Naomi's Awesome New Hairstyle

Pictures of Our House

DJ, modelling the dining room

Naomi's favorite part of the house? You guessed it -- the pantry!

DJ in the kitchen

DJ in the arctic entry

Naomi in the mud room.

So, I told Lil I would put pictures of the inside of our house up as soon as I could. Now that we have the Internet, I guess I'd best keep my word. This was before we had any furniture.

It's Hard to Update a Blog With No Internet

That problem will be solved on Saturday when we get a home phone, cable, and internet service. In the meanwhile I am borrowing WiFi from my next door neighbor who told me that I was welcome to use but not abuse.

Here is an update from the last month. We were going to get the keys to our house on November 18th, but we got a call and were told that we could pick them up on the 17th. We were so eager to get out of the hotel, which we agreed even though our stuff wouldn't arrive until the 20th.The night that we found out we were getting the keys early, the power went out on the installation that the hotel was on. Being that the sun goes down early in Alaska, we had to pack all our stuff in the dark. Fortunately, I had a couple of flashlights to aid in our quest to get out of the hotel.

The next day we packed the car, picked up the keys, and went to check out the house. It's awesome! By far the biggest and best laid out house we've ever lived in. We figure based on the fact it was built in 2006 that we must be only the second family to live here.While we were at the hotel, Jenn went to the furniture store to look at mattress prices. We have an old bunk bed and we decided before we left Oklahoma that the mattresses had to go. To our surprise, Serta mattresses were on sale, so we bought them and had them held until we could pick them up. When we moved in, I went down to pick them up and made a makeshift bed out them for me and Jenn.

Our stuff finally arrived on the 20th and the temperature dropped down to -30, now that was cold! Since our stuff arrived, I dug out our indoor/outdoor thermometer and hooked it up. Then I noticed that the temperature was -30 outside and 70 inside making it a 100 degree difference between the two locations.The movers were unloading crates (since the shipment came by boat) and they would unload one and run everything into the garage and shut the door. Then they would unpack it and bring it into the house. It was slow, but by 8:30pm we had boxes all over the house and were reunited with our stuff for the first time since June.

Where we live is convenient to our kid’s school. We live on a loop, and at the bend in the loop there is a path that leads right to the school. If an adult walks it, it only takes about 7-10 minutes, if a child, particularly ours walks it takes 15-20 because they need to take "shortcuts" and examine everything.The kids love school though, they go sledding at recess and seem to have transitioned well to the new school and new teachers. They also enjoy walking to school and get mad if we need to drive that day.

It's starting to get darker; I was off of work this week in order to get moved in. So I took the children to school. School starts at 9:00AM and it still looks like the middle of the night. School ends at 3:30PM and the sun is already down. So they go in the dark and come back in the dark. The 21st of December will be the shortest day when we only get about 4 hours of daylight.Other than that, our kids have really enjoyed sledding. We found a sledding hill in our neighborhood and on "warm" days we go as a family and it's quite fun.

Speaking of warm, the temperature warmed up around Thanksgiving and it was crazy. I never would have thought that 36 degrees was warm, but I was wearing a light sweatshirt and was totally comfortable. Our kids were sweating as they have to wear their winter clothes at recess. It's amazing how fast the body adapts to the environment. It's now hovering between zero and -10 and it's not too bad. Jenn still doesn’t love winter, but even she had adapted to the cold.

That's it for now, hopefully it won't be another month before our next post, but who knows??

Lots to update!

1. We arrived safely at Fort Wainwright yesterday afternoon.

a. The ferry was fun, except for the rolling seas we encountered thrice.

i. Derek posted pics on facebook.

b. The driving was not.

i. I hated the storms and snowy roads. It was especially bad when we were following a UHaul that was throwing up it's own snow storm.

ii. There were some beautiful views.

c. We stayed at an adorable cabin in Tok on the 28th.

i. That was our anniversary. We remembered -- before the sun had set (and it sets early in Alaska).

d. I AM SO GLAD TO BE DONE DRIVING!!!!!!!!!

2. We enrolled our kids in school. They are supposed to start Monday. However, it is not the school they should be attending, so we will be disenrolling and reenrolling in a different school immediately, because...

3. WE HAVE A HOUSE!

a. It is on post. I have mixed emotions about that, but...

b. It is over 2600 sq. ft!

i. We could never afford that off post.

ii. Our home in Oklahoma was 1700.

c. It has 5 (yes, that is correct) bedrooms!

i. A master suite,

ii. Two kid rooms,

iii. A play room (maybe -- we may put the play room downstairs), and

iv. A craft room!

d. It has 2 1/2 baths.

i. 2 full upstairs,

ii. Powder room downstairs.

e. This is in our backyard -- literally!

f. We will move in no later than November 18th! In the meantime,

4. We are living in a hotel. Though we reserved two connecting rooms several weeks ago, we arrived to find that there are no connecting rooms available. Not only that, they don't even have two adjacent rooms available. So, we have seven of us living in a 2 room suite that is designed for four. Thankfully it is a suite, as the standard rooms are designed for 2. Also, I am very grateful for the second room. It is tight, but it has its own TV, so I don't have to watch cartoons all day:)

5. I was able to do six loads of laundry today. This is good news, though not great. I still have at least three to do. It's been a long time since we had a washer available. I would have accomplished a lot more, but we have two washers available -- one dryer. Nice. At least we all have clothes for a few days. Maybe we'll get lucky and be able to move in before we need to do more laundry.

6. Fairbanks is more than we had hoped for.

a. We had been told to expect very little.

b. It turns out that there is a lot here.

c. The sunsets are beautiful!

d. The driving is not quite as terrible as I had dreaded.

e. The cold is cold -- and only getting worse. Brrrrr.... That is every bit as bad as expected.

f. Food and gas prices are scary. I thought Utah was bad after living in Oklahoma. Now I see that Utah is cheap. So is California....

Alaska Bound

We are in Washington at a hotel right now after a few days of traveling from Idaho. We have to have our cars to Bellingham, WA no later than 3:00 PM tommorrow and the ferry leaves at 6:00. The kids are excited to get on a boat and doubly excited to get to Alaska.
We'll post pictures of our adventure soon.
Signing off from the lower 48 for the last time in a while,

Jonathan's Baptism

Jonathan was baptized yesterday (Oct 10th). There were 3 other children baptized the same day. Brother Paulsen talked to the children about baptism, then they were each baptized and confirmed. It is awesome to see your own child baptized. What a bright future he has ahead of him.

Lil talked to Jon about the Gift of the Holy Ghost. She did a great job. She had a gift for Jon. Each part of the gift represented something the Holy Ghost does for us. He comforts us (a really soft, snuggly blanket). He testifies and teaches (a Book of Mormom with Lil's testimony in it). He guides us (a compass). She also gave him a flashlight and I can't remember what it meant (Lil, please leave a comment and remind me).

This was the first time since Meg's wedding that my parent's whole family has been together. We've come close a few times, but Derek is usually missing. It was fun.

Sunday Morning at Our House

So, I was doing really well this morning and had everyone nearly ready with 20 minutes to drive the 3/4 mile to church! As we were trying to tell my sisters bye and herd my kids out the door, I realized that DJ was missing. Just then, he came downstairs in a holey cowboy shirt, underwear and socks. (No, that was not what I'd last seen him in.) I, rather impatiently, asked him what he was doing. With tears in his eyes, he said, "Meg and Ray said we have to change our clothes."

We did make it to church with time to spare, still...my miracle of the day. Meg, Ray, their girls and Lil are on their way back home.

Arches National Park

We had a couple of days off of school and decided to take the kids and Roy to Arches National Park. It was fun although we got on the first trail and a few yards in, Michael said, "I wanna go home." We told him this was "a fun family vacation," so he had to have fun. A couple of minutes later he was laying down and whining. This occured all the way to the North Arch. Once we got there he realized that the park was cool and started running around and climbing the arch. It was funny to see the instant change in disposition after we saw such an amazing creation.

Of course, a short while later Michael said, "Our family vacation... I wanna go home."

The other kids thought it was fun, though Janina got her terms mixed up. Jenn told the kids that we were going to have a picnic and go hiking. This caused an argument in the back seat because Janina was comfortable with a picnic, but didn't want to go hiking. Later when we were on the trail she asked Jenn, "Is this the hiking?" Jenn responded in the affirmative and Janina ran up to Jonathan and told him, "This is the hiking." Then she ran to Michael and repeated, "This is the hiking."

A few minutes later Janina said, "I thought hiking was with ropes." So Jenn had to explain that that was rock climbing. Fun times.

DJ and Jon had birthdays!

We celebrated DJ's bday 3 times: with Arika and Jaak's little boy, John (who turned 3 the day after DJ turned 4), with Dad in Texas and with Jonathan in Duchesne.

We ate dinner in the tower restaurant in San Antonio.

We only celebrated Jon's birthday once, but it was fun. Jon decided to invite Cami and Briaunna very shortly before the party started. They were both able to come which made the day for him.

Lil talked Grandma into making Jonathan an eagle cake. He thought it was very nice. Of course, he didn't give Grandma quite the credit she deserved. When he was telling Meg about it, she mentioned how cool the cakes are that Grandma makes. Jon said, "Oh, yeah. But she got it out of a recipe book."

I talked Grandma into making a horse cake for DJ. Had those horses not had heads, tails or legs, they would have been quite simple...

We played pin the ears on the rabbit. Roy and Jonathan were the best. We forgot to get pictures of Jon, Cami and Briaunna. Oops.

DJ loves Lightening McQueen and legos, so this was a hit.

Jon got a DS lite. He is happy.

The party guests. The great thing about having lots of kids is that you have a very large party without inviting too many other people.

West Texas

Yes, that's were Jenn, DJ, Naomi and I are right now. I graduated from the Officer Basic Course yesterday and we started heading west.
We had a good time in San Antonio, Jenn and the kids went to the Army Medical Depatment Museum, and found some things on the insalation that I had never even heard of as well as play at the park. We also swam at the hotel which was fun. DJ enjoyed watching the planes as they came in for a landing. (We were right next to the airport)

Now we expect to get to either Farmington, NM or Cortez, CO depending on how we feel. We should be in Utah by Friday and the Curtis family will be reunited until the next time.

No Visit with Kendra would be complete without FACEPAINTING

Charming Evolution, isn't it?


I can not explain this. All was well, until the eyeliner went on. She did take a LONG nap after this and was happy as could be upon awakening.

This is one of my favorites.

I have a video to go with this. I'll post it separately.

I love this!

Another good reason to shave your head. (It took two vigorous shampoos to remove it all.)