Coming up on Christmas

Well, it's Christmas Eve and never has it been so obvious we're so far from home and family.  We're invited to a friends dinner tomorrow, which will be nice, since otherwise we wouldn't be going anywhere.  We're going to midnight Mass tonight at church, which we've finally included pictures of below. :)

The weather was warmer until last week and then a few days ago, it started getting really cold again!  Today, it got to a high of -18 degrees!  But the skies were clear and blue and the sun was shining which was a great change.

The following pictures are of the frozen fog we had last week that accumulated on everything.  The trees are stunning and white and it's beautiful outside!  This is our porch...

 A tree (or "tall brush" as Alaskans call it) by our house.

 Our fake Christmas tree!  It's not horrible, right?!?  I always said I'd never have a fake one, but trees up here had to be shipped in and were quite expensive, so we ordered one from walmart for $20 instead.  It'll be staying, whenever we leave.

 This is the back of our church.  On the right side of the alley, there's a store that we shop at, and the church is located on a small dead end, mostly surrounded by buildings, so it's hard to see it from farther away.

 The inside of the church.

 This is a view from the back porch of the church.  I think that's normally a lake, or an offshoot of the river when it's melted.

 This is the entry to the church.  It's all quite plain, but that's our church.  Oh, the truck and boat there are Father Chucks. :)

 And this is the tundra right now.  I think it's the best looking in the winter (and we don't have to worry about dust, allergies, mosquitos, etc.)

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  We'll be coming back for a visit in the middle of January and hope to see you all then!  Love you all very much!  Jeff and Laura

Shopping in Bethel

 I brought my camera shopping today, so I can share with you all how very lucky you are. :P  I mostly showed things that you all buy every so often so you can be more comparable.

Large jar of peanut butter, $14. 15!

Block of velveeta cheese, $12.99

I was actually shocked about this one.  This is only 4 (100 calorie) packages of popcorn, $11.39!!!

Ruffles chips, $8.29

This is a fun one.  The cans on the left is pie cherries, per can, $9.15!  The jar on the right is mincemeat for pies, $11.59 per jar!

I think is an 8 pound bag of sugar, $14.39

Flour, 10 pound bags, $18.65

1 box of cornflakes, $7.59

1 Lb. Jimmy Dean sausage, $7.15

1 gallon of milk, $8.19!!!

1 block of cheese, $13.49

And because of these, I'm very grateful I went on shopping sprees for canned vegetables before we left.  For a can of corn, $2.55 each!

Same for the green beans.

And this is a fun one.  For one of those tiny cans of Campbell tomato soup, $3.25... For ONE can.

One can of chili?  $3.89.  :)

Knowing that people will ship stuff to us for the cheaper cost of the item located where they're at, priceless!!!

Great update

It's crazy how fast the time has flown since we've been here!  It's been over 9 months already, leaving us with only 2 years and 2 1/2 months to go.

Lately, we're at our darkest with the winter solstice coming up in a week or so.  In the mornings, it stays dark until 10:45 and in the evenings, it starts getting dark around 4:45.  I'm excited for when it starts getting lighter again!

We have alot of snow on the ground and until last week, it was probably 1 1/2 feet.  I shoveled the snow for the first time in my life, only to go outside later and discover our landlord came over with his snow plow and took care of it again.  :)  At least it was good exercise!  But then, a few days ago, the weather warmed up to the 30's and it started to rain which melted most of the recent snows.  However, on top of the snow and ice from the last month or so, it made the roads very treacherous to drive/ walk on, as I discovered when I slipped in our neighbors yard and landed on my bum.  But we're good!  No injuries or bruises to speak of!

On Thursday of last week, in the town that never shuts down due to snow or ice, the schools actually shut down for the day because the roads were so dangerous and the weather was pretty bad.  But we still had to go to work...

This morning, this email was going around our work bulletin, where they send out warnings, or news, or sell item.  It's kind of like a local craigslist.

"Bethel Search and Rescue
Travel Warning

Ice conditions in the Bethel area continue to deteriorate, with reports of growing overflow and open holes on the river.

Travel is not recommended at this time, especially at night. BSAR advises staying off the river until the weather improves.

Please advise anyone who must go out to be prepared for trouble and be safe. These conditions make S&R efforts difficult and dangerous.

Thank You"

Apparently, now is NOT the time to drive on the river.  The thought of falling through and being swept down river with the current is enough to keep me off of it completely, until it is frozen solidly all the way through!

As a last note, we're really getting a kick out of you Lower-48-ers complaining of the cold.  Someone in Phoenix, Arizona (you know who you are) said something about having to layer up to go outside when it was in the 40's??? I think?????  Jeff and I did the math (at the time, it was -45 degrees with the windchill) and realized there was a 85 degree difference between there and here, so quit complaining!!! LOL :)

Have a great week everyone!!!

Out the windows this morning

This is our view out the windows this morning.  It's snowed several more inches overnight and looks even prettier than before!

Winter Storm 2012: Alaska

Just kidding! HEHEHE

This week, the weather folks predicted the worst storm for Alaska in something like 40 years.  Bethel just happened to be along the edge of the storm so we got some of the effects.  On the west and north west coast, the swells were 9 feet higher than normal.  It flowed over their manmade berms and flooded the towns, with a foot or so of water, which partially then froze.  So they got hit pretty hard.  We on the other hand just got alot of wind; enough that I could hear it squealing through the cracks and edges around the windows and the doors.  One task for the weekend; Caulk and seal said cracks and edges.  It was a glorified windstorm. :)

We do have about 6 or so inches of snow on the ground right now.  It kind of melted during the storm and became slushy, and then it froze again so it's now ice.  Right at the base of our front porch stairs.

During the storm, the wind here in Bethel was about 50 mph gusts.  See the video below!  It didn't seem to snow too much, but the wind pushed the snow around so it piled up in some areas.  In the video I took, it was actually snowing.  It didn't really blizzard, though we were in blizzard warning.

Sorry, I can't seem to get the video on here.  Here's the link to IT ON YOUTUBE.

I'm dreaming of a white... Halloween!!!

Well, it's been a little while since we've blogged, so we'e got a few updates for you.  It snowed on Tueday morning while we were at work.  It was cold enough that the 1/2 inch we got didn't melt until the next day.  The temperatures have been much colder for the last 3 weeks.  Tonight, it's 30 degrees and... snowing again!  It's been snowing now for about 3 or so hours and there's definitely a cover on the ground.  We'll see how long it stays, but it's obvious that winter is already here.  The tundra is brown again,  all the leaves on the bushes and the grass on the ground is dying for the winter.  Jeff and I both agree that it's prettiest up here when there's snow on the ground so we're excited for that.

The only part that makes me a little nervous is that it really gets soo cold up here we'll have to learn soon what people do on the coldest days to keep their pipes from freezing, etc. 

On Thursday a week ago, I was making a cake and a friend called me to ask if I'd seen a bear.  I found out later that one road up from our neighborhood, there was a bear walking down the street.  This is a rare occurence, as the mountains are about 50 miles away and they don't come this far unless they're hungry.  Apparently when this happens, they spend their time at the dump scavenging for food.  It makes me alittle nervous so when I go outside on the deck to enjoy the night, I bring a flashlight and make sure the door isn't locked, just for a quick exit!

The days are obviously shorter now.  It gets dark before 7:40 at night and doesn't get light in the morning shortly after 9:45!  We lose about 5 minutes of light every day, so the difference is very noticeable every week.  My co-workers told me that on the longest day of winter, the sun comes up as late as 10:30 in the morning and goes down as early as 4 in the afternoon.  Our shortest day will be about 5 hours long.  We're definitely making sure to up our vitamin D intake, to hopefully combat any depression that might happen because of the dark.

Beaver hunting!

Our friends Mike and Natasha invited us to go on their boat up the Kuskokwim river.  We were so excited to go and see another part of Alaska that we wouldn't have been able to see, unless we drove on the ice river in the wintertime.  (we'll see if that happens. I don't know if I have the guts!)

Anyways, it was the 4 of us, plus another of their friends and his kid, and we were all going beaver hunting!  We took off up the river and Mike occasionally took offshoots until we saw a beaver in the water.  Then Mike guided the boat around, keeping the beaver about 20 feet away in the water so the other guys could take a shot.  It took about a half hour, and multiple turn arounds and shots before the guys got it.  LOL, I was so impatient, I almost told the guys to give me the gun and let me take care of things.

Here's Jeff in the co-pilot's seat!  It was about 37 degrees that day, so by the end of the day, we were all frozen through.

 This is my friend Natasha!  We met when she asked Jeff if his wife would like going with her to a Scentsy party, which of course I was!  She's been here for (I think) a year and a half and knew what it was like to move to a place where you don't have any friends.  She was so sweet to include me in different activities and I got to meet alot of new people thanks to her! :)

 The first beaver the guys sighted!

 The guys are preparing for the hunt...

 After they got the beaver, I had to hold it up because I'd never seen one so close-up before.

 The river

 We couldn't figure out if these were swans or geese, but other than the beaver, that was all the wildlife we saw, which was kind of disappointing. Natasha said sometimes you'll see moose and bears.  Maybe next summer we'll go camping with them and see more wildlife.

 This cross was on a hillside by the river.

 We also saw a bunch of fishcamps!  They are basically barebone homes where native people go in the summertime to catch fish for subsistence living. 

 On our way back to Bethel, we went through the ship graveyard.  Floating through these ships and boats made me sad; it felt like a ghost town.  It seems to be pretty normal up here though, to leave something where it dies.  There are so many cars just sitting in people's driveways, that have obviously been sitting there for years.  Our next door neighbor has a tow truck that looks like it's from the 40's or 50's sitting among his other stuff in his driveway.

 And here's the port in Bethel again!  At this point, we were grateful to be back because we were all so cold!