Welcome to Alaska!

Isn't it incredible? And pictures do not even do it justice. We are glad to be here, but missing our loved ones far away. Now that we finally have the internet though, I can let you all in on our new world... And it does feel like another world sometimes!

So we arrived in Anchorage the evening of August 8th, then drove the 2 hours to Seward, finally getting in at about 11:00 pm Alaska time, which equalled 3:00 am to our tired bodies. Thanks to friends in the church (friends we had before we even really got there, thanks to our church-wide family) we had a 5th wheel to crash in, and boy did we crash. Ben and I were awoken mid-slumber by the piercing cry of a passing bald eagle... "Welcome to Alaska!" This place is wild.

As little boys do, no matter what time they go to bed, Russ and Tuck were up by 6:00 am, so we took off to find our little house. Here it is: (and I will take some better shots without the zoom lense on, but these will have to do for now)

> We only had our little Pathfinder, so Ben took off to load up as much as he could from our storage unit. We ended up with the boys beds set up, our luggage, and a memory foam pad on the floor for the first night. Then Ben was off to new employee training the next morning... 2 hours away across the peninsula... Welcome to Alaska! You have to travel to get anywhere.

So the boys and I hung out at the house without a car all day with only the toys that came on Russel's back. But they were great! Over the next week Ben would stop by and load up the car on the way home from work and we gradually put it away. It made for a very non-chaotic move-in, which was great. And the boys and I genuinely enjoyed practically camping out in the house and going to the playground during the day.

The weather was soupy and wet and I didn't even get to see the mountains for quite a while. But eventually and cleared up and these are literally the views from our windows:



Absolutely spectacular. And though our house is tiny, (2 beds, 1 bath, 850 square feet) it has good space and a nearly full height crawl space basement for storage... and it's a single family home, which really makes all the difference to us.

Since that first clear day the weather has been pretty consistently wonderful. The days range from 60 to 75 degrees and this town just sparkles when the sun shines. Once we got sufficiently settled, it was hard to unpack the rest because the outdoors were constantly beckoning us to explore.

But when we were really all settled in, we knew we wanted a dog. A certain experience while hiking (which I will include in a future post) helped convince us of that. So we went down to the tiny little animal shelter in town and found an instant match. So meet the newest addition to our family:

Alyeska (Aly) Caswell

She's a 1 year old Australian Shepherd and a beauty. She is pretty much exactly the same size as Russ. About 35 lbs, 1 1/2 ft tall and 3 + ft long. She is so good. She came housetrained and she is mild, patient and loving. She sleeps in the boys beds, lets the boys climb on her and comes when called. She is just right for us right now.

We went to a small beach just at the edge of town one afternoon. The boys were having a blast throwing rocks:

Then I saw something. "What is that? An otter? No, no it's a seal!... NO, it's a sea lion!" This stellar sea lion (translation brown bear sized mammal in the sea) was playing and looking at the kids about 50 or 60 feet from us on the shore... Welcome to Alaska! There is abundant and HUGE wildlife here:

Looking at our sea lion friend:

Crystal clear jelly fish:



Cute boys in Alaska:

Alaska is an incredible place and I know Heavenly Father lead us here and loves us and created this world, because the beauty here is indescribable and everything about this place is what I needed right now. This place excites the senses and soothes my soul, and I truly find spiritual peace and closeness with my Heavenly Father when I am in nature. The opportunities to experience that for me come almost daily and I'm exhausted because I'm taking advantage of it so frequently! More Alaska to come soon!