Wildlife, Scenery and other AK pics

Though not very good, here are a couple shots of what we've seen.

Up close and personal? A little too personal!

Good thing its a rug!

Moose on the shoulder of the highway. They like to graze there a lot.

A view across the Cook Inlet on a clear day. About 5 miles from our house, just off the highway!

View of Mt. Iliamna (or Redoubt), from the highway. Volcanoes across the inlet.

Looking down a 50 ft cliff to the ocean below

Sun on the water.

Winter Solstice!

Sunrise:
10:10am
Sunset:
3:55pm
Dawn:
8:13am
Dusk:
5:51pm
Total Daylight:
5hr 45min
18 deg right now (at 8:30pm), high today was 26, I think. Been in the mid 30's, windy (which is unusual) and rainy, which makes a big slushy mess, which then turns everything to an ice rink, except the main hwys where they have gravel (not sand, as they claim). I've already had 3+ nasty chips in my windshield because of it. Everyone says it's been a weird winter. I believe it. Not exactly what I expected.

Not so bad.
But, more light is always good! Up and up from here. :)

I have like 4 drafted posts on my blog. Maybe some day I'll get around to finishing them!

We are doing great! Excited for Christmas. Wish we could come home for the holidays though. Miss everyone!

PS - I really need a new camera. My camcorder takes fuzzy stills and my phone just isnt cuttin it. My bro-in-law took this one. Its amazing up here, you all should come visit!
PPS - We had a moose kiss our window the other night! Darn things move too fast with those long legs! I have yet to get a satisfactory picture.

Grrr!

Okay, can I just tell you 3 things I HATE about Alaska?

1.
Okay, on to #2

2. Shopping suck!
First of all, I dont really love shopping to begin with. It is exhausting. Secondly, I live where the only descent shopping place is walmart or fred meyer (a little better than walmart). Anchorage is okay, but everything is so spread out! There are no good fabric places (only a Joann's on the peninsula, which I dont love) and they dont have Victoria's Secret ANYWHERE in the entire state! Grrr. I just want a bra that fits! Having babies has really messed things up in this arena. I would give you a description, but I'm not sure that would be appropriate. But if I did it would involve a balloon. An old one. Once inflated. Now it's not. I'm sure you can take it from there.

3.
Okay, so there's really just one big thing right now.

That is all. After a long, full day of shopping, and a temple trip (yeah for a temple!), I am officially just DONE!

Stupid bras!

Stupid boobs.


PS - the only redeeming factor in this whole depressing annoyance is that the Lord promised that one day I could have them back.

Picture this...

About a month ago, this is a scene at which I found myself in awe:
It's dusk. The whole sky is in watercolor. The sun is a gold coin melting into the western horizon, bathed with the misty clouds of (which seams more like south to me because of the layout of the roads and lack of mountains visible daily). With golds and reds and pinks circling outward, it reminded me of the saying, "the red sky at night is a sailor's delight.
In the opposite sky (east), there lies a sky of violet and crystal blue, fading to deep blue midnight. A full moon, touchable. Candy flocked evergreens. Picturesque.
Impossible! Delectable.


Here are some random photos. Unfortunately, no brilliant scenery. Just some of our adventure.

Azilyn and I at the Russian River Falls in July. We have a video of some fish jumping up the falls, but it was early in the season for it, so it's kind of a boring little clip.

Us at the Exit Glacier near Seward, AK. It was a fairly warm day, probably 65-70, but next to the Glacier it was like 30 and windy! The glacier actually creates it's own weather! Azilyn got car sick this day and vomited in the car. Awesome!

Azilyn and I under the giant leaf of a Devil's Club plant to get out of the rain.

Tolson's favorite fingers! LOL Before I took the picture, he was sucking his thumb and had his pointer up his nose! Awesome Tols.

Azilyn as a pirate for Halloween. What was Tolson you may ask...well, he was suppose to be a duck, but somehow we ended up with duck feet and no duck costume...?? We're still trying to figure that one out. So, he was just himself. Sorry bud!

We had our first snow on Halloween (3inches). Luckily we had a trunk-or-treat in our church parking lot. We drove home with no headlights. Yikes!

Mom did the pumpkin carving this year. Azilyn put her hand in and brought it out in disgust! LOL

Happy Halloween!

Autumn

Well, it's hard to say when the seasons actually change around here because the temperatures are so moderate, but if I were to guess, I'd say the Fall only lasted 1month, maybe 6weeks. One day, at the end of August I woke up and went outside to a chill in the air. The atmosphere was changing. Though the temperatures have only been 5-10deg cooler, from 55ish in August, to mid-upper 40's, low 50s as highs. The nighttime lows have dropped into the 30's and at the start of this week, we had our first frost (that I noticed anyway). Winter quickly approaches. Eeww. I'm kinda nervous about it because we are not prepared.
Last night I went visiting teaching to one of my ladies that lives about 2 miles from me. She is a brand new convert! I just got my VT assignment, so this was my first visit. I don't know her well, but I know already that she is a very strong and valiant spirit. Her conversion story is truly miraculous! I wish I could she some of it with you, but I feel I would breech her trust in me. I will just say that with the trials she has endured, the Lord sure works in mysterious ways.
I was at her house until 12:30 last night, helping her with a project that was simply too overwhelming for her to do alone.
Anyway, I started telling this because when I went home, it had been raining, so there were little water droplets on my car, but when I tried to open the door, they were frozen and it was a little difficult to open the door! It has turned cold quickly and we expect to have snow in the next few weeks.

Faith of a Child

A few weeks ago, Azilyn had a nursery lesson on the priesthood. So, on the way home, we were talking about what she learned. I asked her if she knew what the priesthood was and she didn't really understand, so as I'm stumbling aver how to explain it to her, Danny comes up with, "it's God's Magic." Um, ok. I guess that's a good way to explain it to a 3-year-old. As we kept talking she kept saying, "and when I'm big, I can have the priesthood too!" After trying to convince her that that wasnt possible, I gave up and said, "well, you'll have to take that up with Heavenly Father." Immediately, she began to pray and said, "Heavenly Father, will you help me hold the priesthood." Haaaa! Oh, the faith of a little child. Later that day she did something that, "made Jesus sad," so again she immediately prayed for Heavenly Father to forgive her! I'm glad to know that Azilyn realizes she can pray anytime, for anything. I love that girl. She teaches me so much.

Labor Day Excitement!

Well, I've just been busy and haven't been able to telling about our exciting Labor Day. We went to the Alaska State Fair! They were celebrating their 75th anniversary, which is really interesting to me because Alaska has only been a state since 1959. How does that work?? Maybe they count all the fairs they had while they were just a territory too. Alaska was actually a territory of the US since 1912 and before that was a district since 1884. Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867 and was primarily a military region.
Well, I wasn't planning on a history lesson, but there you have it. This is what I'm learning while a resident of another state! Anyway, we went to the fair. Danny and the kids had some fun looking at all the displays (here are some pictures)

Azilyn standing next to a world record breaking pumpkin, well almost. It was actually disqualified because of a quarter-sized hole.

Azilyn in a native costume head cut out thing

Tolson got a kick out of this

The kids enjoyed themselves while I was hard at work at the fair. A lady in my ward asked me to compete with her in the 1st annual dutchoven cook-off! It was so fun. My partner is really competative and has done these competitions before, so I wasnt surprised when we took 1st PLACE! Yeah!!!

My brother-in-law, Sam took 2nd with his partner! It was very cool.

Winning qualified us to go to the WORLD competition, but my partner already qualified with another partner, so we gave it to the 2nd placers. (but we kept the money, $500!)

Yea mommy!

However, just last week, my partner asked me if I could go with her to worlds after all because her regular partner is expecting and will be 8 months along when they have to go! And, she's paying for my plane ticket! It's in SLC, so I will get to see my family in March! Yea!! Also, it just happens to be during Danny's spring break, so I think we will all get to come! I know I owe this one to the Lord. This all came about so randomly, yet has perfectly fallen into place. The Lord truely knows us and works miracles!