this one is overdue...

Well, since I last blogged... life has been spinning...spinning so fast I find myself a little more forgetful, a little more haphazard, a bit discombobulated, at times I'm sure I'm dreaming....Let me try and fill you in on the past....two months or so??

Tim arrived back safely from Guatemala...and has been caught up ever since in the whirlwind of learning his job as Maintenance Supervisor at Cross Road...lots of stress with anything and everything from sewer work to running fire drills...

I've learned I  have a love for flying in small planes...

 

Tim and I agreed to become fiances with the plan to wed on Sept. 8th...
For the unfolding scoop on wedding details (much is still in the works) & for the engagement story (there were fireworks)...check out slomaradke.ourwedding.com!

 My lovely friend Kerri came to visit...'twas a much loved and cherished time catching up and sharing this crazy Alaska world with my sister!

I discovered I have a keen affection for porcupines...gotta love their waddle....

Nightshift, dayshift...work, work, work....

Tim and I bought a beater of a truck together....his name is Big Red...

Awana finished up for the year....

Gulkana chapel youth group (CLAY) is still struggling to draw in youth..we are changing the day, but we are sticking with it...

Student nurses from Cedarville are here to visit and learn...hard to believe that I have been out of school for an entire year now...

I'm working in the lab this month... And got to fly out to the historical town of Kennecott to help draw labs for physicals that had to be completed for the men who work on preserving the town's buildings. This old copper mining town is crazy-full of history--artifacts and remnants of once-lived- stories abound. Back in the early 1900s...this town was once of the most advanced in all of Alaska....with running water, a hospital with xrays and with a population bigger than Glennallen within it's little hub. It's in the middle of no where...surrounded by mountains and cozy close to a glacier & it is like no other place I've ever been...when J.P Morgan or one of his associates decided to pull the plug on the mine the last train gave the town thirty minutes or so (rumor has it) for everyone to scramble aboard...leaving Kennecott a ghost town that has intrigued people ever since...

 

Millie and Dede

  

An airplane view!

I've learned that planning a wedding isn't quite as romanticized as I'd hoped when I was twelve.... 

But it is fun to try on silly fluffy dresses...

Tim is growing a garden...

I got sicky last week with a cough and a bucket of snot in my head that seems to absorb all my energy...

And leaves have finally decided to grace the branches they've been hiding on for the past many months...and snow is gone! Chased my shadow down the highway yesterday in an attempt to run & was delighted to see the first of the wildflowers making their debut!

It has been...crazy. Lots of good, lots of stress...like I mentioned before sometimes it is hard to think straight. Please keep Tim and I in your prayers as we prepare for marriage, strive to know Jesus more & to love our community well in all the day to day of life.