Givensmeabreak....

Well, we are back. It has been slow-going at the Givens' house! Well, for me(Ashleigh) at least. I think the jet lag really hit me pretty hard. Kraig says he was fine and seems to be so that is good. But other than that, we have been trying to get into a regular schedule. I got my coupons this past week and I am pretty excited about getting started on that again. I really missed shopping. haha I guess every girl does when she can't for a time. I know I did. I missed the thrill of getting the best deals, going to the grocery stores for just things on my lists with coupons and just organizing my coupons and setting out to have the best strategy for getting the best deals. I have missed it. I think I may have a problem. :) O well, I should be able to budget this week in order to go out to see what I can find and I am so excited about that. Kraig is back to work and so excited. He has been in inservice and meetings and getting everything ready mode so he is so r

Well, we are almost done. We are wrapping things up and getting things ready for our last Sunday service. The week started out rough when I woke up with a migraine Monday morning. So, Kraig and Hunter stained the porches all around the house. The house has turned out beautiful. I would have gotten pictures today, however it is rainy once again. So, the finished product pictures will have to wait once again. But yesterday was very productive. Today, was a lot better. We got up and went over to the church and started printing more Sunday school materials and the boys worked on some odds and ends. The church might have to move locations if the theater is sold so we have been preparing for that all summer as well as just cleaning the building up so Kraig took the conduit that was lining the ground up and Hunter worked on the sound system thing. Then, we went down to Anchorage to pick up more paper in order to finish printing things for Sunday school, Celebrate Recovery and for

I thought I would post some scenery pictures of us being tourists this week. This is Summit Lake. It is fed fully by snow and rain. It is very beautiful and clear. We were on top of the mountains and surrounded by ice capped mountains. This is from the glacier cruise we went on yesterday. It was a 5 hour tour. We saw 26 glaciers in one day. Well, not really b/c it was rainy and very, VERY cloudy but the ones we saw were beautiful! We saw Surprise Glacier which calved (where the ice fell from the side of the glacier) about 4 or 5 times. We saw many sea otters and sea lions and about 5 bald eagles. It was a sight to see! :) We had a great time in the cold, rainy weather. One of our waiters was from Chattanooga, which was really cool and we got to talk about home. :) This is Surprise Glacier. It had a lot of action the past few days, so a lot of the ice had fallen off and we were surrounded by mini icebergs. It was really cool. This picture should be first :) hahah O wel

We have been a tad busy that last few days. We are all pretty exhausted. But we have accomplished so much for the Balos'. Sunday, we had the 4th of July parade where we passed out over 1500 flyers talking about the different ministries with the church and also the carnival for Monday. So, Monday we had the carnival for the kids. We have over 50 families represented so that was a blessing. It was a great success. We were all very pleased with the outcome. In between all of these, we painted the Balos' house and passed out more flyers for the Backyard Bible club that the mission group that is here did on Tuesday and Wednesday. So, we walked the neighborhoods and put flyers on cars at Wal-Mart and Sears...we put them everywhere, or so it felt like it!!! But the house is about done being painted...all the is left is trim and touching up on areas which is a huge blessing to the family b/c it was a rough winter on their house. So, since we have worked so hard....we went out

The last few days have been interesting to say the least. It all started Thursday night, with a mission team coming in from Brownsville, TN. There are about 15 altogether and so far, they have been a huge HELP! I'm getting ahead of myself. First off, the beginning of the week Kraig and Michael got to weed-eat the theater parking lot for the carnival next week! It looks a lot better. We also got the flyers, over 2200, printed and folded, and we got the banners ready for the parade. So, once the group got here on Thursday, the plan was to paint the Balos' house. Well, it won't stop raining. Right now, we have about half the house scraped and half of it painted. It looks good. It's 2-tone. We are thinking of leaving it. 4th of July is big here, since it is a military town, so Wasilla does a big parade through town. Since it is on Sunday this year, we have moved our church service up an hour so we could go participate in the parade. We are going to decorate the van real ni

...Well...first off...I love my sister. I forgot to post this a couple of days ago. But the first photo is when Kraig and I were flying to Alaska on Tuesday, we had a layover in Houston!!! Britt came to see us for about 45 minutes! It was so wonderful to see her. She has been such an encouragement to me over the past few days...she can not know how her random text messages of prayers and verses have come at exactly the right time for me. :) God is so good. She sent me this passage a few days ago and I thought I would share it with you all as well. On a side note...please keep her in your prayers. She has pink eye...so let's pray for a quick healing. Thank you. :) Ok...1 Corinthians 1:21 - 22..:) "It is God who enables us, along with you, to stand FIRM for Christ. He has commissioned us, and He has identified us as His own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first installment that guarantees everything He has promised." Now, I don't proclaim

Well, we made it! After a beautiful wedding on Saturday, we flew home from Colorado to Georgia. We had one day to repack, clean, get everything organized and fly to Alaska. We accomplished all of that (at least I hope, I tend to forget things), and set off on our journey. We arrived Tuesday evening to chilly weather. We were so excited! We weren't sweating walking out of the parking lot. It was such a blessing! Wednesday was a pretty laid back day. Mike (pastor we're staying with) allowed us to sleep in :) and get aquainted with the time change. We moved into our nice living quarters for the next month. Thought you all would enjoy that. Mike is so graciously named it as "the Love shack" We do use the facilities in the house though so I am not completely roughing it so I am ok with that. :) We went over to the church yesterday and went through the list of things that Mike wants to accomplish while we are here. When I say church, I really mean theater. The church is lo

John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." We made it to Colorado! And I must say it is beautiful!!! I will post pictures soon once I figure it out :) But for now, you will just have to take my word for it. It is BEAUTIFUL! We are staying in Beaver Creek, CO...there are still snow-capped mountains but were we are specifically, there are green, rolling hills all around us. We can look out any window of our room and there are mountains. Breath-taking!!! God is so GLORIOUS! This verse was in my quiet time this morning. I must say it couldn't have come at a better time. God is so good like that :) I am so thankful He gave it to me today because my heart is very heavy. Tuesday night, we have a bible study with some of our very dear friends. We have been meeting close to a year now and we have grown very close. We have grown in Christ most impo

Well, I have succumbed to the blog world. It was a long and hard decision. I am not a techy person, I have trouble sometimes turning the computer on and off so to start a blog is a big step because I know very little about how to manuever through websites and how to start new things on line. It took me almost a week to start my facebook account and even then, I was asking my sister to do it for me because I could not figure it out. So, here I go. :) I wanted to start this blog mainly because Kraig and I will be gone for a lot of the summer. We will not be able to communicate with a lot of you and we thought that a blog might be the easiest way to keep in contact with you all to show you what we are doing in Alaska and when we visit my sister in Texas and then as we come back to the Chattanooga area. So, with that said...the Lord is so good and faithful. He has opened the door for us to travel a lot this summer. So, we will be missing a lot at home but we feel that the Lord is l