Long week

It's been a lazy day. I'm still in my robe and my washed hair is now all matted from it being wet and not brushed. LOL

Came in last night from Anchorage. It was a good trip except for the near death experience and the foot or so of snow that piled down on Friday. We arrived on Thursday night and did a little shopping and went out to dinner. As we were headed back to the Hilton, a flippin' moose jumps in front of our rental van!!! I was riding shotgun and thank god Karen was driving. She slammed on the brakes and then she saw the 50mph traffic behind us not looking like it was going to slow down. To avoid getting rear ended by a Ford Explorer and sandwiched between meat and metal, she gassed it a little bit and then slammed the brakes again. LOL! Thank goodness those Kia Seddona's apparently have some gooooooooood brakes. We were like a foot or two away from the moose and the Explorer slammed their brakes in the nick of time and then swerved around us missing all the other traffic. I figuratively saw my life flash before my eyes and of course, the big question on my mind was "oh $@!%$!! I wonder if the district covered rental insurance!" We went back to the hotel shaken but were experiencing that adrenaline rush you get from almost dying. hehe.

Friday, we had to be at the convention hall in the morning and noticed that it had started to snow. All day it snowed and snowed and snowed. They did not maintain the roadways or sidewalks downtown at all. By evening, we looked out onto a mass of white and after walking back to the hotel, we noticed the rental van was buried under about a foot of snow. Tried to make it to the downtown mall for shopping but only had about an hour there plus we were exhausted from trudging through the snow and slush and wind. I was worried about how we were going to get the van out of the parking lot the next day and how we were going to haul all of our stuff down the slushy roads and sidewalks.

Thankfully, it stopped snowing for the day and when I woke up on Saturday, it looked like they were plowing the parking lots. By afternoon, they had plowed the lot and we were able to get some help moving our stuff because it was nothing but puddles (errr... lakes) of water everywhere.

So yes, by the time I got home last night, I was pure exhaustion. I also realized that even though the temps are milder in the south, I never want to move there. I'll take my super dry cold over that mess anyday. The kids were happy to see me and so was Kurt. They all said "MOMMY!!!!" and i'm hoping it didn't have anything to do with the toys I had brought home. ;-) Today I am trying to wind down because I have two more fairs to attend. Thankfully, the next one is in town. It's Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday evening I will be leaving for Soldotna so I can attend the fair on Wednesday. Then a rush to the airport Wednesday night will bring me home on the red eye. I'll be glad when I'm done because as much as I like going, I also get exhausted. People think I have so much fun but it's a ton of work.

I didn't complain when Kurt mentioned he wanted to order pizza tonight. Heck yeah! Anything to be lazy today. :)

I'm off...

If I seem a bit scarce the next few weeks, it's because I will be doing some traveling. I leave this afternoon for the first leg and I haven't even gotten my bag packed. LOL!

Kurt's dad is coming up to visit in June. Should be fun... trying to think of things to do while he's here. He's lived up here before when he was military so it's not like we can take him to any of the typical attractions. I was thinking of maybe doing the train trip to Denali/Mt. McKinnley because neither Kurt nor I have done that in our lifetimes. The only problem is that I don't know how it works so much. The fare is like $60 down to Denali but there is no mention of coming back to Fairbanks. Not sure if it is another $60 a head to come back or even if there is a train back or a shuttle or something. Kinda spendy too if I take all the kids.

The snow looks like it might be starting to finally melt more. It is supposed to be in the 50's today so hopefully by May, we'll finally see some dirt and dead grass. I am definitely ready for summer.

Not much else to write about. Got lots to do in the next two hours so I better get going. Have a great week!

What's new...

Gosh, been awhile since I last blogged. No excuses really... must be the time of year. :)

Well, Marissa turned 2 a couple weeks ago. Here are some photos.





She was hilarious at her birthday party. We just had family and a few friends come over. Marissa figured out that she was the center of attention and totally took advantage of it by bossing everyone around. What a silly goose!

Spring is coming but you certainly haven't been able to tell. We had a teaser last month with a few upper 40's days but it's been winter-like and snowy lately. At least the sun is shining today. Probably about 15-20 degrees though. Ick. It's SUPPOSED to be 40's and 50's by now... looks like summer's coming late. Most of the highways are dry but the residential roads are still ice/snow. I can't wait for summer. I even went and got my haircut yesterday. It's been a few years so I had them take off about 6 inches and got some layers. It feels nice.

I have lots of projects planned for the house and need to do something with the yard for sure this year. I want to swap bedrooms with the whole family. Move our living room down to the family room, make a big dining room in our old living room, make our 2nd kitchen into an office for Kurt and I, put in closet systems in all the bedrooms and then have a garage sale too, to get rid of all our STUFF! Eventually, I want to redo our kitchen by enlarging it but there's walls with closets that need knocked down and so forth and I will need to take a loan out to do it... kitchens are so expensive. My mom has also expressed interest in paying for an addition onto our house. She lives by herself so she gets lonely... she wants us to put a mother in law's apartment on top of our garage. I'm pretty sure it's doable because I think the garage is original with the house meaning it's got a foundation. It might however need additional support beams inside because it's like 800 sq. ft. I'm guessing it's going to cost at least $60,000 but need to get someone over here for an estimate.


I'm going to be doing some traveling next week through the end of the month. It's curriculum fair time again. Leaving on the 21st and will be back and forth through the 30th. I enjoy traveling so that's the perk. Hate being away from the family though and Kurt will have to get his work schedule tweaked out and take some vacation days.

Other than that, not a lot new here. I've been scrapping some though! Yay! Here are a few of the pages I did. :)