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Sunday, April 26, 2009

Sarah Palin=Hockey Mom

If football is like religion in the South, then hockey is like religion in Alaska. The local ECHL team here in Anchorage is named the Alaska Aces. Right now is the playoffs. This weekend was the 2nd round against the Victoria Salmon Kings from Canada. We were lucky enough to be able to go on both Friday and Saturday nights. Thanks to Steve from Subways of Alaska for the tickets!!! Unlike the Thrashers games that we are familiar with, there was much, much more fighting, punching, "hooking", "roughing" and "unsportsman-like conduct". [Note to ATL Thrashers Marketing Dept. : Fights=more pumped up, excited crowds=more attendance=more profit and name recognition for the team. ]


Here we are on Friday night, sitting in the VIP box on the "dry" side (alcohol is only sold on one side of the arena, the "wet" side. Security is tight and they check id's A LOT).
Although we liked sitting in the special section with the owners of the team, it was further away from the ice and all of the action. Wouldn't you rather sit in the 100's section of Sanford than the 300's?

On Saturday night we sat on the "wet" side behind Steven's co-worker Robert and his wife Whitney. We met a lot of other friends as well and they were all super nice! I didn't take any pictures because of the plexiglass, but here is a picture of some of the Aces players before the game.


It was actually very funny because on Saturday night, after the Aces scored the first goal of the game, some people threw some frozen chunks of salmon onto the ice. The head got stuck in the net behind the goal...yuck! This man had to come over and get it down using a hockey stick!

The Alaska Aces won the first two games of the 7 game series and are now headed to Victoria to play the next 3 games (well, hopefully only 2)!

Now if we can just introduce the activity of tailgating to the sport of hockey, our lives will be complete.

The rest of the weekend was very laid-back. We worked on painting the dressers and we put polyurethane on the coffee table. It looks so wonderful in the living room! All that's left to do in the room is get Steven a TV and get some decorations (throw pillows, blanket and some baskets for the coffee table). We will get all of these things soon!!!

Here is a picture of the mountains near our apartment. It had been cloudy and overcast for the past few days, so we took this picture when it finally cleared up.


We miss everyone! Come visit soon! Tourist season is quickly approaching...we have started seeing lots of RV's around town!

P.S. It is also 9:30pm and still daylight outside! Hooray for summer! I'll post a picture of my car tomorrow!

Rebekah

Monday, April 13, 2009

Why did the moose cross the road?

Rebekah forgot to mention it in her post, but last Tuesday we were in our very first earthquake. You know when the wind blows really hard and shakes the windows for a second? Well, we were sitting in the car dealership next to a wall of windows and all of a sudden there was a fairly loud noise and brief shaking that felt and sounded to me like a strong gust of wind. Afterwards though, everyone started calling friends or family saying, "Did you feel it? That was a big one!" It ended up being a 4.6 on the Richter scale.

We also saw our first moose this morning on the way to work. It snowed last night and so everything was white and the roads were kind of icy. We were stopped at a red light when in my rear view mirror I thought I saw a horse crossing the road and thought it was weird, so I turned around and there were two moose crossing the busy 5 lanes. I'm sure those won't be the last moose we see on the roadways.

Well more from Anchorage soon...

Steven

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Anchorage Pictures Finally!

We are so sorry for the delay in posting pictures of our new city and apartment...we have had such a busy week! It started out with Steven buying a car and also finding an apartment! We live in South Anchorage (which is the nice part of the city). We have a washer and a dryer AND a fireplace! Living big, huh?

Yesterday, we took a scenic drive down Rt. 1 towards Girdwood, Alaska. Girdwood has a very nice ski resort called Alyeska. We will have to check it out next winter. This picture is of some mountains across the water on part of the Kenai Peninsula. If you look really carefully, you can see the huge chunks of ice floating on the water. We just drove a few miles down the road because Girdwood is about 40 miles away.



We haven't gotten the chance to do too many things outside yet because we have been busy making our apartment nice and homely-like. Here is a picture of our kitchen "nook" as Steven likes to call it. There is the microwave that we picked out- thanks Mom and Dad! Also thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Connors for the vacuum cleaner. It does great cleaning up all of the gravel and sand that they put on the roads here. I picked out some nice little place mats and the bar stools we got from some nice people who are moving to Cordova (a little island in the Aleutians) to live on a sailboat! I think that I am going to paint those too...the same color as the coffee table.


Here is another picture of the kitchen. Look at our nice stove and hardwood floors!

Finally, here is our living room. As you can see, we do have a TV, but no cable or satellite yet. I haven't been missing it, but Steven doesn't know what he will do when playoff Cavaliers basketball games are on. You know how he loves his Lebron James :) . Anyway, we got the furniture from the same family who is moving to the boat. Notice the coffee table in the middle of the room. It started out looking kind of rough, but with some sand-papering, priming and painting, I think that I have really given it a brand-new life. All that's left to do to it is to put some polyurethane on top and then spray paint the old drawer pulls or buy some new ones. We haven't decided yet. There are also these little cubbies on each side on the table. There are doors that go on there, but I think I might leave the door off of one side and put some baskets in there for some cute, decorative storage.

Also in the living room, please notice the fireplace! Maybe out first visitors will be the lucky recipients of a blazing fire in the wilderness of Alaska!!!

Note to mom: can't wait for my sewing machine, so I can make some nice pillows for the sofa...looks a little manly don't ya think?

We both have busy weeks this week. Steven has work and I have some job interviews. I am confident that something will come through for me this week! I am also going to begin working on refinishing the two dressers as well. I am sure that with a little chocolate brown paint, they will be looking sharp!

Finally, I want to leave you with a picture of the view from our back porch. There is a door to the porch from our living room and our bedroom. Can you see the mountains? It is hard to photograph the mountains because they are white and the clouds are white! Click on the picture and make it bigger, then you will be able to see the beautiful mountains of Chugach State Park. Try not to be so jealous of us! We miss everyone! Email us and we will send you our address here!



Rebekah

Monday, April 6, 2009

Sedona And Finally To Anchorage

Well, on Wednesday we rented a car and drove up to Sedona (Red Rock Country). We hiked around Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte, Cathedral Rock, and down into Boynton Canyon. It was a long day that ended with watching the sunset up on Airport Mesa (with about 50 other people, I think it was spring break). The hikes were very nice and it was the perfect time of year to go as the temperature only reached the mid 70s.




On Thursday we were finally able to fly out of Phoenix. Thanks again to Ben, Vicki, and Margie for helping us out while we were there. The flight left at around 8 and after a layover in Portland for fuel (in case the Volcano erupted again and we had to go back) we finally arrived in Anchorage at about 3:30 am local time. It was a long flight, made even longer by the small child behind me who cried and kicked my seat for 8 hours straight (why is it always the parents who put their child on leashes who have children that can't behave?).

For the past few days we have been shopping and getting everything organized. We picked out an Apartment that we are renting from one of my co-workers and I bought a new car. We have also bought a bunch of furniture (2 leather recliners, 1 leather love seat, two bar stools, one coffee table, 2 dressers, and 2 bookshelves all for $350 from a family moving to a 56 foot sailboat) and made about 17 trips each to Walmart and Fred Meyer (kind of like a Super Target). Everything is finally getting organized and in it's place, although we are still sleeping on a blow-up mattress since we can't afford a real bed.

What we have seen of Alaska has been very nice, with gorgeous views of mountains and the bay. We even have a view of the mountains from the porch of our apartment! Today the temperature got up to the scorching hot temperature of 43 degrees (I actually wore shorts). My one key takeaway so far is how the roads and parking lots are just in awful condition from all the ice and snow (which is why I am glad I got an AWD vehicle with some ground clearance).

Next time we will post pictures of our apartment and of Anchorage. Hope everyone is doing well and is booking their flights to come visit!

Steven