We spent Christmas at our friends house and then played some wii games for awhile which was fun, but still not what we're used to with our families.
Then in January, we finally flew down to Oregon to visit our families! We were so excited to see everyone and wanted to have as much time as possible that we left Bethel on a Friday night and spent the entire night traveling to Boise and then we drove two hours west to be with Jeff's parents and I have to say that it was soo nice to see a friendly face!!!
After a few days in eastern Oregon, we spent the rest of the time in Hillsboro, visiting my family and staying at the beach one night which we have missed so much. It was so hard to get back on that plane to head back to Alaska, but we got there on time and once we were on the plane, they deiced the wings and we taxied out to the runway. But it was snowing so hard that after several minutes of waiting, they announced that we had to go BACK to the tarmac and deice once again. We really thought we weren't going to get out of Portland, but the second time did the trick and we were on our way home.
Over the winter in Bethel, it has been a record breaking cold streak. The temperatures were below -30 for about 45 days straight and it was soo cold! Once, we went to church and after going inside, I decided that I shouldn't have left our friends truck turned off (it was around -55) so I went back out to turn it back on again to start it up and when I got back to the church door, it was stuck and I couldn't get in!!! I wasn't wearing a hat and after about 3 minutes of banging and yanking on the door, I could feel my ears start to hurt. Another girl came up and once she knew the door wouldn't open, she told me there was a door around the back. We RAN around to the door and when we finally got inside, my ears were hurting so bad, I had to rub them for about 10 minutes to thaw them out. That's apparently how close I got to getting frostbit on my ears. Thankfully, I got inside just in time.
The last year here has been something else in regards to crimes and deaths. In the last 12 months, there have been more than 12 deaths and since it's such a small community, the gossip gets around fast. People have died from suicides, murders, freezing, being drunk, getting lost and suspicious alcohol/drug related deaths. It certainly doesn't help that it was so cold during the wintertime. It's been pretty sad with all these deaths.
Anyways, we didn't get to see everyone when we went back to visit so we'll definitely make sure to get everyone in when we come back in August. It's my dreaded 30th birthday and if I can't be in Hawaii, I'd rather be with my family! :)
For a fun little note, this article ran on our news website today:
