Our Missionary

Five months ago we were in the dark days of winter, on our way to setting a new snowfall record, sitting all together in the living room.  Bryan was on the laptop and Rick and I were lending our suggestions, wanted or not, as he finished up the last of his mission papers. Bryan had been dragging his feet up to this point, but once he pressed send he wanted those mission papers in hand and to be on his way.  He dogged the bishop and stake president, getting in to see them as quickly as possible and making sure they punched the send button.  He started watching the mailbox after a  week and after another week, made phone calls to find out where his papers were in the process. (held up at church headquarters)


Finally his call arrived and although it didn't say Africa, he was happy to get them here and start counting down the days.  Truthfully, he was a little disappointed to be going to Lubbock, TX and had a few days struggle with it.  We had just gotten home from church and was enjoying a rare day of sunshine, hanging out in the living room when he made a comment about the Sunday School lesson that day.  Brother Rose our teacher said that we should not so much be praying for what we want, but what the Lord wanted for us.  Bryan said he realized he had been praying for the wrong thing.  From that moment on he looked forward to going to Texas.


Bryan and I almost immediately started making plans to go to St. George so he could go through the temple there.  Rick kept reminding us that we have a lovely temple here in Anchorage.  We pointed out that this was true, but that it did NOT have family close by.  (We also pointed out the benefits of the missionary clothing package at Adrians - never mind that we had to pay airfare to reap those benefits)

We had a great time in Utah.  It is always good to be with family.


We had three weeks after we came home before Bryan had to enter the MTC.  I hung on to every day for as long as I could, but for Bryan it couldn't go by fast enough.  I happily did all his wash, made his bacon and eggs in the mornings and even made a lunch or two when asked.  I would have cleaned his bedroom and packed up for him too if he would have let me, especially since he left it all until the night before.  (Not sure why I expected him to be any different than the other boys)

I had initially planned to fly to Utah with him, spend a couple of days in Salt Lake and then drive him to the MTC.  It was an ongoing battle with myself of whether to go - stay - go - stay.  In the end we said our good-byes to him at the Anchorage airport.

It was easier knowing that he had brothers and a sister that wanted to be there for him when he got off the plane.  

Five months ago we were well past our heads with mounds of shoveled snow out side our door, the temperatures were in the teens or lower.  Night came on in the late afternoon and didn't leave until midmorning.  We now go to bed long before the sun sets and are up usually around 5:00 or 6:00 (depending on the day) and don't need to turn the on lights to see our way around.  Five months ago we were a family of three (four just a few weeks before that) here in Alaska and now we are a family of two.  Life never stays the same!


We have had some great emails from Bryan while he was at the MTC...  "It's such a thrill to just be learning so much, I love that you can constantly feel the spirit, and the Holy Ghost is constantly testifying of the truthfulness of everything that is taught here, I can honestly say the last week has been the best of my life..." I have never sang so many hymns, said so many prayers, and felt the spirit so much."  "I am loving it...I am learning so much, the term drinking from a fire hose couldn't be any more applicable than it is here..."


To wrap this up I am going to quote Heather:  "ummmm - who wrote that and what did they do to Bryan"


***Bryan is in his first area now, Roswell, NM...hanging out with the aliens :)

Bryan's Adventures

Bryan decided to put the missionary hours to the test and woke up at 6:30 am.  This is considerably earlier than his normal get up and go time.  I think with a few extra morning hours he was desperate for something to do, so he went for a hike up Baldy a mountain peak just north of our home.  These pictures were taken at about 9:00 this morning.

 Lights of Eagle River

 Just a little windy!

The weather has been crazy this winter:  snow, rain, wind, temps as low as -11 and as high as 42.  It certainly hasn't been boring.  Bryan caught a few pictures of our lovely windstorm this afternoon.

Just a little snow blowing to and fro.

New Year's Eve

We had an invite to spend New Year's Eve playing games and eating the standard goodies with some friends, ...but we let Bryan talk us into driving to Alyeska Ski Resort to watch the torch run.  And we were glad we did.  It was a perfect way to watch the New Year come in.

At the base of Alyeska...lights on the ski runs.

Starting the descent.

And they are down!  There were maybe 200 skiers and snowboarders.

 

And of course the fire works!

 

This was one of those spur of the moment ideas... "What a cool thing to do, shall we go? shall we not? what do we tell our friends?  do you think we will be cold?"  It also involved looking at the weather, and finding out the conditions of Seward Highway, which can be treacherous in bad weather.  Rick, who hates driving in the snow (ha! ha!) was not too keen on the idea, but he pulled on his snow gear with a "if I have to" face and got behind the steering wheel.  I am sure the thought crossed his mind that we would go with out him...and we might have... We stopped for a nice holiday meal at Wendy's and we were off.  I do recommend hand warmers and toe warmers for this kind of activity (or non activity - since it involved standing in a single spot) a must.  It was great to be out with just the family, as few of us as there are, we still enjoy spending time together.  

-- and just so you don't think we are flakes, it was a fairly large group of friends getting together, so we weren't leaving any one high and dry... 

Alaska Quilt

The Alaska Quilt Exchange was in August.  I had a tough time making a choice this time around, I waffled back and forth for days, weeks, and months.  Finally I decided enough already, and sat down and made myself do a block and this is what I came up with.

 Lot's of  small pieces in this one, but really making my mind up was the most painful part of the process.  Well, actually getting it put into a quilt will probably be the most painful process.  I have always been good at starting, it's the finishing that's the challenge.  I remember making a dress in high school and using masking tape to hem it...I wore it that way the whole year...I don't think I ever did put a real hem in it!  But, hey, it worked!

Just a few of what the others in the group did:

Admittedly, my shoe blocks are still in a baggie, sitting at the back of my sewing table.  I leave them there with the idea that if they were packed away in the closet I would never ever get them set into a quilt.  Really, just over a year isn't too bad...I am sure I will get around to it!  (Any of you remember Pres. Kimball's motto?).  It's just that there are too many fun projects to try in our quilting group...I have a hard time keeping up.  This week it's felted wool mittens!

Road Lottery

Winning the Road Lottery is almost as big a prize as any million dollar lottery.  Every year thousands of people put in for the chance of driving through Denali National Park, home of Mt. McKinley.  The 93 miles of road through the park is open to private vehicles for just four days a year.  The lucky 400 "cars" who win the draw can drive past mile 15 (as far as you can drive on any given day), if you aren't so lucky you can join the millions of others who come to visit by taking a bus. Rick's "beginners luck" touch (remember the halibut?) was working for us and we drew out the first time we put in.


WARNING:  Lots of pictures -- most if not all you have seen on Facebook.

George Parks Highway, driving north to Denali National Park

Map of the "Road"

First stop.  Would like to see this "river" at break up.

There is never a guarantee that you will be able to see Mt. McKinley.  The mountain is hidden by clouds more often than not and you can count your self fortunate if you get an opportunity to see it.  We had beautiful clear skies all morning, but by 1:30 pm it was completely obscured by the clouds.

Polychrome Pass - going up is not too bad, coming down is another story

We were calling this the tundra until Robert told us that it is taiga. 

We almost missed the fall colors.

Perfect spot for lunch.  The rules are: don't get close to the wild animals, but feel free to get out and hike anywhere.

Methuselah

Dahl Sheep

Momma bear and her two cubs.  These are brown bear, known as grizzlies in the lower 48.  They are so light in color I wondered if it's because they eat berries rather than the darker brown of the bear that eat fish.

Maybe Robert knows....

Overcast by early afternoon.

Testing out his Gore Tex shoes, 

We made it to the end of the road!

Wildlife tally:  6 moose, 33 Dahl sheep, 11 bear, 0 caribou

Mileage:  92.6 miles in, 92.6 miles out, and 170 miles home (we drove up the night before)

We had a great time.  It was all we expected it to be and more.  It did our souls good to drive through the beautiful wide outdoors.  We just could not get over how far we could see.  I feel a little hemmed in by the trees, as beautiful as it is to live in the mountains, I just need the wide open spaces to breath. I thought of the song I learned years ago in 7th grade chorus..."Give me land, lots of land, neath starry skies above, don't fence me in..."

Whittier, Alaska...or A Very Long Post on the History of a Teeny Tiny Town

I have a hard time making myself sit down and do a post...1) it frustrates the heck out of me, because I don't know how to make it do what I want, 2) it takes forever for my pictures to upload, and 3) I just have little patience for it.  But, I really don't want to not have some sort of record of our life here, and I know you all are just so interested in what we do with ourselves up here.

First off, even though these next pictures don't show it, we have had some amazing summer weather.  We must have had a full month of sunshine and temps getting close to 70 degrees.  That might not mean much to those of you in the lower 48, but to us it has been like heaven.  Alas, as I enter this post we have had rain for 3 days straight and termination dust was spotted on the mountains yesterday.  (BIG, BIG FROWN)
 

The July 4th weekend found Rick and I with not a lot to do.  The boys were hanging out with friends and working, so we took one of those days and made a little road trip to Whittier, Alaska.  It is about a two hour drive south of us.  We had heard a little about the Whittier tunnel so we thought we would just go check it out for ourselves. 

We stopped at Portage Glacier Lake first.  It is on the Anchorage side of the Whittier Tunnel, just a few miles from the entrance.  You can see Portage Glacier peeking through the valley.  It wasn't too many years ago, that the Glacier went all the way to the lake. Global warming is real!

This iceberg wouldn't do much damage to the Titanic, but still cool to see it floating in the lake.

Waiting for our turn to enter the famous Whittier Tunnel.  This tunnel connects the rest of Alaska with Whittier. It is the longest train/automobile tunnel in North America at 2.5 miles.  From 1960 until 2000 if you wanted to drive a car into or out of Whittier you had to drive it onto a flatbed on the train.  The tracks are now imbedded into the road and on the hour the trains go through the tunnel.  Cars, trucks, etc. go on the half hour at $12 a round trip. 

Watching the ravens while we wait.  The state bird of Alaska is the Willow Ptarmigan, but I really think it should be this bird.  On trash pick up day the streets are invaded by these birds picking through everyone's garbage.  It makes me think of the movie "The Birds"

 

Driving through

 A pretty Alaskan picture

We really went to hike a few trails and get out on the beach, port, or whatever it is called but it was drizzling the whole time and we weren't too prepared because it was so SUNNY when we left home.  Well, Rick was prepared, because that is his middle name!  I was sure I would not need my rain jacket.  We did do a little driving around and found a museum - a hall really with lots of pictures and info on the history of this town of just less than two hundred people.  And for the price of $3.00 we learned all we wanted to know and more!

The military used the port at Whittier for transporting all their troops into Alaska, thus the Tunnel which was built by them and completed by 1943.  They also built this building to house their troops, it was referred to as the "city under one room".  It had everything in it (much like an aircraft carrier does - including dining halls, movie theaters, and a bowling alley).  It was abandoned in 1960 when the military left and was seriously damaged in the 1964 earthquake.  It is still standing because it is too expensive to demolish.  It is filled with asbestos and all the debris would have to be shipped out by train or boat.

Now it is home to the homeless, teenagers and bears who can't find a decent cave for the winter.  I would have loved to walk through it's halls just after the military left.  I so hoped I could walk through and find some little treasure, but Rick who knows too much about brittle steel and concrete spoiled that for me.  Besides, at this point its pretty obvious there was nothing left unless I wanted to start a beer can collection

 This 14 story building was the 2nd one built for military housing and offices.  It survived the earthquake better and is now privately owned and houses the majority of the residents of Whittier.  The first and 14 floors are zoned commercial and it has definitely earned the "city under one roof" title.  It also houses the city offices, police department, post office, grocery store, laundromat (you have to sign up for a time slot), vending machines and snack area, and a few B&B units. 


All you ever wanted to know about Whittier and more! After a couple of hours sight seeing we drove back through the tunnel and headed for home...but, not without a stop at the Portage Glacier Cafeteria where we had the best, best hamburgers ever.  (Just ask Analee and Josh - certainly worth a trip to Alaska for!)