A Few More Christmas-Related Pictures

This picture is from about two weeks before Christmas in the hospital lobby. This is Jaycie's first "Santa experience." As you can see, it didn't go very well. As expected, she didn't like the large stranger in the overpowering red suit. Oh well, maybe next year.

Jaycie watching her new Elmo DVD with her two sled doggies that she got for Christmas. She is kind of outgrowing her bouncy seat, but she is used to lounging in it while she watches movies.

Christmas morning. You might not be abel to tell, but it is snowing pretty hard outside. it continued all day. By the next day, I had about 10" of new snow to shovel. Thank goodness it was so cold. The snow was a nice, light powder.

By the way, the farthest house on the right (through the window) is where I saw the black bear last August. He was sniffing around their flower bed (probably looking for berries).

We are all finally feeling a little bit better from our Christmas sicknesses.

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas treated us well this year. Even though we were away from family, we sure enjoyed the special day with our little family. Unfortunately, we were all sick together. Me and Shannon have sinus infections (got antibiotics the day after Christmas) and Jaycie got pink eye (thankfully, a vey mild case).

Aside from the sicknesses, Christmas morning was magical for one little girl. Jaycie is now just starting to understand the gift opening part and Daddy has been trying to instill the Santa tradition with her. She had fun and we had fun taking pictures, filming and laughing with her as she opened her gifts from eveyone. Here are some of the pictures. She was very excited and very cute with her gifts. It snowed all day on Christmas and there was 10 inches to shovel by the next morning.

Thank you all for the gifts and cards. We missed you all, but you wouldn't have wanted us around you all (we pretty much were the walking dead with our sicknesses). And I am glad we weren't stuck in the Seattle airport on our way down.

Well, we hope you all had a fun Christmas as well! See you all in January when I come down for my business meeting on the 16th.

We Have Felt our First Sub Zero Days

It has been COOOLLLDD!! We have had a few days in sub zero temps when I have gotten up to go to work in the early morning hours. Anchorage temps are a little more mild than in Eagle River. Eagle River, being inland from the coast a few more miles than Anchorage is about 3-5 degrees colder. I actually made the mistake to wash our car when it was only about 10 degrees. The water almost instantly froze when it hit the car. I went to one of those car washes that you pull your car into an enclosed port and use the high-powered jet gun. I guess it was just too cold, even with the water being hot coming out of the jet.

We are making the most of it, however. We had a warmer day a while ago, that we took advantage of. We took Jaycie sledding for her first time. There is a gentle sloped hill just behind our house that is perfect for little ones. Jaycie had a great time. So did Mom and Dad. We can't wait to go again, but we need it to be at least 25 degrees.

We are also planning on going to the local ski resort. We have some neighbors that are going to swap babysitting duties with us so we can both have some ski and snowboarding outings. As you can imagine we are looking forwarding to getting out on the slopes.

Photos from our Thanksgiving Trip Home

Jaycie sure had fun with Sunny. Sunny was a good sport and tolerated her rough housing.

We enjoyed our trips to the zoo with Nathan and Amy. Jaycie loves playgrounds now.

Shannon made sure Jaycie saw her favorite animals, bears.

More fun with Sunny.

Most of all we enjoyed being with family and being somewhere sunny and snowless! What a great break.

Halloween Pictures (Finally)

When we were home visiting family, it occured to us that we hadn't shown anyone any pictures of Jaycie in her costume. So, we wanted to post them for everyone to see. She was a kitty this year. The costume made good sense due to the fac that it was relatively warm and we could layer some clothes under it. So, she kind of looks like Randy on the Christmas Story. She is very well bundled up and looks like a well-fed kitty cat.

Jaycie dressed and ready for her first trick-or-treating adventure (we just went to a few houses around our neighbrhood).

We then went to the Trunk-or-Treat that the ward organized. As you can see, I am trying to keep her hands warm (it was probably 30 degrees). Her cheeks ended up getting a little rosie. however, she threw a tantrum when we left, so we knew she had a good time.

Jaycie organizing her stash of goodies that she brought in that night. She wasn't interested in eating them, just organizing them into piles. She especially liked organizing the suckers.

A Few New Words to the Repertoire...

Jaycie has been saying a few new words and phrases lately and we wanted to share them with you. She can say, what's that, uh-oh, bear, and num-num. She for some reason has decided to no longer say a few words as well. She doesn't say doggie anymore, but she will say woof, woof when she sees a doggie. She also hasn't said drink, kittie or horsey for a while. We are not sure why. Maybe she thinks that I have said it before so why repeat it?

Anyway, we are excited to see you all in two short weeks!!

Doing a Little Catch Up.

As you know, I haven't been very diligent in keeping up-to-date with how we are doing. So, the next few posts are over the past month or so, but all posted today. First of all, we are ecstatic about the fact that we finally caught a break on airline ticket prices and we are coming home for Thanksgiving. It will be so nice to spend time with our families again. I am sure that Jaycie will remember you all as we have been away for only five months. I will have to pull out a family picture and help her memory before we come down for our visit.

My job is going well. I have been given some hefty projects and am happy to be getting busy. The first few months have been orienting myself with the various departments and staff members. I hope to be getting more duties soon (I don't want to stagnate). I guess I am still young and wanting to prove myself (maybe I should know better?).

Shannon is doing great as well. She has become good friends with some of our neighbors and had some chances to do some fun stuff with some other moms in the area (hiking, swimming, museum trips, etc.). We have also been able to have some interesting date nights. The hospital sponsors the symphony here in Anchorage, so we got free tickets to see the cultural symphony. It started as a traditional symphony, then incorporated some local cultural performers at the end. We saw native american dancers, hawaiian dancers, eskimo dancers, etc. all dance to their native music. It was pretty awesome. Tomorrow night we are going to a Boy Scouts of America silent and live auction dinner (usually a pretty posh event, also sponsored by the hospital). Maybe Sarah will be there?

I have still been doing some hiking/hunting, it is a little tougher now that the morning mountain temps are in the teens. I have mostly been looking for grouse and snowshoe hares. I haven't had a lot of success, but seen a lot of moose. I am still learning the areas, but can't wait until next year and hope to try my luck at moose and caribou hunting and maybe even a bear hunt. We will see.

For Halloween , we are planning on going to the ward trunk-or-treat event and going to just a few houses in our neighborhood (bundled up, of course).

Jaycie is growing like a weed. She has now four upper teeth and two lower. One really noticable change is her hair is growing quickly. It is at the stage where we don't know what to do with it. She is now walking like a pro and exploring new ways to play with her toys. Her new thing is to take all her soft toys (stuffed animals, dolls, etc.) and put them in a pile then, one or two at a time, move them to another area of the house and put them in another pile. She will even lay on the pile sometimes. Here are some pics...