Cars and other miscellaneous things....

Cars is definitely one of Daniel's favorite movies, and it is the subject of my next post.  I've noticed a trend since we've been married in which through the Lord's blessing, each of our family vehicles keeps getting bigger. 

Just before we married in 1999, the Lord blessed me with a new job, enabling Jenny and I to purchase a new (1999) Saturn SL1 Sedan.  It was the first (and probably last) new car we will ever own.  It was bigger than what I wanted when we first got it and they didn't have the "British racing green" that I asked for in stock (so we settled for blue) but we loved that car.  With it's manual transmission, I was able to get 35mpg out of it even after nearly a hundred thousand miles.  We drove it almost everywhere around Texas, to and from Georgia several times, to Virginia, and Oklahoma, finally shipping it to Alaska (during our most recent PCS in 2006) where we finally sold it in 2007.

Jenny rides in the new Saturn SL1, departing the Snethen wedding August 28, 1999.

The next vehicle we owned was a little larger, a 2001 Chevy Venture.  We purchased it in 2005, shortly before Kimberly was born because our family had just grown too big for the little 5-speed sedan.  The plan was for the five of us to drive it to Alaska, but our "test run" the month before to Splendora, TX (where we visited the kids' Great-Grandma Snethen) proved to Jenny that Kimberly would not make the multi-day road trip, so my mother, being newly unemployed, rode with Rebekah, Benjamin and I from Lawton, OK 4,000 miles north, driving the Alaska Highway to Fairbanks, where my family still currently resides.

The Chevy Venture was used as a campaign advertisement during the 2008 and 2010 elections.

 The Venture was our family vehicle for several years until our family grew to its current size.  The Venture literally would not hold us because it only had six seat belts, so it was time to upgrade to a little larger car.  After looking all summer in 2010 for a 12-passenger van in Fairbanks, Anchorage and Wasilla, we finally found with a 2009 Grand Caravan.  They just weren't selling what we were looking for in Alaska, but the Lord had his hand in this one, so we settled with it.

Rebekah stands outside the Grand Caravan on the first day of school 2010.

Although the Grand Caravan has been very reliable, it just didn't have the "wiggle-room" my family was going to need in order to make the road-trip we knew was inevitable on our long journey back to the Lower-48.  Also, restlessness in the backseat led to more and more fights as Rebekah and Ben vied with Kimberly's booster chair.  (We needed the easy access to Daniel and Jonathan who are still in car seats, so they got the captain's chairs in the middle.)  The more we drove this car, the more we realized that our initial assessment was correct, that a minivan is just not big enough for a seven-person family and a long road-trip would be utterly impossible.  I knew that we could never afford another car, but Jenny would not settle for that.

So, in April 2011, the Lord led Jenny to a dealer in Fairbanks who had a 2007 Chevy Express, 12-passenger van.  I knew that to purchase this vehicle was completely beyond our ability, but I entertained the idea with her.  But when things are impossible with man, you should never discount the possibility that the Lord can bless you beyond your wildest imagination.  And that is exactly what he has done over and over in our family.  If there's any doubt of the Lord's presence or his ability to perform miracles in 2011, I stand as a witness because here he is, doing them in our family.

We were not only able to purchase the Express but it has been a joy to own and drive for our family.  We've driven it all over Fairbanks but hadn't really been out of the city till one day in June.  We packed up all of our camping supplies and pitched a tent somewhere in rural Alaska, which in case you don't live here is practically the whole state.  Having done this, we realized that each child makes the camping experience exponentially more difficult.  We knew that we were over our heads and (after packing everything back in the van) we didn't even stay the night.  The kids were disappointed, but it was just impossible for our family at that time.  Also, at that same time, we found out that our inevitable departure from the Great Land had moved from April 2012 (which we were going to push back to May so the kids could finish the school year at Denali Elementary) forward to November 2011, to depart in September!!  Yes, only 3 months away!!

The Chevy Express was very useful in our camping experience in rural Alaska.

 With this set of circumstances working against us, the Lord was definitely working for us in the vehicle department.  He knows our needs and is not only willing but also able to bless us more than we could have ever possibly imagined.  Jenny's been looking at RV's ever since we got married, but we've never seriously looked at the possibility of actually owning one.  After our camping mishap, we went to Arctic RV and dreamed a little bit at some of the bigger trailers which were the only ones able to sleep our entire family.  Frustrated with that, I did just a little research and discovered that our Chevy Express is only rated to tow 6,000 pounds, making the prospect of using the express virtually impossible.

However, I started talking about it to a friend, who let me know another friend needed to sell his motor-home for a really good price.  We knew it was a long shot but have learned never to discount the long-shots when God is in the picture.  Last night, we brought home a 2006 Gulf Stream Conquest SE, 32-foot motor-home to our family where we can use it to drive to Texas in our family vacation this fall.  We'll be home-schooling the kids en-route.  We've learned that when it comes to blessings, never question the Lord.

Our new motor-home, sitting outside our home in Fairbanks, Alaska

Alaskan travels

David arrived home from Anchorage again yesterday.  This trip was just a "down-and-back" which means he drove down 360 miles one day and came back the next.  In the winter, David's unit will typically fly between the two posts due to the unpredictably changing weather in the mountainous regions, but in the summer they use the bus, which David is assigned as one of the drivers.  Yesterday, he was in the duty van.

The Army has three posts in Alaska but only one band, which is stationed in Fort Wainwright, near Fairbanks.  The band is responsible for serving the needs of Fort Greely, the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (along with the Air Force band which is stationed there) and various communities around the state.  Since we arrived here in April 2006, the Army has brought David to Anchorage, Delta Junction, Eagle River, Fairbanks, Juneau, Nenana, Palmer, Sitka, Seward, and Valdez.

A Coast Guard helicopter formation flies over the 9th Army Band as they march in the Alaska Day Parade in Sitka

In addition, David has also hiked on the North Slope, near Lake Galbraith (in the Arctic Circle), fished for halibut in Homer with Ben, and camped and fished in the Kenai Penninsula with Ben.  The family has been to Anchorage, Chatanika, Chena Hot Springs, Delta Junction, Denali National Park, Fox, Nenana and wilderness locations along the Elliot, Parks and Richardson Highways.  We're hoping to see just a little more of Alaska before we leave the Great State in the fall, as well as visiting many of our friends that we have met during the time we have been blessed to call this place home.

Ben catches a rockfish when fishing for halibut in the Gulf of Alaska