Fall at the Meeuwsen's!

Fall has set in and so have our fall colors!  If you don't know much about Alaskan falls, let me tell you a little about them.  First of all they come early and fast, and then they don't stay long!  About the time hunting season starts the leaves change colors, and the day moose season closes they all fall off the trees leaving the forest brown and bare...  At this point we know it is only a matter of time until we get snow and often we are hoping for snow just to cover up all of the brown outside!

Here are some pictures that I took of what it looks like outside today....

 

Up the hill to frontier camp....

  

View of Victory Peak from Miracle Lodge....

 I think I mentioned before that after camp wraps up that Aaron swings right into his full time youth pastor roll...  Well the last month has been busy, but not much time with just kids...  Aaron has been working on filling a vision he has for this coming year at church.  He has really been feeling like the dynamics of youth ministry in our community are shifting.  In the past we have had about 25 kids attending youth group.  With the graduation of the last senior class, we are seeing a change in many of the kids that attend and are trying to figure out how best to build great relationships with them that can lead into discipleship opportunities.  Youth group is changing to a lot more relational time to do that...  So Aaron has been putting in many hours and hard work building a Youth Cafe in the basement of church.  We are hoping that is gives kids a great environment to hang out in and gives us and our leaders many teachable moments as we build relationships with these youth!  It is still a work in progress, but below are some of the pictures of what it was at the kick off our youth group tonight...

 

Behind the counter in the Cafe...

  

Taken from one side of the basement of church...  you can see the bar Aaron built, and the newly renovated pool table.

Here is a picture of the pews Aaron reused at church to make table benches out of!  We are currently gathering parts and pieces to make tables to go in there that are specialized to the cafe!

September 10th we celebrated Aaron's 30th birthday with a homemade icecream cake and a few friends and games... nothing to crazy, just something to welcome this new decade into his life...  It was fun and we are blessed to have so many friends here in the Glacier View community to celebrate with.

 

The last big event that has happened here at the Meeuwsen's house this fall is Raylee's Birthday!  She turned 2 Today!  If you ask her how old she is, she will often say "dwo"... and she is getting so big!  Here are some pictures from today...  It was a long day full of a town trip...  But overall I think she enjoyed having the spotlight on her.  We didn't do much as far as a party goes yet, but we did make cupcakes to take to the youth group kickoff and sang her happy birthday there..   We are planning on celebrating all of the September birthday's this month with my family next Sunday at the Floyd's house...

Here are some pictures of her day, by the time we got to this evening she was more than tired from her long day, but she did still manage to blow out one of her candles all by herself.