Punished for being successful...

So,

I just finished our 2007 taxes and this is going to be a bit of a rant.

I'm kinda frustrated. Sherri and I are very fortunate to do well financially, I got lucky and got a job that provides great for us. As a young couple we are very blessed!!

However, I feel like we are penalized because we are young, successful and have no kids. We had to pay this year, granted it wasn't a crazy amount, but never the less, we had to pay. We paid more in taxes this year then some people make in an entire year. Yet somehow, we still owe. We have it set up to take the max out of each check, and we still owe. Blah.

If we had kids we would have gotten a hefty refund, I'm not saying that people with kids shouldn't get a refund, but why penalize people who don't have children and do well??

This is why I think the FairTax IS a great idea!!!

Just my thought.

View from my room in Puerto Rico - El Conquistador Resort

Hello Everyone -

Puerto Rico was amazing!! I liked it much better then the beach destinations of Hawaii, California or Florida! Much cheaper (once you are away from the resorts) and much less "touristy"

I encourage everyone to make it to Puerto Rico!! I am sure you will LOVE it!!

Off To Puerto Rico..

So, Tonight I (adam) leave for Puerto Rico for a week!! Every year my company has their "Annual Conference", last year it was in Orlando, this year it is in Puerto Rico. I am VERY excited about this trip and plan on taking LOTS of photos and I will certainly blog all about the trip when I return. As you can see from the photo above, I bought my snorkel gear..and tried it out in the tub. As long as it works as well in the Caribbean as it does in the tub I should be fine!!

Have a great week and I will see you all when I return!!!

Pina Coladas for EVERYONE!!!

Life is Good...

What a PERFECT January Day!!!

It is about 16 degrees outside...we have already received about 5 inches of snow, with another 4 to 5 inches predicted for tonight. The snow is falling softly in BIG flakes and it is so peaceful!!

Life is VERY Good!!

Happy New Year!!

Hello!!


We hope that you all had a GREAT Christmas and New Years!!

Our Christmas was really nice, we did church on Christmas Eve and then had family over for dinner. We spent Christmas morning together at home and then went to my moms house for Christmas dinner. We each got a ton of presents and had a really great day!!

For New Years Eve we went to Ristorante Orso for dinner with Jason and Jana and Tim and Jana. We then went to Blues Central to see Soulman Sam!! He is this amazing singer who makes you feel like you are in some blues club in the deep south. He covers a lot of famous songs and is always very entertaining.

Here are some pictures from our New Years Eve!!

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(Sherri and I at Ristorante Orso)
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(Everyone at dinner)
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(Picture of the crowd and people dancing at Blues Central)

Don't Blink - message series at ChangePoint

This is the new series that we are starting at ChangePoint! The first message was this past weekend and it was AMAZING!

One of our favorite things...

SO..

One of the things that we have here in Alaska during the winter is "Ice Fog". It is basically a fog of small ice crystals. There are a few awesome benefits of ice fog. First, the morning after a good ice fog everything is sparkly white and beautiful. The second benefit is pictured below. It is much more amazing in person, the picture doesn't do it justice, but it will help picture what we are saying. The ice fog is so thick that any bright light is "captured" as a beam, straight into the sky. So you can look around and see dozens and dozens of beams of light shooting straight up!! It is SO awesome! This is a picture off of our deck of some of the highway lights about 1/2 mile away.

This is one of the things that we enjoy about winters here, so we thought we would share it!!

(you can click on the picture to see a bigger version)

Almost Christmas...

Hello!!

We are 5 days away from Christmas and both Sherri and I are VERY excited and VERY much in the Christmas spirit!!

Here is a quick update as to what we have been up to recently:

• We both have our Christmas shopping finished and our house is feeling very festive! Here is a picture of our tree!!

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• Every year the Captain Cook Hotel (where we were married) does a HUGE ginger bread town display. It is amazing! Last night we went to see it with some friends. Here is a picture!

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• We are very much looking forward to Christmas Eve. We are going to the 4pm service at church and then having dinner at home. We are having Penne pasta with vodka sauce and reindeer sausage! Its a great "Alaska meets Italy" dish.

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We love you all and hope that you have a GREAT Christmas!!

- Adam & Sherri

A Night On The Town...

This coming Friday (Decmeber 7th), Sherri and I, along with Jason and Jana and Tim and Jana, are going to the opening night of Mel Brooks "The Producers". The broadway tour of the play will be here in Anchorage for 5 days and we are REALLY looking forward to seeing it! Sherri and I are BIG fans of the movie with Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick and Will Ferrell.

We are all going to meet downtown for dinner before the play and enjoy a night out "On The Town"

You may be suprised to know that Anchorage has a HUGE arts scene and brings up many national plays and artists. It is one of the things that we love most about Anchorage! There is always something "artsy" going on!

Kinda Cool..

SO, Sherri and I go to an AMAZING church. We are seeing awesome things happen constantly and we are both amazed at the life change, growth and new things that are going on in our community all the time. We always comment at how what we are seeing happen around us is SO much BIGGER then anything that either of us has ever seen before and it gets us so excited to ba a part of something so life changing.

Today (Friday, November 23) the New York Times ran a front page story that featured our church, ChangePoint. Here is a link to the article...http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/business/23megachurch.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

ALSO..Make sure that you click on the "Audio Slide Show" on the left hand side of that page. There is a great show with some good pictures of our church and the SportsDome.

The pastor interviewed for the article, Karl Clauson, is our pastor who married us!!!

Let us know what you think!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Winter Wonderland...

Hello Everyone!!

Well..It is FINALLY winter!! We had one snow in October, but it melted right way and then we had no snow till this weekend. It was weird seeing grass in mid-November. But, it looks like winter is finally here to stay! We got about 4 inches of snow this weekend and everything looks SO happy and wintry. The above picture is from our balcony this morning.

Enjoy!!

Library Book Sale...

Every November our main local library has their annual "Book Sale". Sherri and I have gone the past few years and always leave with a ton of books for a VERY cheap price. The library has thousands of books on sale and you see people leaving with boxes and boxes of books!! This year we got some pretty sweet reads...Here is what we got:

Sherri's Books

• Wuthering Heights
• The House of the Seven Gables
• Canterbury Tales
• Heart of Darkness / Almayer's Folly / The Lagoon
• The Summons
• The Romanov Connection
• The Brethren
• A Painted House
• The Testament
• The Last Sin Eater
• The Book of God

Adam's Books

• Digital Fortress
• Winthrop's Boston
• The American Revolution by John Richard Alden
• The American Revolution by Bruce Lancaster
• New England's Best Loved Driving Tours
• American Voices, American Lives
• The American Past - A Brief History

So we got 18 books and only paid $7.50!!! A pretty sweet deal if you ask me!!

If you like to read I would encourage you to contact your main local library and see if they have a book sale. If so, it is a great place to get some cheap books, and you support your local libraries!!

Products that we LOVE!

Hello!!

This blog is going to be very different from what we normally post. We have a few products that we have found in our past couple years of marriage that we absolutely LOVE, and we wanted to share them with you!! If you have any products that you love and think we should check out, post a comment, we love trying new things!!



SO..here we go....





Kleenex Viva Paper Towels...


This is BY FAR our paper towel of choice. We love how tough and durable it is, we have driven to another store to get our Viva's rather then settling on another brand when our grocery store is sold out. They are almost cloth like, and we LOVE them!
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Cascade Action Packs






This was the first dishwasher detergent that we used that totally cleaned our dishes and didn't leave water marks. We now try and buy them in bulk at Costco! No messing with powders or gels, just drop one of these bad boys in and you are set!

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Cottonelle Toilet Paper

This stuff just flat out rocks! So soft..so great.

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ALL Small & Mighty Laundry Detergent





We live in a condo so we try and find the most compact, space saving items that we can. We saw All Small & Mighty when it first came out and tried it and haven't switched. It is concentrated so you use less, thus taking up less space. We will certainly stick with this product even as our homes get bigger.

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Kraft Grate-It-Fresh Parmesan Cheese






I LOVE Parmesan Cheese, but I LOATHE that powdered stuff that you find in most grocery stores. However, good fresh grated Parm cheese can be tough to find, and expensive. This product has a block of Parm cheese inside and you grate as you go. It is awesome..much better then the powdered stuff..and much less expensive then the big blocks.

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Well...that is about it.

No, neither Sherri or I work for any of these companies, we just though we could share with family and friends some of the great things that we have come across.

Remember to post a comment and share any great products that you use!!

Bye for now!!

First Snow!!!!!

We woke up this morning to the first snowfall of the year!!! It was a very light dusting, and it has already melted, but it still counts!!!!

The Cake...

Yesterday (October 12th) was Sherri's 26th Birthday. We had a great evening with friends, we had 11 people at the Grenn's house for a little party for Sherri!! I knew that I wanted to do something "different" for her this year. We both really enjoy the TV show "Ace of Cakes" and I got the idea to have an "unusual" cake made for her. I contacted the lady who did our wedding cake (who is absolutly AMAZING!!!!!) and told her my ideas and she said..YES! I can do that!!

First I had to figure out what I wanted the cake to be. Sherri is very "girly" and loves anything pink or purple, so at first I was thinking of a very girly cake. But then I got "The Idea". One of the things that Sherri loves is "Coach" bags and purses. I recently got her a new Coach bag in Seattle that she absolutly loves and uses all of the time. I thought...How awesome to have a cake made that looks like her favorite Coach bag!!! So, I secretly took some pictures of the bag, as well as her Dior sunglasses and sunglasses case and e-mailed them to our cake lady. She did all of the hard work and I picked up the cake last night just before the party. The cake was THE highlight to say the least!! I was amazed at how well it turned out and everyone couldn't believe how real it looked!!!

Here are some pictures....

Here is a picture of the bag from the side.

Here is a picture of her Coach bag next to the cake!!!

Winter Is Almost Here...

Hello Everyone!!

The Joke is that Alaska has 2 seasons...Winter..and Summer. Our Spring and Fall last only a few short weeks. The Summers in Alaska are AMAZING, I have heard hundreds of times that "it is the summers that make the winters worth it". However, I am one of the few who feel the exact opposite. While I love the Alaskan Summers and think there isn't a more beautiful place to be during the summer, I actually like the winters here the best!! I feel like the winters are just so romantic and peaceful. Lots of fluffy white snow, cold enough outside to keep you inside by the fire, wrapped up together. I just love winter!!! SO..imagine how excited I was when I walked outside and saw this...

That's right...snow on the mountains!! My guess is that we will get our first snow here in Anchorage within the next week or so. I had guessed between the 10th and 14th and I think I will hold by that.

It is hard to believe that we will have snow that soon when I also took this picture off of our balcony today. It is of the hill right behind our house. Looks like a nice summer day!!

Only 78 more days till Christmas!!!

Quite The Update...

It has been a couple of weeks since we have updated this so here is what's new in our world...

• Sherri has worked for Curves for 3 1/2 years, it has certainly had its ups and downs. We are glad to say that she no longer works there. This isn't TOO recent, it actually happened a couple of weeks ago. This is totally a good thing. Because we have no debt and are doing well financially there is no rush for her to get out and find "the first job available", instead she is taking her time, looking for a job that she will enjoy and that fits her gifting!

• We recently celebrated our 2 year anniversary! We had a great day! We went and saw the play "Defending The Caveman" and it was SO funny, a perfect anniversary play! We then went to Benihana for dinner, it is Sherri's favorite restaurant. We came home after that and had cake. I had the same lady who did our wedding cake make us a smaller "anniversary cake". It was so great!! (Here is a picture of our anniversary cake)

• I have been traveling a lot with work recently. I was gone some last week and I will be leaving again tomorrow afternoon for another trip. Hopefully travel will slow down once November hits.
  
  
  
• Sherri's 26th Birthday is coming up soon! I think we are going to have a bunch of friends meet us at Moose's Tooth, our favorite local pizza joint, for a fun evening.
  
  
  
• We are taking a class at church on Wednesday nights on the book of Acts. We are co-leading a table of young married couples with no children. Its great, we are only 2 weeks into the class and we are already loving it, and forming relationships with the other couples. We have about 700 people in the class so its pretty hectic, yet fun!
  
  
  
• We recently had a going away party for some friends from our small group who are moving to Texas. It was a great event and really good to get everyone together! (here is a picture from the dinner)
  

That is a quick snapshot of whats new with us. I will try and be better about updating this on a more regular basis!!

It's a good day to be an Alaskan!!!

Today the State of Alaska announced the amount of this years Permanent Fund Dividend check. This is the check that is paid to every Alaskan resident each year, based on the state's income off of oil. The amount this year is......drum roll please....$1,654!!! So that is a nice little $3,308 bonus to us next month!! The only plan we have for the money is that we are going to use $1,000 for our cruise in January, but the other amount will go right into savings!!!

This years dividend is over $500 more then last years, and they expect it to keep increasing!! Next year could be over 2K each!!

Wahoo!!

Just one more reason to live in Alaska!!

Quest...

This week our church started a new series called "Quest". This is a curriculum that our church created several years ago. This will be the 4th time that I have gone through Quest. This is the cornerstone curriculum for our church. It is BY FAR the best series I have ever gone through. It is such an eye opener, and really makes you change the way you think. It challenges many of the "traditional thoughts" of Christianity. I credit this series for helping me go from "christian" to follower and enjoyer of God. I HIGHLY reccomend that you listen to, at least, the 1st message in this series, it can be found on the church website at www.changepointalaska.com under the "message" section. Also, you can go to the "blogs" link on the website and you will see a Quest Blog, that is a site that we just set up for our church to interact with each other over these ideas.

Listen with an open mind and dont be afraid to challenge some of the typical christian misconceptions. Whether you are a christian or not, I believe that this message is relevant!!

Let us know what you think!!!