The Bowers

I have another new job!

2010-04-20T01:08:00.003-04:00

Well, I no longer work for URS. It was a great job and there were a lot of great people that work there but I was offered and took a permanent job elsewhere. I now work for Dr. Sedwick as the front desk receptionist. He is an ENT and Facial Plastic Surgeon. There are a total of 5 of us that work there (including Dr. Sedwick), so it is a VERY different situation than I have ever worked in before. I only work about 32 hours a week and am making the same per month as URS. I will have the option for insurance coverage and at the end of my first year will have 2 weeks paid vacation. I will also benefit from profit sharing at the end of the year. I know it seems crazy to have changed jobs after only one month but since I was not given any guarantees of a position at the end of the temp position I felt like I needed to take a sure thing. Plus did I mention that I only have to work about 32 hours a week!!!!! Oh, btw, the office is less than 1 mile from our apartment and the latest I have to work on Friday's is 2:00 and the doctor is thinking about shortening the hours on Friday this summer.

This past weekend Kevin and I and our friend Mattea went to Seward. We got a special deal on a whale watching cruise, a night at Hotel Seward (very nice) and tickets to the Wildlife Conservation Center. Unfortunately we didn't see any whales on the cruise but we did see lots of other wildlife. We saw porpoise, mountain goats, bald eagles, sea lions and sea otters. We also saw several dall sheep on the way back home. We had an awesome dinner at the Italian restaurant in Seward and the hotel was much better and nicer than we expected. From the looks of it outside we thought we would be characters in the next Stephen King novel. It rained most of the time we were there but we still had a LOT of fun.

The marina Mountain Goat Porpoise More mountain goats Bald Eagle

Sea Otter Sea Lion The boat we were on The not so scary hotel room Dall sheep

I have a job!!!!!

2010-03-23T00:00:00.000-04:00

After a lot of applying and several interviews, I now have a job. In fact, last Tuesday I was offered two different jobs. The first offer came late morning from Holland America/Princess Tours. I had a 2nd interview on Monday for a Tour Sales job working on the train. The job would have been a lot of fun and had some great benefits but the pay ($8/hour), hours (60+ a week) and no weekends off were not ideal. The second offer came in the afternoon from URS Corporation. URS is an Environmental Engineering firm. The interview was set up through a staffing firm that I got hooked up with week before last. About 15 minutes into the interview the man asked when I might be able to start. I said as soon as possible, and he said how about tomorrow. The job is starting as a temp position as a receptionist through August. Due to a recent merger of two different companies the two offices in town will be brought together into one building in August. At that time, there is a possibility of a promotion as they will no longer need a second (me) receptionist. They have promoted several receptionists in the last several years into positions where they work on specific projects. They also talked to me about helping with the design layout for the new office building and they were very excited about my ability to run AutoCAD. Even though it is starting as a temp job, I am so excited about the possibilities for the future. The job is pretty easy and is going well so far.

I also joined a gym a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully I will get back down to where I was at the end of last summer. Of course, once to that point, I hope to keep bringing the number down. The winter without work was not very good for me.

75th Annual Anchorage Fur Rendezvous 2010

2010-03-02T21:03:00.004-05:00

Friday Feb. 26 was the kick off of the 2010 Fur Rondy. For those of you wondering what in the heck the Fur Rondy is (as I did) here is a description. I summarized this from the rondy history description in the official rondy guide (http://www.furrondy.net/)

In the mid 1930's when Anchorage's population was about 3,000 people, Vern Johnson (the father of the Fur Rendezvous) and his friends decided to establish a 3 day festival to coincide with the time the miners and trappers came to town with their winter's yield. The first festival was held Feb. 15-17, 1935 and was more of a 3 day sports tournament including: skiing, hockey, basketball, boxing and children's sled dog race down 4th Ave. It is also a good way of getting people out of their homes durning the long cold winter.

The Fur Rondy fur Auction has been a staple of the Festival since the beginning and the Festival was named in honor of the economic importance of the Alaskan fur trade. The fur trade was Alaska's third most valuable industry in those days, so incorporating the industry into the celebration was a logical idea.

We of course could not pass up this opportunity to participate in the long standing traditional event, so here is a little bit about what we did.

We started Saturday morning off by getting downtown about 8:30AM and finding a good parking place. Our first stop was at the Pioneer Pancake Breakfast which is a fundraiser for scholarships for descendants of Alaska's early pioneers. Our next stop was just outside the door of the Pioneer hall to watch the 5k Frostbite Race and Costume Fun Run.

While watching we purchased an official Fur Rondy pin and button set to keep ourselves out of the Keystone Jail.

Next we made our way across the next block to a perfect viewing spot for the Rondy Grand Parade. We enjoyed watching all the military representatives, old cars and tractors, the Rondy Royalty and local businesses and radio stations.

After the parade we went back to the car to warm up with a little coffee and watch the start of the Rondy World Championship sled Dog Race. The mushers participate for 3 heats of 25 miles each over the course of 3 days.

Mid-afternoon we enjoyed watching the Outhouse Races. There were 37 teams that built outhouses, attached ski's to the bottom and raced in pairs down 4th Avenue. The outhouse has to have a sitter and 4 pushers/pullers for each heat.

Later we watched the fireworks from our parking place on the fifth level of the C St. garage.

In between these major events we also took a stroll around the snow sculptures,

watched a blanket toss (a Native Alaskan past time) and the Big Air Demo.

On Sunday we went back downtown for a hysterical event called Running with the Reindeer! Participants pay $25 (goes to Toys for Tots) and where costumes and run down 4th Avenue with a herd of reindeer.

This weekend is the start of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race so we plan to go back downtown for that.

Long time no hear from!

2010-02-03T17:22:00.001-05:00

Yeah yeah yeah! I am sorry it's been so long. I have just been neglectful. But thanks to a couple of reminders from my readers I am finally updating.

Christmas was a good time. Mattea (a friend from over the summer) came over and enjoyed the holiday with us. We had presents from our families to open and even a little something from each other. I unfortunately had a bit of a cold the week of Christmas so it was a very lazy time. We had good food and good movies and good company. We missed our family very much and we look forward to seeing the family next Christmas.

We celebrated the New Year downtown at the Fire and Ice Festival. The "square" downtown was turned into an ice skating rink and they had a stage set up with a live band and Hawaiian dancers. They even had a volcano that erupted every hour. They had section set up with fire dancers as well. It was really cool. It ended with a fireworks display at 8PM (midnight EST). We headed home after that and watched the re-run of Dick Clark's New Years Eve and celebrated again at mid-night our time.

The month of January has been fun, we have spent a day at Alyeska Ski Resort with our friends Bill and Kelly. Bill and Kevin skied while Kelly and I had massages. It was a fun day. We spent a couple of days sleigh riding too. Kevin had his first week of "on-call" at work. He will have to do this about every 12 weeks, where he spends Friday at 6PM until the next Friday at 8AM on call. If anyone at the base has an emergency during the weekend or overnight he has to go out and fix the problem. It went fairly well, he spent all day on Sat and Sun working and every evening had to go do a few calls but for the most part he was able to sleep thru the night with out any disruptions. We ended the month of January by buying a car for me. I am the proud owner of a 1998 Dodge Durango!

February started well. The greatest part is that Kevin reached his 90 days at his job and with that came the Health, Dental and Vision Insurance! We have been carrying a temporary health insurance plan that was basically just enough to keep us out of major debt if a severe accident happened. So it is a good felling to have good coverage again. I had an interview for a job with Holland America yesterday. It was for the position of Tour Sales working on the passenger train that travels from Anchorage to Fairbanks and back everyday during the summer/tourist season. The interview went well. There are a lot of perks and good things about the job but the biggest drawback is that I would have to work every weekend which is when Kevin is off work. We have plans for things we want to do this summer and places we want to go visit so I don't think the job with Holland would rally work out for me. I will keep looking for something and hope that it will be schedule that will work for us. I do have the unemployment coverage til mid March so that gives me about 5 to 6 more weeks to find something.

I guess that gets everything caught up to the present. Hopefully I won't wait so long to post the next update. I am on facebook and usually keep good updates on there about everyday. Hope you are all having a good new year so far!

First Winter off to a good start!

2009-12-06T14:52:00.004-05:00

The last few weekends have kept us busy and we have been having fun.

We spent Thanksgiving Day with our friends Mattea and Cynthia. We had a great meal and a relaxing day. We spent the weekend doing a little shopping and putting up the Christmas tree. We bought our ski pants and a few Christmas gifts too!

This week I bought the stuff and made a wreath for our front door. I ended up saving $5 by making it myself instead of buying a pre-made one at Wal-Mart.

This weekend we went sledding at a popular hill in Kincaid Park in west Anchorage. We had a blast. We also found a special deal on a Wii at Wal-Mart - purchase for $199 and receive a Wal-Mart gift card for $50! This is our Christmas gift to each other. Now we need to buy some accessories!

The view from the top of the sledding hill. Cynthia, Me and Mattea enjoying the day, complete with a thermos of hot chocolate. Me getting ready to go down the hill.

Kevin giving Mattea a push off. Me and Cynthia making snow angels.

Here's a video of us sledding. Mattea and her Aunt Cynthia are on the first sled and me on the second sled.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

A night out on the town!

2009-11-16T18:53:00.002-05:00

Our night out just consisted of us going to a hockey game. It was our first Alaska Aces game and it was a lot of fun. They beat the Condors 7 to 1. We hope to get to more games this season.

The snow is here!

2009-11-09T13:57:00.002-05:00

It finally snowed yesterday evening and night. We ended up with about 2 inches of snow as of this morning. Kevin was not really excited about driving to work in the snow this morning however, he knew he would have to eventually. He is just glad it didn't do this his first week of work. Hope you enjoy the picture.

Backpack camping into the Park

2009-11-05T15:24:00.005-05:00

Here are some pictures from our backpack camping trip in Denali National Park. Our friends Montana and Holly went with us. We rode the bus into the park to the end of the road. At the end of the road is the old gold mining camp called Kantishna. We found an old road that we hiked up 3 miles to a clearing that over looked the Alaska Range including Mt. McKinley. We pitched our tents and enjoyed being out in the wild where the four of us were the only people in the world that knew exactly where we were. It was a fantastic trip and one that we hope to do again someday. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Here are some of the pictures we took on the bus ride out to Kantishna:
Some bears A golden eagle a fox The four of us at one of the stopping points along the road. That's Mt. McKinley in the back ground.

These two pictures were taken when we made a stop at Eilson Visitors Center, there were some antlers laying on the ground so we took advantage for a picture moment.

Along the road we hiked up to the clearing.

The four of us on the clearing where we pitched our tents. Holly went further up the hill and took our picture before we pitched our tents.

Our tents!

We had to go at least 100 feet away from our camp site to eat. That is one of the rules that you learn in the safety class that you have to take in order to be able to overnight camp in the park.

This was a rock cliff that we climbed up and sat on for awhile. This is where we took the picture (above) of our tents.

After set up camp we went for a walk along the ridge line. We found a huge blueberry patch along the way, so we stopped and enjoyed them.

This was the view from the hill top clearing.

When we woke up the next morning it was raining and VERY foggy, so we had fun packing up!

New home, new job, new experiences

2009-11-02T12:12:00.002-05:00

We moved into our new apartment over the weekend. We are renting a 2 bedroom at Deer Park Apartments. Which means we have room for visitors! We bought a mattress and a friend gave us a couch and a coffee table (which the TV is sitting on right now). We are waiting for more income before we start accumulating more furniture. Speaking of income. . . . Kevin started a new job today. He is working for JL Properties. They have the contract for maintaining military housing at Elmendorf Air Force Base. I however will be collecting unemployment until I find a good job. Until that time I am setting up our new home. I have decided that opposed to just being a housewife I am more of a Trophy Wife. HAHAHAHA!!!

So far we are really enjoying Alaska. We had a great summer and fall so far and we are looking forward to a great winter. We have a couple that we made fast friends with over the summer at the Chalets that is staying in Alaska for the winter. Another friend of ours from the summer will be staying in Alaska also and living with her Aunt. The 6 of us are planning on spending Thanksgiving together. Even though we will not be with family and enjoying our old traditions we are excited to start new traditions here in Alaska.

As of this posting we do not have any snow here in the city but there is plenty of snow on the mountains nearby. There is snow in the forecast toward the middle to end of the week. It is very different from last year when the first snow came at the beginning of the second week of October. Locals have been telling us that this fall has been very warm. Although I do believe that the cold is here now and here to stay for awhile. The temp this morning was 12 degrees at about 6:30AM. The high today is supposed to be in the mid 20's.

I have been having some technical difficulties with getting some of my pictures downloaded from my cameras that I am trying to get taken care of in the next couple of days. I know I have been saying I would post pictures soon for about 3 months (or more) but I really am going to try VERY hard to get some uploaded on here this week. I will just have to postpone unpacking some.

Have a great week everybody!

Here we are!

2009-10-05T12:19:00.002-04:00

Well, we have made it to Anchorage. We arrived last Thursday, Oct. 1 and spent the night with a friend of ours and on Friday we moved into a temporary apartment. We still haven't decided where in Anchorage we want to live and there are so many apartments to choose from that we just choose a place that would do a 30 day lease to start from. We are starting the search today to find a place to move into by Nov. 2nd.

The summer finished up nicely at the Chalets. My last day of work was on Sept. 21 and Kevin's last day was Sept. 30. The maintenance team was able to shut the whole property down (28 guest buildings, the main lobby, gift shop, 2 restaurants, several employee housing buildings, the employee dining room and various other buildings) in record time. By shutting down the property I am referring to the fact that ALL water must be turned off and completely drained out of the pipes including no water can be left in the toilets, windows have to be boarded up and power has to be shut off. There were many many other things that they had to do as well but the details can be some what boring. The summer was very interesting and definitely a growing experience for both of us. It was a big step out of my comfort zone to live so close to so many people and have to share a bathroom with strangers, but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.

Now, more about what is going on currently. The place we moved into temporarily is basically like a hotel room but with it being an apartment building tenants can sign a minimum of a 1 month lease at a time and not have to pay the bed tax. The building itself used to be a nursing home/assisted living facility. Floors 2, 3 and 4 used to be the nursing home rooms, they don't have kitchens in them, just the room with a bed and a huge bathroom with a roll in type shower. We live on the 4th floor. There is a community room that the rooms on these floors have access to that has a full kitchen and there is a laundry room. Floors 5 - 14 are what used to be the assisted living apartments. They are one bedroom apartments with full kitchens. It is a bit expensive (comparatively with TN) to live here for what you get but it is warm and dry and all the utilities are included in the rent - even cable! The building is in downtown so we definitely are not interested in staying here long term. We have a LONG list of apartments that we want to look at that are scattered all over town. As we drive around to look at them we will see what kind of areas they are in and decide if it looks like a "safe" or "good" area of town to live in. We are leaning more toward the south end of town though.

We will keep you posted as to the progress and how it goes. Have a great week everybody!

We are still alive and well

2009-09-18T15:51:00.003-04:00

So a few weeks ago we went down to Wasilla/Palmer and spent a few days at the Alaska State Fair. It was a lot of fun to see all the gigantic vegetables and the variety of animals. I never knew there was so many kinds of chickens. It was fun getting to eat all the fair food, cotton candy, funnel cake, dippin' dots, candy apples, corn dogs and bbq. We definitely got to see so interesting things, the pig race was probably the most entertaining. We tried again to go skydiving but it was just too cloudy. We will eventually do this though!!!

The next week we drove up to the Arctic Circle via the Dalton Highway and continued on to Coldfoot, AK where we camped out for the night. It took about 7 hours to drive to Coldfoot from Denali but the scenery was well worth it. We didn't get to see any snow though, still a little too early. We ended up about 240 miles away from Deadhorse. We hope to one day drive all the way up to Deadhorse when we have more than just one night. We got to see the pipeline along the way too, so that was cool.

This past "weekend" we went out to Healy and camped out so we could watch for the Northern Lights and take pictures. They were out for about an hour and a half and we did get some pictures but they weren't very bright. Eventually I will get some of those pictures uploaded, but again, I am going to have to wait until I can get a stronger signal.

We are down to the last few days that the hotel is open so we are getting ready to wrap everything up. Kevin's last day of work will be October 1, so we will be leaving here on October 2. We still do not have jobs lined up nor a place to live but we do have a couple of prospects. We should know by next week where we are going to live at least temporarily until we decide on jobs and what part of town will be best for us.

Hope you are all doing well and thanks for staying up to date on what we are doing.

Pictures from the Chena Hot Springs camping trip

2009-08-29T03:27:00.003-04:00

Sorry these are so late in getting posted. I guess the time to upload to the Internet is late at night. Hope you enjoy.
The group: Damian, Nija, Holly and myself, Kevin took the picture. Nija and Holly slept on way there.

Montana watching me roast a hotdog. Hanging out by the fire: Bill, me, Nija, Damian and Montana in the back. Hanging out at the campsite: Kelly, Holly, me and Nija

Walking across the airstrip. Me and Kevin in the hot spring pool. Kevin being lazy in the tent.

So what have we been up to lately?

2009-08-28T18:41:00.002-04:00

Well lets start with a few weeks ago. Kevin and I went with our friends Holly and Montana into the park and backpack camped into the back country. It was a ton of fun. It was my first experience with packing everything you would need for an over night tent camping trip into a pack and then carrying that pack into the wilderness and camping. We rode the bus all the way into the park as far as possible which is Kantishna "the end of the road". It's 91 miles into the park. We took off up a mountain and hiked 3 miles up the mountain until we found a clearing that overlooked the Alaska range which includes Mt. McKinley. It was absolutely gorgeous. We set up camp and stayed for the night. We woke early the next morning to the rain coming down. We packed up and hiked back out to the road. We then came back home. We were all really sore from all the uphill hiking but it was so much fun that none of us really cared.

Last week Mom and Bryant came up for a visit. They were here for this past week and we enjoyed showing them around. We got to see some moose up close and personal while out driving around, it was pretty cool. Except for the part where we were almost run over by and moose then we almost ran into it while the truck behind us almost run over us. It was exciting after the fact when we realized we lived through it.

Yesterday we hiked up Mt. Healy which is right behind the hotel property. It was about 7 miles round trip. It was a fabulous view.

I hope to be able to upload some pictures soon from all our exciting adventures, so stayed tuned.

This week we are going down to Wasilla to spend a couple of days at the State Fair. We also hope the skydiving thing will work out this time. I will update when we get back.

Guess what? . . . . It's August!!!!!

2009-08-04T18:47:00.002-04:00

Last week we took our "weekend" and went camping with some friends to Chena Hot Springs Resort, about 60 miles north of Fairbanks. The resort is really nice and the campground is nice too. They actually have an in ground pool and hot tubs in addition to the hot spring fed pool. We had a great time relaxing and visiting with some friends. They also have a museum at the resort that we visited. The inside is made completely out of ice. Even in the area where they make the carvings their "tool bench" and tables are made out of ice. They have a bar inside that even the stools are made out of ice. The only kind of drink they serve is an Appletini because any non-alcoholic drink would freeze before it could be served. It is even served in a martini glass made out of ice. There are four "bedrooms" inside the ice museum that you can rent for the night for only $600. They also have an alter where they hold wedding ceremonies.

We also went to North Pole, Alaska which is also near Fairbanks. We visited Santa's House while we were there and saw some of his reindeer. Santa was there and we had out picture made with him. We got to see where Santa keeps all the letters that boys and girls send to him each year. He keeps them posted all over the walls. It was really cool.

We had a great time and can't wait for our next adventure. We plan to go to Wasilla the first week of Sept. for the Alaska State Fair. While there we plan to fulfill our quest that we didn't get to do last time, skydiving!

I have tried twice to upload pictures and the connection keeps failing when I click upload. I will try again later, but if I can't get them pics on, I have several loaded on my facebook page so check it out. If we aren't "friends" just send me a friend request then you can see them.

Until next time. . . . .

IT'S JULY ALREADY!!!!!

2009-07-08T00:55:00.002-04:00

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah I know, it's been awhile.

Well in the last few weeks I have officially become an Alaskan resident. I now have my driver's license and Kevin will have his in the next week or so. The truck has also been registered and has Alaska plates on it.

We spent a day in the park a couple of weeks ago and we saw the "Big 5" plus the mountain making it a Grand Slam. The Big 5 are: moose, grizzly bear, dall sheep, wolf and caribou. The morning we went out was completely clear and perfect blue skies. We were able to see the Mt. McKinley in all it glory. By the afternoon it started clouding up a bit and started hiding the mountain but we go a good hike in. In addition to the big 5 we saw a golden eagle, countless squirrels, snow shoe hares and mugulls (just like a seagull only inland) and a fox being chased by a grizzly. Of course that happened to quickly to get a picture of.

Tomorrow we are getting on the train and riding down to Anchorage and coming back on Friday. We have some cool plans but nothing will be for sure until Thursday evening so I will not fill you in on it until it happens. Anyway, we will be getting out of "the Canyon" (the area where the hotels and shops are located outside of the park) for a couple of days so it will be nice.

Hope you will be looking forward to the next post.

The latest and greatest

2009-06-10T20:47:00.004-04:00

Well it was really a stroke of luck that we got on the flight. See, in order to go on all these exciting trips I have to have one of the managers at the front desk call the vendor and set everything up. When the manager called early in the afternoon on Tuesday they said there was a few seats open at that point and if we wanted to go on the flight we needed to be in the lobby and ready for pick up at 4:15 and if no more paying guests signed up for the flight then we would be able to go. Well, as you can tell no one else signed up. We were blessed with good weather even though it was overcast at the airport when we left we were able to get above the cloud cover and have spectacular views of the mountain. the day we went also happen to be summit day for a group of climbers that were on the mountain and they happen to be reaching the summit when we flew by. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

This is the plane we rode in.

Kevin anticipating takeoff.

Just after take off, that is the town of Healy.

As you can see we had some clouds.

But we were able to rise above them.

And when we did break through we were blessed to see Mt. McKinley towering above the clouds.

As we soared to above 15,000 feet we had to put on oxygen masks since the plane we were on was not pressurized.

We were able to see some of the glaciers coming off the mountain.

We were actually flying over the south peak and looking down at the north peak from about 21,000 feet.

Those black dots on the peak are actual people standing on top of the mountain.

There are a group of climbers huddled up with a string of climbers coming up to them.

The climbers walk in groups of 5 people that are tied off to each other. There was supposed to be around 10 or 12 groups climbing the mountain at this time.

This is a shot of the north side of the mountain with another mountain to the west of it in the back ground. We were flying away at this point.

We did finally go white water rafting the other day also. We did that on Thursday of last week. There happen to be a news crew there that day doing a story on activities to do in the Denali area. We happen to be flipping channels on the TV Monday night when we just caught the story being aired and there we were on the TV. It was pretty cool. The news station was the Anchorage ABC channel.

Hope all are well and we would love to hear from you.

What we have been up to. . . .

2009-06-03T14:58:00.005-04:00

Nothing really exciting to write home about but here it is.

Last week some good friends, Phil and Denise Jones, were up here with a tour group and I was able to visit with them some. I went on a hike with them one of the days they were here. Here's a couple of the pics from the hike.

We have also been ATV riding:

I have made some new friends and we all have Wednesday's off so we have been having girls time. We went out to eat last night and had a good time.

Me, Holly, Andrea, Caressa and Julia, there was another girl that joined us but she didn't have her pic made with us, her name is Matia.

Although there are times we have a difficult time with our living arrangements (small and not much privacy) we are having a good time. We like most of the people we work with and for. I have even been promoted to supervisor at the front desk. The promotion means a dollar more an hour and we were able to move to a room that shares a bathroom with another room which means no more getting up in the middle of the night and walking across to another building to go to the bathroom. Anyway, we are still looking for jobs in the Anchorage area so that when something more permanant comes available we can move.

Hope all is well with each of you. We miss you and would love to hear from any of you.

Helicopter ride over Denali National Park

2009-05-20T14:43:00.005-04:00

Just before take off.

As we took off.

The Nenana River (thawed out, except the little bit of ice you can see along the edges.

Riley Creek just inside the park.

The Alaskan Range

The Alaska Range with Mt. McKinley a.k.a Denali in the background.

Denali on the East side. There are two summits to the mountain, the left peak which is the south peak is the highest peak at 20,320 feet. The right peak which is the north summit is just under 20,000 feet.

A mountain we flew past.

Denali

Denali and some of the glaciers coming off it.

Just looking into the park. All the colors you see are different minerals that are in the ground.

The Nenana River

2009-05-19T19:04:00.004-04:00

I have dated the pics for the day I took them so you can see the progression. One of these days I will take a picture of it all thawed out so you can see how it looks all summer. BTW, we will be rafting this river sometime this summer. That's one of the perks of the job, free rafting.

April 2, 2009

April 2, 2009

April 8, 2009

April 14, 2009

April 21, 2009

April 24, 2009

April 27, 2009

Busy, busy, busy!

2009-05-09T22:00:00.002-04:00

WOW! What a turn around this week. I started work yesterday (Friday) and we are expecting our first set of guests on Tuesday, May 12. Everybody is working this weekend trying to get everything up and running and ready. I am going through a great deal of training, learning a new computer system that is used to check in guests. Kevin and the rest of the maintenance team are working frantically trying to get all the buildings and departments up and going. It is crazy around here. Things should settle down in a couple of weeks. I have no idea when our next day off will be but I will post the pictures I promised last time when that day comes.

Hope all is well with you all and we miss you.

Being a slacker!

2009-05-04T00:24:00.002-04:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I am a slacker. It has been a while since I posted. Things have been going pretty well here and we are trying to adjust to living here in Alaska. Some days are better than others but when you have to work in such a beautiful place that is to be expected. The weather has been great the last couple of weeks. Breakup (a.k.a Spring) has been very interesting. Lows have been in the upper 20's to low 30's while highs have been reaching into the low 70's. It is such a turn around from our first morning here when it was -27 degrees. Most of the snow has melted although piles still remain in the shady areas or the areas that point North. Daylight has been around 5:00ish AM to around 10:30ish PM. Even at 1:30 in the morning the other night, you could still see a slight bit of light to the North. I did get to see the Northern lights one night about 2:30 AM but it was mid April and by the time I got back in the room to get Kevin up and grab the camera it was already gone. It will be late Fall before I get the chance again to see it.

Yesterday we got up early and headed South to Anchorage. We got a storage unit to put most of our stuff in for the remainder of the summer until we move down that way. We had a nice dinner out and stayed at a hotel and came back up this afternoon. It is about a 4 hour drive so we didn't want to do that trip in one day. We of course forgot the camera because that is the kind of intelligent people we are so we didn't pictures of all the caribou we saw and the Eagle. It was really cool. Oh well!

I hope all are well and we miss you all!

Pictures coming soon. . . of the river breakup. Again, there are some glitches with the Internet connection around here and I can't get them uploaded this evening.

Pictures

2009-04-21T01:41:00.003-04:00

This a Ptarmigan - Alaska State Bird. They grow white feathers in the winter so they blend in with the snow and hid more easily. This one is starting to grow its dark feathers back. A sign that spring and summer are right around the corner.

There she is - Denali!

A red fox trotting down the road in Healy. Unfortunately this is the best picture we could get. We followed it down the road a little ways, it didn't seem to notice it was a little out of place.

April 20, 2009

2009-04-20T21:13:00.002-04:00

Well I guess I have been a little neglectful with my updates, sorry. Not much else has been happening lately. Kevin is working everyday and I am working a little every couple of days. We drove up to Fairbanks for the day on Saturday. We did some shopping and looking around. A few of the other maintenance guys went with us, which was nice because 2 of them gave us some gas money and the other one paid for our lunch. We also drove back into the park on Sunday afternoon and Denali was out for a little better show than the last time. I hope you enjoy the pictures. We miss everybody and are really hoping you will all come visit us at some point over the next few years. Love you guys!

Sorry pics will have to come later, tech problems.

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T13:59:00.005-04:00

Happy Easter! I hope you are all having a joyous day.

The week went by fairly quickly. Kevin got a full week of work in and then some. The guys finally got the water back on Thursday. So, we were able to take showers and do some laundry. It’s amazing how much we take those kinds of things for granted until you can’t do them easily. The Internet was on Thursday, then was back off by Friday morning, but was back on by Saturday morning. Let’s just hope it stays on now.

I was able to work about 4 hours this week, which was spent in the bathhouse cleaning up so we could take those showers and use the toilets. Next week I hope to work at least 8 hours. In my spare time I have been taking a lot of walks and learning where everything is. Kevin is enjoying his job (as much as you can enjoy any job, b/c seriously who likes to work anyway?). We are just anxious to get the lodge open and get the summer started. The weather has been improving immensely since we got here. The sun has been shinning a lot and the daytime temps have been getting up to around the mid 30’s, thus melting the ice and snow slowly but surely.
Now on to the good stuff: Kevin, Ralph (the electrician working on the maintenance team) and I went in to the park yesterday. They have the road open to vehicles to the Savage River turnout which is about 15 miles into the park. Denali (Mt. McKinley) made itself slightly visible so that was spectacular to see. Here are some pictures we took along the way yesterday. For more information on the park you can visit: www.nps.gov/dena/index.htm

Just entering the park. Mt. McKinley is the very distant peak to the right of the picture (about 1/2 inch from the right side).

View of Mt. McKinley

View of Savage River while standing on the frozen river.

Kevin and I walked UP to this rock face and climbed up between two sections of it. This is at the Savage River turnout.

The view from the hillside.

Another view from the hillside.

This is the area we climbed up between the two sections of the rocks.

Me climbing!

View of Savage River from the highest point we climbed to.

Heading back down.

We saw a couple of moose.

There are actually 4 caribou in this picture. They are very hard to spot because the blend in with the hillside so much.

April 8, 2009 - update as of April 3rd

2009-04-08T20:52:00.004-04:00

This is the journal entry I wrote last Friday (April 3rd). Now that the resort has the Wi-fi up and running (as of today - Wed. 4-8) I will get back on track of updating on a regular basis. Probably not everyday but at least a couple times a week.

Wow, what a week. It’s amazing how much can change in a person’s life in a matter of days. Well, remember what I said about that running water, well, that froze up on Thursday early afternoon. So when I thought we had at least a toilet to use, WRONG, now we are off to the port-a-potty when we need to go. Trying to stay on a positive note though, the port-a-potty is heated. (As of 4-8-09, the water is still not on, we have been able to carry buckets of water to the bathroom and use the actual toilets and flush them by pouring the buckets of water down them. If the water is not on by tonight it should be early tomorrow.)

We started Thursday by going over to the Murie Science and Learning Center (winter visitor center for the park) at Denali National Park for our new employee orientation. We had lots of paper work to fill out and all that new employee “stuff”. Then it was back to the resort for lunch and work. Kevin and the other maintenance guys got to work right away, however I was not allowed to start working yet. Since my official job doesn’t start until May 7 they are going to allow me work on the “Clean Team” prior to that. I was allowed to start that today. I got to work for one hour cleaning the bath house. Because the water is not back on and working yet there was not much we could do so that is why we only worked for one hour. It looks as though I will be working 2-3 days a week for the first couple of weeks, but at least it is better than nothing. Most likely starting mid April I will be working every day. (as of 4-8-09 I have not been able to work yet b/c the water is not on yet, we can't clean much without it.)

I know many of you must be thinking “What on earth have the Bowers’ done by quitting their jobs and moving so far away to work in an environment such as that?” Well to that here is my answer. . . . .

This is the view from our room. Plus, have you seen any of the other pictures I have posted. Although, I guess the mountains are not for everybody.

Not to mention things will only be getting better as we accomplish more tasks of de-winterizing this place. Also, here is just a few of the benefits we get just for being employees: FREE river rafting trips (dry suits are provided); FREE bus rides into the park (normally costs over $50 per person); FREE flight seeing plane rides; FREE rides on a real dog musher sled pulled by a team of dogs that raced in the Iditarod; and FREE visits to the Cabin Nite show (a two hour dinner and show activity).

Still, I am sure some of you think we are nuts, and we have wondered that ourselves, however this is an adventure of a life time for us. It excites us just to know that 10 or 20 or 30 years from now we will be able to look back at our lives and not have say: “What if?” We truly hope that each of you will be able to live out your dreams some day as we are doing. Just remember, it’s not about everyone else when it comes to living your own life, you can’t live your own life if you let everyone else tell you how you should live it.

May God bless each of you!

Pictures

2009-04-05T22:19:00.005-04:00

This Igloo used to be a lodge but closed in 2007 (according to the Milepost 2008). It is along the highway heading north toward Denali.

This is out front of the lodge we are working at.

The lodge we are working at with the view in the background.

This is the dorm room we are staying in right now.

But the view makes it worth it.

This is the Nenana River that flows through the area where the lodges are located outside the park.

The town of Denali (a.k.a. The Canyon). It is a ghost town right now because nothing opens until mid-May.

We went on a walk on Sunday, April 5 with two of the other maintenance guys here on sight. Alan is on the left and Ralph is in the middle, I am on the right (just in case you don't recognize my coat). We walked about 5 miles today.

Another shot of the Nenana River about 3 miles down river from the other picture above.

Info from April 1, 2009

2009-04-05T22:19:00.003-04:00

I actually wrote this on my computer on Wednesday night but this is the first time I have been able to upload from my computer. Hope you enjoy.

We left Anchorage this morning headed for the McKinley Chalet Resort in Denali, Alaska. What an exciting day. We are finally going to make it to the final destination for the summer. The day started out so beautifully; relatively few clouds, the sun rising above the Chugach Mountains and the temp in the low 20’s. We had breakfast at the hotel then got the truck all packed and ready. We left about 9:30 and drove north up Highway 1. The traffic was not too bad as we left Anchorage and only got thinner from there. We drove through Wasilla where we changed from Highway 1 to Highway 3 “The Parks Highway”. It is a nice town and they even have a Super Wal-Mart. After leaving Wasilla we drove into the clouds and snow. Gradually the road started getting more and more snow on it until it finally had succumbed to the elements and was covered. We had snow off and on the whole rest of the trip, we can’t complain though, it is so beautiful, who cares! All in all, the trip was fairly uneventful, except the 4 moose we saw. Two of them we saw were together and it appeared as though it was a momma and maybe a 1-2 year old calf. It was definitely smaller than the other one, but it wasn’t small by any means. These animals are absolutely enormous. If a grown man were to stand next to one, its back would be as tall as the man, and the head would tower over him.

We arrived at the resort around 2:00 in the afternoon and met Kevin’s boss, Curtis. The head of landscaping was also here and we met her, Jeanne. Jeanne showed us our rooms that we would have for the first few weeks and introduced us to the other 3 people that were here. All 5 of these people are year round employees and live in the town of Healy, AK which is about 11 miles north of the resort. Two other men showed later that night as well that are also on the maintenance team. So, altogether there are only 5 of us actually living here on site as of right now. Over the next few weeks we will all work to get the rest of the employee housing open and ready for the rest of the employees to show up. They will start filtering in, in about 3 to 4 weeks and we should be fully staffed by mid May.

Now concerning our living arrangements, I have to say, they are not the most wonderful of situations, however it could be worse. The water is at least on and running in the bathrooms but there is no hot water and the water is not suitable for taking a shower let alone drinking. The water has been shut off all winter and was just turned on Wednesday so we have to allow time for all the crud to blow through the lines. The hope is that by the weekend we will have hot water to take showers. For the time being we can drive to the little town of Healy and take showers there. There is a gas station/truck stop there that has a laundry mat and shower house. They are much like the shower houses at a camp ground so we are used to that sort of thing. These arrangements are only for the next 2 to 3 weeks and will only improve from here. The room we are in is a typical room for employee housing but we will not be in this particular room for the whole season. Since there are only 5 of us (other than the managers that will be arriving starting Thursday) on site and using only 4 rooms they only opened these 4 rooms in one dorm. We are hoping and praying we will get into the 900 housing which are the suits where 2 rooms share one bathroom. The rest of the buildings use the common “bath house”. Unfortunately the 900’s are reserved for supervisors and returning staff, so it is doubtful we will be one of those.

I think that is enough for this posting so I will stop for tonight. I will update as I have more to share. I will get more pics on later.

April 1, 2009

2009-04-01T21:20:00.002-04:00

This is going to be short, sweet and to the point.

We have made it to the McKinley Chalet Resort where we will be living and working this summer. We are two of the 8 people on site as of today. It is very exciting. I am actually using the computer in the maintenance dept. office so I can not attach any pics at this time. When the Wi-Fi is up and running I will upload pics from my camera of our surroundings.

Hope all is well with each of you, stay tuned for the next exciting update.

March 29, 2009

2009-03-29T20:00:00.002-04:00

Well, here we are on Sunday afternoon not doing much. We have had the TV on the USA channel all day watching movies and we have only left the room twice today. I guess you could say we are taking full advantage of this opportunity to relax. We went down for breakfast this morning about 8:30 and went for an early afternoon walk for about 45 minutes. We have been out and about the last few days taking care of things and learning our way around town. We don't have any new and exciting pictures to add today but I am sure we will later this week. I just wanted to check in with everybody and let you all know that we are doing well.

The exciting thing that has been happening this week is the eruption of Volcano Mt. Redoubt. It has erupted several times since last Sunday March 22. One of the worst eruptions was yesterday and it sent an ash cloud soaring over Anchorage and the surrounding areas. We had a significant ash fall, which amounted to something similar to a dusting of snow we get back home. When we went out for our walk we went over to the truck and Kevin blew on the windshield and the ash slid down and gathered on the windshield wipers. All the beautiful white snow on the ground took on a gray shade when the ash fell. The officials were encouraging people to stay indoors and not run their cars for several hours last night, they also advised people to make sure their doors and windows were sealed. They even shut down the whole airport. Although, they have cancelled several flights over the last several days yesterday was the worst so far.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) has some interesting info and pictures if you are interested in learning more: www.avo.alaska.edu From the home page, hover over the Current Volcanic Activity tab, when the menu pops down, click on Redoubt. If you click on the images of current activity at Redoubt, you will be able to see several pictures of the recent activity. There are several pages of pictures to see. The really are cool, a little scary, but cool.

Keep an eye on the blog later this week. We hope to be able to post a new update after we arrive at the lodge on Wednesday. We are supposed to have wireless Internet up there, but I am unsure of the status of it when we get there since we will be among the first to arrive at the property. Have a good week!

Day 12 Pictures

2009-03-24T23:58:00.006-04:00

Day 12!

2009-03-24T21:11:00.002-04:00

We have made it to Anchorage.

We left Tok this morning around 8:30 (after waking up to a few more inches of snow on the ground) and started our leisurely drive to Anchorage. Today was by far the most amazing. Around every curve of the road was a new vision, some better than the last. There were several times today that we said WOW! Look at that! We saw five moose today and drove high into the mountains in the tundra area (the area that is so high very small if any trees grow). I will get some pictures posted in a little while. It takes so long to load the pictures and I wanted to get this post on before we go to dinner. Sorry, you will just have to wait a little bit and probably until tomorrow morning for the pictures since we are 4 hours behind most of you. No fun or exciting story's to tell you about today, sorry!

To celebrate our arrival, we are going to dinner at one of our favorite places: TGIFriday's for a good Jack Daniels Steak and potatoes, I can't wait, my mouth is already watering!

We will be here until next Wednesday, April 1. We will leave that morning and head up to Denali National Park to the McKinley Chalets where we will be working. That means we have a week here in this beautiful city. We plan to meet with an agent at State Farm and get our insurance matters settled, find a mechanic to have the truck serviced (just general stuff that you have to have done after putting over 4600 miles on your car in less than 2 weeks), find a bank and get accounts set up, do a little apartment hunting for when we move back here in October and check in with a couple of places we interviewed with back in October 2008 to let them know we are in town and will be looking for work this October.

We miss everyone and want to thank you all for following along on our blog. We will continue to post updates as we go along, probably not everyday at this point but when new and exciting things happen we will let you know. I will of course continue to put on pictures of cool things we see. I hope to get some good pics of the northern lights after we get up to the lodge, they are next to impossible to see here in the city because of all the lights in town. Stay tuned!

Day 11!

2009-03-23T21:30:00.004-04:00

We are finally in Alaska!!! It feels so good to be back on American soil. We are in the town of Tok, Alaska about 319 miles northeast of Anchorage.

We left Whitehorse, YT this morning about 7:30 AM Pacific Time and crossed into Alaska at 12:45 PM Alaska Time (4 hours behind Eastern Time). It was a breeze crossing back into the United States too, we were there less than 5 minutes. The scenery was beautiful yet again today and there should be more of the same tomorrow. We did have some snow showers off and on all morning and lots of cloud cover, but the afternoon was gorgeous with plenty of sun. We also hit a high today of around freezing. Tomorrow should be about the same. We did see another moose today and got a picture of it. Nothing really exciting happened today other than we jarred ourselves silly on the frost heaved road driving north from Beaver Creek to the border. Beaver Creek was just a little town that during the summer would have been a cute town to visit in, but in the off season there was only 1 gas station open that only had premium gas and none of the hotel/motels were open.

We have also seen a ton of people on snow machines the last few days, Kevin has already started is savings fund to get his own. It looks like a bunch of fun! I guess you could say we are trading our boat and camper in for snow machines. I am thinking if Kevin has one then I should too.

Hope you enjoy the pictures from today, they are just an assortment of the scenery (the pics don't do it justice). Tomorrow we will drive into Anchorage where we will set up camp (that means stay in one hotel room) for about a week.

This is the moose!

This is at the border of Alaska and Canada. In the first picture, we are looking south with Canada on the left and Alaska on the right. In the second picture we are looking north with Alaska on the left and Canada on the right. There is a 20 foot wide cut through the trees to mark the border, you can see this cut out goes on as far as you can see.

Day 10!

2009-03-23T00:34:00.002-04:00

Today was probably the best day so far. However, we are getting tired of hotel hopping, but we are not getting tired of the beautiful scenery.

This has been an absolute wonderful last couple of days. We got up and moving this morning early in order to make it to our 7:15 reserved pre-paid breakfast. It was actually wonderful. We sat in the corning of the dining room where we could see out both sets of windows hoping to see a moose or wolves, but we didn’t.

After breakfast we had a little trouble with the truck, when Kevin went out to load our stuff he opened the passenger side door and when he tried to close it, it wouldn’t latch shut. Somehow the latch froze open, yes I said FROZE!!!!! It was a little chilly this morning. We found the maintenance person that worked there and he and Kevin were able to fix it in a matter or a few minutes. They actually spent more time chatting than anything else. That was just the beginning of our dealings with really nice people today.

With the door fixed we loaded up and drove on away from our expensive rendezvous to a little place called Liard River Hot Springs. First of all, if you have never had the opportunity to dip into a hot spring, DO IT!!! This is something that should be on everyone’s bucket list. If you have done it, well you know what I am speaking of. The air temperature was somewhere around 10⁰ F with the wind-chill even colder. When we first got there, we were the only tourist there and we met a VERY nice man – Arvin. He was the park maintenance man (what is it with maintenance men being so nice, I hope Kevin is this nice when he is working maintenance at the lodge this summer) and he was more than happy to take a little break from shoveling snow off the path to walk us back to the hot springs and give us some info. He showed us where the dressing rooms were (mind you this is at a park campground type place) and the bathrooms (I mean glorified outhouses) and told us about the temps of the pools. So after a brief discussion (about 10 seconds) we decided that we had to try it. Back to the truck we went for the bathing suits and towels. As we were walking back down the path, Kevin accidentally stepped off the boardwalk into the snow. Before I knew it his whole leg was buried and he was practically sitting on the boardwalk, that is some deep snow! The bathing suits were easy to get to (I packed them in the suitcase we take taking into the hotel rooms every night) but the towels were a different story. Yes, Sissa I remember that we packed them into the coolers and put the coolers on the rack on the back of the truck, howsomever, the pad lock we locked the cable with that we secured our belongings with was frozen. Enter our knight in shining armor – Arvin, he tried to help us get the lock open but then decided it would be easier for him to run to his house and let us borrow a couple of his towels, he was gone and back in a flash – literally. So off we went to the “dressing rooms” to change. Might I remind you that it was in the area of 10⁰ and the dressing rooms were NOT heated, there was even ice on the floor of the “dressing room”. So we strip down, put on the swimsuits and VERY carefully walk down the icy steps barefooted into the 125⁰ (and hotter in the upper section) spring. We both tried to keep our hair dry, but to no avail mine got a little wet anyway and turned to icicles. Even though I am quite embarrassed at how awful I look in a bathing suit, I am posting a picture of me that Kevin took just to prove what idiots we are. I still suggest that everyone try this if ever given the opportunity. Oh yeah, we saw a cow moose as we walked down the path to the springs, check it out:

After leaving the hot springs we motored on down the mountains and passed SEVERAL buffalo/bison on the way – see blog header picture.

Moving on up the highway, we stopped off in the town of Watson Lake to take in the sights of the sign post yard. This was really cool, any traveler that comes through can nail a sign up to a post. There are literally hundreds of posts with signs on them. Each post is at least 10 feet tall. The picture below is just a fraction of the whole thing. Also, here is Kevin standing on the walk way to the door of the visitor’s center (which was closed for the season).

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful until we got to an overlook looking down at the town of Teslin and Teslin Lake, this is where the day got really funny. Here is Kevin to tell the story: “We pulled into the overlook where Teresa wanted to take some pictures. I see her open the door and swing her legs out of the truck and within a matter of seconds she disappeared clean out of sight. I heard and ow, ow, ow, so after I finished reading what I was reading in the Milepost and taking a few pictures, I went around the truck to find her laying on the ground. She was holding her butt in one hand and the camera high in the air in the other hand. I asked her if she was alright, she said ‘I’m hurting but I saved the camera’. So I reached down and took the camera and safely set it in the front seat then started back around the front of the truck only to hear Teresa say ‘what about me?’. So, I told her to get up and take her pictures. It was extremely funny at the time, maybe you had to be there. We both laughed.” Ok, well you all know how Kevin likes to tell stories, but this one is mostly true. I did fall getting out of the truck but in my defense, the parking lot was covered in ice. I hit my right butt on the side of the truck at the bottom of the door and landed on my left hip. But, I did protect the camera! Here is the picture that made it all worth it. BTW, I am bruised but no lasting damage done, I guess being fat has it’s advantages – extra padding when you fall on your butt!

We rolled into Whitehorse, Yukon (YT) about 6:15 this evening and got a room at the Best Western. We were able to talk the very nice front desk agent down from $139 to $109 for the night, Waahoo! Even though there is not breakfast included, we have a really nice room and wireless Internet.

Day 10! Coming soon.

2009-03-22T23:40:00.004-04:00

Day 9! Take two. . . is just the update of what else happened yesterday since I didn't get to put a lot of details on yesterday evening. I am working on Day 10! and will add that as soon as possible. BTW, we are Pacific Time now, thus 3 hours behind Eastern Time.

Oh yeah, we did get a rock in the windshield yesterday, took out a chip of glass but not running (yet) hopefully it won't run.

Day 9! Take Two or Three or whatever!

2009-03-22T22:18:00.012-04:00

We started out about 8:30 this morning after breakfast at the hotel we stayed in. We have been lucky so far with the places we have stayed. Almost all have had free breakfast, microwave, fridge and coffee pots in the rooms. We have even stayed in a few with pools and or hot tubs.

When we went out to get in the truck this morning there was a few more inches of snow on the ground. We were blessed though with gorgeous weather for the day. As we were driving out of Fort St. John we were passed by an ambulance and 3 police cars. The third police car was a little behind the others and we saw it turn off onto another road, so we didn’t think much of what we saw, until about 2 hours later. Traffic came to a standstill. We sat for over an hour before we were able to get going again. There was a wreck with a small Toyota and an 18 wheeler. This is where the ambulance and two police cars were going. The wreck happened around 8:30 this morning and the Toyota had to be cut all apart in order to get the driver out. The driver was then air lifted to a hospital, seeing as how we were a good two hour drive from the closest town. As you can see by the pics of the road, they were not in excellent condition. So anyway, on we finally went about 11:30. We arrived in Fort Nelson about 2:30 and decided it was too early to stop since the weather was so nice (super cold but nice).

We kept driving thinking we would stop in the little town of Muncho Lake, which was so small we drove right passed it. It was about 150 miles northwest of Fort Nelson. We ended up at the Northern Rockies Lodge located on Muncho Lake. It was a very nice place to stay and the décor was great, but they knew they had the market so they charged out the wazoo. The price for the room wasn’t too bad at $139 +tax Canadian money which is about $110 American. However, they don’t provide the breakfast or wireless Internet. They do have a restaurant here, but the prices for dinners were outrageous so we pulled out a couple of the MRE’s we packed and ate those for dinner. We did decide to have breakfast here, but we had to order that before 9:00 this evening and pre-pay in order to guarantee that we would have it, it was $13.25 per person. They also had a computer for public use but they charged $5.00 for the first 10 minutes and $.25 each additional minute. The lady put me on the computer and I used it just long enough to upload the other blogspot and check our e-mails and facebook. When I went back to the desk to let her know I was finished, she must have taken pity on me and didn’t charge me. They did offer a $.10 discount for their gas for people staying here; therefore it was only $1.49 per LITER!!! Up until this, the highest we have paid was $1.04 per liter and that was back in Fort Nelson. The going rate elsewhere in B.C. is $.99 per liter.

Now for the good part. Here is a spattering of pictures from the drive here. Enjoy!

This is a lake we drove over on a bridge. View from highest elevation on Alaskan Highway.

Liard River

Muncho Lake

That is some DEEP snow!

Day 9!

2009-03-21T21:50:00.002-04:00

First of all let me say this is going to be quick and to the point. No pics or details - SORRY! We passed up Fort Nelson today because it was 2:30 in the afternoon when we got there and we decided since it was a pretty sunny day and snow is expected tomorrow we should go as far as we could. We ended up at Northern Rockies Lodge about 9 miles past Muncho Lake. A total of about 150 miles give or take past Fort Nelson. It is beautiful here but expensive, b/c its the only thing around for miles. No wireless Internet, the only access is a computer in the lobby that is $5.00 for the first 10 minutes + .25 each addtn'l min. It was a spectacular drive today with lost of great views. We saw 1 Bull Moose (couldn't get a pic) and 2 Link's that were playing in the snow (couldn't get a pic). The last 150 miles was through the northern Rockies and there was some stunning views. We got lots of pics and I will upload those next time we have FREE wireless Internet. We haven't decided where we are going to try to get to tomorrow, it will depend on the snow fore casted and what the roads are like the rest of the way through the Rockies.

Good night all, we are off to eat our expensive dinner and order and prepay for our expensive breakfast!

Beginning of Day 9!

2009-03-21T10:51:00.004-04:00

This is what we woke up to this morning. There was foot prints beside the truck last night and tire tracks in front of the truck where we backed into the space. Today we are expecting sunny skies which means it will be REALLY bright reflecting off the snow. Praise the Lord for sunglasses! Hope you all have a good day and we will write again tonight (hopefully).

Day 8!

2009-03-20T20:30:00.010-04:00

For all of you that are using this as a geography lesson for your children (and husbands) here is the skinny on where we were today. We started in Valleyview, Alberta (about 215 miles northwest of Edmonton), we drove west 73 miles to Grande Prairie, then 79 miles west/northwest to Dawson Creek, British Columbia (B.C.) then 47 miles northwest to Fort St. John B.C. The trip was a total of about 200 miles. There were many other towns that we went through so here are the details.

We slept in again this morning since we were not going that far today and woke to an extra 3~4 inches of snow on the ground on top of the about 4~5 inches that was already there. We left our motel in Valleyview after a full hot free breakfast about 10:00.

We enjoyed a leisurely drive drive up Highway 43 toward Grande Prairie. It "flurried" as predicted most of the way there. Of course they say flurry but that flurry we had today would have closed schools in TN for at least a few days if not a week. Here are a couple of pics taken along the way: The first one is a frozen river covered in snow, the next is the snow blowing across the road at 20~30 kilometers (so the radio said). The farther north and west we go, the deeper the snow gets.

When we arrived in Grande Prairie we had to navigate through town, thank goodness for road signs:

We then traveled through a little town called Beaverlodge. Check out there welcome sign:

32 miles later we crossed into B.C. and suddenly gained an hour by also passing into the Pacific Time Zone.

We then passed an area where we were supposed to "Watch for deer", but we didn't see any here. We did see some later though and they had to leap across the field they were in because the snow was so deep. We also saw a Coyote cross the road in front of us on the highway. Sorry no pics of these. :-(

We then made it to Dawson Creek and the official start of the Alaskan Highway.

We then had to stop for gas and snacks just on the outside of Dawson Creek. Extra Foods, is kind of like a Food City or Kroger with a gas station, but instead of having a card that gives you discounts on gas, you earn $$$ toward food at the grocery every time you buy gas. I bought a 12 pack of Mtn. Dew for $1.27 (Canadian currency which is about $1.12 American) after my $$$ coupon. By the way, it is really hard to find Mtn. Dew in Canada. A lot of restaurants have Pepsi products as their drinks, but they do not have Mtn. Dew. It is really sad. The 12 pack I bought was one of only 6 packs on the shelf. There were lots and lots of every other kind of drink. I have yet to see Mello Yello anywhere (which is fine b/c I don't like Mello Yello).

We then descended down a 4 mile long 6~10% grade hill into a little town called Taylor. At the base of the hill was a bridge that had a metal grating bridge deck. In case you are confused, as we went across the bridge I looked out the window and down and could see through the bridge - SCARY!!!

We then ended for the day in Fort St. John at about 3:00 this afternoon. It has been dubbed the "Energetic City". There are lots of things to do here, might be fun to visit here between May and September when things are open and you can do more than sit in your hotel room and update a blogspot. There is a good 10-12 inches of snow on the ground here and still snowing.

I hope you have enjoyed today's blog, I know it is long but I thought since I had all this time this afternoon it would be fun to give a more play by play of the day. Tomorrow we plan to make it to Fort Nelson, B.C. which is about 236 miles away.

Just wondering. . . .

2009-03-20T20:09:00.001-04:00

I noticed we have a new follower: cap5580, but I don't know who you are. Please inform me.

Thanks a bunch!

DAY 7!!! WOW a week already gone.

2009-03-20T00:02:00.004-04:00

We started the day a little later than we have been the last few. We slept in until 6:30! We were slow getting ready and on the road too. We left Calgary, Alberta about 9:30 and headed north. We stopped off in Edmonton and went to the World's Largest Mall - West Edmonton Mall. It is amazing. Inside this mall was over 800 stores (some were doubled and we didn't even buy anything), 100 restaurants, 2 hotels, an indoor water park, an ice skating rink, 2 18 hole miniature golf courses, Sea Lion stage and cavern, Palace Casino, Galaxyland Amusement Park (complete with 2 huge roller coasters) and finally an IMAX theatre. After leaving the mall we continued north and west and stopped in a little town called Valleyview. We are about 73 miles west of Grande Prairie, Alberta. Tomorrow we plan to make it to Fort St. John, British Columbia which is only about 200 miles from where we are, but we have some site seeing we want to do. I have attached a few pics of the mall and one of the country side below. The further north we get the more snow we see, it really is pretty. Oh yeah, we did NOT see any wildlife today - what a bummer.

Day 6!

2009-03-18T22:57:00.000-04:00

Whew what a day. We did finally make it to Canada. This was our hardest day a driving so far and should be the hardest of the whole trip. We wanted to make it to Canada by today to allow plenty of time to enjoy the drive on the Alaskan Highway.

I guess I will start with the good part of the day, we got up on time, ate breakfast and left the hotel by the time we planned to. We left Billings, MT this morning about 6:30 AM (mountain time) and headed north and west. We took a series of highways today instead of sticking with the interstate route. It seemed to have been a lot faster. It was a beautiful drive through the country side with lots of viewings of more mule deer and antelope. We even saw some more bison today. One of the other cool things we saw today were several windmill farms, it is amazing how huge those things are. The drive was uneventful and we made really good time, which turned out to be a very good thing when we hit the border.

First of all, let me start by saying thank you to all of you that have been praying for us and for an easy border crossing. However, God had a different will in mind and it was far from easy. It could have been worse, we know, but nevertheless, it was a very stressful 2 ½ hours. The only thing we can figure is that when they ran our info in the system we must have had a red flag because we are hand gun carry permit holders. The escorted us into a large three bay double long garage where they made us exit the vehicle. They first asked us if we had any guns, we of course said NO, then they asked if we owned any guns, we of course said yes (out of fear of lying and getting caught). They then took each of our sets of keys and told me to go sit in a large waiting room while they questioned Kevin. This took about 30 minutes and they badgered him about guns and drugs. Despite Kevin trying to explain that we had NO guns with us it seemed as though they were convinced we had some. After the 30 minutes of questioning, they proceeded to EMPTY the truck. They scanned every box in an x-ray machine then opened them and went through them. All the while we had to sit in this waiting room and watch through the glass windows as this took place. They would not allow me to help unpack or arrange the boxes as they were unpacked so that I could make sure I could get it all back in. What took them three people and 30 minutes to disassemble it took Kevin and I 1 ½ hours to put back together. I was so frustrated I was nearly in tears but we had to do this all with a smile on our faces and pretend like we weren’t bothered because we didn’t want to cause ourselves any more heart ache than necessary. There was one guy that seemed genuinely upset that he didn’t find anything. We were all set to go, we thought when the guy that seemed upset and quite frankly hell bent on finding a problem decided that he needed to run Kevin’s license through the system to see if he had ever been arrested. Well, that didn’t show up anything either so the guy rudely handed Kevin his license back and told him to back the truck out of the stall and turn left to be on our way. In the midst of all this going on they never asked me any questions nor did they ask to see my license. Kevin just has that attraction I guess.

Well, we went on our way and tried desperately to enjoy the rest of the afternoon, but it was very difficult. We did make it to our hotel in Calgary, Alberta around 7:30 this evening. Now all we want to do is go to bed. Please continue to pray for our safe journey and that we will be able to put today behind us and enjoy the rest of the trip. Maybe someday we will be able to look back and laugh about this day.

Day 5!

2009-03-17T23:04:00.003-04:00

Today we started from Rapid City, SD at 8:30 AM (mountain time). We had a good breakfast at the hotel then we were off. Our first stop was the Cabela's store in Rapid City for a visit. Then a stop at the gas station that was nearly disastrous.

After filling up and cleaning the windshield, Kevin decided we needed to have the box of CD's up front to listen to. After taking them out of the bed of the truck he set them on top of one of the coolers while fixing the other items in the back of the truck that had come loose. We then hoped in the truck and took off headed to Mt. Rushmore. As we turned out of the parking lot onto the side road, Kevin watched (in the side mirror) our box of CD's go flying across the road spilling out EVERYWHERE! He slammed on the breaks and yelled "There went our CD's". I had NO CLUE what he was talking about b/c I didn't know he got the box out. We quickly jumped from the barely stopped vehicle and ran back to pick them up out of the road. All 75 (or so) CD's fell out of the box breaking some of the cases and sending individual CD's skidding across the asphalt. We gathered everything up and got back to the truck to try to fit them all back in again. While I stood beside the truck organizing them, Kevin walked around the front of the truck to the other side and noticed a LARGE 3 inch roofing screw on the ground about 6 inches in front of the tire. If we would have not stopped at the exact moment that we did we would have ran over it. The way it was laying would most likely have punctured one of our brand new $150 tires. So, we praise God for this little mishap, even though a few of the CD's are probably ruined with scratches. I can replace a few CD's cheaper than a tire. Sorry, no exciting pictures of us scurrying across the road frantically picking up CD's.

With the mess all cleaned up and put away we then headed to Mt. Rushmore. It was pretty cool, although it was open it was very limited what we could do because of the season. Therefore, Kevin had to find his own entertainment. See pics below.

We then headed out of Rapid City toward Billings, MT. The scenery was very interesting along the way. Lots of ranches and pasture land. We saw somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 mule deer and around 300 (give or take 50 or so) antelope. We did manage to stop and take a couple of pictures today.

We arrived to our hotel this evening around 7:00, brought all our stuff in then headed out to dinner. We ended up following the suggestion of the front desk agent and went to an out of the way Mexican restaurant called Torres. It was pretty good, but we learned a couple of things that are not like the Mexican restaurants back home. This one charged for the chips and salsa and the yummy yummy cheese dip I usually get to have with my chips was not like the cheese dip I am used to. Instead of white, runny and spicy it was just nacho cheese like you get at a sporting event concession stand. That was a little disappointing but now I know to ask what the cheese dip is like and if the chips and salsa are extra $$$.

We will be heading out VERY early in the morning and plan to get to Calgary, Alberta, Canada by tomorrow evening. Please continue to pray for safe travels and that we do not have to empty out our whole tightly packed truck.

Day 4!

2009-03-16T23:16:00.003-04:00

Kansas City, MO to Rapid City, SD.

It was more exciting than day 3 for sure. We saw lots of wildlife all throughout the day, so that always puts Kevin in a good mood.

We left Kansas City about 8:30 this morning and headed north up I-29. The drive through the rest of Missouri and Iowa was not very thrilling, but it was interesting to see what it is like to live on the farm. By farm I mean, H-U-G-E plots of land that require multiple people to keep it up and running. The apparatus they use to irrigate the land was interesting too. Sorry no pics of that. Once we made it to Sioux Falls and turned west on I-90 we thought it might get a little more exciting but it didn't. It looked about the same as Iowa for many, many, many miles. The most exciting part of getting on to I-90, other than seeing a few deer and flocks of turkey, was seeing the billboard for the Cabela's store in Mitchell, SD.

Once we made it to Mitchell, we of course took the exit and visited (for the first time ever) the Cabela's store. After being club members and spending LOTS of money there for the last 8 years we finally got to see it for ourselves. While in the store we did get to see a stuffed gray Wolf so I have included a picture of it just for my good friend John David. Hopefully I will get a picture of a real life one sometime and post it.

After going to Cabela's we headed over to the Corn Palace. This place was really cool. The whole outside of the building is "redone" every year using all natural items, mostly consisting of. . . you guessed it, CORN. It dates back all the way to the late 1800's.

This whole side trip put us almost 2 hours behind our projected arrival time in Rapid City, but it was worth it. Unfortunately, it didn't leave us any time to take a side trip to explore the Badlands, I guess that means we will have to check it out the next time we make this trip heading south. We did get a surprise when we showed up at the hotel and realized we were on Mountain Time, so we have gained another hour. Putting us 2 hours behind eastern time.

Now back to all the wildlife, we unfortunately did not get any good pictures of all that we saw, but here is a list: red tail hawks, white tail deer, mule deer, turkeys, a coyote, pheasants, squirrel, sheep, antelope, bison, lots of geese (that were flying north), several horse and countless cows. The antelope that we saw was a real treat. We saw a couple of different herds of them and they were all fairly close to the highway.

All in all it was a pretty good day, but we are very tired after being in the truck all day. Please continue to pray for safe travels, an easy border crossing and that the truck will stay in good working order. Thanks for all your prayers so far.

Day 3!

2009-03-15T23:57:00.007-04:00

The morning started about 7:30 CST. After a little motivation and breakfast we left Robin and Chad’s about 9:00.

Interstate 24 was fairly uneventful. Most normal people pass their time in the car on long road trips by reading, counting specialty vehicles like campers, noting the states that other cars are from or just taking in the scenery. However we are not your typical normal people, we passed the time today by counting dead dear along the road. We counted a total of 22 just in Kentucky. One of the other somewhat odd things we saw today all along the interstate in KY, was a lot all the trees had several broken limbs and split trunks in them. At first we thought maybe a tornado had come through the area, but the distance that this took place was too long. Maybe it was just a series of strong wind storms taking their toll. Any ideas or answers from anyone?

The drive through Illinois and Missouri were not as exciting as KY. Lots of FLAT farmland. St Louis was pretty cool to see, especially the “arch”. We didn’t see much of Kansas City, but we made it here safely. We are staying with Pat and Linda Tierney tonight. They are the parents of our good friend Karen. Thanks Pat and Linda for your sweet hospitality and thanks Karen for setting it up for us. What a money saver!!!

Tomorrow it is off to Rapid City, SD.

As you can see, the technical difficulties have been worked out, I will try now to add pics to the last couple of days.

Day 2!

2009-03-14T22:53:00.004-04:00

After spending the night with Aunt Libby last night we got up to a delicious home cooked breakfast of eggs, bacon, biscuits and gravy. Thanks Libby, it was really good. We then headed out to Johnson City to the birthday party for Jacey and Brianna. We had a great time eating pizza and cake! Speaking of cake, they were hand made by Bubba's sister Shannon and they were amazing. She really has a terrific talent. Again, there are technical difficulties preventing me form uploading pictures, so they will come later. Brie had a princess castle one and Jacey's was a little mermaid one. After a tearful good bye with my sister and the girls we made one last pit stop at Pal's. For those of you not from the Tri-Cities area, Pal's is the BEST fast food restaurant on the planet.

After a brief stop at Turkey Creek in Knoxville, we were off to Nashville. Finally headed in the right direction. We arrived at Robin and Chad's (K's sister and husband) around 6:30. They cooked us an excellent dinner of black Angus top sirloin kabobs, veggie kabobs, baked potatoes and garlic cheese toast. For dessert Robin made a Chocolate Chip Pound Cake - thank you Martha Rhoton for passing on the recipe. We are now having a nice evening of relaxing and chit-chatting.

By the way, the beeping , beeping, beeping, beeping. . . . finally stopped sometime today prior to 3:15 - thank goodness!

Tomorrow we are off to Kansas City to stay with some sweet friends that have agreed to take us poor souls in for the night.

D-Day!

2009-03-13T21:21:00.002-04:00

Well we are off and running!

It started with an early morning run to Wal-Mart for more storage boxes (that we ended unpacking later in the day to fit the contents into small space between the big boxes). The house was a wreck and we ended up with a house guest last night as well. My wonderful devoted sister came to help us finish packing and pack the truck. Thanks to our excellent methods of packing handed down from our Dad we combined our efforts to fit everything we will need for our life in Alaska into the bed of the truck. Because of technical difficulties with the computer these pictures will have to come later. Melissa took about 45 minutes to pack one box of kitchen items, but there was some much stuff stuffed into that box it was amazing. Inside the wondrously packed boxed was my kitchen minute timer. Which hind sight being 20/20 we should have removed the battery, because during the packing of the truck the timer started going off. As of 5:00 PM the timer was still beeping, beeping, beeping, beeping, beeping. . . . you get the point. Our hope and prayer is that the beeping, beeping, beeping, beeping. . . stops before reaching the border of Canada so that it doesn't appear that we have a bomb in the truck. Any beats on how long it takes for the energizer bunny/battery to die?!?!?!

We started the trip by going backwards. We left our home around 5:00 PM this evening and headed to Kingsport. We are spending the evening with Melissa, Bubba and Aunt Libby. We had a terrific dinner of ribs, shrimp, chicken, deviled eggs, chips and dips. Who needs vegetables anyway? Tomorrow we will spend the morning with family, then drive to Nashville to spend more time with other family.

Please pray for a safe journey, that will be problem and headache free. We especially ask for an easy border crossing. Our understanding is that about 1 in 10 cars get pulled over and inspected (emptying ALL contents of the vehicle). If this happens we will be asking for donations for Melissa's plane ticket to the crossing point to help us RE-pack the truck.

2 Days to D-Day!

2009-03-11T08:54:00.003-04:00

I decided to post this frigid picture in honor of my good friend Nancy. Also, I thought everyone could use a cool off after that 80 degrees yesterday. This is Nancy Lake (frozen in mid-October 2008) just north of Wasilla, AK. Yes, that would be the town where Sarah Palin lives.

WOW! It is really getting close. I think that it still feels like a dream. I guess I will wake up this weekend. I just hope I can get all the packing done. I hate folding clothes but that is what I had to do yesterday and will be doing today - YUK!

We do have a family interested in the house, they are just trying to get all the finishing touches on the financing. It is rather frustrating that all these banks have been given all this money (thank you tax payers) but they don't want to give it out. Please pray that it all works out really soon.

10 days to D-Day!

2009-03-03T21:36:00.008-05:00

The bear pictures were requested by my good buddy John David, I hope you enjoy them. They were taken in Ketchikan, AK along a nature walk in the rain forest. There was actually two black bears in this creek when we were there and they were feeding on salmon. It was really cool watching them catch the fish. (see below)

As we draw ever closer to Departure Day (D-Day as Kevin calls it) we are working feverishly to pack and get rid of everything. We are down to needing to sell the house and my car. We have had great success with craigslist.

Speaking of the house, we have someone coming to look at it tomorrow at 3:30. We had some people look at it last week for the second time. They love the house but don’t want to buy anything here in Maryville until their house sells (somewhere up northeast). We will also be having an open house on Sunday afternoon; hopefully someone will actually show up at this one. So tell anyone you know that might be looking to buy a house.

This coming weekend is the big one for Mom; she gets married at 2:00 on Saturday. She of course is very excited. It will (I am sure) be a beautiful and blessed event.

Three weeks and counting!

2009-02-20T23:41:00.002-05:00

That's right, just three weeks from now we will be leaving Maryville!

No, we still have not sold the house, not even an offer. We have had some lookers just no takers. It is getting discouraging but we are trying to hang in there.

As requested, here is some info about how we will be living at our new jobs. As I have said, we will be living and working in Denali National Park at a resort owned by Aramark Parks and Destinations - Alaska. We will be living in dorm style housing on site at the McKinley Chalets. This should be interesting since neither of us went to a college where living in a dorm was an option. We will have a meal plan with the employee cafeteria where we will receive 3 meals a day. However, for the first month we are there, we will be among very few employee's on site, therefore no cafeteria. This means, we will have to bring enough food with us to last a month or so. In case you don't realize, Denali is a long drive from most everything and there is no grocery store near by to run to, especially in April. The business season around the park opens in May and shuts down the end of September. This is going to be some adventure.

By the way, I now have a facebook page, so feel free to look me up if you are on there.

Well, that is all for tonight, I have to go to bed so I can get up in the morning. We are taking Oscar to the vet to have him put down.

Good News!

2009-02-16T21:21:00.002-05:00

We sold the boat on Saturday. God continues to bless. Please continue praying for us that we sell the house, camper and car.

WE HAVE JOBS!!!!!

2009-02-10T20:57:00.003-05:00

We have been offered and we have accepted jobs with Aramark Parks and Destinations - Alaska. Kevin will be working with the Maintenance and Landscaping Department and I will be a Front Desk Agent at the McKinley Chalets at Denali National Park. Kevin's position starts on April 1 (mine starts May 7). This means we have to leave Saturday March 14 to start our long drive to get there.

We still have not sold the boat, camper, car or house, but we are trusting that God is working that out in His timing. Please pray for our patience.

Hope you all are having a great week.

Latest Update!

2009-02-01T16:35:00.003-05:00

We are still awaiting the anticipated news of confirmed jobs. We have been told that Aramark is VERY interested in bringing Kevin on to their maintenance and grounds department, so they are working on placing me in a position. I have had a phone interview with a person from Human Resources and have received an e-mail from the person in charge of transportation about a position for a Courtesy (non-CDL) Driver around the Aramark Village. I meet all the qualifications on the list including being available to work the entire season of May - September.

As for the house, there is someone interested but the person is waiting until later this week to find out if he will be laid off. We are not sure of all the details other than he doesn't think he will be part of the lay off, however he wants to be sure before putting an offer on the house. Meanwhile, we are having an open house next Sunday (Feb. 8). Feel free to pass the word to anyone you know looking for a house in this area.

We were able to sell the 4-Wheeler last week to a guy down the street, he is also buying one of Kevin's old lawn mowers. The boat and the camper are still for sale. After much debating between Kevin and I, we have decided to sell my Honda. If anyone is interested in any of these items, just let us know via e-mail or by leaving a comment on the blog.

It seems like a lot that we still have to get squared away in a short amount of time, but we have felt so strongly that God's favor has been on this situation that we know He will take care of everything. Please keep us in your prayers during this time that God's will be done.

We will let you all know as soon as we know anything.

Sad news!

2009-01-22T17:49:00.002-05:00

Well, we took our dog Oscar to the Vet this afternoon and found out that the tumors he has are most likely cancerous. We have elected to have Oscar put down instead of costly surgery that would only prolong his life for a likely short time. He seems to be feeling O.K. for now so we plan to wait a couple of weeks at this point. We're not ready just yet to say good bye. We plan to take him up to the Bowers family property in Telico and bury him, so it will be a day long process. As most of you know, we have been struggling for a while with trying to find someone to take Oscar when we move and had actually had some friends say they were willing to take him, but I guess we don't have to worry about that anymore. I can't help but think that this is part of God's plan to work things out for our moving away.

I have always been one to think it crazy for people to get all worked up over losing their pet, but when faced with it myself I have to say this is a very sad time in our lives. While this in no way compares to the lose of a family member or close friend, it is still difficult.

May God bless each of you!

Are you still reading our blog?

2009-01-14T21:17:00.003-05:00

Well, we are still here. Are you? Sorry it has been so long since my last post. There's not really been much to share. The house is still for sale, the boat is still for sale and the job hunt is still up in the air. We hope to start hearing more after tomorrow. Princess starts their interviewing process on the 15th, so I guess we will wait and see. We will let you know more when we know.

Stayed tuned. Hopefully it will not be so long before the next post.

Christmas Day

2009-01-04T21:01:00.010-05:00

Better late than never - right?

Christmas Day was great. We had an enjoyable day with the Bowers family at Aunt Anita's and Uncle Allen's house. The only thing that would have made the day better is if David and Jennifer had been there. We did get to talk to them on the phone though. I guess that was just a little taste of what it will be like next year when Kevin and I are not there (hopefully things will work out and we will be in Alaska). I am posting a couple of pictures from the day, hope you enjoy.

Well the New Year has begun and we look forward to new beginnings in our lives. We hope you will stay tuned to up and coming information on our move. We do hope to hear something this week or next about the job situation with Aramark and Princess and we let you all know as soon as we find out. Your prayers are appreciated, especially with the sale of our house. We have had a few showings, people love the house but are not thrilled with the neighborhood. We are just praying the right person is going to come along soon.

Have a blessed New Year!

Pictures

2008-12-23T21:01:00.007-05:00

Family Time

2008-12-21T18:26:00.000-05:00

This weekend held lots of excitement for Teresa's side of the family. We had our Christmas celebration with Mom (Harriet), her fiance Bryant, Aunt Libby, brother Rob - wife Brandi and children Anna Cate (5 1/2) and Emma Claire (almost 4), sister Melissa - husband Bubba and children Jacey (4 1/2) and Brie (almost 3). It was a blast, but I think everyone was worn out by this afternoon. I will try to post a slide show of some of the exciting moments.

We received an e-mail from the Human Resources Director of Aramark (in Anchorage) on Friday letting us know that we should be hearing from them after the first of the year. They are taking a break over the next two weeks to celebrate the holidays.

Kevin and I hope you all have a wonderful week celebrating Christmas. We pray for safe travels for all of you that may be going out of town to visit family and friends.

Exciting News

2008-12-18T10:35:00.000-05:00

We have a showing of our house set for tomorrow!

Have a great day!

A day off!

2008-12-17T20:10:00.000-05:00

I took the day off from work on Tuesday to spend the day with three of my favorite people. My Mom - Harriet, my sister - Melissa and one of my really cool nieces - Jacey (4 1/2). We had a great day together at Biltmore Estates in Asheville, NC. We did the Behind the Scences Tour in addition to the regular tour. We ate at the cafe next to the "Castle" (that's how Jacey referred to the house) for lunch/dinner. We had a "BIG DAY!" and I had to tell Uncle Kevin all about it when I got home and tell him all of our favorite things about the day. Among the favorites were, the really big tree in the banquet hall, the trumpets playing and the bedrooms. Jacey even picked out which bedroom her and her sister Brie were going to share if they ever get to live there. A great time was shared by all of us.

Nothing new on the Alaska front. We are still waiting to here back from Kevin's phone interview 3 weeks ago, they said he should hear something in 2-4 weeks.

No hits on the house yet, it went up for sale on Dec. 6 and still no showings. Of course, it will happen in God's timing (I just wish His timing was the same as mine).

We still have the Ski Boat for sale if any of you are interested. It looks like we might have a buyer for the 4-Wheeler he just has to wait until after the first of the year. However, money talks if anyone is interested in the 4-Wheeler. Just post a comment or send me an e-mail if you are interested in either.

Hope you all have a great Thursday.

2008-12-15T20:42:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody!

I just set up this blog spot, even though I really have no idea what I am doing. I thought I would give it a whirl and see what happens. Please bare with me as I figure all this stuff out and keep checking back to what new things I add.

I will try to post things as we progress toward our plans to move north to Alaska.

Kevin and I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!