Alaska

Giving Thanks and catch up 

1 November 2015

November. I love November. It’s a time to gather, a time to give thanks, and a time to prepare for Christmas! I wore a Christmas/winter sweater to church today and listened to some Christmas music tonight. It was delightful. I wore some nice blue tights too to keep my legs warm in the cooler weather.

Right now I’m in bed alone, wishing Chris was here to keep me warm. But I at least have our dog and a couple cats. They sure are nice to cuddle with. ❤️ I dropped Chris off at the airport tonight to go to an aviation conference in Texas. We’ll be apart for two weeks, until I meet him in Utah. We’ll spend Thanksgiving time in Utah, Vegas, and California, then we’ll be HOME for a good while.

It’s always hard to find someone to take care of our animals while we’re gone, but with good effort and the Lord’s help, it always works out. Still working on finding someone to stay here for the few weeks we’ll be out. I’m sleepy. Edel girl just jumped up on the bed to perfectly spoon with me! That’s nice. If only the cats will cuddle with me too. We shall see haha.

The animals, especially our German shepherd, Edelweiss, are plenty of work and make our house lots dirtier and so there’s always something to clean, but I love them anyway.

I miss Chris. He’s such a good cuddler and I love it and his love.  Here’s a sad airport picture. Funny that we’re not both looking at the lens at the same time, because Chris always gets on me about looking at the camera lens and not at my reflection in the screen hehe.


Here’s some catch up of the Last two weeks since being home from Brazil.

Not pictured: changing the cat litter (ugh), washing the walls and carpet from a dirty puppy that’s gets hair and dirt all over. Also not pictured: the unhealthy eating of unhealthy foods I’ve been doing lately (oops, time for changes), me not going visiting teaching, staying in bed late like a bum sloth, my skin growing more pale day by day, my cat getting fatter, our fluffy cat missing, and other minor and less minor struggles that we go through, but life is also full of these wonderful moments that are pictured.

At Katy’s 7th birthday party with loads of temporary tattoos and with my sister who is a great mom.

  Natalie and I adventure walking from the beach to home. Cats included! And check out those delicious fall leaves!

Walks with Chris are lovely. He always walks our dog Edel and half the time I don’t join, but if Piper is outside, she always goes haha. She’s such a spaz sometimes. Like right now as she’s attacking my rabbit fur! Turd.

  My mom, sister, and nieces and I hang out a lot and I love it so much. Here we are with a pile of Brazil stuff I needed to go through. 
Kiana’s Homer missionary farewell. She is such a gem and she and her brother create great music together! She’s off to the missionary training center and then to Italy for 18 months!

Watching a sunrise at 9:20 am, from my favorite perch of dead trees and stumps in the swamp.


Kindergarten teacher by day, sloth by night! ;) Sometimes I teach kindergarten, or anything else needed. I love subbing.

  I went to pick Natalie up from school with Edel. I took her a cookie too. It was so great to walk home together and she loved it. 
I had a special afternoon with Katy too. She was wearing all black because she and Natalie got in a fight and Katy said Natalie didn’t like black, so she wore it, hahaha. Here she is making an egg!

  Natalie and I played at her school playground and it was awesome. Super fun. I don’t want to forget how to play! On this day Natalie was wearing all black. Katy picked it out for her and it turns out Natalie doesn’t really mind black. 
Lots of good things in this picture. I remember reading that the number one need of a dog is exercise. We do what we can to exercise edelweiss and keep her happy. She’s a lot of work, but she’s a really good dog and I love having her here with me when Chris is gone. And when he’s home too.

  Fresh salmon from din din!
Seminary one morning. News flash, they changed some of the scripture masteries! Who did that?! It totally threw me off.

  We made homemade corn tortillas! They were delish and we had a yumm Mexican feast and rented movies or watched BBC stuff on Netflix. I love making food together and need to make it happen more often. 
I got a yummy salad when we went to our friend Richard’s birthday dinner put a bajikkion craisens in my salad. So I made a smile with it. I only like about five craisins per salad. How do you spell craisens or craisins?

  Super awesome clouds one morning. 

Beach walk to help Chris take a little break from being at work all day. He’s been working so much, too much, but it’s temporary.       Natalie reading! She had a hard time reading in school her first couple years, but loves it now!!
These moccasins…. Fixing them for Natalie’s Halloween costume.

  Katy dodging a picture because she got upset since she couldn’t do what she wanted on my phone. 
A drive by picture of beluga slough. Wow! Going to meet our good friends for dinner. Such beauty! We saw a bunch of whales in the bay too on our drive out to the end of the spit. It was awesome. And then I ate a yummy salad and tasty mac n cheese for dinner. :)

  I voted! For our bishop to be a city councilman. 

The best and pinkest morning sky I’ve ever seen. This is one of the only reasons I’m thankful for daylight savings. Otheriwse, daylight savings is silly silly. But today I was able to get out of bed and have loads of time before church. It was great! Our life is good and we are grateful. :)

3 Comments

  • Reply alyssa stevenson 13 November 2015 at 13:08

    heyyy amiga. lots of great pictures and updates on this post.
    it was good talking to you for a bit yesterday.
    you are probably getting done with teaching soon…
    thats crazy you work full time as a sub, and pretty neat.
    remember that day on the beach– it was just me and you pre-weddings.
    we were laughing and talking about what we wanted to do with our majors and you were like “i just want to be a teacher” and i laughed for a long time because you were a exs major…
    but you pretty much are a teacher. so thats cool that desire came true.
    but its probably not much of a desire when its all day long erreryday.

    so yah. did you get your diploma yet and do your internship?
    hahahahaha
    i miss you so dang much.
    i think i will see you again real soon,
    maybe even this year..
    okay I’m going to call you now.

  • Reply alyssa stevenson 13 November 2015 at 13:09

    ohh and ps. my favorite pic is of the homemade tortilla.. spell check just was changing tortilla to gorilla… but you and chris backwards is so funny. especially chris. i miss you guys

  • Reply Stefanie Hathaway 14 November 2015 at 18:10

    i had so many comments as i read so lets see what i remember: the all black fight is super funny. craisins. animals are especially worth it when you’re home alone. Looks like you brought home a lot of great Brazilian gems. I bet the kids are PUMPED to get you as a sub!! xoxo, Stefanie

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