First Day Off after coming back to the office

Grace and greetings.

Today is my first day off since returning to the church office. We had a good time off the slope, but still did not get everything done we needed to while in Anchorage; of course we did not realize that until we returned home and started saying, "Oh, we forgot..." Oh well, such is life.

Monday in the office seemed like I was not away at all, received three calls for food, (the Deacons of the church have the only food bank in town), and a request for another funeral. This funeral was expected for a while, as the person had incurable Leukemia, and was not expected to live very long. It was a hard funeral, the person was a few years older than my own daughter, and children about the same age as my grandchildren. Tuesday another death happened in the community, so I will have my 50th funeral tomorrow since arriving on the North Slope, May 2007.

Of course, the big news of the morning is the release from CNN that McCain will pick Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Of course this is news, as the Republicans choosing a woman as VP is pretty historic. The only other Alaska Governor to leave Juneau for Washington D.C. was Wally Hickel to be Nixon's Secretary of Interior; if I remember correctly, he only last two years or so. If the news is true, this will be a historic election regardless of who wins: an African-American President, or a woman Vice President. Personally I would love to see Obama win, but recent Presidential elections have a habit of being questioned on more than one state level, which impacted the national election. We will see...

In other news of our family, our son turned 18 last week and now is registered to vote. (I guess I better get him to sign up with the Select Service as well, but I guess he would only be in harms way if he signed up with the National Guard. Not to make light of our war in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places, but what is the National Guard doing over there in the first place?) On the right is our living room, you can see the decorations and balloons. (This picture is particularly for certain family members who wanted to see pictures in side the house). Yes, our Christmas tree is STILL up; Christmas is a season of the heart, and we have been needing that reminder throughout the past year.

The picture on the left is the table that was set up by our son, with the plastic "blood" filled glasses and the cake with the words of his theme for the past year or so, "Monkeys Rule".

I have a few pictures to share of our trip, but will try and spread those out over other posts.

Peace and blessings.