Phase Three: Worland

It is 103 degrees outside and 82 inside my house. Not a good combination when you are almost 5 months pregnant. My feet are starting to swell despite my best efforts to drink lots of water, so I decided to sit on the couch and relax for a few minutes. Hopefully the temperature starts to drop soon. If not, Jason might be taking me dinner tonight. Some where air conditioned.

Anyway...on with our Wyoming trip. On June 28th, Josiah and I drove up to Worland to visit Jason's side of the family. When we arrived we had the special treat of being able to spend a day with Jason's grandparents. The live in Nebraska and were attending a high school reunion near Worland. Josiah immediately warmed up to Grandma Hansen (probably because she bought him a Lighting McQueen ball).

While we were there Josiah enjoyed helping Grandma Debbie pick mulberries, as seen below. He climbed up on the fence and picked whatever he could find.

He also had a love/hate relationship with the cows. When the cows weren't near the fence he would yell, "Come over here cows!!" Then when they came over they made him nervous and would yell, "Go away cows!!" Needless to say, they never listened to him.

On July 3rd my parents came up and we had a little birthday part for Josiah. He got lots of fun toys and got to spend a lot of fun time with his whole family. But even with all that...I still think his favorite part was when everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to him and he got to blow out the two candles. Here he is enjoying his brownies and ice cream. (A word of caution. If you value your life, don't try to take Josiah's ice cream from him.)

Then on July 4th we went to the Ten Sleep parade. Ten Sleep is a little farming/cattle town outside of Worland. It was a fun parade. They threw a ton of candy, handed out Popsicles and ice cream bars, 20 oz bottles of pop and toward the end of the parade the local dentist handed out toothbrushes and floss. Despite all the candy, Josiah's favorite part was seeing all the horses. This is a picture of him waving at the horses.

That night we also went to watch firework. Josiah enjoyed them for the first 5 minutes, but it was so late he just wanted to go to sleep. He ended up just chilling me my arms while I covered his ears. He was so tired that he fell asleep in the car on the way home, and when we got home I changed his diaper and put pajama pants on him and he never once woke up.

I think that about sums up our Worland trip. Next time: Our trip back to Corvallis.

Phase two of Wyoming Trip- Lander

After spending a couple of days in Cody, on Monday June 22, Josiah and I headed down to spend the week at my parents house. I don't have many pictures from our time there. I think I ended up taking a lot of pictures with my mom's camera. One of the days Josiah got to help Papa Darrell put new stairs on the deck. Papa would push the drill down while Josiah pushed the power button. Josiah loved that. Josiah also helped water the garden and weed the tomato plants. We had to put a stop to weeding when we discovered Josiah had picked one of the tomato plants. :)

Josiah also enjoyed feeding Yoda his dinner every night. Josiah would take food from Yoda's bowl and hand feed him (see picture below). My mom said that Yoda got spoiled and had a hard time eating the next week.

I think that sums up our week there. It was relaxing, which is what we needed after a long trip from Oregon. After the week was up we headed to Worland to visit Jason's family. That will have to wait until next time.

In other news, Josiah and I had a wonderful birthday. It actually has lasted about 3 days. On Thursday we took Josiah to the Aquatic Center in town. The outside is a miniature water park and they have toddler time from 11:30 to 1:00. Josiah had a lot of fun going down the slides and having the freedom to walk around the water. That night Jason treated Josiah and I to our favorite meal...pizza.

Yesterday we dropped Josiah off at a friend's house for an all day play date and headed to Peavy Arboretum and hiked up to a pond on top. We ate lunch, watched the fish in the pond, and talked for a couple of hours before heading back down the hill. It was nice to be able to have some one-on-one time with Jason. After the arboretum we went to a u-pick blueberry farm and picked blueberries for an hour. Between the two of us we were able to pick 15 lbs. of blueberries for the low price of $18.25. One of the many reasons why I love where we live.

Today we went garage sale shopping and picked up a scooter and a bike for Josiah. Josiah hasn't got to see them yet, but when he wakes up from his nap, I know he'll be excited to play with them.

First leg of the trip to Wyoming

So...I finally got the pictures downloaded and had time today to post something. Here are pictures of the first part of our trip. We left Philomath around 9:00am on a Thursday and drove to Spokane, WA and stayed at a KOA. Jason and Josiah had fun playing in the swimming pool, but we didn't get pictures. On Friday we drove to Billings, MT. Then Saturday Jason boarded a plane to Memphis to take a graduate class.

This a picture of daddy and Josiah cuddling before Jason left.

After we dropped Jason off at the airport Josiah and I drove down to Cody, Wyoming to spend a couple of days with my Grandpa. My dad drove up from Lander for the week-end as well. He brought with him a Josiah sized John Deer tractor and some bubbles. When Grandpa and dad first pulled out the tractor Josiah was excited. But once they got it working it scared him.

This is a picture of Josiah on it when they first took it out of the box.

After they got it working I tried to get a picture of him on it, but he didn't want to have anything to do with it. As a compromise, he decided I could take this picture with him on the grass.


Since the tractor was a bust, my dad pulled out the bubble machine, which Josiah loved.

Later that day we went up and looked at the horses. Josiah got to feed Gracie some grass.

That was phase one of the trip. Next post will be about our time in Lander.

I think it has been about a month since I last blogged. We were out of town for 3 weeks. We drove to Billings, MT where Jason caught a plan to Memphis to take a class while Josiah and I spent a week in Lander visiting my parents. Then Josiah and I headed up to Worland where Jason met us at his parents house. We spent a week there before we drove 3 days back to Corvallis. I plan on posting pictures and stories about the trip, but that will have to wait until I can remember to get the camera from Jason.

While we had fun hanging out and catching up with family, we are happy to be home. We all slept well our first night back. Josiah slept a good 13 hours. The house was in good condition when we got back. My garden exploded and we are now feasting on peas and lettuce. The green beans are just now coming in so Josiah and I will be picking those in a few days.

Jason is already busy at work again. He is teaching Wednesday night class and he will be doing his first wedding on Saturday. He also has interns this summer so he is busy working with them. I have a feeling this summer is going to go by faster than we want it to.

Well...I should probably get the kitchen cleaned up before Josiah wakes up. I will try to get some pictures up later this week.

Almost done

Well...we are finishing up the last week of our first year as campus ministers. We have learned a lot and God has blessed us despite our mistakes. It has been a good year, but we are tired. We aren't used to the whole term thing yet. Our clocks felt like the activities should have ended a month ago.

Jason is especially feeling tired now. He is trying to finish up the school year while trying to prepare for a taking a class in Memphis which starts in two weeks. Working 50-60 hours a week and preparing for a Master's class is starting to take its toll and I know he is looking forward to July when he can finally take a break. If you have time say a prayer for God's strength to carry him through the next few weeks.

Here is a summary of what happened our first year in campus ministry.

Positive things that have happened this year are:
1) Our group grew from a core of 10 to a core group of 16. (Yeah God for working in the lives of our students to give them courage to invite their friends)
2) Jason was in 9 one-on-one Bible studies to help spiritually grow our core students. Some of student leaders were doing Bible studies as well bringing the total up to 16 students studying the Bible weekly.
2) Jason and I are studying with a girl who is thinking about becoming a Christian.
3) Jason has had weekly spiritual conversations with a student who claims to be an atheist and is starting to regularly hang around the UCC. (Satan has put some stumbling blocks in this students way. Pray this doesn't keep him from coming to know God)
4) God has blessed us with a solid, God focused, leadership team for next year.
5) We made it through the first year without any major catastrophes.

Things we don't want to repeat next year:
1) We had too many activities this year. Next year we hope to have less, but more focused activities.
2) Jason taught entirely too many classes on top of one-on-one Bible studies. He's training two students this summer to teach the Sunday morning class so he can have more time available for one-on-one Bible studies.
3) The church here wants to be more involved, so we are brainstorming ideas on to get them more connected with our ministry so we don't have to do so much work. :)

Right before the school year started, Jason and I began to realize the immensity of the task before us. Despite our incredible training, we realized that we just weren't completely prepared for our first year on our own. I went before a group of ladies at church and told them that we were scared about the year. I told them, if anything good comes out of this year, it will be because God did. As I look back on the year, I believe that statement held true. Despite our best efforts, a lot of mistakes were made. And all the growth that happened wasn't because we did anything special, it was because God was willing to use us despite us. It is good to know that we serve a God who doesn't expect us to be perfect, but obedient.

So we are excited about this summer. Excited to take a break. Excited about the brainstorming and preparation that we will be doing for next year. And though we may be a little more wiser next year ,I think I can still honestly say that, despite our best efforts, it will be God that brings about the growth.

Camping

I must apologize at the very beginning, but we did not take a single picture while camping. I guess we were having so much fun relaxing that it never occurred to us get the camera out. So you will just have to survive with a verbal summary.

The campsite was beautiful. We were situated in a large meadow with some really cool hardwood trees (I don't know what kind). A shallow river ran by our site. Josiah enjoyed sitting on the bank and throwing rocks into the the river and watching the water splash. He also enjoyed playing with Hank and Syd, his two favorite dogs. He did really well and we only had two or three disciplinary issues the entire three days. For the most part everyone had a fun and relaxing time. The weather was amazing. We couldn't have asked for a better weekend.

Jason's arm is pretty much healed, though his body is still recovering from the effects of all the drugs he took. We are trying to feed him some mild foods (he feels nauseated a lot) and making sure he gets lots of rest. Hopefully he feels better soon.

An Exciting Week

We have had an exciting week at the Swick residence. Monday at lunch Jason was stung by a bee. We've known from past experiences that Jason is allergic so we watched him closely for signs of any respiratory problems and other than a large swelling spot on his arm he seemed fine. The next day we woke up and found that his arm had swelled up to elbow. We went to the doctor to see what we should about it. The doctor wasn't too concerned until he noticed Jason had a red streak heading up his arm. Immediately the doctor put him on steroids and antibiotics and told if it got worse to come back in. We woke up the next morning and it was worse. We went back to the doctor and she put him on all sorts of antihistamines. Below is a picture of how many pills Jason had to take this morning.

It may look like a lot, but the swelling went down and poison site looks better. Thank God for modern medicine.

We also did some more work in the garden. Below shows what grew out of the seeds I planted. Most everything but the bell peppers and half a row of beans and the lettuce came up. Not bad for my first try.

My peas and half row of beans

Radishes

Yellow summer squash

We had a coupon for free vegetable starters so we went to the store yesterday and bought some lettuce and broccoli. Here is how the garden looks with everything planted.

Peas, Beans, & Lettuce

Radishes, Broccoli, and Carrots (when they come up)

We also received a hand me down swing set from a family from church. We got it set up and here is a picture of Josiah and I swinging on it.

We are headed off camping with the college students this weekend. Should be a lot of fun to get a way for a few days. Hopefully we will have some fun pictures to share next week from that.