Fall in pictures

It's been awhile since my last post. Here are some pics to tide you over while I work on my next post. 

Doc was missing for four days but was found safe and sound

Ryan and I went to a ministry networking conference in Anchorage and got to stay in this beautiful little retreat. 

Friends of ours joined us for the weekend which included skeet shooting. 

Blood draws on the does to check for pregnancy. Sure enough!  Baby goats due in December. 

JJ lost his favorite stuffy blanket due to an unfortunate run in with a light bulb. 

I started my first IV!

Girls night Pirate murder mystery party. Argh. 

Silly kiddos wearing daddy's pants stuffed with beach balls lol

Broken? Sprained?  Naomi fell over a log that froze into the ice on their first ice skating outing this year. 

Sure enough it's fractured. Five weeks in a cast. 

Snow beautiful long anticipated snow. 

11 years old! Where does the time go??

Happy birthday to our beautiful girl!  She is so much fun to be around.  This year we were so thrilled when she requested to be baptized by her dad!  She is a talented horse rider and loves to drive four wheelers and snowmachines with her best friend Madison. She had a faithful side kick in her Bernese mountain dog Bentley. She bakes a mean brownie and is quickly learning how to be a responsible babysitter for her siblings. Happy Birthday big girl!  We love you!

Birthday girl

Natalie Anne came into our lives on a Saturday afternoon in August nine years ago. She is a beautiful girl full of energy and spirit. Natalie loves to do gymnastics and imagine fairies in the woods. She loves kittens and is a good babysitter. She asked earlier this year is she could be baptized. This past Sunday together with her sisters she was baptized in the chilly Index lake in the cold rain. Happy birthday Natalie. Daddy and I love you and are so proud of the young lady you are becoming. 

Summer Camp

This summer all three of the girls attended Bible Camp. Nat and Bella went to Frontier or TeePee camp.

Naomi went to Ranch camp or Horse camp and went through her first level of CHA. We are so thrilled for our kids to experience camp here with the wonderful summer staff we always have here. 

Visitors

This summer we were thrilled when Ryan's brother Matthew and his wife Christy came for a visit. The kids were wildly surprised and needless today very excited!

We had a great time reacquainting ourselves with each other. We did some sight seeing and some hiking and plenty of adventuring on four wheelers. Thanks guys for taking the time to come visit. It sure was a highlight this summer. 

Preparing for winter

It's what we do in the summertime. Prepare for months of winter. Cutting firewood to keep warm, canning fruits and vegetables during the months of flavorless fruits and veggies.  Here are a few pics of the fruits of these labors. Rhubarb is plentiful especially because the moose don't bother it so rhubarb jam and frozen rhubarb and rhubarb mustard were on the list this year. 

One month

What can happen in one month?  Well here is a photo rundown...

April 2013 Newsletter

...this is the newsletter that gets emailed out to those on our email list.  I apologize for the odd placement and fonts, it was a copy and paste thing.  Please let me know if you'd like to be on our list and are not.

James 1:2-3

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,  knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

Here in Alaska we are still deeply seated in winter with on only the plans for summer camp giving us a glimmer of spring.  We have been wearing hats, mittens, and boots for 7 months now!  This year has been a blur of activity so far.  Frozen pipes, flooded conference housing, maintenance upkeep at camp, a broken leg, school activities, gymnastics, Awanas, leading worship, snowmachine trips, tubing, ice skating, snow clearing, firewood hauling, etc. have been the normal run of activities this winter.  

One way Rachel is finding to connect in ministry in our community is by being a medic on our First Response Ambulance Crew.  Some intensive training to complete Rachel’s internship period (78 hrs in 2 weeks via 12-15 hr shifts) prompted her mom to come for an unscheduled last minute visit and to help with childcare over spring break.  We had a wonderful time visiting and the kids loved getting reacquainted with Nana.  It was fun to introduce her to winter in Alaska.  The kids had a great time over spring break with her cooking and doing different projects.  What a blessing she was to us!

Update!

In our last newsletter we asked for your help to get new batteries for our alternative power source that our house uses.  We also asked for contributions toward getting more efficient lights and bulbs to put in our house to make the power that we have go farther. 

Thank you for your prayers and your gifts.  We were able to get approval from the camp to get batteries to replace our worn out ones.  We also have ordered (with your help) LED lights from Ruud Lighting in Racine, WI which will be a huge improvement on how much power we will need to use for lighting in our house!  Thanks so much!

- the Cotes

In March, Ryan had an opportunity to represent VBC in supporting another local ministry.  Kingdom Air Corps is a ministry that trains pilots to fly “bush”.   In the summertime KAC operates a fly in Bible Camp in the Brooks Range, north of the Arctic Circle.  The children that attend are flown in from surrounding remote villages, all of which are inaccessible by any road system.  Ryan and a group of other men, including a friend of ours who flew in from Northern Wisconsin, hauled Avgas and building materials up to the camp’s site.  Ryan drove the camp’s semi up the Dalton Hwy, north of the Arctic Circle to Prospect Creek.  This is the start of a winter road which they took to Bettles.  From here they made trips on snowmachines and freight sleds 40 miles to the camp on Crevice Creek.  Over the course of a week, they first broke trail, and then they made multiple trips in to the camp site and back out to the semi trailer hauling sleds full of materials and tanks of fuel.  The men slept in trailers, converted with bunk beds and a wood stove.  The first night there the temperatures were around -40 degrees Fahrenheit.  The verse at the top of the letter was the theme of their trip.  Amidst various mechanical, physical and temperature related trials, Ryan and the other men felt the Lord’s presence and protection and enjoyed some phenomenal Northern Lights displays.  

The kids are keeping busy with school, Awanas and various outdoor activities.  

Natalie loves to do gymnastics and has been invited to move up to the next level of training.  

Naomi still loves to ride horses and is showing a natural talent for playing the guitar.  She is also fearless on the snowmachine and loves to ice skate and play hockey.  

Isabella and Natalie take piano lessons and show varying levels of annoyance with practice...”what?  We have to practice more than one time??”  They also love to ice skate and sled down our steep driveway.  

We had some excitement this winter when Jeremiah decided to climb onto the roof of their tree fort.  He lost his footing and fell about 20 feet down landing on his feet.  He ended up fracturing his tibia on his left leg and had to be in a cast for four weeks.  We praise the Lord that he didn’t land on his head or neck and that his injuries were as minimal as they were!  He is back to being as active as ever. 

With summer being somewhat imminent, and taking into account that we live on the edge of a lake we are looking forward to swimming lessons for all of the kids this May.  

Signs of Spring

We are now basking in sunshine, glorious sunshine for at least 8 hrs daily. In Alaska it seems its all or nothing and boy am I ever enjoying the all! I was given some tomato starts from a friend and thought my spring fever would be appeased by repotting the starts. I just love the smell of dirt and tomato plants!! Jeremiah decided that it was warm enough to take his toys outside on the porch on a blanket to play. A preview of days to come...

Spending a day in Anchorage with my mom

Mom and I headed into Anchorage yesterday for a fun day of shopping and hanging out before she headed back to Wisconsin this morning. We visited many consignment shops and little hole in the wall boutiques and had lunch at a lovely little cafe called Crush. I had the most wonderful grilled vegetable and chèvre sandwich and we shared a creamy creme brûlée for dessert. It was great to spend some time together doing what we both love to do... Shop!! I'm sure going to miss her!