A bit of southern life

So, as a family from Alaska there are a  lot of new things, ways of life, weather and food here in the south that is not so common or familiar to us.   I am very grateful that Tyler's mom, who grew-up in TN, had a few southern recipes that she so graciously taught me and that has helped to make me feel more "at home" here.  I can make good old southern sweet tea, and I know how to enjoy fried chicken (making my own fried chicken is too much work for me).

My little kitchen helper 

I have slowly tried to incorporate some more southern foods into our meals.  I have learned to make cheesy garlic grits (not as delicious as mashed potatoes in my opinion but still not bad).   One of my favorite new dishes is skillet cornbread, it's not a sweet cornbread but with the crispy edges it's a winner.   Okra you see a lot around here.  I have heard it is even really good to blend up in cakes. This southern veggie however has intimidated me for awhile.  I tried it for the first time about a month ago as a baby food for the boys.  Okra does not work well as a pureed baby food, lesson learned. It was slimy and pasty and not at all pleasant to look at or feed to someone.  However, the boys didn't seem to mind the taste but the texture was to much for me to handle.  We won't be serving that again, at least not in the pureed form.

Okra baby food

I do know that I have had fried okra and pickled okra in restaurants, both delicious.  So I though why not try making my own pickled okra?  I finally got around to making some of my own and it is a winner!!!   So good!!!  I could sit and eat a whole jar or two on my own, I am definitely keeping my eye out for okra and making this as much as possible, delicious!!   I am planning on trying some plain frozen okra in a chocolate cake here soon, so I'll let you know what I think.

Pickled Okra

The other things that have taken some getting use to, and I'm not sure I will every really get use to them, are tornado warnings, ticks, the difference between a BBQ and a Cookout, and snakes.    The other day I was out trying to be productive and do some yard work and this little guy startled me as I leaned down to pull some weeds....

Now I know he is quite small and is a harmless black snake but seriously, I screamed and threw in the towel on the whole pulling weeds idea.  No Thanks!!!!  I don't care how small or harmless the snake is I don't want to be anywhere near it!  Tyler and the kids loved seeing it but I happily stayed on the other side of the yard and just listened to their stories about it.

That is just a brief look at some of the things that we are trying and adjusting to here in North Carolina.  It's fun to be somewhere so different from AK and yet similar in ways.  It is finally starting to feel more like home here and I do LOVE the spring weather and the huge selection of parks to go to.  The warm sunshine and the crisp cool mornings are truly ideal (and it's fun having a neighborhood full of kids that love to play together).

Neighborhood playdate in the cul-de-sac

I'll be back with more family updates soon, cause the kids are growing like crazy and life is getting even more crazy around here as the littlest ones are on the move!  

Celebrating Easter

Christ has risen, He has risen indeed!  What a wonderful weekend we had celebrating with family, friends and our church this Easter.

Tyler returned from a TWR trip late Friday night/early Saturday morning and we were so happy to have him back home.  Especially home in time to celebrate Easter together.  

I'm sure our Easter looked quite similar to most of your Easter celebrations.   Neal, was on school break and so we filled our week prior to Easter with some fun Easter traditions such as egg decorating and going to the store to pick out some easter baskets and little gifts.  As well as a trip to pick-up some food for the Easter dinner we were hosting for a few friends.

Love having all my happy helpers with me at the store

Gwen & Neal's Egg creations 

It was a bit hard for the kids to have to wait to play with the new toys and baskets we purchased 'til Easter but once they were put away I think they forgot about them until Sunday morning.

3-legged race

We enjoyed a fun church picnic on Saturday evening.  Even amidst the rain and cooler weather much of the church showed up for the fun, games, fellowship and food.  Tyler may have been trying to adjust from a bit of jet lag but that didn't stop him or Neal from participating in the games and doing quite well in the 3-legged race (until the string tying their legs together broke).



The kids were up early on Sunday morning excited to do a small easter egg hunt and enjoy some candy before getting ready for Church.  This was the first year Gwen was able to hunt for her own easter eggs and she did a great job finding them all and even helped Neal find a few of his eggs too.

We spent the later half of our Sunday morning worshiping and fellowshipping with our church family.   Coffee, doughnuts, singing together, and hearing the word preached was an encouragement and good reminder of the great gift and sacrifice of Christ for our sins.  What a wonderful Savior and a blessed redeemer we have!  

We ended our day with dinner shared with some dear friends from church and TWR.  There was lots of laughter, games and food.  You can't celebrate a holiday properly without lots of food, right?   (We enjoyed our time so much we didn't remember to take any pictures of the food or company).  

We are so grateful and blessed by the friends the Lord has brought into our lives here in NC.  While we are not close in proximity to our families we feel very loved by the "family" that God has blessed us with from our church and TWR while we are here in NC.    

Happy Easter!!!     

Turning 6

So we now have a 6 year old in our house!   Neal being six means that he is more then half way done with kindergarten, reading, and always full of energy.   We had a fun little party for him on his actual birthday this year with of few of his closest friends.  

We all had a great time celebrating and it was a lot of fun to get to meet some of his friends from school who he talks about all the time.   The morning was filled with laughter, pizza, cake and presents.

It was quite cold outside for his birthday, in the low 30's.  But with friends, jackets and lightsabers the kids didn't mind the cold.

Also, when you are having so much fun I guess everyone is to busy to eat, so we had just a bit of pizza left over...

Some of Neal's favorite things at the age of 6:

1. Star Wars
2. Riding his bike
3. Reading chapter books with mom or dad
4. Friday night movie night ("The Music Man" is his favorite)
5. Breakfast Burritos
6. Making people laugh

Happy Birthday to our sweet, funny, energetic, imaginative and creative boy! 

Home for the Holidays

Is it really 2016 already, and the middle of February at that?   I think it's about time I updated this blog with some of the many things we have been doing over the past several months.   I guess I'll just start back at the beginning of the holidays -- (get ready for lots of pictures)  

With our growing family and the unexpected blessing of the twins we had to change our plans for our ministry furlough, which in turn changed our plans for the holidays.  Instead of going back home to AK and WA over the summer (since the twins arrived this simmer) we decided to take a shortened furlough during ones of Neal's longer school breaks and visit our supporters and churches over the holidays.  This change of plans really was special for us because it meant that we would get to spend the holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas) back home with family. 

We not only were looking forward to seeing family and updating our supporting churches and friends about the ministry with TWR but we were also excited to finally have a long stretch of time together as a family.   Right before our furlough Tyler's travel schedule with TWR had been very busy and had traveled to over 15 different countries in the span of a few months.    So needless to say we were ready for some time together as a family, and being back home in AK was just an extra special blessing in the mix.  

We had a great time being back "home" and it felt so familiar and comfortable to us.  Our home church had a house on the church property for us to live in while we were in AK for almost 5 weeks.  This house was probably one of the biggest blessings for our family while away for so long since it allowed us to have somewhat of a normal routine to our lives and not have to be living out of suitcases.  

Lot so help feeding the babies 

A small tree for our temporary home

Loving the snow

Our evening were filled with many dinners and ministry nights with supporters and churches and our afternoon were filled with visits with friends and family.  

Ministry night sharing about TWR 

What an encouragement it was to see and reconnect with some of tour closest friends, the Lord has used the friends we still have in AK in our lives in many ways and it was refreshing and encouraging to get to sit and have coffee together again.

As close to real wildlife as we got, except for a few moose we saw in person

Fun with good friends in the snow

We also had a wonderful time with Tyler's whole family who all came back to AK for the holidays.  It was great to have his parents house filled once again with everyone, and lots and lots of kids (way more kids then last time we were all together).   Our time with family was filled with coffee, quilting, computer games, movies, lots of stories, flying and of course food, LOTS of food.

The whole Gates Family

All the Gates Grandkids 

Flying with Uncle JR 

More fun in the snow

A few days before Christmas we boarded the plane and headed down to Seattle to be with my (Laura's) family for about 10 days.  

Movie time while flying

We had a great Christmas celebrating with family and were so glad that we were able to spend some precious time with my older sister and her family before they headed back overseas for their next term in ministry.   We had lots of fun playing games, eating food, watching the kids do a Christmas play and even getting to go to Zoolights.

Gwen and her Poppa 

Grandma and Donny boy 

The cast of the Christmas play

Enjoying Zoolights

New Years day

We were gone for a total of 6 weeks and though we were away from home it felt almost like being home again.    It has been a little hard to get back into the routine of life and ministry again, but we are relying on the the Lord and remembering the encouragement and support that we received while back "home" with our support team.  Living so far away is not always easy, and I still feel at times like we are still adjusting to the transition of the twins but the time we had back home was wonderful and I am so glad that we were able to all be together for several weeks.

Birthday Girl Celebration

Last week we celebrated a birthday in our house.  Our sweet little girl, Gwendolyn, turned 2!!

We had a fun Curious George birthday with lots of fun decorations, most of which were colored and cut out by Neal.  He loved getting to choose the decorations for the party.   

We were able to have Aunt Wendy and Lauren out from Texas so it made for an extra special celebration, especially since Tyler was on a trip with TWR.  I'll just let the assortment of pictures tell the story of her birthday.   I will say that balloons and jewelry were some of her favorite birthday surprises.

Gwen has been such a joy to have in our family.  She is so sweet and kind to all her brothers.  We can already see her motherly nature as she tries to care for everyone.  She smiles and laughs all the time and can always be found following after Neal, copying everything that her big brother does.   She doesn't say much yet but can still find ways to communicate what she wants and needs.  She loves to play superhero with her brother, jump on the trampoline, brush her teeth and wear any and every pair of shoes she can find in the house, no matter who's shoes.  I can't wait to see what the next year holds for her and how she will grow and change.  

Happy Birthday sweet Gwendolyn!!