Ruthie turned four years old today! We can't believe how blessed we are to have such a beautiful and kind daughter...we already see the Lord working in her life to draw her to Himself. Thank you Lord for our Ruthiebelle!
We were eating dinner and Ruthie wanted to make sure she had butter and garlic salt on her spaghetti...when I told her I put some on earlier she said with injustice, "But I don't feel the butter and I don't feel the garlic salt." (feel=taste)
Below: Ruthie asked for a tea party birthday cake this year.
Since there isn't a store here that carries some of what I needed to make the cake I had to improvise a bit. I also forgot to pick up food coloring while in Fairbanks so I had to call someone at church and borrow theirs.
After I had referred to Nae as "Naomi Cheryl" she said, "Why I Grandma Cheryl?"
Below: Shortly after we ate birthday cake we got a call that some moose meat was "up for grabs." We took advantage of this and attended a cutting party...Brad spend over 20 hours cutting and processing meat (I helped for only a few hours). He stayed up till 1:30am two nights in a row working on moose meat. But thankfully we now have some meat in the freezer which is a blessing.
Our village is quite unusual in that it has a swimming pool (not sure if many other villages do). A guy from our church offered to do swimming lessons for the younger kids in the village. We've been going for a week and Ruthie loves it.
Our neighbors (three houses down the road) found bear scat in the field in front of their house.
We took our daily walk today and it was about 30 degrees out...I told Brad I was chilly and he mentioned it will get 90 degrees colder eventually (thanks Love, very encouraging). :)
There's been about three men in the village who have been stealing vehicles at night, driving them around and crashing (wrecking) them. Lately I wake up and check outside to see if our car is still here. It's funny because it's not like someone can steal a car and drive away with it...there are no roads leading out of town. Apparently these guys are just bored and want some action/excitement in their lives. Our teammate's car was stolen and wrecked last Sunday night...when Ruthie heard about what happened she said, "Those guys need Jesus!"
This past week our car's battery died. I was a bit discouraged because it's our only means of transportation and Brad was subbing most of the week. Getting a battery here takes weeks (and is expensive with Hazmat). Anyway, God is gracious and a guy from church just happened to have the right battery. Our hood doesn't close because it's not exactly the right size, but at least our vehicle runs. :) Friends from Anchorage will be flying out in October so they offered to bring us a battery that will fit. I am very thankful the Lord provided us with a battery here in the village and that we won't have to walk everywhere with it being so cold out now. Praise the Lord!