The best Christmas present ever!

So I gave Evan this sweater for Christmas. He asked for sweaters and I found this one in a thrift store and couldnt pass up the opportunity to give him something that he asked for! I knew he would love it. He seemed less than thrilled when I gave it to him. I cant imagine why!!! At any rate, I made him put it on and let me take a picture. Boy, I hope we have an ugly sweater party to go to. I feel like Evan would have a good chance of winning in this killer sweater! Hope you enjoy these pictures! ~Jess

Well, it has been a while. Im lazy and have been really tired lately. After New Years, Evan and I went to the squadron Christmas party. It was alot of fun to get all dressed up and go somewhere. We had a good time at the party. It was at the Air Navigation Museum in Anchorage. Here is a picture of us all dressed up and looking nice!

After the party, we went out with some of our friends. We stayed out until the wee hours of the morning, but it was lots of fun!! However, that was during the time when the temperature was in the negative numbers all the time. We were walking around to several different places and I had on open toed shoes. Needless to say, I was freezing! But we had a good time. The next morning, we got up and went to the VFW in Eagle River. Every Sunday morning at 11:00, there is a lady who pulls her car up in front of the VFW and feeds the bald eagles. The eagles come from all around Anchorage to eat that day. We got there about 10:50 and we couldnt see any eagles anywhere. We were beginning to wonder if they were actually going to come. At 10:59, they all just appeared out of nowhere. It was really amazing to watch the eagles swoop down out of the trees to get the fish parts she was throwing out. There were probably between 25 and 40 eagles. They were everywhere in all the trees and flying all around. It was a very cool experience and it was definitely something we would like to do again.

After that weekend, I returned to work and life resumed as normal. School was still school. Evan didnt get to fly as often as he would have liked but the went to work and flew some. Life was just rocking along and was going just great until the temperature warmed up alot and made the roads all icy. School was cancelled for 3 days because the roads got icy and they couldnt put the school buses on the road. Evan got to stay home from work one day. I had 3 glorious days at home. Sure was nice to have a vacation! It was made even greater by the fact that the next week we had monday off from school for Martin Luther King day. So I worked two days and then had 6 off from school. It was great!! The only part that wasnt great was the fact that Evan and I had been planning to go skiing over the long weekend. There were several couples from the squadron that were going to be up there and it was going to be alot of fun. As it turned out, we were afraid the roads would be too icy and the ski slopes wouldnt have any snow. We decided to move our reservations to a weekend in March when most of the squadron will be there. So, we missed out on our ski trip but it was still nice to have the time off. The next week was a short week and we definitely enjoyed that.

Then we began to prepare for Evan to leave. His whole squadron is deploying to Thailand for the whole month of February. He will be gone until February 20th (ish). He was originally supposed to leave Thursday morning. 4 out of the 8 jets that were supposed to take off actually did. As far as I know, they made it to Japan (where they were going to spend the night before going on to Thailand) as they were scheduled to. However, Evan was in the group of 4 that did not take off. They were going to be flying with a tanker for refueling. The tanker that was supposed to be with Evan's group broke before they took off and so therefore, his departure got pushed back until Friday. On Friday, the tanker still was not fixed, so they got pushed back until this morning. So, this morning, I got up really early and took Evan to the base so he could get in his jet and go to Thailand. Unfortunately for Evan, (But not so unfortunate for me!) they were unable to take off yet again this morning. So, Evan is home for another night and I am glad! (He is not as glad, as he was ready to go.) Hopefully, they will be leaving tomorrow morning. Evan will be glad if they do, even though that means missing the super bowl. I do not have any plans for the super bowl and frankly, dont care one way or another about it. I will probably watch it for the halftime show and the commercials but that is all I really care about. Anyway, for tonight, I am going to go and enjoy the evening with Evan. Hope everyone is having a nice weekend!

~Jess

Pictures of our house!

Here are some pictures of our house! And by the way, in case anyone wanted it....here is our new address: 19700 Highland Ridge Dr.

Eagle River, AK

99577

Upstairs

The office:

The moose room! (otherwise known as the guest bedroom!)

Our Bedroom:

Living room:

Dining area:

Our kitchen...check out the awesome tile work on the backsplash!

The living room, dining room, and kitchen are all one big room.

This is the view off of our back deck. There is considerably more snow on the mountain and the rest of the world now but this is a better picture.

Hope you all enjoyed these pictures of our house. If you want to see the house in more detail, you will have to come visit us!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Everyone!! We hope you all had a night of fun, friends, family, and good times. We spent the evening with the Yerringtons. We had a delicious dinner and then enjoyed the company and played card games all evening. It was a great evening and a wonderful way to spend the holiday. Today, I am cooking a large meal for lunch. We are having pork tenderloin, for good health in the new year, collard greens, for money in the new year, black eyed peas, for good luck in the new year, macaroni and cheese, because it is yummy, and apples and cinnamon, also because it is yummy. :)

I finally made it back to Anchorage on Monday afternoon. My plane left very early Monday morning from Atlanta. I had to change planes in Charlotte, and Las Vegas. I got back to Anchorage finally after a long day of travel. Evan picked me up from the airport and I was definitely tired, hungry, and glad to be back. When I got on the plane in Atlanta, the temperature was 65 degrees. When I got off the plane in Anchorage, the temperature was -22. WOW! What a shock! I was FREEZING!! It has been in the negative numbers everyday this week. The high has never been above 0. Man, oh man, talk about a shock. I have been freezing all week. I sure did enjoy that warmer weather. It has been nice to be at home and be able to get some things done this week.

Today is a day of good food and football. Hopefully, GA can beat Michigan State. :) We hope everyone has a great day and enjoys the time if you are off of work. We wish everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous 2009!