotel. Since we can't download sermons very good at home, Brad's been downloading sermons all day and all night since we got here. I'm excited to go home and watch them with him on our date nights. Yes, our date nights include hot cocoa, popcorn and a sermon.  ;)

Our Amazon grocery shopping mystery hasn't been solved but we were reimbursed for a few items and the others we've had to reorder. Not a big deal...even though the items are over a month late we can buy any missing items from Walmart now that we're in town. A friend in our village did mention that sometimes packages are given to the wrong people...so I'm on the lookout for any individual in our village who is munching on a Chewy bar.   :)

 Spring Carnival was held this weekend. The girls enjoyed watching the dogsled races and petting the dogs.

 I entered the two mile snowshoe race. I have never snowshoed before so I was nervous I would slip and fall the whole way.

 Below: Can you see me across the Yukon? The race crossed the Yukon and up onto a sandbar and then around back to the village.

 A friend was telling Brad that some guys were snow-going to a slough right past the race course and saw some wolves. They went back to hunt them. Thankfully Brad found that out AFTER I was already running, or I would have been a bit nervous to race that far from the village, right near the slough.

 I got fourth place but ended up with the third place winnings ($150)! I was pretty happy about the outcome of the race.  :)

 It was sweet because toward the end the girls ran to me and finished the race with me.

 They had races for the kids too. The girls did the snowshoe race and the ski race.

Brad entered the snowshoe sprint but before he reached the finish line his snowshoe slipped off.

 The girls took the racing serious and were really focused before the start.

 The last event was the ice picking contest. Our pastor entered it and did a good job. They took shovels and picks and the goal was to reach water first. The ice is about three feet thick so it took awhile for the guys to reach water. It made me a bit nervous to be standing near the hole with a raging river of death below us.

Brad encouraged me to try and cut wood...it took some time but I finally chopped a few logs.

 This weekend was Spring Carnival. One day was cancelled due to high winds and cold temperatures, but the other two days were above zero with less wind.

 All of the events were held on the Yukon river. The events included: snowshoe race, skate ski race, dogsled race, snow-go race, ice picking contest and soda scramble.

 Just some random shots taken awhile back...I mainly wanted to see if I could rearrange pictures on blogger.

These first pictures were taken by a friend from church.
Have you ever walked out of the store with a cart full of groceries costing $127.38 and misplaced the cart between the store and your car? Well, imagine if the store was Amazon, the cart was a Cessna 180, and the vehicle is the post office. Unfortunately, this is what happened to our grocery order through Amazon. After a month of waiting patiently for our groceries to arrive at the post office we discovered our order was lost in the mail. Will we ever see our granola bars? Will we ever delight in the taste of buttered popcorn? Time will only tell. But I'm not too worried...Brad's on the case! :)
While chatting with my sister and mom on Skpe there was a lull in the conversation...to which both proceeded in leaving to retrieve a snack. My mouth watered as I watched them munch on (what I call) city food. It was torturous to watch them eating their robin eggs and sipping their lattes...I immediately commanded the removal of all that city food so I could focus on our conversation...of course Elizabeth laughed and popped an egg in her mouth. I will get her back somehow! ;)
While baking with the girls I looked up to find Ruthie feeding her baby with the vanilla.

"I can hug him, but not kiss him (referring to a guy at church)! I can kiss Mommy, Daddy, Ruthie, Grandma, Grandpa, Grandma, Papa, Uncle Jeff, Auntie, my husband." ~ Naomi Cheryl

"Mommy, you're cute and fun to be around." ~ Naomi Cheryl Fox
We've been all sick this past week, but even with our colds the girls still made time to do the dishes.
There was leftover food from the Iditarod so we got some frozen peas dropped off at our house (a thank you for volunteering). We haven't had peas for months now so the girls asked for peas during every snack that week.
Naomi: This food is yucky!

Mommy: Nae, don't say yucky. Instead say, "This isn't my favorite food."

Naomi: This isn't my favorite food...because it's yucky!

Even though the dinner was "yucky," the girls didn't mind playing with the moose rib bones afterward. Is it normal for a bush kid to play with moose bones as a toy? Because our girls played with their moose bones (I washed them) for days after the "yucky" meal. :)

This weekend I'm attempting a snowshoe race.

Lately Ruthie's been reading whole pages from her reading book.

Brad's spent days cutting and hauling wood for next winter. He goes about three miles from town and this week has done several loads. I guess he doesn't need to do P90X with me anymore since he's getting a pretty good workout with woodcutting.

I'm thankful for a praying husband. Brad spends a lot of time cutting wood but also has time out in the wilderness to spend praying. I'm also encouraged that he wants to travel to neighboring villages and simply do prayer walks. We're praying the Lord will open up a door for Brad to fly or snow-go to a couple villages to do some focused time on walking through the village and simply pray.

I am borrowing some snowshoes from the school but they are wider and heavier than the racing snowshoes. Even though it will be harder with the heavier snowshoes I'm still excited to race.

It's been warming up the past week. We wake up to -30 degrees but by the end of the day it's up to zero degrees.

Our sick week where the girls wore their pajamas most of the day.