The Ultimate Blog Party 2011 Begins

Hi there to all the 5 Minute for Mom bloggers!!!  Another year of Ultimate Blog Parties has begun and it is such a pleasure to have you stop by and view my blog.  I am a missionary serving with my husband and 4 children in Alaska.  We have been working here together for the past 12 years and my husband has actually been here for 15.   You will find that my blog consists of my family and what we do while we live here in Alaska, but it is also to put up pictures that I have taken because I love photography so much.  We recently just returned home from a 7 month furlough to visit family and people and churches that support us, and we had the opportunity to drive around the outside edge of the United States.  We ended up driving a little over 21, 000 miles over all, but we were also able to see so many neat things in the process.  So please stop for a while and enjoy our journey in Alaska!

Day 1 and 2 of the Alcan

We left monday afternoon, February 28th, after Chad and the girls repacked the trailer and I packed up everything in the house.  We were finally on our way home.  We made it to Great Falls by 4:30pm and had just started running into icy patches and high wind.  Unfortunately it was that way all the way to the border and possibly all the way to Edmonton.  So we stopped for the night and ambushed my aunt and uncle!  They were more than happy to let us stay, and we were even able to pop on over to see our puppy again.  The next morning we did not get started until 9:30, which I was sort of ok with.  It was my birthday and the idea of driving all day did not sound like a very fun celebration to me! Ha.  Especially since this was my 30th...I wanted to celebrate big, but that was not to be....so next year I will just celebrate with a party twice as fun! Anyway, back to driving.  We made it across the border in great time, only stopped for about 10 minutes, and then we were on our way.  The roads were great and we were able to drive between 65 and 70 all day!  Our plan had been to try and drive straight through, but with the trailer as large as it was, not knowing at what point we would hit icy snow packed roads, and the fact that I would be the one driving at night detered me from wanting to drive all night.  We made great time that day and made it all the way to Grand Prairie by 10pm, where we stopped for the night.

wide open spaces

Yay we made it across the border!

they had lots of these hay bales out for advertising the different beers. Thought it was kind of interesting.

Calgary

Huge herd of deer.  Made Chad a little sad :)

2nd Half of our Time in Montana

Around the 14th of February Chad and I were able to sneak away and go out for an evening.  We both had a wonderful time, as we worked out together, had dinner together and then off to the movies.  We have been able to view some beautiful sunrises and sunsets while we were there.  My mom insisted that the girls get to make sugar cookies with her, and then frost them.  What a fun process, and they all did such a good job.  One of the frosting colors was blue, and Mason had a cookie with that frosting and boy his diaper had turned blue!!!  It was pretty gross. Ha.

The kids played with puzzles and games, and they colored a lot and road horses when the weather would allow it.  The last week that we were at my parents house the church we attend there puts on a mission conference every year and so Chad spent much of his time going and speaking to sunday school groups, bible studies, youth groups, and the college aged kids.  The week is very full, and we were pretty exhausted when it was over.  On top of that we began packing all of our stuff into the trailer and suburban so we could leave right after the conference was over.  On Sunday evening right before our last meeting we had just about everything packed, and my dad and Chad went with the trailer to pick one more thing up from storage, and on that little trip our shelf with all the boxes on it fell forward and made a big mess, so we were back to square one!  Instead of leaving bright and early on Monday morning we did not get out of Bozeman until 1:30 in the afternoon.  Thankfully it was all packed by then and we were off.

birthday cake to celebrate my dad's 60th, my 30th, Madison's 7, Chad's 38th, and Heidi's 4th

Thai dinner that mom and I made for her bible study and the missionaries that were coming to speak to them

Our puppy Mocha at 5 weeks old

First Half of Our Time in Montana

We spent the first week trying to keep ourselves healthy and not sick, since we had all spent the month of January sick.  Our family managed to fair pretty well, but my parents were sick the entire month and well into March before all the symptoms went away.  What a horrible cold season it was this year!  Anyway, when we first arrived, there was lots of snow to play in, and my dad had built a snow cave earlier in the year and so the kids sledded on that and played inside.  Sadly since it was so cold and snowy the girls did not get as much horseriding time as they would have liked.  We also went up to see another set of aunt and uncles and to see my grandpa and look around the farm to see if we wanted anything to take home from there.  I did of course but I will show that in another post! :)

my mom has a few bird feeders and they were always swarmed with birds!  The kids had fun watching them.

the deer enjoying the bird seed that is dropped....they come every morning and every evening!

 

                                These next few pictures are traveling from Bozeman to Great Falls

                                                    out at my grandpa's farm