CHRISTMAS!... and cleaning.

I would like to wish all who read the blog a merry christmas! I would also like to thank those of you who took your time to write a card to Kimberly and I... Its difficult to deal with being away from family during a time like christmas, and many people had our backs by sending a small piece of home to us.

Christmas for us was fairly non eventful, EVERYTHING except like 2 gas stations and the only movie theater were closed on christmas... leaving us with little to do. BUT we did prepair for a feast the day before... we had a precooked spiral cut ham, rolls, home made mashed potatos, and green bean cassarol. It was nice because there was NOTHING to do so it gave us something to keep us busy.

Since then we have been REALLY busy, I have been spending nearly every waking moment taking kimberly shopping or cleaning up after her (Jon i have told you before and ill tell you again... you were right). This moring i rolled out of bed at 7:45 allowing kimberly to sleep another 45 minutes. I came out to the living area (i say that because the computer room, living room, dining room, and kitchen are all one big room) SUPER excited to grab a bowl of cereal and a cup of orange juice and kick back and watch my favorite channel... SPEED... but no, i come out only to realize every last bowl was somewhere in the large mountian of dishes spewing out of the sink... so i spent the next hour before kimberly came out cleaning up the kitchen and doing dishes.

As much as I may seem serious about this frusteration, I am only joking (kinda, haha). I love kimberly with all my heart and if i have to buy a street sweeper to clean up after her, if that is what i have to do to keep her ill do it in a heart beat. She is the one that made this christmas alone so special and fun. I truely got lucky with this one! to put this in fishing terms god equiped me with 20lb line and somehow i hooked my 165... er 123lb fish ;). I could not be more excited to spend the rest of my life with my beautiful bride Kimberly.

As for our plans for the rest of the trip... we are not sure where it will take us. We will probably be going to chena hot springs for a night, but beyond that i dont know. Today (actually in 1 hr exactly) i need to be at fred meyer for an eye exam so i can get some contacts.... it will be nice because in the cold glasses are so frusterating... you get them really cold being outside the the second you open a door to a warmer area the fog up like crazy... im excited to be able to see and not have to deal with the frusteration of glasses fogging and being dirty.

We love you all it was great... wait... AMAZING to hear from those that we did from the phone call from kentucky, to the family down in portland... we love you ALL and miss you so much. Have a happy new years!

ITS COMMING!

CHRISTMAS! yes as if you all didnt know it... Kimberly and I are having to remind ourselves lately because without family around its sneaking up on us SO fast! Ultimately christmas will be what it has never been for either of us before, we will both together be alone. That is setting in for each of us, It seems we are more excited for the break from the village than we are for christmas.

Now i must elaborate on that, The village is great, and the people are wonderful. We are just city folk, missing the family, resturants, dozens of grocery stores with competitave prices in 2 miles driving distance... everything. It will be nice to get taste of it in fairbanks! We are also VERY excited to go to the interact missionarys church in fairbanks. The AMAZING couple that picked us up and made us feel at home when first arriving in fairbanks. I have pictures of the church on my photobucket account (see past posts for a link).

We love everyone so much, we REALLY appreciate the christmas cards we have recieved! They do mean alot, Everyone in Kentucky has been amazing to Kimberly and I... And just to put a bug in your ear, Kimberly and i are thinking of maybe a short time after we come back to portland going on a road trip out that direction. We really appreciate all the love of ALL of out family!

As for the other stuff like weather and what not... Its been cold and cloudy... it didnt get light today at all because the clouds are so dense. The temperature has dropped we are now getting back into the - degrees.

*update* Well i wrote the above on sunday morning, I got up to snag some lunch then Kimberly and I were off to go run some dogs. We jumped on the snow machine and took off. To save from a bible long entry I will skip some details about the setup of the sled, the dogs, and get right to the ride. It was amazing, the dogs just GO. Ultimately i know i was probably lucky to hit 12-14 mph with them but it was really cool. The man that took us lead the sled with Cynthia and Dales skidoo (kimberly rode on the back of that) and he took intermittant stops to allow the dogs to rest, unfourtunatly going up a big hill he took a bit too long of a stop and the snow machine overheated (its air cooled and with no cool air flowing into the motor there is no cooling going on) I am fairly certin that it did no damage to the machine as it had done it before and i dont think they would make it without an automatic kill of some sort if it gets too hot not to mention the fact it did that about 2 weeks ago when kimberly and i went out... we stopped and walked away from it only to come back and have it not running and take awhile to start. Well the man took his dog team to turn them around as we were just about at the turn around anyway thinking i would have it running by the time he got back to us. I didnt... not only that but it finally started then began to die, i tapped the throttle and it backfired and died anyway... that backfire blew the exhaust manifold gasket. Fortunatly an amazing man in the village just happened to be comming back on his snow machine from getting water from the creek a couple more miles out the road. That totally bailed kimberly and I out because at that point i still couldnt get it to run and only one of us could ride back in the sled... I would have to have been the one to go with him because i was the only one comefortable starting any other machines to get back out there and there was no way i was going to leave my wife at least 5 miles from town in - temperatures by herself. So the guy with the dogs took kimberly and the other guy waited a second for me to try to get the snow machine running, it started but it was ungodly loud and scared the crap out of me... especially because i didnt know if the exhaust manifold was the exact problem or something worse... so after driving it about 100yards i stopped and just jumped on the other guys snow machine. He drove me back into town where he dropped me off at the store to grab a quad and he actually dropped his water off and grabbed rope and drove out there ahead of me to tow it back himself. I get back to the mushers house to pick up kimberly and get back on the road to get out to the snow machine... we get out there and the guy is all tied up and ready to start towing it home.

All i can say about that is god was looking out for us. the planets alligned and it worked just right, just the right man happened to be on that road at that time who could help us that much... god and that man are so good (haha)

then we come home, the musher told us that a neighbor of ours asked him to cut their wood and he said i could do it if i wanted some money (just a chain saw). so after we get home Kimberly and I ran over there. Come to find out they didnt have a chain saw (theirs had broken) so i couldnt cut it, it didnt matter to them though because they had just enough to last them till morning and another guy was comming in the morning to cut some. BUT this lady has wanted us to come over and hang out since we met her about a month and a half after we got here (she was out of town), she is a huge friend of Cynthia's. So we hung out there and talked to her and her man friend (she was married, he died and she met this guy, they havent gotten married but they have lived together for years). We FINALLY ditched out at about 9pm only to find out that the answering machine that was empty before we went over there was now full of 5 messages from 3 different people including Dale all trying to get ahold of kimberly and I because some grocerys had come in and they needed to get into the store to drop them off... just so happened that before we could check those message though the guy delivering them came by the house... he said he had left his van running for the last hr because he didnt want the grocerys to freeze and he couldnt get ahold of us... i ran down and helped him unload them, then came up only to hear the frusterated sounding messages on the machine from people that seem to think we are there just ignoring the calls.

Its hard for kimberly and i to process this... Ultimately we did NOTHING wrong, it was out day off and we were at one of Cynthias friends houses chatting... and its just depressing us to think about people frusterated with us... I called people right away when things happened today, i called dale right when we got home from towing the skidoo home to let him know, and i called the 2 people on the answering machine right after i unloaded the grocerys to let them know we were not ignoring them in the back room... yet after every conversation people dont sound up beat, relieved or anything. I know its me reading into it too much but Dale didnt seem happy with us at all (either call, understandably after the first one) and the other lady that called looking for us sounded like she didnt care where we were. Its hard to deal with, Kimberly and I are both home sick (we are both pretty sure its due to christmas with just eachother and no family) and it seems we cannot please anyone. I know its going to work out and we will be fine... I just cannot wait to be there, and not here.

Oh Happy Day

Hello everyone! this is kimberly. i apologize for not being on here much. most often i dont get to the computer until after work, which is usually when andy is on it! he dreams of cars and looks up all kinds of turbo stuff - which all of you could guess how many HOURS that can take! first off, i must apologize to ALL of you who were so wonderful at Andy and I's wedding. i know its been months and we have not got "thank you" cards out yet but that doesnt mean we dont appreciate everything. i know a lot of you devoted time and energy and decorating and juice-making to help andy and i out and we so appreciate it! also, to all of you who gave us gifts, we LOVE them! and im not just saying that either. we had such a blast opening them all and enjoying everything you gave us. i know we havent been using most of it since were up here in cold, dark tanana but i know they will be put to good use back in oregon. so, because i cant say it enough - THANK YOU!!
so, lets see.......things have been going along like usual. andy and i are working hard and enjoying life. although, andy has contracted the flu i believe. he started out with awful migraines for a few days, then a hot-cold temperature, really bad back pains and just kind of all over weak feelings. so, y'all could keep him in your prayers, and me too.....i dont want to get it!
i am s'pose to go dog mushing either today or tomorrow with a really nice lady. i dont know when it will work out though because Dale will be flying in today to drop off christmas toys and gifts to sell and if he comes in i need to run the store so andy can help him unload the plane and poick him up. we'll just have to see how it goes. also, the weather plays a factor; if its too cold the dogs dont run too good and we recently had a drastic change in temperature. it was above zero for a few days (almost a week really) adn then all the sudden went down to 10 below. which really isnt that cold, it just feel drastic because 10 above is soooo warm!
so, lots of you have been asking to know what the daylight is like....its been like a 6 hour sunrise lately. the sky is pretty cloudy but right above the horizon the sun peeks out and walks along the horizon making the sky turn a beautiful pink/orange color for about 6 hours. sometimes the sun comes above the horizon fully and sometimes it just stays below the clouds. other than that, its just weird to see where teh sun rose back in october and where the sun is rising now in december. the warm temperatures are bad on the river, there is lots of overflow. andy and i wont be travelling across the river for quite a while! we did see the aurora borealis about 2 weeks ago. andy was out at the cabin next door putting more fuel in it when he looked about and saw the "swirlies". he came upstairs and told me to look out the window. it was sooo beatuiful. mostly green colored but very cool and fast moving. every time you blink it looks different.
ya know, i must talk very well about my husband because he is quite amazing. he has become quite the big handyman around here. right now he jumped outta bed when the phone rang to go to the post office because they couldnt get the sliding door open so all the packages and mail was stuck outside. andy is gonna go see if he can thaw it out or find a way to open it. the post office has a key and it wouldnt work so we may all have frozen mail today! people really appreciate him here and the other day he got sooo many compliments because he took down the old "message boards" which were so stapled up you couldnt even put another flyer up. then he flipped em over, painted them and even stenciled out the words "tanana message board" before posting them back up on the wall. they are quite large too. but he didnt do it for compliments, i think andy is a lot like my dad and just likes to have things clean and orderly looking. it was beginning to look pretty messy and "that'll never do."
so, this is our life, we just go about our routine. the stores been pretty busy, weve been working hard to keep it up. its one of those things that if you dont work on it every day (ie; cleaning, mucking, sweeping, fronting shelves, stocking pop three times a day) it goes bum real fast.
oh, i almost forgot. one more thing y'all could pray for. this young girl, maybe a little younger than me, is pregnant and very sweet. she always calls me to set up a time to do a bible study together but so far we have rescheduled probably 10 times. i would really love to be her study buddy and so just pray that we can meet up and read the bible. she is 7 1/2 months pregnant and i dont think the boyfriend is around. she has just been a blessing to andy and i though, because she goes to the church in fairbanks that andy and i have a connection to. (the missionaries who picked us up back in october are the pastors of that church) and then also, she gave us a christmas card and is just so sweet. so, i would really like to get to know her better.
oh, pray also that we can get some sunday school material while we are in fairbanks so that we can start teaching after the first of the year. i think we are both nervous.
so, thats it i guess. andy and i are very much loving our life together and things are working out pretty well. andy and i are always amazed when we think about what a blessing this whole trip has been and all of the credit goes to God! we love you guys!

OUCH! Those are my feelings your stomping on!

So Tuesday i believe this last week a REALLY nice lady came into the store to pay off her bill, only this day she had a bee in her bonet and it was me that got stung. See Kimberly had written on her bill "Watch closely, owes on previous bill", well just so happened the day before is when she saw that. It was wednesday that she decided to bring it up though. When she handed me the check to pay her previous bill off, she let me know how mad she was that we wrote that on her bill, that she has been here longer than us... I apologised, and told her why we did it, how it was just simply a note for US, there is one man that just paid off a 700 dollar bill today when he wasnt supposed to go over 200 because a new bill comes, and the store clerk forgets about the previous balance of 400 dollars before their new bill is at 350... and considering most of the people in the village have little to now income that is a HUGE mountian to climb. When she told me about how she had been here longer than us, i simply told her i understand that (well first off, i didnt tell her this but how long she has been here has NOTHING to do with it) but i told her Cynthia and Dale have been here longer than me and this is their store. Ultimately the bill was paid, she left, i havent hardly seen her since (once infact) and she didnt hardly say anything to me, If it was because she didnt feel good about how her or I handled it i dont know, but its over, my feelings were released from the vise they were pinched in and i am sleeping easy.

Today we celebrated my birthday (an excuse to open my gifts early). Amazing kimbelry bought me a new guess brand watch (my other one was demolished when it cought on a door latch). And some very cool slippers... they fit ALOT nicer than hers, hers ended at about mid heel on me which lead to pain after about 15 minutes, its nice to have my own, and im sure she appreciates hers back (haha).

Now to how AMAZING our bosses are! Dale came into town Thursday, He brought with im a bunch of toys and fresh produce for the store... not to mention some birthday gifts for me. Kimberly asked them to get some glove liners for me because i had lost one of mine... so they picked up some new glove liners and a cool thin insulated jacket... Kimberly cut them a check for those but out of their own pocket they got me a gift AND a birthday cake (which i must say is amazing). But the gift the got me is above and beyond! They got me BRAND new carhart insulated coveralls. they are amazing, ive had the same kind before and i worked the life out of them at SAIA, they ended up in the garbage can they were so torn up, i am SO excited for these though. It is so nice to have experiences like those... not just the gifts, but to have dale come in and not have anything bad to say about how we are running their store... it just feels so good.

Ive put some pictures of the dog race up, im still working on more currently there are 128 pictures with 5 uploading, so if you go and there are more pictures i have continued to work on it... but im exhausted, kimberly and i went for a walk tonight and i am beat.

thank you for reading the blog we love you all! I must say i am sorry once again for the long time inbetween blogs, i was about to write one on tuesday while my feelings were still in a vise but i ended up having to run down to the store to help kimberly and between the two guys in the bed an breakfast, dale, and the store, we have been uber busy this week.

Dances with wolfs.... er... Natives

Alright all I must apologise for not blogging recently, it makes for large updates when it happens.

Kimberly and I are doing great! The weather has been very different lately... going from -40 with wind chill, to positave 10 in about 4 days. The snow fell again last monday, we recieved another couple inches over the week. The store is once again clean... Kimberly and I devoted some time to it last night after hours. We swept and mopped the floor, emptied the garbage cans, cleaned up some areas in the back of the store... Its really nice to have it back up and perdy looking. The ice is still ice, we have been told that after a heavy snow the ice will get submerged into the water, then refreeze, it was supposed to do that a couple times then it was going to be "safe" to walk on. I was told today by a good native friend that he wanted to take me across the river and take me hunting. Its really exciting to talk to him about it. He told me I should not talk to the other locals about it because the dont feel as open to "white people" as he does.

There was a Dogmushers fundraiser dance at the hall on friday night (12-1-06). I told people all day that we would most likely not show, I know that events like that are more of a party environment not so much a town meeting environment, and sure enough there was. There was alot of drinking going on durning the event. It was still nice to get out and see the town, the people, and hang out at the events. The biggest reason why we went was so that Kimberly could sign up for the passanger race... A passanger race is a race where there is a musher and you guessed it, a passanger riding in his sled. Kimberly got to ride with a really nice man. He asked us to come a bit early to his house so that he could get us comefortable with the sled, the dogs, and inform kimberly what her dutys were going to be during the race, basically he just told her that if they crash she needs to throw the anchor into the snow and stand on it so he can go straighten out the dogs without them running away. It was really an amazing site... Imagin about 25 dogs each with their own dog house, and about a 4 foot chain holding each of them to their own individual post in their own "property" (about 8' diameter circle). When the Musher got the HUGE bundle of harnesses out they ALL went TOTALLY CRAZY! ALL 25 of the dogs are sprinting in circles in their own little area... ALL 25 dogs barking and yelping... and MANY of them jumping up on their houses waiting on the ride. When they hooked them up they had the sled hooked up to a snow machine, that was done so that they could get the dogs hooked up without them running, it took about 10 minutes for 3 people to hook up the 10 dog team, and 1 by 1 as it was hooked up each one nearly scratched through the snow to the dirt by trying to leave, they were all fighting against the snow maching. Another reasont they hooked them up to the snow machine was because they didnt want them to get burnt out by the time they got to the starting line, so the snow machine held them back to prevent them from running full bore.

We finally got to the starting line, its a staggard race start, so i believe about every 2 minutes another team would leave. Kimberly was the 3rd team to leave. about 15 minutes after the last team left the first team came in, followed about 50 yards later by the 2nd team to leave. about 3-4 minutes later a team comes over the hill, it was Kimberlys, unfourtunatly shortly followed by the 4th team to leave (meaning that team made up the 2 minute staggared start just like the 2nd team did to the 1st). Her musher said he that was a horrible race, one of the worst, he had no idea his dogs would be that slow. He also told us that he knew he wasnt going to win unless basically the other teams fell off the edge of the earth, he looked at his calandar after telling us that, and told us that because of the construction he has not hardly been able to get his dogs out... He told us last year that he had 320 miles on his dogs by the 2nd of dec... He said hes gone about 24 miles on them this year so far, so they were ALL wild, not only that but they were all his small dogs untrained dogs, he knew he wasnt going to be able to get his big dogs trained out here so he sent them to fairbanks, im assuming to have them trained, but possibly just to put them in housing for the winter since he wasnt able to get them out. All in all it was a great opportunity, it was awesome to hang out with the people, and it was just fun to see. I have pictures ill work on getting up.