Merry Christmas 2016!

Now that I have had a quick refresher course on how to use blogger, I still don't know where to begin this letter.

2016 will be remembered for a lot of things...

1. A winter with never ending freezing rain. (Lame!)

The ice made hiking (or going to the grocery store) interesting/treacherous...

2. A 7.1 earthquake. (Scary! But we were all safe and unharmed.)

The extent of the damage from the earthquake...a couple broken bottles in the laundry room.  (PHEW!)

3. Subsequent emergency preparedness planning...complete with sweet tactical backpacks and family logo patches! (Thanks to Luke's sweet design skills!)

The Hanzon Family Preparedness Crest

4. Homemade Dirty Coke Zeros and Dirty Diet Dr. Peppers (Amazing!)

With sugar free coconut syrup purchased (by the case) from Amazon :)

5. The Broncos won the Superbowl. (Hooray! Finally!)

6. Grandpa Alan let Karrick "drive" the truck while he fed the cows when we visited in March. (He was in heaven!)

Reminds me of when I was a kid!

7. A wildfire near our house. (Again, scary! But again, thankfully, we were all safe and unharmed.)

8. Manda's visit to Denali National Park with her sister Wendi. (Fun!)

At Eielson Visitor Center in Denali National Park

9. A month long visit to Utah in June-July to visit all of our extended families. Plus we finally got to go to a rodeo and see fireworks (in the dark!) for the 4th of July! (Awesome!!)

On Cedar Mountain

10. The summer Olympics!  (Go USA!)

11. A trip to Nabesna in Wrangell St. Elias National Park where Karrick caught his first fish--an arctic grayling. (Yay!)

Devil's Mountain Lodge/Nabesna River

12. Karrick's first tent camping experience in the Chugach National Forest. (So fun!)

Such a beautiful spot!

Happy Camper!

13. Grandma & Grandpa Hanzon's visit for the lantern festival and a trip to Hope. (Wahoo!)

The wind made things a bit difficult, but we did get one lantern to cooperate!

Fall in Hope, Alaska ♡

14. The election of 2016 that is finally over. (Thankfully!)

BUT mostly it will be remembered as the year my sister Kerri passed away.

If you remember from our letter last year, she was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer in October 2015.  She left us on October 26, 2016--just a little over one year later.  I'm grateful for the time I was able to spend with her this past year.  And I'm especially grateful Karrick got to spend time getting to know her.

We are so grateful for the gospel and for our knowledge that we will see her again!  But it truly has one of the hardest things that has happened to me and my family.  We appreciate all of the love and support we have received.  Thank you!

We hope you are all doing well this Christmas season!  And may you all have a wonderful New Year!

Merry Christmas 2014

I've neglected this blog, but now it's holiday time
I've decided to recap our year with pictures and rhymes.
In January we escaped to Oahu to soak up some sun.

In February we saw the Piano Guys in concert, it was so much fun!  

And-funny story-we got tickets with friends so we could all experience this show

But our tickets "together" were same seats---different rows!  (...so funny!)

In March Luke decided to run down the street
With reindeer chasing him- they have such quick feet!

Later we travelled to Fairbanks to see sculptures of ice.

In April we thought a new house would be nice.  

It didn't work out--we didn't sell our house in time.  

But in the process it was nice to have such a clean house as mine!!  

(...to bad that didn't last...)

Oh and after some friends from Colorado came up for a clip,

Karrick had his very first (and hopefully last) ambulance trip.

A febrile seizure gave us quite a scare.

If that never happens again, we would surely NOT care!

In May we said farewell to good friends...so lame...

Life in AK now just isn't the same.

In June things were finally all green and awake.
Time for visitors and exploring, for goodness sake!

Our Colorado friends came back to visit this beautiful state.

We hiked Winner Creek Trail with them...it was great!

We went to Seward and Homer with my sister Wendi, my mom & my dad.

We celebrated Karrick's first birthday and he thought the cake tasted bad! (weirdo!)

In July we decided to try dip netting in Kenai.
We came home with 13 salmon to fry!

We hiked up a mountain called Rendezvous Peak
With new friends who had moved to Alaska earlier that week.

They even helped carry our pack and our kid!
We appreciated their help...WE MOST SURELY DID!!

This was also the month Karrick started walking around
and discovered he loves picking rocks off the ground!

August brought adventures to Hope-our favorite new place-and Valdez
We outfitted our truck with a topper for traveling ease.

Luke and his dad rode bikes down Thompson Pass.
They saw breathtaking views as they made it down fast.

And finally it was time for the Alaska State Fair...
We went with Luke's parents and ate milkshakes and corn dogs and had donuts to spare.

My brother Jeff and his wife came up in September to visit for a few days
We went to the Nature Center and Talkeetna and they went to Alyeska for a kid-free get-a-way.

At the end of the month to the lower 48 we flew.
Adventures in Colorado and Utah, we had a slew!

It was so good to see family and so many friends
At the beginning of October our trip came to an end.

Later on in the month it was All Hallows Eve.
We decided Karrick would be a perfect "Sheldon" from Big Bang Theory.

Before we knew it November was here
Karrick still loves playing outside in the cold--without fear!

We had friends over for Thanksgiving dinner in our home.
We tackled some home improvement projects & removing linoleum made us moan!
(Seriously...it was dumb!)

And now it's December-this whole year has really flown!
We still can't believe how much Karrick has grown.

Baby teething is a trial, we've barely survived.
If someone tells you it's easy, they surely have lied.
But other than that our year has been blessed...
(Especially when Karrick started sleeping through the night so we could finally rest!!)
We hope this Christmas season finds you all happy and well
With old friends and new friends and joyous stories to tell!
Love,
the Hanzon family

Sweet Ride

I sold my road bike last Saturday and yesterday I met Luke at the bike store across the street from his work and we purchased a new one.  It's more of a hybrid road bike to pull our new (gently used) bike trailer.  (Which we got a sweet deal on at a yard sale.)

Today Karrick and I took it out for a quick spin.  I think he liked it!  (He didn't cry...so I take that as a good sign...)

Hawaii Day 3- Epic Waves on the North Shore, Horrible Traffic, and dinner at Ted's Bakery

The waves on the North Shore of Oahu today were epic--biggest in a decade.  Of course we had to go see them.  Along with everyone else on the island…  

First we stopped at Sunset beach…or what was left of the beach.  The waves were eating up the sand like crazy!

The waves were very big…but you can't really tell that in the picture… But you can see all the sand in the water.

Police lady directing traffic.  Sometimes when the waves would come in they would cover the road…as you can tell by the sand on the road.

I tried to get a picture as we passed.  It kind of worked.

The next place we stopped was Pupukea Beach Park.  The waves here were even bigger!  And we got better pictures of them.  The waves were scary huge!

Did I mention how horrible traffic was?  People parked where ever and walked where ever they wanted.  Not cool. 

Then we made our way to Haleiwa.  We went back to Surf and Sea.  The town was packed!  And one of the people working at the store said the tide was coming back in and they were talking about closing the road.  So we decided to make a loop around the island…instead of going back the way we came.

And we hit more traffic.  There was some road construction along the way and just a lot of people on the road in general.  It took awhile to get back to Laie.

For dinner tonight we went back to the North Shore to get food at Ted's Bakery.  YUM!

Mmmm…chocolate haupia cream pie is delicious!

Baby K…hanging ten.