Trials & Changes

After a 4-month long silence, it's hard to know where to start.

Fortunately, most of you are somewhat aware of what has been going on in our lives recently - Jonathan's health issues, all the flights into Anchorage, ER visits and doctor visits, etc. Most of you are probably clueless about what's actually wrong with him, but we're all in the same boat there.

I won't go into the details of his various puzzling symptoms or all the tests and "diagnoses" we've had. Suffice it to say, we've gotten "answers" but we haven't been completely satisfied with any of them. None of them really fit. Of course, his symptoms change so often that hardly anything has a chance to fit before something else comes up.

Last week we hit a wall when we had to take another last-minute flight to the ER, this time for chest and abdominal pain. At the hospital they did an EKG, a blood test and even gave him something for acid reflux, just in case. Later, he had a CT scan for his abdominal pain. Everything came back normal. His doctor didn't have any suggestions any more. He referred him to a GI doctor which will take weeks or more to get in with.

So, we sat down and talked about a difficult decision that has been on our minds for a while: going back to Georgia.

It isn't a new idea; of course it has been in the back of our minds all along, but we really didn't think it would reach that point. With this last flight into Anchorage, however, we realized that we can't keep this up any longer.

We've been in Anchorage as much or more than we've been home lately, which means Jonathan isn't working and we're spending extra money on hotels and meals in addition to medical care. Poor little Ethan never knows where he will be sleeping next. And as much as we love and are loved here, Port Alsworth isn't a place for sick people. Even with most modern conveniences available (except for any type of medical care whatsoever), the bush is still the bush and everything you do is more difficult in some aspect.

So, we've worked out a plan. We've arranged to have Jonathan's brother house-sit for us so that we can leave the majority of our belongings, taking only bare necessities down with us. We are hoping to be gone for only a few months, expecting to return to Port Alsworth for the start of the busy season in April or May. Until then, we will be living with Jonathan's parents, enjoying family and friends and seeking better medical care.

This hasn't been an easy decision by far; we love it here. We have a cozy house, we have sweet friends, we live in one of the most beautiful and adventurous places in the world. We've worked hard to make this home and it is now. We are heartbroken to leave it, even for a season, but it simply makes sense.

 We will be leaving very soon, catching a flight to Anchorage tomorrow and leaving Alaska on Wednesday afternoon! Every day out here has become a nerve-wracking roller-coaster with Jonathan's health and it makes no sense to prolong it now that we've made a decision.

I can't close this post without thanking you. Friends from all over the country have reached out to us. We are so grateful for the endless prayers and emails and offers of support from so many of you, even when you didn't understand what was happening. You knew we needed help and that was enough to keep you on your knees until you knew otherwise. Not many can boast such friends. How richly blessed we are!!!

When we returned home from Anchorage on Saturday we found a spotless house, our dirty dishes and laundry cleaned, cookies and a sweet note waiting and dinner on the way! I cried. It was so much what we needed. We are loved and we are not alone.

 

July

It's salmon season! 

July has flown by (almost literally with a pilot-husband ;) but we've had time to make some pretty big Alaskan memories (is there any other kind?).

Probably the most memorable has been our first salmon season as residents! 

Because we have now lived in Alaska for over a year and are considered residents, we are allowed to net as many salmon as we can eat in a year...for free!

 A salmon that had been swiped at by a bear. Rare sight!

We were able to share a net with some friends and took turns picking the net on different days since none of us were free every night.

Our first evening was a beautiful one! The lake was calm and the sun was out. The other two nights were a little wet and chilly, but that just added to the experience. :D

Overall we harvested about 42 salmon, with our biggest catch being 22 in one night. 

I had absolutely no idea what we were doing, so I was very glad that Jonathan did! :) After the first night I caught on and was filleting right alongside Jonathan and our good friend Jael who netted with us. :)

Filleting salmon wasn't the only new skill I mastered with this experience; we went all out and bought a pressure canner to can our own salmon with. I'd never actually canned before, but it turned out not to be quite as intimidating as I had thought. Time-consuming, yes, but still relatively simple. Now we have 3-dozen Ball jars stuffed with yummy salmon to enjoy all winter long!

Aren't they so pretty?

We didn't can all of our salmon - the majority of it we froze in meal-size packages for easy dinners.

One night of netting = sink-full of salmon fillets

This is about a 1/4 of the salmon we froze.

Lots of hard work, lots of fun, and it pays back all year long! We are so blessed.

June Date Night

It's hard to believe June is over and gone and we are halfway through the summer up here!

We've had a bit of an odd summer, first with nearly an entire month of sunshine and warm temperatures, followed by a month of chilly rain. Currently we are enjoying a mix of both and the forecast for the 4th looks spectacular!

Jonathan and I were able to go on our first baby-less date recently, compliments of my friend Rebecca Hadden who is working at Tanalian Bible Camp this summer. She graciously offered to babysit with her spare time and gave us a chance to try out the new cafe/coffee shop/general store here in Port Alsworth - the very first of it's kind!

After our dinner we got to try out the boat we are one-third owners in and had an amazing time just boating around the lake for a bit. We were blessed with a quiet evening and the lake, usually rather bumpy, was quite calm.

Here are a few pictures: (Fun fact - these were all taken between 11-12 at night!)

Leaving Hardenburg Bay - such a perfect night!

Bye-bye Port Alsworth

Out on the lake

My handsome captain.

My new dream home. ;)

Let's call it a night.

What a wonderful date night! That memory is definitely a keeper. How blessed we are to be living in one of the most beautiful spots on earth!

Ethan - 4 months!

For my birthday Jonathan bought me a new 50mm lens for my Canon Rebel T3.  I've heard wonderful things about this kind of lens and it sure hasn't disappointed me! Here are a few of the most adorable photos Ethan has given me recently. :)

I can't believe our sweet little boy is 4 months already! He is growing in leaps and bounds and changes every day. Currently he is enjoying experimenting with his voice...loudly. He has discovered the world at his fingertips and loves to feel Momma's hair or Daddy's scratchy face.

At his 4-month checkup, Ethan weighed 13lbs, 14oz and was 25" long. I'm definitely starting to feel that when I tote him around in my Moby wrap. :)

We're so excited that Jonathan's brother, Joseph, has moved up to live with us and work at Lake Clark Air! Ethan has finally met one of his six uncles and he and Joseph are already buddies.

In August we're planning to join my (Jenna's) family for a vacation in Wisconsin. We can't wait to finally introduce Ethan to more of his family!

May Celebrations!

It seems like we have been celebrating nearly nonstop for the past few months; that must be one reason that this is my favorite time of year!

To begin with, I forgot to post about our one-year anniversary back in March! It has been one year chock full of transitions: marriage, moving across the continent, pregnancy, new baby...just to name a few! It's been a year full of transitions, but even more abounding in blessings and grace! Looking back, we wouldn't change a thing.

This May we celebrated Mother's Day, my birthday, and one full year in Port Alsworth!

We can hardly believe it's already been a year since we packed up everything we owned in this rig

and drove 4,700 miles in 10 days! It definitely was the trip of a lifetime.

This birthday was spent a thousand times better than my last one was: tearfully trying to navigate Anchorage alone in our manual transmission Ford Ranger, whilst Jonathan was flown out to Port Alsworth, last minute, for pilot training.  It sounds dramatic (it was), but we get lots of laughs out that story...now ;)

This year was the first birthday I've been able to spend with Jonathan, so that automatically made it a win! Plus, I had the most adorable baby to snuggle and play with. To top it all, Jonathan baked me a homemade Boston cream cake! It was even better than it sounds. :)

Last Saturday, we attended the Fifth Annual Sourdough Fly-In, here in Port Alsworth. It's a flying competition hosted by Lake and Pen Air, complete with a cookout, a live band and, of course, airplanes! 

Ethan, unfortunately, wasn't all too thrilled about spending a day away from his cozy bed and familiar surroundings (we're going to be working on his flexibility a little more...) so most of my time was spent trying to console him instead of taking pictures. I do have a few I can share from last year though. ;)

In the competition they have categories such as: Spot Landings (where the pilots must land as close as possible to an orange line), Pizza Drop (where a passenger drops an object out of the low-flying plane, as close as possible to a cone) and Short Take Off (where the pilots compete to see who can get off the ground in the shortest amount of runway)

Perhaps you're still wondering why it's called the "Sourdough" Fly-In? Our fun isn't over yet! Sunday morning, before church, there is a fundraiser breakfast hosted by Tanalian Bible Camp where they serve sourdough pancakes!

All in all, the Sourdough Fly-In is a super-fun event that, I think, really captures the spirit of Port Alsworth. If you ever decide to visit, come in May!

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

First of all, let me tell you: This was my first Mother's Day (as a mother!) and I have never appreciated all the hard work my mother(s) have put in over the years as much as I do this year!

That being said, I never understood the depth of joy to be found in motherhood, either! :)

On this Mother's Day, my husband outdid himself. My request was not to cook any food on Sunday, and since we usually have frozen pizza for Sunday lunch I was thinking..."How 'bout you stick it in the oven and wash the pan for me?" But Jonathan and I were thinking on very different levels.

Sunday morning we woke up to the fantastic aroma of barbecued beef in the crock pot! He still won't tell me his recipe, but it was amazing. He also cooked up some homemade french fries to go along with it. YUM.

At church, all the kids gathered around their mother and passed a mic around, telling us what they appreciated about their moms. I think the general consensus was that we're all glad our mothers never poisoned us with their food. ;) I'm pretty sure Ethan cooed a 'Happy Mother's Day' to me too. :D

After church and lunch, we hopped on our four-wheeler (yippee!) and made a quick drive down to Tanalian River to enjoy the lovely weather.

Of course we also called home later to wish our own fantastic mothers a very happy day as well. :)

To end the day, Jonathan submitted himself to a (rather cheesy) chick flick of my choice. :)

I'm pretty sure he can't top this day for my birthday...but since it will be a workday anyway, this fantabulous day counts toward that too. *wink*

We had a marvelous weekend last...well, weekend and boy, was it well-timed. Summertime busy-ness has been gearing up for a while now and this week it definitely seems to be in full swing. 

While Jonathan is working such long days, and I am home waiting for the baby to wake up (he sleeps a lot!) it can be easy to focus on all the time we don't get to spend together, but we've already learned that that is not a good option. Instead, God has been teaching us to value every little moment we do get to spend together. 

Jonathan gets an hour lunch break and we do a lot of talking business (finances and plans) during that time so that when he gets off of work, we can just relax together. I often go and visit him at the hangar, so he can see Ethan while he's awake and smiley. Those five or ten minutes we snag together help me especially when I'm feeling stir-crazy or stressed. 

God is really using life in Port Alsworth to teach us how to value relationships and small blessings, instead of the availability of things.

Back to our marvelous weekend! Sunshine has been abundant in Port Alsworth these past few weeks and oh - how we have enjoyed it! On Saturday Jonathan helped me clean out the flower bed and fixed the four-wheeler we bought from a friend a few weeks ago. We now have transportation around town, which is a ginormous blessing! Walking everywhere is only a novelty for so long. ;)

We are doubly grateful for all the sunshine lately since our dryer decided to go psycho on us and start shredding our clothes. I am immensely grateful that it didn't decide to do this in the dead of winter and that God has provided a clothesline and sunlight to dry our clothes for us. There isn't anything much better than the smell of line-dried clothes. :) We should also have a working dryer pretty soon, things just take longer by default out here.

Ethan is growing like a weed and I can't believe he is already 12 weeks old!

Two days old and ten weeks old. :)

He's just starting to be big enough to try out his jumper....and he hasn't decided what he thinks about it quite yet. :)

He knows what he thinks of his daddy though...he's the greatest! 

Cloth Diaper Review

I didn't always intend to do cloth diapers with my babies. Growing up, I watched my mom slosh poopy  diapers around in the toilet and thought "yuck! I never want to do that!"

Quite honestly, if any of the things that did happen last year hadn't happened, I doubt I would be using cloth now. But, I did marry a man who isn't afraid to do harder things if they're better, we did move to bush Alaska, and I have toughened up considerably since we moved.

So, we decided to go the cloth diaper-route. There are a lot more options now than there were during my mom's child-rearing years and it took a lot of research (read: consulting with my next-door neighbor who uses cloth and has already done all the research)  to decide on one method. In the end, I decided to go with the exact same system my wonderful neighbor uses - pre-folds with diaper-covers! In particular, Cloth-eez pre-folds with Thirsties diaper-covers.

I chose this system because 1) It's similar to the one my mother used and is therefore, somewhat familiar 2) it seemed to be the most economical and 3) it is pretty simple to use and clean.

Basically, every time I change his diaper I toss the dirty diaper in my handy diaper pail (with a washable bag insert) and grab a clean one. Unless he's wet/pooped on the diaper-cover, then can I reuse it, fold the diaper over his bottom and snap the cover in place. Super-easy! Plus, the covers are adjustable, so they grow with him!

When it's time to wash the diapers (about every third day for me) I toss them in the washer, prewash them to get the poopy off, then add some bleach and detergent to the wash cycle and let it go! When the rinse cycle is done, I can throw them in the dryer and they'll come out fluffy and white, ready to go to work saving me money.

What I love about my cloth diapers:

~I hear a "ka-ching!" every time I change him. One more free diaper change!

~I can use them for any more babies that may come in the future (More ka-chings!).

~They're tons easier to use than I expected. Seriously, it's hardly any more difficult than disposables.

~They smell good when they come fresh out of the dryer.

~They make the best burp cloths!

~The trash guys don't have to deal with our kid's dirty, smelly diapers (Living out in the bush, all of our trash gets burned…yeah, gross!)

~I don't have to worry about running out of diapers while living out here with no accessible stores (that's a biggie for me).

What I don't love about my cloth diapers:

~They don't last as long as disposables. If I don't stay on top of keeping him in fresh diapers, he'll wet or poop out. As long as I don't forget to change him at every feeding, or when I notice him pooping, we're usually good. But we put him in disposables at night, and those definitely last longer.

~Hand washing the covers. They're machine-washable and I suppose I could throw them in with our clothes, since I only have six and they don't make up an entire load by themselves, but something about that thought just doesn't sit well… Besides, I'm coming up with a pretty good system for hand washing now. :) (Update: I only have to hand wash them when he poops because the elastic parts stain. If you don't mind stained elastic, it's really not a problem.)

~Using them when we go out. We do keep disposables in the house for emergencies and for nights. But it's terribly tempting to put him in disposables when we leave the house so I don't have to worry about him pooping out or forgetting to wash his diapers when we get home. (Speaking of which…I think there's still one in the diaper bag as we speak!)

Really, that's all I have to complain about, and when I consider all the benefits, those complaints seem even more insignificant.

Cloth obviously isn't for everyone, and it's not about being tougher or more "green" (though there is something to be said for that). Motherhood is difficult and it's really about what circumstances God has put you in, and what works best in those circumstances.

Check out these websites and resources for more help:

Amazon diaper-sprayer search  - (for when they start eating solids and you need to rinse off dirty diapers before washing them.)

Green Mountain Diapers.com

Different Kinds of Cloth Diapers

Cloth Diaper Reviews

Video Tutorial on How to Use Prefolds

More on How to Use Prefolds

FAQ on Cloth Diapers

Feel free to comment and ask me more!

One Month (Already!?)

Ethan is one-month old!

It feels cliché to say it, but I can't help marveling at how fast he is changing and growing - They really do grow up so fast!

The picture on the left was taken just one week before the second one!

One month of parenting - what do we have to show for it?

We have some red eyes. We have some adorable pictures. We have a new appreciation for everyone who has done this before (!).

So what is our first impression of parenthood?

It's easier and harder than it looks. Harder in ways we didn't expect, but easier in other ways because we are just so in love with our precious little boy.

For example: sitting up with a screaming baby until 3AM is harder than I imagined, because I never imagined what being sleep-deprived for weeks beforehand feels like. But when he finally falls asleep smiling in my spit-up stained arms, I feel ready to do it all over again.

We have been blessed beyond measure by all of our friends and family - sending gifts, cards, bringing meals, praying and rejoicing with us! Thank you all so much for your loving support.

Love, Jenna

Introducing...

I am very excited to introduce to you our very own

Ethan Mark!

Today is his actual due date but an ultrasound showed that little Ethan wasn't doing as well in the womb as we would have liked, so labor was induced on the 11th and he was born 17 hours later, perfectly healthy at 6 lbs, 4 oz and 19 1/2 ".

Today we are finally home again, ready to ease back into a daily routine with the help of my mom and sister.

Jonathan and I are both completely in love with our son and are soaking up all the snuggle-time we can get. 

I'm sure all the parents out there will remember how overwhelming it feels to bring a newborn home for the first time, and bringing such a tiny, helpless person out to rural Alaska only amplifies that feeling. 

Being a mother is a constant reminder that I am just as dependent on God as my son is on me and 

that that is exactly where I want to be.

Looking forward to sharing our adventures in parenthood with you! :)

Firsts and Lasts

Last weekend was kind of a big milestone in my mind. For one, it was our last weekend at home just the two of us. (Technically, Baby Wright was right there with us but we're not counting that yet. ;) For two, it was the first time I've flown with Jonathan since we were dating!

It was a gorgeous day out even with the looming fog.

 Tanalian peeking out through the fog as we come in to land.

One year has certainly brought a lot of firsts and lasts for us. It can be an overwhelming feeling sometimes (especially for a hormonal, overtired pregnant woman), navigating all of these changes, but it is also an enormously exciting time as we wait to watch God turn the next page, knowing that our story is being written by a Master.

"Being manifested that you are a letter of Christ...written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts. 

And such confidence we have through Christ, toward God.

Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, 

Who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit brings life."

2 Corinthians 3:3-6