Up to now...

Lots of things going on since we took our trip to help my mom recover. Just so you know... she recovered well and she is feeling great. Thanks everyone who prayed and sent out good thoughts our way. Well, most of you know that my bro and the kids and I took the long journey on the ALCAN to get home it was pretty uneventful and we made the trip in 3 days..woohoo...we are super stars! Once we got back home it was back to work, school and getting Ty settled in. Got the kids finished up with school and me enrolled for two classes for summer. This was our May. June rolled around and we had fun with Noel's 7th birthday I cant believe my baby is 7!!!!Had a fantastic luau themed party with a bunch of giggly funny little girls and one boy besides her brother. After the crazy two weeks of birthday stuff we started getting ready for my friend and her son to come visit from Colorado we had lots of fun showing them around Alaska. They stayed until July which now is the current month we are in...July has been a little hectic I am finishing up my English and Philosophy classes and we are moving into a new house and we are trying to get ready to go back to school and in the middle of all of this we have normal stuff like dentist and doctor appointments AGGG!!!!I feel a little crazed I must admit ...but I love my life and wouldnt have it any other way! I really am going to try to be better at this blog thing I know I have said it before but I keep reading my friend Allison's blog and she inspires me!

On the go...again...

When we moved to the Arctic J we thought things were going to be a lot slower and slightly boring for us, with all of the long dark winters and not knowing any one, and for the first few months we were correct with that assumption and it was more than a little boring. However now it feels like we are so busy we don’t even have time to catch our breath. The kids keep us on our feet with all of their comings and goings and Mikes job is pretty demanding as of right now and I myself work now, so it feels like at times we don’t see our house and that has been our life.

Then we get into the month of March…and April…and May….and all of a sudden we have even more on our hands. In March and the first part of April we had family come our way and it was great! We did a lot of really cool things and it felt we were constantly on the go. When they went home we were on our way to getting back into the same old routine until …my mom calls and tells me she has to have surgery at the end of this month so what do I do????I pack up hop on a red eye flight without my husband and with two kids whom have never flown before …I should also mention at this point in the story that my brother decided that this would be the perfect time to go ahead and relocate to Alaska so that he could drive back with me and the kids to and then he wouldn’t have to travel the ALCAN alone (I had said that that the one time that I did that trip would be the once in a lifetime trip so now it is going to be a twice in a lifetime) and I planned all of this in week WOW I make myself tired ….and that is where my story becomes up to date.

 

We arrived in Oregon yesterday morning at 5:30 am and with the exception of just being utterly exhausted the flight went really well the kids loved it and slept almost the entire time while I looked on longingly wishing I had the ability to sleep wherever my head lands. After we left the airport we had a pretty big day ahead of us (my mom is trying to show us as much as possible before she is laid out and cant do much of anything) so our first stop was Multnomah falls I must say at this point that I absolutely love Oregon and I have for many years it is still as impressive as I remember it…even with the massive amount of rain that was coming down upon our heads… next stop build a bear for Noel to add to her collection after that we were on the road again this time heading to Astoria and if anyone knows me at all you will realize the importance of this to particular town to me…It is an amazing little town that I would defiantly retire in….after this we traveled along the coast to get to Salem to my parents home.  After a quick bite of some really good pizza they drove me past the old criminally insane asylum that was featured in One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest they are about to tear it down so it is now empty but amazingly photogenic it is very sad that it wont be around much longer. After we were done with my picture trip we finally rolled up to their driveway about 9 pm at this time I think I was up for over 32 hours and I was feeling it.  Even with the lack of sleep it feels really good to be here with my family and I am seriously happy about my bro coming home with me.  So with all of that said… here we are on the go …again…

Long time no blog...

I can’t believe it has been 6 months since I have written anything. I have a couple of friends who blog and now I have this renewed sense of passion about it. I realize it is a great tool for all of the friends and family that it is so hard to keep up with. So with that being said I don’t even know where to begin. These last 6 months have been busier than was expected. The transition has been more difficult than I had anticipated. The moment we got here in October it started snowing and getting dark and I must admit the darkness got to me and the feeling of being isolated was really hard to adjust to on the positive side Mike and the kids fit right in it seemed like they had been here their whole lives. However it took a couple of months longer for me. I think the turning point came when I met some wonderful girls they really have kept me sane and got me out of my house one in particular and you know who you are J and I got a job at the school my kids go to! And I finally have some focus on what I am going to do to finish up college so things have started to feel like they are going better. And now that I got through the winter and I can see the first glimpse of spring and all of the great adventures we can have here I now understand why people put up with the long dark winters. It is absolutely gorgeous. The all day light is so not going to be a problem with me! I am going to put up some pictures of my favorite moments thus far. I do feel like I have already got to experience and see some pretty amazing things. I am defiantly going to try and be better about my blogging from now on. Until next time…

Just a quick update...

We got to Alaska safe and sound on Thursday. My suspicions about not being able to blog was correct after Yellowstone we were in some pretty obscure places I am working on my blog on the rest of the trip and hopefully within the next couple of days I will be able to post it along with pics so keep checking in hope everyone is well!

Here we are on the road...

We left Junction yesterday and traveled to Wyoming just outside of the Grand Teton National park. We didnt do much but drive we did get to see the Flamming Gorge in Utah which is absoultly beautiful. The first half of Wyoming wasnt too impressive(side note , can anyone tell me what those random fences are all over the Wyoming countryside?)Anyway, we stopped in this little town and had dinner ,I mean this was the picture of small town America. we went into this local mexican resturant and every head turned when we walked in they could tell we werent from around there. This morning we woke up bright and early and headed into the Grand Teton and Yellowstone now this is an absolutly amzing part of Wyoming these parks were so amazing! You could seriously spend weeks in these places and never get bored. The kids had a blast they werent so excitied at first at the idea of being on a super volcano(we watch way too much national geographic) but once they saw Old Faithful and the rest of the geysers the were pumped! We finally made into Helena about 10pm they do not believe in signs of any kind in the state of Montana! Well I am really tired and I have a REAL bed calling my name! Hopefully I will be able to post more tommorrow!
Sorry I know I got a little carried away but I had to share!

countdown is over

So we are off today. It has been a long few weeks the movers came and loaded all of our stuff the week we got back from our house hunting trip so we have been living in an empty house for awhile now. Its sad when you cant wait to get to a hotel so you can sleep! We were suppose to leave last week but his company delayed once again. We had a lot of emotional moments and a couple of mile stones like me turning 30!!!!!!AGGG!But then again I heard 30 was the new 20 so I can celebrate that one in about 10 more years:)! And I got really sick so it definitely hasn't been boring while we have been waiting. But we are finally at that time. So for my last blog in Colorado I decided I am going to list the 5 things I am going to miss most about this place since I am on a limited time frame it can only be 5 but there are lots of things I am going to miss.

1)The Colorado skies

2)My home 3)Being right next door to Utah

4)Fall

5)And most importantly my bro and friends we love you guys...


It really has been a blessing living here....

Touch Down

So I got really behind on my blogging I had planned on writting a little every day but the internet in the hotel really sucked! I will just give a quick recap. We landed in Alaska Saturday August 24th it was a loooong day of travel. Everything went pretty smooth I was actually at one point thinking to myself "now this is the way to travel" that is until the last three hours over Canadian air space and we had turbulance the whole way. It wasnt bad turbulance but bad enough for me! However when we got over Alaska and the clouds cleared it made the whole trip worth it. It had to be the most breathtaking peice of land I have ever seen! When we got all of our things arranged we decided we should look around and we ended up getting lost we were still on the whole feeling like its two hours later than it should be and the sun didnt start setting until about 10 so we were pretty zapped!

On Monday we went to the area we are going to live in its about 20 minutes away from Anchorage its called Eagle River and just so I can praise God here we found a house. We arent buying right away but we think this will be a great house to rent for a while. Rental housing is real scarce there because of all of the millitary that transfers in and out plus the owners are cool with our dogs!

With living arrangements set in place we got to play for the rest of the week. We went to the Alaska state fair and saw vegetables that are as big a humans! We went to the Kenai peninsula. We got to go on a Glacier cruise. We went to the Alaska wildlife habitat. And we ate way too much, the fish really is better there! It is amazing its beautiful and everyone is so nice I think its going to be a great place to live. I am still not looking forward to the winters however!

We got back in California on August 30th it was so good to see the kids when I got off the plane, although it was nice to have some time alone with Michael I ached for my kids to be with me. So now that we have this trip almost out of the way its time for me to move on to the next phase which is packing up and saying our goodbyes I am starting to get really emotional! I am excited about this move but I am also really sad.

Pics are bellow check em out! I have more but I think at this point it just is best if I post what Ive got.