Happy Thanksgiving!

I know, it's two days after Thanksgiving. But I'm just waking up from my food coma, so this is the earliest I've gotten around to posting!

We had a wonderful Kodiak Thanksgiving, even being so far away from our family! Even though we've spent other holidays away, it was tough being THIS far away. Luckily, our wonderful friends Beth and Zach, who really have become like family to us here, came over and joined us in an enormous feast for four. It was such a huge blessing to share the day with them, too, because they are a VERY thankful pair this year. Their little girl, Donavyn, was born at the end of September, and they just got word this past week that their little boy, Gabriel, will be coming home to Kodiak from Guatemala after a VERY long wait! There were many thankful tears shed around the table!

Besides Beth and Zach (and Little Miss D), we were also joined by our friend Melissa and her three kids, Eli, Caleb and Peach (or, Naomi), for dessert. Unfortunately, her husband Aaron had duty on Thanksgiving (he's a firefighter on the CG base, though not CG), so we didn't get to see him, but after their turkey dinner at the firehouse, they stopped by for pie and a quick Wii game. They also decided to use Jason as a human tree... check him out!

Jason and I are just so thankful for the opportunities we've been given, including the chance to live here in Kodiak. It's tough being so far away from our families, but it's truly an amazing experience to be able to live here and to have the jobs we have. We're very blessed!!!

So enough of the mushy-ness... onto the pictures! I think Mom would have been very proud of my killer antipasto. I skipped the lettuce this year and made it a true antipasto... I have to say that my Taste of Home Entertaining (there's a plug for you, Beth!) made it look just fabulous. And, I didn't go overboard (sorry, Mom), so we were still hungry for dinner!

And, it's a good thing we left room for dinner!!! Holy canoli, did we have some food! After it's ceremonial last flight, Jason fried us up a turkey again this year, which, once again, went over to rave reviews! It cooked a little faster than we thought it was, but was still hot and juicy by the time we finished everything else up. We went all out, with the usual traditional stuff, including southern dressin', courtesy of Beth's family, and 7-layer salad and a cherry jello salad concoction (that was delish), courtesy of Zach's family. It was neat to mix things up a bit! So, here are the bird's last flight, and a shot of the table. Seriously, that was food for only four people. I think we're crazy. I also think we'll be eating Thanksgiving dinner for the next week, at least! But it was all veeeerrrry yummy!

Finally, just one last picture of the whole group of us, right before everyone went their separate ways. This is Beth (in the glasses), Zach (the non-Jason guy), Melissa (on the floor in front of Beth), Donavyn (in Beth's arms), Caleb (blond), Eli (with the brown hair), Peach (aka, Naomi, but we call her peach), Jason and I. We'll have to figure out a way to photoshop Aaron into the picture so it's more complete! But, really, what's not to be happy about when you have a house full of people for Thanksgiving, just a few months after you move 5000 miles across the country!

That's it for now, blog fans! We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Next up, pictures of Christmas decorations!!!

Miss and love you all!
Becca (and Jason)

We need rabbit ears????

Well it's been another great weekend here in Cold Bay. After the weather cleared slightly here yesterday John and I decided to finally get outside and try our hand at hunting. Well we we're lucky and ended up out in the fine Cold Bay weather that is prevelant this time of year. The video above is a fine example of some of the weather we have. Needless to say we only got 1 ptarmagin after only seeing mabe a dozen total. We'll see what we can do tommorow to remedy that situation. Supposedly the guys that we are deployed with found close to 100 of them in a different part of town. We'll see if they're there tommorow or not.

Mostly today we had plans to just sit around and wait for the big case. We planned on just sitting around and watching football. Well I refer you to the previous post where we said that we had satellite TV. Well that's nice and everything, but only if you actually spring for the local channels to go along with it. Apparently the $10 was going to break the bank because we didn't have them. After trecking to the general store here in town we found that the Sunday games are avalible if you have one of those old fancy rabbit ears for your tv set. Yeah those things that the rest of the world retired how many years ago. I don't think the latest HD and flat screens even have a hook up for rabbit ears.

Lucky us the tv's here in the lodge all have a fine vintage set of ears with them. The next good thing is that the guys here in town also like to watch Sunday Tv. Supposedly there is a repeater here in town that they can send out the signal with, but it only will transmit one channel, and "the guy" in town here can change it for different days of the week. We found that on Saturday's it's on NBC, luckily Sunday it's switched to CBS where all the games are played. I kid you not, that's how this place works. It's rediculous. You also learn that you don't piss people off around here or you definitly find yourself segregated from the other 57 residents.

Well after the first two games we actually had to go and do some work and overly some of the crab fleet. We only saw a couple of boats including the WIZARD today. I've included a picture of the local volcano right around sunset. It's pretty nice when the weather actually clears. That's all for now. Hope you all enjoy.

Jason

Back in Cold Bay, #5

Well as you can all see, I am in my apparent home away from home. I have returned again to Cold Bay, Alaska for my fifth trip of the season. This happening metropolis seems to be my alternate work site. We arrived here last Wednesday and are spending the week here to be ready for possible SAR cases in the Bearing Sea. The King crab season started in mid-October and while the boats are out fishing we maintain a presence here in lovely Cold Bay. So far our services have not been needed which means that so far the season has been kind to the fisherman.

During this trip to Cold Bay there is one difference from the previous trips, we aren't staying at the Trooper house this trip but the only lodge here. It's not to bad. Only 5 guys living in the equivilant of a double wide. A 1970's vinitage one at that. It's not too bad, we have satelite TV and wireless internet, so it can't be all that bad. Thank god we do have these luxuries as the wetaher has been horrible. It has been on and off snow showers and hail since we got here 3 days ago. We're hoping to get a break here in the next few days so that we can go out and hunt some ptarmagin (small birds like grouse).

Yesterday was the highlight of the trip so far. We flew to Dutch Harbor to pick up some crewmembers from another crew and bring them back to Cold Bay. While there we ate lunch in one of the only restaurants in Dutch and happened upon Phil from the Cornellia Marie. For those of you who don't know, Phil is one of the masters of a crab boat here in Alaska. He has been featured on the Discovery series Deadliest Catch. We were going to go over and say hi to him when we we're launched on a possible case. After being turned back we went back for lunch and he was gone already. Kind of stunk.

We ended up getting all of the scoops on the fishing so far though from our Discovery crewmember Kyle. Kyle is staying with us and flying with us everyday. He has been filming for the Deadliest Catch for the last 3 years. He has been keeping in touch with all of his fellow cameramen and keeping us posted. Pretty cool, having them along. You'll all have to watch the new season this spring, who knows you may see me on there.

Well that's all for now. I'll post again later in the week. Hope you all like the picutres, I'll try to keep them coming.

Jason