New Email Address

Hey again... I just wanted to let everyone know that i changed my email... i dont have a ton of time so i havent really figured out how to send a mass email quick (not to mention i have like 0 people in my address book, i just reply) so if everyone could do me a favor and any one that cares could you pass the word on (i.e. people like jon julia and leah, who may not read this ever whom id love to talk to).

my email is: andrew.long.t@gmail.com

thank you all very much... fyi kimberly might be changing hers to gmail so be prepaired for another one of these.

keepin updated *edited* potlatch

hey-hey!

I am just working on keeping the updates... well... up-to-date. Today was a LONG day in the store. The potlatch for the woman who froze to death in fairbanks (tanana born and raised) is tonight so the town is bursting at its seams with extra people. So all day today we were working on emptying the backed up warehouse (we didnt touch it all weekend)... then the front counter was CONSTANTLY slammed because all the extra people. Kimberly and i are dying right now. we feel like 50 yr olds (sorry dad, hehe).

What is bothering us the most is tonight is the Potlatch as mentioned (funeral basically) . We are completely shot and dreading being out tonight. Its one of those things where we really want to be a part of the community and go, its just hard. We are not sure as of this moment if we will be going or not. Kimberly is feeling more obligated than me, simply because as i mentioned we dont want to separate ourselves from the people... its a hard one.

*EDIT*
We did end up going to the dancing portion of the potlatch. it was AMAZING! though it started 2.5 hrs late it was still amazing. It seems every time we get involved with the community we are welcomed in by a different person. and its just nice to feel accepted. God is really lookin out for kimberly and I its really amazing.
*EDIT*

thanks for reading you all... we love you, take care!

Kimberly and I are sorry it has been so long since out last update!

We are just busy busy busy in the store. Our BINORMOUS (i just made that up it means REALLY big x 100) order is comming in slowly but surely. we get spurts from 500-2500lbs of freight, from a 20k lb order. Its all comming in by planes that have a capacity of about 3k lbs (thats that ive been told, im sure there are a couple different planes with varying payloads) but you must consider too these are not cargo planes, they are passanger planes and if they are full of people there is only so much more weight they can put on. So we have just been busy at work taking care of it... I really have no idea how much more we have comming in but by Cynthias estimation on how many plane loads it should take (she guessed about 15) i THINK we are about half way there. It killes me because if we were safeway for instance we could just run the stuff up and throw it on a shelf, but here all the individual things need to be priced... things like milk, bread, eggs, pop is all off the top of out head (i had that down the first week we were here) but EVERYTHING else has to be priced before its put on the shelf... which pricing in itself is not time consuming, but considering we go through 100-200 boxes of different stuff a day thats different prices that you have to dig through the HUGE invoice to see the suggested retail.

its slowly but surely getting done, its nice because generally 6pm rolls around and we just drop what we are doing and close out the till and come upstairs... So the only crap we have to go through is during buisness hours. Im excited for it to all be done though, then we will be good untill the next shipment comes and we have about 2 months till then... and the best part about that is Kimberly and I wont be touching a box of that shipment, because she will be having it come in during the christmas break and WE will be trading them houses for that 2 week break. they will be comming back out to the store and we will be going to their house in fairbanks for a couple weeks.

There have been alot of deaths around here... they had a funeral tonight (i believe... it may be tomorrow) for a cousin of a family here in Tanana, she froze to death in a homeless shelter about 4 days ago... The town managers Aunt (i believe it may be his grandma) died, she was from another village. And then i just heard another cousin of someones died... I dont know any of the details, death is a topic i didnt want to be a nosy white guy poking around in.

Kimberly and I are still doing good... the not getting out is killin her, we are getting up grabbing a coffee and going to the store, then comming up and by the time the store closes its getting dark. tomorrow we dont start till 11am though, and sunday we are off. So tomorrow morning kimberly wants to get out.

We were told today that around Tanana the temperatures were in the -5 degrees fairenheight area in the morning. kimberly and i went out for about 10 minutes this morning and it was COLD. the cold wasnt like bone chilling but us being in just jeans and coats... any time we moved to where our legs hit our cold jeans it was REALLY cold.

a couple people have gotten their snow mobiles out. its SO exciting, it will still be a week or 2 before there is enough snow to ride without tearing up your track but i am SO excited to get out on one and give it a spin.

other than that... we are looking to get a new computer we MIGHT just wait till the new year to cash in on that because as i have been told by the more computer inteligent family memebers the new year will bring a new operating system by microsoft and we will have their desktop computer to use whenever we want after they leave... so its not totally worth rushing a sale event though i TOTALLY want it (haha).

other than that we are doing great... we are super excited because today the last of the guys in the bed and breakfast shipped off. the house is only full of 2 familys and no extras (other than a young local boy hanging out with Cynthia and Dales 9yr old son).

We love you ALL so much and we miss you all so much! Hi heather foster! i dont know if you have been told this site yet but if you havnt ill be emailing it to you tonight either way, i figure ill make the first post you read a special one (hehe).

We will work on keeping this updated a little better... hopefully when the days get shorter and shorter, we will have more WAY smaller blogs, much more casual reader friendly im sure.

Love,
Andrew and Kimberly Long

Our Day of Rest

Hello! its kimberly. Andrew and I are enjoying our nice day off. man, this week has FLOWN by. We got out of work early 3 nights this week so we've been riding quads and the mule like none other. also, we got our first bit of snow a few days back and so andy's really been having a blast on the quads. we visited some very nice places this week. yesterday we went down to the bluff - its way off the end of town...past the dump. nobody hardly had riden on it since the snow fell so it was a beautiful white road with the sun setting in the distance. it was soooo beautiful and just to give you an idea, i stopped to take over 50 pictures of our ride yesterday. there is a picnic table up off this cliff on the way out there so andy and i stopped. we had gone up there last week but it was much more beautiful this time. you could see the snow and ice forming on the shallow parts of the mighty yukon and then over inbetween the islands, there was what looked like a solid sheet of ice over the water....mind-boggling really. you people down in oregon, i dont think you could fathom how big the river is - unless you have a much larger brain than me....because i surely cant imagine it....and i am living here! steve - you probably would be able to imagine it....i think your brain is huge! and, dad....i would say the same about your giant brain...but you have an advantage - having seen it before, you know! so, lets see.....andy and i have just been little slave workers in the store. we see all the same people, deal with the same ol stuff....just on a different day. but, its really enjoyable. andy and i have a system down where we ease into the morning and then if one of us doesnt want to take a shower, we will jsut wait until like 2 and then we can take a little break while the other one is working. if one of us feels like stocking or moving big heavy boxes, the other can work the register and vice versa. its really really nice. and cynthia has been sooo nice this week. she always lets us have lunch together (she comes down and works the store for a half hour) and then she has her daughter or another friend work the store on nights we want to go quading. if you dont get out before the sun goes down, the ride isnt as enjoyable...mostly its just a lot of shivering and purple lips :) so, i had something awesome happen this week....well andy did too but he is not as excited as i am. there is a guy here from germany (came over 16 years ago for some job, and just never left). anyway, he has 14 dogs (thats enough for 2 sled-dog teams) and he is sooo excited to take andy and i out. what he wants to do is use one of cynthia and dales sno-gos and go up ahead with like andy on the sno-go with him and then i will be behind with the dogs and then we can switch of and stuff. he said there is a beginner dog mushing race in march (its called the chi-char-o [thats the phonetic spelling])race and he really wants to train andy and i for it. you do a six mile loop around the river. I AM SOOOOOOOOOOO stinkin excited! i cannot wait...i even told andy that if there are any puppies for sale here, we WILL be comin home with a giant wolf-dog! no, but i am super excited to learn how to mush. i think it will help pass the time this winter. other than that great news i dont have much more to say. andy and i really needed some alone time this morning so we spent the morning talking while the other people went to church. we felt bad for not going to church but a certain blond beautie!! ha ha, was having some issues that she had to get off her chest. i had a hard week with just being grumpy and andy was my little (ok, big....) psychiatrist this morning who helped me talk and figure out that i think a lot of my attitude has been spurring from some fears about this winter - you know, cyndy and dale leave probably in a week and i think i am really nervous about being on our own (even though i am just as excited for it), and all the other fears running through my head, like darkness, no family et cetera. so, i feel much better and we opted to have our own church service together! next week tho we will be back at church, promise! well, unless my best friend has anythin to say, i'm pretty sure we have a quad ride scheduled! andy sends his love to everyone, as do i and we will keep yall posted.

Andys DC-4 experience

Today kimberly and I were just perfecting the daily grind... getting up, grabbin a piece of toast.... wait a second speaking of toast... I just introduced kimberly to toast and hot cocoa and she for the life of her could not understand how toast and cocoa go together until she tried a bite of my toast with her cocoa and she had to run and make her own toast.

anyway, we are just working on getting all the tasks down and dealing with all the people all day. then today Dale asked me to run to the airport with him to help him load some pallets on a plane. the pallets were all like 500gallon supersacks full of asbestos from the local hospital. a company that just left before we got here was removing the asbestos from the building so it could be torn down. so we get to the airport and there is no plane there, when we hear it all the sudden.... it is one of 2 in the world. it was a DC-4 that the british did a front end convirsion on. there was a third but about 8 years ago or so someone crashed it. it had a large door on the back drivers side and the LARGE nose swung open. the cokpit sat right above the cargo hold. Dale forklifted the sacks up there (i would have offered to help seeing as dale had never driven a fork lift before but it was a construction companys large forklift WAY different from what i have driven and i didnt know that i would do any better than him). We got those loaded up and the plane took off... it was really interesting, i was most bummed because kimberly was back at the store, i think she would have enjoyed it more than i did especially because it was kind of a once in a lifetime thing seeing such a rare plane. But i took plenty of pictures and i got to show them to her.

There is this man who is the nicest guy, his brother is amazing too... but they are the kind of guys that when they come in the store a weight is lifted... you can joke around with them and they joke back.... there are a number of others that are like that too. but the brother made a bow and arrow out of birch... hand carved... he brought it in and showed kimberly, and the next day kimberly started to tell me about it when he was in and he said he would bring it by to show me... not 15 minutes later he had gone home and come back with it just to show me. Then i believe the next day the first guy came in and was just overjoyed because we had a box that was the perfect size for some fish he wanted to mail to a friend. kimberly showed interest in the fish and he said he had some more he would bring us. about 2 hrs later he walked in and handed us a glass jar pressure sealed and everything from a month earlier to the day. the fish was decient but it ment SO much that he would do that.

also id like to report that kimberly and i are getting along with cynthia and dale really well today... its amazing. they have kind of been hard to deal with because they were all ready to leave when we got here then all these companys called saying they needed a place to stay for like 10 days. so i think they got a little frusterated that they were so close to their break and now they are so far. and it has showed in their attitued towards me and kimberly, BUT tonight was amazing... I did the dishes (thats right I, Andrew Long) which made it so nice to sit back and chat with them knowing there was nothing they were sitting there thinking we should be doing. today really was an amazing day!

a couple of prayer requests... the lady from an entry or 2 ago who told us she was having a "bluzy" day. of course Kimberly and I we are doing WAY better than the first couple days here and we seem to be getting way better by the day. our relationship with cynthia and dale... this could be a multi year job for kimberly and i and we would like to keep a good relationship with them. for our future here, today it was just brought to my attention. next year Brice (a large construction company doing a bunch of work up here in Tanana) will be here again, and the employees are working 7-10hr days. they are bringing like 5k a month home though.... and if i was to stay here and work for them (they are union and it would be impossible for me to go back to oregon and apply for this job but if i am a "local" then i along with the rest of the locals have first dibs on jobs even before the union guys... ultimately where im at right now is i would like to see my family... but only time will tell.

thanks for reading the update we love you all!

daily grind

Well Cynthia and Dale have pretty much left the store to me and kimberly now. They will still be in town for the next 15 days or so but dale has Tanakon Fuel CO to run (diesel fuel for heating and what not) and Cynthia is running the bed and breakfast. Its nice, just to go at our own pace... and it really helps to learn the job. We are both getting really comefortable behind the till and both getting to know the locals.

two nights ago we had an interesting experience. one of the locals called and begged me to sell her a can of chew afterhours. I told her i would this one time but i could not promise her i would do it the next time. she thanked me and we both hung up. i went down and grabbed her bill to add it to it and a can of chew, came back up stairs and waited for her to pick up her goods. when she got here i handed them to her. She then walked in the door talking to us about a customer that was giving us a hard time earlier in the day when she walked in. that coversation lead into her talking about her son that was killed last summer right before KHBC. He was shot and killed by a friend while at a fish camp seven miles down river... they were all drinking and doing drugs and the death was accidental. She was telling us how she was having a bluzie day all day and she was missing her son. She talked for like 45 minutes and mentioned she knew the next step for her was to go to church.

That was an amazing experience for me but kimberly grounded me when she enlightened me to the fact that she was opening up to us like a native verly rarely would because something was in her system loosening her up (most likely). today Cynthia told us how every once and a while she gets depressed about her son and partys and drinks heavily. nevertheless it was an amazing experience and it was fun to just sit and listen and not feel like i needed to tell her anything.

kimberly wanted to do some blogging so here is my beautiful-

ok, well.....i just had to mention a couple things from my point of view. i know a couple days ago andy was mentioning how we are both doing great and life was good, et cetera. well, i just thought it would be good to tell you all that i had a really rough couple of days. I was just grumpy and upset for like 2 days....kinda like andy was when we first arrived....but i could see myself being really sensitive and not being able to let things go. like people would say something at the store and i would take it personally and it would just weigh me down and i felt like a million thoughts were running through my head and i couldnt relax...just like i was super stressed and everything. so, during work when cynthia and dale were outta town, i went upstairs and wrote a journal entry in our computer. as i was writing it, i just felt like i needed to give it to andy and let him know all that was going on in my head. so, after realizing, to my disappointment, that laptops dont come with printers, i saved the entry and went downstairs to tell andy that he had something to read on our computer. after a while he came down and gave me a big hug and we talked and ever since then things have been really good. i am not as stressed and i realize that not everything (hardly anything, actually) should be taken personally at this job and it helped me trust in God a lot more (knowing that he knows all the crazy things in my head that even I cant decipher). also, it helped me open up to andy and know that he genuinely listens and cares for me.....hes so great!! so, since then all has been well. andy and i got up slightly early (yeah, right!) but made it out for a quick walk around town before work at 11. i was telling dale that it was great because i actually felt like i was 6 again...we found walking sticks and were going around crushing ice puddles and making designs in the broken puddles. it was marvelous and the sun has been shining all day! yeah!!! its the weekend!!! andy and i were mentioning how nothing would be able to describe the beauty up here, like pictures can do it no justice and so when i describe this morning to you, im sure you think its rather nominal but if you were here you would be thinkin otherwise! ok, well, thats all i got to say...andy and i miss every one of you very much!

yadda yadda yadda

just wanted to say whats up to all my HOOOOMMMMIES!!!

yes it is andy writing this post so feel free to disreguard it... not much is new, but i can kinda elaborate on the whole sams club (walmart for all you oregon folk) documentary, so here i go:

Cynthia called to place an order and they mentioned how they were going to be shooting in fairbanks just kind of a documentary to show how far they reach... Cynthia was like "are you jokin"? she then went on about how they would come to a full blown city 100 miles east of tanana to show how far they reach when a quick hop skip and a jump they would be here... the middle of no where... a little cooler to show how far they reach. Well in no time she had them all worked up and excited to come she said they asked "what do we wear" (haha). So anyway Dale and Cynthia are in Fairbanks right now awaiting their arrival and they are going to fly in together... they are going to hang out for a couple hours and fly back out.

It was really cool because we got to run the store by ourselves for about 3 hours, it was very nice and relaxing... all i need is a recliner and a sippy cup and i think ill be set for the winter.

kimberly ended up leaving me at about 5:30pm (30 min before the close) to go get dinner ready for the bed and breakfast guys we have here right now (covering for cynthia). it was nice because one of the two B & B guys didnt even eat and the other one was half way done when i came up after closing down the store so i gulped down dinner and got ready to go for another quick quad ride to kimberlys friends house (a camper at KHBC over the summer)... (i have said names before but for their sake ill refrain from now on simply because this is a public site and i have not asked their permission). anyway it ended up being AMAZING!!! their house is in the coolest COOLEST place in the world! it is on top of this hill and it overlooks the tanana river for MILES AND MILES. i stood up there gazing into the distance thinking to myself about how i was always stressed back at home and there are these people that see the aurora any night it is slightly visible... on a clear day they can see mt. mckinley and in portland i get traffic and speeding tickets... up here there arent even police to give me tickets (haha). it was very pleasant. After the visit we got to drive home in the dark... it was about a 10-15 minute quad ride going about 20-40 mph.

So far so good... tomorrow we (and by we i mean kimberly) have to get up early tomorrow to fix a quick breakfast for the B & B guys... hopefully ill be able to get up, it will be nice to have that couple hours before work to relax of bundle up and go for a walk.

I love you all and I love your comments! PEACE!

The Daily Routine

Hey everybody!
This is kimberly. Sorry Andy and I havent been right on top of bloggin the last couple of days but our laptop is still not working and so we dont always have access to a computer. lets see, we are really getting into the daily routine up here in Tanana. We've been cleaning, mucking, scrubbing and shelving everything we have in the store - waiting for a big shipment this week. Andy does most the lifting and shoving while i cashier and help with the cleaning and organizing. also, sam's club (Wal-Mart) is coming to do a documentary for all the food they ship to the village so on friday we will have some guests from arkansas videotaping everything - so things need to be clean. Andy and I have been getting along great...sometimes on a rough day we sneak off to a corner of the store for a hug and it makes everything great! also, steve thanks for the email-we got what you were talking about and it does help keep everyone in a good mood! so as it is, andy and i just get up and work in the store and have relaxing evenings. its been real warm up here(50s) and then two days ago we had upwards of 65mph winds (only about 50mph down by the store) - which NEVER happens.....it was the talk of the town. but, back to rain yesterday and today...still strange weather for this time of the year, its usually much colder. we miss everyone very much. one of my favorite people that i met this summer was a school teacher here for many years and she just got back from galena so i got to introduce andy to her. other than that, its just "same ol people, same ol stuff, just different day" as Cynthia says! but after a rough morning yesterday andy and i were feeling really really discouraged but we prayed and it ended out that we had a great afternoon and the evening was even better. we are starting to get to know everyone in the village but it'll take a while for some good relationships. the little kids hang around all the time though i must say. andy and i really appreciate all your prayers and love. we miss all of you and its good to hear your comments - keep em coming!

Technology BITES!

Well its 5pm on our first sunday here in Tanana. I am currently sitting at Dale and Cynthia's computer because out of no where our laptop quit allowing us to access the internet (NOTE TO UNCLE TOM: we just woke up and turned the computer on the night after our last blog entry and it has not allowed us to connect to the internet, but at the same time it says we are connected wirelessly with an excelent connection).

ANYWAY enough with all the frusterations of city life, we are in the middle of no where right? so today we woke up at 10am (its our day off)... its funny because our room doesnt have windows (its pitch black all the time with the lights off) and i remember waking up at 7:30 and telling myself i had another 30 min to sleep, at 10 i look at my watch thinking its 8:30 at the latest... Boy was i wrong. Well we got up and got showered, then sat on the bed debating on whether or not we wanted to figure out church today or rest (honestly we didnt know if by that time we had missed service anyway). only to hear the church bell ringing. We jumped up and went to church to see all of the other 4 attendants today (a little different than ALC). we got to talk to mary s. about our direction with the children after the service. She was really excited, she and her husband paul have been praying for people to come and help with the children for years.

we then came home and turned our pig sty into a work of art (you would be proud john). After using some alone time to our advantage ;) which ended up being a TOTAL god thing because with the hustle and craze of trying to understand this job we have not been allowing much "alone" time. Building our relationship seems to have taken a dangerous back burner to the store and we have both been doing our own part to bring it back to the front burner.

After we "cleaned our room" we went for a nice ride on the quads up to a creek everyone gets water from... The rusty pipe it flows from at the side of the road might turn many away but we are "ruffin" it and went for it filling all our water bottles up.

Today has been a very relaxing day, we have realized that it is AMAZING to do nothing when you have something to do the rest of the time.... What i mean by that is we have a job to keep us busy during the week and when we hit the weekend its nice to just relax like we got to do for the 3 weeks after we got married.

for kimberlys sake i will make it known that I, Andrew Long wrote this blog :)

You can pray for me and kimberly for a couple things: direction with the children and an age group to work with, our relationship which would include communication, patience and that other stuff, i have noticed i am grumpy all the time and it seems alot of the time i never want to talk... why? im not sure but i know its hurting me and kimberly, these last couple days we have been able to talk and go for walks but until then we were very distant. So just pray for us. We know this can be a LONG winter if we dont work on "us".

(we are still working in pictures... im trying to figure out how to get them off the camera... it seems the laptop doesnt see it as just like another hard drive like the other computers ive used and i cannot access the contents at all)

Soda Pop and Quads

well, it is our first official day in the life of a villager (although i dont quite think we are villagers). Lets see, we got up this morning in time to see the sun shining through the clouds up near "where the two rivers meet." in athabascan the word is like nuchalaawooya or something close to that. basically its the point where the tanana and yukon rivers meet. we chatted with our friends cynthia and dale and eased into the morning. we went down to the store for a few hours and cleaned all the shelves, fronted all the food (moved it to the front of the shelf) and then moved on to the warehouse to lift many a box of soda to organize everything. good thing i have my big strong man to help with all the heavy lifting - what a trooper! we organized cans in one area and 20 ounces to another. let me tell you, you havent seen close to this much soda in your lifetime. we have soda packed full in the fridges, on countertops, walls and cubby holes plus everything in the warehouse and we are running out! cynthia lets the orders run real low so pretty soon here we will get a big huge $15000 + order and that will be a LOT of soda, among other things. so, after the kids got out of school at three andy and i took the quads out and went for a long ride. we went up to the hill and looked out over the joining of both rivers and then we went all the way to the other end of town where we went down to the river and the airport, we went to the school, fire department (andy is gonna sign up to be a volunteer fire fighter but it was closed today). we visited the baseball field and saw the elders residence. we were basically icicles when we returned home. thats when andys headache began. he was in soooo much pain, (to the point of tears) because of how bad it hurt. since then weve been resting...well, he is actually snoring next to me at this point - hes totally exhausted and im just addicted to this blog! im hoping he will post something again soon though because he really is much funnier than me! if you people from life could pass on this website andy and i would really appreciate it. we would love for everyone to be praying and knowing whats going on with us. our prayer concern right now is to pray for interactions with the native people. i got to meet up with some girls from camp and that was a blessing but just keep praying that we can make friends. if anyone has questions to email to andy or i our email address is Unknown733@aol.com and then stang_COBRA_R@juno.com thank you for all your prayers!!!

The Journey Begins

Good Evening! this is kimberly. andy and i are safely in tanana, AK (our home for the next 9 months). we have had an awesome day. Our trip started off with landing in Fairbanks last night at 10:30pm and running over to some missionaries home for peach and cherry cobbler (which was absolutely delicious). they had just celebrated their first anniversary last week so us newlyweds united!! then we were driven over to a beautiful cabin in camp Li-Wa to stay the night. the camp operates as a horse camp and many other things as well as being Christian. We got up this morning, met some workers fertilizing the grass and enjoyed our first morning together in Alaska. then we were picked up by david and marci who took us to a delicious restaurant for lunch and we talked, talked, talked before beginning a road trip all around fairbanks. we got to see the pipeline, dave and marci's Native Bible Church (what an awesome story of Gods blessing and provision), we saw UAF and got to taste the "best coffee in alaska" which was pretty delicious. These crazy people in alaska put spoonfuls of honey in their coffee :) the weathers been chilly but lots like oregon (rainy and grey skies). we waited at the airport for 2 hours before the weather cleared enough for us to fly out to tanana. once we got to our hometown we were greeted by great friends Cynthia and Dale and we gave andy a tour of the "city". man, the village has changed so much since even 3 months ago. construction everywhere and trees no longer covered with green luscious leaves - just twigs now. we stopped to see a fishwheel and actually got lucky - a fish was scooped up and put into a basket within a few minutes of us standing there. it was a colorful dog salmon. once our roadtrip ended we got a tour of our house and store. how busy cindy and dale have been this summer. over ten beds in the back of the house and new tables/chairs, walls and lots of other stuff. the grill in the downstairs store is all cleaned out for some remodeling. andy and i are very excited to be here and cant wait to get things started although i must say that cynthia is a very good cook and i am a little fearful that once she and dale leaves andy will have to starve because his wife has little cooking experience and has a lot of big shoes to fill (i will never be able to compete with rebecca!) well, i think that is all that has happened these couple of days - i am quite exhausted.please pray for our families (we love them very much) and for our transition into village life, pray that we are hard workers (as a VERY large shipment will be coming soon) and pray for great relationships with the people of tanana. we'll keep ya posted on our continued adventures. oh, and we will get pictures posted as soon as we can figure out how!!

Anticipa-a-tion

Hey Everybody!
This is Kimberly. Andrew and I are on the countdown until our adventure begins. we have just under 6 hours until we begin our flight. it wont be until tomorrow that we get into the village of Tanana, but tonight we are excited to stay in a cabin in Fairbanks. Tomorrow we have an orientation with some missionaries while we are in Fairbanks waiting for Dale to fly us into Tanana. Andy and I are struggling with a myriad of emotions. One moment we are thrilled, then scared, excited, nervous, and hardly able to sleep (well, that could just be andy adjusting to getting more than 4 hours of sleep after working night shift for 2 years.) The biggest struggle now is dealing with leaving our families. While I was all prepared to wait to see my parents again until next summer, they came home early from hunting so we've got to visit more and talk in person just one last time. Andy got up real early today to go to his parents house and say goodbye to his many little siblings. so, please pray for our trip up north and that everything goes smoothly over these next couple days of transition. pray that andy and I will not get cranky with the little bit of sleep we're both getting. Next time we blog, we will be in ALASKA!!!!!

This Amazing Idea

Kimberly and I are away from each other for the second time since our wedding 3 weeks ago (the first time being saturday the 30th for the womens hike). We are busy packing for our excellent adventure in Alaska at our family's places of residence (at one time we called them home, now we just 'em call food :) ) tonight is the last night I (andrew) will get to spend with my entire family and kimberly has already said goodbye to her parents on the 28th of september (the day before they left for a hunting trip.) Its all starting to set in that this is really happening. It seems like yesterday when kimberly was proposing this amazing idea to go to Tanana, Alaska and run the store when in reality it was nearly 7 months ago. Please pray for our familys, saying good-bye to the first to leave the nest on both sides... and also for strength, love, and communication for kimberly and I beggining the rest of our lives together just one month ago. Also pray that my punctuation and grammar skills increase over the next 9 months so as to make the read more enjoyable and fun (haha)!