Happy New Year!!

"Branta Clause"

The Arnold Siblings minus Derek.

Rachel modeling some new Christmas presents :)

Brant and his new "snurfer"

The clan at the Dillard House.

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.......