Farewell Friends

Goodbyes are dumb.  Especially when you are saying goodbyes to good friends.  We will miss the Watz family!  But the best part is that they are moving back to Colorado...so chances are we will actually see them again someday...so that makes it a little easier to say goodbye.  Kind of.

And they are off to Whittier to catch the ferry to Washington.

Mother's Day/Farewell BBQ

What better way to celebrate Mother's Day than to have a barbecue with friends who are moving away soon?  That was a trick question...there are lots of better ways to celebrate, but it was a beautiful day to barbecue with good friends--who will be greatly missed!

It was originally planned by the Crawn family as a farewell to the Watz family...but now the Crawn's are moving too!  (We have got to stop making friends with people in the military!!!  Just kidding.  But the fact that people move away so much isn't very cool!)  Our other neighbor (Todd) and his girlfriend were also there.  At least he isn't moving...yet...

K and Cia (The Crawn's chocolate lab)

Taylor helping Karrick walk (and get over his dislike of his feet touching the grass...)

K and Ducati (the Crawn's other dog)

"Hey!  That's my hat!"  Karrick, Adrienne, and James

James' first s'more in Alaska!  He couldn't leave without having one..

More outdoor fun with Taylor!

And a wagon ride with James..

In other Mother's Day news, Luke had to speak in church this morning.  He did a great job!  I made the most delicious fruit salad (that tastes like Skittles candy) for the BBQ.  It's a recipe by The Pioneer Woman.  (You can find it here.)  And it's officially my first Mother's Day as a mom!  I'm so grateful for Baby K--who is not so baby anymore.  He is a joy to have around!  And now that I'm a mom, I realize even more how much I appreciate my own mom!  Sheesh.  It's hard work!  But it's worth it.  Every bit!  And I remind myself of that often :)

Lame. Lame. Lame.

Our friends are moving.  Their house went on the market today.  They don't technically leave AK until mid-May...but still...it's LAME!  The neighborhood is NOT going to be the same without the Watz's!  (Heck, Alaska won't be the same without them!)

**And their house is now under contract...  Who puts their house on the market and sells it the same day?  That's craziness!!

Happy New Year 2014

We rang in the new year building a 3D puzzle and drinking jello punch (that stuff is delicious!) with our neighbors.

Unfortunately we didn't get it finished…we will have to work on it again sometime.

Christmas Eve AK Style

First thing this morning Luke went to the doctor…turns out he has bronchitis.  But he has antibiotics and some heavy duty cough syrup now, so I think we are good.

He took this picture on the way home-- yay for living in a winter wonderland!  It really feels like Christmas with the snow everywhere.

We made Christmas treats for some friends and neighbors.  Luke made homemade peppermint patties.  YUM!  (Don't worry…he wore a face mask…)

I made rice crispy christmas trees.  I saw the idea in a magazine.  There are reese's peanut buttercups on the bottom for the base and sprinkles for the "lights".  They turned out pretty cool!!

I also made peppermint brownies, carmel popcorn, white chocolate popcorn, and the most delicious ginger cookies.  Luke made peanut butter fudge balls and dipped them in chocolate.  Let's just say we have a lot of treats lying around.

Our neighbors invited us to have a Christmas eve bonfire with them.  Unfortunately the warmer temps from last weekend didn't hold out…but even though it was -16 we still had a party!  I slathered Karrick's face with A&D ointment to make a barrier against the cold air.  And he didn't get to stay out for very long.  He went back inside to hang out with Luke and take a nap.

Ian, Amy, me and Karrick, Erik

Me and baby K…Alaska tough (at least pretending to be…)

Hanging out/trying to stay warm with Erik and James

Frosty face kid finally back inside with dad...

We delivered Christmas treats tonight and watched the real story of Christmas by Cleon Skousen.  It's good to remember the true Reason for the Season--Christ.

We love Christmas, and we are so excited for tomorrow!!

Thanksgiving Time

Happy Thanksgiving!

Have you seen this video??  It is awe.some.  I love love love it!  It brings joy to my heart…and warm fuzzies.  Ok.  I've said enough.  (I just wanted you to know I was serious…and I totally agree with the message.  Thankful people are happy people!)

This year we are spending the holidays in Alaska…and we are so excited!  We will definitely miss being around family, but we will not miss holiday travel!!

We had Thanksgiving dinner with our neighbors--Erik & Adrienne--and 2 of Erik's coworkers that didn't get to go home.  It's good they had somewhere to go--instead of them spending their Thanksgiving in the barracks!  (Erik is a dentist in the Army--FYI.)

Luke volunteered to make the turkey.  We chose to get a fresh turkey from the specialty meat store here in Eagle River (called Mike's Meats).  But first he practiced cooking a butterball turkey a few days before.

Turkey, turkey everywhere!  Both of them turned out delicious!

The practice turkey

Making the brine for the "real" turkey.  (We used the recipe from the Pioneer Woman website.)

Ready for carving!!

We also contributed dinner rolls, gravy, fruit salad (grandma white's recipe), fresh cranberry relish, and cranberry salsa (which is a delicious appetizer that I learned about at the recipe group I go to..) Oh and we made pies!  Pumpkin chiffon and pecan.

This is grandma white's fruit salad…it takes healthy fruit and turns it into dessert  :)

Adrienne made all of the other sides (stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, etc), apple pie, more appetizers (baked brie--so delicious!) and a vegetable tray.

We had so. much. food.  And it was very very tasty!  Our fridge is very packed with leftovers…YAY!

Here are some more pictures from the holiday…

Karrick's first Thanksgiving!

Thanks to uncle Reece and aunt Haley for the Thanksgiving outfit!  And Luke is participating in No-Shave-November…if you couldn't tell :)

Karrick drank milk and ate…his bib.  Thanksgiving for babies just isn't the same!

Now, bring on the pilgrim sandwiches!!  We hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

How to make a Minion

We knew before Karrick was even born that we wanted him to be a minion for his first halloween.  (Not that we are the big halloween celebration types...but we just couldn't help it!)

I found a free hat pattern online somewhere (thank you world wide internets!) and enlisted my sister, Wendi, to ask a lady who works at her school if she would take on the task of making it.  (This coworker crochets stuffed animals...(!)  So I figured she could quickly and easily figure out a hat pattern...)  And she did!

She even crocheted the button.  I didn't even know you could crochet buttons...

Karrick tried it on when Wendi gave us the hat in Utah.

And then I found some overalls at Target.  That doesn't even really matter since clearance prices at Target in Alaska are like regularly priced items at Target in the lower 48...but that's a whole other blog post that I probably won't ever have time to write...

I couldn't find a yellow onesie.  So I dyed a white onesie yellow.  But I got the water too hot, so it was almost orange.  And that didn't go with the hat.  (Seriously.  It looked bad.)  So I soaked it in cold water and bleach...twice.  And the second time I fell asleep and left it in the water for longer than I intended.  However, it turned out perfectly.  (Yay!  Naps really do fix everything!)

For the last part, I looked on etsy for a "G" patch ("G" is for Gru), and the internets came through for me again!

And here is our little minion:

Oh....and the very last part of the costume was the black socks (because baby shoes are ridiculous...cute but ridiculous...) and we borrowed those from our neighbor James--the little monkey pictured below:

Pumpkin Carving Fun

This year we carved pumpkins with our neighbors (the Watz's).  I think they turned out great!!  And as a bonus no one was injured while carving, and their dog (who consumed huge amounts of pumpkin guts) didn't even get sick!  A Halloween miracle!

And here they are--all lit up and ready to go:

Mine is the creepy one on the left, then Luke's Alaska state flag pumpkin, then James/Adrienne's pumpkins, and then Erik's Denver Bronco.

I think we all did an amazing job!

Yay for friends!

Today I went to lunch to celebrate my friend Rachelle's birthday.  It was at Tinker's Rainforest Deli--a place I never even knew existed until now.  I had the turkey bacon ranch croissant (the warm version) and it was the most delicious thing I have had in quite some time!  Even writing about it makes me want another one..

Here is the birthday lunch crew--

L to R: Rachelle, Jessie, Me, Andrea, Anna, and Angie

(And just so you know...I did go back later in the week and had another sandwich...  I had it cold and it was still delicious!)

Baby Shower

Last Thursday, my friend Lindsay threw a baby shower for me and baby Chewie.  (Another friend, Anna, was in on the planning action...but the night of the shower she had a sick kiddo and wasn't able to make it.)

Anyway, I had a great time hanging out with friends, and Chewie got some pretty sweet stuff!

We were laughing about Rachelle's present wrapping job.  The bag she planned on using was too small...and then she couldn't find the tape...except the packing tape.  It was a very funny story!  :)  

A bag of plastic building blocks.

Yay!  Prizes!

Baby clothes from Angie!

Sock monkey things from...I cant remember...good thing it's written down somewhere!

The cutest little owl hat (along with some clothes and socks) from Lucy.  She is an awesome crocheter!  She made the hat herself!

A book called "Mama do you love me" from Julie and Reagan.  (Complete with inscription to Baby Hanzon.)

There were many other fun and thoughtful presents along with these.  I feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends!  

And for our Young Women activity night last night, the leaders threw me a surprise baby shower!  They are so sneaky!  I had NO idea.  We played games and ate cupcakes and I got more fun presents.  I don't have any pictures from it though.  (Another leader took some, I think.  I will have to ask her to share.)

One of the "games" was for the young women to write some advice down for me (and Luke--the soon to be parents).  I was impressed at how insightful and clever some of them were.  

Here is some of the advice they wrote down:

"Don't beat around the bush.  Just tell your kid how it is...  Who cares if they cry?  At least he won't be a sissy."  -Erika

"Have a prerecorded audio of Morgan Freeman saying 'be calm small boy' for every time he cries.  This will grow your child into a legendary man."  -Heather

"Have fun w/ baby and try to make even chores fun." 

"Be patient w/ child, understand they are learning just like you!" -Hailey

"Every time I babysit a cranky baby, there seems to come a time when they are determined to make life miserable...eventually I realized that it helps to pray that they stop being terrible, because Heavenly Father is really good with babies."  -Tess

Concert Time!

One thing we miss about the "lower 48" is the opportunity to go to concerts.  There's not a huge music scene in Alaska...and especially not in the winter!  That's why we were shocked and surprised and excited to see a concert poster at Snow City Cafe announcing that a singer we actually really like--Mat Kearney--was coming to town.  We immediately bought tickets (yay for fancy phones that let you buy stuff on them) and I texted our neighbors (Adrienne and Erik) to tell them about the concert too.  They got tickets and we all went together.  Good times!!

It was a really really really really good concert!  (One of our favorites, actually.)  It was an acoustic show with Mat and his guitar and a band member named Fred who played the keyboard.  Well except for this song...in this one, Mat kicked Fred off the keyboard and played it himself.

Mat is really funny and was great with the crowd.  (He even said he wanted to bring his band and come back up here sometime.  Yay!)

Here are some more of his songs (via Youtube lyric videos) just in case you don't even know who Mat Kearney is.

And this next one is one of my favorites...except the album cover isn't the right one...whatever. 

Thanksgiving Holiday Fun

We had a lot of fun on our trip to Utah.  We visited family (and saw some friends too), ate a lot of food, went 4-wheeling, ate more food, went to the movies, played games, oh and then we both got a nice 24 hr stomach bug thing.  (That wasn't as fun as the rest of the stuff though...)

Here are some pics from our adventures:

Kaelyn's new corgi puppy.  SO CUTE!  (Last I heard his name was Cowboy, but she kept changing his name, so who knows what it is now.)   

Aaron is quite the texter... 

This is grandma White's fruit salad.  I finally learned the real recipe!  Hooray!  Holidays aren't the same without it.  

Allie counting grandpa's fingers during Thanksgiving dinner.  And Kam is watching while drinking coke and eating a pickle.  (Crazy!)

Naptime for Dustin and the puppy.

Aaron loves his tractors! (small AND big!)

Ok, so maybe I took a lot of pictures of puppy...but I couldn't help it.  Look at that little sleepy face!

I made my dad sourdough chocolate cake for his birthday.

We went to the movie Red Dawn with these cute girls!  (and my brother and sister in law too...)

Playing games when Laura came to visit us!  So fun!

4wheeling on the bench.

We visited Gypsy!  (and the gray horse...whose name I don't know...)

We fed them apples.  We figured they needed a treat since they came over to us when we whistled.  Positive reinforcements, you know...

But then gypsy got greedy...and tried to eat our whole lunch... 

She must've really loved those apples...and she probably could smell that we had more!

Luckily, Luke was eventually able to get the lid back on.

My mom packed our lunches...and she even labelled the sandwiches!  (Probably due to the fact that my sandwich had dill pickles and she didn't want Luke to make the mistake of eating it...since he doesn't like dill pickles...)

And after following this map... (which I should've made more notes on...like which lines are roads...and which ones are canyons...and which circles are oil wells and which circles are ponds we need to check for signs of cows at...)

We were able to find these cows for my dad.  (It took us awhile though.)

This is the sunset we saw as we were flying back to Alaska.  This is the last time Luke will even see the sun for over 2 weeks!  Crazy!!!

Our cute neighbor Adrienne picked us up at the airport and she even had "welcome home" cookies for us.  She rocks!