Anchorage: The Beginning

Well we made it safely to Anchorage! My posts for the next month are going to be photo-less because I realized I didn't bring my cord to get our pictures off the camera onto this laptop. The desktop I normally use takes the memory card, so I forget about the cord. I'll just have to go back later and put in all the pictures we'll take. So here's a little catch up of the last week...

Wednesday, Feb. 1st: After a very long night of not much sleep, I got up early to finish getting things ready to go for when the movers got there. They came around 9 a.m. They got started and I took Tyler and Brynlee to Amy Lassen's home. She was kind enough to take them for most of the day so they wouldn't just be in the way of the guys as they packed up everything. It worked out well because Tyler got to go to Joy School one last time (Julia is Amy's daughter). Madi and I hung out at the house while they packed. It was kind of boring. We went on a walk, watched tv, and had a lunch date to Subway.

Around 2:30 Amy dropped the kids back off. A couple hours later they were done boxing everything up, and left. We picked up Kenny from the airport at 6:30 and we were all SO glad to be back together as a family. We stayed at a hotel that was right by the airport that night. The kids were pretty excited about the pool, but Bryn was like a totally different person compared to this past summer. I don't know if she's all of the sudden old enough to be afraid or what, but she was not nearly as brave and fearless as she's always been in the water.

Thursday Feb. 2nd: We picked up some breakfast and went back to the house because the movers got there around 8:30 that morning. We didn't stay long because it was really cold (they obviously left the doors open as they were constantly going in and out, so the kids were pretty cold just sitting there). We went to wal-mart and picked up some snacks for the airplane rides the next day.

 Then Kenny took us back to the hotel where I stayed pretty much the rest of the day with the kids. Kenny went back to the house because technically we're supposed to be there while they are. The other people came and picked up his car to ship it for us. He came back and got us, got dinner at Panera, then headed back to the house again. We had a bunch of ladies from the ward coming to help clean the house that night. But as Kenny was doing a walk-through with the landlord (a few minutes before everyone was supposed to come), he said he was just going to hire a cleaning service to come in and do everything. So while I was so glad to hear that, I felt bad that people were already on their way. I was only able to catch 2 people before they got to the house. But it was nice to say goodbye to the ones that did show up. I'm sure they weren't dissapointed about missing out on cleaning :). We cleared out the rest of the last minute items (they forgot to pack all the cookie sheets and stuff in the pull-out drawer under the oven), locked up and said goodbye to our house.

The kids were dissapointed that they didn't get to swim anymore, but Tyler and Madi got really bad colds Wed. night and they just kept getting worse so we didn't want to push it.

Friday, Feb. 3rd: We lounged around in the morning. That car-shipping company came and picked up our van at the hotel to ship that one too. It was very nice of them to come twice so that we could have our car the night before, as we needed it to get around. At noon we checked out and took the shuttle over to the hotel. We had 7 checked bags, 3 car seats, a stroller, 4 carry-on's and a very tired Madison.

Above: All our stuff strewn across the sidewalk. It took a while to check everything. Ty and Bryn were fighting "bad guys" while we waited. Below: Goofy faces and eating lunch.

We had a few hours to wait for our flight. We let the kids run around (so glad Cleveland is a small and not very busy airport) and we ate lunch, Madi also took a little nap on Kenny. At 3:15 we flew to Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. It was a little over 2 hours. We had a quick one-hour layover there where we quickly grabbed some dinner and got on the next plane. It was 6 hours from there to Anchorage. It was a very long flight. I think we should be allowed to drug children under the age of 3 for airplanes. It would just make everyone's lives better. :) Madi was hard because she ONLY wanted me, and I don't have much of a lap. It was really hard to hold her with very little space. Being 8 months pregnant on an airplane for that many hours is no fun anyway, but especially with a one year old that won't go to her dad. But anyway, we made it safely regardless of how easy it was. All 3 kids had fallen asleep for the last hour or two of the flight because by now it felt like 12:30 to us, even though it was only 8:30 p.m. Anchorage time. So none of them were very happy to wake up again, obviously. We were amazed at how much snow there was when we landed...I was even wondering how the plane was going to stop in all the snow. Anyway, we got all our luggage and car seats and formed a big pile in a corner of the airport. Kenny left us there to go get our rental car, and the kids fell apart. Brynlee kept leaving, just taking off because she wanted to find her dad. She was so dog-gone tired and would not be reasoned with. She just screamed and cried and caused quite a scene. Madison was also not content to just sit in her stroller, and wanted to wander around too. I didn't blame them for wanting to get up and walk around, but I can't very well watch all of our stuff, and chase two different children in all different directions. One lady was trying to be helpful and kept trying to talk to me, and I wanted to either slap her or just break down crying. (I was a little tired myself) Brynlee honestly looked like she was possessed by some demon by the way she was acting and I was ready to throw her out into the snow without even feeling bad. After what seemed like forever Kenny finally came around to pick us up. We loaded everything in and pulled out our gps to find the place where we're staying, only to realize that our gps doesn't work in alaska. Apparently the satelite's don't come this far haha. Thank goodness for our smart phones that have a gps in them, we were able to get here and go to bed. It was about 2 a.m. by that time (not for real, but what it would have been for us). The 4 hour time change is taking some getting used to, for sure.

Saturday, Feb. 4th: This day was my 25th Birthday. But that was pretty much an after-thought. We were all pretty tired all day. Kenny went to the store in the morning for us because we didn't have a single thing to eat. Apparently it was a pretty big snow storm during the night and we had gotten like 18 inches or something ridiculous. Like I said, there's a ton of freaking snow. Kenny got stuck and couldn't get up into the driveway when he got home from the store. It's hardly even an incline, but it was just really slick and we don't have snow tires on this rental van. Thank goodness for my big strong muscles to push that van up the driveway and get us un-stuck. Haha, I'm just joking. I pushed on the gas while Kenny rocked and pushed the van. First snow disaster averted. We didn't do much that day. I unpacked our suitcases and tried to get this little furnished house set up. We made a trip to Costco which I swear I will never do again on a Saturday. IN-SANE!! We also went to Wal-mart. Prices are ridiculously expensive here. I was blown away at how much everything costs. Dinner was a total flop that night. Not sure why everything tasted so off, but I think it was the dishes. I have been having to wash everything before we use it, because I don't know how long it's been sitting here, and it's gross. But we had picked up a little cheesecake thing and some candles, so we didn't make the kids finish eating their dinner (because I could barely swallow it) and we skipped ahead to cheesecake and ice cream. They sang, I blew out the candles, then we all went to bed. Maybe we'll celebrate better next year :). It was sure nice to receive texts and phone calls from family throughout the day. I was having a hard day, emotionally (poor Kenny), and it made a difference to know people were thinking of us and praying for us.

After our first day, here are some of the thoughts we have about Anchorage:

1. People that live here must be insane

2. I'm scared to death to drive, at least until we get snow tires.

3. There is a ridiculous amount of snow, but people keep telling us this is one of the worst winter's ever, so that's good to know it's not the norm.

4. It's beautiful here; we LOVE being back in a place with big, gorgeous mountains.

Sunday, Feb. 5th: We all still wake up between 5:30 and 6. Church wasn't till 11, and it went fine. Tyler made a comment on the way to primary about how he was scared to go and make new friends. I talked to him a little bit about it, and he was brave. Same with Brynlee, she walked into the nursery room, and then realized she didn't know a soul and turned around and came out, telling me she wanted to go to a different room. She said, "I'm scared of that kid, and that kid, and that kid..." It was all the boys she pointed to. I was feeling really bad about all that we are putting these kids through. We are pushing them outside their comfort zones and not making their lives very easy, and I was feeling bad about it. But then I thought, it's okay. We can do hard things, and our kids are learning from a young age that we will and can do hard things. We are all going to learn and grow a lot from these experiences, and that's what this life is all about. I was so proud of each of them when we picked them up and they were both so happy, claiming that they had both made a friend. We will most likely not even stay in this ward longer than we are here in this furnished rental home, so they will have to figure it out all over again in a month or two. But they will be just great. They're good, friendly kids and we'll all be just fine. Even if it takes some time.