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.