500sq ft divided by 15 children = CRAZY

As I type there is a room PACKED with children watching "Ice Age ll". So far so good, fortunatly. It started off stressful, more and more kids started showing up. It seems while I think they are all around all having a good night, that you cannot please anyone. The group of girls kimberly pitched the idea to on monday or tuesday are bummed because there are bunches of people they dont like... Because of theft and only 2 adult supervisors (i guess me on the computer makes it one (hehehe)) we have closed off the whole back of the house and of course the store. There is a mountian of belongings by the front door that will take all day long tomorrow to sort out... The night started with a couple pizzas (totinos... 8 to be exact) shortly followed by popcorn prep for the movie... 1 pot making popcorn at a rate of 3 bags per load, ment 5 loads just to make enough popcorn for everyone... We came up with the great idea of giving everyone their own bag with just butter and a bit of salt on it so that they could eat it that way or they could put their own topping on it (cheese, garlic salt...) So far that worked out pretty good... 1 girl put too much garlic salt on hers, but i didnt bother making her any more because she has been quite the bully tonight, taking things from others, and cutting in line... among with other things, but ultimately I just decided that her impatience and mean attitued has killed her popcorn.

All of the moms are super cool with me and kimberly for doing this tonight. The children have been all around very respectful though i could not be happier with how tonight is working out. God really is blessing this attempt at interacting with the children.

Our thanksgiving was amazing too!, we went to an AMAZING womans house where her son and daughter came in from fairbanks. She is an amazing woman and her kids are great (i think one is early 20s and the other is late 20s maybe early 30s... she mentioned something about almost 10 yrs of separation between the two. anyway, the food was great, the time spent was great, I offered to pray. Kimberly made death by chocolate, Im not sure how much they liked it, i mean how can you not but compaired to me where i would inject it directly into a vein if i could, i could not tell. It was nice because the lady had been a teacher for 31 years here in the village (last year she retired). So she had an inside view on the kiddies, basically the biggest thing was theft... she told us a couple to keep our eyes on, it ended up being nice, because originally the house was basically going to be all open, and i would hate to find that something dissapeared.

All in all kimbelry and I are doing great. Im super tired and am going to sleep amazing tonight, Kimberly will be roughing it with 9 girls or so on the couch in the livingroom... I just have to stay awake another hr and ill get a burst of energy to take the boys home.... i have the car plugged in (the block heater for you unknowing city folk), unfourtunatly the heater in the rig doesnt work, so it will never warm up.

MADNESS!

Hey everybody!
its kimberly. lifes just been going going going like usual. we are getting really comfortable with the people and feeling like a part of the community which is great. also, this week we are gonna be exhausted... oh, before i forget...HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! We are soooo grateful to have all you wonderful people writing to us and thinking and praying for us...oh how we appreciate you all. so, back to what i was saying, we are gonna be exhausted because the kids, oh the kids have been hanging around sooooo much. today i wanted to surprise andy so i came upstairs to make him a homemade apple pie and had 3 kids running around making messes with me. it turned out pretty cute though, the girls made hearts to bake on top of the pie ( 2 hearts, one for andy and one for me!) they were sooooo excited to surprise him. they kept asking, "whens he gonna come up?" and "he cant come up, is he coming up?!" it was hilarious and they are very cute. so, i told them they could come by at 7:00 and i would give them pie before we all went to the 7:30pm service at church tonight. a great way to get them excited for church. then, this friday andy and i are having a sleepover with some girls and then there are gonna be some boys over to watch movies. it will be like 8-12 year olds....lots of kids from camp. so, we are swamped with kids running everywhere. but, i think its a good thing. just pray that we can make adequate rules and boundaries so that we dont get run over. some of us (cough cough ME) have a hard time saying no sometimes. so, that is what our weekend will look like. we wont have to work much. we are going over to my friends house for thanksgiving and her daughter flew in from fairbanks and really wants to work in the store this weekend so she will probably work all day friday and then maybe half day on saturday so andy and i have a pretty smooth weekend. its much appreciated, for sure. well, i hope you all are doing well and enjoying the beginnings of a great holiday season. keep us in your prayers and we will be thinkin of all you guys tomorrow when we are away from family and friends. thank you all for contributing so much to andy and i's lifes.

Beating of the Dead Horse

Hey All!

Sorry again for the delay in the updates. Kimberly and i will get this down sometime. In the last week we have both started a blog and either something came up that prevented us from finishing it or, or when it was posted the internet went psycho and didnt post it, loosing the last 45 min of work.

ANYWAY, this is more of a redundant update.... sort of a beating of the dead horse. With all the usual info, its COLD, sunday at 11am when we went to church it was -20F. To be in that cold is not horrible, but anything exposed will burn after about 5 min of being out. When you breath in your breath crystalizes making it hard to take deep breaths. As mentoned the river has stopped, i figure in the next week or so locals will make thier way across it, yes i did mean LOCALS, NOT me and Kimberly. Maybe eventually we will head out on it but not so soon at all. One good thing is the locals have told us that its good when it doesnt snow for a while after the inital freeze because the snow just acts as a blanket over the ice not allowing it to get really thick, we have now gone a week with no snow and a stopped river.

Kimberly and I have been invited to an amazing womans house, it is actually this sister-in-law to the guy i talked about a couple blogs ago. Kimberly and I are excited for that! Plus we are pretty sure we have figured out our christmas plans, we want to go out snowboarding... we have both always wanted to but never hand the opportunity. Then for christmas we probably wont do an exchanging of gifts, instead we will each take like 250 dollars or so and get up WAY early the day after and hit all the sales. We are excited to get back to civilization... The pace is nice out here but im to young to have been worn out by city life yet, yes its way more stressful but its what i know and love, its a love hate relationship... kind of like loving someone who becomes a drug addict, (the city life being the drug addict) reguardless of how much crap they drag you through you still love them... maybe when im old like my dad ill appreciate it more (haha). Im still not thinking this winter is going to be any problem at all... I guess all im saying is you all dont have to worry about us moving up here, we are just fine in the portland area.

We do have just about everything here... we even have a freeway, formerly know as front street, or the street that TONS of people live on and even more people walk, ride, drive on. It seems like at about 10pm the speed limit raises, the other day we heard someone fly past the front of the store, we found out a day or 2 later that he was doing 105mph in the dark, on the citys most heavily traveled road (thats not saying much especially for that time of the night). But just about every night you can hear someone doing at LEAST 60 mph.

Kimberly is dealing with cabin fever a bit but we are working on getting out. A company that was up here had called me on Friday and asked me to take care of some issues that the inspector found with the job they did. They were up removing asbestos insulated waterlines in the old hospital. and insulating pipes in surrounding buildings. The told me they would pay me 250 dollars to cut one pipe down that was just hanging, it wasnt attached to anything on either end and it was just hanging down, i needed to cut it down or use wire to hang it up, fortunatly dale had a cordless sawzall that took me about 1 minute. We then had to go to another building and insulate two corners that were missed. 10 minutes later we were 250 dollars richer, and we got a nice walk across downtown in.

We will continue to work on keeping updated more regularly, after talking with my dad it seems the everyday stuff we take for granted is the stuff we need to write about, because its not everyday stuff for the people back at home. We love you all, I need to go get a shower and go to work... we are SLAMMED right now, we have TONS of freeze and TONS of pop (litterally tons), and it all has to go somewhere... so i have to go start moving it around. It actually kind of makes me laugh, Cynthia kept telling us that after the huge order that came in the week before they left got done it would be smooth sailing untill they came back for christmas, and we wouldnt have to touch that order because they would be here to do it... then 2 weeks after they leave we have probably recieved about 10-15k lbs of freeze and pop with what we have been told by the warbelows guy that delivers it is that we have alot more comming in today... so i have to go make room to get the rest of the stuff in.

kimberlys new email

hello again. i just got a new email address and wanted to inform you all on it! so, it is kimberly.long.m@gmail.com. i will keep my original address of Unknown733@aol.com also so dont worry if you accidentally send someething there. alright, talk to yall later.

It Is Finished...

Greetings from Tanana, where my husband and I sip on coca-cola and eat fresh pizza from fairbanks. "Fresh pizza" you say, how could that be? well, we have the most amazing bosses, thats how. this week they surprised us with two delivery pizzas (fresh baked in fairbanks, flown in and delivered to our door), a cheesecake with four different flavors, fresh delicious grapes (a real speciality out here!) and pub mix (delicious concoction of crunchy things and spices - like gardettos). then, we had been watching one of my favorite girls from camp after school for 2 days this week because her mom was outta town, so when she got back she gave us a whole box of fresh mandarins and meat and we got to eat dinner together twice - what a blessing it is to have people to invite over. when andy and i are back in oregon, you all are invited over for dinner, we always are so blessed when people visit us! so, then to top off this week, we woke up this morning to see that the river had finally stopped moving and it is frozen over!!! (hence, the "it is finished" title). heres the thing though, we didnt get to hear it (sometimes you can hear when it freezes up) and there are pockets in the ice that have steam coming out of them (i guess its like where the ice isnt totally frozen so the steam is released or something...i'm sure anyone from around here would be able to explain it much better than i have!). so, thats our week in a nutshell. all is pretty well, i have started working out in the gym at the back of the house (3 days this week) i really enjoy it although sometimes the motivation to get started is hard to find. we got our laptop up and working so andy has been playing around with that the past couple of days. what a blessing that our laptop works - now money doesnt have tobe put into a new one! i got to talk to my dad, sister and friend from high school this week which was great! i miss everyone from home lots (this week was kinda hard that way) so just hearing voices is amazing. andy and i would LOVE to get phonecalls from you all so if you want the number just email me at Unknown733@aol.com and i can give you the number. dont worry about long distance charges either because we can call you back with our phone card and that way you dont have to pay anything. we are almost always home so theres never a bad time to call. other than that, we have just been chillin...watching tv, working at stocking stuff and fronting shelves (a never ending process). i have been reading an amazing book by Tozer called Rut, Rot or Revival and it is stinking AMAZING!!! it talks about the "problem of change and breaking out of the staus quo" its perfect for andy and i because of our situation, up here. I think the best thing about it is that it speaks to those of us who may be in a rut or i guess some people would call it a "valley" and Tozer really tries to awaken us out of sleep, as he calls it, he talks about the church and individuals....its just soooo good. i highly recommend it. oh, the temperature (everyone always wants to know what the temp is). well, andy and i tried to get out for a walk yesterday and it was QUITE chilly - like 15 below. we werent adequately dressed (or at least i wasnt) because last time i went for a walk i got sweaty and hot so i figured i would dress down some. the problem was the last walk i had gone on outside was over a week ago and temperatures had really dropped! but, we are gonna get out this afternoon too.....this time more prepared! its crazy how the temp changes depending on where you live in tanana....yesterday i heard people say variences from 20 below to 5 above. its crazy depending on whether you are near the river or the hills and everything.....unless there is lots of wind to mix up the temps ive heard its always quite a difference. when andy and i went to church this morning our temp said 10 below and that was at 1100am. so, i guess thats all i have to say, keep praying for us, that we get lots stronger with God and we continure to make friends. love you all very much! kimberly - and andy!

TONS of new pictures added to Photobucket account

If you missed the link from our last blog here is a bunch of pictures (there were 35 before i updated it and there are now 85 and im still working on uploading more.

http://s140.photobucket.com/albums/r28/aklongblogspot/?sc=1&addtype=local

Good news about my computer situation... i tinkered with the internet setup tonight and i got the laptop working (after going a month when we REALLY could have used it). I am working on uploading them from the laptop, all the pictures before 10/17 were uploaded on the computer and erased from the camera.

Asside from technology i got to meet an AMAZING man today. Many know him, (if you went to camp im sure you would know him). he was on his way to Galena and knew Kimberly and i were here and he wanted to meet me and say hi to kimberly. It really was an amazing thing, he came up and had coffee with me and just talked. It was really an amazing experience... Kimberly ALWAYS talked about him and i know why now. He is a true man of god!

Not much else has gone on... Kimberly and i are thinking more and more that we wont see Cynthia and Dale till christmas time. The biggest reason they have to come in is money and tobacco... and everytime the past week that they have said they were going to come out a day they found someone who was going into town that they trusted to take cash or tobacco to us. they will be going on a road trip to idaho to visit their oldest daughter at college and will be there till after thanksgiving, So we are not sure how its going to work out... ultimately kimberly and i have it under control and would rather them stay in fairbanks, i mean its just their money to fly out here when we are doing just fine... plus its nice to be alone.

Kimberly and I are doing really good though. I made tacos tonight... its amazing because I sit here knowing there is a full blown store below me.... yet when meal time comes around nothing sounds good. Fortunatly tacos sounded great tonight and kimberly allowed me to cook while she finished up in the store. FYI im amazing (hahaha).

We love you all and thank you for reading our blog... Enjoy the pictures!

-Andrew & Kimberly

and god said "let there be sleep"

Hey all its Andrew again. Kimberly would write more of these but she has been the one stepping up to the plate and making dinner for the two of us. Not to make myself sound like a lazy slob, its just something she has been REALLY excited about and so while i am blogging she is taking care of us getting food ready for out stomachs.

Currently though she is working. She is so amazing, I have not been sleeping well since the potlatch on the 30th. We came home from that at like 11pm and didnt get to bed till like 12am. We climbed into bed and kimberly was out like a lightbulb, where as i was tossing and turning ALL night long. I figured it was a one time thing, so i got up and made the most of my day... but i was wrong... every night since thing i havent slept more than a wink every night. I have melatonin (natural sleep aid) and it doesnt do anything for me. Its hard, I hope we can figure something out. I think it may just be stress of being alone.... its really amazing, cynthia and dale told us all along how nice it was that one of us could be in the store and the other could be doing something else (such as watching tv or riding snowmachines), yet while they were here that was not something we felt we could comefortably do. which lead to LLLLLLLOOOOOONNNNNNNNNGGGGGG days at work, when there are 2 people doing pittly stuff looking busy 8 hrs a day. So this morning after another terrible night *not* sleeping kimberly allowed me to sleep in while she ran the store for a couple hours. It allowed me to get a nap till yet again my body decided it didnt want to sleep... so i am up.... here... wiriting this blog before i shower and go and relieve my beautiful bride form her post.

I ordered a part for there newest snow machine. they have two older ones, one is just flat out too small for me. there is just no room for my legs below the handle bars, plus the seat is WAY too soft making it hard to hold on with my cheaks. the other is fun, but still a little small. This is the only one i have driven. this one requires mixed gas though, the other 2 have oil resivors that mix the gas automatically... and i am not sure where a gas can to mix the gas up is. The newest one got a hole in the coolant resivor by some unknown cause last year while one of the girls was riding it. this is a machine that is a 2 seater... and there is TONS or room for my legs... so i really wanted to get it up and going. So hopefully it will get here in the next week of 2 so i can get it on before im working in a garage thats 15 below during the day.

thats whats going on currently. we got our FIRST night alone in about a month last night. we signed up with netflix on monday and fortunatly got our movies yesterday morning, so we got to have some pizzas for dinner and got to snuggle up on the couch to watch "the hurricane" with denzel washington.

I must leave now and prepair myself for the day, I hope all of you have a great day...

I have spent about 2 hrs working on getting pictures up... i JUST figured out how to do it WAY quicker than i was the last 2 hrs but i have run out of time, i must go relieve kimberly of her post. so here is one picture. it sucks you cannot see inside more but it is what the view looks like from in the kitchen... *edit* ok ok i havent figured out how to post a picture on here yet... i have one attempt at about 2 minutes then i had to run... and again i dont have time to fool around with it, BUT if you click on the title (and god said "let there be sleep") it will take you to my photobucket account where i currently have about 35 pictures uploaded (man i takes a long time to upload these).