up north

My trip to Alaska was amazing. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.  Such a completely incredible trip.  For those of you who don't know, my sister's boyfriend flew me up there to surprise my sister.  He told her on Valentine's Day that I was coming.  How great is he?  Super great. And ridiculously generous. So, last Thursday morning I headed to O'Hare and off I flew to Kotzebue, Alaska where Amy and Kris live.  Kotzebue is in northern AK, north of the arctic circle!  It's up there!  Luckily the weather was "nice", so we were able to spend lots of time outside and enjoy life on the tundra.

I think I have come to the conclusion that there is no great way to sum up such an amazing trip, so I here come lots of pics and highlights in an attempt to give you glimpse of my week.

Ah!  My photos are currently not loading due to some error.  So...I lied.  You will have to come back for pictures :)  But here are a few other highlights that I don't have photos of:


*Spending a huge amount of time with Amy.  I was thinking about it, and I don't think we've had that much time, just the two of us since I was in college.  It was so great.  I love her so much.

*Getting to know Kris a bit better.  Good man.  Good, good man.

*I saw the Northern Lights on Friday night.  Awesome, truly awesome.  Cross that one off the bucket list!

*I loved just experiencing a slice of my sister's life.  Monday night we went to the sewing class that she goes to every week.  She's been learning to sew many native items, and currently is working on a pair of mukluks (boots) for Elsa.

*Sleeping in!

*I got to see Jamie and Erica (Kris' brother and sis-in-law) and Julie (Kris' mom) during my layover in Anchorage.   Great to catch up with them just days before the arrival of their son and my smoked salmon omelette sure beat airport food!

*An adventure all my own.  I love my husband and kids dearly, but it was so nice to have time to myself.  The longest I've been away from Breck before this was 2 days and away from Elsa has only been about 10 hours....while we've been sleeping just a room apart.  My mom came to help out with the kids so that was great and so nice to know that I didn't have to worry about them.  And we all survived!  Elsa kinda boycotted me however when I got home.  She woke up to me back home on Thursday morning and wouldn't let me hold her for about an hour.  But she came back around.

*Kris, Amy and I went to Zumba on Tuesday night and it was awesome!  So much fun.  I've only done Zumba from a video before and while that is fun, live class is where it's at!  Nothing like some latin beats to heat up life in the arctic.  And I won a free shirt - that's right, there is a door prize :)

*Plane rides all to myself!  It's been a long time since I was on a plane without little people to tend to.

*Snowshoeing out at the camp with Amy.  The Iten's 11 month old black lab, Moss, came with us too.  It was hilarious to watch her bound chest-deep through the snow.  She couldn't have been happier.  And crazy that the snow was probably about 6 feet (or more) deep under us.

So because there are no pictures, this is just a brief snippet of the adventures.  But more is to come...soon!  Isn't the suspense killing you? :)

Missing Mama

You may be wondering why there have been no updates on our life lately.  That is due to the fact that the Matriarch of this fine family flew the coop to sunny Alaska.  So Jenny is off cruising on a snowmachine in a fox-lined parka, I and Kris, my wonderful Mother-in-law, have been suffering in the sweltering heat of mid-March Chicago.  With our average day of 80+ degrees, Grandma Kris and the kids have been on countless adventures: putting sand in places-the-sun-doesn't-shine at Foster beach, I joined in for taunting the animals at the free Lincoln Park Zoo, stuffing our faces with Chicago Dogs at the Dog Joint, visiting every park within 2-square miles, and just recently stuffing ourselves once again with Chicken Tandoori, naan, and curry at Sher-a-Punjab.  So Spring Break Chicago has treated us quite well without Mom around.  We miss her very much, but we have had a good time none the less with Grandma.  We have no pictures to prove any of it.  Kris's camera inexplicably turns off every time we try to take a photo.

In seminary news, I just finished Vocational Excellence.  It was excellent.  It was a time of self-awareness, reflection, discussion, and lecture on caring well, preaching, teaching, and leading well.  Much time was spent on self-care plans to ensure that as we enter ministry, we will also be taking care of our spiritual, emotional, and physical self.  I think this is often ignored, and many churches and families have suffered from it.  So that was a really affirming and encouraging time, even though the weather was so beautiful and we were just itching to get outside and enjoy the break.

Well that is the news for now.

it's in the air

SPRING!

Ah!  I just can't say it enough that I LOVE seasons.  And now that I have them back in my life again, I realize how much I missed them.  Quito's weather is often described as being "eternal spring", which sounds great, but I do think it was kinda hard on me.  Now, eternal spring is MUCH better than eternal winter, that's for sure.  But there is something so comforting to me about the rhythm that seasons bring to my life.  Each season has it's own excitement, it's own experiences to look forward to.  As we worshiped together at church this morning, the windows were open and I could hear birds outside and I was in love.

So after naps, we headed out to play.  I love how Breck has his little hands behind his back in this one!

Dancing on the green space.

Watching the river flow by.

And she found more steps.

One of my favorite things when I was an undergrad at NP were the massive amounts of daffodils that would pop up all over campus in the spring.  Looks like we won't have to wait long now.  I can't wait.

the greatest show on earth

Today we ventured out into our great city as a family.  Chris has been MIA most of the week due to midterms, so we knew that we were due for a day of family adventure and fun today.  One thing I am LOVING about this great city is that you can check out family passes to many of the city's museums from the public library.  How awesome is that!?!  So on our weekly trip to the library, Breck and I spied the pass for the Children's Museum at Navy Pier and we knew what our Friday adventure would be.  There are many passes that we have never seen checked in and must get checked out again the moment they show up at the library (for the Shedd, Field Museum, Museum of Science and Industry, Adler Planetarium) but I have hope that with faithful trips to our local library we will one day cross paths with these museum passes as well.

We rode the "L" downtown.  Made this little urbanite happy!

And rocked this one to sleep.

One of the traveling exhibits right now is about the circus.  

Thanks to spinach he ate this week, we are proud to present the world's strongest man!

Pure joy!

And on to be a firefighter.  We had fun learning about fire safety.  Complete with a climb through a bedroom window after escaping the smoke maze.

And then on to do some building.

Elsa's favorite part of the museum was by far all the stairs to be climbed.  I think she is feeling very deprived since we live in this one floor apartment.

Within one block of leaving the museum, B was completely out.  

Hoskins' family adventure, clearly a big success.

Also in Hoskins' news, Breck has now decided to only call me by my first name.  I'm not sure why.  Chris is still "dad".  But I am hearing nothing but "Jenny" these days.  

7 days

Just one week and we will be together again!

And this time we get to explore the wonders of the Alaskan tundra instead of the Ecuadorian equator.

UNBELIEVABLY EXCITED

it takes a village

Back from the adventure - box of cupcakes in hand!

One of the many things that I am loving about being back in Chicago is the fact that we didn't have to start over from scratch in terms of friends and community.  We looked around at other seminaries, and I keep thinking how different my life would be right now if we were in a new city where we knew no one.  And not only are our friend great for us, but they are great for our kids too.

Yesterday, one of my best friends in the whole world, Julia (or "Auntie Ju" as Breck calls her), stole Breck for the afternoon for an epic adventure of bus riding and cupcake eating.  There are many things about the city of Chicago that Breck finds enchanting and wonderful, the plethora of buses being one of them.  And he has been dying to get himself on a bus since we moved.  And once Auntie Ju caught wind of this desire in this little boy's heart, she planned a date to not only take him on the bus, but to take him on the bus to get cupcakes.

Now, Chris and I could have taken Breck on the bus.  However, I know the way that his face lit up with excitement when I told him about the plan was due in large part because he was going to do it with Julia.  It just wouldn't have been quite so fun with mom and dad.

And Thursday evening, our friend Maria came over to hangout with our kids so that Chris and I could go on a date.  So fantastic.  I have been overwhelmed with the generosity of others who have offered to spend time with our kids so that Chris and I can get away together.  And it's made me realize that I wish that we had done a lot more of that for people in our life before we had little ones of our own.  We did it some, but not often enough.  So to those of you whose children we should have been stealing so that you could go on a date,  run errands, or have 45 minutes to yourself without sticky, little hands all over you - we dropped the ball.  And to those of you who know us now and need those 45 minutes - drop your kids off, the more the merrier.  And when our kids are all grown up, I hope Chris and I make it a point to spend some time with the little people in our life.  So if you have kids then, take us up on it!

Because I do believe it takes a village to raise a child.

study break

It was SOOOOOOOO nice here today.  Seriously, this weather is crazy.  It has made coming back from Ecuador very easy on us, that's for sure.  We made it a point to be outside today enjoying the nice weather.

So we pulled Dad out of the library (where he has been all day studying for midterms) to play at the little park on campus with us.

Flowers are starting to poke up everywhere!  Nothing blooming yet, but if we keep having these 60+ degree days I am sure it is only a short matter of time.

There are lots of good exploring places near the playground too.  Makes my little boy happy!

And lots of mulch for Elsa to use on teething gums.  Which apparently makes my little girl happy.

This was also Elsa's first time walking outside on her own.  And she was thrilled!  

I can't believe that Chris is already studying for midterms and will be taking his exams next week!  It doesn't seem possible that we have been here that long already.  And I am so happy that it is him in school right now and not me.  Perhaps going back to school is in the cards for me someday, but right now is so far from my radar.  He was up studying last night until about midnight and I went to bed early, only stopping to re-read a little Harry Potter before turning out the lights.  And oh how lovely it was.

And making it even lovelier is the fact that Elsa is now finally sleeping through the night!  

And there is much rejoicing in the Hoskins' home.