Cold Summer Blues

The weather has been a bit disheartening the past two weeks- very cold (60* highs) and cloudy. I don't mind a few days of this weather, but where did the sun go??? Fairbanksans take their summers very seriously. With this weather, people feel cheated of the legendary summers the Interior is known for. And to know that we have to go back to 6+ months of winter very shortly is hard to swallow. Hopefully it will clear and warm up soon so that we can make the most of what we have left!

I have been keeping myself very busy while L is away at NTC in California. I have been participating in the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival for the past week. The FSAF is a great way to get the community involved in the many different artistic opportunities Fairbanks has to offer. I am taking two classes- Women's Vocal Performance and Middle Eastern Dance. The vocal class has a performance this coming Friday evening, and our dance performance is on Saturday afternoon. I am nervous about the dance performance- Middle Eastern dance is not easy! You can check out FSAF's website here.

L is doing well in CA. He says it is hot there- a balmy 108*! I guess it is good practice for his upcoming deployment! He will be leaving CA the beginning of Aug. and heading to WI and MN to see family and friends. I will be joining him there. I am very excited to be going home! And L and I will be flying together for the first time when we head back up here! We have been together for almost 6 years and have never been on the same plane together! I know that is a silly thing to be excited for, but I really am looking forward to it!

Well, I need to get some more laundry done before my FSAF classes tonight! I will try to update this more often- I promise!

One more quick thing- here is a picture of the view of the Alaska Mountain Range from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. You can see forever from this view point. This was taken on the 2nd of July with Luke's dad Tom, and his friend Fran. This was the clearest I have ever seen the mountains from Fairbanks. It was breathtaking!

Lonely

L is on his way to California for some training. He will be gone for a few weeks. I am bummed out. It is just hard to deal with because I know he will be deploying not long after he gets back from CA. This is like a super-mini-preview of what is to come. We have to go through separation a lot as a military family. But it never gets any easier, that is for sure!

I plan on getting a lot done while L is gone. I want to paint the kitchen (we got a little sick of painting when we tackled the rest of the house!) and do some more decorating. I might even have a garage sale! It is amazing what we ended up with after the move. You would think I could have gone through it all before we packed it up and took it with us to Alaska! Oh well, maybe I can make a little cash! I plan on donating what I don't sell to the Salvation Army or some place like that.

Well, I think I am going to try to go to sleep. It is no fun knowing that you will be sleeping alone for a while! :(

How Time Flies...

Holy Cow! I did not realize it has been so long since my last post! We have been very busy in the last two months. We attended L's Battalion Ball (which I did the decorations for), painted the interior of our house, saw Elton John in concert up here in Fairbanks, took a nice trip to Seward, AK (although the weather left much to be desired), and had L's mother, aunt, and uncle up for a very nice visit. Tomorrow L's father will be in town for a few days. We are looking forward to showing him around!

The weather has been gorgeous! Sunshine and nice breezes- no humidity at all! I love that about Fairbanks! We reached 80* today, which was a first. I can't complain at all, though! The summers make everything worth it up here!

Tomorrow is the Summer Solstice, which is the longest day of the year. There is a Midnight Sun Festival downtown that L and I plan on checking out. I was sick last year and couldn't go :( . I want to find one of those bank signs with the time and date and take a picture to show how light it will be at midnight! There will be sunshine tomorrow for like 21.6 hours or something crazy like that. There never is actual darkness because of twilight and dawn. It is all very surreal and we are very lucky to have had the experience! We hope some of you will get the chance while we are still here as well!

Happy One Year Anniversary!

Today L and I celebrated our One Year Anniversary of owning our home! We moved in one year ago today. We are very proud of our place and love owning our own home. We hope you all will get to visit! We have a guest room waiting!

Our home!

The Winter Blues

Old Man Winter just does not want to give up! We had nice weather all last week- in the 50's- and then Thursday hit and it was back to snow flurries and 30-degree temps. I am just really sick of all of this. :-( I can't wait for spring, if it ever gets here. And then summer, which will go all too fast. At least the weather is so beautiful that it helps to forget the winters for a while! Wish us luck that spring will come at all this year!

The Best of Alaska (so far)...

I have finally put some photos of the last year up here in Alaska together. I put them up on my Facebook account, but there is a link that I can share with friends and family. There are two separate albums. Hope you enjoy!

Album One

Album Two

Read this!

I love this cartoonist (you can ch-ch-check it out on the right). She also has a great blog. I highly recommend that you all read this post:

Jenny the Military Spouse: Backwards and in High Heels - The Life of a Military Wife

I can't help but agree! :-)

Snow, Snow, Go Away!

We can't seem to get rid of this snow! L had to wake up super early today. He peeked in our room before he left for work to let me know that we had gotten an inch and a half of snow last night. By the time I woke up, there was even more snow, and it is still falling. I thought I could handle this crazy-long winter business, but I am beginning to break! Here are some photos...

Across the street.

The fence.

The pile of snow against the fence.

The trees are covered! It won't stop snowing!

The forecast calls for snow all week. We are at month #7 of winter. I honestly don't think summer will ever make it here! Blah!

Ice Alaska Pictures!

Hey Everyone!

I am sure those of you that have checked this blog recently have given up on us! I am so sorry that I haven't been updating this as often as I said I was going to! March turned into an insanely busy month for me. I just completed my first online course and I must say that I forgot how hard school is! Haha! But I think it went pretty well. L has been busy with work, as usual. He has a lot of training coming up. Hopefully the snow will melt soon so he doesn't have to be out in the cold!

And now, without much further ado, here are the Ice Alaska pictures I promised! We hope you enjoy!

Ice Alaska Photos

The order of the pictures is a bit jumbled. They didn't upload in the order I added them to the site. Sorry! But you get the idea... Lots of amazing ice carvings and beautiful colors. It was a really great experience!

We're Having a Heatwave, a Tropical Heatwave

It is so nice up here! As I type this, it is 42° outside. Balmy! There were people out today without jackets. Some daring souls even wore shorts! Yes, shorts. When the weather warms up, people here don't take it for granted! Even L and I walk around like it is 70° and sunny!

This isn't such great news for the ice sculptors, though. I guess that it is extremely hard to stick ice together when it is this nice out. And ice sculptures tend to melt and fall apart in warm weather (I know, hard to believe, right!). So hopefully they will be able to make what they had originally planned, and that it will stay together long enough for those visiting the park to see it.

Well, L and I are off to an FRG meeting. Without our jackets! Hope you are all enjoying the weather and the imminence of spring! Woohoo!

PERSEC and What it Means to Us

I have been thinking about PERSEC lately. It is another handy military acronym that most newbies (hopefully) learn right away. PERSEC is just the easy way to say Personal Security. Kind of like OPSEC is the acronym for Operational Security. So what does PERSEC have to do with us?

I have decided that there is just some information that people don't need to know- things like our names and the town we are living in, etc. Those of you that know us, know our names and where we are currently at. So, no problems there. I just want to make sure that we keep our lives as private as we can, even though we are sharing them with potentially thousands of people. So, from now on, I am "R" and L is, well, "L". Thank goodness we don't have names that start with the same letter. That could get confusing! Haha!

Ice Alaska

I have been volunteering at a place called Ice Alaska for the last week. It has been a really cool experience so far. Ice Alaska hosts the World Ice Art Championships every year. This year the theme is based around The International Polar Year. There are teams from all over the world that come to compete by creating beautiful ice sculptures. Last week was the single-block competition (sculptors can only use one block of ice for their sculpture), and this week is the multi-block competition (sculptors can use as much ice as they need). The sculptures are magnificent and are created with such detail! At night they are all lit up with colored lights. It is definitely a sight to see.

L stopped by after I got done with my "shift" this afternoon and we walked around the Ice Park to get a peek at the final single-block sculptures. They were absolutely amazing. We also got to see the multi-block sculptors hard at work with their chainsaws and sanders. It is so cool to watch them work with the ice and form it into something so beautiful. I will be taking pictures and sharing them with you all once I remember to bring my camera with me! I have a few more weeks of volunteering- the Ice Park is open until the 23rd of March. So far, so good!

Saturday night at the S Household

As I sit in my pajamas, typing away at my new hobby, I can't help but realize how low key our Saturdays have become! L is painting some models right now and I am listening to Kill Bill Vol. 2 on the t.v. We have absolutely no desire to go out on the town or hit up the cultural events that are always going on in around here. Sad, but true!

It doesn't help that we are at the beginning of our 6th straight month of winter, and it is windy (which is unusual for the tundra that is where we call home) and cold outside. At least the sun has made a prominent comeback! I think we are suffering from some major cabin fever! But, it is warm in our house, our kitties like it when we are home, and frozen pizza tastes just as good as any gourmet meal! Haha! I can't wait for the snow to melt and the grass to grow! Then chances are pretty slim that I will be posting anything else on a Saturday night! -RJS

Let's Get this Started

Hey Everyone!

I may have finally created a way to keep in contact with all of our loved ones without sending out those annoying mass emails (although this may be as bad, haha!)! This is our attempt at keeping you all updated on our lives. Please feel free to stop by and check in on how we are doing. I will do my best to keep this site updated and interesting! We love and miss you all!

Love, R (and L, too!)