The Farm

Joel and I were both fortunate to grow up on country farms. During a trip to Mayo clinic Joel and I were able to visit some of his relatives and return to the farm where he spent much of his first 12 years as a little boy. This farm is where his grandpa raised cattle and pigs, and held a never forgotten corn harvest celebration. Joel's Aunt is now living on the farm with her husband and two children. We feel very blessed to be able to go back an visit from time to time. 

This is the farm house. It's super cool with a big wood stove.

The barn.

The Silo

Joel played school with his grandma in the top of this building.

I like this picture

Christmas and More

Well now that the semester is over and things have gotten a little less stressful I thought it would be a good time to blog. Sorry for the long hiatus since October, this fall became a little hectic.

Here's some of the things we did over Christmas break in no particular order.  

1. Made A Turkey. 

I cooked, Joel carved. 

2. Went skiing (A LOT)

This is Joel on Beaver Slide, My favorite ski trail in Fairbanks.

It's so perfect when the sun shines on the snow covered trees down the tracks. 

3. Looked cute in a shirt from Mom and Dad Coulter

I know, not the best picture of Joel, but I like the color of his shirt, and I think he's cute. 

4. Joel Kicked Julia's butt in scrabble 

Love the mug (TIGGER= Joel's nickname)

5. Julia Kicked Joel's butt in scrabble

Thinking....

No making fun of all the 4 letter words that we use. We're getting better. 

6. Took care of some doggies! (joel and I house sat for one of our pastors who has 8 sled dogs)

This is Roxy, she runs up to you and shoves her face in between your legs (not in a dog sniffing your butt kind of way). 

This is what the other view looks like. I laugh every time she does this.

This is Olivia, she's my favorite. I call her the Hyena dog. 

7. Ate Pizza 

PIZZA. Half aloha and half gyro, the gyro was AMAZING!

8. Went skiing some more. 

Anna and I are in Anchorage at the US National Ski Championships. Joel and Harald were here, but they had to return home. 

A brain is not working right. Why? What should be done?

I have been leaning on some ideas that have helped direct my thoughts about living in the world as a Christian with a strange hope that people will (by God's grace) ask me about. I'd like to organize them here to help me lean on them and who they point me to even more.

Why?

I very much appreciate the explanatory power of a Christian worldview. I especially appreciate it when faithful and wise people communicate an idea about the Christian worldview well. I don't know if I could come to these conclusions and find these hopes on my own.

What is sin? How bad is it and how can we see how bad it is? (Click to download an audio file) A story about a mother whose son has seizures every few minutes at 20:45 will not leave my mind; preceding the story, starting at 14:00, describes how we can see the horror of preferring anything to God.

What should be done?

If this is why suffering and disease and pain is so prevalent across all of human experience, what should a person who believes in Christ and all that God has done through him do? I love these answers.

What should a Christian do when suffering appears? (Because it inevitably does)

Don't Wast Your Cancer (or your life or your cavernous angioma!)

All of this leads me to this thought: I love God.

.

Ester Dome

Every year Scott (our coach) has us do a series of tests to check-up on our fitness. These include but are not limited to push-up, sit-ups, pull-ups, 3000 meter run on the track, and of course, running up Ester Dome. It's a hill. That is 5km long. 

We raced as a team last week. It had snowed, so our times weren't as fast as usual, but we were in good sprits because we want to SKI!

These are Anna and Tete's backs. They're starting their cool down. Look at the snow YAY!

There wasn't much snow in the valley of Fairbanks, but when Ester dome is covered with this "termination dust" (termination of summer, that is), then we know it's coming. 

The day after the time trial up Ester Dome Aurelia and I decided we'd had enough running and roller skiing, so we went for a ski.  

We drove up to Ester dome again for our adventure. What a view, cool clouds. 

Aurelia

Aurelia and Me

Me

Aurelia pretending to school ptarmigan. If you look hard you might be able to see them. Those little buggers camouflage really well, despite how stupid they seem. This was so funny to us because Einar went ptarmigan hunting that same day and was adamant that there weren't going to be ptarmigan on Ester Dome, so he had to go to Murphy Dome. Silly boy.

Now, today is 42 and sunny. And I am getting ready to go running. 

I guess I can deal with one day less of winter, if I have to.

Nanook Traditions

Starvation Gulch

My definition: big piles of wood burning on campus so that the UAF fire department has something exiting to do. Was that cynical?

I appreciate them really, and would hope they come to my rescue if needed. 

Every year at UAF, different departments and dorms compete to scrounge the town for the most wood pallets. Then they pile them up in a parking lot and start them on fire. The students watch them burn. I think there is some kind of judging going on i.e. what department makes the biggest pile, which pile burns the longest etc. The fire department roams the area to keep the fires contained and the students safe. Here are some pictures from this experience. 

At the site of action

The fires from the hill side

From left to right: Julia, Einar, Aurelia, Anna

What I did with the Blueberries

I made scones. It worked pretty well. I didn't expect the whole scone to turn purple. I think they look like something that might fall from the sky at Hogwarts, the school that Harry Potter and his comrades attend. 

Despite appearances, they sure are tasty. Maybe I'll attempt ear wax scones next, an inspiration from the Harry Potter Jelly beans. 

(That was a joke.)

Staying Afloat

My mom once told me that if I can canoe with a man (that I'm in love with) and still be in love with him after the paddle, then it was safe to marry him. I am not sure where that wisdom came from... good experience with my dad? Bad experience with some schmuck?.... 

Anyways, Joel and I never canoed together before we got married, but we did do a lot of other things together that made us think we were ready for marriage. But, just to make sure we'd pass the test, we went for a paddle. 

One of the first steps of a paddle is to leave a bike down river so that you can get back to your car when you finish. We left a bike at ~38 mile Chena Hot Springs Road and then drove to mile 44. 

Not only did we need to love each other after the paddle, but we need to love each other after building the boat. 

We borrowed the canoe from our Norwegian friends Stian and Maria. It's the green thing in the back of our car. It comes in a big bag with straps like a backpack. Essentially you can hike with it. Although Joel explained to me that packrafts are much better because they weigh 6 lbs and are tiny. Did I mention they are about $1,000 a piece and we need one of them for each of us. I might also add that Joel has found many blogs of his now "packrafting mentors" that he shares with me daily. One "packrafting mentor" is termed a "mentor" by Joel, because they have communicated via e-mail. WOW. Do any of you remember how skeptical he was of our blog? Now to him blogs are AWESOME, especially when they are complete with GPS topo maps of trips. Ahh a GPS something else you need when you have a pack raft I suppose.  Okay enough picking on Joel.

Here is the skeleton for the canoe.

Here is the skin of the canoe

Here is Joel with the mallet to pound the skeleton into position.

(No mallet needed for a packraft). 

The finished product, a canoe.

Over all, it took us about an hour to build our boat. I thought it was totally remarkable and fun! Joel told me it takes 6 min in inflate a packraft. 

Almost a minute into the paddle Joel and I got a bit stuck on some rocks in shallow water and Joel had to get out and get us un-stuck. I think he said something along the lines of, "This is not good," or "We're not going to make it," or "We're gonna die," or "Jula I'm not good at this." 

Right now I'm taking a psychology class and we're learning about how the emotions of people around us cause us to feel the same way. That happened, and I thought we were doomed, when before he said anything, I thought we were fine, just stuck.  So Joel had cold wet feet and we canoed. Thankfully he had on awesome smart wools from mom and his tootsies warmed-up nicely. 

Joel sat in the back an steered, and I paddled in the front. It took us a while to get the hang of me paddling and Joel steering. Every once in a while my arm would get tired and I would switch sides, Joel would get a little frustrated and say, "Pick a side Jula." I could swear he was just bad at steering and so I had to do more work, but I was probably wrong. 

Beautiful Chena River

Taking a break on a sand/gravel bar. There are a ton of these and Joel and I were thinking about doing a longer trip and stopping to camp on one of these sometime. 

The steerer. Near the end of the trip Joel began to teach me paddling technique and how to be powerful. I wonder if he would be so picky with my paddling technique if we were in separate packrafts. We pretended we were in "The Last of the Mohicans". I told him he could call me Sacagawea, or Pocahontas and he could be John Smith. 

Some of the many mergansers that we saw. 

This is a picture of some clouds and the granite tors. The tors are hard to see, but they are the little pointy things on the far hill side. Joel and I did a hike to the granite tors

and you can see that blog using the link.

Here is a huge eagle that watched us as we paddled by. 

One of the last steps is to find the bike. 

And bike back to the car

And leave your wife on the side of the river to take apart the canoe. He's hard to see, but Joel is biking on the far right end of the bridge. 

I wonder how long it takes to deflate a pack raft? I think I'll ask Joel. 

The End

ohh yeah.... and we still love each other, and can't wait to paddle together again someday. 

Maybe in pack rafts :) but we know we can handle a canoe.  

* Disclaimer: And I really am not as bitter about this packrafting idea as I sound in this blog. It's just fun to pick on Joel, and I love how excited he gets about it. 

Please refer to  alpacaraft.com to understand how cool this is.