Christmas and re-capping 2008

I had all intentions of sending out a picture Christmas card this year. That didn't happen because we have to bundle up to go outside and neither of us wanted to bundle up to go outside for 10 minutes. At home, bundling up means putting on an extra shirt or pair of socks. Here, bundling up means thermals, boots, and an extra shirt. Sorry.

With that card, I thought about writing a newsletter. I hate the word newsletter, we're not that interesting.

So anyway, this year actually was sort of interesting for us. We were engaged March 1st and Kyle left for basic on March 18th. We went to San Antonio to see him graduate in early May. He immediately went to Wichita Falls, TX for tech school. We visited him for a week that summer and I realized that I hate Texas. It's a good thing because Kyle hates it, too so I know we won't be going there on our own free will.

He got back home the night of our rehearsal dinner. We got married September 20th and left for Alaska October 3rd.

It was a long drive. I don't recommend it. Yea, we went to other states but theere was nothing to see. Canada was cool, though. I do recommend Canada.

We got to Elemendorf in mid-October. After two short weeks in TLF, we got our house. There are no pictures of it because, honestly, it's nothing special. It's SMALL and bland. We haven't hung very many things up yet so it doesn't look like a home.

The cats got here mid-November. Olive will actually go outside but Jude has a fit if you even take him into the garage. They definetly make this place feel more homey.

We spent Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve at Dominic and Autumn's house with a few other people the guys know from tech school. Kyle spent Christmas day playing Xbox with Engal (a friend from tech school) while I was upstairs watching a Degrassi marathon. It was nice to just relax.

I apologize for the lack of pictures of us on our blog. We just don't take pictures of each other. Plus, Kyle is pretty awful at taking pictures. I leave you with pictures of goings-on Christmas morning...

This is the box that Kelly's gifts for us came in. The box from my mom is actually inside it. The cats play in it and Olive sleeps in there. I call it Olive's house because when she lays in it, there isn't room for Jude. He just sits outside it like, "pleeeeeaaaaase let me in."

It snowed like crazy Christmas morning and a ton of birds kept flying over the house. They loved to get up in the window and watch it all.

This was their first Christmas and they loved all the wrapping paper. Olive would get under it and jump out at Jude.

I hope all these cat pictures don't make me the crazy cat lady. I'm not ready to be that just yet.

Frozen trees

Kyle told me that his mom really wanted to see pictures of these trees. He hounded me every day for three or four days to take them.

I had a day off earlier this week so I took them. When I talked to Kelly, she said she didn't know what he was talking about and she didn't remember saying anything about wanting to see these trees.

Turns out, Kyle just thought she'd like to see them and decided to hound me for days on end.

Anyway, enjoy the trees!

The 7.5ft. tall Charlie Brown tree

I've been told by a few people that the little tree in our front yard isn't really a Charlie Brown tree. Ok, ok, that's true. Our real Christmas tree, however, is Charlie Brown-ish.

It's 7.5 feet tall and 3 feet wide. When you look at it, you can see straight through it. I'm willing to bet that I could stick my arm right through the tree. We messed around with the branches but Kyle kept complaining that he needed gloves because it was hurting his hands (he is SO DRAMATIC) and I was hungry. So he stopped and I made dinner. He said we need more ornaments but then said we don't...because we don't. There are enough ornaments but you can only really see the pretty red ones. I have another set of red ones to put up but I forgot to get hooks for them. Out of all the ornaments I bought, those were the only ones that didn't come with strings to hang them with. We also put up the 2008 ornament from Aunt Connie (thank you!) and the little Russian ones from Nana & Poppop, those are so cute! Hopefully the sun will come out again tomorrow and I can get better pictures. Believe it or not, I took 5 or 6 and this was the best one.

Work

If you don't know, I work in a small, drive-thru coffee shop in Anchorage. These shops are really common up here, Heidi (my boss) told me that at one point, there were 80 of them in Anchorage. Now there are around 50.

This is the entire shop. The espresso machine is in the back. The area to the left is where the drinks are made. The mocha powder, cups, and milk are also there. The area on the right is where the grinders are.

There are one of these windows on either side of the building. Cars drive up (or people walk up), I take their order, and they wait right there while their drink is made. Then they get their drink, pay, and go about their day.

Sugar free syrups

The sinks, fridge, fruit syrups, etc.

The cash register & wrapping muffins.