Tree Trek 2011

The annual Gates Family Tree Trek this year was again a success and a lot of fun. I'll just let the pictures tell most of the story...

Getting all bundled up...and having a little fun with Grandfather.


Neal wasn't very excited to go hiking through the woods but he eventually had a blast playing in the snow with his cousins.



GiGi and her three youngest grandsons


All the cousins together, having fun in the snow



The trees in Alaska are what most would call "Charlie Brown Trees" but it is tradition to get one from the woods, a tradition that will always be a big part of Christmas in the Gates family.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!. Hope your Christmas is filled with the reminder of God's great gift to us as well as lots of fun, laughter and family...I know ours will.

Moving: Sage Two

We are finally completely moving everything out of our house. The last few weeks we have been busy getting the last of our things out of our house, selling our furniture and getting ready to officially close on the sale this week.


It is amazing how much stuff you accumulate over a short period of time (4 years). If any of you have ever moved you know exactly what I mean. I thought we had pretty much all our stuff out of the house this summer when we staged it for selling. However, I didn't realize how much stuff was still there to pack-up now when we need to completely empty the house. Having a kid also, added a lot of stuff to the whole moving process, and a new dynamic to finding time to move and people to watch Neal while we pack.

Neal however has been great. Last week while I was packing up a few boxes of bedding and remaining pictures he quietly sat in the bedroom and watch "Toy Story" the whole time. Every once in a while he would pop up to tell me what was happening in the movie and I may have taken a few breaks from packing to take some pictures of him.



The end of stage two of our big move is almost complete. By the end of this week we will no longer be home owners in AK. Which is exciting, and a bit sad all at the same time. It sure will be nice however to relax come Christmas eve knowing our house is sold and no longer holding us back form moving onto our ministry assignment in North Carolina.

Winter Wonderland and Christmas wonder

It sure looks like a winter wonderland outside our house (this was the view from our front window several weeks ago)...


As Tyler and I were doing some organizing, of the hundreds of photos on our computer, we ran across a few photos from last year around this time. I just had to share them with you all. Neal has grown so much since last Christmas and I can't wait to see him this year on Christmas morning. I love seeing the excitement and wonder in his eyes at the holidays...






Look how much he has changed in just one year.



There is just something special about the "magic" of Christmas, and Christmas traditions. Some of the things I love about Christmas that we will always have at our house...

Family


Cookies (especially these ones...)


and some of my favorite Holiday movies.



Sadly I packed all our movies away in storage, so I think a trip to Redbox is in order to at least pick-up a few fun Christmas movies to watch as a family.

Today I am enjoying a quite day at home, listening to Christmas music, wrapping christmas presents, reading christmas cards from friends, enjoying some coffee and the quite of the house with a little boy who is taking a nice long nap. It's a good day.

Preparing for Christmas...

This year our house doesn't look much like Christmas. With everything packed up and in storage, awaiting our move the end of January, we have very few Christmas decorations. In order to make up for the lack of decorations I have been baking cookies and other fun treats to at least make my house smell like the holidays. Neal and I have spend time in the afternoons together coloring some Toy Story Christmas pictures which we will be hanging up throughout the month.


I also got these fun jelly window clings for Neal to play with and he loves them. I had them up all over the window and he went over and lined the snowflakes up in a row while saying "snow, up high" as he reaches up as high as possible to place the snowflakes on the window.



We are looking forward to celebrating Christmas this year with Tyler's whole family and are starting to think of what Christmas traditions we want to start as a family, now that Neal is getting older. But this year it will be simple and filled with family which I think makes for a perfect Christmas.

Ketchikan

I am so happy to say that I have now visited South East Alaska, after living her for six years. We just got back from a four day trip to Ketchikan where we spoke to two churches about our ministry with TWR. I am told that Ketchikan is the second most rainy city in America, but while we were there the weather was amazing. When it is sunny outside, I would say Ketchikan is one of the most beautiful places to be.


To get to Ketchikan we had to take a plane and a short ferry ride. Neal loved flying and ridding the Ferry. Though we all slept for most of the flight.




Tyler took us around and showed us where he use to live, his old school, the old pulp mill and the whole city. There is really only one main road and so the whole city of Ketchikan doesn't take that long to drive through. It is beautiful there and everything is pretty much along the water or has an amazing view.


We stayed with a wonderful family from one of the churches while there. They have 3 young boys and Neal had a great time playing with them each day. They had some great cars to ride and a shopping cart that Neal loved to push around. Tyler and I felt so blessed and welcomed by this family and really enjoyed getting to know them over the few days we were there.



Neal even joined their family in singing before bed one night.


The church had meals with different families scheduled for the whole time we were there which was a great way for us to get to know some of the individuals within the church. We had a great visit and I look forward to getting to go back and spend more time in the years to come as we build relationships with the churches and hopefully partner with them in ministry.


Now I know why Tyler liked living in Ketchikan so much, it is beautiful, the people are welcoming, and the small town feel is unique. Plus, they have a chocolate shop down town with homemade fudge...so we have been enjoying some delicious Ketchikan fudge the last few days.

Simple days...

Lots of fun things are always happening around here, but mostly I like it when we have quite and routine days at home. Neal has found out how to access the Netflix application on our phones and the other day I came into the living room to find him lying on the floor watching Diego on Tyler's phone.


Part of the fun with winter is that we spend lots more time together at home. We have lots more family movie nights together which Neal loves. Some of his current favorites are Toy Story, Monsters Inc., and Curious George.

I have also had to come up with some new creative activities while we stay indoors due to the cold weather. The one that has been the biggest hit so far is playing with measuring cups, tupperware and beans. He played with this for at least an hour and did a great job at keeping the beans on the blanket and away from his mouth and nose.



I also have some fun Christmas craft ideas to try out the next few weeks. What type of things do you do with your family during the winter/holidays? I would love to hear some of your traditions and ideas.

Our Thanksgiving

This year Thanksgiving was very small and rather quite for a Gates Thanksgiving with only 14 of us. It was fun to be able to fit around one large table. There was however lots of delicious food, as always, and far more food then the 14 of us could eat. What is Thanksgiving without leftover right?


After dinner we had a great time visiting, relaxing and playing some games. Neal even got to play chess with Tyler. I guess Tyler is starting to teach Neal early so he will have someone to play chess with at home since I won't play with him.



Thanksgiving, as the name states, bring to mind all the things that I am thankful for and the many blessings that God has blessed me with. A few of those things I'm thankful for this year:

1) My family (Tyler & Neal)
2) The ability to stay at home with Neal
3) Good Friends who I can laugh, cry and share life with
4) My Family and my In-Laws who always encourage and support us
5) Living in AK (even though it's cold it is beautiful)
6) How the Lord has challenged me and showed me areas of weakness and selfishness in my life trough Neal - so I can change
7) The provision form God in our support raising for TWR and opportunity so Him provide in such an amazing way

Those are just a few of the things in my life and on my heart lately that I'm thankful about and love having this time of year to be reminded of all that the Lord has given and taught me.