busy busy busy...

Alright after our VERY short stop of the posting it is continuing tonight...

We have been SLAMMED... We have gone from LARGE grocery, pop, bread, produce orders all flowing in over the last week and a half to probably close to double the population for the spring carnival. Not only is the store crazy with all the people but we have also opened up the grill which really is a wrench thrown in the whole operation.

Fortunately Kimberly and I have had some time to get away and do some fun stuff. For myself, I was able to get into a basketball tournament... like full on, referees flown out... the whole 9 yards. Its SO much fun but WOW im rusty... along with my lungs, my legs, my arteries... My anxiety level has been through the roof. BUT on a good note i am down just under 297 lbs... i was about 295 when i came up and fluctuated from 289-296 but as recent as like 3 weeks ago i was at just shy of 310... This basketball is just what i need to keep my motivation up and MOVE. As for how my team is doing, we won our first game by forfeit. Our second game we actually had to work for, we ended up winning by 4 points. And our third game we just played tonight... This game was against the Tanana High school basketball team. They gave us a run for our money, ahead the whole game until the last couple minutes. We finally tied the game in the final seconds leading us into overtime. In the last 35 seconds of overtime we were ahead by two, and were fouled which lead to 1 point on the foul shots boosting our lead to 3pts... They were unable to convert when they got the ball back... and after they fouled us again we were able to boost our lead by 2 more points ensuring our victory in the closing seconds of the game. It was AMAZING because most of the people in the gym were cheering for the Tanana boys not my team.

Then Kimberly and i were able to get into the Chichaco race. This gave me a lot of anxiety too because I have only been on dogs once before and they were slow dogs, this time i knew i had faster dogs which worried me that i would loose them... Err... they would loose me haha. We each only had five dogs though and considering they usually use 7 or more for people a third my size... my dogs got pretty tired. FORTUNATELY for me for me my dogs were WAY better than Kimberly's dogs. Hers got spooked by some guys at a corner making sure the right corner was taken, which cause them to 180 and try to run past Kimberly the wrong direction... Im SO glad i did it, it was so much fun. Not to mention I BEAT KIMBERLY! Thats right you heard... while i did get passed up (by the winner mind you) Kimberly came in 6 minutes behind me (she left 4 minutes after me). So BIG WINNER RIGHT HERE!!! Sorry John, hahaha!


Last but SURELY not least... Cynthia and Dale flew into Fairbanks after we believe Cynthia had a minor stroke. Her left side went numb while she was just sitting talking. So all I ask is for prayers. She is just so crazy stressed out with the store right now i could only imagine what she is dealing with.

We love you all and miss you all. We are so excited to see ya all again!

-Andrew

until further notice...

Alright, unforutunatly because of the political correctness expected of a blog, Kimberly and I will refrain from any further blogs...

If you would like updates email me or kimberly at:

andrew.long.t@gmail.com
or
kimberly.long.m@gmail.com

and ill add you to a mailer.

Kimberly and I are not 1st graders saying non politically correct things to get responses (beating kids up for attention). I spend time during every blog to word things as well as possible using my relationships with the people i write about to judge if it should be written or not, and its still not good enough... when the few responses we get are to tell us we said things we shouldnt have, i would rather talk to no one than to simply do this to be told we were wrong. Because of the level of public openness ill solve the problem by converting our blog to a email update to only those that would like it.

I apologize to those that follow the blog silently, I do this for you too, not for a moment expecting a response, and id be glad to continue via email if you would like to give me your email address.

We love you all back at home and we miss you so much, we cannot wait to be home.


Kimberly and I also love Cynthia and Dale, at the end of the day they are the reason we are fighting through missing our family and our home town to stay up here in a town 160 miles from nearest parts store, and shopping mall. They take such good care of us and we really appreciate them. I think when i speak of their lack of communication i dont realize my communication is lacking too. What i dont communicate about our relationship enough is the positave and how great they are.

also for those that may have cringed over things I have said, you may be thinking now im just converting to emails so i can say names and share the dirt... by no means, I dont share alot of that stuff because of my respect for the people of Tanana and all of the interior. I have lost no respect, and i have no anger or frusteration to vent about these wonderful people... It will just insure positave communication or no communication back at kimberly and I, which being away from home for the another 6 months (when we were only planning on being up here for about that long total to begin with) is what we need.

At the end of the day there is just too much to think about to please everone, i dont have 1 week to write a 4 paragraph blog to make sure i have covered all my bases... my pictures will continue comming on my photobucket account (link is in past blogs) so if you would like to see those feel free to continue checking up.

this is titled until further notice because I still trying to figure out if this is the step we need to take. Im trying to decide if this is maturity speaking or the 8th grader behind my ear. I do know that this is for you (the reader) and id hate to eliminate it because of me. It is something that kimberly and i will continue praying about.

please keep us in your prayers.

UPDATER!

Hey all,

Just to update you all of the goings on up here. On sunday last week kimberly and I had 3 bed and breakfast guests, A guy, his friend and his son. They had plans to spend the morning and afternoon of the next day going out towards the tozie (sp) river and invited me to come along. Its about an 80-90 mile round trip to the Tozie, but we made it about 21 miles out and stopped to have lunch smoked fish strips and cookie dough, haha. I am addicted to snow machines! The trip was SO much fun, the going was fairly slow, we went about 5 miles off the trail (paralleled the trail) and the going is SO slow... the snow is soft and hard, and there isnt a section longer than 3 feet that isnt up and down. Once we got back to the trail on our way back it was nice, it was still really bumpy but there were flat sections and alot of the time you could double up big bumps (jump over a dip). Cynthia and Dales snow machine is SO nice, the suspension welcomed bumps and allowed me a fairly comefortable ride. Im hooked, which REALLY sucks because we have about 1 more month of snow then i may never get to ride a snow machine again.

Kimberly went for a ride too, but she rode dogs instead. There is this race comming up called the chichaco (sp) race. Its a race for people that have never been in a race before and kimberly is STOKED to be in it... She is kinda bummed, the guy that is giving her dogs to run has the oldest biggests slowest dogs of anyone with dogs... so basically she will loose. Its not about winning but it kinda takes some of the fun out of it.

Kimberly and i have started volunteering our time for the Dog Mushers too, we are marking the 3 mile trail for the races at the end of the month, which basically consists of hacking down willows and running them out there and stabing them into the snow by the trail. By the way, this race is entirely out on the river. And speaking of being on the river, i was able to go a ways out on the river where the Tanana River meets the Yukon River, but up there the snow has blown off the ice... so your driving over patches of clear ice, talk about scary... especially because if your accelerating when you hit the snow it accelerates hard and the second you hit the ice the track spins and the back end wonders no matter how fast you are going.

The weather is around 0 or just under lately. The wind is always blowing, generally its never too hard though. Except for 2 days ago its been pretty sunny all day long. which lasts from about 8 am to 9pm.

We are in the middle of a HUGE order. Great timing might i add... we will probably be getting stuff in for the next week and a half and, we are going to be SLAMMED next week because thats the week of the races.

I had a boy experience recently too... It brought me down to earth. Kimberly and I got a call from Cynthia and Dales bookkeeper about mid week this last week. She had a whole list of stuff we didnt do right, a couple checks that we should not have accepted, and she finished up the conversation talking about finding the Irondog information, this information was all the billing information such as how much fuel (about 1100 dollars worth of fuel) and a running store bill for the guys that were breaking and marking the trail (i think about another 400 dollars)... My frustration boiled over and i told her how i was frusterated with some things. It wasnt too bad it was a calm conversation, i just wanted to voice some frustrations.

Well one of the things i never took into account was the fact that her son died in january, and she was having a blue day... Kimberly found the the Irondog bills, and i left a message on her answering machine that we found the stuff and i faxed it to her. She called back about an hour later and told me that she was sorry, and that she didnt want us to get the idea that we were not doing a good job. She was just mad that day (about the loss) and she said she was still mad but that its just a rollercoaster thing every day is up and down.

I quickly realized i decided to voice my frusterations on the wrong person, just a friendly reminder that im not as mature as i sometimes think i am... there is always more growing up to do.

by the was we just heard about a snowmachiner that died last night... he was going fast and hit a wire (they think it was like a wire comming down from a telephone pole). It was in Galena, so it wasnt someone from around town, but it Kimberly and I are thinking it was a guy that came through Tanana yesterday on his way that direction. so please pray for him and his family.

some much needed praise

hey everybody!
its kimberly. im sitting here on the floor watching some t.v. enjoying life and felt like writing. i wasnt quite sure what to write but thought that maybe you guys would want to hear about things we rarely talk about: the small things. ya know andy and i always talk about our job or our future or our frustrations or something but i think today i want to talk more about praises and small stuff.
first off, i dont know if you guys remember andrew talking about his inability to sleep throughout the night, but just because he hasnt written about it lately doesnt mean the problem has been solved. he gets by every night by popping melatonin or tylenol pm (for those really tough nights). however, he woke up this morning just ecstatic (and i was a bit surprised). see, every morning i wake up at least an hour before andrew and then have to spend 20 minutes shaking and pushing him to get him to crawl outta bed! but, today i ran downstairs to grab coffee and when i got back upstairs, there he was! awake, standing and helping me make coffee!! so, how cool is that? he said he got the best sleep he has in a year! and, he thinks it might be the new vitamins we bought in town. hopefully, nights keep going well. but, i am just so thankful (and he is too) for last night!
also, some of you know that i picked up beading last summer when cynthia taught me how to make a hair barrett. well, so, i started my work last june and just this last week finished it! it took me forever! when cynthia saw the finished masterpiece she exclaimed, "its amazing what you can do in 9 months!! see, for a normal person the piece i did wouldve taken probably 3 weeks max!! so, my friend and i are excited to start another project. shes out of town right now but when she gets back she is going to help me put fur on my gloves (i bought beaded glove tops and the gloves) so we just need to put it all together. once thats done, i am going to bead (on mooseskin!! my barrett was on felt) glove tops for any. i picked out a sunflower design and i thought that would be great because andy loves orange and blue. my glove tops were made with felt from a friend and they are beautiful. they have a white background, purple and blue flowers and green leaves. the design is beautiful and it will be years until i can bead as good as the maker of my gloves!! anyway, the real blessing here is that i finished my barrett and have met some great women working on them. another friend of mine works nightshift at the elders residence and just told me today that she was going to cut out square moose skin patches for me to start andy gloves on. i will be going to the elders to bead with her more this week which i am excited for. so, i ve got two wonderful people who are willing to work with this slow, slow SLOW beader!
also, our whole vacation was a huge blessing (which i know andy talked about)but it was sooo cool to go to the native bible church, it felt like home and we got to see some familiar faces. plus, there were so many great stories from people in the congregation who needed prayer and who just wanted to praise God. the whole trip it seemed like God was trying to catch my attention. i went to a bead store to pick up the colors for andy's gloves and there was this great amazing native woman who just radiated God. she was constantly singing his praises while she was on the phone and her and i get into a refreshing conversation about the villages and Gods miracles. she had 2 amazing stories of how God had healed friends of hers from cancer and other illnesses. i shared some stories with her too and after we talked i ran back to the hotel ecstatic to tell andy all about how blessed i was through this woman. the woman told me that she wanted to be in her village sooo bad but that there were no jobs for her or anyone and nothing with the hopes of retirement. she was 62 and had to work and own her beadstore just so that she could get by. but, she said that even though she doesnt know what she was doing with the store, as long as God gave her a big mouth she was going to talk to everyone she could! how cool huh?! well, then when i got back to the hotel, andy left and i was watching oprah! denzel washington (my fav actor ever) was on and the whole episode was about people who had changed your life and helped you in tremendous ways. then denzel talked about God for like 10 straight minutes. he said he thought he was s'pose to become a preacher but that he discovered acting was his way of setting an example for everyone and showing them his faith. i was amazed! i think God was really trying to get my attention that day! so, it was a fabulous day....topped off by flowers that andy surprised me with when he got back from the store! it was our 6 month anniversary. so, lately ive just been trying to praise God in as many ways as possible. he always looks out for andy and i and has allowed us to take this job and love it and meet new people, gain relationships and really gain a solid foundation for our marriage.
also, two more things. first, andy got to meet with the Brice Construction worker today who hires people and he said that if they needed anybody this summer he would definitely take andy on. he wassnt sure if he would need him though, simplee because its a union job and everybody from the previous year was planning on comin back so far. he said he'd keep us posted. so, thats a good thing.....at least the opportunity is there. and then, another friend has been comin in almost daily with questions about the bible as he studies it. hes been asking what the 430 years meant in galatians and other questions. its nice because andy and i are challenged to look up scripture. so, all in all, andy and i have a lot to be thankful for and i think its important to remember God in all the small things that have been happening lately.
so, with that in mind, i am going to go melt some delicious chocolate and dip it in strawberries for desert tonight. let me tell you that strawberries and chocolate may be the best blessing of all! especially since andy and i got to see real fresh fruit for the first time since christmas this past weekend!!! my recipe plan for this week is zucchini bread!!! fresh zucchini!!! thank you LORD!!!
we love you all!!! very much!!

Fairbanks Trip

Kimberly and I just got home today. The trip was amazing, filled with its ups and downs... the second we climbed into Dales vehicle in fairbanks he asked if we were able to put some money in the ATM machine (cynthia, bless her heart, couldnt find the power switch on a computer, let alone get into and load an ATM, haha). Well it hit me right then that i had forgotten, not only that but i had left a stack of 1260.00 dollars worth of 20's out in the computer room (whats worse is we even had a bed and breakfast guy here at the time so i left 1.25k out in the computer room with a random guy here.... BOY was i excited to call her and get a lecture on handling their money... FORTUNATLY it clicked with me right when i called her that it wasnt just sitting out in the open, i did put it in a drawer... then the next day she was trying to put money in the machine and she couldnt find the key, it ended up being on the floor below the key rack (must have fallen off) which made me feel good because i said it should have been haning up.

Basically god was looking out for us, everytime something came up that could have hurt our time in the city, a problem i though was a mountian ended up being a mole hill.

We were able to make it to the Native Bible Church that Dave and Marcy Joseph run (the missionarys that picked us up the night we got to alaska in october). It was great and it was nice to be in a more modern church with modern songs!

We spent about 1400.00 dollars on the 3.5 days we were in town... there were big ticket items like 350 dollars for the hotel, and 290 bucks for grocerys to bring back to tanana (from sams club (like costco)). We both needed clothing, socks, shirts, kimberly needed jeans... so the money was well spent it wasnt just sticking it in the toilet and flushing. By the way, we were semi celebrating our 6month aniversary.

The weather was about -25 today... its funny because it was actually more comefortable at -25 with no wind than -6 with a slight breeze... the only difference is when there is no breeze and its really cold, only your exposed skin gets cold, to the point of burning, but when its 20 degrees warmer with a slight breeze your whole body is cold. we have had a slight dusting of snow but nothing significant.

Dale has basically garanteed A job this summer... if its removing asbestos from the hospital or working in the store, we have a job.. SO, its looking like kimberly and i will be sticking around till the end of summer then comming home... ultimately we have decided that if we come back in july with 16k in our savings it will be barely be enough for a house downpayment in portland, and we dont really want to spend the time and money comming home for 3 months during the summer just to come back up next year... So, we just want to work, get it over with, then come home and stay home. Especially because we would like to see what kind of options we have getting into realestate when we come home, 16k is just not enough to get us in the door... if we can double or tripple that this summer we will be good, and we would like to give that a shot.

We love you all, thanks for reading the blog! We know alot more people read the blog than is represented by the posts. And while we LOVE responses, we also love to provide this update for those too busy to spend the time to respond all the time.

back to the future

HEY ALL!

Just a little update here. The weather has started warming up after a short cold spell. The temperature this morning was about -30 compaired to -40 the past couple days. The sun is pretty high in the sky now, it barely beams straight into the store anymore. What i mean is its SO high that as its going over the store that we dont hardly get more than an hour of direct sunlight into the store. Its light at 8am now and its getting dark at about 7pm. Last sunday we got a light dusting of snow... unfortunatly I wasnt feeling well and kimberly and i slept the rest of the day away. We are both getting over our illness now, after dealing with a cold for a week and a half im finally cleared up and kimberly has delt with a little upset stomach on and off... I keep telling her its probably morning sickness (hahaha). I cannot for the life of me figure out why she doesnt find it funny though!

Kimberly and I have had alot of talks lately about our future, specifically our lifestyle and job situation. I was going to apply to be an Alaska State Trooper. Considering the dangers of the job, the minimal pay (it was decient but nothing i couldnt get around our family and freinds in portland) and the fact we would have had to spend 4 months apart while i was at the Trooper academy then I would have been locked in for a 2 yr contract working up here... I didnt fill the application out. Then dependant on what kind of money we come home with I REALLY want to get into real estate, either rentals, or buying and repairing and selling, basically Im excited to invest our money into real estate, and how exactly im working on figuring out, I just see it as a job that has the ability to be very profitable, and enjoyable at the same time... and kimberly is having a hard time swallowing the whole "investment" side of it and the possibility it wont work out. not only that but she is afraid it will work out too well, and that we would live how she never wanted to, expensive toys, BIG nice house, new cars... I agree with that, but at the same time i dont want to be paying off credit cards because we didnt have the money to cover the morgage one month, or an unexpected event happened costing us money we dont have. Im excited to see how this summer works out because that will decide our future basically.... of course not that a NON real estate job automatically means we will be living paycheck to paycheck. Right now its just a matter of laying everything out there and weighing the pros and cons... and last but by FAR not the least, we just need to put it in gods hands.

I would love to write more but my beautiful bride is stranded in the store with a bladder about to burst, so i must relieve her of her dutys (no pun intended ;) )

We love you all SO much and we cannot wait till the time comes we get to go back to portland and see you all again!

P.S. I put some more pictures up, of the Iron Dog race... you can find the link in past blogs (i dont have time to look it up at the moment).