Mom's 60th Birthday

Just a small group of us!! Uncle Mike, Jenni, Lex, Hillary, Dylan and Lexi came from Ukiah for the special occasion.
A. Linda, Stacie, Cam, Julie, Anthony and all the kids were in attendance.
Even my hunny was home!!

Blurry pics again sorry!! Had to put it in so U. Mike wouldn't be left out, can't for the life of me find the pics if Jenni, Lex or Hillary??

This is the beautiful cake my wonderful cousin made for my moms 60th Birthday!!

Didn't it turn out gorgeous!?

Check these Pictures Out

Ho, Ho, Ho!! See kids there really is a North Pole!

Aww, so pretty!!

Tyler on the Bridge over the Chena River!!

This is the sky at about 6:30 am, shortly after he arrived. The sky was an ere red.

I totally spaced on Ashley's Senior Ball

What a great beginning for the two of them, after barely three weeks in a new school they get to attend an awesome school dance. I was forced to take pictures inside, wonder why!! They didn't wanna freeze in the 1-2 foot of new fallen snow.




On February 24th Ashley and Mercedes went to the Senior Ball. Don't they look so cute!?

Their being so cute!!

They match in color, but not in height, lol!

They had such a terriffic time!!

Some snap shots of the local area

Kailee and Mercedes ice skating, can you believe they are inside....you'd think they would be outside on a pond or something.

Look what we found**** Sorry it's blurry, there are better ones below.

These were found on post out by the ski slope.

What a beautiful Site!! 8 am

Enough Snow!!

Out our back door looking into the common area

On a clear day, this is driving to our house

This is were the stream will run through our neighborhood, may not be a good thing come summer, can you say giant mosquitos!!

See I told you they would get better!!

He thinks he owns the road, well I guess he was here first

Ice Chapel downtown Fairbanks

View from the top of the ski slope

I'm running a bit behind on loading all the pictures and blogging about them. It takes an incredible amount of time....bare with me. We drove to Delta Jct. today and I will be loading those pics in the next couple days. All is good with the family, just very busy and trying to keep you all posted. I have lagged but I will try to be better. I hope you all are doing well. We are all loving the recent warmer weather...looks as though it will come to an end here shortly we are expecting three days of snow towards the end of the week~We will see!!

Happy Birthday too me!!

Happy Birthday to me!! See I know you thought it was dark all the time during winter in Alaska, so NOT true...this is about 10 am and it is a bright beautiful day even though it is a brisk -2.
This is on our way to Chena Hot Spring which is 50 miles from Fairbanks. It's a beautiful drive....the incredible thing is hunting and shooting is allowed along the highways. There are actually areas to pull off and practice shooting....imagine that!! Even though t is only 50 miles it took us about 2 hours due to road conditions.




















Isn't this cool, you don't see this every day, not even in Alaska.
Our new friends!! Mercedes and Jeanette....their soldier deployed to Iraq on February 15th. He
is a friend of Scott's.






























As you can see we still are on our way to the hot springs. We passed about three or four dog sleds. I think they are training for the upcoming Iditarod.





















This is such a cool place...literally!! Just not as cool as you would think indoors. They keep it at 20 degrees inside. You may have seen this on the Discovery Channel, it's the Ice Museum. You can actually spend the night here. Inside everything is made of ice. They sell Appltini's in ice martini glasses that you can keep....well until it melts. It is located at the Chena Hot Springs.




















The hot springs!! 18 and older are allowed in the springs. There is a hotel and restaurant here also. There is a masseuse on site!! They offer sled rides to watch the Northern Lights, sled dog runs, horseback riding.....so much fun, so little time!!























Our ride back home, it's funny how it seems to take so much longer to get some where then it does to leave. The drive was beautiful on the way back we caught the sunset, it's so neat to see the beauty at different times of the day.

This was a wonderful day!! After our trip to the hot springs we went to the bowling alley on post and bowled three games. I hope you all enjoy the pictures.

It Finally Happened

Across the street to one side

So pretty!!

Our Snow Bunnies!!

Yes, it finally happened! Can you believe it, I can't. So we have finally joined my husband in the Artic Abyss. We flew out of California on January 29th, it was a nice 5 hour flight (I'm serious) there was literally no lay over, we left San Fran to Seattle and once our plane landed we literally had maybe 15 min. to get to our next plane. If you have ever been to the Seattle Airport you know how fun that was trying to get myself and 3 kids and two carry-ons one of which being my dog (Holly) up I believe two flights of stairs, on a people mover and down to the correct terminal. The reason I say "I believe" is that it all went so fast that I don't recall what happened only that stairs, a people mover and a lengthy walk was involved. Now include a stupid cell phone with my husband on the other end wanting to know my next move all while I'm trying to keep the peace with my two youngest kids, get our boarding passes ready. We end up being 45 min. early arriving in Fairbanks, I am paranoid that my other dog (Willard) who had to ride in the cargo hold would be freezing by now. I attempt to let Scott know that we have arrived and only get his voice mail. I leave him a message and rush down to find Willard were to my amazement he is pleasantly warm, what a relief!

Scott and I in front of the Ice Museum

So Now we are in Fairbanks, AK we have been greeted by a nice blustery downfall of snow. From the inside of the airport it doesn't look so bad.......Now I step outside, so that is what below zero feels like!? Wow what a refreshing feeling, yea it's cold but it's sooo fresh feeling, so new and clean.

The Kids in a pull out area of the road

We all load our luggage into the truck and pile in. Now the ones of you that know my husband know that we can not just go home, we have to go on a tour of the city. We go by Walmart, Fred Meyer's, we stop at Taco Bell since we didn't have time to eat during our 15 min. lay-over. We drive again by another Fred Meyer's past the Wally again. Now we finally drive on post and get to where we shoud turn to go home, but that doesn't happen we have to go on a tour of the whole post, thankfully it is not very big.

They are every where, look out Holly!!

So finally we get to the house, Awwww it is so warm!! Our first home that is actually warm, without having to bring wood in or fight with the mostly dead heating system. The house is brand new. I will post pictures of it soon!

So the pictures that I am going to show here are pictures that were taken on my birthday. We drove to Chena Hot Springs. It was a beautiful drive, the pictures I took are mostly from the inside of the car, they could be better but I did want to get to our destination before we ran out of daylight. Oh and by the way, it's not as dark as you would think it would be. So the drive is awesome! We get to the Hot Springs and sneak half way into the Ice Museum until they realize we are not with a tour group and politely tell us when the next tour will be. It is just as they show on the tv, the glasses for the appletini's are so pretty - made of pure ice. It was actually warmer in the museum than it was outside, they keep it 20 degrees. I believe on this day the temp outside was -3. In front of the lodge you faintly smell sulfur but as you walk around to the hot springs there is no odor, or was that just because I was an idiot and forgot to layer my clothes that day so I was only thinking about my frozen knees. So the steam is just bellowing off the water, the ducks are quacking and having a merry ole time in there little bath tub. People are exiting the water with nothing but a pair of shorts or a bathing suit.......nothing on their feet. Holly cow are they nuts??? All the whiile waving happily and the sight see'ers (that would be us). So we snapp our pictures ooooh and awww for about 5 min. then we race to the lodge half way to the car just to thaw out. Returning home was even better than the ride to the Hot Springs. The sun was setting and it was just a beautiful sight.

We topped the night off with two rounds (or what ever you call it) of midnight bowling and a late night drive to Wally for a last minute cake. All-in-all it was a pretty terrific day!!

So it has been a month since we arrived here the kids are adjusting to their new schools well. They are making friends and being fairly active when they are not catching up on work that they may have missed moving up so late in the quarter. There are lots of things to do here in the area not to mention on post so I plan to take more pictures and tell more stories as the weeks and months go by. But until then I will drift off!!

Im not holding my breath

No, I will not fall for the sweet talk of uplifting happy voices, the ones laughing in the back ground encouraging me to be hopeful that I may actually be on track for once in the last 9 months. My brain says it's just not a wise thing, but my heart longs for the thought that things might be actually moving forward!

So while I don't breath, my face is turning blue and all of the oxygen is leaving my brain, here it is. Scott signed for our house today, it is a brand new house, nothing has been touched by anyone else but the actual builders and of course inspectors. It has all new appliances, new, new, new! The movers should be contacting me soon to arrange to come and pick all of our stuff up and transport it on to the Artic Abyss. Were by the way the last two days it has been above 0 degrees I think it was in the 40's yesterday, while we here in Cali are enjoying 80's the last two days. So not to be side tracked or anything but....he takes possesion of the house on tuesday of next week where he will be staying there with nothing but his aquired Army Gear.

So we are most definetly making use of the next couple days, never thought that 38+ years of crap can be gotten rid of so fast. Hope I don't go over board, never thought I would be so thrilled to see a garbage can or bag. Keep loading them up! The kids are most definetly getting a lesson in how to move. They will never be able to say that mom didn't prepare them to be able to pack their stuff and move on. Seems I am getting better at getting rid of things then getting them. Kind of Scary! Aren't you supposed to get more as you get older?

So on we go....I have to schedule to have the van shipped which would be better to have that happen now so it will arrive sooner in Alaska since the current wait seems to be at least a month. Which either way will leave me without a vehicle either here or there. Losts of cleaning, cleaning before the movers come, clean after the movers come, clean the house, the garage, and the yard. I'm glad my house wont have to be cleaned, oh wait my husband the geographical bachelor will be in it for a while before I get there so maybe there will be cleaning, damn it all!?

I will keep blogging and keep you posted as I go, so for now I will exhale slowly and keep my wits about me and hope that those happy voices are all going to ring true, 'til the next time ~~~

Not So Fast

Not So Fast!!

I have finally hit that point were I am realizing that everyone of my family and friends will have in the back of their mind forever more these thoughts when I speak, "Alright you can hear what she is saying, but remember when she talks you either feel a knot in the pit of your stomach or you are completely up in the clouds by what she has to say. So please listen with care, it may change tomorrow or next week, NO IT WILL CHANGE TOMORROW OR NEXT WEEK!" I want so bad to not spread my ever changing day to day turmoil amongst you all, but what would be the fun in that! If my life has to be stuck on the glass of a revolving door of down town New York why shouldn't you get to enjoy the havoc also.

So here it all is again, I am honestly sparing you the three other occasions in the last couple days that have made our life stop cold on the needle that it is spinning on. Scott is not deploying with the rest of the replacements today, he and two other soldiers are waiting on their EFMP families to join them in the Arctic Abyss. He most likely will deploy with the next rotation in February, lets hope it's after my birthday (just a bit of greed on my part there). So in between all of that he has submitted all the paperwork for command sponsorship, housing, and all the EFMP. Once he gets command sponsorship the move should be in full swing. Now I have no clue how long it will take, since this is my first time and all. But I would imagine that it will be by February, but again who really knows.

Scott has seen the doctor and has an appointment with a Orthopedic Surgeon on Friday, the knee just isn't looking/feeling right. But the plan at this point for that is that if he needs surgery he will ask that it be done when he returns home. I do know the location of were he will be, but do not feel comfortable posting it on here so if you are interested shoot me an email and I will let you know. Also he has seen the doctor and has had a 25 decibel loss of hearing on one ear so he will be going to an ear doctor here shortly also. Maybe they will make him the custom fit ear plugs he was supposed to get after BCT finally.

Now on to us....the kids have all returned to school, well all but one. Tyler is being home schooled again until we move. Some of the kids at his and Ashley's school are real downers when it comes to the whole military thing and things got pretty rough for him, his grades were suffering and his self esteem. I took him out 3 weeks before the semester ended so he could attempt to get his grades back up prior to the grading period without such negative outside stimulus. He did well and as of Monday was enrolled in a local charter school. Ashley is enjoying here class schedule for her last semester as a high school student, 2 real classes, 1 TA, and no last period, who wouldn't be happy with that. Kailee has returned to school a whole NEW kid, new BLACK clothes with a whole New style. She seems to be rockin' it all very nicely!! Me I returned to the Rheumatologist after what 3 or 4 years. Of course he ran blood tests and xrays...and added Lupus again to the melting pot of diseases that are attempting to over take my being. It turns out that I am and have been severely Vitamin D deficient for the last couple of years. He put me on high doses of Vit. D and is hoping that things look up. The deficiency causes fatigue, muscle weakness, depression and increased pain among other things, so as my levels rise I in all reality should be feeling much better. I have been on the Vit D for 9 weeks now and do see an increase of energy, the light fog of depression has lifted and the muscle weakness is being helped with the addition of the daily trips to the local gym. But I have not seen a difference in the pain level, he did however suggest Tylenol Arthritis three times a day, much better for the organs than the Vicodin. That has helped ease my pain.

Wow, OK I hadn't planned on this being that long, but I guess I had more to say than I realized. So always on the Fast Track, It's Just NOT SO FAST, right now!!