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!!!