This weekend I went down to Utah to see my parents one last time before they caught their flight to the Philippines. I know my parents are excited to go, but I still think it is a big sacrifice to give up their time to serve in that country. We are excited to hear what kind of adventures they will have and are really proud of them for going. We are also grateful for the example of missionary service that they are setting for our children. They will be gone for 1.5 years, but luckily they will get to call and Skype every once in a while with updates.
It was also nice to be able to spend time with them and Nathanael's family after my first week and a half alone in Pocatello. On the Saturday we did a fun hike, some shopping, and some games. They had Pass the Pigs and it had been a long time since I had played that game. On Sunday we went to church and did a walk around their neighborhood. It was also fun to see Nathanael and Mary-Anne's children and play with them a little. Since they are close in age to Elliott and kind of Agnes, it helped me imagine what they might have been up to over the weekend. Nathanael and Mary-Anne made some wonderful meals while I was there and so that was a nice break from the microwavable dishes that I have been having.
Our last few weeks in Alaska were fun, but also pretty
hectic. We had to sell most of our stuff, pack up what remained, and close on
our house. On top of that, my parents, and two sisters, and Rebecca's brother,
and his wife and child were all visiting. It is crazy how it all worked out. I
think Rebecca's brother was the first to make plans to come visit. Then my
cousin announced her wedding for the same weekend and so some of my family
wanted to come up the same weekend. And then we let them all know that they
would have to sleep on the floor because we were going to be moving and all of
our stuff would be gone by then. I am really glad they all came because we had
a lot of fun and it was a good way to finish up there.
We actually sent all of our kids on the airplane with my
parents and sisters. Then Rebecca's brother left the next day. Then we had one
last day to pack up all of our remaining stuff in a uHaul and clean the house
so it was ready for the new people. We even cleaned the carpets and touched up
the walls with paint where needed. That was a stressful day. Finally, we set
out on the road at about 3 or 4 in the afternoon. It was a little later than we
had planned, but we were going at least. We both felt a little sad leaving. We
had a lot of great memories from living in Alaska and from the past 5 years in
our home. It had been a great home for us, and it was weird to leave it
behind.
Our Anchorage Home
Rebecca and I right before we left
Funny story - a couple of hours before the kids flew out we
finally told them about the note we received from the previous owners about the
ghost of their nice grandma living in the basement (there was a previous blog
post about that right after we bought the house). When it was time for the kids
to walk through the house one last time and say their good-byes to it,
Christian didn't want to go downstairs without holding my hand. It was funny
because his bedroom was down there for the past four years. I hope I didn't
ruin the good memories of the house for them by telling them about the letter.
On the first day we drove up to Tok, Alaska. That is the last
city that you hit before entering into Canada. I think this was my favorite
part of the drive. We saw a huge glacier that looked like a giant river of ice
and snow that stretched on for miles. There were lots of twists and turns in
the road, but it was so beautiful going up and down the mountains. That night
we just found a parking lot, laid our mattress down, and slept right there in
the back of the uHaul. It wasn't actually that bad.
Last night in Alaska (Tok)
driving through the mountains
the huge glacier
grizzly bear
Our comfortable sleeping arrangements - it was nice to be on our own bed at least
We left kind of early in the morning, and before we even got
out of the town we saw a huge grizzly bear sitting down in the grass. We did a
really long drive that day and listened to a few audio books. My favorite ones
were from the Diary of a Wimpy a Kid series. Rebecca liked them too, but she
thought I was really weird with how much I was cracking up listening to them. I
can't remember where we stayed that night, but it was just a tiny little town
with like one store and a gas station. By the time we got in everything was
closed and so we just parked in a gas station parking lot and set up our
mattress in the back of the truck again.
We got a little sleep, but were awakened at maybe four or
five in the morning by someone revving up his dirt bike up and down the street.
It became quiet for a little bit and we tried to go back to sleep, but just a
few minutes later I heard some yelling right outside our truck. I woke Rebecca
up and told her we had to go. When we got out of the truck we saw the guy with
the dirt bike having on argument with some other guy a little ways away. When
he saw us he started to run over and in an angry, kind of crazy way, tell us
that he had something in his eye and he wanted us to get it out. He wasn't
having any problems with his eye earlier when he was yelling at the other guy
so I told Rebecca to hurry and getting in the truck and lock the door. After
seeing her safely in, I ran over to my side and we took off as fast as we
could. I feel bad for not helping, but the way he asked for help and his body
posture in approaching us made us feel like something was not right.
I am glad that we left early in the morning though because we
saw a ton of animals within the first couple of hours of driving. I think we
saw almost 20 bear, some moose, a fox, a coyote, and herds of bison. It might
have been that evening that I saw Bigfoot too. Rebecca was asleep at the time
though so she cannot confirm my story. We had a short stop in Whitehorse that
day, but kept on going after that. We did find a cheap hotel that night a
little outside of Edmonton so we could get all cleaned up for church the next
day. In fact, after the motorcycle guy incident we stayed in hotels every night
for the rest of our trip.
Bigfoot crossing the street. You can tell that is him, right?
Okay, here is the video in better resolution, maybe it was just a bear. I think it was a black bear, but it seemed really big still. So the video still isn't very good. I just can't seem to get it to upload in as high of definition as I have it on my iPad. Sorry!
Sign Post Forest - there were thousands of these signs that spanned all around the block
Driving to church on Sunday
Bison
After church on Sunday we crossed the border back into the
states and it was good to be back on American soil again. With the motorcycle
guy, and seeing Bigfoot, and everything else, I realized how much different
Canada really is from the U.S. :) For real though, having driven for those
three really long days in Canada it did help me realize how far away Alaska
really is from the rest of the U.S. We stayed on the Montana/Idaho border that
night and then the next day we met with our builder and tried to make as many
different decisions about the home that we could while we were there. It was
exhausting and I didn't think it was very productive because there was no way
we were going to be able to decide on the floors, and tiles, and cabinetry, and
everything else in just the half day we were there. We did get to see some of
the other house our builder has built and we are glad that we found them. Here
is there website if you want to check out some of their homes: http://buildguardian.com/
The next morning we unpacked our stuff into a storage unit,
turned in the truck, and made the drive in our van back to Washington. It was a
fun trip and I am glad that Rebecca and I got to do it together. We were both
glad though to get back to our children and were happy to finally have a break
from sitting in a car 12 to 15 hours a day.
This is Joshua. It will probably be just me doing the blog for the next little while. Over the past 6 months we have been working on selling our home in Alaska, trying to experience all the Alaska outdoors adventures that we could one final time, enjoying a couple family reunions and time with our parents, and moving to Pocatello, Idaho. If you haven't heard yet, I have accepted a job at Idaho State University and I just started here this past week. Although we loved my job at the University of Alaska Anchorage, enjoyed living in such a beautiful place, and made a lot of great friends, we decided it was time to move closer to our family. We are really excited for my job here and, as far as we can tell, Pocatello seems like a great community.
Good-bye Anchorage :( Hello Pocatello :)
This "Smile Capital" of the U.S. is an official thing. I guess in 1948 after a really harsh winter, the mayor of Pocatello decided to make a law that it was illegal not to smile. This law stayed on the books, but was forgotten about until someone rediscovered it in 1987. The mayor at that time made some request and got it so Pocatello became the official "United States Smile Capital." From what I read online, every year they have a Smile Days celebration with fun activities including a smile contest and getting thrown in a mock jail if you are caught not smiling.
When we made the decision to move we started to look at housing options. We wanted to avoid renting for the first year if it was all possible. We ended up purchasing a lot and are having a home built for us. Here are the floor plans and a few pictures of the progress on the house.
Here is the empty lot. It is on top of a big hill that I am going to have to ride up every day on the way home from work.
Here is the foundation. The upstairs is at ground level from the front and then the downstairs is out ground level from the back.
Here they have the basement starting to be framed.
With the upstairs framing close to complete it is cool to see the house starting to take shape.
This is the southwest view off of what will be the back covered patio off of the dinning room.
This is the more northwest view out one of the master bedroom windows.
Unfortunately, building has taken longer than originally planned and according to the latest estimates, it should be done by the end of October. We decided that instead of trying to find a place to rent for all of us for just a few months, I would go by myself so I could start work and then once the house was done, everyone else would join me. The past couple of days here have been lonely, but at least it is just a couple of months. To help keep me occupied, among other things, I am going to try to get caught back up on the blog. It may be kind of boring to read just what is going on with me, so I will try to include some of the summer activities and any reports from Rebecca every now and then too.
I have started to include pictures in my posts on the mysuperherochildren.blogspot.com blog, but since not everyone reads that one, I thought I would also include a few here too. Sorry there are no descriptions with them.
January sailed by, but at least we got a few pictures this time along the way. We celebrated Elliott's birthday, complete with an Elmo cake, balloons, and a trip to the McDonald's Play Place. I think he had a great time! He loves being one of the big kids, and has started talking a lot more, repeating a lot of words he hears older siblings say. We love having him in our family, and I love that at least he doesn't think he is too big to snuggle with us.
Ethan performed in a winter play with his class--you can see him peaking out in the far right in the second row, and did an excellent job memorizing his lines and the choreography. It was really fun to watch his class; they did a great job!
Agnes is growing and has started making lots of sounds, smiles, and fun faces. She is adorable and she brightens our family.
Our not-so-pretty face is Joshua after a slip on the ice. We had a lot of melting and refreezing, and the roads were terrible for a few weeks. He actually hit the side of his head and got a minor concussion (we think), but somehow it turned into a black eye and lasted three weeks. We heard about a lot of other people around here with similar experiences.
