The Whirlwind

For reasons unknown to me, the blog just doesn't want to let me write above this picture, so Aimee and Elijah get to be right at the top :).

We are finally in Oregon for good! It has been SO busy since the beginning of summer, but very fun. Right after our hike on the Wonderland Trail, we landed back in Bend for two days, and then headed to the Quad Cities to pack up the rest of the stuff we had stored in Mark's parents house. Most of it was still in boxes from when we moved out of our apt in Rock Island, so it didn't take nearly as long to pack it all up, but we did put in a good amount of work packing the U-Pack trailer that we went with to move out to Oregon. It's great...you pack it, they drive it...you unpack it. It's a LONG drive from IL to OR, so we were glad to put in a little work in order to have someone else drive it for us! We got to hang out with a bunch of great friends while we were there (and all the babies!). My parents also drove down from WI which was a nice added touch to the time there.

After IL, we landed in Bend, had two days to pack up our apt there and we moved over to Aumsville. We landed here on Friday, and Saturday I flew to IN for the start of my MDiv program through IWU. After a week there (and some GREAT time with Christin and the Summers'), I was back in Aumsville and ready to dive into the church and unpacking. So, you can see why updating the blog didn't really happen for a few weeks!

It's been great so far. The people have been awesome at helping us settle in, and we've gotten so many fresh vegetables! Everyone has a garden here on top of the fact that it's a huge agricultural area. We even got to do U-Pick blueberries today. Yum. I can't wait to have my own garden next summer!

Virginia and Oliver

Jess and Amber

Jamie and Oliver

Thad and Will...sorry Steph...we didn't get you in the picture too!

Steve and David

Jess and Liz

Jess and Lincoln...I just love the look he has on his face!

The fam

Mark after the trailer was all packed up and the walls in place.

Silver Falls State Park...just 15 minutes from our house! Mom, you'll love this one! Lots of gorgeous waterfalls to see when you come visit!

We had the great pleasure to drop our friends Paul and Kerry Kind off at Elk Lake. They are doing a section of the PCT this week. We got to spend a couple days with Kerry touring the Salem area as well. They are walking an incredible section of trail!

We picked 7.5 lbs of blueberries! Yum!

and we have no air conditioning...

at least it's not humid!

The Wonderland Trail

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind. The Schmerse's (the in-laws) were back in town for a few days on there way back to IL, and we got to spend some fun time with them sighseeing. We headed down to Crater Lake, which was very fun and beautiful. We also got to see Smith Rock State Park, Tumalo Falls, and we took the ski lift up to Pine Martin Lodge at Mt. Bachelor to take in the view. Mark and I also climbed South Sister and headed over to Salem for a day to connect with Carmen, the senior pastor of Mountain View who is leaving. We had a great time getting to know him and his family, and he was more than helpful in showing us around and filling us in on the inner workings of the church (technical and otherwise).

Soon after the Schmerse's headed home, I finished up my work, and we headed out for a week to hike the Wonderland Trail that circles Mt. Rainier. It was a beautiful trail, but a lot of work. There is a lot of elevation gain and loss (20,000 ft total!), and we spent the first two full days in a cloud with misty rain. Most of the week was gorgeous, and the views were amazing!

The trail was well marked at each junction, and every once in awhile a sign showed up in places where there was still snow that helped reassure us we were headed in the right direction.

Beautiful wildflowers!

Hiking up Emerald Ridge in a cloud.

Most of the time there were bridges over the creeks, but every so often they hadn't gotten one fixed yet, and we would have to walk a big log. Many of them wash out each year and need to be replaced. Luckily we only had to ford one creek!

Misty, cloudy, forest.

Ipsut Pass.

There were two large suspension bridges that crossed over the Carbon River and Tahoma Creek. They are both glacial creeks...this one is the Carbon Creek Bridge.

The end of the Carbon Glacier. It was really cool to hike up next to the glaciers, because you could hear them popping every so often and see rocks falling off the end. It reminds you that it really is moving.

Close up of the Emmons Glacier.

Cooking in camp. Boy was I happy to have a tent on this trip! It was so nice to be able to get in and not worry about the bugs if I wanted to keep my sleeping bag open a bit at night. Also, the mosquitos weren't bad in too many places, but it was so nice to be able to get in and know they weren't coming under the tarp!

Heading up to Panhandle Gap. One of the few places I used an ice axe.

If you look closely at the snow slope (zoom in!) there are mountain goats!

The snow fields past Panhandle Gap and headed toward our camp at Indian Bar. You can see our tracks through the snow behind Mark and down to the right.

Mark hanging our food bags on the bear poles. We only saw a couple bears the whole trip, and those from a distance. We never had a problem with them in camp.

Martha Falls. The spray from this falls felt like air conditioning as we hiked by. It was 80 degrees or so and we were climbing, so we just stood there and soaked in the spray!

Rainier and Reflection Lakes.

Here we are in the Nisqually River Basin a couple short miles from Longmire and our finish of the trail!

A celebratory burger at the Copper Creek Inn. We ate here after our attempt at climbing Rainier a few years ago, so it was fun to return to a familiar place!

We were one of the first groups to finish the whole trail this season, and had a great time doing so. Now it's time to start packing up...moving time soon and then I'm off to IN for school!

Moving...Again!

We moved to Bend knowing that it might be temporary. We had been planning on going to seminary this fall, and just wanted a cool place to live. As we've lived in Bend, we've been praying and processing and honestly, the verdict has fluctuated all over the place from staying in Bend to going to seminary to going into ministry again.

Four to Six weeks ago we prayerfully decided to put out Mark's resume to some local churches. We had been praying about going to seminary, but weren't feeling 100% about going to Duke or Azusa, which had been the plan. We had been hearing about IWU's new MDiv program, which could be done onsite or online, and so as Mark put out his resume, I put in my application for the online program. You have to go to IWU for the first 2 weeks of August, but other than that, the whole program is done online. The program requires you to be in ministry at least 20 hrs a week, so the hope was that Mark would get a position as a lead pastor in a smaller church, and then I could work part time (paid or unpaid), and do school. Eventually Mark will look to start school as well.

Mark's resume went out to DS's all over the country - some in the east, a lot in the midwest, and quite a few out west as well. But what ended up working out for us was a great church near Salem, OR called Mt. View Wesleyan Church. We went and cadidated a few weeks ago, and couldn't have been more welcomed by the congregation. They were pleased with us as well, and they collectively voted us in and extended an invitation to Mark to be their new Lead Pastor. We start on Aug 2, and soon thereafter, I will leave to do my first 2 week stint at IWU. We are really excited and are looking forward to beginning our life and ministry with this great group of people in Aumsville. The great thing is that, although we will have to go back to IL to move all our stuff from there, it is only 2 hrs from Bend (in good weather), so we still have great access to the mts and all they have to offer.

Thanks to all who prayed for us and gave advice through this process. We look forward to seeing what God has in store for us and for our church!

Parents Visit

My parents came out to visit last week for 5 days or so. They had never been to Oregon before, and Mark and I hadn't gotten to do much of the touristy stuff around the Bend area yet, so we had a great time showing them around, trying out the local restaurants, and seeing the sights. It was a bit overcast with rain forcasted for just about every day, but luckily the rain held off and didn't hinder our days at all.

Jess and the parents at Benham Falls. The falls here is more of a long cascade...nothing too dramatic, but still pretty. And we could hike up to this viewpoint to get a head-on view of the falls.

We walked a lot this day...along with hiking to Benham Falls, we also walked a mile back into the Lava River Cave - a lava tube that is quite big, but gets pretty small toward the end. This is my dad about as close to the end as we got. We weren't up for crawling.

We also walked around the Newberry Crater Monument. There were some shorter trails that wound through the lava fields, which were pretty cool. We also drove up to the top of Lava Butte (behind us), which gave a great view of the surrounding area and the mts.

If you look closely to the top of the cliff, you'll see, mom, dad, and Jess overlooking Benham Falls.

We made our way over to Tumalo Falls one day as well. Mark and I hadn't ever taken the makeshift trail over to the bottom of the falls, so it was cool to get that close.

Mom and Dad up at Bachelor standing on snow in warm weather. This doesn't happen in WI! :)

We spent one afternoon canoeing at Elk Lake for a couple of hours. We got a pretty good tour of most of the lake, and pretty good views of South Sister and Mt. Bachelor as well!

Mom and Mark canoeing with Bachelor in the background.

Devil's Lake is just off the highway back toward Elk Lake. It's hard to tell even in this picture, but parts of it are an incredible shade of green.

We had such a great time, and my parents were excited to do some things they don't get to do in the midwest (lava caves!). Maybe next time we can coerce them into white water rafting ;).

Goodbye Friends

We first met Stephanie and Ryan at church one morning. We had just decided to start attending our church, and during our 5-min. break between the music and the message, they introduced themselves. Then, after the service was over they said, "Hey, we're having a Christmas party tonight if you want to come." And we did. And we hit it off right away. We got asked all evening, "how do you know Stephanie and Ryan?" and I got to say, "we don't really! we met them this morning!" It was really fun! They quickly became great friends. We had a lot in common, but as it turns out, they had applied to the peace corps a year or so before, and were waiting to find out what country they might be going to. So, quite excitedly, and also quite sadly, we said goodbye to them recently as they headed out for a two year stint in Mongolia. Yes, Mongolia :). Even though we hadn't known them too long, we became good friends fast, and we will miss them tremendously. Good Luck friends. We will miss you, but are excited for what is ahead! Keep in touch!

Summer in Bend

Balloons Over Bend was last week in the Old Mill District. Apparently hot air balloons go up in the mornings but it was too windy this year. We didn't get down to see the balloons because I was working, but we went down on a sunday afternoon and they still had festivities going on....vendors, blow up jumpies for kids, and sidwalk art. Here's a taste of the artwork...it was pretty cool!

Kids could even join in the fun!