Freezer Jam

I posted pictures of the raspberries from our backyard a couple posts ago. I couldn't decided for a while what to make with the raspberries. After searching through recipes online and through my cookbooks. I decided to make Berry Freezer Jam. We haven't tasted it yet so I can't say for sure if it turned out okay, but from the "spoon taste test" it tasted pretty yummie!

Wild fires

Everyone that had been to or lived in Alaska just raved about how wonderful summer was in Alaska. They say, "summer is what keeps people here."  They some how forgot to mention the huge state bird that comes out about 5:00 everyday (aka the mosquito). They forgot to mention that it rains the entire month of July. They forgot to mention that it doesn't break 70 degrees but for 4 days out of the summer so you will not even want to wear shorts and you have to take a light jacket everywhere. They forgot to mention once it stops raining that there are wild fires all over the state, so when you have to keep your windows open because houses don't have air conditioning, that the smell of smoke comes in your house. This is what the sky looked like yesterday afternoon...

What makes Alaska worth staying is the people you meet here and being with the ones you love. That is something they don't tell you about Alaska in the summer time.

Moose!

I have been so amazed by all the moose here in Fairbanks. I don't think seeing them will ever get old. It would be like seeing a giraffe on the side of the road back in Georgia. Leaving my school on base I have been seeing this cute little family of moose every day. Mama, baby one, and baby two... I have thought about naming them, but moose seem to "disappear" so that would be a very sad day.

Am I turning Alaskan?

Part of the Alaskan adventure is the winter prep. Last year since we didn't arrive until winter we had no chance to prepare. Barry was having to go to find cut down trees, load them up, bring them home, and chop wood, all in the freezing cold! It was miserable for him. This year to avoid all of that we decided to order wood. So this man comes to your house, brings wood, then dumps it in your yard, leaving you and to stack and chop it into smaller logs if you need them to be smaller. When you order the wood, you can choose how many "cords" you want and how you want it cut (halves or fourths). We  choose halves because it is significantly cheaper this way. The day finally arrived and the man with wood called and said he was on his way.  He pulled up to our back yard and...

DUMP! All over the yard! I decided to help with wood this time, since he did all the hard work in the winter and in the cold. I figured I could offer a helping hand in the summer when it was warm and secretly hoping I would be able to get some sun if I was outside! I would hand him pieces and he would chop them with an axe into smaller pieces so they would fit into our wood burning stove. (We use it for heat along with a regular electric heating system, not cooking ;)) Barry chopped all that wood by hand... Such hard work! 

JUST KIDDING! He got through with about 20 logs and realized it was NO fun! We went and rented a wood splitter from the army base and split the rest of the wood that way. Who ever invented this machine was the bomb! It was fantastic! While he split the wood, I stacked the wood. We had a nice little system going. The whole time I was thinking "I think I am turning Alaskan... my daddy would be so proud... ME, stacking wood.... who would've thought!.. I sure I am glad I have gloves on!" We finished all the wood, took the machine back, and now were all set for winter this year. 

Yard Sales

This summer I wanted to work on building my classroom supplies for indoor recess days and Everyday Math commercial games. After pricing the games, puzzles, etc at the local stores I decided I needed to go yard selling for these supplies. Now, yard selling is a whole new adventure for me. My Daddy never really liked my mom and I to go to yard sales because he said "he didn't want someone else's junk." So I was pretty excited for this new adventure. On Saturday, Barry and I woke early to go to the different sales. In case you didn't know.. July is Alaska's rainy season, so of course it was raining and all yard sales were closed first thing. We waited the rain out and started the rounds again. The first find was Scrabble Jr,  3 sets (1 of the sets being a Lakeshore set) of ABC stamps, and a Hi Ho Cherry-o Game.  Horray! I was so pumped to find them! Then the price was even better... $4 for all. Great find!

It seems that I have accumulated quite a large collection of art and craft supplies. So of course every girl needs a craft desk, right? I have been looking around for the perfect desk to refinish to turn into my perfect craft desk and I have finally found it. I had been watching a yard sale that had a desk be put together for 3 days and just waiting for Saturday for it to open. The price of this desk was unbelievable! A wahpun $5. Anything is worth 5 bucks, especially a solid wooden desk just waiting to be refinished. It was calling my name! So we purchased it, brought it home, and my sweet husband has started sanding it down for me. This will be my weekend project for the next couple weekends. I am so excited!

Sweet Raspberry

Barry and some of his friends left to go deep net fishing this evening. This left me at home to piddle around. I have been watching the raspberry bushes in our backyard and waiting patiently to pick them. So I decided to pick a few. I cannot believe how many were out there! I am so excited... especially since our wonderful garden didn't grow quite as well as we hoped. There are still tons left but I had to go in because the Alaska state bird started coming out... the mosquito. 

Trip to Anchorage

To keep my mind of being a little home sick, Barry had me go with him to Anchorage. I grew up going on "work vacations" with my parents. You know the ones, when one parent has to go work early in the morning to late at night in a wonderful city like Naples, Canada, or Palm Beach, while the kids and the other parent get to go sight seeing, go on day trips, and lay out on fabulous beaches the whole time. You know the kind of vacation? We always went on vacations like these when I was growing up. Barry had some training in Anchorage so I went on vacation, only this time I didn't have my mama or daddy to go on the day trips with me. Luckily, the mall was within walking distance of the hotel. It was raining off and on while we were there so that kind of put a damper on my walking to places. From the hotel we could see the ocean....

 Our first stop on Anchorage was Bed, Bath, & Beyond to spend all the wonderful gift cards we received from the wedding!! Woooohooo! Barry was a trooper! Doesn't he look so thrilled to be there?

On the trips I went on with my parents, 9 times out of 10, the trips were to a beach. So I would lay out and relax waiting on the meetings to get over. I had planned on doing the same on this trip. My thoughts were--- It's summer, I love summer, I will lay out, I will be tan, it will be fabulous! Well then I came back to reality and realized--- I am in Alaska! The pools are indoors, DUH! I am guessing because of the winters and the upkeep would be impossible. So I had to go to plan #2---Shopping. Luckily, I was able to get some back to school shopping done. Alaska is very beautiful during the summer time. Please notice in all of the following pictures, there is NO snow. #1 question people ask me is, "So is there always snow there?" #1 Answer is... The first snow each year (so we hear , we havent been here to experience this yet) is at the end of August early September and the last snow (this year) was May 5th. "The break up" is what the locals call when all the ice starts melting. I think it was sometime late April this year. #2 most asked question is... "So is it always night time there?" And  #2 answer is... June 21 was the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. December 21st is the longest night of the year (22- 23 hours of darkness) . Each day after Dec 21st we gain 6 minutes of sunlight. So right now  we have daylight all the time. It gets kind of like a dusk, but def not a night and day like back in Georgia. With all of the day light and temperatures being anywhere from 50s-70s each day the flowers are beautiful. Here are some pictures of downtown Anchorage.

Anchorage was lots of fun and I am so glad I was able to tag along with Barry. I hope he and I will be able to go there again soon.

The U-Hual has arrived!

For my mother's graduation gift, Barry and I gave her an all expense paid U-Hual trip to Alaska with the only requirement being, our wedding gifts, teaching supplies, and new furniture had to be on board. Woohoo! Wouldn't you love that graduation gift? (Read my mom's blog for day by day updates of the trip.) Finally, the UHual arrived! I was sooo excited, Riley and I were waiting outside at the corner of the road when it turned in. Barry and my daddy unloaded everything and my mom, Rita, and myself  directed everything coming in.

It was better than Christmas morning!

Long day of unpacking=work crew exhausted!

After we unloaded all of the things for the house we reloaded all of my school things in the U-Haul. This was even better than unloaded all of the things for the house!

This is my new classroom at Anderson Elementary School. It is on the Air Force base in Fairbanks. Unfortunately, we were not able to start setting up the room because the walls are getting painting so we had to keep everything in the middle of the room.

All week while Mama and Daddy were here, we worked on things around the house. Of course, daddy had to get up on the roof (a favorite thing of his to do) and blow pine straw. He worked on things around our house... we appreciated his help SOOOOO much! While Daddy worked on things outside, Mama and I worked on sewing curtains. Mimi would be so proud of the both of us.

This is finished product #2. I don't have a good picture of our other curtains right now. This is our living room which is connected to our kitchen. We were so proud :)

After 2 weeks of mamas and daddys being in Alaska, we put everyone on their planes and they all headed back to Georgia. It was a sad, sad day. I am already ready for them to come back!

Attention: All RVs

Apparently, the place to camp in Fairbanks is Walmart parking lot. In high school, the cool thing to do was to go hang out in Walmart Parking lot.  I guess Barry and I didn't get the memo the cool place to camp in Alaska was Walmart when we went down to Seward camping. Who would've thought! There had to have been 50 or more RVs starting  over July 4th weekend. I had been watching them come in and was able to show my parents when they arrived in Alaska. They thought I was exaggerating when I was telling them about the RVs. ha!

MOOSE!

I woke up the other morning to Riley barking, barking, barking. My mother-in-law, ran into my room and said, "There's a moose!!" We went into our guest bedroom and sure enough, a moose was just over the fence in our back yard. In Alaska, moose are very common. They are everywhere and HUGE! This is a Mama Moose. Later that day, Mama Moose brought Baby Moose to come eat some of my wild raspberries in the back yard.

Life After the Honeymoon

After Barry and I got all settled in after the wedding festivities and honeymoon, his mother came flew into town. It was her first time flying so the trip to Alaska was a BIG first flight. Barry had to work during the week so she and I piddled around town until he got off work. Luckily she was here over the 4th of July weekend so Barry was able to take a long week trip. We decided to drive down to Seward, which is a town on the coast of Alaska and about 8 hours from Fairbanks. We saw lots of wild life on our way down, moose, bear, and bald eagles. It was so cool! We camped for a couple days and did all the sightseeing around town.  The picture above is a picture of Exit Glacier in Seward, Alaska. If you ever get a chance to make it to Alaska, the coastal towns are pretty cool to see.

Santa resides in North Pole even during the summer

Barry's mother is up visiting us for a week.  We wanted to take her to see the sights of Fairbanks and North Pole area. The first stop on the list was Santa's House. *By writing the story I am exposing my (sometimes) inner blonde self.* We were all staying around talking with him. The first question out of most people's mouths when talking with me is, "So what part of the south are you from?". Santa asked me where in Georgia was I from so I was explaining. He was talking all about places he knows of in the south when I noticed his accent. It sounded like old southern talk... It was intriguing! So being friendly, I asked "Where are you from?" Santa is a smart one... he said, "Well of course I'm from the North Pole!!" Ha! I was embarrassed because who doesn't know where Santa Clause is from?!

Summer Savings Begins

I was inspired to start couponing after meeting "The Coupon Lady" from Frugal Coupon Living at Panama City. She was so fun to talk to and told me her story of why she started couponing. She was great, as well as her whole family! So I have decided to try it out for the summer. We shop mainly at the commissary so things are a lot cheaper there. I will start documenting my incredible savings via blog :) My very first couponing receipt...

hey, $4 is better than zero! I'm starting slow... 1% saved! yes! I know that is enough to make you want to get started couponing!

Riley's 1st Haircut

Barry and I have a labradoodle puppy, Riley. On Friday, I had to take him to the emergency vet. Our sweet little puppy had eaten a pair of socks and a stuffed animal toy. He started breathing really hard. Now, I know dogs paint and breath hard all the time but this was excessive. All I could think about was my aunt Jaimie telling me the story of her dog eating a leash and how it had to have surgery and how their vet told them that the things they eat can get stuck in their intestines and slowly kill them! I was horrified! So, I took him to the vet. When I got to the vet, there was a long line of people who had not been helped yet, was 5 minutes before they closed, I had no appointment, and it was Friday afternoon, of course... If you know me, then you know I have a way with explaining things to people and it helps them understand my situation and just want to help me. My daddy would call this "brown nosing" however I would like to call this "persuasive explaining". Anyways... so the point of the matter is, he was all clogged up from all of the things and that was causing him to breath hard but he also needed a hair cut. The vet said he was toooo hot... so we came home and gave him a hair cut.  The picture above his the picture of Riley on the way home from the vet and the one below is from after the haircut.

Honeymoon Adventure #6

Overall, we had a fabulous time in Maui. After experiencing the -58 degrees in Alaska and the snow until May 5th, I told Barry my vote is to go to Hawaii as our next duty station. I told him I would call the army up and just let them know how I felt about the situation. I'm sure they would love to hear my opinion! I am willing to take that sacrifice and  go to Hawaii. I am  thankful to my sweet, sweet husband for taking me here! He planned a wonderful honeymoon and I wouldn't change one part of it!

Honeymoon Adventure # 4 & 5

Saturday night we went to a luau. We got there extra early to get good seats. We definitely did get good seats... I am definitely my mother's daughter. I wear a sign around my next that says "if you are a weirdo, please sit by me and share your whole life story with me". The people sitting right next to us must have been able to read my sign. They were verrrry interesting!  They would not stop talking the entire time! They talked about them selves, their family that was in the CIA, every family member and friend that had every had been in the  military, blah blah blah! Luckily, they didn't ruin our time at the luau. It was wonderful! The food was delicious. It was a buffet line with Mahi Mahi, steak, chicken,  BBQ, lots of vegetables, and very yummy desserts. The dancers were great.. the show was great... everything (besides the very annoying table mates) was great.

We went home after the luau and had to go to bed immediately because we had a big day of fishing the next day. We woke up at 4am, Sunday morning. We had made reservations for a 6 hour fishing tour. We were so excited. We had seen picture of huge Mahi and Marlin. We got to the harbor at 5:15am, I took my motion sickness medicine, and we loaded up the boat. The boat crew prepped up on all the safety precautions of the boat, how to catch the fish once we get a bite, and warned us we may not catch any fish. We should've known when they started warning us we may not catch one, that we really may not catch one.  We waited, waited, and waited. I actually fell asleep for most of the trip....

Well we never caught a fish, not even one little nibbled! Even though there was no fish caught on the trip,  the boat ride was very relaxing and beautiful.

Honeymoon Adventure # 3

You may not know this about Barry, but he LOVES to fish. We have stopped on several occasions on the side of the road to just try out the fishing. Our trip to Hawaii was no different. He wanted to catch a fish SO badly while we were there! So we drove around a whole day finding good fishing spots. I was completely against this because all of the places he wanted to stop was off the side of a cliff and with my vivid imagination (again) I was envisioning CNN headlines: Newlyweds on Honeymoon, falls off cliff in the Pacific Ocean, body not found yet. Or, one of those great white shark's in their migration path seeing his bait and eating it and pulling Barry off the cliff.

I finally agreed on this spot. It wasn't too high up. While he fished, I laid out on the oh so comfortable rocks. Barry's first catch was a beautiful tropical fish.

I thought we were catching and releasing fish on this trip...

I told him it was probably a rare, endangered fish and he should not kill it. But as you can see, Barry had other plans for this little fish. He used it as cut bait to catch his next catch...

An eel! yuck! I was okay with this creature meeting his death because it was snapping at us and flipping around everywhere. I, of course, immediately thought it was an electric eel and was worried it would sting Barry. I wanted him to cut his line and throw it back to the ocean but all he could think about was getting his lure back! Another piece of the first fish was used to catch his 3rd and final catch of the day...

This little fish was so cute and had a happy ending. A huge wave came up on the rocks  exactly where Barry had him and the fish swam away as quickly as possible as I was cheering him on! Now we know why no locals were fishing in this spot... After this fishing trip I suggested a deep sea fishing trip, hoping it would end the side of the road trips.

Honeymoon Adventure #2

The Road to Hana

In all of the Maui tourist brochures one of the top 10 things to do was go on the "Road to Hana". So of course, we went on the road to Hana. They say the real adventure of Hana is the "getting there". Now don't get me wrong, the "getting there" part was pretty cool. In Maui, there are terrains  from all over there world on this one island. So we saw desert to rain forest. The picture below are trees in one part of the trip. We never found the name of the trees but I called them "Rainbow Trees". I thought they looked like something off of the movie Fern Gully.The bark looked like it had been painted with pastel colored paint. Pretty cool huh?

The first stop on the list was a 70 foot waterfall. I had read all about it... it is one of the most beautiful waterfalls on all of the islands and it is surrounded by the rain forest. The pamphlets said "after an easy hike up the trail you will see the waterfall".  I was so pumped! So we started walking... and walking.... Apparently, the "easy hike" wasnt quite as "easy" as we had dressed for.

The path of this "easy hike" was covered in big roots all the way up. We both wore flip flops and I had on this cute outfit from J Crew. So needless to say I wasn't quite dressed for the occasion. But we continued to keep walking, and walking... The whole time Barry was being Mr.  Debbie Doubter asking if I was sure there was a water fall on this trail. Of course I was postive there was a waterfall. I had just read the pamphlet on it! We got to a clearing in the trail and saw this sign..

I was hoping Mr. Debbie Doubter would some how miss this sign... but of course he saw it!  We had gotten to the end of the trail and had seen NO waterfall. We looked all around us, and sure enough, no waterfall! So... with great disappointment, we took our hot and sweaty selves back to the car to re-read that pamphlet that talked so positively about this "massive waterfall". Sometimes, when I get really excited while reading I skip over details. Isn't that the point of skim reading? Just to get the facts, not necessarily all the details. Well apparently, I skipped a detail that was more of a fact than just a little detail.... It stated, " when it has not being raining, the waterfall may not be visible." OPPS! Guess I missed that! Even if I had read that, how was I suppose to know that Maui is in a freak drought.  After this tiny, little mistake, we ended the road to Hana and decided to go back and come again when we were more properly dressed to hike.

Honeymoon Adventures #1

After our wedding, Barry and I stayed in Chattanooga. The next morning we met my parents at our house and they drove us to the airport. On our way we got to open our wedding gifts! Here is a picture of what the car looked like...

We flew from Atlanta to Fairbanks. In Fairbanks, we rushed home, unpacked our bags, repacked our bags, then rushed back to the airport to catch a flight to Maui, Hawaii. Our first day, we mainly got acquainted to the area, rented snorkel gear, and made reservations for several activities for the week. The second day we decided to go on our first adventure... snorkeling! I had never really snorkeled, just in the pool at Mimi &  Papas, so I was a little nervous. And the fact that  man we met at the airport was telling me this story about Great White Sharks and how their migration path was right next to Maui, so with my very vivid imagination  I was freaking out I would get eaten by one while we were snorkeling. We had a lot of  fun though... we swam with lots of tropical fish and even saw a  sea turtle! That was the coolest part!

We didnt even see a shark! :)

The Wedding Room

While I have been in Alaska, my mama and daddy have been working so hard on wedding plans. They have been so wonderful!!  They would go shopping for things then send me pictures so I could  pick out the things. Well as all of the shopping was happening, all the things had to go some where in our house. Our once called "dining room" has now become "The Wedding Room". I think we can fit a few more things in it...What do you think? Maybe it will become the dining room again once I go back to Alaska.

Silly Band Craze

So apparently while I was in Alaska this new craze has begun. I had NEVER heard of these Silly Bands until I hopped off the plane in Nashville and went to the mall. I immediately realized the world had moved of from Beanie Babies and on to this new phenomenon known as... Silly Bands. They seems a bit ridiculous to me since they are just plastic bracelets like  you would get out of a gumball machine. My little cousin had like 20 on his wrist at the beach the whole time. I've heard that some schools are starting to band these silly things! Man.. Alaska is really missing out :)

I haven't forgotten I have I blog... promise!

So,  a long over due post... For my faithful (but few) followers I have a few updates! May 14th was my last day of school. It was bittersweet. I have loved being with those children for the past few months, but I look forward to what is ahead for me. Hopefully some jobs will come open and head my way! May 18th I flew back to Georgia and I will be in the peach state till our wedding June 13th. But right before I left Barry, Riley, and I went on a little road trip to the Arctic Circle, or so we thought. Barry had some friends drive there and they talked about how cool it was. There are signs that say "WATCH FOR POLAR BEARS" and bald eagles are everywhere. This would be a once in a life time opportunity to see these things.  So we packed up early one morning to go on this Alaskan Adventure. We drove for about 2 hours and then came up on a dirt road. Thinking all highways are paved of course, we continued down the road and thought there must be some road construction. Well we drove and drove and this "road construction" seemed to continue for as far as we could see. We decided to drive just a little farther and we came up on a sign that said, "400 miles of unpaved road ahead". Now in the lower 48, if a road was unpaved for over 400 miles there definitely would have been a HUGE sign stating this BEFORE you entered on a road. But apparently the Alaskan DOT, nor did Barry's friends, think such a warning was necessary. Needless to say we quickly turned around. Riley thoroughly enjoyed our little adventure and found his new love...

Ice Park

 Barry and I went to the Ice Park to see the sculptures. They were unbelievable! Some were probably 10 feet tall.Everything was made out of ice... even the walls!                                                                                                                                                                    

This was our favorite... an underwater scene. The fish on the right was amazing in person! 

 
 We had never been so cold since we've lived here! Apparently the Ice Park is a lot colder than the rest of Fairbanks!

Spring Break: Alaska Style

I usually go to the beach for Spring Break and enjoy the white, soft, warm sand all around me... This year I am enjoying a very different white stuff around me.

 

Barry and I haven't seen parts of our house yet, because it's been covered in snow since we moved in. Today, I discovered we have grass under all our snow! Who would've thought grass could be under all that snow. We are hoping our roof isn't a blue tarp! I guess we will see after the "big break up" of snow in a couple months. We are also waiting to see if we have a drive way! :)