House Updates

Just wanted to post some updated pictures of the house. Looks like it is starting to take shape.

Hike to the ISU Columns

I finished up all of the projects I wanted to work on today a little early so I decided to take a short hike. From my office window I have a good view of the ISU columns. On the middle/east side of campus there is a pretty big hill with four large Greek columns at the top. Apparently, in the 1960s someone was having a funeral home here in Pocatello torn down. Apparently, these columns were part of the funeral home and rather than get rid of them, he donated them to ISU. After spending a little while trying to figure out where on campus they should go, they finally decided to put them on top of Red Hill. Some time during the move process the top of one of them broke, so now there are three connected columns and one stand alone one.

View from my office window.

It was a pretty nice hike. Probably just a mile each way from my office with a good 360 view of Pocatello from the top.

North view from the columns. You can see the stadium on the right and my office building is right in front of it.

This is the south view from the columns. The place where I am staying is about two miles past where you see the highway.

This is the west view. You can see some of campus right below and then the old downtown area of Pocatello.


There was a trail that continued on along the ridge farther south so I hiked for probably about another mile. It was a nice way to break up my day. On the hike I saw a lot of dragonflies and crickets, but then also three hawks and a lizard. I even saw a wild cactus - I guess this part of Idaho maybe does count as a desert.

The cactus is right in the middle of the picture.

Maybe next week I will try to do a tougher day long hike up one of the surrounding mountains.

Mode of Transportation

Well, I have now been in Pocatello (and away from Rebecca and the children) for two whole weeks. It seems like so much longer than that! I have been able to get settled into a routine and now that classes have started, I am hoping that time will go by a little faster. Just 9 more weeks to go!

While I have been here in Pocatello my main mode of transportation has been my bike. That is partially because the only place I really go to is work (which I ride my bike to), and partially because the first week and a half here I didn't have a car. i am grateful that my parents have let me use theirs while I am waiting for Rebecca and the kids to arrive.

Riding my bike has actually been pretty fun. Over the summer I started looking around for a new bike, knowing that I would need something good to get up the hill we live on. My brother-in-law Bob helped me pick a road bike out from bikesdirect.com. At first I felt a little wobbly on it, but it is a lot faster and smoother than any bike I have every had in the past. Plus, it looks pretty nice - often when I am at a public place like the grocery store or the library, people provide me with compliments about it.

In the mornings I ride to work as the sun is just coming up. I often see rabbits run from the road as I whisk by. I also drive by a couple cemeteries and the air  is cool and fresh and it is a nice peaceful way to start off my days. In the evenings I am usually riding back to the place where I am staying in the dark. I drive along some neat rock cliffs (up about 20 feet, so not dangerous) and even though it is dark they are fun to look at as I ride by. In total I average about 15 miles per day (10 if I just go to and from work, but some days I have put 20-30 miles on it).

This is the back side of the cliffs. I ride along the other side where the base of them is just 5 feet away from the road.


One evening I was in my office and it was about 30 minutes before I was planning on heading home. I looked out the window and saw some really dark clouds and then started to hear some thunder. I decided to leave right away to see if I could beat the storm. For most of the 5+ mile ride, the storm was just to my left. I would see the lighting and hear the thunder almost immediately, so I new the storm wasn't too far away. I was pedaling at top speed the whole way. For the last mile I turn off the main road and start heading up a hill. That was when the storm caught up to me. About every five seconds lightning would strike in the air right above me. Luckily it wasn't touching the ground. As I passed one house someone yelled out the window "don't get hit by lightening!" Already worrying for my life, some unkind thoughts ran through my mind. Luckily, I was able to yell out a big "thank you" instead. When I finally made it, I had to stay on the porch for about 15 minutes catching my breathe and enjoying the beauty of the storm.

I wish I took this picture. This is what it looked like though as I was riding home. The whole sky would light up like it was mid-day when they were striking right over me.


Anyway, I have built a small bond with my bike over the past couple of weeks and I am trying to think of what I should name it. If you didn't already know, we give names to lots of our things. For example, the car that I had when I was dating Rebecca was a red SUV that we named Ruby. Rebecca's car was a black 2 door that she had named Jimmy. Our silver Caravan is named Silvia. And my mom's car that I am now using is a blue Malibu that I have named Marabelle. So here are some possibiliteis for my bike. Send me an email or leave a comment if one sticks out to you.

Jimmy II - since this bike is black and sporty, it matches Rebecca's old car pretty well.
Turino - that is the model name of the bike.
Nightrider - I know the black car in the show was named K.I.T.T. and the show was actually named Knight Rider, but Nightrider sounds so much better to me. Plus it is often dark out when I am riding to and from work.
Black Stallion - too bad it runs off man power instead of horse power
Hill Crusher - think Foe Hammer or Goblin Cleaver (famed swords from the Hobbit), but the enemies that my bike slays are hills.

That is all I have come up with so far. Let me know if you have any other ideas.

Called to Serve

This weekend I went down to Utah to see my parents one last time before they caught their flight to the Philippines. I know my parents are excited to go, but I still think it is a big sacrifice to give up their time to serve in that country. We are excited to hear what kind of adventures they will have and are really proud of them for going. We are also grateful for the example of missionary service that they are setting for our children. They will be gone for 1.5 years, but luckily they will get to call and Skype every once in a while with updates.

It was also nice to be able to spend time with them and Nathanael's family after my first week and a half alone in Pocatello. On the Saturday we did a fun hike, some shopping, and some games. They had Pass the Pigs and it had been a long time since I had played that game. On Sunday we went to church and did a walk around their neighborhood. It was also fun to see Nathanael and Mary-Anne's children and play with them a little. Since they are close in age to Elliott and kind of Agnes, it helped me imagine what they might have been up to over the weekend. Nathanael and Mary-Anne made some wonderful meals while I was there and so that was a nice break from the microwavable dishes that I have been having.

Driving the ALCAN

Our last few weeks in Alaska were fun, but also pretty hectic. We had to sell most of our stuff, pack up what remained, and close on our house. On top of that, my parents, and two sisters, and Rebecca's brother, and his wife and child were all visiting. It is crazy how it all worked out. I think Rebecca's brother was the first to make plans to come visit. Then my cousin announced her wedding for the same weekend and so some of my family wanted to come up the same weekend. And then we let them all know that they would have to sleep on the floor because we were going to be moving and all of our stuff would be gone by then. I am really glad they all came because we had a lot of fun and it was a good way to finish up there.

We actually sent all of our kids on the airplane with my parents and sisters. Then Rebecca's brother left the next day. Then we had one last day to pack up all of our remaining stuff in a uHaul and clean the house so it was ready for the new people. We even cleaned the carpets and touched up the walls with paint where needed. That was a stressful day. Finally, we set out on the road at about 3 or 4 in the afternoon. It was a little later than we had planned, but we were going at least. We both felt a little sad leaving. We had a lot of great memories from living in Alaska and from the past 5 years in our home. It had been a great home for us, and it was weird to leave it behind. 

Our Anchorage Home

Rebecca and I right before we left

Funny story - a couple of hours before the kids flew out we finally told them about the note we received from the previous owners about the ghost of their nice grandma living in the basement (there was a previous blog post about that right after we bought the house). When it was time for the kids to walk through the house one last time and say their good-byes to it, Christian didn't want to go downstairs without holding my hand. It was funny because his bedroom was down there for the past four years. I hope I didn't ruin the good memories of the house for them by telling them about the letter.

On the first day we drove up to Tok, Alaska. That is the last city that you hit before entering into Canada. I think this was my favorite part of the drive. We saw a huge glacier that looked like a giant river of ice and snow that stretched on for miles. There were lots of twists and turns in the road, but it was so beautiful going up and down the mountains. That night we just found a parking lot, laid our mattress down, and slept right there in the back of the uHaul. It wasn't actually that bad.

Last night in Alaska (Tok)

driving through the mountains

the huge glacier

grizzly bear

Our comfortable sleeping arrangements - it was nice to be on our own bed at least

We left kind of early in the morning, and before we even got out of the town we saw a huge grizzly bear sitting down in the grass. We did a really long drive that day and listened to a few audio books. My favorite ones were from the Diary of a Wimpy a Kid series. Rebecca liked them too, but she thought I was really weird with how much I was cracking up listening to them. I can't remember where we stayed that night, but it was just a tiny little town with like one store and a gas station. By the time we got in everything was closed and so we just parked in a gas station parking lot and set up our mattress in the back of the truck again. 

We got a little sleep, but were awakened at maybe four or five in the morning by someone revving up his dirt bike up and down the street. It became quiet for a little bit and we tried to go back to sleep, but just a few minutes later I heard some yelling right outside our truck. I woke Rebecca up and told her we had to go. When we got out of the truck we saw the guy with the dirt bike having on argument with some other guy a little ways away. When he saw us he started to run over and in an angry, kind of crazy way, tell us that he had something in his eye and he wanted us to get it out. He wasn't having any problems with his eye earlier when he was yelling at the other guy so I told Rebecca to hurry and getting in the truck and lock the door. After seeing her safely in, I ran over to my side and we took off as fast as we could. I feel bad for not helping, but the way he asked for help and his body posture in approaching us made us feel like something was not right. 

I am glad that we left early in the morning though because we saw a ton of animals within the first couple of hours of driving. I think we saw almost 20 bear, some moose, a fox, a coyote, and herds of bison. It might have been that evening that I saw Bigfoot too. Rebecca was asleep at the time though so she cannot confirm my story. We had a short stop in Whitehorse that day, but kept on going after that. We did find a cheap hotel that night a little outside of Edmonton so we could get all cleaned up for church the next day. In fact, after the motorcycle guy incident we stayed in hotels every night for the rest of our trip.

Bigfoot crossing the street. You can tell that is him, right?

Okay, here is the video in better resolution, maybe it was just a bear. I think it was a black bear, but it seemed really big still. So the video still isn't very good. I just can't seem to get it to upload in as high of definition as I have it on my iPad. Sorry!

Sign Post Forest - there were thousands of these signs that spanned all around the block

Driving to church on Sunday

Bison

After church on Sunday we crossed the border back into the states and it was good to be back on American soil again. With the motorcycle guy, and seeing Bigfoot, and everything else, I realized how much different Canada really is from the U.S. :) For real though, having driven for those three really long days in Canada it did help me realize how far away Alaska really is from the rest of the U.S. We stayed on the Montana/Idaho border that night and then the next day we met with our builder and tried to make as many different decisions about the home that we could while we were there. It was exhausting and I didn't think it was very productive because there was no way we were going to be able to decide on the floors, and tiles, and cabinetry, and everything else in just the half day we were there. We did get to see some of the other house our builder has built and we are glad that we found them. Here is there website if you want to check out some of their homes: http://buildguardian.com/

The next morning we unpacked our stuff into a storage unit, turned in the truck, and made the drive in our van back to Washington. It was a fun trip and I am glad that Rebecca and I got to do it together. We were both glad though to get back to our children and were happy to finally have a break from sitting in a car 12 to 15 hours a day.

Hello from Pocatello Idaho

This is Joshua. It will probably be just me doing the blog for the next little while. Over the past 6 months we have been working on selling our home in Alaska, trying to experience all the Alaska outdoors adventures that we could one final time, enjoying a couple family reunions and time with our parents, and moving to Pocatello, Idaho. If you haven't heard yet, I have accepted a job at Idaho State University and I just started here this past week. Although we loved my job at the University of Alaska Anchorage, enjoyed living in such a beautiful place, and made a lot of great friends, we decided it was time to move closer to our family. We are really excited for my job here and, as far as we can tell, Pocatello seems like a great community.

Good-bye Anchorage :(




Hello Pocatello :)

This "Smile Capital" of the U.S. is an official thing. I guess in 1948 after a really harsh winter, the mayor of Pocatello decided to make a law that it was illegal not to smile. This law stayed on the books, but was forgotten about until someone rediscovered it in 1987. The mayor at that time made some request and got it so Pocatello became the official "United States Smile Capital." From what I read online, every year they have a Smile Days celebration with fun activities including a smile contest and getting thrown in a mock jail if you are caught not smiling.

When we made the decision to move we started to look at housing options. We wanted to avoid renting for the first year if it was all possible. We ended up purchasing a lot and are having a home built for us. Here are the floor plans and a few pictures of the progress on the house.

Here is the empty lot. It is on top of a big hill that I am going to have to ride up every day on the way home from work.

Here is the foundation. The upstairs is at ground level from the front and then the downstairs is out ground level from the back.

Here they have the basement starting to be framed.

With the upstairs framing close to complete it is cool to see the house starting to take shape.

This is the southwest view off of what will be the back covered patio off of the dinning room. 

This is the more northwest view out one of the master bedroom windows.

Unfortunately, building has taken longer than originally planned and according to the latest estimates, it should be done by the end of October. We decided that instead of trying to find a place to rent for all of us for just a few months, I would go by myself so I could start work and then once the house was done, everyone else would join me. The past couple of days here have been lonely, but at least it is just a couple of months. To help keep me occupied, among other things, I am going to try to get caught back up on the blog. It may be kind of boring to read just what is going on with me, so I will try to include some of the summer activities and any reports from Rebecca every now and then too.