Graduation!!! November 1st, 2008

YEAH MILES!!!!

OFFICIALLY FINISHED WITH HIS MA IN BIBLICAL STUDIES

My Parents and the Custis Family including Miles cousins Kate and Will Custis came up for the celebrations. Andrea and Jason and the kids were all there as well. It was wonderful having everyone here with us. Mom Custis made a beautiful Red Velvet Cake (Miles' favorite) and after the ceremonies we went out to eat at Milestones in BC. Besides being our favorite restraunt in BC we thought it was appropriate being a huge milestone in our lives the restraunt was a very YUMMY choice!

I am so proud of you, Miles.
This is such a huge accomplishment and you should be very proud of all you have done!
I know it is tough to celebrate when this is just the means to yet more schooling as the end goal is still out there to be reached, but it is a victory none the less! It is very exciting..and it will be exciting to walk with you through the next steps too - whatever you decide that will be!

4 YEARS!

YEAH! October 15th 2008 marked our four year wedding anniversary! Incredible. It is so unbelievable that it has been that long. Everyone said that the years would go by fast but I though that everyone just "says that"...now I know that it is in fact- quite true.

Miles and I have a really wonderful anniversary tradition. Our dear friends Sam and Christy Thomas gave us a book for our wedding that works as a journal of our years together on our anniversaries to mark each year that goes by. We usually write in our book that goes through all the places we went, things going on during our “times” like current events, what we have learned, and what God has done for us…as well as dreams for our future…each year. We also take a picture of us usually and put that in the book too. That is our anniversary tradition…and we have been faithful to it every year so far…hopefully that trend will continue because it is pretty neat to look back even over the last 3 years as well as this past one (4) and see how far we have come. You know? Miles and I also have a project for above my kitchen cabinets. We want to go through our black and white photos to select the ones we want to display then we will go to Michaels and get as many frames as we can and stick in the pictures and put them above the cabinets. Not sure how it will look yet…but I think it might be cool….the best part…Miles is stoked about it. He is so excited. I love that he likes that sort of thing.

He is so proud that his pictures get to go up there…and he does a great job. So that is our anniversary in a nutshell.

Happy Anniversary to "Hubbers"

Happy Anniversary to "The Wife"

To US

Sunriver, Oregon August 7-10th 2008

-Adventures with "MissieLiss" in Sunriver Oregon

August 7th --10th

Oh the fun memories I have spending weeks filled with activities in Sunriver Oregon. Whether it was with the Eastlund family when I was in highschool, or the Huitts with my family ...I have very fond memories there and Sunriver holds a very special place in my heart. I had to share some pictures of the scenery there and some of the fun things I did on my trip. It all began as i heard that my Friend Melissa Huitt graduated and is headed off to Masters school at OXFORD! Lucky girl! I am very proud of her....but before she headed across the big pond I wanted some visiting time and more adventures of just us...as she will be gone a long long time. I knew I was going to miss this gal so I took Amtrak down from BLI to PDX and then to my parents house to pick up Grandma's car. I drove then down to Sunriver that night. It was a long day of travelling but so worth it. The drive down was pitch black and stormy. It was so beautiful as the lightening lit up the entire sky. Breathtaking!

Just me- in the car - it was a great time for me to just spend time with God talking. It was so refreshing. I cannot even describe how beautiful that night was.

I arrived about 11:30pm or so and Melissa was awake (barely) waiting up for me. We both got shut eye right away because the morning was goign to come early and we had plans with a reserved canoe under our names we had plans for a float down the river that would last all day. That is exactly what we did.

The following day (Friday) we arose very early after getting wine, salami, cheese, and French bread for our picnic lunch and headed down to the marina to check out our boat.

After our canoe trip Melissa and I were so tired. We went out to eat at a nice place in the "mall" courtyard and came home to watch the opening cermonies. It was a great day. I dreaded closing my eyes that night though, because I knew morning would come quickly and I would only have one full day left before my trip was done....

Friday morning we got up a little later and ate breakfast late. Then headed off for our long bike ride. Rafting was fun, relaxing, and lot of work at the same time...the bike ride was the best....it was mostly flat and if you know Sunriver...it doesn't get much better than those trails...

OH me Oh my! Super great!!!

This trip was so fun...all the talks we had were fabulous and it was just great to spend that time together canoeing...biking...hiking..walking...but the pillow talk was the best....after the Olympics of course...!!!!!

Thank you Melissa for a wonderful time. I had so much fun with you and will miss you.

Have fun in England and be sure to stay in touch and tell us all your fun news! Love you!

* Sigh * Sunriver Until I return again...

Leavenworth, WA July 6-12th 2008

Every summer the Custis Clan goes camping at the KOA in Leavenworth. For those who have not been there is it amazing! Miles parents (Marilyn and John) and his sisters Andrea Mathews and Krista Wilks, and their families all come. We "Tent" at the campsite which is usually 3 campsites to fit 3 tents and and an entire campsite alone for our "food" storage, kitchen, area where we have a large circle of various sized chairs where we spend a lot of time relazing, laughing together. We alwasy have a wonderful time. Although "they" all have been doing it for many years this was Miles and My 3rd year. The kids love it too. Andrea and Jason Matthew's family has 3 kids - Kelsey (9), Jenna (7), Alex (3) and Krista and Mark Wilk's family also have 3 kids Nathan (12), and the twins Megan and Josh (8)

This clan usually spends one day on a hiketo Isicle Ridge. This year we approached our hike as usual to find that the melted snow pack was unusually fast this year and washed out the road. The pictures were amazing. The long road in we usually take to start our hike was completely covered in water. It was unbelievable.

We parked a ways and found another train that someone had made and we took that trying to find the rangers station to get more information. We went pretty far into the woods following along the newly formed trail with the "road" to our left and rushing water over it. It did not appear at all to be a road just a normal river bed. We came out of the woods to find part of the road we were used to driving on that the river bipassed. There were CARS parked on it. These cars had been stranded. That is how fast this water overtook the road. We were remembering how there was an unusally hot day in May and thought that many people would haveheaded there for a day of hiking and probally got caught there then. Crazy. The cars were packed nicely with camping gear and now that the road was washed away and white rapids took it over there was no way those cars were getting out. We wondered how the people got out. Probablly had to be evacuated by helicopter or something. How do you explain that to your insurance company? The cars were not damaged in any way. Completely stranded....on an open road...not a scratch..but no way to get them off that road? Really how does that work?

Oh we do so much fun stuff while in Leavenworth. We go to the Lake Chelan's Slides Waters. It is a wonderful water slide park where we spend the whole day in the hot sun rafting down on huge tubes crashing into one another and with big splashes. Even Alex enjoyed himself on a few of the slides. In the afternoons we usually spent them getting wet at the KOA pool. Camping in Eastern Washington in the summer means HOT HOT HOT afternoons. The KOA pool is always a relief from the heat.

Here are some more pictures of fun around the camp.