Winter Wildlife in Kodiak

First of all... I would like to point out that I'm now posting twice in a five day span of time. The earth has either stopped spinning, or it's winter in Kodiak and I'm bored. It's one of those.

Today, I bring you wild life. I'll start off with the rarer sightings, and move to something a little more spectacular. To start.... I saw this today, a rare sighting for a weekend around here. Yes, that is in fact my other half - not often seen in the house on a Saturday or Sunday. It seems he's had more than his fair share of weekend duty, so it's always nice when he's around. That wasn't the reason I took the picture, though... it was actually to show off how helpful Fred is. Fred followed Jason around from the moment we got home from church today until he finally actually got his walk. It was a long wait because Jason was busy setting up his new kegging system, but he was diligent and it paid off in the end. Apparently, his 20 minute walk with crippled me (I'm limited to walking on flat surfaces thanks to my broken back) yesterday was not nearly enough to keep him happy. To be honest, it didn't make me happy either - we had a gorgeous weekend here this weekend, and I didn't get the chance to enjoy it like I normally would. Getting old stinks.

Not to be outdone by Jason, I also captured this one of the wild, rarely seen, elusive, black lab. This would be the alert posture often assumed while listening to the potential walker splitting wood - if he's in the garage, maybe it's just a short step out to the road for that real walk. Ah, the disappointment....

Ok, enough of the jokes about domestic animals, (oh, and Jason!) and onto the real reason I even bothered to blog today! The eagles.

For the past couple of weeks, I have cursed myself almost daily for forgetting to grab my camera bag on the way out the door in order to try to get a shot of this one tree I pass by on my way to work. No, it's not the tree I'm after, it's the 8-10 eagles that are usually IN that tree, everyday, keeping watch over the harbor for at least a little while. Since we had to drive out that way to pick up Beth and Zach's car from the airport today, I grabbed the camera on the way out for church this morning, hoping we'd have some luck. Unfortunately, the regular tree was only playing host to about 3 eagles today, but across the road, we weren't disappointed. Between the ones hanging out in one tree together, a couple in a few different trees, and one or two on their own in trees and on the ground, I'd guess there were roughly 10 or 12 in a very small area, overlooking the harbor. Enough talk, though... onto the pictures. I have to say, though, for the family that is afraid of Kodiak in the winter, and plans to only visit us in the summer, this is NOT something you'll see in the summertime!

Eagle anyone?

This was a lucky shot - I just wish I'd been ready for it so the flying eagle wasn't blurry!

Here we have a matched set!

And, finally, a stare down! This guy was looking off to the right (his left, I guess), and must've caught some movement out of the corner of his eye as I was snapping the shot. He stared right at me, which was a little bit of a creepy feeling. I'm not gonna lie - I think an eagle could kick my butt.

So that's all I really had for today. I just wanted to share my eagle pics - I've been on a mission to get good ones since we've been here. Next up - northern lights! I'm not sure how keen I am to get up in the middle of the night to see them, but I'd love to get some shots!

That's all for now! I hope everyone has a great week!
Becca

Has it been that long??

As I checked through all my favorite blogs tonight, somehow I clicked on the link to ours by accident, and realized we've been silent since Christmas! Holy cow! How did that happen!?!?! I'd like to think that we've been busy and all that, but I think we've actually just been in hibernation mode. Enough excuses, though... I'll just get to a quick update.

Where to start?? How about with our white Christmas! Officially, the state airport got something like 15 inches of snow during the Christmas Eve/Day snow storm. It seemed like it was more than that, but only because of the wind and the drifting. We never measured here, but Jason can attest that it was a lot, judging by the shoveling. Jay's dad will be happy (maybe surprised?) to hear that the ol' snowblower is up and running. After a couple minor repairs after its first run, it should be good to go. The neighbors have appreciated it, too! Here's the front of the house the day after Christmas.

That big drift over to the left was probably about two and half feet or so deep. And, for those paying close attention, yes, those are the big giant multi-colored Christmas lights. Ask Jason why we have them. ;P

We had our first "big" party since we've been in Kodiak a couple of days before New Year's. We bought the UFC fight on pay-per-view (http://www.ufc.com/), and had about 15 people over to hang out, eat a ton of food, and watch the fight. We figured that, by the 29th, Christmas spirit would be gone, and we'd just watch people beat each other up! Ok, not really, but that's when the fight was on, so we went with it. We had a great night - with too much food and tons of fun. The only thing(s) missing were Matt and Tammie - it's just not a UFC night without Tammie yelling at the TV!!!!

We had big plans to eat left-over frozen appetizers and watch a movie or something for New Year's (I know, wicked exciting!), but Beth and Zach called us last minute and we headed over to their house for fondue instead! It was still a quiet night, but was WAY better than sitting at home by ourselves. Between the cheese and chocolate fondues and all the yummy stuff (minus Beth's Vienna sausages... ewwwww!!!) we dunked and dipped, we ate ourselves silly!!!! We skated back home through our neighbor's driveway (Christmas snow + post-Christmas rain = ICE!) shortly after midnight, leaving Beth and Zach to a wide-awake Donavyn! I have to say, it was strange to watch the ball drop (with Dick Clark, God bless him!), knowing that it had actually dropped four hours before. STRANGE!

Speaking of Beth and Zach, they got FANTASTIC news right after the first of the year! They started the adoption process almost a year ago to adopt a baby from Guatemala. Back in July, they got to go there to visit their little boy, Gabriel, when he was just about four months old. They have been waiting on pins and needles since then to find out when they'll be able to bring him home.... they FINALLY got the call last week, and will leave this coming Saturday to pick him up! We are SO excited that their family will finally be all together under one roof - and we hope they know what they're getting into!!! (Just kidding guys!!) Donavyn will be four months old in about two weeks, and Gabriel will be 10 months old right around the same time! Their household will be very full and probably not just a little crazy, but there's a lot of love over there, and I think God knows just what He's doing in putting that family together. We're just blessed that we get to call them part of our Kodiak family, and we're so excited to see the kids grow up over the next few years! Check out the Kodiak Koehlers link to see some pictures of Gabriel and Donavyn!

Besides the holidays and the Koehler's fabulous news, not much has been going on here in Kodiak. The sun stays hidden until almost 10am these days, and has started to stay out until almost 5pm. There's something totally unnatural about it staying dark until after 9:30 in the morning, but we're starting to get longer and longer days now, so I think we can manage it! I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before or not, but our shortest day still had 6 and half hours of daylight, so it was better than I expected before we got here. We've also been blessed with quite a few sunny days this winter - in fact, I can't remember a Sunday since the weekend we went Christmas Tree hunting where we haven't noticed the sun coming up strong during church! I'll take that - it makes it so I don't have to use my SAD lamp as much!

I think I'll end this here. I have a percocet staring me in the face... the latest step to try to manage some pretty bad lower back pain that I'm dealing with. I have an MRI scheduled for tomorrow morning, so I'm hoping to find out what the cause is sooner than later. I've been going to physical therapy, which seemed to be helping, but, since I am my mother's daughter, I think I'm not taking it easy enough and have just made things worse. Thanks for instilling an urgent need to do "stuff" in me, Mom. My back appreciates it! Though I think this latest flare came from running around to put together a shower for Beth with only two days' notice this past weekend - and it was worth every last ache! We wanted to shower her back in September before Donavyn was born, but Little Miss decided to make an appearance three weeks early, so we had to postpone. So, we had a small shower for Beth on Sunday, giving her a chance to be the Queen (I'll share that story later), and also giving her the chance to step away from the frantic planning to get to Guatemala this weekend!

With that, I'll leave you with one last shot from a greener Kodiak back in September. For fans of The Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" series, you'll recognize this one.... she's homeported here in Kodiak and can often be seen in the harbor, between crab seasons!

That's it for now! We'll try not to go two weeks without an update again! We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that your 2008 is off to a good start!
Becca

MERRY CHRISTMAS (eve)!!!!!!!!!!!

To us, it's Christmas, so please forgive us being a little early! (Though, now that it's taken me so long to get this blog done, it's officially Christmas on the east coast!)

Jason volunteered for Christmas duty since we're a kidless family, so we pushed our Christmas celebration up a day, and just pretended that today was Christmas. I have to say, it felt like it!!!

After a lovely 7:47am call from my Mom (yes, Mom, I checked... 7:47), and then a follow-up 8:15am call from Ryan, we gave up on going back to sleep and rolled out of bed. (Note to everyone - it is four hours earlier here than it is on the east coast!!!!) While I was making myself presentable for pictures, Jason yelled upstairs to look outside if I felt like I needed a little Christmas spirit. We got probably about 5 inches of snow overnight last night!! Unfortunately, it quickly turned into rain, but has since switched back to snow. Apparently, Kodiak Island is under a blizzard warning for today and tomorrow, with snow and wind gusting to 80mph at times! We had plans to head out to the base for a party this evening, but the drive around "Deadman's Curve" (I'm not kidding, that's what it's called!) in the dark seemed like more than we needed to risk just for a little bit of fun! Instead, luckily, our friends Melissa and Aaron (who live in walking distance!) planned a last minute party, so we'll be heading over there in a few minutes (and, again, since it took me so long to get this done, we're actually back from the party!). We won't be walking, though, since this is about what it looks like out there!

Actually, now that I look at this picture again, that's GOOD compared to what it's like out now!!! YIKES! Church 5 hours from now could be interesting!!!!!

So, as I said, we got up a little after 8 this morning, and got ourselves all set for our "Christmas" morning. We feel very blessed in that our tree looked as though we had never sent any gifts out to family - there was all kinds of stuff under there!!! Jason and I probably went a little overboard on each other, too... but the new budget starts next week, so next Christmas probably won't be like that. I'm excited because my big gift was a macro lense for my camera - a lense specifically meant for taking VERY close up pictures. Since that's my favorite anyway, I think I'll be getting a LOT of use out of that! Jason's big gift was the starter kit for his own home beer kegging system. He had a hunch that's what he was getting, but I assured him that "over my dead body" would I allow an ugly college-kid kegerator in my house!!! With the right self-made cabinetry (right, Jim?!), though, it won't look like a college set-up, and will be a nice upgrade to his brewing hobby. He's excited to not have to bottle anymore (which takes more time, and makes you have to wait longer for the beer as it carbonates in the bottle), and I'm excited at the prospect of a regular supply of blackberry wheat on tap! I'd post a picture of Jason opening the box with the supplies in it, but all the pics I took make it look like I was trying to blur the individual to protect the innocent or something, so we'll skip those! Instead, here's a sample shot of a couple of gifts from Maryanne and Jim. Unfortunately, we have no pics of us opening gifts from Mom and Dad, because we were actually chatting with Mom on the speakphone as we opened! So, here's Jason with his new bear beer tap, and me with a fabulous down vest!!

Although we got Fred a couple new toys for the big day, he, of course, was more interested in the wrapping paper. He was so interested, in fact, that he would stare at us as we unwrapped, waiting for us to ball up the paper and throw it into the pile for him! Eventually, he just buried himself in the giant pile, and rooted around for a while. Somewhere in that pile are four very nice new toys, complete with rope, felt and stuffing, suitable for dogs. Note that there is actually a piece of wrapping paper IN Fred's mouth in this shot. Yep, sure am glad I spent that money on the toys. Jason said we shouldn't bother, but I didn't listen!!

The cool thing about having Christmas a day early was that it wasn't actually a holiday, so the post office was still open. That came in handy when some last minute gifts came in from Maryanne and Jim. Of course, we missed the second package slip in the mail (they don't deliver packages bigger than a mailbox here... we have to go get them), so Jason made two trips to the post office in our winter wonderland. I just had to share a shot of his first run - I made him go before he had the chance to put real clothes on or anything. Sadly, he fit right in without anyone batting an eye in this get up!

Doesn't he look Kodiak fabulous?!!? And, for those with a keen eye, you'll see that he's sporting his XtraTuffs, which I referenced in our Christmas party post. XtraTuffs are fully accepted as everyday wear here in Kodiak... just not as formal wear. On a day like today, they're almost necessary!

Speaking of referencing old blog entries - I had to share the contrast of our giant Thanksgiving dinner with the Koehlers to our intimate Christmas late lunch by ourselves. Jason decided on steaks, which he was probably regretting when he saw the weather out there today, but he braved the storm to cook us up some NY strips. My job was the mashed potatoes and zucchini. It's a little sad to see the table, but we REALLY enjoyed it. It was nice to have a quiet dinner with little fuss, lots of flavor, and the chance to just sit and enjoy each other for a little while.

I know, it's not much, but it was nice! We think you should learn something new everyday. Today, we learned that Jason and I have been married a LOOOOOONG time. How did we figure that out? We opened our cards to each other. I'll leave it at that.

I thought that was too funny not to share!

Again, it took me forever to get this blog done, so we're back from Aaron and Melissa's - we had a great time and it was so nice that it worked out that they could throw something together real quick! Now we're about an hour away from heading out to church... we'll be giving ourselves at least double our normal 10 minutes to get there since the snow is blowing around so much that we're seeing white out conditions. It'll be slow going, but worth the trip in the end! We promised we'd call Mom when we got back so she'd be sure to start her Christmas morning nice and early, but we'll probably cut her some slack on that and just wait to chat again later in the day. Depending on the weather, I may join Jason out at the base tomorrow for dinner. If I don't feel like driving in the blizzard, though, our friends (and neighbors - handy!) Mary and Keith invited me over for dinner with them and their kids. I've also been invited for the morning gift-opening festivities, but I'm going to guess that I won't be awake time for that! I'm excited about joining them for dinner, though... it'll almost be like a taste of home - Mary is planning a few different types of soup, just like Mom does for Christmas day!

I should wrap this up. I've got to go find something that matches my snow boots to wear to church tonight. As much as I'd like to get all dressed up, tonight calls for practicality! I'm not sure exactly how much snow we've gotten, but it's not just a little bit - and it's drifting a LOT! Instead of heels, I'll sport my LL Beans (no XtraTuffs for me!), and just realize a little bit more how much I've acclimated to Kodiak!

We wish everyone the Merriest of Christmases!!!! We're missing our friends and family off the Rock, but we're also enjoying our first Christmas in our own house, surrounded by all of our new surrogate family here in Kodiak.

We love you all... Merry Christmas!!!
Becca

Ta-daaaaaaaaaa!!!!

I promised a follow-up to the Christmas tree hunting fun and here it is! We FINALLY got around to actually decorating the tree on Saturday night... only a week after we dragged it home from the woods. It DID have lights on it by Wednesday, though, so at least we had that going for us. Now I'm just crossing my fingers, hoping it'll last at least until Christmas. It's drinking water at a rate of almost 2 gallons a day, so that's good for now. But it's also lost quite a few needles, which is bad! We've heard that the trees from the woods will either last forever, or for about a week! We've made it past the one-week mark, so I hope that's a good sign!

So, here's the first stage of getting it into the house. I have to tell you all, this was a pretty funny endeavor. It came about only after about 3 trips in and out of the house to measure the ceiling height, taking a guess as to the actual location of the tree so as to take fullest advantage of the highest possible part of the sloped ceiling. Then we went back and forth on how much to take off the top versus how much to take off the bottom... or both. We ended up hacking about 2 feet off the top (I'm not kidding!), and probably about a foot from the bottom. When we got it inside, Jason had to get out the handsaw and trim a bit more off the top - that's right, it didn't fit. We couldn't take any more off the bottom, though, because we would've lost the good branches, and a LOT of height! So, as you can see in this pciture, the top was looking a little stumpy for a minute there. We just trimmed back some of the new growth on the ends of the branches, though, and it seems to be ok now. In fact, I think it's gorgeous!

It didn't get it's gorgeous-ness, though, until Jason (I love this man) took about an hour or two to string 11 light strings onto the tree. FINALLY, after how ever many Christmases we've shared together, he GOT the "I like a lot of lights" that I utter every year! Well, I got my lights! And, poor guy, he had one small branch toward the top that ended up without any lights, so he had to work in an extra string just for that one! Yep, ELEVEN strings of lights. On, I think, 10 branches! Oh, sweet! You can even see that one last branch that necessitated this last strand of lights... it wasn't even a big branch! Doesn't he look like he's really enjoying himself? I think he'd been up on the stool for about 45 minutes at that point.... better him than me!!!

So, finally, on Saturday, we got the ornaments out and up on the tree. As much as I wasn't sure about this kind of tree versus my usual full and bushy one, it was really fun to tuck ornaments in next to the trunk and over and under all the branches. What wasn't fun was the really pokey nature of these needles. YIKES!!! As if the wait to decorate wasn't bad enough, I then had to finish wrapping all the gifts we're sending out so that I could get a shot of the tree with all the pretty presents under it. Since we then had to pack everything up to send out, this was an important shot. The pokey needles and the wrapping were worth it, though... what a great tree!

And, because it's funny.... here's what it looked like after the shipping packaging! :-D

And, finally, because I bought all my Christmas cards on the post-Christmas sales last year, so no photocards will be going out, I figured I'd share this one with everyone. The Air Station had their fancy-schmancy Christmas party on Friday night, so we got all gussied up, following the dress code pretty closely! The dress code, by the way, specifically said no jeans and no Xtra Tuffs. For those that don't know, these are Xtra Tuffs...

I think there might be a Jeff Foxworthy joke in there about "You might be from Kodiak if..... "
Anyway, I think we did pretty well in throwing aside the fishing gear and pretending we don't live in the country for just a night! (Pay no attention to the fact that there are no ornaments on the tree!!!!

That's all for now, folks! Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Becca

Christmas in Kodiak!!!

Well, I've been meaning to get the blog updated since we got back from last weekend's festivities, but I'm sure everyone can appreciate how crazy this time of year is! I still haven't started baking yet (I'm only two weeks overdue on that), I have a pile of partially wrapped presents sitting next to my coffee table, waiting for ribbons and bows and their trips cross-country, and I STILL haven't finished shopping for Jason yet. But, we have a Christmas tree, and this is its story.

As you can imagine, with butter at the Safeway running $5.20/lb on SALE, things in Kodiak are not cheap. Christmas trees fall into that mix, so we decided to go with the idea of wandering off into the woods and just cutting our own down. Yes, this is an option here, and they even have rules. You're not supposed to cut them down near the road, and you're not supposed to cut down a tree that's all by itself. Let me just tell you - if a tree isn't all by itself, it probably doesn't have any branches on one side. That's something I learned while we spent roughly two hours trying to find the perfect tree. We ended up with one I'd be happy with... and friends who have vowed to never look for a Christmas tree with us ever again. Mom would be so proud. As she pointed out, though, at least it took me two hours to find one in the woods, where it's hard to find one that has a decent shape. It used to take Mom two hours (OR MORE!) to find one from a Christmas tree farm where they groom them to be pretty. I don't think I'm as bad as Mom. Beth and Zach probably disagree.

Anyway, to get to the rest of the story, we caravaned out to a rumored good tree spot with Beth and Zach, and proceeded to try to help each other find a tree. I'll just say that Beth and Zach are not as picky as me. Beth and Zach are smart. Beth and Zach had a tree about an hour before us. Beth and Zach stayed in their warm car while Jason and I got out a couple times to tromp around in the cold just to decide we needed to drive a liiiiittle further down the road. Also, Zach made Jason do the bulk of the work in getting their tree down a hill. Jason picked a tree that had to be dragged UP a hill. We're just not that smart.

Finally, after two hours, though, we found a tree that we were happy with. We cut the top 10 feet or so off a 15-20 foot tree, stuffed it into the back of the truck, and headed back out of the woods. As I look at the tree (complete with lights, but no ornaments yet because we haven't had time), I just can't believe that I got a tree out of the woods. It's not the full, perfectly groomed blue spruce that I'm used to, but it smells good, looks gorgeous with the lights turned on, and we GOT IT FROM THE WOODS. I like that part!

I'll leave the writing at that, and just share some pictures with you. If nothing else, it was a fun way to spend an afternoon, and a neat Kodiak experience! Enjoy!

Here's Jason (with Beth and Zach ahead of him) hiking out - I just had to show that we REALLY did hike into the woods to get out tree!

Here's Beth enjoying the snow. This is how we stayed occupied while Jason and Zach tied their tree to the roof of their truck.

Next up, Jason looking useful. Or not.

TIMBERRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

Cutting it down was easy. Getting it back to the truck... not so much. Here's that uphill climb!

Check us out... aren't we cute???

And, for a non-tree related picture... I can't leave this one out. What's not to like about getting to see this on a regular basis!?

So that was our tree-hunting fun. As soon as we get the ornaments on the tree I'll post a picture of the finished product. Oh, and in case hiking into the woods to get a tree doesn't convince you that I'm being acclimated to Kodiak life, I also ate deer meat twice this week - once in a pasta dish and once just as a burger. Add that to my waders and fishing fun, and I think it's safe to say the "city girl" will do just fine around here!

Hope everyone is getting to enjoy the season a little bit amidst all the rush! Miss you all!

Becca

Man vs. Wild?

Well, after having a great Thanksgiving with our new friends here in Kodiak, I was lucky enough to partake in the required survival training for being stationed here in Alaska. Monday and Tuesday we're just classroom days, with a trip to the tide pool. They taught us about what we should carry on us, and what to do if we were ever stuck in the wilderness for any length to time. It was a very informative couple of days.

The highlight of the training was the trip to the tide pool. They informed us that the tide pools are one of the most abundant sources of food if you are ever stuck in the wild, and the best part is that you don't have to cook any of it. Well for a individual who didn't like pizza when he was a kid, this trip was approached with much caution. So we arrive at the tide pool and one of my fellow pilots who has been through this training scrapes a shell off a rock and tells me it's a limpet. Well a limpet is a snail, yes a snail, that attaches it's self to rocks in near the shores. It's very abundant. Well Bill (the other pilot) scrapes the snail out of the shell and hands it to me. I look at him and say there is no way I'm going to eat that. Well, I ended up eating it and it was really good. It was like a little neck clam, and was already salty from the water. I ended up eating a few more.

After the limpet, we moved on to the chiton. Well a chiton is also basically a snail. These are bigger though, and you only eat the foot. Well they weren't all that bad either, but much more chewing which was kind of weird. After that we finished with sea cabbage, and uni. Uni for those that don't know is sea urchin roe or eggs. Believe it or not the uni is very expensive (Japanese delicacy) and also tastes really good. It's like a salty mushy peach. So when everyone comes up we'll be taking a trip to the tide pool and having at least one meal there. =)

Well after two days of training we were marched out into the woods and forced to live for 2 1/2 days on what we could fit into a quart size bag. Well if you try to do this, it's not much, especially when they don't give you fire until dinner time on the second night. This proved to be interesting since we all brought rice and bullion to cook as our food. Secondly there is only about 7 hours of daylight right now. It's very interesting being stuck in the woods at night when it gets dark at 4 pm and you aren't allowed fire. It gets very dark and cold. It was 30 and night and 40 during the day for our stay with misty weather. It was great !!!!!! Well we built our shelter and found some items in the woods to keep us entertained. I hope you appreciate the pics. We were "rescued" on Friday morning and proceeded to head home and peel our clothes off and warm up. Needless to say, I'm glad I won't have to do this again for 10 years.

That's all for now. Hope all is well with everyone.

Jason

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)