Its hard to believe that 2 weeks has gone by since my last post! We are in August already. Where has the summer gone? Our weather here has been so bizarre. Just cool and rainy compared to what we are used to. We haven't had near as much hot boating weather as we did last summer. We did enjoy afternoons and evenings on the lake this week already. On Friday night we took whatever youth were around here for an evening of pizza and fun on the lake. They seemed to enjoy it!

As far as hiking, we did nothing overly strenuous this past week. We did go to a park that we hadn't been to on Wednesday and since it was raining we got a chance to finally try out our rain gear. That was a good thing because Tim discovered that he had accidently gotten the wrong sized rain pants so now that can be rectified before we get caught in a storm on the mountain!

On Friday we were back at our quite familiar Potato Creek State Park and had hiked 7.7 miles and then hit the biking trail to get some miles on that yet. After going only about 1 mile the rear tire on Tim's bike literally exploded! I think the brake was rubbing against it and it gave out. So that put an end to biking for that day. On Sat we tried renting a bike but might as well have thrown money to the wind. It was the most worthless bike we had ever seen so that bike trip was aborted after about a mile as well

This coming week will be filled to the brim. Tim works Mon-Fri nights. I work Mon and Tues nights. Wed evening church, Thurs evening I am hosting an old fashioned, fancy tea party here for the youth girls in honor of Kayla who is heading to Jamaica. Then Friday evening through Monday is the Haines get-to-gether. And by 3am Monday we need to be at the church to leave for a week in Belize with the youth! Any volunteers to come help me make food for all the above and help keep my sanity??? I will try to keep myself all together and get done what can and leave the rest.

 Blessings and peace to all! Judith

The summer seems to be flying along at top speed. We have kept busy with work, youth group, church, family and friends.

I guess one of the big things that has kept us busy this summer is our preparations for our big 'adventure' we have planned for the end of August. We are planning on going to Europe and hike the Tour de Mont Blanc. Mont Blanc is the tallest mountain in the Alps. It sits on the corner of Italy, France and Switzerland. Tour de Mont Blanc, (TMB) is a trail that goes around the base of this mountain and through several high passes. It is a total of 105 miles. Yes, we are planning on carrying everything we need for 2 weeks in backpacks and putting on our hiking boots and tromping the whole way around this mountain.

You ask, 'Whatever possesses you to do this?' It is more then just a crazy pipe dream or something to just throw money away on. It is what is keeping our sanity. It is what we focus on when our spirits are so low that we don't think we can walk 105 steps because we miss our baby girl. 4 1/2 months ago our world lay shattered at our feet. Preparing for the TMB forces us to lift our heads above the dark waves and think of other things besides the loss of Kiersten. It also is something we focus on as a couple instead of turning against each other when the anger or grief wants to overwhelm. I don't know if all this makes sense. I don't really care if it doesn't since everyone has a personal journey and this is ours.

 I want to journal about the TMB here on xanga. Its more for my own 'record keeping' maybe so if you all want to follow along you are welcome but I won't be offended if you don't

Just to catch up on the training process. We started talking about it and dreaming in the beginning of April. I was only 4 weeks post-op and very weak yet, but I started walking. The first time was barely 1/2 mile and I was completely bushed! Every week we would try to increase our mileage and decrease our time! After a month I was up to 2-3 miles at a time, a few times a week. Now we can do 8 miles at a time in about 2 hours and 37 min. We are also walking with our 20 pound packs to help condition our bodies. We live in flat boring IN and have no hills or mountains to climb so in June we went to AR for about 4 days and scrambled around on those hills! That was a lot of fun.

 Today we head out to a state park and want to hike about 7-8 miles then bike that much as well. Biking helps prepare for hills when you don't have any to walk.

 I will close this long post for now and try to keep updating regularly!