WHAT?!? A POST?!?!?

No, this is not a mirage. You are not just extremely dehydrated and seeing things you wish to see that are not actually there. This is, in fact, a new post on my blog. *collective gasp* I know, I know. If no one even checks this anymore (except you, Ryan, and I love you for it), I understand and it’ll just be for my own gratification. But I couldn’t RESIST because have I got a STORY FOR YOU!
Well, friends, I will be honest. I was not exactly thrilled to the core about returning to Haines. Of course I love Haines, but being home for two weeks kinda got be back in the Seattle groove of all- night grocery stores and the ability to buy clothes that aren’t designed for Woodstock (though I never got used to the traffic- UGH). However, coming back to gorgeous weather, and I mean GORGEOUS, has made getting back into the swing of things a little bit easier. It’s the time of year where it doesn’t get dark and the cruise ships are in, two things I’ve had to get used to, and the town is hoppin’. We even had Beerfest this past weekend and the nightlife in Haines was at its best.
With all of this lovely weather, we’ve had several campfires, Frisbee, picnics, gardening, and last Friday we went out on Mike’s boat to Chilkoot Lake. We packed sandwiches for dinner and headed out to the beautiful lake surrounded by mountains. After just riding around and even trying some fishing, we headed to Mike’s bait site. Bears are waking up here in AK and it’s about that time to start attracting our furry friends to kill them.  Mike does this. I don’t. I had no idea what we were getting into when we got there- I thought we were just going to look at it and he might set some stuff up for when he wanted to attract bears in the future. No…after pouring old cooking grease, dog food, and instant potatoes into a hole and climbing up into the bear stand not too far away, I began to understand that we were inviting bears very near to us to we could watch them. HEH HEH! Mike got busy bringing more grease to a boil on his camp stove and slowing adding molasses to waft towards the hungry bears out there…no joke. Two and a half hours later, still no bears. But Mike could "feel them out there." We decided it was late and time to head back, so we climbed down and headed toward the boat, all the while keeping an eye out (especially toward a particularly dark area of trees). Once Lori and I were in the boat, Kenny was taking out the knot, and Mike was packing away his bow, a group of bears charged toward us then headed for the bait. I've never seen Kenny lunge so fast for anything then when he went for that knot and all I had time to do was sit and say, "holy crap." Two huge grizzlies and three smaller ones went after that bait just yards away, our hearts pounding, Mike still outside the boat with his bow, and Lori saying, "so how do I start this boat?" HEH HEH. It was amazing. Let's just say that as much as we were disappointed that they clearly waited until we were out of there to go after the bait and we didn't see them from our formerly nearby perch, at least Lori and I both agreed that if we had see them from the bait stand, we never would have LEFT the bait stand out of fear for our lives. Better they waited until we were in the boat...thanks, grizzlies.
I had some pictures for you, but as usual I can't get them to upload (darn APT Alaska and its lame internet connection). But maybe somehow I'll figure out how to get them on here. Well, summer is upon us here- the crazy cruise ship people are out and it's fun being a "local" of sorts.
I'll try to post here more. LOVE YOU

Part 2

I'm stressed out beyond my capacity right now, with moving and trying to create a small group and my work schedule is getting crazy and people are vising, BUT- I have to finish my blog. Priorities are priorities. :)

Less than a week before the Lock-In, I was invited to chaperone the Girl Scouts to Juneau for a weekend. At first this sounded like a great idea. Time with the girls, time in Juneau, and I love the ferry. Great. I would need to switch my Saturday shift at Mt. Market, but that shouldn't be a big deal. However, in the couple of days it took to work the switching out with another coworker, the Lock-In happened. I'm sorry, what I meant to say was the Kids to the Max and Thourough Exhaustion happened. So I walk into work the Monday morning, having come from the church after the Lock- In and cleaning up and such, quite the zombie, and Nelle tells me she can switch and to have fun in Juneau. Uhhhhh....I call Crystal to tell her I can come and only then do I learn the schedule: leave Friday night on the 10:45pm ferry, get to Juneau around 3:15am, drive to the Council office, sleep a few hours, wake up early for Thinking Day (the event we were there for), run around Juneau all day (including the MALL), get up 6:30am Sunday morning to be on the ferry and back at church by 10:30am. Upon hearing this, I started to cry. Crystal doesn't know it, but as she was talking, Leche was sitting in her warm bathroom, crying. I was just so tired...I called Kenny BAWLING at another sleep-deprived weekend ( was just so TIRED), but took a few days to catch up on sleep and headed to Juneau. I had a great time. The girls were hilarious and we got to go BOWLING! One of the girls had a cast on her good arm which made her disinclined to bowl, but I promised to bowl left handed or granny-style and it worked out great (I SUCKED). Kelly, pictured with the bowling ball, decided to name it Old Reliable, which I thought was hilarious. We hit the mall, where all the girls spent their money on earrings and shoes and headbands and bangles and oh my word, were they decked out. I bought comfortable shoes in lieu of my hiking boots and COFFEE, finally. Thinking Day was a whole 'nother story, but the trip was a fun whirlwind.

Last Friday, Lori, Kenny, Mike, and I went ice fishing at Mosquito Lake. Not kidding, folks, there were, in fact, mosquitoes flying around us as we were ICE fishing. Weird phenomenon. Lori and I made it competetive, boys against girls, but I soon realized my standards were too high and I modified my goal to just three fish, tops, even as the guys were catching nine, ten, eleven...The picture on the left is of my first fish caught, displayed morbidly with the weapon which expedited its demise. I'm proud to say that I actually caught four fish (the last one by accident as I was walking away to do something else while still holding the pole) and even caught the final fish, making our total catch THIRTY fish (but we only kept sixteen). Kenny and Snoopy can be seen posing by the catch we kept.
The weather was beautiful and let me tell ya- by the fourth fish I was taking the hook out and beating it over the head multiple times with a screwdriver all by myself. Papa would be proud. :) It's even on video, as Mike recorded the event for posterity. Don't worry- we watched it later that night. A few times. :) We had a fish fry and I cleaned my own fish, but not without much girly hesitation. *shudder* I'll go ahead and admit that three of the fish cleanings did involve plastic bags tied around my hands so I didn't actually have to TOUCH them. Heh heh. Don't judge.

Well, I'm outta steam. Phew. Thanks for hanging in there. I tried to include as many pictures as possible for those of you who require visual stimulation to stay interested (Jennifer?).
I'll try to post more often in order to prevent any future bombardment of posts.
Honest. :)
<3

Catch up, wouldya?

Phew. Hold on. Give a girl a minute to catch her breath.
Okay. I’m good. Thanks for that.
SO MUCH has happened in the last few weeks- I mean MONTH since I just noticed that it has been that long since my last post. It seems like just yesterday I wrote an update, but apparently that is not the case (duh). As a brief overview, we have gone from MAD FREEZING temperatures to crazy balmy (33 degrees), which has made me very unhappy. If I wanted a rainy winter with slush and drizzle, guess where I would still be living? But I digress. There has been snowshoeing at the golf course in 55 degrees-below-zero winds, game nights with desserts lit on fire (Banana’s Foster, of course), Valentine’s Day parties with fondue and tattoos, trailblazing, all-nighters with 35 youngsters, a whirlwind of Girl Scouts in Juneau,a Star Wars Marathon, and most recently- ICE FISHING.
Pretty daunting list of activities to report on, not to mention the amount of pictures that accompany said activities. I'll try this in chunks.

Trailblazing wasn’t exactly part of the plan when Lori and I went to hike Mt. Riley. The couple-a-mile walk to the Battery Point trailhead was fun enough, then 0.9 miles to the Mt. Riley trailhead…that wasn’t really there. Surely someone else must have hiked from this side of the mountain to set the trail…heh. Apparently not. But we were feeling optomisitic and Boy Scout-like (hey- I have some experience with orienteering), but gut feelings and your inner compass only take you so far. After only four arrows in the beginning, an hour and a half of climbing, falling, guessing, losing a glove (me), we hit a roadblock---absolutely NO IDEA where to go next. No clues, no nothing. Sigh. So, resigned and starving, we headed back down (which only took us twenty minutes) to eat our sandwiches on the beach. The picture of Lori and the tree was the result of never knowing if we would see another arrow, which made finding this one (and validating that we were on any trail at all, even if we were actually pretty far off) pretty exciting. I like to call the close up of me "I Actually Have No Clue" Face, which I didn't let Lori see until it really was time to call it quits. Finally, the last shot is us on the beach with Mountain Market sandwiches on a beautiful sunny day with quite a front row seat of the mountains. After chowing down, we trekked the mile or so back to town and collapsed into Mountain Market to dry off and not move for a while. :) Trailblazers, we are not. :)

It began as a simple movie night. Our big outreach for the month, held after youth group for any kid and every kid. Then it evolved into an overnight. In the end (and The End was a glorious happening) it was an ALL NIGHTER. I remember exactly when it happened...the walls began to close in around me and my world suddenly seemed doomed once the competition began- "I'm not sleeping AT ALL tonight!" "Neither am I!" "I bet you can't!" "Leche, you can't be tired! You have to STAY UP!" Dun dun DUN!!!! Thirty-eight kids in little ol' Haines Presbyterian, eating junk food and watching movies and playing games ALL NIGHT LONG with YeaYea, Zazu, and I, though several other blessed souls came for a while to join in the fun and help with the pandemonium. The gutter sundae was a hit (in a real gutter that fell off someone's house from the church) and we wouldn't have made it without 4 a.m. Mac n' Cheese and brownies (the making of which is shown here). Unfortunately, after 3 a.m. it was less "what game can we play next" and "what fun can we have" Leche and more "if you bounce that ball against the wall one more time I might kill you" Leche, but such is lock-in life. I never thought the church would be clean again, but we got it spotless even with enough time for me to run off to work that day! Exhausted? Well, yes, as a matter of fact I was. And I think that the parents hated us a little, but the kids had a great time it seemed. And it only took us several days to recover. Man, I can't stay up all night like I used to. I must be getting old.

Well, stay tuned, friends. More to come. I'm breaking it up into installations. I like to keep 'em guessing. :)

Coffee Shop Barbie

Apparently that is what I am called behind my back at Mountain Market. One of our bakers, Jennie, confessed this to me yesterday after telling me to "promise not to get mad." She's the culprit, claiming it's just because I'm the only young blonde one who runs around acting, well, the way I do. I'm not offended, I don't think. I guess I should be, but she's really cute and no one could be offended by her. She sneaks me warm Snickerdoodles. However, I think Barista Barbie flows a bit better. :)
This news was also delivered to me on the day I received a raise for my "sunny disposition" and for the fact that "people enjoy working with me" and "I deserve it." I almost cried. I swear. The two head ladies conferred and decided I should have one. :) It still makes me smile. Needless to say, Mountain Market is going well.
A lot of fun stuff has been going on in Haines, like the Family Game Night at Haines Presbyterian, the Dance Dance Revolution tournament at the Library, Taco Tuesday at the Elk's, and so on. Haines can be hoppin'. Kenny and I actually found ourselves torn between two places to go last Friday night (crazy, I know). We did, in fact, end up at the Dance Dance Revolution tourney at the library because Zack, a camper, asked us to go. He has crazy DDR skills and it was admittedly hilarious watching him go up against Kenny. I, on the other hand, did my best but only ended up hurting my foot by the last song and got really hot.











Another fun night was had when we visited another camper, Nicole. Nic's blind and hard of hearing, along with other challenges, but loves to play games. We played Go Fish and listened to a bunch of her jokes and had a great dinner with her parents. It was a pretty great time and we're hoping to make that a more regular thing.

Our Thursday night Game Nights are explanding, which is pretty cool. It's evolved into a dinner/dessert night, too. This week I think someone suggested Banana's Foster, to which I think I reacted excitedly, to say the least. In the coming weeks, there have been requests for Creme Brule and sloppy joes (not even by me!). Basically we have a good time hanging out over food and playing some game for a few hours. Finally, a little place for young adults in Haines. Not exactly the way we first imagined it, definitely less stucture, but God seemed to have other plans, I guess. :)
Alright, time to wrap it up. Everything is pretty normal. I'm catching up on my Gilmore Girls, reading whenever I can, attempting to get on the radio, and trying to circulate. Lots of ideas for the kids are in the works (Bible studies, movie nights, sledding days, etc.) and will be planned as early as tomorrow when we meet with several pastors in the community. YAY and FINALLY! The ball is officially rolling.
Keep up the prayers. LOVE YOU
Over and out.

For all updating purposes

For your enjoyment (and mine, too, I suppose), I have compiled a fun list of facts/observations/accounts courtesy of the beloved Haines.
"Hit on Nat Day"
This, I was unaware of, is a Haines holiday. To my surprise, I learned that January 19 is recognized among most either rugged locals or awkward newbies-in-town as the day to hit on me while I'm minding my own business at the fine establishment, Mountain Market. Of course, this realization is received well by me, who woke up feeling nauseous and is just trying to make it through the day and just recently vented to Lori about how there are too many young adult MALES in Haines. No, I do not want to run, walk, or "hang out sometime" with you. If you wanna talk Jesus, great. But I doubt that's what you're looking for. I should just pass out a business card when I introduce myself to people that says, "Let's just be friends" or "I'll platonically hang out with you any day. Can I bring my boyfriend?" After third said-fellow-in-one-day(two the other day)proposed quality time, even my co-worker Sam decided, "That was even awkward for me." I'm friendly, guys. I'm a barista. It's in the job description.
In other Mountain Market news, I received my review yesterday. It was over two months late, but who's counting. Apparently I'm "doing great" and those things I'm not quite good at "will just come with time." I'm "really appreciated" and "a good worker." Well. Yay. :) This coming from Deborah who sometimes looks at me like why I'm still there is a mystery, but hey- I could just be seeing things and I'll just take her word for it. It's nicer.
I work with a woman names Nelle who is probably in her forties and precious. She was reminiscing yesterday to the 70's station that was going on the XM stereo. I will never again be able to hear The Carpenters without thinking of Nelle and her Catillion. She's so good-natured (very Haines) that she doesn't mind that we make fun of the fact she almost named her daughter Fanny ("As in 'pack,' Nelle? How would she ever get through customs with a name like that?') and just admits, "These things are always in the way" when she sticks her boob in mayo while preparing a turkey sandwich. What a doll.

"In other news..."
I've taken up knitting again. It's what they do here. Heh. We'll see. Let's just say that at least now I have something to do while I'm composing emails, as there is about a 45-second delay from when I type to when it actually shows up on the email.
I am now a Haines Burough Public Library volunteer. It's awesome, considering it's known as "the biggest small town library in the nation" (or something like that) in the Library Journal. I just love being there. I just started and am going there tonight, but now I have my very own library number (free of the normal $20 charge, which rocks) and am very excited.
Last Sunday, was quite the busy Sunday for me at Haines Presbyterian Church. I lead worship, performed in the choir, read the scripture, and helped with Sunday school. As I told the new guy in town (who comes into Mt. Market all the time and was one of said males who recognized January 19th), "you know it's a small church when you're up and down from the front so much." It was fun.
My bathroom is the warmest room in the house. I keep the door closed so it will stay that way. The rest of the house is set at about 53 degrees. Heating the whole place is too expensive, thus I am required to wear long underwear and a hat just to go from my room to the bathroom and not freeze.
I finally made the trek into town, backpack ready, to buy milk and bread the other night. I'd been avoiding it for a couple of weeks now, as I just wasn't interested in carrying a gallon of cold milk all the way home in 15-degree weather. Hence the backpack. Of course, when I arrived at Howser's at 7:03pm Sunday night, I was greeted with locked doors, as they close at 7pm on Sundays. Of course. I finally went there after work yesterday and bought a half-gallon of 1%, all they had. The whole town's out of milk. Again. I dare you to remember the last time you said that about anywhere else. :) Now having milk helps me maintain my all Top Ramen-all Cream of Wheat diet (the picture is me facing the dilema of having to clean TR/COW pots just to make more TR/COW).
There was an eagle sitting in the tree outside my dining room window the other day. It was comforting.
That's about all for me, folks. Exciting news from Haines, I tell ya.
I miss you all. It'd be funnier if you were here with me.

Everything snow

Back again!I have to tell you, the last few days spent in Haines have been interesting, good and bad, and very full. This picture was taken on the ferry up to Haines from Juneau on a GORGEOUS day- wonderful day to be on a boat. Believe it or not, many pictures like this one were taken but due to operator error, this one turned out the best. :)
In just one week, we have: gone sledding on snow shovels, gone back to youth group, made a fancy halibut dinner, gone sledding on actual sleds and nearly killed ourselves (it's okay mom- we laugh about it now), met a new friend Sam who I now work with at Mountain Market, made banana and chocolate chip pancakes (my dream REALIZED), gone snowshoeing out to camp, watched Indiana Jones, had a fun time at choir, driven out the highway on the pastor's whim on a BEAUTIFUL day to see eagles and swans, then only a few hours later driven out to Letnikof Cove on the pastor's whim to see a pod of killer whales super close up, finally changed out of snow clothes after three days, had wonderful homemade baked potato soup and played games. Whew. Granted, most of these happenings have been due to our friend Ben's visit- we don't normally pack in this much fun to one week, but who knows...maybe we do now because of ALL OF THE SNOW. This picture is from our banana-and-chocolate-chip pancake breakfast before snowshoweing, the there's a pic or Kenny walking into camp. Then there is Bromley Hall, covered in snow, which is just a little bit different than when we're there in the summer. Kenny, Lori, Ben, and I flipped around in the snow outside my house, so there's Kenny and I submerged just beyond my front porch, which is the norm as far as snow level goes. The last few pictures are from our drive out the highway to see eagles and swans...breathtaking.
I realize that this post hasn't really told you much about anything except some adventures, or really even elaborated on them, but I'm just getting back into this and I at least wanted to share some pictures with you. There are plenty more where that came from, trust me. I've been realizing that being here is full of picture opportunities...all the time...everyday...and i wish you were all here to see everything.
Beware: this post is full of fun, which is how I wanted to get back into the blogging swing of things, but there is some other stuff going on in the meantime up here in Haines that I will share soon. While Ben is here we've been trying to pack in the sights and we're avoiding reality at the same time, which isn't bad, but there's some music Kenny and I are going to have to face pretty soon.
I hope you like the pictures- I'll be hopefully making a Facebook album of them all soon- and I miss you all. Very much. No amount of snow or sledding can compete with you. :)

Get Out of Life Free card?

I feel like I have slightly retreated into this shell of my former self. Quite the statemtnt with which to begin a post, but why not just jump right in and be real? This is a safe space and we're all friends here. You can take it.
I'm supposed to be identifying to Alaska, immersed in and committed to Haines, adjusting to life up there. Being in Seattle is supposed to just be a nice visit, icing on the cake, not the refuge and protector due to its distance that it's turned into. It now contains all that is familiar and loving to me, so why return to someplace where a tornado ripped through any preconceived notions I moved there under? I like it here. I wanna stay here.
But Alaska is a mess. I was thankfully able to leave and take a break from that mess. However, that mess is on pause. It will still be there, if not intensified, when I return. Therefore, this is not the real Natalie standing before you in Seattle. She wishes it were, but it's not. Let's be honest- the real Natalie is sitting back up in Alaska, arms crossed and foot tapping, impatiently waiting for this faux Seattle Natalie to come back up and fix it. She's saying, "get real. You can't stay there. Don't get too attached- it'll just be harder to leave." Only, that's all I want to do- stay. Thus I am in limbo. And can't make any sudden movements.
I'm just tired. Thinking about it all makes me claustrophobic.
Oh and it's Christmas. You know that? I have to remind myself every day.
(Don't worry- it'll all work out. God doesn't exactly dissappoint.) ;)
Pray Pray Pray
Thanks