Seward, Nebraska (Oops, Alaska)!

The picture above is a beautiful church, which looked so quaint nestled against a backdrop of cloud covered mountains, pine trees and snow. Last weekend we traveled to Seward, which is 125 miles south of Anchorage. We had a 6 hour drive to Anchorage where we stopped to wander the mall and browse at the bookstore for a couple of hours. We ate dinner at the Sourdough Mining Company. The picture below is a white-faced sea otter who was floating on his back as

our cruise boat motored past him. Please click to enlarge the picture - he is cute.





Garth and Nick enjoyed breakfast at this restaurant, famous for it's made-from-scratch breakfasts.



Before going to Seward, I logged onto Map Quest to check mileage and motels. I was so happy to see a Super 8 Motel in Seward (thinking prices would be somewhat reasonable there). I gave Garth the phone number (funny, it was a 402 area code) and he called, asking to make sure this was Seward he was calling. He booked a room for two nights and we relaxed knowing we had a place to sleep. We didn't see a Super 8 as we drove through town, so Garth pulled up here at the Hotel Seward to ask directions. The very nice young woman at the counter said there wasn't a Super 8 in town, she called the number we had and we all were surprised to find out we had reservations in Seward, Nebraska! (Sounds like Alaska) They were kind enough to cancel our reservations, without penalty. We had a lovely room at the Hotel Seward for a very reasonable price - we highly recommend them if you are in the area. Be aware, however, that our two queen beds room for $69 in April is $200 a night from May-September.




We booked a 4 hour Wildlife Cruise on the View Finder. It was a cold, snowy day but there were 30 adventurous people on our cruise. We enjoyed visiting with Don & Gay - longtime Alaska residents who had lots of stories to tell.

We saw black and white porpoises (look closely, he's down there somewhere).

We passed several large rocks with sea lions enjoying the snowy day. There were lots of birds on the rocks, too.

Here are two bald eagles perched on this rock. We passed one a little earlier high in a tree, just watching us drifting by.

I didn't get pictures of the hump back whales we saw - well, we saw the hump back and the tail as he dove back down into the water. It was a very fun trip. We drove back up to Anchorage and spent Saturday night at Fort Richardson. Driving was a little hazardous on the way home because I insisted we take the snow tires off the car. We had had such lovely weather in Fairbanks that it seemed silly to keep snow tires on to get chopped up from the rocks still left on the road. We could have won the dirtiest car award when we got home!

Garth is working a flex-schedule and every other Friday he has off. We have really enjoyed spending this day together and last Friday, November 30th, we visited North Pole, Alaska. North Pole is just a quick 20 minute drive South of Fairbanks. We noticed the ice sculptures at the bank and at Wendy's as we arrived in town.

This is a 45-foot-tall fiberglass Santa. He may be more frightening to the little ones than sitting on his lap inside Santa's house.

Here are some other ice sculptures we found. There is an ice-carving festival next weekend, and people are getting started on their pieces. In down-town Fairbanks we saw a team starting on a sculture in front of a dental office. Any guesses on what that might be a sculture of?

The Santa Claus House is located on St. Nicholas Drive. Here are some of the displays around and on the building. It is a bright, cheerful place!

Inside Santa's House were these beautiful, life size Santa figures on display. There are all kinds of Christmas ornaments and decorations for sale. There are many locally made crafts and I really loved the carved wooden bowls. During the tourist season in the summer, the Santa Claus

House is a popular place for visitors. This is a family-owned business and has been in operation 55 years. They estimate 250,000 visitors come through every year.

There were lots of little kids waiting in line to sit on Santa's lap, and Mrs. Clause was there, too. Quite festive!

http://santaclaushouse.com/

When Garth & I left the house on Friday, the temperature in our car read 58 degrees (the benefit of a heated garage). By the time we got to the base and parked at the gym, the temperature was -1. It has been quite cold, and this week the highs will be -5 or -8 a couple of days.

Garth will be in Sacramento, CA this week attending a course on malpractice cases. He has been looking forward to going "outside" as we call it here in Alaska.

Pictures!

It has been 2 hours and 20 minutes since I started this blog. I might blog more often if I could figure out how to download the pictures from my Kodak EasyShare software to the blog! We enjoyed our Thanksgiving yesterday with friends from the ward, Tom & Kitty Griffin.

Sorry about the green eyes! Here is our Monty (I know some of you are missing him). He has lost 12 pounds on his diet. He can't decide in this picture whether he is going to continue down the stairs or go back up!

Here are some new friends of ours, Eliza and Perry Farley. This is Halloween and we are meeting Perry for the first time. George Farley works with Garth in the legal office on Ft. Wainwright. Gayle is the mother of these two cuties. Eliza will be coming over for a couple of hours tomorrow (Saturday) morning while mom, dad and Perry do some Christmas shopping. One of these days we hope Perry will get to stay, too. I have this in common with Emily, I love to help out and have kids over to visit with. It's nice to be able to help people out and it helps us be a little more lively and energetic around here.

Garth, Alena Keller (a ward member) and I were in Palmer, Alaska on November 2nd & 3rd. We were there for a cannery assignment. This is a beautiful snow-covered mountain in the area. Garth and I also attended a session in the Anchorage Temple. The new Temple President and Matron are neighbors of Rosie and Craig Parker (Garth's sister) in Bountiful. Garth met both President and Sister Owen, and I introduced myself to Sister Owen after the session. They sure think Craig and Rosie are great!

Last week, Garth and I visited the Knotty Shop in Salcha, Alaska. It was getting dark and was snowing, but I did get a picture of a moose. They have quite a variety of carvings from knotty wood, as well as other gifts and novelty items.

These are not bags of trash outside, this is my new deep-freeze! I bought two turkeys and don't have any room in my freezer (remember Garth & Nick's fishing trip in August?). It is so cold here that I just left them outside for about a week. There was an article in the paper a few weeks ago about not leaving food out in the snowbank that would attract bears or moose, but we have a fenced area so I wasn't too worried. There were a couple of times that Monty started barking and I wouldn't have been too surprised to see my turkeys being carried away!

I attended a super-Saturday for Relief Society a few weeks ago. It was fun and we learned how to make these scripture bags out of placemats. I have made one for myself, Melissa, Rachel and Emily. Let me know what colors you like and I will make one for you, too.

Monty is wearing his new booties. With the weather so cold here in Fairbanks we had to get something to protect his feet. He sure did a fancy high-step when we went out on our walk. He soon got into the swing of things, we ran for a while and he did his usual 'stuff' while we were out. We have just arrived home and he is trying to get them off as quickly as possible. We didn't have much of a choice of colors, so he will be Christmasy all winter long in red and green.

This is one of my favorite Thanksgiving traditions - making 'turkeys' to give to friends. I made about 50 turkeys this year for the sister's I visit teach, the kids in seminary, and for Garth to take to work. My mom made these years ago when the kids were little and they are so fun to make. Emily 'tagged' me so I will quickly tell six things about myself. I enjoy crafty projects - like making bags out of placemats and turkeys out of cookies and candy corn. Garth and I are hoping to make some fun wall-hangings or quilts in the near future. We have done quite a bit of moving over the past 20 years and I love meeting new people and getting to know the areas we have lived in. I think these experiences have made our lives so rich. Alaska has been an adventure so far, and we are excited about the new experiences we will continue to have up here. I love children and enjoy helping out friends and ward members by taking care of their kids for a while. It is always nice to send them home again, too. One of the new things about me is that I am teaching early morning seminary this year and absolutely love it. I know I'm not the best teacher, but I am learning to prepare the lessons to meet the interests of my class and I'm learning to relax a little as I teach so we have a fun time, too. I have 19 students in my class and miss them when they don't attend every day. I'm becoming more of a regular exerciser nowdays. After seminary, which goes from 6:30-7:20 a.m., I go to the gym on-post and work out. I like the eliptical machine and recumbant bicycle. Three days a week I have been using the nautilus machines to build some strength and muscles. The final, sixth thing about myself is, I miss you all and am so grateful for our friendship and relationship as a family. Thanks for all your love and support for us.

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.

Anchorage, Friends & Rhubarb

Friday morning, August 3rd, Nick, Garth and I left for Anchorage. There are two ways to travel to Anchorage from Fairbanks, and we took the Richardson Highway, which is the longer of the two routes. It was beautiful with wildflowers, trees, mountains and glimpses of glaciers along the way! We stopped at the Sourdough Roadhouse where Patsy was our cook and Todd was our waiter. Their claim to fame is that they use a sourdough starter originating in the 1890's. Patsy said she doesn't spend winters there anymore. After we ordered, a quaint looking woman came in and said they had shot a bear. Todd told us it was in the back of the pick-up outside. We were drawn to the pick-up with the thoughts of seeing a bear! It was sobering to see that magnificent animal lying in a pool of blood. The fascination didn't last long and we were left wishing we hadn't looked, that we could have seen the bear down by the pond instead. With our stop for lunch, the trip took us 9 hours.

One of the attractions of going to Anchorage was seeing our friends, Eddie & Sharlene Hakala, who were in our ward in Albuquerque for a couple of years. Eddie is from Anchorage and they have lived here almost 3 years. We had a great visit with this wonderful family - we didn't call and let them know we had moved to Alaska, so they were very surprised to see us! Nathan is 12, Haley is 8, Jarod is 5, Chad is 3 and Katie is almost 5 months old. We look forward to seeing the Hakala's again.

Going to the Temple in Anchorage was a very special experience. We are so thankful to have a Temple in Alaska and I hope we can attend frequently. I know making the trip in the winter will be impossible. Kevin and Susana Kennedy from our ward were in the same session. The Anchorage Temple is a small Temple so making a reservation to attend a session is required. While we were attending the Temple, Nick visited his favorite store, Borders. I think he acquired a new CD, surprise!!

We ate lunch at the Moose's Tooth, which is known for specialty pizza's. We tried the Spicy Thai Chicken because we loved Mike & Melissa's so much. We vote for Mike & Melissa's pizza over the Moose's Tooth, but their pizza was good. We also ordered 1/2 Avalanche & 1/1 Sgt. Pepper's. You'll have to come to Alaska to find out what those pizzas are all about.

We took the Parks Highway on the way home, which goes through Denali National Park. It rained all day Saturday and the clouds were very low, so we did not see much along the way. There are a couple of places where Mt. McKinley should have been visible. There was an accident, which blocked both lanes of the road and we were stopped for 1 1/2 hours. We were very comfortable in the car listening to some Miles Davis, reading and talking. Garth walked up the road to check out the accident - nobody was hurt. I had been driving and just after I got out to take a picture of some flowers, I noticed the lights on the dashboard dimming. I had run the battery out! Well, what better time to have a dead battery than sitting on a road with vehicles all around you. Garth asked the nice couple in a jeep behind us to give us a jump. No searching for cables or someone to help, they were right behind us with nothing else to do. The drive home took 6 hours (not counting the wait). The public restrooms on both highways sure leave a lot to be desired. It was great to be home.

Last week we went out to George & Gail Farley's home to pick raspberries. They didn't have too many raspberries, but did send us home with lots of rhubarb! I made a batch of freezer jelly (only 2 pints), a rhubarb crisp for Garth to take to work, and two loaves of rhubarb streusel bread (yummy). I still have tons of it left and will probably make some more jelly. I didn't like the chunks of rhubarb in the jelly, so this time I will put it in the blender and see if I can make a smoother product and I will share it with some neighbors.

Garth has been called as a Sunday School teacher for the 12-13 year olds. Tuesday night we have an appointment with our Bishop. I guess I might be receiving a call soon, too. We test drove a Saturn Vue on Saturday - I'm hoping to get myself another car, and Garth would like a jeep. I love the Honda, but feel like I am sitting down so low, and I have a hard time seeing out the back window.