This coming Saturday the Alaska Iditarod dog sled race will begin with a ceremonial start in Anchorage.  I've never actually seen the ceremonial start. One year the route went across Big Lake, right in front of our house, so we did see some of the mushers mushing by.  I don't think they used that route for very long.

I've not kept up with the race much until recent years, but I'll be watching more closely this year as a classmate of mine will be in the race.  I've spent lots of time looking at her race page on facbook as they get her and her dogs ready for this 1131 mile race!!  All the preparation is just amazing and bit mind boggling to me!! 

And the cold......oh the cold!!

Have a great race, Anj!  I'll be cheering you on!

I can't say that we've had much going on around here.  Mostly just school and sickness.  I haven't been to church due to someone being sick the past several Sundays.  Looks like we won't be making it tomorrow either.  We had one week without some kind of stomach bug or cold and now Brennan and I have a cough.  He doesn't seem too bad, but mine seemed to get worse over night and wouldn't ya know, on the day that the hubs is gone for a few days.  We'll survive though.  We always do.

I've been busy with my PTF stuff at the school.  We are in the midst of a book drive.  We'll then have a book sale to raise funds and will follow it up with an International Family Fun Night.  I've been making all kinds of posters and ads.  Here's what I've been making.

We braved the cold with some friends this past weekend and went sledding.  Reegan lasted all of about....oh.....10 minutes!  She wasn't the only one.  This little guy was not enjoying it either.
 After about said 10 minutes us moms took our kiddos to the car to warm their toes and they were done.  The other two sledded for about an hour and a half.



Our friends were kind enough to feed all of us lunch.  We didn't get a chance to take any pictures of our others friends that arrived later.  By that time I had taken the three youngest to our friend's house while the other 7 kids braved the cold weather!

It was fun, but it definitely sealed the deal that we are not a cold weather family!  We are ready for Spring!!  Ha!

It's about time I told you about our new church start, Crossway!

Last Fall we started meeting with about 10 families.  There are so many internationals since the UN has one of it's headquarters in Vienna.  We currently meet on Sunday afternoons and this week we will start 2 home groups.  One will be meeting in our home.   We hope and pray to see some of these groups expanding in to different languages. 


In December we had an advent service.  A local Syriac Orthodox Church was gracious enough to allow us to use their facilities.


In January we secured another location where we will meet on a long term temporary basis (until this Summer).  It's not ideal as we would like to have our worship time in the mornings and we can only have this space at 1:30 pm (not ideal for families with napping children).  But it has many positive features and will be a good fit for us as we get this group going.

We look forward to sharing more with you in the months to come as we see what God has in store!!

I was hoping to be posting about an ice skating adventure, but that will have to wait a few weeks.
Vienna has turned cold!  Like, unseasonably cold!  We are breaking records here.
For the next few weeks the kid's school scheduled a once a week skating outing, but it was so cold this past Friday that they cancelled it.  Jerry and I were to be chaperones.  Luckily, they are tacking a week on and we'll go another time.

Otherwise we've been trying to stay warm!

This week the kids are on an energy break.  I have no idea why it is called that.  All I know is that all Vienna schools are closed to give people the ability to go skiing.  I think the kids would like it, but we're not big skiers.  I did it as an Alaskan teen, but the thrill did not carry over into adulthood.  So, no skiing for us.

Jerry still has to work and since it is cold we are trying to stay warm in our drafty house.

We did, however, wake to a nice layer of snow yesterday.
Jerry had to go clear the sidewalk on the street in front of our house.  If you have a public sidewalk in front of your house entrance, then you are responsible for clearing the walkway.  If someone is walking by and falls in front of your house, they can sue you.  Lovely!

Unfortunately as the morning carried on things took a turn for the worse as Brennan was hit by this tummy bug!  You could say we've had this thing for three weeks!  Luckily that is not an ongoing three weeks, but one kid having it at some period each week.  I hope we'll be through with this thing soon!

We're suppose to go sledding tomorrow, so I hope Brennan will get better soon so we don't miss out!!

Happy Energy Week!