Northern Updates

Northern Lights from our living room

2011-03-10T00:04:00.003-09:00

Tonight we were treated to one of the most amazing Northern Lights displays that I have ever seen here in Anchorage.

Normally the lights are very faint in the city because of all the city lights, you generally have to get out of town to really see them...well, not tonight!

From our living room we watched the colors dance across the night sky in amazing fashion!

I was able to get a couple of photos, they don't do it justice at all, but you can at least see that I am not lying ;o)

The lights are really hard to photograph, and I think this is the first time that I have ever been able to actually catch them on camera. Only the blues and greens showed up, but there were streaks of pink in there as well.

Simply amazing to watch when they are out in force.

Does anyone still check this Blog?

2010-09-13T12:49:00.002-08:00

Hi!

So we have been terrible about updating this blog. We kind of assume that most of our "readers" are on Facebook and are already aware of the happenings of our life. But we will try and be better about updating this, at least monthly.

The BIG news for us is that we are celebrating our 5 year anniversary in a couple of weeks!

Can you believe it? 5 years already! Amazing!

Time has really gone by quickly!

For our anniversary we are taking a few days and heading down to Seward, Alaska. It is a beautiful little town, somewhat of a seaside oasis and a really perfect place to get away and relax.

We found a GREAT B&B that we are going to stay in: The Alaska Paddle Inn

It is one of the highest reviewed B&B's in the state on Trip Advisor and we are looking forward to our time there!

Work continues to go great for both of us. I am really enjoying my new position at ChangePoint and have had no regrets about making the switch. Everyone that I work with is amazing and I really look forward to going to work each day! What a blessing! Work for Sherri is good, they have had a slower summer than expected, but it has allowed them to get work done around the office, so that has been nice. She continues to work 5 days a week, but will probably go back to get 3 day a week winter schedule before too long.

We are also enjoying a great streak of weather! We had a beautiful start to our summer and are having a beautiful end, but most of the middle was full of rain and clouds, so the current sunshine is much appreciated!

That's all for now! More later!

Job Change!!

2010-07-27T08:59:00.001-08:00

Hi Everyone -

I (adam) am changing jobs!! This is a BIG change for us and I blogged about it over on my other site.

Read all about the change: HERE

MOOSE IN PARKING LOT - ANCHORAGE, ALASKA!!!

2010-06-18T14:36:00.000-08:00

Summer is here!

2010-06-13T15:22:00.003-08:00

Hi!!

I am SO sorry that I have done such a poor job over the last couple of months keeping up with this blog!

Summer is upon us and we have been staying quite busy!

We have already had several days in the 70's and a lot of sun over the past month! It really feels like summer is upon us! We have all of our flowers planted and everything is green and blooming!

We spent Memorial Day weekend at a cabin on Nancy Lake and enjoyed a couple of days away with 7 other friends! We swam in the lake, enjoyed camp food and laughed a TON!

Sherri has been getting busy at work and is now working 5 days a week. Work for me has been going great! My hotels have been full since early May and the busy summer tourist season is really upon us. I was in Fairbanks last week for 3 days on a work trip and I will probably be heading to Juneau in the next couple of weeks as well.

Next weekend (Summer Solstice) we are staying in town and will be enjoying all of the summer solstice festivals and concerts that are happening around town. Summer Solstice is a BIG deal here in Alaska and there are always a lot of things going on that weekend.

The following weekend we are borrowing a friends motor home and driving to Homer for the weekend with 2 other couples! We sill be going out fishing and enjoying the ocean and scenery in Homer! It will be another nice 2 day getaway!

We are really trying to get out and enjoy as much of Alaska as possible this summer. Most weekends we are busy with trips or events and I will try and keep this blog updated as we travel around and enjoy summer!

Here is a photo of one of our flower beds this summer:

Perfect Day in Alaska

2010-05-04T17:40:00.000-08:00

1/2 through April?!

2010-04-15T12:24:00.002-08:00

Wow, I can not believe how fast time is flying! Can you believe that we are almost 1/3 of the way through 2010?

A lot has happened since our last blog, so here are the highlights!

I turned 30! Sherri, Mom and Susan surprised me with an AMAZING birthday party on April 3rd at Mom's house! I was shocked! I couldn't believe the number of people who came, people from every era of my life, it was so perfect!

We also had our annual "co-birthday celebration" for Jason and I. We rented a limo and it took us to the Double Musky in Girdwood, it is one of the best restaurants in Alaska and has a pepper steak that the Food Network called the Best in America. What a fun night!

The Easter Art show that Sherri and I participated in went GREAT! On Friday night (actual night of the show) we had about 500 people come through and then the pieces stayed up all weekend during the church services, so an additional 5,500 people got to see them! A few of our pieces actually sold and the response that we got was wonderful! We are already planning the next 2 art shows!

I launched a new blog! It is called Faith.Life.Media. and you can check it out HERE .

For the past couple months we have been taking a course at church called "Maximum Marriage" and it just ended this week. It has been awesome and we are very glad that we took it!

I think that may be all from us. It seems like the past month has been SO busy for both of us with work, life, church and everything else that comes up!

I will try and update this more often!

World Ice Art Championships - 2010

2010-03-16T18:47:00.001-08:00

I was recently in Fairbanks for work and while I was there I went to the World Ice Art Championships! This was my first time going to them and they were AMAZING! Enjoy this video of my time there. The video doesn't even come close to doing these carvings justice. Just amazing. And cold.

Has it really been 3 weeks since our last post?!

2010-02-21T21:37:00.002-09:00

Hello Faithful Readers!

I apologize for our lack of posting the past few weeks but here is an update on what we have been up to.

We had a great Valentines Day! We continued our tradition of staying in and making a great dinner for just the two of us. This year we had filet's and lobster! This was our first attempt at cooking live lobster and it went great! Everything turned out good and we had a nice evening together!

Our weight loss goal is continuing to move forward, together we have lost 13.4 pounds this year! Also, we think that number will grow over the next 40 days because we decided, along with our best friends, to give up eating out at restaurants for Lent! This actually will be tougher than it seems, I bet we eat out 4 or 5 times a week on average. Most of our friends are young couples with no kids so it is easy to get together and go out for dinners. So far it has been going really well! We are doing dinners with friends at our homes on Friday and Saturday nights and Sherri and I are doing our dinners together at home the rest of the week. It is allowing us to test new recipes and eat healthier than we have been! I am actually looking forward to the next few weeks, although I must admit, we are looking forward to going out for sushi as soon as this is over :o)

Finally, we have both been busy with an upcoming art project. Anchorage is a VERY artsy town and the first friday of every month they have what is called the First Friday Art Walk, where all of the galleries around town stay open late and have a featured artist, and food and music and wine and it is just a great night to go around and see lots of great art. Well, the first friday in April happens to be Good Friday. Our church has a really great Artist Community and they came up with the idea, what if we told the Easter story through art. The idea came when one of the leaders of the group was in Venice, Italy and was touring the old churches, she saw that it was the art in the churches that told the story and she thought, why cant it be like that again? SO, thus "The Easter Project" was born. Basically if you are an artist, of any medium: painting, drawing, music, photography, poetry, graffiti, visual arts, or anything else, you take a verse, or an idea from the Easter story and create a piece based on that. When we get all of the pieces together in order you will be able to walk through the show and see the entire story, from beginning to end displayed through dozens of art pieces. So, on Good Friday we are having a big art show at church and then the pieces will stay up and be displayed all through Easter weekend so thousands of people will get to see this! Sherri and I are VERY excited about this project! It looks like we are entering 4 pieces to the show, 2 each, and we will post pictures and updates as we begin to create!

Work is still going well for both of us, I will begin traveling more (2 trips in the next month) but it will be nice to build the air mile account back up!

Finally, we are experiencing a VERY warm February! We have had several days in the 40's and a lot of snow has been melting, Feb is normally our coldest month, so this is a very nice break

Moon over the Mountains

2010-01-31T00:58:00.001-09:00

Here is a picture that we took from our deck with the moon over the mountains. I love this photo!

Moose Outside My Office

2010-01-31T00:54:00.001-09:00

Here is a video of a moose right outside my office the other night!

Winter Camping Video

2010-01-25T22:15:00.001-09:00

This past weekend Sherri and I went camping with some friends. Check out this video for a quick look where we went!

Crystal Gallery of Ice - Anchorage, Alaska 2010

2010-01-17T22:52:00.001-09:00

Here is a video of Sherri and I exploring the ice carvings downtown in town square.

100 in 10!

2010-01-10T21:44:00.002-09:00

Howdy Folks -

I just returned from a very successful business trip to Dallas, Texas. While I was there it was colder then it was in Anchorage, why does that keep happening?

Anyway, now that I am home we are really turning our eyes towards 2010. One of our biggest goals in the new year has to do with health. We are approaching this on 2 fronts: what we do and what we eat. We are going to try and be more active, especially in the winter months. During summer we are out a lot hiking, camping, going on walks, but in the winter we tend to be inside and less active. This also will include what we eat. Our biggest targets will be to cut back on late night eating & snacking and eat more at home and less out at restaurants. This will allow us to control what goes into what we eat. Also, for Christmas we got a juicer and we are going to juice a lot more, (we have already started doing this!) because this can be an easy way to get essential nutrients that we are not currently getting enough of.

So, health can actually be a tough thing to judge and weight loss is certainly one aspect of it, however, it can be the most easily judged aspect of it. So, we looked at our weight, looked at what we have lost when we have been active and we both think that our goal is attainable, yet challenging. So, for 2010 we are aiming to lose a combined 100 pounds! Wow, that seems like a lot. However, in the summer of 2008 we lost about 50 pounds in a 3 month period when we were both really pushing hard.

We have added a "tracker" to the upper right hand side of this page and we will try and remember to update it weekly with anything that has been lost.

Hopefully 2010 will be a year of great change! We look forward to having you on our journey!

Trip to Indiana Recap

2009-12-27T23:16:00.003-09:00

Hi Everyone!!

We recently got to spend several days in Indiana with family and it was a GREAT trip!

We spent the first couple of days in the South Bend / Mishawaka area with Eric, Lisa and Ian. It was such a blessing to be able to spend time with them in their house and get to spend some quality time getting to know Ian! While there we were able to tour the Bethel College campus and attend one of their chapel services, go to the College Football Hall of Fame and take Ian to Build-A-Bear to help make one of his Christmas presents! We also got to experience Lisa's amazing cooking! We read their blog often and hear about her recipes and love for cooking, but being able to experience it first hand was just awesome! They are a great family and we loved the time that we were able to spend with them!

We then spent the remainder of our trip in Fort Wayne with Sherri's parents. We packed a lot of activities into a short period but we had a blast! I got to experience my first taste of Indiana High School Basketball and what a game it was! Southside won with a last minute shot and the atmosphere was just electric! The stereotypes of Indiana and basketball are true!

On Saturday we had the big Amstutz Family Christmas and I think we had around 40 people come through the house that day. It was really great to get to see family and spend time with them, especially around the holidays! Both Sherri and I wish that we had more one-on-one time with everyone, but we feel like we got to connect with everyone pretty well! That evening we had a smaller Christmas with the immediate family and we finished the day up with a delicious dinner of Alaskan Crab and Shrimp Scampi! It was a great ending to a great day!

On Sunday we got up early and drove into Indianapolis for a Colts game! We got to see history made as the win gave them the most consecutive regular season wins, as well as becoming the winning-est team in any decade. Pretty Awesome! After the game we were able to go on the field and hear a few speakers, but honestly, I was more focused on being on the turf at Lucas Oil Stadium than I was with anything they were saying, it was just a great experience all around and a memory that we are super glad we got to share with family!

Monday was our last full day there so it was spent with some last minute shopping and packing.

We headed for Chicago on Tuesday, along the way we stopped in Warsaw and got to spend a few minutes with a friend who now works for Grace College, it was cool to connect with a fellow Alaskan in the heart of Hoosier country! We forgot about the time difference between Chicago and Indiana so we got to Chicago earlier than we expected, we filled the time with a trip to Wrigley Field and then we wrapped up our trip with a quick visit with my brother! He happened to be in Chicago for business that day and it worked out perfectly that we got to see him!

Our trip was not as long as we would have liked it to be, but we are so thankful that we got to see as many people as we did and we really did have a great time! On the trip back home we both agreed that this was probably our best trip yet to Indiana! Being able to spend time with Ian and finally meet Kaylyn were certainly highlights of our trip! We are certainly a proud Aunt & Uncle!

Christmas Blog - 2009

2009-12-06T19:57:00.009-09:00

Hello Friends & Family -

My, how fast time flies! Can you believe that 2010 is only a few short weeks away?

2009 has been a GREAT year for Sherri and I, and we wanted to give you a quick re-cap of it, as well as a peek into the year ahead.

A Look Back

One of the main highlights of this year for us was our trip to Ireland in March. We were able to spend 10 days there over St. Patrick's Day exploring the Southern part of the country. It was an amazing trip that went far beyond our expectations! We took over 500 photos, met some amazing people, saw breathtaking sites, almost died dozens of times as I attempted to learn how to drive on the other side of the road and came back with a deep desire to go back to Ireland.

Work continues to go well for me. Despite a slow tourist season here in Alaska, my hotels still performed very well and are always among the largest revenue producers in the country! In November I celebrated my 3rd Anniversary with Extended Stay. This year was also the first time since we got married that I haven't traveled for work! Due to the economy my company put a travel freeze in place so I only had 1 work trip this year! In the previous years I traveled 20 plus times per year, so being able to be home has been wonderful!

Sherri still enjoys her job greatly. She loves where she works and the people that she works with and that makes all the difference! In October she celebrated her 2 year anniversary with TecPro! She feels fortunate to work for a company where she feels valued and appreciated. It has been a place where she has been able to use her talents and giftings and also learn new skills.

In September we started working with the 4-year-olds at our church during one of the Sunday morning services, and we are loving it! The kids are just amazing and we look forward to every week that we are with them!

We have now been in our house for over a year and a half and it really feels like "us". This year we changed out all of the closet doors and we are planning on putting in hard wood floors in the kitchen and dining room and adding a dry storage area below our stairs. These will probably be winter projects.

We had an amazing weather year! Our summer was filled with, what seemed like, non-stop blue skies and perfect days! We were able to get out camping several times and really enjoy the Alaskan wilderness.

Tomorrow morning we are leaving to visit family in Indiana from December 7 - 15. We are looking forward to seeing everyone. We have a busy trip planned but it should be a lot of fun! We will get to celebrate Christmas early with everyone there and we are really looking forward to that!

A Look Ahead

I will be in Dallas for a week in early January for work (here comes the travel again)
In April I turn 30! What kind of senior discounts do I qualify for at 30?
Sherri and I are still discussing possible 2010 vacation destinations.
In June we are going to Seattle to see U2 in concert! During that trip we are trying to plan for several days in the Oregon / Idaho area so that Sherri can meet much of my family that lives around there! Details to follow!
We will be celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary in September!

We hope that 2009 has been a great year for you! Feel free to check this page often as we try and keep it updated on a regular basis. Also, e would love to hear from you so leave us a comment on this page or send us an e-mail to adamandsherri@gmail.com and let us know how you are! We are so thankful for the strong support system of friends and family that we have, life is sweeter because of all of you!

Many blessings in 2010!

Here are some photos from 2009:

View from the hot tub during one of our "getaways"

Summer sunset, 11:30pm!

Dunguire Castle in Ireland

Celtic Cross in Cashel, Ireland

3 Moose on our lawn!

View on our hike back from Byron Glacier

Denali (Mt. McKinley) on a Fall day

Scarves

2009-12-01T19:26:00.003-09:00

Sherri and I are big believers that true Faith is more what you do, than what you say. We enjoy looking for ways to put our faith into action and this year we had a great idea.

Can you imagine a worse place to be homeless than Alaska? Being homeless is never easy but when you add to that our long, cold winters, it just seems extra tough. Winters can be hard on us and we have a thermostat that controls our heat with the push of a button. Trying to imagine living outside in the cold just seems miserable.

So, we decided that anything warm that we could give would probably be much appreciated. On Black Friday we found a great sale on fleece at Joanne's Fabric. We were able to buy $150 worth of fleece for $50! We spent the last few evenings measuring, cutting and tying 55 scarves to hand out to the homeless here in Anchorage! So for less than $1.00 per scarf we were able to provide something that hopefully makes them a little warmer and let's them know that they matter, because everyone needs that, especially at Christmas, right?

Winter is here!

2009-11-17T10:59:00.002-09:00

Hello Everyone!

Well, after an AMAZING summer and a much longer than usual Fall, winter has arrived in Alaska! We have had our first snow, the temperatures are colder and the days are shorter. However, with winter comes the holiday season! The house is currently decorated for Thanksgiving and we have lights up outside already. We will start decorating for Christmas soon, and I can't wait! This year we are continuing our "Black Friday" tradition of staying up all night with friends and getting in line for shopping at 3am! Many of the black friday ad's have already been released on-line and we are already planning our attack! Here are some of the things that we have been up to:

Filled our "Operation Christmas Child" shoe boxes last night for Samaritans Purse. This is something that we do every year and always enjoy!
Last Friday (the 13th) I celebrated my 3rd year anniversary with Extended Stay Hotels!
We bought tickets to go to U2 in Seattle next June!!
Have decided that a Blu-Ray player is on our "black friday" list this year.
Sherri has been busy painting Thanksgiving / Christmas crafts, and then look awesome!

Sherri's Company on the News!

2009-10-30T12:28:00.004-08:00

Here is a local news story from this week that involves the company that Sherri works for!

http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=11411984

You can just read the text of the story or you can actually watch the video of the story on that page ( I recommend the video)

Good job TecPro!!

It's almost November already?!?

2009-10-27T14:03:00.003-08:00

Hello Internet Friends and Family!!

We hope that you are having a great Fall and that October has treated you well!!

We are doing great! Our house is all decorated for the season, we have our pumpkins carved and our Halloween costumes all picked out (pictures to be posted later).

Sherri has been doing well, she battled a cold last week but he is feeling better now! Work is going good for her and she is still really enjoying her job! We recently came across some papers of companies that she sent applications in to when she was looking for a job last time, and just looking over them made us SO much more thankful that she ended up where she did. Work can be a little slow for her at times but being with a company where she feels respected and is often encouraged and praised by the people around her makes all of the difference.

Work for me is going good as well, we actually had a strong summer season despite a drop in tourism thanks to the national economy. Our hotels stayed mostly full and I am very thankful that we didn't see the decline that many hotels did. Lately I have been busy volunteering time at ChangePoint, our church, heading up our Social Networking ventures. This includes Facebook, Twitter and an amazing new program that we are still beta-testing that allows people to access virtual bulletins via iPhone, Blackberry or computer from anywhere. It is pretty awesome to be able to have all of the sermon slides, verses, notes and calendar info right there with you. We recently launched a new Facebook page for the church and after less than a week we have over 400 "fans" and we have a campaign in place to get to 1,000 (look at the fun new gadget here on the right side of our blog that follows along with the Facebook page)!! I really enjoy social networking and social media so this has been a perfect fit for me!!

We are still enjoying working with the 4 year old's at church, each week that we serve we have so much fun and really learn to love how trusting and honest they are at that age.

We booked our trip to Indiana in December and we are both looking forward to it! We will be there from December 7 - 15!! We are looking forward to seeing as many people as we can and enjoying time with family!

This weekend we are doing our annual Halloween Party with our friends. The theme each year is "things that go together", so you could be a famous couple, or a pair. In years past we went as a plug and an outlet and Gilligan and the skipper. We can't reveal our costumes, however we think that this will be our best one yet. We will post pictures after the party!!

We still don't have any snow! Watching the news reports of snow in places like Minnesota, Denver and the East Coast has left me feeling a little bit left out!! There was a chance of snow last night, but it never happened, SO, it appears that we may be into November before we get our first snow because they are forecasting several days of clearing and sunshine now.

That's all for now, we hope that you have a great Halloween and enjoy what is left of the Fall season!!

Moose in our back yard!!

2009-10-08T14:25:00.001-08:00

Today we had 3 moose in our back yard and I got a short video of them that I thought you would enjoy!! Ahh, life in Alaska!

4 Years Already?!?!?

2009-10-08T13:53:00.003-08:00

I know that this post is a couple of weeks late, but better late then never, right?

So late last month we celebrated our 4th wedding Anniversary. It is hard to believe that it has already been 4 years! The time has flown by. Our anniversary celebration kind of stretched over several days, so here is what we did.

On our actual anniversary we made a great dinner at home. It included filet's, Alaskan King Crab, fingerling potatoes with onions and an awesome anniversary cake that Sherri made.

Here is a photo of the King Crab for dinner.

For anniversary gifts this year we decided that since we already have a lot of "stuff" and that we really feel fortunate that we have good paying jobs that we love and have been blessed financially, that instead of just buying things and adding to our ever growing collection of stuff, we wanted to find a creative way to leverage the resources that we would have spent on gifts for ourselves, and give that away to someone who needed it. So, we had the idea, that since the traditional 4th anniversary gifts are fruit and flowers, that we would go onto Kiva.org, a micro-finance website that we use and love, and see if we could find someone around the world who was trying to start a business that related to fruit or flowers that we could assist and give the money to them. Well, we found the perfect people to donate to! One of them is a single mother of 5 in Peru who runs a fruit stand in her village and the other group is from Uganda and they grow and sell fruit to several merchants around their area. It worked out awesome! The feeling that we got and the memory that we made giving rather than hoarding is such a powerful thing. It truly is better to give than to receive.

The weekend after our anniversary we found an amazing deal at the Marriott downtown and we stayed there for 2 nights. It worked out perfect because we actually had a concert and wine tasting downtown Friday night and then Saturday night we had dinner downtown and then went and saw The Lion King. Staying downtown let us be close to our activities and it gave us a great couple days "away" and we were able to read, relax and just enjoy being together.

A quick Lion King review. It is amazing. If it is ever near you, GO SEE IT!! We have been fortunate to see quite a few shows over the past few years and we both agree that this was the most amazing production that we have ever seen, BY FAR!!

Update: Our first week with the 4 year olds.

2009-09-22T10:54:00.002-08:00

As we posted a few weeks ago, we have now started working with the 4 year old class at our church every other Sunday at the 9:30am service. We had out first week with them 2 weekends ago and will be with them again this weekend.

Our first weekend was a huge success! We had SO much fun and really enjoyed our time with them and we are looking forward to each week!

ChangePoint has really done an amazing job creating a world-class children's space and it is evident in the way that the kids are so excited to be there.

We work our way through 3 different rooms and spend under 30 minutes in each, so the kids are never in one space long enough to get bored. We start out in the Prospector Mine Room that is filled with toys and crafts and lots of different play areas and basically we just hang out with the kids there and play with them and get to know them. When we are about 5 minutes from leaving the room a song comes on that is the "pick up song" and it was AMAZING to see that as soon as the song came on, with no prompting from any of the adults, all of the kids got up and started picking up and putting away all of the toys. It was like Pavlov's dog, I was very impressed that they all just knew that the song meant to clean up because we were about to leave. After that room we go to the Under The Sea room where there is music and a short lesson that, surprisingly, the kids were completely focused on. I learned that one of the main reasons that the kids are so focused in that room has to do with the lighting. When you walk in the room is dark but the stage is totally lit and has a very fun look. The dark room causes the kids to turn their focus on the stage and what is happening there, pretty awesome. After that room we end our time in King Cove, which is a giant indoor play area that features slides, reading areas, movie areas, lot of things to climb on and play in and the kids just go crazy and love it!!

As someone who has never served in children's ministry before I didn't know what to expect and I was very pleasantly surprised. It was so much fun and the kids really seem to enjoy their time there, and that is the whole point!

Who knew that 4 year olds were so awesome?!

Winter is on the way

2009-09-22T10:45:00.002-08:00

Every year, around this time, there is that one day when you wake up, look outside and are confronted by reality. Winter is on its way. We are still, probably, a few weeks away from our first snow here in town, but it is certainly fast approaching.

As a BIG fan of winter, I personally can't wait for the snow to get here!!

(Mountains from our living room - last week)

(First snowfall on the mountains - yesterday)

A long overdue update

2009-09-08T11:41:00.010-08:00

Hi Everyone!!

It has been a few weeks since our last update and we have done A LOT, so this may be along blog.

Here is what we have been up to.

A few weeks ago we went and hiked to Byron Glacier with some friends. It was a beautiful, sunny 70 degree day and e just had to be outside. The hike to the glacier is pretty easy but it is beautiful once you get there! The glacier comes down from the surrounding mountains and a river flows right through it creating this awesome blue ice cave! Here are some photos from that trip.

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We also went to Homer for a weekend with some friends. Homer is an amazing little town located about a 4 1/2 hour drive from Anchorage. It is located right on the water and is surrounded by mountains and glaciers. It is one of Alaska's best "coastal" towns for sure. We stayed in a great little vacation home, the Little Fireweed Cottage, that had all the comforts of home. It also had a hot tub on the deck that overlooked the water and mountains, it was simply perfect.

On Saturday the guys went out fishing. I caught a small shark and we also caught 1 Halibut and 1 Irish Lord. The fishing was actually really bad, normally everyone gets their limit of Halibut (2 per person per day), plus several other fish, but the weather that morning was terrible for fishing. Sherri stayed at the cottage while we were out fishing and enjoyed what she called a "perfect day", she watched 4 movies, relaxed and did a bunch of painting all while enjoying the view and the comforts of the cottage. That night we all went out for dinner at an AMAZING seafood restaurant, some of the best seafood that I have ever had! Sherri even tried her very first oyster on the 1/2 shell!! Our last day there we went to the Bear Creek Winery. What a hidden gem this place is! It is a small family run winery but they produce some amazing wines! Most of their wines are a grape / berry mix, for example they have a BlueZin that is wild Alaskan blueberries blended with a White Zinfandel or their Shirazzberry which is a Syrah blended with Alaskan Raspberries. We sampled a dozen or so wines, had some great finger foods there and left with 3 bottles of wine!

It was a great, relaxing trip and it really felt like a "mini-vacation".

Here are some photos from the trip!

(The small shark I caught)

(View from the hot tub)

(Homer Small Boat Harbor)

(The Tasting Room at Bear Creek Winery)

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I had a work trip to Fairbanks last week and on my drive home the weather was perfect! Many of the mountain passes that I drove through had already started to turn the fall colors. There is a type of plant that grows on mountains in Interior Alaska that during fall turns the entire mountainside a bright red and it is just beautiful! Also, Denali (Mt. McKinley) was totally out! The mountain is 20,320 feet tall and because of how huge it is it often creates its own weather systems and is normally hidden with clouds, but when it is out, it dominates the horizon, especially in interior Alaska where I was.

Here are a few photos from the drive.

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And FINALLY...this weekend we went to the Alaska State Fair with Jason and Jana. It was another beautiful sunny day (very rare during the state fair), we ate some awesome fair food, played some games and just had a great time!! One of the highlights of the fair are the GIANT vegetables that are grown here in Alaska. Every year world records are broken and this year was no exception. There were 2 new world records set, there was a 127 pound cabbage and an 82.9 pound rutabaga. Some other notable veggies included a 17 pound radish, a 133 pound watermelon, a 12 pound puffball mushroom and a 329 pound pumpkin.

Here is a photo of the new world record cabbage.

Children can smell fear...and when they do...they attack!!

2009-08-20T15:44:00.006-08:00

We have decided to take a BIG step in our "church service life". We are partnering up with Jason and Jana, our great friends, and we are taking over running the 4 year old class at the 9:30am Sunday service at our church! We will be serving every other week, and actually, we are really excited about it! Our church has a pretty large Children's Ministry, about 1,000 kids every week, and they need LOTS of volunteers to care for all of those kids, SO we decided to go "all in" and help out.

There is a promo video posted above for AdventureLand, where we will be serving, check it out!

The Best Group of Friends

2009-08-16T21:58:00.003-08:00

Left to Right
Back Row: Lydia, Jake, Sherri, Adam
Front Row: Jason, Jana, Malinda, JohnDale

We have an AMAZING group of friends and this past weekend was one of our their birthdays. He is from Colorado and his wife is from Oklahoma and they are pretty country and very awesome! For his Birthday party we decided to go "western". We all dressed up, went out for steaks and went to listen to a country band at a local bar. It was SUCH a fun evening! These are people that we "do life with" each and every week and we feel so blessed to have such great people so involved in our lives!

Living Green

2009-08-12T16:35:00.003-08:00

Hello Everyone!

Our belief that we are supposed to be a good steward of everything we have been given, including creation, has lead us to put in place some practices in our daily lives that help us live a greener, less consuming lifestyle. There are a TON of websites that give tips on living green and here are just a few of the things that we have been doing!

PAPER TOWELS: We were BIG Kleenex Viva Paper Towel fans. We were using about 1 roll a week. We used them for everything! Viva's are one of the more expensive and least Eco-friendly paper towels on the market so we decided to "try" living without our beloved Vivas. My mom had a ton of cloth napkins so we went and got a dozen matching napkins from her and we also got a bunch of dish cloths that we could use for spills and general kitchen cleaning/wiping up. We knew that if these items weren't accessible that we wouldn't use them so we found a great little 2 drawer counter unit that now holds our cloth napkins and dish cloths. We made the switch 2 months ago and we have now cut our paper towel usage down to 1 roll every 6 weeks, which means that in 1 year we will use about 45 less rolls of paper towels and it saves us around $150.00 per year. Also, we just toss the cloth napkins and dish rags in with our regular laundry, so it doesn't increase our laundry at all. Win for us, Win for the environment.

Here is a picture of what we keep our napkins and dish rags in on our kitchen counter.

OUR HOME: The State of Alaska has a "Home Energy Rebate" program that is designed to refund homeowners a portion of what they spend making their homes more energy efficient. The way it works is that an energy rater comes out and does tests in your house to determine the current energy rating, then they give you a list of things you can do to increase the energy efficiency of your home. Based on the progress you make you qualify for a certain refund amount. We had our energy rating a few months ago and learned that we can increase our house to a 4 Star Energy Rating, and with that we will get a $4,500 refund on the work that we do. Also, we will decrease the carbon footprint of our house by about 1/3

One of our biggest issues is that our home isn't very air tight, which in the cold Alaskan winters is not a good thing, so, here are the steps that we are going to be taking over the next few months to make our home more energy efficient:

Foam Outlet Inserts. These go under the switch plates of all outlets and switches and help stop the draft that normally comes through.
Eliminating Recessed Lighting: We have 3 recessed lighting cans upstairs and they are where we lose most of our heat in the winter so we are sealing them up and putting in pendant lights.
New Weather Stripping on all windows and doors: All of our windows and doors are pretty old, as is the weather stripping so we are replacing all weather stripping.
New Sliding Glass Doors upstairs and downstairs: This is the change that we are most excited about. Both of our sliding glass doors are old and don't seal very well so we are having new doors put in.
Weather Sealing: We are going to re-seal everything that vents to the outside, so our range hood, fireplace and dryer.

These few fairly simple steps will help our house become more energy efficient, save us money in the long run, get us a $4,500 energy rebate from the State of Alaska and will help increase the value of our home!

Here is a picture of the foam inserts for the outlets. We got these free from our local electric company!

LIGHT BULBS: This is one of the easiest first-steps that anyone can make. We have changed all of our light bulbs to the compact fluorescent bulbs. These bulbs do cost a little more but they use SO much less energy and they last MUCH longer.

SHOPPING BAGS: We have a set of re-usable shopping bags that we keep in each vehicle and we use them for grocery shopping, yard sale-ing, camping, book sales, etc... They hold more items then a normal shopping bag and we like using them much more. When we forget the reusable bags and have to use the plastic store bags we just hold on to them and take them to a local thrift store where they can always re-use plastic shopping bags.

NEWSPAPER: I am a huge news junkie and I couldn't imagine living without my news, however, I realized that receiving the paper every day was a bit much when I get most of my news from the Internet already. We cut our newspaper subscription down to only Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so we still get the weekend sale ad's and coupons, and we save 4 days of paper and we our subscription is cheaper!

_____

These are some of the things that we have been doing. Anything that you have been doing to try and live a greener life? Any good "green living" ideas? If so, leave us a comment!!

Great Message...

2009-08-05T23:30:00.003-08:00

This past weekend at ChangePoint we started a new series called: "Stop. Breathe. Listen." and it deals with our need as humans to not constantly go, go, go. In a world that seems over-busy all of the time we rarely take time to rest. We have become a society that is so focused on success and schedules that we have forgotten to live balanced lives.

This is a 6 week series that will focus on topics such as Sabbath, Meditation, Fasting, Confession, Silence, Simplicity and Solitude.

The message this past weekend was on Sabbath and it was the best teaching on this topic that I have ever heard and it really challenged Sherri and I as to how we spend our time, especially regarding a Sabbath day. We were both challenged that we have not really had a correct understanding as to what a Sabbath really should be.

You can listen to the message by clicking here. It is the message from August 1st/2nd.

Hopefully we can all remember to get off of the highway of life and enjoy a back road every now and then.

Enjoy.

Our 150th Post!!!

2009-07-23T19:34:00.002-08:00

On July 20th, 2006, 3 years and 3 days ago, we posted our first blog on this site. It is hard to believe but this will be our 150th blog posting! We created this blog to help keep our family and friends updated on the happenings of our life and I hope that we have done a good job at that! We have averaged, just under, a blog a week since we started.

Let us know if there is anything that you would like to see more of. I will continue to try and get Sherri to blog more, she says "good luck with that" haha.

We really do appreciate everyone who takes the time to read our blog and stay updated with us and always feel free to leave us comments or send us e-mails, we love hearing from you!

Hopefully the next 150 posting will be even more entertaining!

- Adam & Sherri

Possibly the coolest couple ever.

2009-07-23T19:30:00.001-08:00

I think that this is the most entertaining wedding entrance dance that I have ever seen. Kudos to them!!!

How is it July already?!

2009-07-06T11:23:00.004-08:00

Hello!!

We hope that you all had a VERY happy Independence Day and were able to enjoy the long weekend!

We had a great weekend! It was beautiful here with temperatures in the upper 70's and lower 80's. The 80's are a rare treat here in Anchorage.

Here is a quick re-cap of what we have been up to:

On July 2nd we went and saw The Wailers in concert. They were Bob Marley's band and they were really good!! It was great to hear such classic songs buy the band that made them famous! It was a beautiful sunny evening and being outside listening to reggae music just felt perfect!

For the 4th we went to the parade downtown and then got together with friends for a BBQ and games all day and into the night!! It is still light here almost all night so fireworks are shot off but they aren't that big of a deal. Most of our big fireworks shows are in the winter months because of the dark/light issue.

On Sunday the 5th we slept in (11am!!!) and then got up and made a picnic and took our basket, camping chairs and books to Jewel Lake and sat outside for 3 hours just enjoying the sun. It was such a great time. There were a lot of families there, kids swimming in the lake and we even saw an Eagle come in and land in a tree about 100 feet from us! It was VERY cool! Sherri and I didn't swim but we did wade out in the water a bit, which felt good on such a warm day. We both got a little sunburned though.

That's all for now!

Happy Solstice!!

2009-06-21T13:39:00.003-08:00

Hello Readers!!

Summer Solstice is a BIG deal in Alaska. I bet there were at least 10 large festivals / events here in Anchorage yesterday along with a marathon that draws running clubs from around the country. For Sherri and I, it has become a yearly tradition that we stay up almost all night with friends to watch the sunset (11:45pm) and then the sunrise a couple of hours later. It really is amazing to see the sun barely dip below the horizon.

It never gets totally dark here right now, the darkest it gets is more of a "dusk".

Next summer we are hoping to go to Fairbanks for Summer Solstice. They have a baseball game that has been named one of the top 10 "must see" games in all of baseball. The game starts at 10:30pm and ends around 1:30am and they play the entire game using no stadium lights. It is a game that draws baseball fans from around the country and we have never been, so I think next year it is time that we go!!

Here are some photos from last night!!

(Sunset, around 11:30PM)

(Sky getting lighter for sunrise, 2am.
This is about as dark as it gets right now.)

Looking to start over?? Pack Your Bags!!!!!

2009-06-17T15:11:00.002-08:00

Here is a great article that came out today that a friend linked to on Facebook and I wanted to post.

Click here for the article.

YES!! We're #1!! And, I could not agree more with this article! What a great place to live and the opportunities here are amazing!

We recently had some friends stay with us who are considering relocating to Anchorage and they asked a very interesting question at dinner one night, a question I don't think I have ever been asked. They asked us:

we see a lot of great things about Anchorage, but what do you NOT like about living here?

It honestly took us a minute of thinking and the ONLY thing we could come up with is that it is far away from family. It is certainly more difficult to feel "involved" in life from such a distance, but that was the only thing we could think of that we didn't like. I would say that is pretty good!

So pack your bags, you can even stay with us while you are looking for houses!

See you soon "neighbors"!

Nancy Lake

2009-06-14T22:31:00.003-08:00

This weekend we went and stayed two nights at one of the Public Use Cabins on Nancy Lake, about a 90 minute drive North of Anchorage, with our friends Jason and Jana.

The State of Alaska has built a lot of these cabins all over the state that are for the recreational use of residents and visitors. Some are accessible by car, but a lot of them are only accessible by boat, plane or hiking trail. The cabins are pretty basic with a wood stove, picnic table, counter space and a few wooden sleeping platforms. But they are perfect for quick and cheap getaways! The cabin we stayed at is one of four that are located on Nancy Lake. The cabin is about a 1 mile hike from the parking lot, but it is a pretty well defined trail, so it isn't very hard.

These cabins are a great benefit and I am very glad that the State of Alaska built them because it really encourages people to get out and enjoy their state. They are a big step up from a tent and give you a great shelter that lets you enjoy being "outside" no matter what the weather does.

This weekend we played Yahtzee and Dutch Blitz, talked a lot, drove into Talkeetna and enjoyed a Saturday in the town, killed a million mosquitoes, I even took a quick, but cold, dip in the lake and Sherri took a quick, but painful tumble down a hill (she is fine).

It was a great weekend, we were able to enjoy a great cabin, a beautiful lake and excellent company!

(Our packs all ready to go! Sherri's is the one with the purse strapped to the outside, imagine that. You should see her with her pack on, she is 5'1 and her pack is probably 3'0, kinda funny)

(View from the waters edge, right outside our cabin)

(Inside the cabin)

Mini Getaway

2009-06-01T12:51:00.006-08:00

For my birthday some friends gave us a gift card to Alyeska Resort. It is located in Girdwood, about 45 minutes from Anchorage and is a world class ski resort in the winter and a mountain biking / hiking destination in the summer. At the resort they have a great 4 star hotel that we stayed at last Friday night. The hotel is really nice and the area around the hotel is just so beautiful. We hung out in our room, watched a movie and enjoyed an amazing dessert called a "Baked Alyeska" that is made with: milk, dark and white chocolate mousse, brownie, liquid chocolate center and Italian meringue and it was AMAZING!!

The following morning we spent some time walking around the property enjoying some morning coffee and the scenery.

It was a great little getaway that we both really enjoyed!

Here are some pictures:

(Alyeska Resort Hotel)

(Sherri relaxing in a chair and enjoying the view)

(The view from our room. You can see the tram going up the mountain. At the top of the mountain there is a 5 Diamond restaurant that is one of the best in the state along with a museum, a cafeteria and some great views!!)

Memorial Day Camping

2009-06-01T12:23:00.004-08:00

On Memorial Day weekend we went camping for 2 nights at Bertha Creek Campground about an hour and a half outside of Anchorage. It is a campground we have been to 3 times now and we really enjoy it because it is a quick, easy drive and it is in an amazing setting! The first night we camped by ourselves, but the second night 2 other couples joined us and we had a great time!

Sherri has never been a big fan of camping because she says that she can't get comfortable and its cold at night, and camping is one of my favorite activities so over the past couple of years we have outfitted ourselves with great quality camping gear and for the first time, Sherri said that she was comfortable and was only cold at the beginning of the night, once in our bags and blankets she warmed up! So apparently the hundreds of dollars spent at REI have been worth it!

The campground is at about 2,000 feet elevation in one of the snowiest areas of Alaska so at night the temp got into the upper 30's and during the day was mid 60's. During the days we had a mix of clouds and sun and at night it rained on us, but fortunately none of our stuff got wet.

Here are some pictures from Memorial Day Weekend Camping!

(Bertha Creek, where the campground is)

(A waterfall we stopped at on the drive to the campground)

(Sherri and I at Quartz Creek / Kenai Lake)

(Our campsite. Quite the view)

(The whole crew, The Harts, Grenns and Us)

When did we start missing the point?

2009-05-18T08:15:00.002-08:00

I don't blog too often on religion but I think this is a post that everyone, regardless of religious origin can relate to.

I am a Christian...I often cringe when I say that, not because that word relates me with Jesus, but because it relates me with other Christians. I love Jesus, I believe that His teachings and messages are revolutionary and life changing. Yet I can't help but wonder what has happened to Christianity? Why is it that when you read of Jesus in the bible and then you look at the church today they are almost unrecognizable? This is a generalization of course, I know many people who live lives that are amazing examples of the love and grace that Jesus showed people. However, I am sad to say, they are in the minority.

In High School I was a big fan of the grunge / rock band Nirvana. Their music sang my pain and the pain of a generation. When their lead singer, Kurt Cobain, committed suicide it was big news. However, he had a quote that has always stayed with me.

"I am tired of hearing about christianity, just once I wish I could have seen it"

Wow. Here is a guy who, at the time, was the most famous rock star in the world. A guy who's concerts drew thousands upon thousands of people, yet in his most vulnerable moments he expresses, what I believe to be, the sentiment of most people.

The issue isn't that people haven't heard about christianity, it's that they haven't seen it. How sad.

How sad that what people too often see about christianity is picketers outside of abortion clinics, the protesting of gay people, people trying to push through "christian" legislation, people condemning anyone who lives a life not up to "our" standards, people looking down on unwed teenage mothers and the list could go on and on and on.

Missions trips, church work days, volunteer projects and other activities are good, but they are not nearly enough. These type of activities should be what defines us, not what we do monthly or once in a while.

I often think that if Jesus was here today a church is the one place He would not be found, rather he would be with the people that we protest and picket.

Jesus was a rebel. His words and actions offended the religious people of his day. He was harsh to the religious and loving to the un-churched. He spoke out against pastors who spoke empty words and loved the "sinners" who flocked to Him. I think we forget this about Jesus. We have turned him into something He is not. If we are religious, we need to be on guard that we do not become like the religious that Jesus spoke out against.

How did this happen? How is it that Jesus said the most important thing is to Love God and Love Others, yet we show so little love to the "others" that Jesus talks about? Christians are very good at loving and supporting other christians, it the the rest of the people that we struggle with. How many gay people would say that they feel loved by christians? How many ACLU members would say that they feel loved by christians? How many single mothers struggling to make ends meet would say that they feel loved by christians? How many muslims would say that they feel loved by christians?

In 1874 Henry Drummond wrote the following statement in his book "The Greatest Thing in the World"

"For the withholding of love is the negation of the spirit of Christ, the proof that we never knew Him, that for us He lived in vain. It means that He suggested nothing in all our thoughts, that He inspired nothing in all our lives, that we were not once near enough to Him to be seized with the spell of His compassion for the world."

My hope is this: I hope that the christian church stops following christianity and starts following Jesus, because I believe that those two things are vastly different. I hope that we show people Jesus more than we tell them about Him. The Bible says that it is the Kindness of God that draws people to Him. Let us reflect that same kindness. Let us love the un-lovable as Jesus did. Let us stop trying to legislate people to change. Let us stop being so damn religious. Let us stop creating lists of "can do and can't do". Let us stop being legalistic.

The message of Jesus is freedom, it gives hope to the hopeless and grace to those who need it, let our lives be no different.

This is the journey that Sherri and I are on. This is what we are trying to become, more Jesus and less Christian.

_____________________________________________

If this is a topic that interests you I would recommend the following resources:

"They Like Jesus but Not the Church" - author: Dan Kimball
"The Jesus of Suburbia" - author: Mike Erre (this could be the best book I have ever read)
"Jesus Wants to Save Christians" - author: Rob Bell (hands down my favorite Rob Bell book)
"Blue Like Jazz" - author: Donald Miller

Also, please feel free to post comments on this topic. Do you agree? do you disagree? Am I a heretic? Lets discuss...lovingly.

Weekend Recap

2009-05-17T23:20:00.004-08:00

This was a GREAT weekend full of EVEN MORE sunshine!

On Friday night we went and saw Angels & Demons, we are both big Dan Brown fans so we have been looking forward to the movie for a long time. The move was really good but did stray from the book quite a bit. After the movie we went downtown to Subzero Micro Lounge for dinner and a few drinks with friends.

On Saturday we went to some garage sales, bought 3 hanging flower baskets for the house, went to church and then got together with about 15 friends for a BBQ at Jason and Jana's house! The BBQ was SO much fun! We had a ton of food (steaks, pork chops, kabobs, burgers and moose steaks) and played ladderjacks (one of our favorite summer games) and we ended up staying at Jason and Jana's till about 2:30am talking with friends.

On Sunday we slept in and then drove to Girdwood for lunch and then continued on to the Portage Valley for an afternoon hike. We ended up hiking the "Trail of Blue Ice" which is a hiking trail that goes along a creek at the base of mountains that are covered in glaciers. It was awesome to get outside and get a nice hike in on such a great day! We even crossed the river and found a great secluded sand bar where we had amazing views in such a peaceful setting! Once we got back home after the hike we planted some Alaskan Wildflower seeds around our house so hopefully we will have a great mix of wildflowers in a few weeks!!

Our streak of AMAZING weather is supposed to continue so I am sure we will be outside as much as possible this coming week.

Here are a few pictures from our hike today.

The creek we hiked next to. Yes, it was VERY cold.

The mountains from our trip

Us on the hike

10pm Sky

2009-05-14T21:55:00.002-08:00

Here are a couple of photos showing the sky outside at 10PM with the sun still shining!
And we are still over a month away from the longest days of the year!

View off of our upstairs balcony looking east

View off of our upstairs balcony looking south over Campbell Lake

Sunshine, Flowers and Picnics

2009-05-12T17:46:00.002-08:00

So our streak of amazing weather continues and we took full advantage of it today! We had a picnic at a park near a fountain, laid in the sun for about an hour and then went and got some flowers to plant outside. We planted Calla Lilies, Shasta Daisies and Geraniums.

Our high temps have been in the mid to upper 60's. Today's high has been 68, and we have had a few days in the low 70's, which for me is about perfect! The daylight is getting longer with 17 hours and 15 minutes of daylight today!!

Wahoo!

The view from the deck today.

Calla Lilies that we planted today! These were the flowers we had at our wedding!

Our first picnic lunch of the year! Sliced french bread, swiss cheese, lettuce, deli mustard, Sherri had sun dried tomato & herb turkey breast and I had turkey ham.

The fountain at the park where we had our picnic.

The Lion King

2009-05-11T16:26:00.004-08:00

We had previously posted that it was announced that the Broadway musical, The Lion King was coming to Anchorage and that we planned on going. Well, tickets went on sale and we got ours!! We got 2nd row tickets for one of the Saturday night shows! We are going with some great friends and we plan on making a great evening out of it with dinner downtown before the show and probably drink afterwards!

One of the best things about Anchorage is that we have a very vibrant arts and culture scene. There are a ton of shows and galleries and performances that come here because of that. However, having The Lion King come here is probably the biggest arts event we have had. They are doing a 6 week run in Anchorage with a total of 53 shows! They are expecting over 80,000 people to see it while it is here, pretty amazing for a city that has about 300,000 people and a state that has under 700,000 people! Next year, apart from The Lion King, we are also getting the national Broadway tours of Chicago and The Wizard of Oz, so we will certainly go see those as well.

We can't wait to see The Lion King and, come September, when we see it, we will certainly post a review! However, I think I can say, it is going to be AMAZING!

Here is a link to the Anchorage Concert Associations webpage, they are the largest arts organization in the state and they bring up a lot of shows throughout the year (www.anchorageconcerts.org)

What a Spring!!!

2009-05-05T11:11:00.005-08:00

Hi Everyone!!!

What a GREAT Spring this has been! We have enjoyed almost 2 weeks of non-stop sunshine with temps into the 70's on a couple days! I think we have already had more sunny days this year than we did in all of 2008!

We have been outside taking advantage of the sunshine as often as possible. We have been going on walks in the evenings, we have done a bunch of work in our back yard / garden / flower area, we spent Sunday at a local lake sitting by the water with our books and we have been grilling dinners outside as often as possible!! The grass is starting to green up and the trees are beginning to sprout new leaves and there is just a great feeling of "summer" everywhere!

We even have stuff growing in the garden! Our chives are probably 3 inches tall already and our irises are coming up!! We will probably plant the rest of our flowers and veggies in the next couple of weeks.

We are certainly noticing the longer summer days, today the sun rose at 5:40am and it will set tonight at 10:15pm, so with over 16 hours of daylight your body always wants to be outside doing stuff!!

Here is a picture of the lake we spent Sunday at

Check this out and tell me what you think...

2009-04-29T16:23:00.001-08:00

This is a new song from The Michael Gungor Band. They are a "christian" band that I had the opportunity to meet last year while they were in Anchorage. They are pretty great guys and this is a pretty great song.

Thoughts?

Where has the time gone?!?!

2009-04-27T10:30:00.002-08:00

It is hard for us to believe, but 1 year ago today we moved into our new home!

We love living here, every day when we sit in our living room and we stare out at the mountains we are reminded how blessed we are to have this place! We have done a lot of upgrades and we have even more planned for this year. We really feel "home" here, and that is a great feeling!!

Volcano on a clear day...

2009-04-20T21:12:00.003-08:00

Tonight Sherri and I went for a drive because it was a BEAUTIFUL clear day!! On our way to Girdwood we could see Mt. Redoubt, the volcano, across the inlet and it had a steam plume coming out of it so we had to pull over and snap a picture.

The volcano hasn't erupted in a few weeks but the reports are that it is in a stage of "lava dome building", which means that if and when it erupts again it could be a big one.

Also, below are a couple of other pictures from our drive.

We haven't forgotten about you!

2009-04-15T00:01:00.002-08:00

Hi!

So it's been a little while since our last update but things here are going really well! We had a great Easter and we are both ready for warmer summer weather! Almost all of the snow here is gone with only a few patches remaining here and there. The temps during the day have been in the mid 40's and we have had a lot of sunshine the past few weeks!!

We have had some fun "celebrations" recently, our cat, Missy, turned 1 year old on April 4th!! I turned 29 on April 6th and the one year anniversary of when we closed on our house is coming up in a few days!! It is hard to believe how fast time is moving!

I will post more soon and I will get back in a routine of updating this on a more regular basis!

Ireland Pictures

2009-04-01T20:04:00.002-08:00

Hi Fellow Bloggers / Readers!

So I finally uploaded ALL of our pictures from Ireland. There are about 550 photos that span the entire trip. If you want to see the photos they are at:

http://s610.photobucket.com/albums/tt186/adamandsherri/

Enjoy!!

We're Home!! / Trip Recap

2009-03-29T12:00:00.004-08:00

Hi Everyone!!

Well, we are home! We have been here since the 25th and have just been unwinding and unpacking since then. The trip home was actually very good, it is an 8 hour time difference from Alaska and Ireland but we experienced surprisingly little jet-lag. On our flight home from Dublin we had about a 20 hour layover in Newark and my brother drove up from Connecticut and we got to spend a couple hours with him just talking and catching up. When you live on opposite sides of the country face to face catching up doesn't happen often enough so it was GREAT to see him!! We were VERY fortunate to make it home. as you may have heard we have a volcano that has been erupting and causing airlines to cancel flights into and out of Anchorage. We got in on Wednesday and flights the 2 days prior and the 2 days after were cancelled, so we just happened to get in on the 1 day with no disruptions!!

Our trip was amazing! We feel so blessed that we were able to go and experience Ireland. In fact, we went there with the mind set that we would be able to check Ireland off of our travel list, however we loved it so much we would absolutely go back! It is a magical place where the only thing that outshines the beautiful landscape is the friendliness of the Irish people. The trip exceeded every expectation that we had.

On a side note I have to give a BIG kudos to Sherri. Almost the entire trip she felt horrible. She said that this was probably the worst cold she has ever had, yet she was such a trooper and still got out and did a ton of stuff! Now that we are home she is still feeling the effects of the cold, but is SO much better.

Thanks for "following along" on our blog, we really enjoyed logging on and reading everyone's comments along the way.

- Adam & Sherri

FYI: we have about 550 photos from our trip that we are uploading on-line soon, we will post the link on here once that is done and you can see all of our trip photos if you want! Stay tuned for that!

Monday...

2009-03-25T03:24:00.004-08:00

Monday was our last full day in Ireland. How sad, but what a great day it was. Today we finally saw our first rain of the entire trip! It rained on us for about 30 minutes before actually turning into another nice day.

This morning we went and toured St. Patrick's Cathedral. Built in 1191, St. Patrick's is the largest church in Ireland. It was beautiful. the stained glass work and the detail were amazing! After St. Patrick's we went and toured the Guinness Brewery! It was an amazing facility that covers 7 floors with a bar on the top floor. The building is shaped to look like a huge Guinness pint glass, pretty cool! Sherri doesn't like Guinness (what is wrong with her!?!?!) so I got to have her, and my free drinks!! I was even able to pour my own pint of Guinness and I now have a certificate naming me as an official "Guinness Perfect Pint Crafter". I will probably be adding this to my resume soon. The facility was just awesome and was a main highlight of the trip for me. Any time you are allowed to have 3 pints of Guinness before lunch is pretty great.

After Guinness we went back to Temple Bar for lunch and to do some more shopping.

We soon went back to our hotel to start packing for our early morning flight back to America.

I will give a brief trip recap and wrap up in the next couple day but I can say that this trip has been amazing. Far above expectations.

Here are some pictures from our last day in Ireland:

(This is the Oliver St. John Gogarty Pub in Temple Bar)

(the pint I poured. It's perfect, the head crests the top of the glass but doesn't run down the side!)

(Sherri having fun in the Guinness store)

(me pouring my pint)

(this is an elementary school group that was touring the Guinness brewery. You know you are in Europe when...)

(inside St. Patrick's Cathedral)

(just a small part of the cathedral exterior, it was HUGE)

Sunday...

2009-03-25T02:54:00.003-08:00

Sunday was our first full day in Dublin, and what a great day it was! We started the day in "Temple Bar" which is billed as the cultural center of the city. It is full of shops and pubs and restaurants and just has a very fun, busy feeling. We did some shopping, had lunch and walked around a bit before going to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is a handwritten copy of the New Testament that was done in approx. 800AD. It is done in Latin and is VERY ornate and the detail and design is just amazing. To see something so old, that was made by hand that had such an attention to detail and design was just awesome!! After the Book of Kells we went into Trinity College's "long room", which is home to 200,000 of the colleges oldest books. It was amazing. The room itself was beautiful and to be surrounded bu thousands of the oldest copies of literature was just awesome. We sat for a while and just looked at the books and the surroundings. Photography wasn't allowed in the college or the long room so the picture below is one I got off of the Internet. After walking around Trinity College (founded in 1592 and alumni include Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker) we went to the "Welcome Home Celebration" for the Ireland Rugby team.

Here is some background on that. Ireland is a HUGE sports country, I have never seen anything like it. I consider myself a sports fan, but these people put me and anyone I have ever known to shame. On Saturday night the Ireland rugby team was playing for the "Grand Slam Championship" of the Six Nations Rugby league. Basically the grand slam means that they not only won the league championship, but they beat every other country doing it. It is a HUGE deal, it had been 61 years since Ireland last won the Grand Slam. They were playing Wales and they ended up winning on a missed last second kick by Wales. This sent the entire country into a huge celebration. It was the main news story on every channel, it received 4 or 5 pages of exclusive coverage in the newspapers, it was the only thing people were talking about and we got to be there and watch it happen. Pretty cool. Anyway, while we were out walking around on Sunday we saw signs pointing to an area of town that said "Welcome Home Celebration" and so we knew that we had to go experience this. There was a crowd of over 20,000 people in the streets with live bands, huge TV monitors re-playing the game and just an amazing atmosphere. It was something I am very glad that we got to experience because we really got to see the passion that these people have, not only for sport, but also for their country.

After the celebration we walked around downtown a bit around sunset before heading back to our hotel.

Here are a few pictures from the day:

(The Long Room at Trinity College, home to 200,000 of their oldest books)

(sunset over the River Liffey that runs through downtown Dublin)

(a picture from the Welcome Home celebration, it doesn't show the crowd size but I love this shot of these boys)

(The Spire in downtown Dublin, it is just a huge spike that they built for the millennium celebration. 390 feet tall)

(Temple Bar in the Temple Bar district in Dublin, very well known pub in Dublin)

Saturday..

2009-03-23T19:56:00.004-08:00

(house in Passage East)

(The Brazen Head in Dublin, Ireland's oldest pub)

(random ivy-covered castle alongside the road)

(St. Patrick's Cross from Cashel, dates to the 12th century)

(Celtic cross and landscape from Rock of Cashel)

(inside the Rock of Cashel)

(The B&B we stayed at with the Rock of Cashel behind it)

Hi!

So on Saturday morning we toured the Rock of Cashel, this was the home for the Munster Kings of Ireland. This is also the location that St. Patrick converted and baptized the King of Ireland, leading to Ireland becoming a "christian" nation. The castle is pretty well preserved and is very impressive. After we left Cashel we went to Waterford, home of Waterford Crystal and saw the Faithlegg house and church and golf course. Not sure of any connection to our last name but the Legg name descends from here and so it's always possible. After that we drove up the eastern coast through wexford and wicklow (where the movie P.S. I Love You was filmed) and it was a beautiful drive! We returned our rental car in Dublin and took a taxi to the hotel that will be our "home" for the next 3 nights. We got into Dublin early enough that we went into the city center for dinner and drinks. We went to The Brazen Head, which is Ireland's oldest pub and dates to 1198! We had dinner and a few drinks there before leaving and walking around downtown a little before heading back to our hotel. It was a great day but somewhat sad because were are saying "goodbye" to the rural parts of Ireland, which have certainly been the highlight of our trip.

New Posts...

2009-03-21T17:37:00.002-08:00

Hi Everyone!!

Just to let you know there are a few new posts below to "catch up" on our trip. We appreciate everyone who is "following along" on our trip and we have enjoyed reading your comments! Also, we took the advice of someone who posted and tried to add a couple pictures of Sherri and I to our posts.

I will load the pictures from today (Saturday) soon and get another blog up, probably tomorrow. We will be in Dublin for a couple of days so we should be better connected now.

Thanks for reading!!

Want to buy a castle?!?!

2009-03-21T17:31:00.003-08:00

So yesterday we were driving along and we saw a Castle in the distance, which isn't too rare here, we have probably seen 25+ castles in the past week, however what made this one so different is that it is FOR SALE!! I have to admit I have never seen a sign that said "800 year old castle For Sale". Of course my mind started racing, what could we turn it into, what could we make of it, how cool would it be to own a castle!!

So, here are some pictures and the contact info in the event you were in the market for a castle. How awesome is Ireland? Very Awesome!

Friday...

2009-03-21T17:07:00.005-08:00

On Friday morning we drove from Castlegregory to Blarney and then to Cobh and finally on to Cashel where we stayed the night.

In Blarney we went to Blarney Castle, no we did not kiss the Blarney Stone because it was a long wait and we were on a bit of a tight schedule today, also, kissing the stone is supposed to give you the gift of gab, and I am pretty sure that is one thing I already have. The castle and the surrounding grounds are beautiful! They have really done a nice job preserving it!

After Blarney we drove to the small coastal town of Cobh. It used to be known as Queensland and it was the final port of call for the Titanic. Pretty cool. Also, it was the departure point for about 1/2 of the people who immigrated to America through Ellis Island. In fact the first person ever processed at Ellis Island was Annie Moore and they have a statue in Cobh of her and her brothers commemorating all of the immigrants who left for America. Also, the Lusitania, the British Luxury Liner that was sunk by German U Boats in 1917 sank close to the town and Cobh was where all of the survivors were taken. It was a beautiful town with some incredible history.

When we left Cobh we drove to Cashel. Cashel is famous for The Rock of Cashel, this was the castle that was used by the King of Ireland. I did some planning in advance and booked a room at a local B&B that had an amazing view of the castle right out of our windows! We got in kind of late so we grabbed dinner, walked around the town for a bit and made it an early night. We toured the castle the next morning, but more on that in the next post ;o)

(Titanic memorial in Cobh)

(Annie Moore memorial in Cobh, first person processed through Ellis Island)

(The view of the Rock of Cashel from our room window)

(view of downtown Cobh with the cathedral in the background)

(Blarney Castle)

(the grounds surrounding Blarney Castle, doesn't this look like a painting?)

(Sherri and I in front of Blarney Castle)

Thursday...

2009-03-21T16:37:00.004-08:00

On Wednesday night we stayed in Adare and the next morning we toured The Adare Manor before driving to The Dingle Peninsula where we spent Thursday night in Castlegregory. A fun fact, the place we stayed at was AMAZING and the band Dire Straits, as well as some other famous actors and actresses have stayed there. It was easily the nicest B&B I have ever seen, it is one of only a few 5 Diamond B&B's in Ireland and we can certainly see why! And the French Toast with honey and banana for breakfast was the perfect ending to our stay there!

Thursday included a WIDE range of things, we walked on a perfectly sandy beach and collected shells (not something I thought I would do in Ireland), we toured a 2500 year old fort, we drove through some amazing scenery, we saw one of the first christian "churches" in Ireland and we toured a 850 acre mansion.

Here are a few pictures of that day:

(scenery along the coast, with sheep!)

(the view from our room at The Shores Country House. The beach was right there and we sat and watched the waves for a long time.)

(Dingle Peninsula, beach we walked on and collected shells, who knew Ireland had these kind of beaches)

(Gallarus Oratory, one of the first christian churches in Ireland, still waterproof after 1500 years)

(Sherri and I near a 2500 year old Fort above the ocean)

(Adare Manor, former home of the Earl of Dunraven and currently one of the nicest hotels in the world and a golf course that was names #4 in the world by Conde Nast Traveler, the manor covers 850 acres, we couldn't get the entire manor in 1 picture, in fact I'm not sure we could get it in 3 or 4 pictures, it was HUGE)

Update...

2009-03-21T10:16:00.001-08:00

Hi Everyone -

It has been a couple days since our last update because we have not had Internet access. We arrived in Dublin a couple of hours ago and are checked in to our hotel here. We will be here for 3 days before heading home. The last couple of days have been AMAZING and I will post pictures and updates tonight!!

Thanks for following us, more to come soon!!

Cead Mile Failte!!! (a hundred thousand welcomes)

2009-03-18T12:29:00.003-08:00

(The town of Adare, where we are staying tonight)

(some Celtic crosses at an old church)

(The Cliffs of Moher, almost 700 feet tall, amazing!)

(This is why I am glad we bought a GPS device, this is a typical group of road signs in a small town, how confusing, but it makes for a great picture)

(the ruins of a castle that we stopped at today, one of several we got to see!)

_________________________________________________

Hello Everyone!!

It was another amazing day in Ireland! Today felt like we actually got into the "real Ireland". We left the cities behind and drove through a lot of smaller towns on our trip to the Cliffs of Moher and eventually here to Adare where we are spending the night. We got to see lots of picturesque small towns filled with old Irish men wearing tweed caps, apparently this Ireland still does exist!

The pictures above are just a small sample of some of what we saw today. The weather was perfect again, not a cloud in the sky. We were told to expect cloudy and rainy weather and if we got lucky we may get 1 or 2 sunny days on a typical Ireland vacation, well we have had nothing but sunshine our whole trip and the forecast looks good for the next several days as well! Someone upstairs must like us! Sherri is still battling a head cold so we stopped into a pharmacy today and talked with a pharmacist and she suggested some things and Sherri said that she has been feeling better since taking the suggested medicines, so that is good.

Tomorrow we are off to the Dingle Peninsula where we are staying in the coastal town of Castlegregory. I will try and blog more tomorrow night!

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY FROM IRELAND!!!

2009-03-17T08:23:00.005-08:00

(streets in downtown Galway, so much charm in each building and shop)

(during the parade)

(along the river after the parade, enjoying the sunshine)

(all of the local schools had their bands in the parade, cutest little outfits)

(Along the parade route, people even sitting on top of telephone booths)

(The view of the parade route from where we were standing)

Well, we made it to Ireland safely! We flew into Dublin early yesterday and drove across the country to Galway. It was an amazing drive and gave us a great chance to see some of the country (and lots of sheep). As you can imagine we were exhausted when we got here so we made it a pretty early night last night. This morning we were up early (about 6:30am) and had breakfast and then headed into downtown Galway for the parade and all of the festivities. Today has been the perfect day! I don't know how we can ever top this St. Paddys Day. The Parade was great, about 50,000 people turned out for it and it is such a festive scene. Everyone is dressed in their green with Irish flags and hats and faces painted. It is just such a fun atmosphere. We chose to spend today in Galway as opposed to Dublin because everyone we talked to said that Galway was very traditional Irish, where Dublin was flooded with foreign visitors and was more of a "show" and we are SOOO glad we chose Galway, it has been perfect! The Parade was great and then we did some shopping, Sherri bought a Claddah ring from the original store that invented and made them, pretty cool, and then we spent some time sitting next to the river enjoying the sunshine in downtown, it is about 60 here and perfectly sunny!! We are back at the hotel now after a quick lunch and later tonight we are going back out to watch the sunset over Galway Bay and then going to a local Pub for their traditional Irish Music night. So far the trip has been great, the people here are amazing, everyone is so nice and helpful and we could not ask for better weather. Sherri is battling a cold so that has been the only down side but she has been taking lots of medicine and is trying to get better (please pray for quick healing). Tomorrow we are off to the Cliffs of Moher and Adare and then the Dingle Peninsula the day after that. We will post more in the next day or two.

Off to Ireland

2009-03-12T17:18:00.002-08:00

Hello!

In less than 48 hours we will be on our way to Ireland! We are planning on updating this site every day, or every couple of days with pictures and quick highlights of our trip so check back often over the next couple of weeks!!!

Snow Sculptures

2009-03-08T22:34:00.004-08:00

Hello!

Today Sherri and I went and saw the snow sculptures that are part of the Fur Rondy Festival. Every year they have dozens of teams enter and their creations are always pretty amazing. Here are some of our favorites!

(Scrat from the "Ice Age" movies)

(A snowman on a hammock hung between two palm trees)

(A Kayaker taking a wave)

(A group of native whalers on 2 whales. The detail on this was AMAZING)

Fur Rondy - 2009

2009-03-05T14:35:00.004-09:00

Each winter Anchorage has the Fur Rendezvous Winter Carnival that takes places over 2 weeks. They have a lot of events around town, a carnival, dog races, fireworks and a lot more. It is a big event that always draws big crowds. One of my favorite events is a new one. It debuted last year and was a HUGE success. It is called the "Running of the Reindeer". It is an idea created by 2 local DJ's that wanted an event similar to the "Running of the Bulls" in Spain, but with an Alaskan twist, thus this event was born. Last year they had over 1,000 people sign up for the inaugural event and this year was even bigger with a celebrity heat, a men's heat, a women's heat and a group / couples heat. Many of the runners dress up in funny costumes for the event, some of our favorite were: Santa, an 8 foot tall Easter Bunny, the Geico Caveman, all of the members of the band KISS, lots of people in swimsuits (the temp was about 15), a bride and groom in full tux and wedding dress wear and several others. Sherri and I got downtown about an hour and a half before the start so we could get a good spot to watch the races. The running covers a 2 block area in downtown Anchorage and thousands of people line the streets to watch the event. They release about a dozen reindeer for each race and again this year, there were no serious injuries.

We took a bunch of pictures and here are some of them (click on each picture to make it bigger):

(view of the crowd on our side of the street)

(start of the men's race about 2 blocks down from us)

(here come the men running towards us)

(getting closer, notice one of the reindeer in the middle, the Easter bunny on the right and the Geico Caveman on the left)

(at the finish line)

(a couple of the smaller reindeer. About 20 feet from this reindeer was a hot dog vendor selling reindeer sausage hot dogs, how is that for irony! Also, yes we had some, and yes they were delicious!!!)

Interesting...

2009-02-17T11:30:00.002-09:00

I came across this quote today and I thought it was VERY interesting, especially given the current economic path we as a country are on.

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931 – 2005

What are your thoughts?!?

Ireland Itinerary

2009-02-16T23:54:00.003-09:00

Hello Everyone!!

Here is a map of our upcoming trip to Ireland! It is now under 1 month till we leave and we CAN'T wait! We have been busy reading books and doing a lot of research on-line to try and get as much "irish knowledge" as we can before we leave. The map outlines where we will be driving and the towns that have the yellow dots are where we will be staying overnight. Here is a little preview of what we have planned

*Day 1: Arrive Dublin and drive to Galway (3 1/2 hours) Spend day in Galway

*Day 2: St. Patrick's Day in Galway, parade, shops, pubs, all around fun and shenanigans

*Day 3: Leave Galway, drive to Cliffs of Moher, stay the night in Adare at the Adare Country House (http://www.adarecountryhouse.com/)

*Day 4: Leave Adare, drive Dingle Peninsula, stay the night in Castlegregory at The Shores Country House (http://www.theshorescountryhouse.com/)

*Day 5: Leave Castlegregory, drive to Blarney, Cork and stay the night in Cashel at The Ladyswell House (http://www.ladyswellhouse.com/) our room has a view of The Rock of Cashel from its window (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_of_Cashel).

*Day 6: Leave Cashel, go to Wicklow National Park (featured in P.S. I Love You), Glendalough and stay in Dublin

*Day 7: Dublin, Book of Kells, Guinness Tour, St. Patrick's Cathedral

*Day 8: Dublin

*Day 9: New York City, we actually have a 20 hour layover here so we will have enough time to spend almost a full day in the city!! We are hoping that my brother and sis in law will be able to drive up from Connecticut and meet us for the day!

Valentine's Day

2009-02-16T23:35:00.002-09:00

Hey, all! I don't write often (this is Sherri, BTW) but I thought I'd let you all know what we did for Valentine's Day, because it was GREAT!
Valentine's Day for us began Friday night when I got off work. We went out to dinner at The Cattle Company, a steakhouse here in town. They have a fantastic "dinner-for-two" deal where you get an appetizer, two entrees (including salads, main dish, and two sides), and a dessert for less than $40 total. We both had the New York steak, baked potatoes, and steamed veggies. We had SO much food left over, though! It's crazy how much food you get for less than $40. We've decided they should call it the "dinner-for-four" instead of "dinner-for-two!"
After dinner, we went to see "Seven Pounds" in the theater. What a great movie! Very moving!
On Saturday, we hung around the house in the morning/early afternoon, then went to church. After church, we came home and made our own Valentine's Dinner. Here's the menu:
Appetizer: Crab & Shrimp Stuffed Mushroom Caps
Entree: Side Salad, Filet Mignon, King Crab Legs & Snow Crab Legs w/ butter, and Twice-Baked Potates
Wine: Zaca Mesa Viognier
Dessert: Heart-Shaped White Chocolate Dream Cake
Yummy, eh?? After dinner, we watched "Ghost Town." Also a cute movie.
So, that was our Valentine's Day(s). It was our 6th V-Day together, and they just keep getting better and better!!
We hope yours was just as good!

IRELAND!!!!!

2009-02-06T00:50:00.003-09:00

Hello Everyone!

So we have some pretty exciting news!! We are going to Ireland next month!! We booked our tickets today and we will be gone from March 14 - 25!! We found an amazing deal on airfare ($700 round trip from Anchorage to Dublin) that we could not pass up! We have been wanting to go on vacation for some time and had been planning on going somewhere this spring when these fares opened up!

Also, we will be there for St. Patrick's Day! How perfect is that?! We are flying into and out of Dublin but we will be spending St. Pat's day in Galway. We are driving across the country from Dublin to Galway and then making our way around the southern coast of Ireland back up to Dublin. I have already made a few of our lodging reservations for our trip. We really want to experience a more authentic Ireland so we are going to be staying in a lot of B&B's, however in Galway we are staying in a more traditional hotel that we got an amazing rate at and in Dublin we are staying at Clontarf Castle, originally built in 1172! We figured if we are in Ireland we may as well splurge for a couple of nights in a castle, right?

Anyway, I am sure we will post more as we get closer and our itinerary firms up.

This will be our first time in Ireland so if anyone has been before or has any ideas or suggestions please let us know!

Bombs Away!!!!

2009-01-30T16:26:00.002-09:00

(Mount Redoubt - The last time it erupted)

____________________________________________

Hello!!

It is a pretty exciting time here in Alaska, we could be on the verge of a volcanic eruption within the next few hours or days.

This volcano, Mount Redoubt, is located about 100 miles from Anchorage and last erupted in 1989 / 1990. I remember it's last eruption quite well as it coated Anchorage with a layer of volcanic ash. We aren't in any sort of danger, it may just make things a little crazy for a few days. You are supposed to stay inside as much as possible, wear a mask if you go outside, cover your cars, and keep any electronics inside covered as well. Basically volcanic ash is small bits of rock and glass, much smaller and more dangerous than sand or dirt. If the volcano erupts we will make sure to get lots of pictures to post!!

It has been a pretty amazing January! We had a couple weeks of -20 degree weather, then we had a windstorm with winds that topped 100MPH, then we had 50 degree weather and all of our snow melted, and the other day we had a 5.7 earthquake that woke us up and now we are bracing for a volcanic eruption. One thing about life in Alaska, it is not "normal".

We will keep you updated!!

Warmer Temperatures...FINALLY!!!

2009-01-14T06:34:00.003-09:00

So, our "cold snap" is finally over!! It ended up being one of the longest streaks of cold weather EVER in Alaska. Brrrr. We had about 2 weeks where the temp never got above 0. Today it is supposed to be 38, which feels SO warm after what we have experienced. The silver lining is that if we can make it through that, we can make it through anything!! Plus, there was a news story in yesterdays paper about how forecasters are projecting a warmer than normal summer for Alaska, so that is good news!

How we spent $139 on toothbrushes and could not be happier!

2009-01-13T11:31:00.008-09:00

So we recently did something that I honestly thought I would never do in my life. We spent over $100.00 on toothbrushes. You read correctly, toothbrushes.

We have a few friends who had received Sonicare toothbrushes and raved about them and how great they work. I did some research on-line and was surprised to see how high the reviews are of people who use the Sonicare products. I expected the reviews to be very mixed, that seems to be the case with most items, but from what I could find the reviews are almost all positive everywhere I looked. I had heard that Costco sold them and had the best prices around so we went to look and they had a 2 pack of the Sonicare Flexcare brushes, the UV brush cleaner and a couple of other accessories on sale for $139.99 (they also had a 2 pack of another Sonicare model for $99). That may seem expensive, but it's actually a great price for 2 Sonicare's.

Bottom line...these are amazing, they work great and our teeth have never felt better! By far the best toothbrush we have ever used.

Things to do inside when it is freezing outside...

2009-01-09T09:59:00.004-09:00

Howdy -

So, we are currently in the longest "cold streak" in Anchorage in about 25 years. It has been FREEZING for SOOO long. I don't remember the last time I saw a cloud in the sky. The days here have been beautiful and sunny, the problem is that when it is sunny here in the winter it gets cold. It looks like today could be the last cold day with it "warming up" to the teens and 20's this weekend and next week. Sherri and I have both commented that 10 above is going to feel great after what we have gone through!

One positive of this weather is that it forces you to stay inside and keep occupied. Earlier this week we got the idea to "re-do" our bedroom. Seems kinda strange since we only moved in 8 months ago, but we felt like our new idea would make the room more romantic and just a much more relaxing space. We didn't have a headboard for our bed and we have looked for one that we liked and we could just never find the right one, so, we made one. It was easy easy easy. We went to Home Depot, got a 1/2 inch sheet of plywood, picked out some nice peel and stick floor tiles that would go with the color of our bedroom accent wall, found some curtains that would tie everything together, bought new matching nightstand lamps for next to the bed and a few new candle sconces for around the room, we bought all new bedding to match and we are SO happy with the outcome!! It feels much more like what we wanted our room to feel like from the beginning. Here are a couple pictures of the final product!!

Happy Anniversary Alaska!!!

2009-01-04T03:02:00.008-09:00

Today (January 3rd) was the 50th Anniversary of Alaska becoming a state! We have had events going on across the state for most of 2008 and they all culminated with a big "Statehood Day" today here in Anchorage. There were tons of events going on and Sherri bundled up and headed downtown to take some of them in! We are currently in one of the coldest streaks that we have had in years and it was about -10 when we were downtown but we still had a GREAT time!!

Here are some pictures!!

(This is the cauldron that was placed downtown, the flame was lit by leaders from all areas of Alaska and it burned throughout the celebrations)

(This is a huge 30 foot banner that is a reproduction of the newspaper headline here in Alaska the day that we finally became a state.)

(This is inside the main ballroom at the new convention center in downtown Anchorage. They had tons of music and entertainment going on throughout the day."

(This is a chopper built by O.C.C. (Orange County Choppers) to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Statehood. It will be featured on an episode of O.C.C. in March. If you don't know who O.C.C. is they are probably the most known custom motorcycle crew in the world.)

(Here are Sherri and I next to the ice skating rink in Town Square. Notice the frost on the outside of my hat)

(Every winter the city of Anchorage invites some of the best ice carvers from around the world to do pieces that are displayed throughout Town Square. They are amazing to see in person. Here is one of the carvings. They probably have 15 or so each year.)

(This is another of the carvings that depicts Anchorage after the 1964 Earthquake. A lot of the detail in this carving didn't get picked up by the camera, but it was pretty amazing.

(Another carving, this one depicts life in Alaska's oceans, they had it lit with blue lights and it was great.)

(The evening ended with a huge fireworks display shot off from 3 different locations downtown. This is a photo from our local newspaper because Sherri and I decided to watch and enjoy the fireworks together rather then try and get photos of them)

There were tens of thousands of people downtown and with the cold temps and everyone bundled up it just made for a really awesome event. Somehow celebrating Alaska's statehood seemed appropriate at -10 degrees.

This event reminded me how proud I am to be an "Alaskan".

Happy Anniversary Alaska, not a day goes by when something about you doesn't amaze me.

Happy New Year!!!

2009-01-02T02:14:00.002-09:00

It's 2009, can you believe it?!?

We had a great New Years Eve. We started at The Crows Nest for a drink with friends. It is the restaurant that Sherri and I got engaged at and it is on the 20th floor of a local hotel that overlooks downtown. We then had dinner at Ristorante Orso with 3 other couples, Orso is a great local Italian restaurant. After dinner we went to The Buckaroo Club and played some darts and listened to music for a little while before heading to some friends house for the traditional midnight toast.

What we have been studying at church...

2008-12-30T14:31:00.001-09:00

We are about 8 weeks into a study on the book of Galatians. We took a 4 week break from this series over the Holiday season and we are starting back up this coming weekend. This is a short video the church put together with some of the key points from the series thus far. It's been a really powerful series for Sherri and I and we wanted to share this.

A Christmas Blog

2008-12-17T01:39:00.009-09:00

Hello Everyone!!

This is our annual Christmas Letter (in blog form). Welcome to our first time readers and welcome back to our regulars. We try and use this site as a quick and easy way to give updates on happenings, events and just general stuff that goes on in our life way up here in Alaska.
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A lot has happened since our last Christmas letter! Here are the highlights...

* We bought a house! We closed in April and moved in in May. We spent a few weeks totally redoing most of the rooms before we moved in, so it was nice to move into a space that already felt like "us".

*Our kitchen after we finished*

We have really enjoyed living here, we have 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. One of the bedrooms is an office, one is our master bedroom and one is a guestroom (so come visit!!). We have an amazing unobstructed view of the Chugach Mountains from our living room as well as a view of Campbell Lake from our 2nd floor balcony.

* We also bought a new vehicle this year. After having some mechanical issues with our Saturn we decided it was time for an upgrade so we bought a Mercedes M-Class. We got a great deal on it, the previous owner was a professor at the local University and he took amazing care of it. We have really enjoyed it and it has been GREAT here in the winter! We still have the Kia as well and it is still running perfectly!

*The new car, on a drive along Turnagain Arm*

* We are both still with the same companies, Sherri is an Executive Assistant at TecPro (www.tecpro.com) and I am a Regional Director of Sales with Extended Stay Hotels (www.extendedstay.com) We have each had excellent years at work and both feel very blessed by our jobs. Sherri works in an amazing environment where everyone goes to our church, she has an amazing boss that treats her with respect and I don't think we could possibly ask for a better position or environment to work in. I get to work from home, which I have to admit, is awesome! I have my office here and I come in and have a place where I can just focus on work. Its pretty perfect.

This year I traveled a lot with work. Everywhere from Puerto Rico to Seattle and all over the state of Alaska. I don't mind the travel, the air miles are nice and it makes it easier for us to travel for vacations.

*We spent several days in Seattle in September celebrating our 3rd Anniversary. We went and saw Phantom of the Opera, did a bunch of shopping, toured a great winery and just enjoyed our time away.

* Sherri's parents visited us for a couple of weeks in June and July this summer and we had a great time! We got out and saw quite a bit of Alaska and really enjoyed having them here with us in our new home!

*Sherri and her parents below a portion of the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline*

* We were able to get away a few times this year to go camping and just "get away from it all". I think the most memorable experience was when us and 2 other couples went winter camping last February. It was SO cold and we had to hike through the snow to get to the cabin, but we had such a good time and it is a memory that we will always cherish! In fact, we have a follow up trip already planned for next February!

*Here we are walking to the cabin. So foolish.*

* This year also brought an addition to our family! We adopted a kitten from a local animal shelter and she has quickly become part of the family! Sherri wanted a cat because I am gone a lot traveling for work and having an animal would make the house feel less empty. Her name is Missy and she has been soooo much fun to have around. She is certainly a mommas girl and she is almost always found laying on or near Sherri.

*Here is Missy, just after we got her*

* We are still actively involved in our church (www.changepointalaska.com) and are currently co-leading a small group of other newly married couples who don't have children.

* Sherri has been getting back into her art more this year. Our guest room also doubles as her art room with her drawing desk there and all of her art supplies. I think having a dedicated space where she can go and create has helped.

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That is just a small snapshot of the past year in our life. We have had an amazing year, we are greatly enjoying marriage and each other, we love our new home and have really enjoyed "settling in".

We feel so blessed to have such a great network of family and friends, we love you all and wish you a very Merry Christmas!!

Love, Adam & Sherri

A quick trip around the house at Christmas

2008-12-17T00:58:00.007-09:00

Hello Everyone -

We hope that you are enjoying the Holiday Season! We have our house all decorated for Christmas, both inside and out, and thought we would snap a few pictures so you can see how it looks.

Enjoy!

Here is our tree with all of the presents!!

Here is our fireplace with our stockings! (yes we have a stocking for our cat)

We did the railing going to the second floor with lighted garland

Just a fun Noel sign that Sherri painted this year

Our nativity set on the table at the top of the stairs on the 2nd floor

Lights out back leading to the door

White LED lights that we hung on the front of the house

Just Watch...

2008-12-10T02:00:00.001-09:00

An Update!!!

2008-12-03T03:53:00.006-09:00

Hello Everyone!!

We hope that you had an excellent Thanksgiving and are enjoying the "Holiday Season".

We haven't updated this in a few weeks so I will do my best to catch you up on what we have been doing!

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* We had a great Thanksgiving and we stayed up all night in order to be in line for Black Friday shopping at Best Buy at 3am!!!

(Us with Jason & Jana in line at Best Buy at 3am)

* We are, for the first time, doing an Advent Wreath and celebrating the entire season of Advent. It has been awesome and I am sure this is something that will become a family tradition of ours.

(This is a picture of the Advent wreath that we made)

* We went and saw George Balanchine's production of "The Nutcracker" last week and it was great!! It was put on by the Oregon Ballet Theatre and they did an awesome job!!

* We have all of our Christmas lights up outside and the tree and decorations up inside! So it is feeling very festive around our house!!

* We got our first good sized snow storm last weekend. We got about 10 inches of snow, which makes everything look perfect for Christmas!

(here is a picture of our tree covered in snow with the white lights)

* Next week we are going to see the Broadway production of "Jesus Christ Superstar" that is starring Ted Neely, the guy who originally played Jesus in the movie. It should be fun and we are both looking forward to it!!

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I think that is about it. Work is going good for both of us, my company has put a "travel freeze" into place so I am home at least through January, which is really nice!!

I will blog more later with more "Christmas pictures" of our tree and house all decorated. Also, what our plans are for Christmas.

On a lighter note...

2008-11-14T04:22:00.003-09:00

It was announced today that the Broadway production of The Lion King is coming to Anchorage for 6 weeks of shows in September & October of 2009!! Both Sherri and I are REALLY exited to see it!!

Reflections on an eye opening business trip...

2008-11-14T02:34:00.005-09:00

Howdy -

So I have been in Seattle for the past couple of weeks working. It has been a pretty successful trip from a business perspective, but it also really opened my eyes to the current financial issues going on around the country. See, in Alaska we have been pretty shielded from all of the issues, we have heard about them on the news, but we haven't actually seen or felt them. We are fortunate that our state is dependant on an industry that is still thriving (oil) and that we have had multi-billion dollar surpluses to store away for "leaner" times.

I went into meetings this week only to find out that the person I was supposed to meet with had been laid off, this happened a couple of times. I heard dozens of stories about spouses, family and friends of our accounts who have been personally affected, either by losing their job, or having hours drastically cut. It was pretty unbelievable. It really made all of the news stories that I have heard suddenly become real.

I felt heart broken for these people, they have been affected, not because of anything they did, but because of a broken system. People who planned on retiring soon, now working till who knows when. One person I met with was an older lady who's husband had been an engineer with a HUGE local company for almost 30 years, about 5 weeks ago he lost his job and because she doesn't make enough to cover their bills he had to take a part time job at Barnes & Noble just to make ends meet. Here is someone who went from a high paying job with a Fortune 500 company, to a bookseller at a national book chain. It just didn't seem right.

I have had a lot of down time at my hotel the past couple weeks to think and reflect on all of this and here is what I have come up with.

1) I am VERY thankful that I live in a state that is doing well financially. I am also VERY thankful that we have leaders (Gov. Palin & others) who, when we have multi-billions of dollars in surplus, don't spend it. They save it because they know that, while today we have plenty, tomorrow we may have need.

2) We need to fix the economic system in America. Now, I have no idea how that needs to happen, BUT, I do know that bailout after bailout will not help. If we bail a company out, but don't change the flawed approach that got us here in the first place, we are only delaying this happening again.

3) We need to be fiscally conservative. Now, please do not read that statement as "we need republicans in power". We have had a republican president for 8 years and we have a 10.6 TRILLION dollar national debt. Ugh. We need to take an honest look at where we stand financially. As Americans we need to be honest about our finances, maybe there are things we can't afford that we need to cut out, and maybe there are things that we can afford, and simply don't need. Just as American families need to do that, so does our government.

4) Americans need to save. I know that I blogged about saving a few weeks ago but I think it is important enough to say again. We have become so dependant on credit, that when the credit is no longer there we are helpless. Here is a blurb from a Washington Post article about the financial state of the American family, I think it is pretty interesting.
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"Meet the typical American family.
It has about $3,800 in the bank. No one has a retirement account, and the neighbors who do only have about $35,000 in theirs. Mutual funds? Stocks? Bonds? Nope. The house is worth $160,000, but the family owes $95,000 on it to the bank. The breadwinners make more than $43,000 a year but can't manage to pay off a $2,200 credit card balance."

No wonder we are in the place we are. We are living with such a small "cushion" that when something unexpected happens (loss of job, loss of hours) we are quickly in trouble.

5) Americans need to give. Huh? Didn't I just say we need to save..now I'm saying we need to give? Yup. Our church runs a soup kitchen in downtown Anchorage that feeds 90,000 meals a year to the homeless and working poor in our city. The local newspaper recently did a story on them on how they are seeing a HUGE increase in families at the soup kitchen. Average, working, American families. There are thousands of families who have to choose between rent and food, and when there is a soup kitchen and food bank where you can get free food, the choice is made easier. Sherri and I have found that every time we give, we are never without. In fact, honestly, we believe that 100% of the reason that we have been as fortunate as we have financially, isn't because of any striving or achievement of our own, it is because right from the start of our marriage we made the choice to view our money as a tool not a yardstick. Something for us to use, not something for us to be measured by. So give, no matter how much or how little, give to organizations that meet practical needs. I think that giving helps us stay aware of how blessed we really are, and that is something that we all need to continually remember. We have much to be thankful for.

Think of giving not as a duty but as a privilege.

- John D Rockefeller

Who knew that a 2 week business trip could turn into a multi-paragraph blog/rant.

Election

2008-11-04T02:22:00.006-09:00

In a matter of hours we will know who the next President of the United States will be. Polls are opening around the country and we are sure to have a HUGE voter turnout today.

Thomas Jefferson once said "We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate."

Your vote is important, participation in our country's democratic process is important.

We have a choice between two men, both qualified, both inspiring. I am choosing John McCain. I do not believe that Barack Obama is a radical Muslim, un-American, or any of the other "titles" that some have tried to put on him. I just believe that when it comes to leadership and a direction that is best for America, John McCain is my man. I strongly disagree with Obama's economic and health care plan and I think that they both are VERY flawed.

I am aware that the polls look like Obama will win, and if that is the case, he will be my President. I will pray for him and hope that I was wrong, and that our country becomes better for electing him.

Our country is very politically divided right now. We have the far religious right, we have the extreme liberal left and then the rest of us who fall somewhere in the middle. I think that we need to work towards a more unified America. We can disagree on the issues, we can debate policies, but we should remain respectful. Our politics on both sides have become nothing more than overblown personal attacks that do nothing to make our country better.

We live in the greatest country in the world. We are at our best when there is unity among us. As we move past this election cycle it is my hope that, no matter who wins, we would support our country's leadership and work toward America becoming the greatest force for good in the world that we can.

Perhaps we all need to be willing to listen to, and work with, people on the "other side" of where we personally stand.

Halloween Pumpkin - 2008

2008-10-28T23:26:00.002-08:00

So every year we carve a pumpkin for Halloween. It is always a fun evening that we look forward to. Here is a picture of the pumpkin that we carved this year!!

Birthday snowman and another trip to Seattle

2008-10-24T14:23:00.004-08:00

Hello!

Sherri celebrated her 27th Birthday on the 12th and we had my mom, my dad and Susan over for dinner. We had received some snow that day and my mom, unbeknownst to us, was outside making a "birthday snowman" for Sherri before she came in. So when she got here we looked outside and this is what we saw...

Pretty funny.

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Also, I got a call from my boss yesterday asking if I would mind going to help some of the hotels that we have in Seattle for a couple of weeks. The economic downturn has really hurt them and they are in need of some extra help. I will be in Seattle from November 2 - 14. Sherri and I aren't looking forward to being apart for a couple of weeks but we make it a point to talk several times a day when I travel and we text a lot, so it will be OK.

That's all for now

Taxes...the truth

2008-10-15T16:15:00.002-08:00

During this presidential election there has been a lot of focus on each candidates tax plan. I found this great chart put out by a non-partisan tax group that helps explain exactly what each candidates tax plan will do.

I am sure that I will blog more on this later as I have some VERY strong feelings when it comes to taxes and redistribution of wealth.

What a difference a week makes..

2008-10-10T10:05:00.004-08:00

This picture was taken last weekend, after we put up some of our fall decorations.

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This picture was taken this week after our first snowfall!!

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All of the snow has melted and it has been replaced by rain, but winter is certainly on its way!!

Missy hates us...

2008-10-09T15:38:00.002-08:00

We bought our cat, Missy, a great new Christmas outfit. It comes with a reindeer hat and a jingle bell neck thing. She absolutely hates it. But it looks SOOO funny. Here is a picture of her trying it on. She is SO not happy. Pets are great fun.

Please Use Spell Check..

2008-10-06T22:54:00.002-08:00

Sherri and I were at True Value looking at Christmas lights and we noticed a spelling error on ALL of their boxes of multi-colored LED lights. All of the other colored boxes said "Strawberry", but these "special" boxes said "Starwberry". How is it that thousands of labels were printed, attached to boxes, sent to True Values across the country, and this was not caught? I am pretty sure that someone lost their job when this was discovered.

Economy...

2008-10-06T12:12:00.003-08:00

Hello Readers!!

The economy has been front and center in national news recently and financial matters seem to be at the front of everyones mind. We all have to be savvy and smart with our finances, one way that we can do that is choosing where we keep our money. Local banks and financial institutions are great, but for saving money they offer some of the lowest interest rates around. Sherri and I use ING Direct for our general and emergency savings accounts because they pay some of the highest rates around. We have been VERY happy with them and highly recommend them!!

We received this from ING Direct and I really liked it and thought I would pass it on. It is a good read and helps provide some good financial points.

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OUR DECLARATION OF FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE.

1 - We will spend less than we earn. Saving a little out of every dollar we bring home is the foundation of independence. Without it, we can’t build equity in our home, we can’t invest for the future, and we can’t be ready for challenging times. We promise to pay ourselves, always.

2 - We will use our home as a savings account. Besides shelter and comfort for our family, the role of a house in our financial life is to build equity. We will have a healthy down payment when we buy. We’ll choose the mortgage that lets us pay down the principal fastest. And then we’ll leave that equity safe where it is instead of spending it on things that don’t last.

3 - We will take care of our money. It’s not enough to have money in a bank. We will put it where it will grow. We’ll keep track of it. And we’ll check every account we have every year to protect ourselves against fraud.

4 - We will defend our credit worthiness. Good credit is going to be precious in the years to come. We will pay our bills on time. We’ll borrow only when we need to and in amounts we can comfortably pay back. And then we’ll do just that.

5 - We will ignore unsolicited credit card marketing. We decide when we need a credit card, not some marketer. And mostly, we probably don’t need another one at all. We won’t even open those solicitations. We’ll shred them.

6 - We will know the cost of borrowing. The interest lenders charge us is real money, too. When we buy a mortgage or finance a purchase, we’ll figure out what that interest is really going to cost in dollars, add it to the purchase price, and ask ourselves if it’s still worth it.

7 - We will invest for the long term. Futures are built out of patience and prudence, not luck. We will not put off being a saver because we think there’s a lottery win in our future, in Vegas or on Wall Street.

8 - We will take care of the things we have. We work hard for our money, and it’s disrespectful to waste it – or the planet – by treating our possessions as disposable.

9 - We will remember what matters. We are not the things we own. If we have to spend and spend on bigger, more impressive things to keep up with our friends, then they are not our friends at all.

10 - We will be heard. Our representatives in government and the corporations we deal with need to know that we are paying attention. If we’re silent, we’re accepting the status quo, and the business practices that got our country into this situation will continue. We are not going to accept that.

3 Years Ago...

2008-09-23T12:45:00.003-08:00

We're Home!!

2008-09-23T11:46:00.005-08:00

Hello Everyone -

We returned home last night from our trip to Seattle, and what a trip it was!! We had SOOO much fun!! Here is a little recap of the trip.

We flew into Seattle late Wednesday night and went to the hotel and got settled.

Thursday we did a bunch of shopping during the day and that night we went to SkyCity for dinner, which is the rotating restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. The food was awesome and the views were amazing!! After dinner we went to see the Phantom of the Opera at the Paramount Theatre downtown. Sherri had never seen the play and we both loved it. After the play we went to a famous Seattle "drive-in" style hamburger place named "Dick's" that is SO good and is a Seattle legend.

Friday we drove an hour to Olympia and had lunch with my cousin Lisa and her husband Paul. We had a great time with them and it was great for Sherri to meet them and have a chance to get to know them a little! After lunch we went and got their daughter Gillian from school, I hadn't seen her since she was a baby and now she is 11!! My how time flies!! After we left Olympia we drove to the SuperMall which is a large outlet style mall. After doing more shopping we decided to leave for the Journey/Heart/CheapTrick concert. We were mainly going for Journey, the concert started at 7 and so we left about 7, knowing we would miss some of CheapTrick but we were ok with that. We plugged the concert venue address into our cars GPS and off we went. It told us we had about 10 miles to go, so we figured that we could be there in 15 or 20 minutes. WELL..Let the adventure begin..about 1/2 mile from the mall we hit traffic. I thought, surely the traffic getting to the concert isn't backed up 9 1/2 miles!!! Well...it was. We stayed in the traffic line for about an hour or so and finally decided, IF we get to the venue we will probably miss all of CheapTrick, all of Heart and most of Journey, so we can wait for another hour in traffic or figure out something else. About that time we passed the Muckleshoot Casino, which is the largest casino in the Pacific Northwest, Sherri had never been to a casino and she had expressed an interest, and I have been to a few and have always enjoyed myself, So off to the casino we went. We were, at first, disappointed in not making the concert and sort of viewed the casino as an "OK" back up plan. We ended up having some of the most fun of our entire trip at the casino!! We took a hundred dollars and once that was gone we were done. We played slots, walked around, listened to some terrible casino band and just had a great time! We ended up spending a couple of hours there, AND we left with more money than we started with!! On my last slot spin of the night we won 3000 credits ($30.00) which put us $12.27 above what we started with! It was SUCH a fun experience and a night that could have been disappointing ended up being a highlight of the whole trip!!

Saturday we slept in a little and we started the day by going to IKEA, Sherri had never been to one and we ended up buying some very cool stuff for the house. After IKEA we hit up Olive Garden for lunch and then we went to the Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery for a tour / tasting, www.ste-michelle.com. This winery makes some of our favorite Riesling so we were VERY excited!! We were able to taste 8 different wines and we went on a great tour of their facilities. After the winery we headed North to the Seattle Premium Outlets. It is a higher end outlet mall with stores like Coach, Calvin Klein, Burberry and a ton of others. We bought a few things (Sherri got 2 new Coach purses) and we headed back to the hotel. We grabbed dinner and called it a fairly early night.

Sunday!! This was certainly my favorite day!! We got up and headed to Qwest Field for the Seahawks / Rams football game! We got there a couple of hours early and walked through "Touchdown City" which is a large area they set up before each game with lots of booths and games and entertainment. After we were done there we went into Qwest Field for the game. We had AMAZING seats, 6 rows from the field at the 25 yard line! The game was great, the Seahawks won and it was a VERY fun time. After the game we went back to the hotel to change and we headed back downtown to go to the evening church service at Mars Hill, www.marshillchurch.org. This is an amazing church! I listen to their podcasts weekly and have read a couple of Mark Driscoll's books (he is their pastor). This is a very "modern" church that really connects well and relates well to a very contemporary city like Seattle. This church has grown rapidly, as fast as a thousand people a month at times. They were starting a new series called "The Peasant Princess" based on the Song of Solomon. It was one of the best teachings on marriage / love / relationships that I have heard. Pastor Mark tells it like it is and it was a great message!! You can see more and even watch the message at http://www.peasantprincess.com/, Sherri and I have decided that we are going to watch every weeks message in this series. If you want to watch the message scroll to the bottom of the page linked above and you will see the 9/21 message. Click on that and the video will load.

Monday was our last day in Seattle so we headed down to Pikes Place Market, walked around, got a coffee at the very first Starbucks store and just enjoyed the sunshine and our last few hours in Seattle.

It was an awesome trip and we had a ton of fun, but I think that we were both ready to be home!!

Here are some photos from our trip!!

(Sherri at SkyCity)

(entrance to Chateau Ste Michelle Winery)

(View from our seats at the Seahawks game)

(us at the game)

(Sherri before the game with Seattle skyline in the background)

(Sherri at the casino)

And we're off!!

2008-09-17T11:44:00.002-08:00

Sherri and I are leaving tonight for our vacation! We will have 5 days in Seattle and we will take lots of pictures and blog all about it when we get back!!

It is hard to believe that we are going there to celebrate our 3rd Anniversary, it is amazing how fast the time has gone!

Seattle Trip Update..

2008-09-08T21:33:00.002-08:00

Hello -

So next week (17th) we are off to Seattle for several days! We got our tickets to the Seahawks game on Sunday (6 rows from the field)!!! We just bought tickets to see Phantom of the Opera while we are there, and that same night we are going to SkyCity for dinner, it is the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle!! We had planned on seeing Shrek The Musical, but the reviews have been less than stellar so we decided to see Phantom instead. We are also still going to the Journey/Heart/Cheap Trick concert and doing the winery tour and all of the shopping that we had originally planned.

We will be back on the night of the 22nd so I will blog about our trip when we get back!

Still amazed...

2008-09-06T01:29:00.002-08:00

Hello Everyone!!

Well, to say that the last week has been crazy would be a HUGE understatement. I don't ever remember a time when Alaska, or a fellow Alaskan has received so much national attention. Every time we turn on the national news we see our Governors face and see reporters giving stories from our town! I think one of the reasons that it is so strange for us is that this is a woman that we have met, sat in church services with and wrapped a Christmas present for. Even after a week, it still seems unreal.

We thought that her speech at the RNC was AMAZING! We are happy that the rest of the country is getting to see what we have known for some time, that this woman is awesome!!

We would be happy to answer any questions that any friends and/or family may have about her or how she has governed Alaska. FYI, a new poll came out today and she has an 82% approval rating here in Alaska, that is even with the "scandals" that the national news seems to focus on, so she much be doing something right!!

Also, leave us a comment, let us know what you think about her, her speech, or anything else.

Great Day To Be An Alaskan!!!!

2008-08-29T10:03:00.005-08:00

Hello Everyone -

As most of you probably know, John McCain announced today that he has picked our very own Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin as his choice for Vice President!! Both Sherri and I are BIG Sarah Palin fans but we know that she is unknown to most people so we wanted to post a bio so you can get to know her. We know that once you get to know her, what she has done and what she stands for that you will love her as much as we do!

This is a VERY exciting day for all Alaskans! We know that Sarah will be a GREAT Vice President.

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Fred Barnes in The Weekly Standard:

The wipeout in the 2006 election left Republicans in such a state of dejection that they've overlooked the one shining victory in which a Republican star was born. The triumph came in Alaska where Sarah Palin, a politician of eye-popping integrity, was elected governor. She is now the most popular governor in America, with an approval rating in the 90s, and probably the most popular public official in any state.

Her rise is a great (and rare) story of how adherence to principle--especially to transparency and accountability in government--can produce political success. And by the way, Palin is a conservative who only last month vetoed 13 percent of the state's proposed budget for capital projects. The cuts, the Anchorage Daily News said, "may be the biggest single-year line-item veto total in state history."

As recently as last year, Palin (pronounced pale-in) was a political outcast. She resigned in January 2004 as head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission after complaining to the office of Governor Frank Murkowski and to state Attorney General Gregg Renkes about ethical violations by another commissioner, Randy Ruedrich, who was also Republican state chairman.

State law barred Palin from speaking out publicly about ethical violations and corruption. But she was vindicated later in 2004 when Ruedrich, who'd been reconfirmed as state chairman, agreed to pay a $12,000 fine for breaking state ethics laws. She became a hero in the eyes of the public and the press, and the bane of Republican leaders.

In 2005, she continued to take on the Republican establishment by joining Eric Croft, a Democrat, in lodging an ethics complaint against Renkes, who was not only attorney general but also a long-time adviser and campaign manager for Murkowski. The governor reprimanded Renkes and said the case was closed. It wasn't. Renkes resigned a few weeks later, and Palin was again hailed as a hero.

Palin, 43, the mother of five, passed up a chance to challenge Republican senator Lisa Murkowski, the then-governor's daughter, in 2004. She endorsed another candidate in the primary, but Murkowski won and was reelected. Palin said then that her 14-year-old son talked her out of running, though it's doubtful that was the sole reason.

In 2006, she didn't hesitate. She ran against Gov. Murkowski, who was seeking a second term despite sagging poll ratings, in the Republican primary. In a three-way race, Palin captured 51 percent and won in a landslide. She defeated former Democratic governor Tony Knowles in the general election, 49 percent to 41 percent. She was one of the few Republicans anywhere in the country to perform above expectations in 2006, an overwhelmingly Democratic year. Palin is unabashedly pro life.

With her emphasis on ethics and openness in government, "it turned out Palin caught the temper of the times perfectly," wrote Tom Kizzia of the Anchorage Daily News. She was also lucky. News broke of an FBI investigation of corruption by legislators between the primary and general elections. So far, three legislators have been indicted.

In the roughly three years since she quit as the state's chief regulator of the oil industry, Palin has crushed the Republican hierarchy (virtually all male) and nearly every other foe or critic. Political analysts in Alaska refer to the "body count" of Palin's rivals. "The landscape is littered with the bodies of those who crossed Sarah," says pollster Dave Dittman, who worked for her gubernatorial campaign. It includes Ruedrich, Renkes, Murkowski, gubernatorial contenders John Binkley and Andrew Halcro, the three big oil companies in Alaska, and a section of the Daily News called "Voice of the Times," which was highly critical of Palin and is now defunct.

One of her first acts as governor was to fire the Alaska Board of Agriculture. Her ultimate target was the state Creamery Board, which has been marketing the products of Alaska dairy farmers for 71 years and wanted to close down after receiving $600,000 from the state. "You don't just close your doors and walk away," Palin told me. She discovered she lacked the power to fire the Creamery Board. Only the board of agriculture had that authority. So Palin replaced the agriculture board, which appointed a new creamery board, which has rescinded the plan to shut down.

In preserving support for dairy farmers, Palin exhibited a kind of Alaskan chauvinism. She came to the state as an infant, making her practically a native. And she is eager to keep Alaska free from domination by oil companies or from reliance on cruise lines whose ships bring thousands of tourists to the state.

"She's as Alaskan as you can get," says Dan Fagan, an Anchorage radio talk show host. "She's a hockey mom, she lives on a lake, she ice fishes, she snowmobiles, she hunts, she's an NRA member, she has a float plane, and her husband works for BP on the North Slope," Fagan says. Todd Palin, her high school sweetheart, is a three-time winner of the 2,000-mile Iron Dog snowmobile race from Wasilla to Nome to Fairbanks. It's the world's longest snowmobile race.
Gov. Palin grew up in Wasilla, where as star of her high school basketball team she got the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" for her fierce competitiveness. She led her underdog team to the state basketball championship. Palin also won the Miss Wasilla beauty contest, in which she was named Miss Congeniality, and went on to compete in the Miss Alaska pageant.

At 32, she was elected mayor of Wasilla, a burgeoning bedroom community outside Anchorage. Though Alaskans tend to be ferociously anti-tax, she persuaded Wasilla voters to increase the local sales tax to pay for an indoor arena and convention center. The tax referendum won by 20 votes.

In 2002, Palin entered statewide politics, running for lieutenant governor. She finished a strong second in the Republican primary. That fall, she dutifully campaigned for Murkowski, who'd given up his Senate seat to run for governor. Afterwards, she turned down several job offers from Murkowski, finally accepting the oil and gas post. When she quit 11 months later, "that was her defining moment" in politics, says Fagan.

Her campaign for governor was bumpy. She missed enough campaign appearances to be tagged "No Show Sarah" by her opponents. She was criticized for being vague on issues. But she sold voters on the one product that mattered: herself.

Her Christian faith--Palin grew up attending nondenominational Bible churches--was a minor issue in the race. She told me her faith affects her politics this way: "I believe everything happens for a purpose. In my own personal life, if I dedicated back to my Creator what I'm trying to create for the good . . . everything will turn out fine." That same concept applies to her political career, she suggested.

The biggest issue in the campaign was the proposed natural gas pipeline from the North Slope that's crucial to the state's economy. Murkowski had made a deal with the three big oil companies--Exxon, BP, ConocoPhillips--which own the gas reserves to build the pipeline. But the legislature turned it down and Palin promised to create competition for the pipeline contract.
She made three other promises: to end corruption in state government, cut spending, and provide accountability. She's now redeeming those promises.

Palin describes herself as "pro-business and pro-development." She doesn't want the oil companies to sit on their energy reserves or environmental groups to block development of the state's resources. "I get frustrated with folks from outside Alaska who come up and say you shouldn't develop your resources," she says. Alaska needs to be self-sufficient, she says, instead of relying heavily on "federal dollars," as the state does today.

Her first major achievement as governor was lopsided passage by the legislature of the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, which is designed to attract pipeline proposals this summer. The state is offering $500 million in incentives, but the developer must meet strict requirements. The oil companies have said they won't join the competition.

Palin's tough spending cuts drew criticism from Republican legislators whose pet projects were vetoed. But her popularity doesn't appear threatened. "It's not just that she's pretty and young," says Dittman. "She's really smart. And there's no guile. She says her favorite meal is moose stew or mooseburgers. It wouldn't shock people if that were true."

Anniversary Trip...

2008-08-13T21:57:00.002-08:00

It is hard to believe but next month we will be celebrating our 3rd anniversary! We decided to celebrate this year by going back to Seattle, where we went for our honeymoon. We both love Seattle and look forward to having a few great days there again!

Some of the things that we have planned:

Concert with Journey, Heart and Cheap Trick!! Sherri and I both LOVE Journey and we cant wait to see them!
Seattle Seahawks v.s. St. Louis Rams football game! Sherri has never been to a NFL game, so this will be her first!
Going to see "Shrek: The Musical"! The world premier is happening while we are there, and after this it opens on Broadway!!
Tour of the Chateau St. Michelle Winery (one of our favorite wineries)

We also plan on doing A LOT of shopping! It will be nice to get away for a few days and have a chance to relax and do some fun stuff! We will be gone from 9/17 - 9/22

I am sure that we will take a lot of pics while we are there, so we will make sure and post some when we get back!

Cha Ching!!!!

2008-08-08T09:09:00.003-08:00

A couple of months ago our Governor announced a plan to give an "energy rebate" to all Alaskans to help off set the high energy costs. She said that as a state we can not sit around and wait for the Federal Government to act when we have plenty of resources our self. Alaska, being an oil state, has a state surplus that runs into the billions of dollars because of the current high cost of oil, and this plan basically wanted to take a portion of that windfall and pass it on to to the residents of Alaska.

There has been a lot of discussion in our state legislature on how this could work and last night they voted to give $1,200 to each Alaskan!! This money is going to be added to our annual Permanent Fund Dividend check that we already get each October. The dividend this year is expected to top $2,000 for each Alaskan, so when you add in the energy rebate, Sherri and I will get $6,400 just for living in Alaska in a couple of months!! Along with the $1,200 payout they are suspending the state gasoline tax for a year which will drop gas prices and they are putting millions of dollars into energy assistance programs for people in rural areas of Alaska who need more help then people like us in urban areas.

You all are sure you don't want to live here? ;o)

Here is the article in todays paper regarding the rebate:

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/487182.html

A NEW BABY!!!

2008-07-28T23:56:00.003-08:00

Well..not really.

Here is the story. We had 2 cars, Sherri's is a 2001 Kia and mine is a 2000 Saturn. We have had almost no problems with Sherri's car, but mine has seemed to be one thing after another. Normally not anything HUGE, but still a pain. A week and a half ago we were in my car (saturn) driving down the road and it felt like the engine lost power, you put your foot on the gas and it crept forward but had little acceleration and it died at stoplights. We knew that something was seriously wrong so we took it to our mechanic. They looked at it and told us that it was something with the engine and that it was big enough that we would probably be better off taking it to the saturn dealer, so we did. They had it for about a week trying to figure out what exactly was wrong.

Meanwhile Sherri and I decided to start looking around at cars, our idea was that we would get mine fixed, sell it and use that money to get something new since my car kept having issues. We found a car that we REALLY liked and was in the price range that we wanted and so we test drove it and got the ball rolling, but we were still waiting to hear a final word on the cost to fix my car. Well, this morning we got the call...the car needs about $7,000 in repairs!!! Let me remind you that this is a 2000 Saturn and it is only worth about $4000, at best. Apparently something happened in the engine and that triggered a few things, basically, it needs a new engine and a few other things. Blah.

SO, obviously our plan changed, since the car needs so much work we have to scrap it, we may get 500 for it if we are lucky. BUT..in a lot of ways this is a very good thing. The money that we were going to use to fix my car we just used as a down payment for our new car, and we don't have to worry about selling my old car.

What is this car you ask? It is a Mercedes ML320. It is the Mercedes Sport SUV. The car has only had 1 owner and he was a professor at UAA (local university) and it was maintained amazingly! The car practically looks brand new! It has low miles on it and it has only been serviced at the Mercedes dealership. We got it for about 4,000 below what it is worth and with what we put down we have very easy payments.

Needless to say..WE LOVE IT! It will be SO much better to have in the winter, it will be much nicer for me to take work clients around in and when we do decide to sell it the resale on these in Alaska is pretty good. The gas mileage is just a little below what my Saturn got, so that is nice as well.

Here are some pictures!!

Long Time Coming..

2008-07-14T23:15:00.003-08:00

Howdy -

I have been meaning to post this for a little over a week now. SO here is an update on us. Sherri's parents were here for 2 weeks from June 24th - July 7th. We did a TON of stuff while they were here and we had a great time and really enjoyed having them be our first "house guests".

We had an Open House a couple weeks ago and we had about 20 people come, it was good to see everyone and they all got to see our house completed!! It was a beautiful evening, we played "ladder-jacks" and had some great food!

Sherri is still loving her job and she is now working 4 days a week!

Work for me is also going very well, we are currently in the middle of the peak summer tourist season here in Alaska so all of my hotels are staying full!

We finally made it camping for the first time this summer! We went to a campground about an hour and a half from here. We had a great campsite just a few feet from a river and right at the base of a mountain! It was a great quick getaway and we enjoyed hot dogs and marshmallows around the fire!!

We are starting to research and plan for a fall / winter vacation for us. We have a few options and we hope to decide something in the next month or so.

Missy (our kitten) is doing GREAT! She is growing like crazy and we have really enjoyed having her! She is up to 2.5 pounds and the vet says that she is very healthy!

That is about it for now, I will post some pics from Jerry and Denise's Vacation below. Enjoy!!

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Here is Sherri and I in-front of our new house! (just kidding)

Here is a picture of Matanuska Glacier, we saw this on the drive back from Fairbanks!

Here is a picture of the USAF Thunderbirds from the Arctic Thunder Air Show that we went to!

Here are a bunch of Steller Sea Lions from the wildlife cruise that we went on. We saw sea lions, a sea otter, a whale, a ton of sea birds, amazing scenery and we had quite the ride on some very rough seas!!

Here are Jerry and Denise with Santa and Mrs. Clause at the "Santa Clause House" in North Pole, Alaska!

Our New Addition...

2008-06-17T12:24:00.003-08:00

Hello Everyone -

It has been FAR too long since we have updated this! The biggest news is that we have a new kitten!! Her name is "Missy" and we got her from the local animal shelter. She is 3 months old and we are really enjoying having her as part of our "family".

Some other changes are that Sherri is now working 4 days a week at Tecpro. She had been working Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but she has now added Tuesday which is great!!

Jerry and Denise get here next week and we are really looking forward to having them here for a couple of weeks! We have some great "Alaskan adventures" planned and I am sure we will take LOTS of pictures and I will make sure to blog about everything.

That is all for now!!

Quick Update...

2008-05-28T16:30:00.005-08:00

Hello -

So here is a fast update on what's new with us. This past weekend Sherri and I went and hiked in the Portage Valley near Portage Glacier, it was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed being outside in the sun!

Tonight we are going to see Elton John in concert!! We are both very excited, he is a musical legend and it should be an amazing show!!

Sherri finished the guest room!! It looks SO great! We bought a bed for the room and it is all ready for guests (hint hint hint for everyone who has not been to Alaska). Here is a picture of the room (before the bed and furniture got moved in)....

We are also tearing apart the downstairs bathroom because it is getting finished this weekend! We are installing new lighting, a new vanity top, new sink and new toilet and we are painting!! Today I removed the old lighting and medicine cabinet, and removed the caulking from around the sink.

This bathroom is the last BIG project that we have!! So we are hoping that as of early next week we will have everything crossed off of our list that we wanted to do!!

The whole process has been SO much fun, we have enjoyed MANY trips to Home Depot, we have not enjoyed the thousands of dollars that we have spent there, but it is an investment, right? We have also enjoyed the many late nights trying to get projects finished. However, I think that we are most enjoying just being together in our own home.

We will post bathroom pictures once it gets finished!

Hello Summer...Nice To See You Again...

2008-05-19T15:16:00.003-08:00

Here I am getting ready to work in the garden at about 10pm. It's still light!!

Here is the outside now. The bed on the right has the flowers and on the left has the veggies. You can see our new bench up against the house and the bird feeder in the tree. We also put in a decorative metal fence on the back side of the flower bed, to separate it from the walking path, but it is hard to see in this photo. (click on the image to enlarge it)

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Hello Everyone!!

Well, summer is here. We have had a couple beautiful weekends with sunshine and temps in the 60's. So we are officially in the early part of summer! Our house is looking great and we only have a couple more projects till we are finished!! The nice weather has allowed us to focus some of our attention to the outside of our property. We have a nice front area with a couple of very nice flower beds and some great outside space. We decided that we would use 1 bed for flowers and 1 primarily for vegetables / herbs. In the veggie bed we have planted strawberries, blueberries, chives, basil, mint and lettuce. I will be planting a tomato plant this coming weekend hopefully. In the flower bed we got a great mixture of flowers and i think it looks very good! We also bought a bird feeder (seen in the tree in the photo) and a new outside bench (also seen in the photo) that gives us a nice lace to sit outside on nice evenings.

It is staying light till after 11pm so that has allowed us A LOT of time outside. We have been working outside in the evenings, and we have been going for evening walks around the lake and the neighborhood.

That is all for now, I am sure that we will post more soon!!