Signs that winter is almost over in Alaska

It's that time of the year! Winter is almost over! We are so ready to have some nice weather so we can enjoy some summer activities. Here are some signs that winter is almost over:

1. It starts snowing again. True story! Once the weather starts getting a little warmer it starts snowing. When it’s super cold and the middle of winter it rarely snows because of how cold it is. 

2. Winter clothes will start going on sale and grills and AC units will start popping up in store. It may not feel like winter yet because it’s still below freezing but now is the time to buy your winter gear for next year and your air conditioner for this summer.

3. You’ll start to see snow removal vehicles all over the place. Large dump trucks and plows and such show up and start removing snow from the roads, sidewalks, and end of driveways. They haul it away to a designated area, which is oftentimes an empty lot. It’s better that it melts and becomes a swamp there than the middle of the roads. 

4. Time for hard pack removal! Once all that snow is removed from the roads a second set of vehicles will comes through and start scrapping up the hard pack off the roads. Hard pack is all the snow and ice that has accumulated over the winter and hasn’t been removed. People end up driving over it continuously and it gets packed down and takes a lot to remove. This year we had so much hard pack in our driveway that we gave up half way through and paid a guy to remove the rest with his bobcat. 

5. Everyone will change their boots. In the winter you will see people in an assortment of different winter boots. Most wear actual, rated to negative temps, winter boots. I, however, usually just wear a pair of cute bear paws. If it’s so cold that I need boots rated for cold temps then I have no plans to be outside for that long. But once winter is over people will change into RAIN BOOTS! With all that snow melting there are puddles everywhere. Plan on walking through a mini pond just to get to the store from the car. Plus, with warmer temps come rain.

6. People will start wearing shorts and t-shirts. Even though it’s still 30-40 degrees people here are slowing pulling out the summer clothes. I’ve had a lot of friends ask why because it’s still cold but after 7 months this is really a heat wave! It’s a good 50 degrees warmer than we’ve been dealing with.

7. Car washes start having sales. A lot of people, including us, opt to not wash our cars in the middle of winter. It’s too cold and honestly many of the car washes close during the winter anyways. So, once you see those sales it is time to give your vehicle a really good bath.

8. The sun seriously comes out of nowhere! As most people know Alaska loses sunlight during the winter and then gains it during the summer. But during those times between winter and summer there are a lot of overcast and rainy days. Once the sun shows up it’s just like “holy crap where did that come from?” Currently today (April 14th) the sun is rising at 6:18 and it sets at 21:25. I swear just a couple weeks ago we were only getting 6 hours of light a day, now I find myself squinting when I first step outside.

"Home" for the holidays!

We tend to do our holidays a little different than some people, it’s hard to celebrate when you are so far from the ones you love. But we have been blessed with great friends who are willing to spend time with us and I wouldn’t change our “traditions” for the world. Here’s what we did this holiday season.

Thanksgiving

When it comes to Thanksgiving ours isn’t the traditional kind. We live thousands of miles away from our family so we can’t just hop in the car to spend the day with them. For us it’s been six years since we spent the holidays with our family and we miss them a lot around this time of the year, so each year we try to do something special to make the holidays memorable. In the past we have went to the movies, went on mini vacations, hosted for friends, went to other people’s houses, and boycotted tradition with tacos.

This year, Thanksgiving 2017, we hosted Thanksgiving again! We were excited and blessed to be able to do this for people who are like family to us. This was only my third time making a Thanksgiving dinner, 2^nd time hosting, and I feel like I have the whole thing down to a science. When we host like this I try to make it epic! I want the food to be homemade and everything a person could possibly want for Thanksgiving is on the table. Here’s what I do to prepare for our feast.

I start at the beginning of October (crazy I know!). At that point I start planning the menu and making an insanely detailed grocery list. Once I have that all nailed down I’ll go ahead and start shopping for the nonperishable items, the stuff with a long shelf life, like sugar, turkey pans, pie pans, plastic plates and utensils, and seasonings. By the end of the month I’ll have my husband ask around at work and start inviting people. When he’s able to give me a loose headcount I start shopping for my turkey and buying items that I know will be okay in the freezer, like butter, cream cheese, shredded cheese, and pie crust. By the time the great turkey month rolls around I am pretty close to done with my shopping. I did have to go in last minute for some items I wanted to add and of course for the rolls (the one thing I don’t make).

The cooking process for all this food is just as complicated. I usually start prepping about a week in advance. I’ll double check to make sure that we’ve bought everything that we need, and make sure the turkey is in the fridge thawing. Then the day before Thanksgiving I work on some of the baking. This year I did 3 pies, 2 dozen cookies, and 2 dozen deviled eggs all the day before. We’ll also go ahead and prep some of the other food so that it will just need tossed in the oven for a bit before eating, we try to keep the oven totally available for the turkey.

Here was our Thanksgiving:

Appetizers: Crackers, Cheese, and Summer Sausage.

Main Meal: Turkey, Stuffing, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Green Bean Casserole, Company Potatoes, Baked Mac n Cheese, Rolls, Candied Yams, and Deviled Eggs.

Dessert: Pecan Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Apple Pie, and Oatmeal Cranberry White Chip Cookies

Christmas

Christmas was a little impromptu for us. We weren’t sure that we were going to have people over, but Thanksgiving went so well that we couldn’t resist a chance at round two. There wasn’t as much planning put into Christmas since there wasn’t much time in between the two holidays but I think we pulled it off nicely.

The menu was simple. We decided on lasagna and salad for our main dish. There was no reason behind that choice other than I wasn’t feeling the traditional foods and lasagna sounded good at the time. Dessert worked out the same way. I picked a peanut butter pie because I had never made one before and chocolate sounded good and a red velvet cake for those who didn’t want the crazy rich pie. We also did some sugar cookies and fudge.

The hubster and I did an intimate Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve. That was when we decided to open our gifts from family and each other. We had crackers, summer sausage, and cheese while watching A Christmas Story. We knew that Christmas Day would be hectic, what with me trying to make a lasagna from scratch for the first time ever, so we wanted to take a moment the night before to just relax.

The day of we had friends come over. We played some holiday games, like the white elephant gift exchange and the saran wrap ball game, as well as games like Cards Against Humanity and Trivial Pursuit. We ate lasagna and had a blast! We didn’t focus so much on the food, like you do during Thanksgiving, but rather we focused on spending time together and having fun.

We spent the rest of our Christmas vacation (my time between classes and the hubby’s time off of work) relaxing, cleaning, and celebrating. We went to the Santa Claus house in North Pole, Alaska and we went to the Ice Park next door. We also won the Christmas decorating contest for our neighborhood and it took us DAYS to get all the decorations taken down. But it was all worth it! Unfortunately, we both ended our time off with the flu.

 Thank you to all that joined us and I wish everyone a good year in 2018!

Winter is Coming!

So, I have decided to branch out a bit more with our blog. Instead of doing just the occasional post every six months or so about random things that we've done in our life I've decided to try harder to keep y'all better updated with the happenings and maybe some bonus posts as well. So here we go!

We are now heading into October and it's getting to be that time of the year. Already the temperature has started to drop, it averages around 50 during the day and 30-40 at night. Before too long the snow will come. We’ve already had some flurries and it has snowed in the mountains and other parts of Alaska. One of my memories on my Facebook this morning was that we had snow two years around this time. With an Alaskan winter comes a lot of preparation so I thought I'd give you guys an idea on some of the things that we have to get done.

Preparing for Winter Checklist:

- Move patio/lawn furniture inside so it doesn't get ruined.

- Clean BBQ grill and get it covered.

- Bring shovels up from the basement.

- Clean out our cars. The last thing I want to do is vacuum it out at -40 so we always give our cars a good clean before winter hits.

- Make sure the winterization on our cars are good to go. This year we have to replace both of our plugs after two years. This also includes making sure that the windshield wiper fluid is rated for negative temps.

- Make sure everyone in the family is set with winter gear; gloves, hats, coats, boots, etc.

Ready or not it’ll be here before we know it!

The GREAT Stay-cation of 2017

For a couple weeks during the beautiful month of August my husband was able to take some vacation time. Now if you don't know August is a gorgeous month here in Alaska. It's cooler and sometimes rainy, the mosquitoes aren't as fierce, and you'll often get some really nice sunny days out of it. So we decided to spend his vacation here in Fairbanks. The plan was to get out and see the area, catch up on some stuff, and get the cars/house ready to go before winter hits.

Our stay-cation started out with a couple hikes. The first was to Creamer's Field, a migratory waterfowl refuge, sitting on 2,200 acres of state owned land. It's a beautiful and easy walk. There are a couple trails to choose from. We walked the 1 mile Borealis Trail loop.

Our second hike was to Angel Rocks. I've been wanting to do this hike since we moved here a couple years ago but at the time I wasn't physically capable of making it. Angel Rocks is a 3.5 mile trail. It starts on even ground but then sharply climbs up about 900 ft. At the top the elevation is 1,750 ft and the view is worth the 2 hours it took us to get to the top.

After the hike to Angel Rocks we took a few days to recuperate, because lets face it that hike was killer on the legs! We got some projects going that we've been wanting to do around the house (more info to come in a different post), replaced the struts on the hubster's car and rotated my tires while we were at it.  

The next adventure we had during our Stay-cation was a trip to a couple of the neighboring towns. The first was Salcha. It's only half an hour from Fairbanks and has this cute little place called the Knotty Shop that has some adorable knick-knacks and souvenirs. The building itself is pretty cool because of all of the knotted, burled wood. There were also some "animals" on the front lawn made out of wood. The one pictured is of a mosquito. 

The second neighboring town we went to was on our way back to Fairbanks. It's a little town with a population of just over 2,000. A cute place where light poles are decorated like candy canes and you can stop by and hang out with 8 reindeer. Have you guessed it yet? If you guessed we went to NORTH POLE, ALASKA!... You were right. It was so much fun and even though there are still a few months till Christmas I am ready to start celebrating Christmas right now, after going there. Of course I'm going to enjoy fall first but still, it was awesome. We stopped at Santa Claus house and looked around. It's pretty much a big Christmas store filled with t-shirts, Christmas trees, decorations, a sweets store, and a toy section. You can even find Santa and Mrs. Claus there throughout the week. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the reindeer because it started to storm so they all went inside (I can't blame them because that rain got crazy). But we fully intend on going back closer to the holidays for more. Though not too close to the holidays because we were told that the line to see Santa can get insane. On average the wait time to see him is 4 hours! 

The last stop on our Stay-cation was to Pioneer Park here in Fairbanks. It's a cute little tourist spot. It has a bunch of shops and museums here in. The museums are mostly about the history of Alaska and the area. One of the museums is inside of a large boat! There is a carousel, mini-golf, and a couple trains as well. One of them was the original No. 1 engine from 1905, and it's still chugging along. My husband would tell you that riding the train was his favorite part. We stayed for a good part of the day and had a lot of fun. We hung on during the light rain but once it started pouring we headed home. 

All in all I would have to say that our Stay-cation was a success. We finally got to explore the area, had time to relax, start my fall semester of college, and get some much needed stuff done. I think we're ready for winter now! 

Oh! The places we have been...

So it has been just over a year since my last post. WOW! At first I wasn't able to post anything because I got a new laptop and I couldn't remember my password or email or really anything that I needed in order to recover this account and continue on. When I did finally manage to get back in there was just so much going on that I didn't have time to sit down and catch y'all up on everything. But now that it's summer I'm on a break from school for the next few months and I'm ready to get to typing. A lot of major things have happened and we hopefully have some fun things coming our way for this summer!

Let me catch you up!

Last summer we visited the Alaska pipeline. There is actually a viewing point just a few miles out of town! Haha. It just interesting and definitely a lot bigger than we thought.

We also took a long walk at Creamer's Field and I can't wait to go again this summer.

Many trips were made to the Farmer's market. I have developed a new love for summertime because that seems to be the only time that we can find some good fruits & veggies.

At the end of the summer there was a big party and we got to see Thompson Square!

I also made a friend who unfortunately moved at the end of the summer. But we spent quite a bit of time playing Pokemon Go!

This last fall I received some life changing information from my doctor. More details to come in another blog post. But let me give you a hint... If you are on my Facebook you saw a preview of it.

The husband went away for work and was gone for a few months this last winter. In that time I learned that when he's gone things will undoubtedly break or go missing (in this case it was my car that didn't want to start), a house can stay surprisingly clean when there is only one person living in it, and that Alaska winters are not fun to deal with alone.

My favorite part of the winter though is seeing the Northern Lights. Because of the serious lack of sunlight that we receive in this part of Alaska in the winter we are able to see it almost every cloudless night in the winter. 

This winter I was also stuck in an wrist brace because of an injury that occurred last summer and I experienced a very cold, dark, and snowy winter. At one point we hit -50 and there was so much snow that I could stand in it waist deep. In all my snowy misery I made a another friend who suffered through the snow with me.

Now that "spring" is here and for the most part all the snow is gone. I am ready to open up all the windows, do some spring cleaning, and enjoy the warm weather! Hopefully this year our house can avoid the major allergies that we got hit with last spring.

Our Alaska Home

I haven't shown many people pictures of our home here yet because when we first moved in I hated it. But slowly it has started to grow on me so now it's more of a love/hate relationship. I hate that it's the oldest housing there is here where we live, everyone else has brand new and theirs is so pretty. I also hate that our ancient washer and dryer are downstairs in the basement and that my kitchen is SO tiny! BUT I love that we have more space than others. Most housing here is connected to their neighbors on both sides, we only have one. We also have a driveway and a basement, again something that many don't have. One more awesome thing about our house, we have a decent size yard. It's these awesome things I love about my house that make the sucky parts not so sucky.

 

 

This is the street view of our new home, taken last summer before we bought our car. :) This beauty is a 2.5 bedroom 2 bathroom duplex. The house is divided in half right between the two bushes in the front.

 

Side yard!

 

 

Back yard!

 

Come on in and take a look around!

 

Inside the main front door (we have two front doors) is our massive living room. It's so big that we've made one side into a reading area.

 

Living room

 

Next to our living room is our tiny kitchen with our other front door. I'm determined to some day decorate the kitchen so that I don't hate it so much.

 

(tiny) Kitchen

The back corner of our kitchen, with the other front door.

 

Down the hall that is in the living room is where the 2.5 bedrooms are and the bathroom. We've converted the 2nd full bedroom into an office space and the half bedroom into a closet for all of my husband's work gear.

 

View of hallway from living room (don't mind the mess this was taken the day we moved out of the hotel)

Half bedroom. It's so small my husband can lay down and his feet touch one side and hands the other.

 

The second room AKA office

 

Our bedroom. It's the exact same size as the office.

 

 

Upstairs bathroom. It's a little on the small side but that doesn't bother me. It serves its purpose.

 

Last but not least... The basement!

The stairs to our basement are in the kitchen.

 

 

 

 

The bathroom in the basement.

I hope y'all enjoyed the tour of our home! :) Sorry it took us so long to get it up.

 

 

 

Moose and College and Snow... Oh My!

I know. I know. I promised quite a few people that I would keep up on our blog once we moved to Alaska and here I am five months later just now updating ya'll on the craziness that is our life. But have no fear, I am here, and I will tell you all that we have been up to.

 

First up we are in our house. Yes, I said house! No more stairwell apartment, YAY. But it is a duplex so we share a wall with the neighbors. However, it's just one neighbor so not too bad. I'll share pictures of our new home in my next blog post. In the end we ended up spending 2 days in the hotel in Germany, 6 days in the hotel in Kansas, and 28 days in the hotel here in Alaska. That is a grand total of 36 days in which we had no home. It was interesting to say the least. We got lucky though. the hotel we stayed in here in Alaska was actually a suite. So we had a bigger fridge, a stove, couch, and there was a bedroom.

 

We moved into our house mid August but our stuff and our car wasn't delivered until September. We ended up buying a new car due to some severe paperwork issues with our Pontiac that I just don't want to get into right now. We fell in love with the rental we used while visiting our family so our new car is a 2015 Chrysler 200C. Everything made it here in one piece and nothing is missing. Well, except for one Christmas ornament that we bought in Germany. It was shattered into a million itty bitty pieces so there is no chance of gluing it back together. The movers were very nice and chatty. Asking us how we liked Alaska so far and where we came from. We provided drinks since it was warm out and we had a lot of stuff for them to carry in but they weren't there long. All our boxes were numbered so I marked off each number on the list as they walked in. They unwrapped our furniture and told us to call when we wanted the boxes picked up.

 

 

I am back in school after taking a break to move. It took just a little bit longer than I had planned to get started back up. A couple weeks into staying in the hotel here my laptop decided that it was time to move on which means I had to get a new one before I could start school and let me tell you, right after moving a new laptop was not in the budget! Also, it took two weeks to get the internet company to come out and hook up our internet. So I ended up missing the first part of the fall semester, but when October came around I was enrolled and ready to go so I was at least a half time student this semester. Right now I'm on winter break so I have just under a month to relax and get ready to be full time again.

 

The snow started showing up about mid October. It would snow and then melt some but by Thanksgiving it was here to stay! We were somewhat prepared for the snow though. Both cars were winterized, shovels were bought, and we were confident that this would be easy. What we weren't prepared for is the fact that when it first starts snowing the driveway has to be shoveled a couple times a day or else you end up driving over the snow and it packs. YIKES.

 

End of October beginning of November I saw my first moose. We were coming back from the store and a mama and her baby just darted across the road. Kind of like how deer do in Kansas! Then last month right around Thanksgiving we had our second sighting of moose. Ben was on his way home from the store, grabbing some last minute items for Thanksgiving when I called him to let him know there was a moose in our driveway. You see, we have a tree on each side of our driveway and they have berries on them. Apparently moose find them quite delicious. Every since then about once a week or so the moose has been back for more berries.