OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE :)

On Saturday morning, we traveled back to Palmer to Richard and Lori's place to chop down an Alaska- grown Christmas tree :) We loaded up on the gator and 4wheelers with the chainsaw and hatchets and headed out in the woods. We actually ended up cutting the top 1/3 off of two Black Spruce trees to serve as our Christmas trees :) Brant and Richard were monkeys and climbed up the trees with chainsaws to cut them down. We loaded them onto the back of the gator and hauled them back to the house. When we got back, we had Christmas cookies and "hot sprockish", as Avery calls it :) When we got our tree home, we realized how wrong we were about how tall our ceiling was and had to do a LOT of trimming - height wise and length wise! We had fun decorating our first tree together :)

NO MORE HIGH HEELS OR COWBOY BOOTS!!

So, this morning we were headed out the door to go to church. We probably got about 10 inches of snow in a 24 hour period since yesterday. We didn't have a chance to shovel off the front porch or railing before we left. I found out that today may be the last day I wear heels for awhile in Alaska... As I was walking down the steps, I thought I was at the bottom. Much to my dismay, there was still one more step that was completely covered by snow. So, I bit the dust, just as Brant was opening the door. Instead of coming to my rescue and helping me dig myself out of the snow, my sweet husband runs to get the camera! I rolled over and stood up as fast as I could because my pants were getting soaked. So, this picture is post fall...thanks to Brant! The funniest part was...We finally got into the car and pulled out of the driveway and Brant decided he need to scrape off the windows of the truck a little better before we left the neighborhood. So, he parked on the side of the road and got out with the scraper. He scraped off his driver's side window and was walking in front of the trunk and THUD...he hit the ground, in his cowboy boots, and guess who was laughing?? HAHA! So, I guess there will be no more heels or cowboy boots :)


CONGRATULATIONS to our friends Lee and Whitney Moody!!! We found out today they're expecting :) :)

We finally got the house decorated.......

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Happy Thanksgiving! We hope everyone had a wonderful day with friends and family. Our Thanksgiving was spent with friends this year, and no family :( We were invited by Brant's friend and fellow















dental resident, Richard, to spend the day with their family (of about 30) in Palmer, about 45 minutes away. Richard, his wife Lori, and their little girl Avery, live on a farm in Palmer that her grandparents homesteaded back in the 50s. Brant spent the

morning putting up Christmas lights outside, and I was in the kitchen making some food to take to lunch and watching the Macy's Day Parade :) We spent the rest of the day in Palmer...the guys went out and shot skeet and scouted out some Christmas trees in the woods. Lori and I went out for a little bit and had a lesson in skeet shooting...until our fingers started burning and going numb. We had a wonderful meal and really enjoyed the time we spent with their family. We were very thankful to have friends to spend the day with. And I was thankful I wasn't responsible for cooking a turkey :)

We came home and watched 'Home Alone' while we pulled out the Christmas decorations and decorated inside. It was really hard to wait until after Thanksgiving to decorate, considering most people in town put their lights up in October before it gets really cold. We were probably the last in town to get ours up! I had to work the day after Thanksgiving, so no shopping this year :( Brant went out rabbit hunting with a buddy from work and they each maxed out their limit of 5 poor little bunnies. I guess we will be trying rabbit stew for the first time!



















We met our Clemson friends, Margaret and Will, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving to watch the annual USC/Clemson game. Margaret was in my sorority at Clemson, and her husband will is a C-17 pilot in the Air Force. The game was on at noon EST, so we had to get up early to catch the game at 8am. There's a sports bar in town called the Peanut Farm that has pretty much any game on TV. They have individual TVs at booths, so we all sat in a booth, ordered breakfast, and watched the victory!!

Old Man Winter!!

Old Man Winter is slowly setting in around here! Our driveway and neighborhood roads have been icy for about 3 weeks straight now...and we've heard it'll stay that way until April! We haven't had to get out the snowblower for the driveway yet, but it's not far off! Brant had to get outside and learn how to use it :)

We experienced our first Alaska wind storm about 2 weeks ago...we had winds 90-100mph from about 8PM one night until the next morning. We had some shingles blow off of our roof and a tree down in the backyard. Not a lot of damage compared to some of our neighbors! The most amazing thing was Brant and I were eating breakfast and we heard a really loud thud outside, so we went out to see what it was. We noticed that the cover to the hot tub, which ways 100lbs+ had blown off the deck! We didn't get a chance to pick up all of the debris in the yard before we got snow, so we'll have lots waiting for us come April :)

We have both been busy with our jobs. Brant is currently working doing an anesthesiologist rotation in surgery and is really enjoying it. I have worked up to carrying a full load of patients at work, and it keeps me pretty busy! We both get home on Fridays and eat dinner and collapse on the couch!

We have spent our weekends preparing the house for the winter - stocking up on things at Lowe's and Home Depot and finding winter clothes! Brant finds a way to sneak in a few football games on Saturdays. It's kinda strange here because we are 4 hours behind, a lot of the football games start at 8 in the morning. Last weekend we got up at 7:30am, made breakfast and watched the Clemson game that started at 8am. It's kind of hard to enjoy tailgating food at 8am :)

We are looking forward to traveling home to SC for Christmas! We will be flying into Atlanta and going to Brant's family in Georgia for the weekend after Christmas then heading for Anderson for the rest of the week. It will be nice to have some "warm" weather and sunlight! The sun currently rises around 9am here and is setting about 6:30. We lose about 15 minutes of daylight each day, and by mid-winter it will be sunrise at 10:30am and setting around 3PM. We will both look pale and sickly at Amanda's wedding come January :)

1ST SNOW!!!

We got our first snow yesterday afternoon!! We were sitting at the table eating lunch with Dallas before he headed back to Fairbanks, and it started coming down hard! Brant and I were really excited, but it didn't phase Dallas as he lives in Fairbanks and has had snow for at least 3 weeks already! It snowed all afternoon and a little during the night - we had an accumulation of about 2 inches. It was slush yesterday afternoon but froze on the roads overnight. Brant said he had a few exciting skids on his way to work this morning :) He is currently in the basement putting snow tires on my car. Everyone here (well, those without 4WD) have two sets of tires for their cars. One normal set and then a "studded" set for the winter. It is a set of tires that have 60 to 120 inserted small metal studs that are supposed to increase traction with the road during braking to prevent skidding. They are only allowed during the winter season and most people put them on after the first snow. We bought a used set from a fellow Airman who is moving in November who had them on his wife's Ford Escape. Our neighbors said it won't be long until someone flys down the hill we live on and plows the stop sign and knocks down the fence. It won't be me because I'll have my studded tires :) It'll probably be Brant though. And he may do it on purpose :) We are supposed to get a couple more inches tonight!

We enjoyed dogsitting for Dallas while he was in Clemson for the week. Belle made us realize how much of a responsibility having a dog is and how much Rachel really wants one :) It was good to see Dallas even though he couldn't stay long. We miss them both :(














We had a yard sale on Saturday. As we were unpacking boxes at the move in, we had a couple of empty ones we would throw things in that we didn't want or had two of. We had 3 boxes full of stuff that we put in the sale. We sat in the driveway with our longjohns, gloves, and Brant's homemade hot chocolate for 50 cents :) It was a chilly morning, but we had a good amount of people stop by and made about $40. We took the rest of the stuff to Palmer to the Salvation Army.

Send us some of your warm weather!!!

Termination Dust!!

The fall colors have really been beautiful here in the past week! One morning we woke up and it seemed like all of the leaves had turned yellow and orange over night! Apparently, the fall season is short lived - September through mid October. Then "termination dust" starts to arrive. This, we have learned, is when you start to see snow on the tops of the mountains. It is called termination dust, signifying the termination of fall and the beginning of winter. We started to see termination dust a few weeks ago, and it is slowly creeping down the mountains around us. A girl I work with at Providence was telling me about Halloween around here. She has to buy her kids' costumes a size or two big because they are wearing their ski suits underneath because it's so cold. There's usually lots of snow by Halloween and a lot of the parents pull the kids around trick or treating on sleds! We thought that was pretty funny.

Brant and I spent Saturday out and about shopping for winter gear. He is pretty stocked with clothing because he's had lots of warm stuff for hunting season, but I needed some snow pants, more wool socks, and some long johns. I actually wore some wool long johns under my jeans on Saturday and got made fun of because it was only about 50 degrees, but I was freezing! We talked to a guy that worked at the Sportsman's warehouse, and he was telling us all of the local places to snowboard, cross country ski, and hike in the winter. We are getting really excited about trying all of the new winter sports :) We also bought a set of studded tires for the Escape from a family who is about to leave Anchorage and be stationed in Germany. We are slowly getting ready for the snow! Everyone around here is making bets on when the first snowfall will be. Maybe the next post will be covered in white :)

Pictures of our house!

Labor Day Weekend Fishing Trip

Brant's parents came to visit August 27th - September 2nd at the tail end of their Alaskan Cruise/Land tour. They got into town on Wednesday and we left Friday afternoon after I got out of work for a weekend fishing charter. We stayed in Soldotna and woke up at 5am Saturday morning for our trip with King of the River for Salmon. It was freeeeezing! We fished from about 7am until 12:30PM on the Kenai River. It was really different than any fishing we were use to (trout fishing in the NC river!). There was no casting, and the rod was pretty heavy and required some muscle work to reel in! It was the end of the salmon season, so we caught a lot of "pink salmon" which are not good to eat. We were trying to catch silvers, and Brant was the only one that actually caught one! Bob and I had a silver on our line, but we lost them :( We still had a great time even though Brant caught the only silver. When Brant was reeling in his silver, our captain helped him, and when it was in the boat, he took a mini wooden bat and whacked the fish over the head three times to kill it. It was really funny and we got it on video! It was a great day and finally warmed up about lunch time. We headed back to the hotel, showered, had some lunch, and watched the Clemson game - we should've stayed out to fish!

On Sunday morning, we had a full day (7am-5pm) of halibut fishing with Captain Steve's Charters. We had about an hour drive to get to Captain Steve's, so it was a very early morning! We got there, and it was not quite as cold as Saturday morning, but it was raining. So, we all got suited up in our rain gear: rubber overalls with suspenders, rain coats, and rubber boots. We looked like we belonged on "The Greatest Catch." We had to drive another 45 minutes to Cook Inlet where we were putting in the boat. We had another 30-45 minute ride in the boat out to where we were stopping to fish. I get a little motion sickness sometimes, so I took some medicine -- but it didn't appear to work very well. The ride was very choppy, and I had to lay down inside the cabin until we got to our spot. We finally got to where we were going to fish, and we all went out to the back to cast our lines. The swells were only 3-4 feet, but it felt like they were 20! Before I knew it, Brant and Janet were hanging over the sides letting go of their breakfast. I still felt terrible and was wishing I could let go of mine, but the medicine I took was not letting me. I spent the day lying in the cabin, while Brant and Janet puked on/off in between casting their lines. Bob was having a good 'ole time. The weather was so bad and the waves were so choppy, by 12PM, we were all ready to head back. With no halibut :(

So, we headed home early on Sunday with one silver salmon. We ended up cooking salmon steaks on Labor Day for dinner and they were awesome! We had a great time, but think we'll all try the Dramamine Patch next time :)

We have finally settled into a house!! The movers came on August 15th and spent the day unloading all of our things that have been in storage since the end of May! We are very happy to report that there was only one thing broken - and it was a cheap lamp. We spent the day helping the movers check off boxes and unpack and by 5PM, we had a houseful of boxes and a bed to sleep in. I did have to spend a few hours hunting for a set of sheets :) My day was spent unpacking dishes and kitchenware, while Brant hooked up electronics and the washer and dryer. I spent the whole next week unpacking, organizing, and cleaning, as Brant had to report the next day to the base and began working. I had the whole week off and didn't start until August 25th. We love our house and have met some nice neighbors...more pictures coming soon of our house and during the Arnold's visit over Labor Day :)