Merry Christmas

So I am always behind. This has been a rough month for me to keep up with anything. I would never again move at Christmas time. It's been the biggest pain and made enjoying the holidays hard. This is about all you're going to get out of me for Christmas. We took pictures Christmas Eve and that's about it. Well, a total of 3 Christmas morning. I still need to blog Jayley's birthday. I have to see if I even have any pictures from it.

P.S. Since, we are in the process of unpacking, ignore the 2 tvs in the background. It looks so junky, but that's how it is this year. 

and it's still coming down

We got about 4 more inches today. Yesterday I measured 23", so we are over 2 feet. It's crazy. The only time I've seen snow like this was in Denver. We had such a huge snowfall that they named it "The Blizzard of '97". I'm sure they still talk about that in Denver. I think we got 3 feet in the blizzard of '97.

Ron came home from work and shoveled and shoveled and shoveled. He dug out the suburban and then cleared the whole deck. I went out earlier and thought I could get a good workout shoveling snow. I didn't last as long as I thought I would. My muscles started burning!! It was a lot harder than I thought.

Snow, Snow and more Snow

It's finally our turn for snow. It seems like everyone was getting snow except for us. Last week holiday travelers were stranded in Seattle because there was so much snow. Alaska airlines flights weren't able to get out of Seattle. At that time we were enjoying beautiful, sunny days that were dry as could be.

Las Vegas even got 5-6 inches of snow before we ever saw a flake.

Now it is our turn........

(This is a picnic table and benches on the deck.)

It kept coming and coming and coming. It was so fun. It started snowing on Saturday and continued on until Sunday evening. Due to all of the snow Church was canceled. I know I'm such a kid, because I was so excited to have Church canceled. It was the best part. 
This is a picture standing at my front door. The snow is over half way up the deck railing. 
This poor tree was sagging soooo bad. You can see the branch laying on the deck. Usually that branch is up about 12 inches above the railing.

This was kind of cool. For a second there a bit of blue sky shined through. It was really pretty. It didn't last more than 5-10 min.

Busy Busy

I am sooo out of time. I love the Christmas Season and for some reason it is going by too fast. Time needs to slow down. I don't have time to  blog, but I figured I would post a short update.

1) The Juneau trip was an absolute blast even though we overheaded Ketchikan twice on the way home. I'll post more details later.

2) We are moving into our new house. We have been renting this past year. We finally found a house worthy of buying. We've been moving for the past week. It's too much work. I hate it, but we love being in the new house. (Well, new to us....definitely  not new.)

3) Las Vegas got snow before we did here in Ketcikan. 

4) It's snowing today. The first snowfall of the year. (Puts a damper on the move)

5) I love my new house

6) I love Christmas

7) I hope I get my Christmas cards out. It will be really sad if they are late because they are last years. (oh--did I just admit that).

8) I love Christmas

9) and I love Christmas

10) I hope to be moved in and back to the blogging world soon.

Oh and if you have a Christmas card for us. Here's our new address:

802 Monroe St.

Ketchikan, AK 99901

Juneau Trip

I'm off to Juneau. Jayley and I leave this afternoon for Juneau. Jayley's middle school team is in a tournament in Juneau. I decided to go with her along with a friend. (There's a Costco and a Jo-Ann's up there.) Let's be honost middle school basketball is fun, but it's really the shopping that I'm going for. Shhh, don't tell. Costco here I come.

Yummy Salad---must try!!

Okay, it's my turn to blog a recipe. I have to share this one. This is one of the best salads ever. I just got the recipe from one of my friends here in Alaska. It's so yummy and so easy. 

Salad Dressing:

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup olive oil

1/3 cup vinegar

1 t. salt

1 t. pepper

1 t. sesame seeds (optional)

The salad consists of shredded chicken, fried lumpia shells, and almonds. Toss everything together and serve.

When I make my shredded chicken I boil and then simmer for about an hour. I boil it in chicken granules, and lots of seasonings that I dump in the water like Italian seasoning and lemon and pepper. I shred it when it's falling apart.

Lumpia shells: lumpias are a fillipino eggroll. I hope you can find them at your grocery store. They are in the freezer section.  They are the shells for lumpias. It's a super thin paper like shell. Deep fry them. They cook really fast. 




I fry the whole package of lumpias and then put it in a gallon size ziplock bag and put it in the fridge. The same with the chicken. I cooked a whole bag and shredded it and then put it in a gallon size ziplock bag. This way you can make the salad everyday. It is seriously so good.

It's a beautiful day

It's a beautiful day in Ketchikan. I should say it's a sunny day in Ketchikan because it's always beautiful, it's just not always sunny. No one else can appreciate this like we do, but to see blue skies like that!!! What a treat. I think it's been over a month since we've had a sunny day.

By the way, this picture was taken at 2:30 in the afternoon, and yes the sun is going down. It will be pitch dark by 3:45 ish. 

It's not very often that my living room has rays of sunshine like this coming through. It was pretty cool. The only downside when it's sunny is that the temperature drops. It's been in the 50's and high 40's day and night, but today is only 37. That's the coldest it's been this winter. One good thing is that our day and night temps are pretty much the same. It doesn't get much colder at night and when the clouds return the temp. rises, but for now I will take the sun.

Thanksgiving 2008

I love Thanksgiving. It's one of my favorite holidays. I was quite pleased with it this year. I was very nervous because it was going to be one of the few not celebrated with our family. My first choice of course is to have Thanksgiving with my family, but since that couldn't happen it was nice to have good friends to celebrate the holiday with. We had our neighbors the Davis', the Gunn family, and the McClaren family over.

Javonte, Travis, Wendy, Kimmie (pre dinner)

Wendy, who didn't want her picture taken, and me and Kimmie. All working hard of course in the kitchen.

Jayley who kindly set all the tables.

Sam, such a cutie. He loves cameras. He must have been taking a turn with the video camera.

Kimmel and Jeremiah Gunn

Kimmel, the kid is only three and look at that basketball form. He's got the moves.

Me and Wendy working hard of course :)

Cody Davis

Steve McClaren and his son Cooper

More basketball

You guessed it more basketball up here in Alaska.

Friday night was a 3 on 3 tournament. It's so much fun.

 

*It starts at 5:00 p.m. 

*It's double elimination

*Score to 15 by 1's, 3 pointers are worth 2

*half court games 

*It's one of the big fund raisers for the high school teams.

 *3 age divisions for boys/3 for girls

Ron was on a team in the men's open division. They didn't make it very far, but they were the oldest team in the tournament and they didn't have a sub. Their 4th guy got sick and didn't make it. I only got this picture taken of him. (He's in the orange, on the left, Bishop Youngberg on the right with the ball, and Travis Tippets barely seen in the middle). Last year Ron was on the winning team. 

I didn't get to play. The teachers I play with had a school fundraiser at the Elementary school that same night and so none of them could play. It was a bummer because we planned on being in the tournament. 

The good news is that both Travis and Jayley's teams took 1st place in their divisions. The champions get sweatshirts and 2nd place gets t-shirts.

CHAMPIONS

This is Nick Silva and Travis after their championship game sporting their champion sweatshirts.

CHAMPIONS

Cassidy, Bailey, Brindalyn, Jayley

I purposely took this picture with the clock up above them. If you look at the time it says, "12:26". That is the correct time. It is 12:26  a.m. That's part of the fun of the tournament. It goes until the double elimination is completed. The final game of the night got over around 1:00 a.m. Jayley's team had just finished their game when I took this picture.

Jayley on the court right before her championship game started.

Jayley's team's name was 2BJC. It stood for 2-B's-Bailey and Brindalyn, J-Jayley, C-Cassidy

Jayley made the shirts for her team.

 Nick made the shirts for their team. They were called the "Bomb Squad".

Brady, Travis, and Nick right after their championship game.