We Made It!

Tim and I made it back to Anchorage last night. We had a nice, uneventful drive. There was a lot of construction which slowed us down, but other than that, it was a good ride. I will be posting my 200-and-something pictures soon. There were lots of cool things: two buffalo, a family of goats, a bald eagle, 4 moose, and one deer. We saw Old Faithful, crossed over the Continental Divide three times, I got to stand in two countries at the same time when we crossed into Alaska, and I got to see a glacier on the top and side of a mountain. One not-so-cool thing was when I killed a ground squirrel yesterday morning. (I think it was yesterday...my days have been running together) He was trying to cross the road and I couldn't stop or swerve in time, so I ran over him. :-( May he rest in peace.

I'm pretty exhausted and I have a job interview tomorrow for a special ed teacher assistant at an elementary school. Although, I'm still thinking I would prefer subbing; hopefully I'll have a better idea after the interview.

Tim had to work today, but at least he has the next two days off to relax. Speaking of Tim, he has a daily blog as well, called Deeper Faith Devos. He writes a devotional every day on a random verse. He started it for his youth group kids to read and I think it is really good. The site is http://www.dfdevos.com/. Before we left on our trip, he was writing the devos for the days we would be gone, and I actually wrote two of them to help him out. The first one came out on July 25th, and the second one will post tomorrow, if you're interested in reading.

I hope everyone has had a blessed week and has a great weekend!

Update...yes we're alive!!

We are now in Fort Nelson, British Columbia. Tomorrow we will drive to Whitehorse which is in Yukon, then to Haines Junction and on to Anchorage. We have yet to see any bears. :-( But we still have a long way to go so hopefully we'll see at least one (and have enough time to take a picture or video). Since we're in Canada, we can't use our cell phones because of the high rates. The second we crossed the border I got a text from AT&T saying that international data charges are $15.36/mb so I can't use the internet or text. Luckily, the hotels have free internet. I forget that I'm in Canada though because everything is in English, but then someone says something to us like, "It sure is hot out, eh?" and then I remember where I am.
Tomorrow is going to be an early and long day...at least 12, maybe 14 hours...so I better get to sleep! Goodnight!

The Open Road

Well, Tim and I are about half-way done with our road trip from Texas to Anchorage. Tonight we are in Lethbridge, Alberta and tomorrow we're heading to Edmonton for the day and night. We hope to get there relatively early in the evening/late afternoon and rest and go to bed early. (We've been getting to bed around 12 or a little before and getting up at 6:30ish every day so we decided to take a day to rest (what better day than the Lord's Day?). We're going to River of Life Community Church tomorrow before we leave town.

Today was awesome. We drove through the Grand Tetons, then Yellowstone and saw Old Faithful errupt, then we saw a buffalo, a deer, and a bald eagle in her nest. This picture was taken somewhere in Yellowstone at one of the first stops. Lots of cool stuff, but not enough time to write right now...it's bed time.

Fun Canadian fact: The exchange rate is $1.05 Canadian to $1 US, and gas here is about $3.31/gallon, increasing as we go up...

And as they say in Canada, "Good night eh?"

The City of Flowers

Anchorage is called the "City of Flowers" and for good reason. There are flowers everywhere! Especially in hanging baskets, as shown above. I took that picture when we were downtown with my mom.

The next picture was taken at about 9 'o clock at night and the third was taken around 10 or 10:30 pm. As you can see, the sun stays up for a pretty long time. I need to get up some day at 4 am to show how bright the sun is at that time as well. My mom and I had brought sleep masks and wore them for the first two nights, but that was it. They did work well and definitely made everything dark, but my blinds in my apartment are really good at blocking out most of the light so I don't need it.
One thing that I am having to deal with at night is my cat. He sleeps during the day of course and is ready to play at night, like most cats. When I was at my mom's house, he was usually really good at sleeping with me when I went to bed, but would usually wake up at around 2 AM ready to play, and would want to attack me. No problem, because I would just kick him out of my room and close the door. Well, in my little studio apartment my bedroom is the living room, and there is no door to close him out of. The only room with a door is the bathroom. When I get home in the evening I play with him a little, but it doesn't get all his energy out, and he's still a bundle of energy when I go to bed. He usually entertains himself for a while, throwing his toys around and chasing them, and getting on an occasional tare around the apartment. But then, without fail, he turns his attention to me and jumps on me and bites me over and over. I scold him, spray him with water but nothing deters him. The last couple of nights I've ended up locking him in the bathroom so I can sleep. Yesterday morning when I was in my bathroom I looked at the curtains on the window, and saw little holes in the bottom where Max had bit through them! My shower curtain also has holes in one spot where he chewed on it. Argh...he is a brat.

It's pretty hazy out right now because there are more than 60 wildfires currently burning in Alaska. The weather has been pretty warm (for Alaska) and dry so it's been hard for the fire fighters to keep them from spreading. A bunch of clouds came in today, so I'm hoping it will rain soon and give some relief.

Tim and I leave at 2 AM next Monday to go to Phoenix for a day and then on to Texas. Kristen, my matron of honor, and I are going to look at bridesmaid dresses while I'm with her in Phoenix, which I'm excited about. Then we fly home the next morning and will be there two days. At some point while we're there, we are meeting with Wayne, the preacher at Webb Chapel, who is marrying us, for an initial pre-marital counseling session. He has a couple of tests for us to take, that will tell him if there are things he wants to talk to us about.

Thanks for reading and I hope everyone is having a good week!

Viva Mexico

Well, Tim and I booked our honeymoon! We're going to an all-inclusive resort called Sandos Caracol Beach Resort & Spa in Yucatan, Mexica at Playa del Carmen. They were having a really good special and it seemed like an awesome place so we made a reservation. Our plan is to get two separate sets of round trip tickets; one from Anchorage to Dallas, and then from Dallas to Cancun with the return from Cancun arriving hopefully just before our return from Dallas to Anchorage.

I went to a Preschool near my apartment that was hiring to talk to the administrator. They are looking for a lead teacher for the 4-year-old class. It seemed like a nice facility, but I can actually make more money substitute teaching with more freedom. I wouldn't have any vacation time at this school for a very long time. They only get major holidays off, and there is no curriculum, just themes for each week. I will be working on more classes for my master's program this fall so I really would like a job that I don't have to think about when I'm home (unlike full-time teaching). So my plan is to sub and keep applying for teacher assistant jobs in the school district. Subs actually make more an hour than teacher assistants, but of course there are no benefits.

Tonight Tim and I have an all-nighter at the church building with his and another church's youth group. They've done service projects for the last two days. The first night they went on a food scavenger hunt where they split up into teams and went asking people they knew to donate food for the local food bank. Last night was called "Barnabus Night" and I went to help drive, even though I ended up not needing to. We again split up into teams and pooled our money (everyone was asked to bring $5) and had an hour and a half to go out and serve people any way we chose. Our group decided to go to Costco and buy bottled water, snacks, and ziplock bags and put together packages to give out to homeless people. As Tim drove from the store to downtown, the three high schoolers we had and I feverishly put all our supplies in the bags, and had a total 76 bags. We ended up passing out 52 of them. It was a little scary at first, but it was pretty fun once we gave out a few and saw how thankful they were, and some people even asked for them who I wouldn't think would need or want one. Tonight we are taking gatorade and water to a disk golf course to offer them to players and joggers who are there, then going back to the church building to play games and hang out until 9 AM tomorrow.

Yesterday I bought several pieces of furniture for my apartment: coffee table, bookshelf, desk, and TV cart and tomorrow Tim and I get to put them together. Hopefully my place will start to look like a home. :-)

Well, I need to go get ready for tonight, so I'm signing off for now!

Pictures of my apartment have been requested and so even though it's still messy with boxes (I'm a very slow unpacker), here is my new home. It's small, but it has a really nice long closet and a super cute bathroom. I loved the green, and then I added my other two favorite colors, blue and yellow. :-) My bed is just to the left of where I was standing when I took the bottom picture. The one above that is my whole kitchen...sink, stove, fridge. Across from that is a wall. Not much to it, but less space to keep clean, and it's very affordable, and on the first floor, so I'm content.

The weather has been great lately, but today was a hot one...84 degrees! Wow! After Tim got off work we walked over to Outback for an early dinner. I hadn't taken to sips of my water before I gracefully knocked over my glass and spilled water all over the table and onto Tim. Luckily the restaraunt was nearly empty so there was no one to look and stare.

It is slowly sinking in that I am engaged. I'm trying not to freak out about everything I have to do. I have several big decisions made, but it's all the tiny details that are overwhelming. Right now I'm trying to just enjoy being a fiance. (I like that word!).

Well, nothing much else happening, so I guess I'll sign off for now. Thanks for reading!

I'm Engaged!!!

It's finally official! Tim was feeling better yesterday evening, so we went to see fireworks at midnight (because that's when it starts to get relatively dark) and they actually started at about 12:15. We ended up not going to the baseball game, but just drove and walked to the baseball field to see the fireworks. We were sitting on the curb waiting for them to start, and after waiting about half an hour, getting tired and since we had to be up early for church this morning, we decided to walk back to the car and when we made it back, they started. We got out and sat outside and watched them until about 12:35 when I was getting really tired so I suggested we go home. He took me to my apartment and grabbed his backpack which he had put drinks in and said he was going to leave the drinks with me. When we got inside he said that he had something for me and that it was part of my anniversary gift (our one year anniversary was May 22nd), and he took out a large, flat, square box and handed it to me and I sat down on my bed to open it. He kneeled down beside me which was my first clue. I opened the box and it was a photo album with a big daisy on the front (my favorite flower). He had filled it with pictures of our trips and our experiences and had written things in it talking about things we've done and how great it is that now we're in the same state and he hopes it lasts forever. On the inside of the back cover he had put tissue paper and wrote "Lift here" and underneath the ring was taped to the book and it said, "So Amy, will you marry me?" I started getting butterflies as I got closer to the end and knew for sure what was about to happen. I just smiled and laughed and looked at him and he said, "So what's your answer?" And of course I said yes! It was all very sweet and the ring is perfect. So now we can officially announce that we will be married on March 6, 2010. :-)

The Land of the Midnight Sun

The nickname is really true!  The sun does go down at about 11:30 or so, but it only looks like twilight, it doesn't get completely dark.  Then the sun comes back out at 3 something.  

Well, I have a home now!  I got the keys to my new studio apartment yesterday afternoon.  It is really tiny (312 square feet) but it's enough for me!  It's on the first floor, adjacent to the laundry room, has a REALLY long closet in the hall way, and all utilities are paid (including cable TV) except water which is supposed to be around $15/month.  My bed is being delivered this afternoon and I can spend my first night in my new home.  

This week has been pretty fun.  Tim took Monday off and we went to the zoo with my mom.  Tim and I had gone to the zoo when I was here in March, but it was better this time.  First of all it wasn't freezing cold.  Also, we got to see black bears and the polar bears were more active.  After the zoo we drove out to the coast to "Beluga Point" which is just a pull off on the side of Seward Highway where there are telescopes and supposedly Beluga whales (my mom's favorite) feed.  We climbed out on the cliffs there but didn't see any whales.  We got some nice pictures though (which will be posted soon...).  We also went shopping downtown and got lots of souvenirs.  

We looked at prices for whale watching cruises and they were all very expensive so we were going to take a one-hour glacier cruise for a much more reasonable price, and were planning on going today, but Tim got sick last night and is still not feeling well, so we're just going to hang out here and continue setting up my apartment.  Poor Tim was exhausted from his trip and had not had a decent night's sleep since he got back and it caught up to him.  We're just going to let him rest today and get better.  Hopefully he'll feel better by tomorrow night for the fireworks. There's a double header baseball game in town for the "Rookie A" team, the Anchorage Bucks and they're doing fireworks afterwards.

The weather is pretty much perfect here.  The highs are in the mid- to upper-60's. It even got up to 72 one day.  The lows are mid-50's because the sun stays out so long.  Before I came up here I was reading about Anchorage on a website and it said that one of the "unofficial" nicknames for the city is "the hanging basket capital of the world."  It's true!  There are hanging baskets everywhere!  Anchorage is also called, "The city of Flowers" in the summer and "The City of Lights" in the winter.  It's a pretty city all year round!

I tried to upload my pictures from my camera that I've taken so far, but they didn't come out right, so I'll try again later and hopefully be able to post some pictures soon!