Sherri's Passport Update...

Hey Everyone -

Sherri has a trip to Vancouver, Canada next weekend for work and her passport was still in her maiden name. When we applied for the updated passport we were told that the passport would probably arrive the day that Sherri was scheduled to fly out, at the earliest. The Passport department is so backed up because of the new passport laws that they are having much longer delays then normal.

We got word today that her passport is complete and will be here tomorrow!! That is 6 days before "the earliest" date that we were told it could be here! This is a huge relief for us, especially Sherri as she is really looking forward to this trip.

We are pretty overwhelmed at how great life has been lately.

Rock The House...

Our church puts on an event called Rock The House which is designed to be a high energy, interactive evening for families with kids in elementary school and younger. Some of us from our Small Group decided to help out at the event by running a few of the carnival games that they had for the kids. Sherri and I were in charge of the Miniature Golf course. They had over 1,800 people show up for the event, and we had a great time!!!! This is a picture of us after the event.

Sunrise From Our Balcony...

This is a picture of the sunrise on March 1st. Seeing the sun come up over the mountains is just amazing!!

Anchorage is Coffeetown, USA

This is an awesome article that appeared in our local paper today. http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/8669696p-8563102c.html

Anyone who has been to Anchorage knows that there are coffee shops EVERYWHERE!!

Nice Winter Drive....

Howdy -

Last night after work we decided to go for a little drive. It was such a beautiful day that we thought we should sieze the opportunity to take some pictures. We drove down to Girdwood, which is a little ski resort town about an hour outside of Anchorage. Here are some of the pictures that we took!!

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Hi -

This is just a quick post to wish everyone a VERY Happy Valentines Day!! We had a GREAT day!! We got to spend a lot of time together, got each other flowers and had an amazing dinner!! Our menu included: Filet Mignon, Shrimp Scampi, Twice Baked Potatoes and salad!! For dessert we had a heart shaped cake and ice cream! Mmm Mmm Mmm! It was so good we took a picture of it.

<--- Our Valentines Dinner!!

<--- The Flowers and Chocolate Adam Bought!!!

Winter Fun..

<-- Jason and I doing our best figure skating routine


<-- Me riding the Ice Train. CHOO CHOO

<-- All of us with Snowzilla!!!!

Hello Everyone -

Here are some pictures of a recent winter outing with friends. The HUGE snowman in the pictures has been dubbed "Snowzilla" and has garnered some national attention. He is over 30 feet high! Now thats a snowman!! The other pictures are at our Town Square park in downtown where every winter they have a community ice skating rink. This year they had ice carvers come in and do some carvings around the rink. Its pretty awesome! Enjoy!!

New Years, Job Updates, Snow and Florida Sunshine!

Hello!

We are now over a week into 2007, so here is our first update of the new year!

Our New Years Eve was a lot of fun! We went to a very nice dinner with two other couples and had a great time. One of the things that we were most thankful for in 2006 are the amazing friendships that we have created, so it was only fitting that we "rang in the new year" with some of those awesome friends!

Some exciting news on the job front. Work for Sherri has been going really well. She is enjoying her schedule and the people that she is working with. Also, SHE GOT A RAISE!! It was just over a 10% raise, so that is awesome! She has been doing so great at work and has been so loyal that I am excited that she is being rewarded for her hard work!!

After a snow less Christmas in Connecticut we have certainly made up for it here at home. We are having one of the snowiest winters on record! In December we had 39 inches of snow, which it the 4th snowiest December ever! Alyeska Ski Resort, which is the largest resort in the state and about a 45 minute drive from Anchorage, received over 24 FEET of snow in December, which is a resort record!! So, needless to say, skiing has been amazing there! The resort is hosting the US Ski Championships in a couple of months so this is a very good winter to get a lot of snow! Also, we have already had over a foot of snow in January here in Anchorage. It is pretty fun and everything is VERY white and wintry!!! Just the way a winter should be!

I will be in Orlando, Florida from the 13 - 19th of this month for my companies Annual Conference. It should be a lot of fun and a great opportunity for me to meet everyone within the company. I have been enjoying my job and everything is going well so far!!

The only other BIG news is that we have decided that 2007 will hopefully be the year that we purchase our first house!!! The housing market in Anchorage is really good and the outlook is good for quite some time, so this is a great opportunity for us to get into a house and begin building quite a bit of equity. I think that we are 5 or 6 months away from potentially moving on a property, but it is still exciting for us! We have already begun to keep our eyes open for what is available in the Anchorage market. We will certainly post more on that as that time gets closer.

That is all for now!!

Vacation Recap...

Hello!!

We are sitting in the SeaTac airport in Seattle anxiously awaiting our flight home. We have had an amazing vacation on the East Coast. We got to do just about everything we wanted to, and more! There is no way that I could give a detail by detail description of our trip but I will try and touch on some of the highlights! We had an amazing day in Boston! We were a little worried that our short time there would feel rushed and that we would leave feeling like we had barely done anything. In fact, we left feeling like we had done and seen about everything we wanted to! We took a trollie tour around the city and saw many of the more famous sights that Boston is known for such as the Old North Church, USS Constitution, Boston Tea Party site, Quincy Market and MANY other places. We loved Boston and enjoyed our time there! We spent a day in New York City also and had a great time! We went to Rockefeller Center and saw the tree and the skaters, shopped on 5th Avenue and saw Times Square. We had lunch in Trump Towers at the Trump Grill, and George from "The Apprentice" sat 1 table away from us!!! How awesome is that?! We also took a carriage ride through Central Park and saw Mo Rocca (actor/comedian) filming a commercial. We didn't get to go to a Broadway play like we wanted but we will make sure we do that next trip. We had a great day in NYC seeing all of the sights that normally you only see on TV!!! We also took a day trip to Newport, RI. We toured "The Breakers" which is the most famous of the "Newport Mansions". It was the former summer home of the Vanderbilt Family. Talk about amazing!!! Newport was a great little town. We did some shopping, saw mansions and enjoyed this little town on the Rhode Island coast! We spent a lot of time in Connecticut with family and it was really good to see everyone and it was great for Sherri to finally meet that side of our family! We ate and ate and ate and ate!!! The food was always amazing and we had some good times gathered around the tables! So, between seeing family, New York City, Boston, Newport and all of the other awesome things that we did, we certainly had a GREAT vacation!! I am posting just a few pictures from our trip here.

The Dome Is Going Up....

Hello -

Our church has been in the process of building the largest air supported structure in North America, on our new campus. It will serve the entire city of Anchorage and really the whole state of Alaska as a state of the art indoor sports facility. It has a full track, soccer fields, softball fields, batting cages and much more. It will be approx. 177,000 square feet and they are estimating 150,000 - 200,000 people will use the dome each year!!

The fabric structure was delivered last week and just the dome material weighs over 100,000 pounds!! The instalation and inflation of the dome will be going on for the next few days. Our church has put up a webcam so that the public can watch the entire process of the dome being assembled and inflated. Here is the link to the webcam: http://www.changepointfamily.com/sportsdome/

Check it out, it should be an amazing process!!

- Adam & Sherri

Christmas Lights in Anchorage

Check this out! This is a Christmas light display on a house here in Anchorage!! How awesome!!

Private Jets, Holiday Shopping and Sunny Skies!!

Hello -

It has been a few weeks since we have posted on here so we have a lot of updating to do!! So, here goes. A few weeks ago some buddies and I went to an event that we had at church, the wives got together to do Holiday crafts and we had planned to meet up with them after the event. Shortly after the event ended one of our friends who was with us got a call from work that he had to fly that night (he is a pilot). He flies private planes and it just so happened that there were three seats open on this flight. It was just a short 30 minute flight to Valdez and back, but it was still a great experience! So we all piled onto a private plane, which was a first for all of us. I must say, I fly A LOT and I certainly understand now why people buy their own planes! It was so nice and very comfortable! I grabbed a quick picture with my phone before we left of me in front of the plane, it's kind of goofy, but that's ok! It was a very fun experience!!

Our Thanksgiving was a lot of fun, we went to an early Thanksgiving dinner at my Dad's house and then went over to a friends house for a 2nd dinner later that night. We hung out with friends and just had a great night! We had been planning to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving, as that has become a sort of yearly tradition for us. Our friends wanted to join us so we all decided to stay awake all night, rather than trying to get a few short hours of sleep. At 3:30am we left our friends' house and headed to Best Buy, hoping to snag some of the great deals that they had advertised. The doors opened at 5am, so we figured that 1 1/2 hours would be plenty of time to get a good spot in line. Well, we were wrong. When we arrived shortly after 3:30 there were already approx. 1,000 people in line ahead of us. So, we decided to brave the line and the cold and wait outside with everyone else. The temp was -3 that night!!! After an hour and a half of waiting we finally got in the store and, I am proud to say, we all got everything that we had on our lists! We spent the rest of the morning hitting some other stores and then grabbed breakfast at Hogg Brother's, a favorite restaurant here in town, and went to get some much needed sleep!!

My new job has been going really well, I am enjoying it and am really looking forward to being "cut loose" after my "training" is over. I will be in Orlando for approx. 5 days in January, so that will be a nice trip! Sherri is doing really well. Work has been going good, probably the best that it has in the 2 1/2 years that she has worked there. She is enjoying the people she works with, that is a great blessing!

We have had a very strange November. We have had sunny skies EVERY day this month, with not even as much as a trace of snow! The temps have been very cold, in the single digits, and we are all ready for some snow! Cold is ok as long as there is fun snow to play in!

Our home is all decorated for the Holidays and is looking quite festive! Sherri painted some AWESOME holiday decorations this year and they just look great! I will try and get some pictures of our home on here soon.

We leave for Connecticut on the 17th of December, so we are getting very excited for that trip!

I think that is probably about it for now. We would love to hear from all of you, so if you have the time, drop us an e-mail with an update!!

BIG Changes....

Hello -

I have some BIG news. I have been at my job with The Hotel Group for a little over 2 1/2 years. I have always felt fortunate to be in this position at such a young age and have been thanful for the opportunities that this position has given me. However, for the past few weeks I have been in "negotiations" with a new company and am pleased to announce that today I accepted the position with them. The new position is "Area Director of Sales" for Extended Stay Deluxe hotels. This is a fairly new hotel chain that has been growing like crazy. They have several hundred hotels around the country and I will be the Area Director for the 4 hotels that they have here in Alaska. This is a BIG promotion and an opportunity that I could NOT say no to.

I sent out my letter of resignation here today and will be starting the new position in the next couple of weeks. This position comes with a large increase in pay, better benefits and less travel, all of which are HUGE answers to prayer for Sherri and I.

I am thankful for my time with The Hotel Group, they have been great to work for and I am very excited about this "new chapter" in my professional career.

To say the least, Sherri and I are thrilled about our future!!

Fall Harvest/Halloween Costume Party Update...

Our Fall Harvest/Halloween Costume Party was Awesome!! We had a White Trash couple, Howie Mandel and a Deal or No Deal girl, iPods, A Pilot and Flight Attendant and Sherri and I went as a plug and an outlet. We had such a fun time, here is a picture of everyone! We hung out, ate, handed out candy to trick-or-treaters, watched some old episodes of The Twilight Zone and played some Halloween trivia...which Sherri and I won!! Awww Yeah!! What was the prize for winning you might ask...5 episodes of A Spongebob Halloween on DVD. Ha! We are having friends over tonight to watch the new episode of The Office. It is easily our favorite TV show. We own season 1 and 2 on DVD and anticipate every new episode! If you haven't seen it we highly recommend that you take the time to watch it. It is VERY funny. Last night we went and saw "Who Killed The Electric Car", which was very interesting, it was fairly one sided and obviously anti-bush and anti-government, but it made some good points and at least made for some great discussion. It is a documentary about the creation, life and death of the electric car. I actually would recommend it to anyone who is open minded and likes a good documentary and enjoys hearing different points of view. Ok, that is all for now. We will post more soon!

An Update On Us...

Hello -

My Seattle trip wen't really well, the game was fun and while I was there I got to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, they were on display at the Pacific Science Center. It was pretty amazing to see!!

Anyway, this is more of an update on "us". Life here has been very good! Sherri has been busy at work, she has sort of taken a new position with Curves. She spends the 1st 1/2 of the day doing data entry for them and than she finishes her day back working at the clubs. She has been working on a big data entry project that they wanted to have done by early to mid december and it looks like she will finish it up this week or next week. She has been working really hard on it and making a ton of progress!! Work for me has been good, I have a feeling I will post a blog on some possible changes in the next few weeks. More to come on that topic.

We have accepted a leadership position at church. We are now the new Team Leaders for the New Marrieds lifestage community. Basically at ChangePoint we have "lifestage communities" we try and engage people with events and groups that are related to the current lifestage that they are in. It is such a great concept and we are starting to see other churches asking for our lifestage community models so that they can implement similar things at their church. Anyway, the New Marrieds lifestage (0-5 years of marriage with no kids) has been needing a new couple to step into the team leader position, we talked and prayed about it and decided it was a great fit for us. This lifestage has been huge in helping our marriage so we wanted to give back to it, and also to help it grow so that it can impact other couples the way it has impacted us.

We have also been doing a lot of things with friends. We have a fall/halloween costume party next week. The theme is "famous pairs", such as ketchup & mustard, peanut butter & jelly, you get the point. Sherri and I are going as a plug and an outlet. We got the stuff to make our costumes last night and I am sure that we will post pictures on here!!

The ladies are starting a thursday night "ladies night" where they will do crafts and scrapbooking and all sorts of other fun things that ladies do. On that night the guys will also get together to do "guy things", such as eat pizza and play Madden 07.

Winter has finally arrived....sort of. We have our first snow, maybe an inch or so. They are saying that it could all melt off this weekend though. Itis very weird to almost be in November and have little to no snow. It is also strange to watch the news and see all of these reports of places around the country getting lots and lots of snow while we sit here in Alaska and look at grass.

Well, I guess that is about it for now. I will update more next week with pictures of us in our costumes, so make sure you check back!!

I'm Going To The Seahawks / Vikings Game Sunday!!

So, I will be in Seattle Monday - Wednesday this coming week. I was online looking at football schedules (because that's what guys do) and I noticed that the Seahawks have a home game this Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings. I decided to look into the possibility of making the game. So after some checking, I decided to change my flight to get me there early sunday rather than early Monday! I can't wait! There are a few reasons that I am really looking forward to this game. 1st: When you live in Alaska you are basically a fan of all Seattle sports teams by default. They have been adopted as our "home team". 2nd: I have been a Chicago Bears fan for as long as I can remember, one of the Bears biggest rivals is the Vikings...so...I hate the Vikings. #3: Qwest Field, where Seattle plays is easily one of the nicest, and newest stadiums in the NFL and I have heard amazing things about it, so I can't wait to experience it for myself! So I get to watch my #2 fav team play a team I loathe in an amazing stadium full of rowdy fans. What could be better? The game is sold out, so it will just be me and 72,000 other people ready for a great day of football!!

East Coast, Here We Come!!!

Well, it is official! We are going to Connecticut for Christmas!! I booked our travel tonight. We were able to use air miles for both tickets so the travel isn't costing us a thing! We get there on December 18th and leave Christmas night. It will be the first chance for Sherri to meet all of my family who lives "back east". It is going to be a great trip. Sherri has never been to New York City, and there is no better time to see the city than at Christmas!! I am sure that we will post our "schedule of activities" once the trip gets a little closer, but I am sure that we are going to have the chance to get out and see a lot of that area of the country and do a TON!! So, now that the Connecticut trip is booked we will hopefully start looking at a "west coast" trip so that Sherri can meet the rest of my family!! I would imagine that trip could happen in early spring or early summer. Then, we are still planning a trip back to Indiana sometime around Christmas of next year. We are also still wanting to have an "us" vacation sometime soon as well. So we will see when we can fit that into the schedule. I imagine that Christmas of 2008 (how weird is that) we will spend right here at home. So, in inder 75 days we will be back on the east coast! Christmas Shopping in NYC Here We Come!!

Welcome To AdventureLand...

Ok, so here are the pictures from last night's grand opening of AdventureLand, our church's new childrens ministry area. It was an AMAZING night, the place was PACKED. About 10 minutes into the event they announced that, even though the auditorium was already full, there was still a line of cars 20 deep coming onto the campus off of the highway! I am going back to the church on Monday night and will hopefully be able to get better pictures of everything since there wont be as many people there. Here are some highlights of AdventureLand: A two story tube slide that looks SO much fun, A huge city scene with buildings and mountains, they even have fiber optic stars in the "sky" above everything. They also have L.E.D. spotlights that change the sky color so it looks like the northern lights, a rock climbing wall, a underwater room that has props in it that blow bubbles so it looks like you are actually underwater, The Hangar, which is a room that is designed to look like an actual airplane hangar with a plane and everything, yes, a real, lifesize cessna airplane! That room also has air hockey tables, foosball, basketball, 6 video game stations and tons of fun "high tech" toys. The King Cove, which is basically a huge indoor play area, has a huge boat that kids can climb through, slide down and play on. It also has several "tunnels" that crawl through a fake rock wall that was built. The main hallway, the best part of the hallway is the huge hollowed out log you walk through. The log even has "forest sounds" built into it so when you walk through it sounds like you are in the forest. The nursery has a much more "calm" feel than the rest of the areas. There are a total of 12 different nursery rooms. They included some smart "extras" in the nursery, such as an industrial size washer and dryer. SO, if a child makes a mess on their clothes, they can wash them, dry them, and have them back in clean clothes in a matter of minutes. These pictures really don't even begin to capture the real feeling of the whole area. It is something you have to see in person, it is amazing to look at all of the detail that was put into it. The new childrens ministry area is about 70,000 square feet. SO, when you come to Alaska we will certainly set up a tour so you can see it for yourself!! You can click on any of these pictures to see a larger image.

Thanks For Looking!!

Thank You State of Alaska!!

Every year the State of Alaska gives a check to every Alaskan, this is called the Permanent Fund Dividend. It was set up in the 70's during a time when the state was in the beginning stages of oil development. There were several politicians who felt that the resources on the land belonged to the people of that land. So they set up a fund that gets paid into by a small percentage of the oil revenue that the State of Alaska makes each year. Then, each fall, the State of Alaska pays a certain amount out to every Alaskan. They just announced the amount of this years check. So, on October 4th, Sherri and I will each receive $1,106.96. Just for living here. That will be a nice little $2,200 bonus for us!! They also do a 6 year outlook and estimate what the checks will be for the next few years and they are saying that the check amount will continue to rise quickly!! Next years checks will probably be in the $1350 - $1450 range. It is a great boost to the local economy every October because there is so much extra money. This is a very common time for people to take vacations and make big purchases. Figure this, the average family, with 2 adults and 3 kids will get an extra $5,500. That can certainly help a family's budget!! The largest dividend check payout was in 2000 when the checks were $1,963.86. They expect that record to be broken in the next few years though as dividend check amounts rise. Last years checks were $845.76, so we had a pretty big jump in this years check amount! The Permanent Fund is a pretty amazing concept, you can learn more about it and how it works at www.apfc.org

Summer Is Hanging On...

Howdy!

Normally in Alaska, September is the beginning of Fall. Around the first of the month the temperature begins to drop and by the middle of the month the leaves are turning fall colors. Sometime between the beginning and the middle of the month the first snowfall will appear on the surrounding mountains as well. By the end of September the leaves are off of the trees and onto the ground and we are all certain that winter is on its way! The first snow normally happens in the city sometime between the beginning and middle of October. However, this year seems a little different. It is now the middle of September, we have had non-stop sunny days since the month began and there is little sign of any changing colors. We have been able to be outside playing disc golf almost every day and the temperature is quite nice! There isn't even any snow on the mountains! Which is nice, however, I must admit that I think mountains look better with snow! No doubt that summer is coming to an end and fall is quickly approaching but the beautiful September we are having has been an excellent end to another summer.

In other news, we are going camping this weekend with about 10 of our friends which should be a great time! We are going to a place called Eklutna Lake (see picture above). It will be an awesome weekend of kayaking, camp fires, tents and fun! We are VERY excited!!

Also, we are now only 10 DAYS away from our 1 year anniversary!! That is awesome! It has really been a great year, I am sure that we will post a recap of our 1st year together on here soon.

That's all for now. We will post camping pictures when we get back after the weekend!!