Preparing For Winter

We saw our first Aurora Borealis last night! It was great. Jim Wherry, Garth's co-worker called at 9:30 p.m. to tell us one was forming. We looked out the window, then went outside to look. It was a pale green and stretched all the way across the sky. We drove up Chena Ridge Road and stopped near the top where we could see a great expanse of the sky. It was fascinating. Maybe when the weather gets colder we will see different colors.

In the news the past week there has been lots of talk of snow falling within the next two weeks. We are already two or three weeks late in having the first freeze, which came Friday night. I've downloaded pictures of our cars and the outlets to plug the cars into during below zero weather so the car and all the liquids won't freeze. This first picture (above) is at the institute building. All I have to do at 6:15 a.m. is plug the car in BEFORE I turn off the ignition, then everything will start when I leave an hour later. The second picture is Garths' Nissan Xterra. The last picture is my Saturn Vue. Just so you all know what we are driving!

Last Friday & Saturday (14th & 15th) Garth and I went to Anchorage. It was a beautiful drive - the leaves on the trees had all turned gold. We enjoyed a session at the Temple on Friday. Saturday we went furniture shopping and purchased living room and bedroom furniture. It should all be delivered Wednesday. We are looking forward to putting our underwear in drawers instead of suitcases on the floor, and having a couch to sit on instead of patio furniture. It was dusk as we were driving home on Saturday and we learned to slow down quickly when the car ahead of us braked - on two different occasions he stopped for moose crossing the road. They were so hard to see in the dark.

I wanted to tell you the cold weather policy for our ward. We are to call 1 hour prior. -30 No Seminary, No Activities, No Sunday School. -40 Sacrament Only. -50 No Church. This does give us some comfort. We have heard that there will be a couple of weeks during the winter where the temperature does get -30 or colder. For about four months the temperature is zero (0). We will plan on giving weekly weather reports when we start having the extreme colds. Dad has heard that people in Fairbanks are called the "frozen chosen".

Dad is working a similar schedule to Jacob, where he is off every other Friday. He was off this past Friday and we enjoyed running errands, going to the gym together and watching a movie. Nick is keeping things together in the bakery at Sam's. Seminary is going well. We miss you all.

Water Expeditions

Family and friends, thanks for your patience. My digital camera is on the blink so I purchased a couple of one-time use cameras. It took us a couple of weeks to use them up, get them developed (AAFES was slow) and figure out how to use the Kodak EasyShare program. Hopefully we are back in business!

Three weeks ago Nick and Garth met Craig Parker, Garth's brother-in-law, in Valdez at Prince William Sound. They fished for salmon and brought back about 80 lbs., which is taking up lots of space in our small freezer. Here is a picture of Nick's first catch ever, a rock fish. As you can see, this was pretty exciting for him. They had rainy weather the two days they were there, but Nick said "This is the most beautiful place I have ever seen".

This is the Riverboat Discovery. Nick and I took a 3 1/2 hour cruise along the Chena River. We went with Mary Lou Wherry, whose son, Jim, works with Garth in the legal office. Mary Lou lives in Illinois and was here visiting for two months.

During the cruise we saw a float plane take off and land on the river, we saw reindeer and a demonstration on preparing salmon to be dried. The dogsled mushers take the dried salmon with them to feed their dogs because it is so light to carry. You could tell she had cut-up a lot of salmon.

We disembarked at a small village where we saw demonstrations of beadwork, types of hides used by the athabascans , how they prepared them for use and what the skins were used for. We also saw a team of dogs that a musher brought for us to see. The last picture I have is of her training camp where we saw the team of dogs pull her on a four-wheeler around a pond, approximately one mile. Those dogs knew what they were going to do and were anxious to start their run! It was quite exciting.

We are all doing well. Nick will start work at Sam's on Tuesday. I am teaching early morning seminary and, as Rachel has told us for years, it IS the best calling in the church! I do have a hard time getting out of bed at 5:00 a.m., but once I am there I love those 18 youth. I am teaching the freshmen & sophomores. People ask about Garth's job. It is going well. The weather is getting colder - in the 40's in the morning. The leaves are turning yellow and starting to fall off the trees.