Good News!

We got good news today that after waiting MUCH longer than anyone anticipated, Mark's background check finally came back and he will be officially a FredMeyer employee starting this thursday! Yay! Praise God, while we've been waiting for him to be able to start with them, he's found a couple of odd jobs to provide in the process:).
With Mark starting work, we're just a couple of weeks away from having internet in our house again, and therefore, just a couple of weeks away from being able to more frequently give updates, AND finally post some long awaited pictures!

Thank you all for your continued encouragement and prayers! We are looking forward to Mark getting out to the villages in September, and looking foward to see what else God has in store for our family! Each day he reaffirms to us this is where He wants us, that we've been sent out for a purpose, to fulfill the calling God has placed on our lives... God is SO good!

Love,
Mark, Jessie and Caleb

New Email Addresses

Just so everyone knows, Mark and I now each have our own email addresses, so we no longer use dickinsonbunch@1cox.com...

New Email Addresses:

Jessie: jessied@1cox.com

Mark: markd@1cox.com

Thanks for updating it in your email address books!

Adventure Update

Hello Friends and Family!

Sorry its been so long since our last update! We are home and LOVING it! We still don't have internet access so it'll be a little longer until I'm able to resume posting pictures and blogging regularly (this blog is thanks to my parents letting us use theirs while we're visiting:).

Our last day was a long one, but was SO nice to finally make it into Alaska with no issues. Customs was a breeze, we showed them our passports and went right on through! We met the Cox's for dinner about an hour away from Fairbanks, it was very exciting to finally see them after our long drive!

Our house is the bottom half of a duplex, two bedrooms, updated kitchen and nice living room, we even have our own backyard! Yippee!

Mark has gotten all the leg work done for his new job at FredMeyer, we're just waiting to hear what day this comming week he'll be starting his two days of paid training, and then officially starts work!

We're looking forward to getting out to the villages in September, and learning the culture in the meantime... Thank you all so much for your prayers and encouragement. We look forward to sharing all that God is doing in and through us with you! Please continue to check our blog often for new updates!

If you would like our new address please shoot me an email and I'll reply back with our physical address, I just dont want to post it publically: dickinsonbunch@1cox.com

I can update pictures to facebook from my phone, so check out our facebook page while your waiting for new pictures to be posted to the blog:).

Love,

Mark, Jessica, and Caleb

Day Five: Teslin Yukon

Animal Museum

Mountain Goat

Dahl Sheep
Polar Bear

Moose (by the way, these things are HUGE! You cant possibly get a good idea of their size from this picture.) and some wolfs

Deer and Beaver

Caleb LOVES the animal museum... We've taken him back four times today, he just cant get enouh of it! :)

Caribou

Buffalo head, its HUGE!

Grizley Bears

Day Five: Starting in Bed, and ending resting: 0 miles:)

We've had a FABULIOUSLY relaxing day. We haven't done anything but sleep and hang out. Next door to the hotel there is an animal museam filled with animals you can find in Canada/Yukon/Alaska so we've enjoyed walking through there, and down near the water, but thats it! :) Looking forward to leaving here tomorrow morning to finally make it home late tomorrow night! We have 700 miles left to Fairbanks, a long drive, but Wednesday we drove 800 miles! I think we'll make it just fine:).

Again, we continue to thank you for your prayers and encouragement! We are loving life and really just enjoying spending time in eachothers company durring the past several days. I know a five-six day road trip isnt ideal, but we're making the best of it, and having fun making memories that will last for the rest of our lives!

Love you all!

Day Four: Canada, Yukon Territory

Caleb kept saying, "Mama, take a picture of me saying cheeze!" He didnt have to ask me twice!:)

Enjoying the drive

Pretty Canada... I must say, I am really VERY pleased with my scenic and animal pictures considering they were ALL taken through the windshield of the truck.

The first sighting of big animals... Reindeer!

Our favorite scenic part of our drive thus far!

Pretty much the same place, just arround the bend.

We saw several small herds of buffalo once we hit the Yukon Territory.

More scenery...

Day Four: Started in Calgary Canada, Ended in Telsin Yukon: 440 miles

Today was a VERY interesting day! The drive today was the BEST yet! GORGEOUS scenery, and cool animals! We saw a TON of buffalo, and those of you who dont know, thats Mark's favorite animal... which I dont quite understand... LOL. We also saw a couple of reindeer! The buffalo were all over! Some were running across the road in front of us and we got to see a baby, there were some sleeping ON THE ROAD, too funny. We were suposed to drive all the way to Whitehorse today but stopped in Telsin to fill up on gas and our truck died... so we spent the last two and a half to three hours of what would have been drive time to Whitehorse trying to figure out what to do about the truck, and then trying to get ahold of someone with UHAUL... Aparently since today is National Canada Day (whatever.) no one was available to help us, so someone will be dispatched tomorrow morning at 7:30am... we have NO idea how far they are from us or what time they'll get here, but sometime tomorrow and they'll have the parts to fix the truck. Praise God we broke down here and not on the road! We've got a hotel room and I've got wifi so here's your updates! Missing friends and family, but still very much enjoying our family time and our new adventure!

Love you all!

Day Three: Canada!

Lets be honest... the only pictures anyone REALLY wants to see are of CALEB! :)

Eating healthy on the road isnt always easy to do, but we've been hitting the grocery store and getting food for the day instead of eating out... saves money and is better for you:)

Sweet Travelers

Caleb and his toys:)

Pretty typical scenery in Canada

BIG factory, couldnt get it all in the picture, but we thought it was cool

Day Three: Started at Calgary Canada, and Ended at Fort Nelson Canada: 832.25 miles

Today in Canada the scenery didnt change much... some parts were pretty, but everything was just flat. We wondered why everything was so green, then it started rainging and hailing on us and we found out why! By far the hardest day today just because of the ammount of ground we had to cover, but its SO nice to have it behind us, and we are having fun as a family along the way. Caleb has been SUCH a little trooper. We are VERY blessed parents to have such a sweet, content, obedient little boy! Today his "surprise" was his first Mr.Potato head, he liked it but it didnt go over near as well as the etch-a-sketch or the drumb full of percussion instruments:). Thanks for all your prayers! We're having a great drive and are enjoying our adventure... looking forward to getting home to Alaska though!