Yeah! Snow Day

Blizzard Warning for Bethel from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm. 4 to 6 inches of snow likely. Winds are stead at 25 mph with gusts well over 35 mph and we got off of work early today. It was about 1:45 pm when they officially closed the campus and Fish and Wildlife Service. This is about the same time all of the elementary schools and high school closed too. It is blowing and snowing so much that you can barely see in front of you. Of course, we live 3 miles from the center of town in a subdivision on the very northwest edge. Roads weren't too bad except for one spot about 250 yards from our house. Snow had drifted up 3 to 4 feet. I'm making some Chili and home made rolls for supper. That will really hit the spot. I'd take some pictures, but who wants to see pictures that are just white! Maybe tomorrow we will still have the wind and we will get another snow day. I have a meeting at 9:00 am that I was going to read up information on this afternoon at work. Guess that didn't happen. I did bring it home, but who knows if I will get any of it done.

Since I was never able to get that picture attached the other day, lets try it again.So what do you all think of the Lynx????? He is such a beautiful creature. Eric is going to mount him in a lying down position (full body). Well, I need to go see how the rolls are rising, so I will sign off for now~Amy

Let's see if it works this time. Nope. Guess I'll try later in the day. ~Amy

Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty

Well, Eric finally did it. Check out the beautiful Lynx he caught a week and a half ago. He's hoping to have another today. Well, I thought I would add some pictures, but I can't seem to find the add images box on the insert pictures pages. Hmm.......... Let me log out and try it again.

The Race is On!

Well, I won't be doing the sunlight update for a while because now it's pretty boring. We get almost 7 hours of sunlight. I'll start updating more on that when we are seeing sunlight late into the night. Sorry I haven't written in awhile. I switched my blog over to the supposedly "newer" google sign-in and haven't been able to sign in at all on Internet Explorer. I have to use Netscape or Mozilla.

Anywho - back to the title. Last night was the official start of the Kuskokwim 300 Dog Sled race. It is one of the bigger races that lead up to the Iditarod. First prize is $20,000! Eric and I went down to the river to watch the start last night. Interesting and definitely worthwhile to see. There were 18 entries and at least 3 or 4 of those were past Iditarod winners. The race started at 6:30 pm and the winner should roll across the finish line around noon on Sunday. Here's a few pictures from the start.Start and Finish lineI think this is Jeff King, the multi-Iditarod winner.
Some of the dogs
Notice the black booties! All of the dogs were wearing them.
Nothing like beady eyes staring at you in the dark night!

I'm going to publish this one so blogger doesn't have a fit that there are so many pictures in it. I'll be writing another showing a few pictures of Eric's snare line catch! ~ Amy

Breaking the (-) digits

Sunlight update: 6 hours and 5 minutes

Well, today we finally hit the above digits! We went from a low of -30 (-49 wind chill) on Saturday to currently 21 above and a blizzard warning. How's that for running the gammit of weather extremes! Most of that "warming" came between last night and this afternoon. In the last 24 hours we warmed up 36 degrees.

In other news, Eric went and set up his first trap line this past weekend. Hopefully soon we will have plenty of furs coming in. I really want him to trap a Lynx. I would also like a Wolverine.

Well, I'm going to sign off for this post, but hopefully will post more tonight ~ Amy

Happy New Year

Sunlight update: 5 hours and 55 minutes.

Well, we survived another year. We rang in the new year by watching the fireworks from our living room window. Lately it's been too cold out to be outside. Today's official temperature as of 30 minutes ago was -23, yest that's below zero! With windchills, it's -30. Needless to say we try to stay inside. We no longer have the dog we were sitting. His owner came last night to pick him up. Chubbs is thrilled not to have to share his house anymore. He was pretty energetic last night after the dog left.

I went back to work today. Boy was it hard going back after having 2 weeks off!

Well, I'll talk to you all later ~ Amy

Blizzard Warning

Well, I probably should have posted this yesterday, but oh well. We have officially survived our first big blizzard of the season. We had blowing snow all day on Wednesday with temperatures tetering around zero degrees to the single below digits. Winds were constant at 32 mph with gusts up to 45 mph. The house seems like it was rocking all day. What made the blizzard even more fun was that we are dog sitting for a co-worker of Eric's. Any of you that have indoor dogs know that they need to go outside to do their business. Of course since it is an Alaskan Shephard, she doesn't mind a little cold. We have her for 4 or 5 more days. She's been a really good girl. Her and Chubbs know their boundries around each other, but every once and awhile, Chubbs has to let her know that this is his house! Signing off for now ~ Amy

Merry Christmas

Well, I know this is a few days late, but better late then never. We have hit our low point as far as darkness goes. We were down to 5 hours and 37 minutes of sunlight on Dec. 20. Now we are slowly gaining sunlight back. I do mean slowly too - 5 seconds a day. That will start changing before too long though. For those of you that didn't get a Christmas letter in the mail, here is a copy of it.

You may need to save the picture to read the letter.

We didn't do too much for Christmas. Since we didn't have a tree, we took the liberty to decorate the antlers hanging on the wall. The pictures don't do it justice though. The lights are actually clear and looked beautiful.
Well, that's it for this mornings post. I'll try to post some of the house pictures this afternoon. Love and miss you all. ~Amy

Happy Belated Thanksgiving

Sunlight update: 6 hours and 19 minutes (Sunrise-10:24 am, Sunset-4:43 pm). Weather has been pleasently nice the past few days. Translate: mid 30's. We did have some snow on Sunday night, with the wind it was enough to cancel all of the flights for the day.

Sorry it's taken me so long to post an update. It's been so busy here. Okay, it hasn't. I really have no excuse.

We spent Thanksgiving at Eric's supervisors place. A few other couples from his work where there also. We had a good time, ate plenty of food, had some laughs and then went home with belly aches. We completely missed any football that was on TV. It's one of those things where you get up in the morning and football is alreay on. If we want to watch Sunday football, we have to have the TV on at 8:00 am and then it's done by 2 or 3 pm.

I do have some update information on the wedding plans though. We have finally decided where to have it. Nothing is finalized yet, but we are 99.9% sure on this. It will be in Brookings, SD. Eric, I and our parents couldn't really agree on a location around home, so Eric and I decided to do something that meant something to both of us. For those of you that don't know, Eric and I meet in Brookings at college. We are planning on having the ceremony at McCrory Gardens and the reception/dance at the Brookings Inn. Stay tuned for more late breaking information!

Well, I did my first major duty this morning as Project Director for the Talent Search program. I finalized and submitted the Annual Performance Report for the FY06 that I had no part in. Talk about giving you a challenge. It's tough putting together a report for a year that you weren't around. Oh well. It's done and over with. Hopefully they don't find anything wrong!

Well, it's time for me to be signing off - lunch break is almost over. I'll talk to you all soon ~Amy

Drew Barrymore

Sunlight update: 7 hours and 17 minutes

Well, yesterday I received what I consider as one of the best compliments someone can give a person. The maintenance guy at work asked me if anyone had ever told me that I looked like Drew Barrymore. I told him he was a first and I'd take it as a compliment. Everytime I see a picture of Drew or a movie that she is in, I will wonder if there is any truth to the compliment! What do you all think?

Wedding plans are inching along. Been doing some research on costs of reception locations, caterers, etc. It helps that I have willing people in the lower 48 to give me a hand. It's tough with the 3 hour time difference. I'll probably have to call people over my lunch hour (3:00 pm CST). Two of the three bridesmaids have been confirmed, thanks Wendy and Alethea! We also have 2 groomsmen confirmed, thanks Josh and Brett. I won't mention the third ones until we have officially asked them. Well, it's time to get back to work. ~Amy

September 15, 2007

Sunlight update: 7 hours and 31 minutes

Title got you confused? Well, it's definitely not today's date. Eric and I have finally set a date. That's right folks, September 15, 2007 is the official wedding date, so mark your calendars. We are still in the process of trying to finalize a location and time. We've been thinking about Fort Sisseton, but don't know for sure. We've been also trying to check into places in Aberdeen. We will keep you posted as things start coming together.

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas here. We got 2 to 3 inches of the fluffy stuff last night. Temperatures aren't too bad though. It's been between the high teens to mid twenties for the most part.

Eric is getting the hunting bug bad. It's tough when he can't claim residency yet (9 months to go!) to be able to hunt at the residency price. He may try to go out with one of the guys he works with to get some sightseeing in! He's also thinking of starting to trap again, which will help a little.

I will try to post more often in the future. Signing off for now ~ Amy

Rings, Curves and Work

Sunlight update ~ 8 hrs and 28 minutes

For those of you that haven't seen the engagement ring yet, here is what it almost looks like. The only real difference is that mine has 4 little chips down each side. Eric did a pretty good job picking it out all by himself ;)

I've been signing up for free catalogs (invitations, favors, etc) to get ideas for the wedding. There's so many ideas out there. I've also been checking out different forums to get ideas. It's amazing what some people are doing.

Well, I stopped by the local Curves yesterday and I will be starting to go there on Friday. I need to tone up a bit for the wedding. For those of you that don't know what Curves is, it is a gym specifically for women. It's a 1/2 hour workout that touches on all different areas of the body. It uses hydraulic resistance, so you use your own strength/body weight. I'll keep you all posted on how it's going!

Well, not much else is going on here. We are still trying to unfinish packing. I get my own craft room which is great. Working is going good. I have a year end report that is due the end of November for the past year of the Talent Search program. For those of you that don't have any clue what I do or what Talent Search is, check out our website: http://fc.bethel.uaf.edu/~talent_search/

I'm in charge of the grant, which includes putting together 6-7 week long summer camps (instructors, program leaders, etc), contacting schools/students that may be interested in the camps and writing reports. I'm also involved in helping out a couple of other camps. This keeps me busy. I'm in the process right now of trying to get information from school on this past summer's participants. That's a challenge in itself!

I'll check in with all of you when something interesting happens! ~ Amy

Happy Halloween

Sunlight update ~ 8 hrs and 39 minutes.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Today at work we are having a little party this afternoon. Yeah, free snacks, you can't beat that. A few of the ladies dressed up and they looked awesome. I was going to, but did have enough time to put into coming up with a good costume. I didn't want to do it if I couldn't give it 100%. Next year though, watch out. I'm going to get that Best Costume award. We had the Math instructor dress like a hippie, our director dress like a dracula (actually she only did the cape), one of the student works dressed like a Geisha, but the best was the lady that won. She deserved it. She had gotten an old lady mask somewhere and dress up like an elder. With her hunched over walk, she was really believeable. As much as I want to had out candy to the littles one tonight, it won't be happening. We just can't afford to buy the candy. The big bags you can get at walmart for like $8 or $9, they want $17-$20 for here at the grocery stores! We have quite a few kids in our neighborhood too, so that would add up fast.

Well, back to work for a few hours and then it's party time! Talk to you all soon ~ Amy

Rainbows, Gas, Wedding Plans and Miscellaneous

Sunlight update ~ 9 hrs and 6 minutes.
I think I'm going to start all of my posts with a "Sunlight" update. This way you all will be able to keep track of it because I know there will be questions.

Now, to get back on the subject of this post - I think I finally figured out where rainbows begin. Right in my backyard! I saw the biggest rainbow the other day. I swear this thing was at least a mile wide. Okay, maybe that is exaggerating a little, but it was huge. I was going to take a picture, but by the time I got the camera out it had disappeared. I can only imagine the size of that pot at the end of it. Man, I could have been rich! Speaking of rich, well at least money, I should be getting my first paycheck either tomorrow or Monday. It can't come soon enough. Seems like those bills follow you wherever you go. And speaking of bills, we had to fill up the truck with gas yesterday. You guys thought you had it rough, try paying $4.38/gal to fill up a 20 gal tank! That hurts.

Well, I think Eric and I have finally narrowed it down to a 3 month span on when the wedding may occur. We need to sit down and finalize the actual date sometime soon. It will probably be sometime between September and November. My summer (May - the beginning of August), is the busy period for the camps that I'm in charge of, so those months are out of the question. I won't do it any sooner, because I saw what my sister went through in trying to put a wedding together in 6 months and I really don't want to go through that either! So, I'll let you all know when I know.

On other topics, we had a power outage on Tuesday morning which lasted 1/2 hr from 7:00 - 7:30 am. Not a good thing especially when it is still dark out and you want to sleep! Hopefully this doesn't happen frequently. It's tough to get ready for work by candlelight.

I may be teaching a non-credit class for the college sometime either this winter or early spring. It will be on crocheting with the graphs. I'll probably start them small, maybe a scarf with something at the end. It should be fun and I know a few of the ladies I work with that are interested in taking it.

Well, I better get this posted before their "scheduled" outage takes place in 15 minutes. Talk to you all later ~ Amy

Daylight Slipping Away

Hello Everyone,

This is the first posting to my newly developed blog. Someone ;) down in Wyoming thought it was a good idea for me to start a blog to document my move (and life) in Bethel, AK. Well, here it is! Since we (Eric and I) don't have a digital camera yet, I can't post any pictures. Once we get a camera though, watch out! I also wanted to put this together to keep people up to date on wedding plans (which are moving slow) and my hobbies of crochet and scrapbooking. I will try to keep this updated at least once a week. Hope you all enjoy it!

Official sun-up is at 9:40 am and sun-down is at 7:24 for a total of 9 hours and 46 minutes of daylight for October 20. We get reminded of this multiple times every day on basically the only radio station that we get (NPR). It's either NPR or a Christian station. The sun-down time doesn't bother me, it's the getting up at 7:00 am in the total dark that sucks! I'm starting to get used to it though.

Anyways - I'm starting to search through my crochet patterns to see if I can find "the" pattern. For those of you that don't know, I am determined to make my own wedding dress. Wish me luck! Speaking of weddings, are you stressed yet Adrienne!

Well, I better get going.

Love and miss you all ~ Amy