Our New Home

Well folks, we finally found a lovely house to call our home. Here it is:

The previous owners, and builders, began it's construction in 1969 and worked on it over the subsequent years. It's on a south facing slope, is on over 3.5 acres and has a shed, garden plot, lots of berries, rhubarb, a well (most houses in our neighborhood don't and have to get water hauled or delivered), and an incredible view of the Alaska Range.

the view from our front window, our deck has a picnic table built in

The sunshine coming in the living room is quite lovely, and at this time of year it's quite warm even. Even when it isn't sunny out, our house is quite bright and cheery. I put a bird feeder out near the picnic table and we got birds within an hour. Our birdy visitors are mostly red polls and black capped chickadees. However, we've had a pine grosbeak and a few gray jays come to our yard. We've also had quite a few of these:

it's a spruce grouse!

Hannah gets really excited when she sees the birds, especially the larger ones. The spruce grouse are fun to watch when they are walking through the snow from one tree in our yard to another. They sort of flounder a bit.

Here's another smattering of tracks under our deck. I believe the larger ones belong to a moose, of which we've had a few wander through our property, but I've yet to see one. Crazy, because their was one out there yesterday while I was home. Guess I need to look out my windows more. Other animal tracks and signs that we've seen while walking our driveway (it's somewhat long) are hare and some sort of small rodent. The rodent, probably a vole, left a small hole in the snow burm on the side of the road and you could see their tiny track go across and disappear. While wandering the road and our yard we've seen lots of interesting things, besides animal tracks, and expect to have all sorts of surprises come spring.

I'll leave you all with a shot of one of the things that originally drew me to this house, our wood cook stove.

lovely isn't it

The house has it's quirks, but it grows on us more each day.

Oi, it's time for an update wouldn't you say?

Well, I guess I'll start with the big news items. We're now in Fairbanks and loving it, and Hannah's going to be a big sister.

Phew, now that we've got that out of the way, some miscellaneous items of note. We went to Sitka in October and I'm not sure that I posted any pictures of that trip. Here's Hannah riding a whale wearing her zip-in-the-back sweater. It's really a very good pic of her and the sweater.

We did get to see some Humpback whales in the distance and through the binocs they have at whale park, so that was cool. On the ferry ride over we saw Orcas. They were much closer, so that was even cooler. Considering we are no longer residents of Southeast Ak, it was nice to get to see all the whales. It's been many years since either Tim or I had seen Orcas so that was extra special. Sitka was a great place to visit and we hope to go again someday. If you haven't been, you should go, it's lovely there, even when it's raining.


So after we got back from Sitka, we found out that Fairbanks Tower needed Tim much sooner. After asking how quickly we could get up here, we settled on the first week of December. Much craziness ensued. We packed, did house repairs, got the house on the market and had an offer within a week. I left, Tim stayed, movers came, Thanksgiving passed, Tim left, Anchorage was snowy and after some time visiting our families, we finally drove up on December 3rd. There have been some hurdles in the house selling process, but God has been faithful in helping us humans work things out and it is still moving forward. So after several weeks in Fairbanks, we've more or less settled into temporary housing and are going to look out houses today! Please pray that we find the right one and that all the buying stuff goes much more smoothly than the selling.

So now it's nearing Christmas and that means a couple of things. One, I'm another year older. Yes indeedy, my birthday was yesterday and I got to bake cookies and visit with a friend from college, while her two and a half year old son played with Hannah. Making cookies was so easy with the kiddos entertaining each other, makes me very thankful that we have #2 on the way. Tim cooked dinner and we had a quiet evening at home. Two, we got a tree! It may be wee, but Hannah really likes it, as you can see.

yes it's blurry, but Hannah is so adorable and the tree is pretty

Along with the tree we have presents, sent by family far and wide. Hannah really likes to play with the presents, as much as we try to keep her out of them. Her favorite is the one sent by her Great Grandma and Grandpa Kritchen. It will probably be the first one she opens. I'm not sure if I'll get around to posting before the new year so...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!
and Happy Holidays for other celebrants.

A quick update

The move to Fairbanks got moved up. We'll be leaving Juneau this month, spend some time with family over Thanksgiving, although Tim will probably be on the road, and drive up to Fairbanks from Anchorage after Thanksgiving. Tim's first day of work at Fairbanks Tower is Dec. 8. We're hoping that by a miracle of God our house in Juneau will sell quickly so we can look for a place to buy when we get up north. It's all happening so quickly.

In knitting news, I finished knitting my big Christmas project. All I need to do now is weave in the ends and give it a good blocking. I plan on posting pics of the finished project after it is received by the recipient. As for other Christmas knitting, it's not going to happen this year. However, I do have a few projects that are nearly finished and plan on starting an EZ Baby Surprise Jacket while en route to our new home.

Sorry there aren't any pictures, I should have some in the next post.

Big News

Some of you already know, but I thought I would share our news with everyone. No, I'm not pregnant. We are waiting for a few more months before trying for child #2. The reason being is that Tim got a job offer in Fairbanks. If all goes well we expect to be moving there in March. We are excited for the change in scenery, but sad to leave friends that we've made in Juneau. I'm looking forward to returning to the place I spent my undergraduate years.

While it is awefully cold up there, we are looking forward to a decrease in the volume of rain. There have been many times that I've missed the cold of Fairbanks after many days of rain here in Juneau. Besides, it is awefully pretty with all the frost on the trees.

Of course I hope to take Hannah to see these guys, and their neighbors the musk ox. What fun we'll have.

So, we're excited, but there is a whole lot that needs to be done before the move. Things like, fixing safety hazards around the house, bringing some things up to code and finishing other house projects. That's all got to be done before we put the house on the market. We hope it will sell quickly. Then there the packing and moving logistics. God will get us through the next few months. We couldn't do all this without Him. So now it's just one day at a time.

Happy Birthday Punkin!

My little girl is one!!

Her homemade birthday cake

The year has flown by. Hard to believe she was just a wee thing when she was born. At her one year well baby check up she weighed in at 20+ lbs and was over 28 inches long.

Her birthday was pretty low key. Hannah's Grandma Long came for the weekend and we all had a great time eating cake and opening presents.

Hmm, what do I do with this?

At first Hannah wasn't sure what to do with her piece of yummy birthday cake, but it didn't take long for her to figure it out.

Yummy!!

Opening presents was definitely something new. For most of them Hannah wasn't sure what to think and mostly played with the boxes or tissue paper. However, once the presents were open she has a whole lot of fun playing with them.

Is that a dolly I see?

In addition to having her first birthday this weekend, Hannah started to walk. She is still pretty unsteady on her feet and only takes a few steps unassisted at a time, but it won't be long till she is walking all over the place. It was a pretty exciting weekend for us all.

Am I a big girl now?