The North Dakota

In the land where the sun can shine and the ground can still be frozen. Since I am actually originally from North Dakota and Kaaren's family also has some roots here it is a nice place to come back to for a while. Not as many things to do and go see as there was in Chicago, but still nice.

One nice thing is spending time with Grandma, playing cards, going out to the old farm, having tomato soup, and going through a "Grandma's memories" book with her. Kaar and I have really been encourage with hearing how our family has persevered through many different experiences and challenges throughout the years. Imagine leaving your home and using most of your money to travel over to another country, not knowing the language, the culture or customs, or the government system. And then when you got there you had to survive off of the labor you could do, no hand outs. What a treasure to hear about our family history and the people we are related to and the lives they lived before us.

Along with spending time with Grandma we are spending a lot of time adjusting to our new career on the computer. Lots of excel spreadsheets, analyzing, and risk management. If that did not take up some much of our time we probably could get hired on with one of the oil companies out here as there is a kind of oil boom going on right now in these parts. Because oil of $100/barrel now and it is not even summer time (the peak season) the oil extraction process is affordable now. That means that there is about a 5-10k jobs needed to be filled and not enough people out here to fill them. If anyone is interested I know of a few good places to rent.=)

Another nice thing about being in North Dakota is time to think, ponder, and pray. Think about what God has made us for, what are our gifts he has deposited in us, what are our dreams and why, why are we here, etc. Of coarse too much time thinking about all this can start to be counter productive. But when I know better who I am and the gifts I have and what I love doing whether I am good at it or not. It is then that I am most satisfied and God most glorified. Doing what He has created me to do, loving Him the way He has made me.