A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

We're expecting!!! :) Our little one is due October 29th, 2010. We are so excited and can't wait!! :)

This is our first picture as a family. We took it right after I told Todd we were having a baby. :) I had this whole plan of telling Todd. I had ordered a onsie that said, 'If you think I'm cute, you should see my Daddy' and then I was going to give him one of his favorite childhood books so he could read it to our baby. This was all planned for his birthday which would mean I would be about 7 weeks along. Well. I can't keep a secret that long and since I knew we were expecting pretty quick that would have been a REALLY long time!! I still gave him the gifts on his birthday but it wasn't as cool as if I had given them to him and said, 'Oh, and by the way we're having a baby too!' The way I really told him was during our FHE lesson and it was his turn to give it. We've been waiting for a family for a long time now and he had based his lesson on having a family. So...when he started talking about the Lord's timing, and having a family I couldn't keep a straight face and so I ended up telling him. I was really mad at myself!! I'm glad I told him though, it was such a relief. It was nice to be able to start having prenatal care also and have him involved.

We have more pictures to post of us telling our families and ultrasounds but I don't have them...of course...on the computer yet. I'll post them soon!! Promise! :)

Hope you have a good day!! :)

Bittersweet

Well!!!

It's so weird! I've only been up here for the last half of the school year but it feels like it's gone so quickly!! Good news too!! We're/Todd is 1/30th of the way to retirement!! :) Wahoo!! :)

Tomorrow marks our D-day! It feels really weird to be leaving Barrow and not coming back for a few weeks. It's almost sad!! Almost!! I'll really miss all of our friends up here! I was also thinking about it and Logan doesn't have a lot of people but being up here has made me really comfortable with not seeing anyone except Todd for a few days in a row.....I could possibly have many panic attacks just being around my family!!! Sad I know!! :) I'm just used to quiet!! Really quiet!!!

Good news....(strong sarcasm)...Todd got an e-mail this morning about how Barrow is quarantining all the animals in the city for rabies because of the foxes around here. Well on the bottom of the flyer it said-"If you plan on leaving Barrow you need a vet letter from the vet clinic approving travel". Ok. First of all, all (ok maybe not all) the teachers in Barrow have animals. Second of all, most of the teachers will be leaving on tomorrow's Great White Flight (that's what the natives call the flight because most of the white people leave the day after school gets out). Why did they send that e-mail out a day before everyone was supposed to leave??? I called the vet to see if we could get in and get our little Kali approved-come on she hasn't been outside since November, how would she have gotten rabies???-she had one cancellation thankfully so we'll be able to leave with our kitty. Next obstacle....making sure the airline will let her come with us. They usually only let 2 animals in the cabin as carry-on.....a teacher that is leaving on the flight has 2 little dogs that will be going with him. Great!!! :)

Anyways!!! I'm done complaining!! We just have lots to get done before tomorrow night and it's slightly overwhelming!! But it will be good to leave and see family!! We are so excited!! I could barely sleep last night because of all the butterflies in my stomach from thinking about seeing my family!!! :)

Well I think that's about it!! :) Have a good day!!

The Best Part of Waking Up

I just love having Todd home again!! It's so much easier to fall asleep and wake up in the morning!! It's a lot warmer in the bed too!! I'm such a cold person all the time!! :)

Anyways!! We made it!! It really felt like forever that Todd was gone though! When he got home I was about to tell him all that had happened with the Branch and all that had been going on at school and then I remembered...he had been here for all that!! :)

He was able to get on an earlier flight and came home 2 hours earlier which was so nice!!! We were able to go to the high school graduation together!! It was a really good graduation I thought. I forgot to take pictures of the gym which I am so mad at myself for....I told myself Thursday, Friday and Saturday not to forget to get pictures of the gym! Sure enough!! :) No pictures! The seniors decorated the gym themselves and they went all out....seriously! It looked really nice! It was only an hour and a half to two hours long so it wasn't bad at all. We got there late too because Todd's flight came in at 5:30 and it started at 5.

We watched The Princess Bride after the graduation. I'm so proud of myself too.....I stayed awake for the whole movie!! I will admit....I have never seen The Princess Bride. Todd was so ashamed of me!!! Hahaha!! He told me, "how am I supposed to take a wife home to my family this summer that has never seen Princess Bride?" I went out and found a friend that had The Princess Bride and now he no longer has to be ashamed of his wife!! :) It was a pretty good movie too. :)

Well I think that's it for now! Sorry about the no pictures! I'll do better! :) 5 days until we leave Barrow!!! Only 4 days of school left!!!! Yeah!!!!! :)

Old Pros Right?!?!?

I hope so!!! Tonight Todd leaves for Anchorage for a conference. He'll be gone until Saturday night. We're pros at being apart though.....maybe?? You'd think living apart for 4 1/2 months would have trained us to be semi-ok with being apart for 3 1/2 days!

I'm not excited for it though. I'm glad Kali will be with me. She's good at being the entertainer lately. There will be lots of Graduation festivities going on the next couple of days too so that will help pass the time at night. Hopefully!

On a more happy note, there is 7 more days of school left and only 10 more days until we leave Barrow. :) Those are definitely happy thoughts!!

I think that's it for now!! I'll keep you posted on how the next couple of days pass.....hopefully quickly!!!!

Things To Be Happy About

There are TONS of things I am and could be happy about! I won't write them all but one of the main things is:

Weather on the Slope Barrow, AK 28°F Partly Cloudy Feels Like: 20°F Humidity: 77% Wind: NE 8 mph Hour-by-hour | 10-day @weather.com Local Weather On The Spot Get the temp on your desktop

Those numbers seem SO big and warm considering the past 3 months it hasn't gotten above freezing! We don't have a garden to worry about or any outside animals so we'll take it!!

Another thing to be happy about is: IT'S FRIDAY!!! Which means only 2 more weeks and school is out!! I don't think it could come any faster!!

I think the biggest thing I am happy about right now and what keeps me going is I get to see these people in just 16 days!! (P.S. If I put your picture on here and you don't like it...so so sorry! Tell Todd to take another one of you so we have more options to pick from next time!! Oh and dad...if you read this, which I don't think you will, sorry there isn't a picture of you! I'm excited to see you too! I have pictures of you on my computer but seeing as that it is in Utah....I can't really use any of them!! :) )

Mom, you're probably saying, "Oh, why did she have to put that one on there?" Well you see, I killed two birds with one stone on this picture, Little Buddy Ole Pal I'm SOOO excited to see you! Todd can say you stink as much as he wants, he doesn't know what he's missing when getting hugs from you!! :)

Caroline, I can just hear what you're saying right now....."She's not excited to see me, she just put that on there so people wouldn't ask why there wasn't a picture of me!!" I actually am excited to see you....I've been doing lots of push-ups, I might be able to hit you just as hard as you hit me.....maybe!!

Hahaha oh Kristina!! You tell me I need to brush my teeth!! :) Just kidding!! Hahahaha! I had to put this on there!!!

Yup!! Those are our families and we are so excited to see them again!!! :) It'll be a good summer!!!

March Madness!!!

Wow! We've had a pretty crazy month!! Lots of things have happened....or it just feels like it!! Good news too....I have pictures to post! :) I have more on the other camera so those will come later!

Here are the highlights though:

Yup!! You're not blind! There really is no red line-it's that cold!! :)

This was on one of our Sunday outings-we went to the beach/gravel pits and met our friends Wayne and Jenna there with their puppy so she could run around. We successfully got our Jeep stuck.....again! Luckily someone came by and pulled us out! It was COLD! This is also showing Todd's ruff around his hood which I am proud to say I sewed on by hand!! :)

Here are the snow drifts that we woke up to right before Todd had to get to his morning Inservice. Lots of snow!! They should have cancelled that meeting!!! The roads were so bad!!

This is mainly for our moms but seriously we are so blessed! The only fruit and veggies you get up here are flown in and they are way expensive so we never buy them from the store. There's a family in our Branch, the Enderle's, and they order from Full Circle Farms which is a mailing program that sends fruits and veggies each week. Anyways one night we got a knock on the door and they had brought us a box that they wouldn't be using! It was SO nice! When I was making the salad I was getting upset because my hands were getting so cold from washing the veggies in the cold water and then I stopped and remembered...You live in the Arctic. You have no way of growing any of this which means you had to do no work in order for this to be in your house right now and you're complaining that your fingers are cold. We are so blessed! Thanks Enderle's!!!! :)

Leprechauns aren't real?? Think again!! This is what we pulled out of our dryer!! :)

We had the unfortunate event of mourning the death of a teenager....just kidding!! :) But we both did wear black to church! This was my 20th Birthday!! :) We went to the school after church to talk with my family on skype and open the box they sent me! It was fun! They even had a cake for me that my nephew blew out for me!

This was Todd's 25th Birthday/St. Patrick's Day! He said he likes the 'exact' amount of candles on the birthday cake. Well...up here where a box of 10 candles cost about $5 I went the old fashioned route and rolled up pieces of construction paper! They didn't stay lit very long but he was able to blow out one candle!! :) It was a pretty good cake I might add!! :) We both had great birthdays though! Thanks families for being so nice to us and sending us things!! :) You're great! Todd was great too.....I got a sewing machine! (sorry I don't have a picture uploaded on this computer yet)

This was the best part of March! We got to go down as a Branch and attend the Anchorage Temple!! We had two families get sealed-the McCrays and the Lilos! It was so special to be there for those!! It was great to be in the Temple with Todd though. I think we both feel a lot better about life in general now! While we were down there, we visited a Walmart!!! It was so crazy! Everything was so cheap!! We stocked up on the kitty litter and the kitty food for next year though! (It's expensive up here) I'm glad to be back in Barrow again though. There were WAY too many people down there! I seriously had so many panic attacks!!!

This was the group! Good looking wouldn't you agree?! :) It was between 45-50 degrees while we were down there! It was awesome! There was slush!! And mountains and trees and birds...it was great! We also saw 4 moose! 2 on the side of a busy street just eating grass...our shuttle driver almost hit one!!! And 2 more 20 feet from the doors of the Temple! We got good pictures of them....probably too good. I was so scared one was going to charge Todd!

We love our Branch!

Here is Barrow!! :) We live along the airport runway which is the long dark line in the middle of the picture. Our home is on the very far left side of it! :) Can't you see it!? Just kidding!

This is farther out but it shows the ocean. The ocean is frozen from where the town is out until where you can see the water......pretty cool!!

Well! That's all folks! Finally right? :) Sorry! I have pictures though so that makes it more interesting right? :)

Good News!!!

We're 2 months/8 weeks from seeing grass and trees and birds and cows and horses and mountains and FAMILY!!!!!!!!!! Wahoo!! Oh and school will be over!!!

I think we're gonna make it!! :)