Alaska

We love Alaska!  I think I would have a hard time living here permanently, but living here seasonally is a great adventure!  Here are a few things I love about Alaska.

-It is BEAUTIFUL!  

-We love getting to see our cousins and friends.  We have made great friends here. 

-We live across the street from Christiana's soccer team and swim lessons.  So convenient!

-The air is so fresh and it rains a lot, which I can welcome after living in Arizona.

-It stays light outside till midnight.  I love it!  I am more sleep deprived them normal, but I love staying up. -Photosynthesis happens right before our eyes!!  It takes a few days for the trees to produce luscious green leaves.

-There are Moose and Bears around the city.  I was wigging out all day when a moose and her two calves, which are the size of a full grown deer, ran in front of my car on a busy street. 

-I love the huge mountains and the sea ten minutes from our apartment!

-There are lots of cool little towns to go see and explore.

-The Denali National Forest is enchanting and breath-taking.  

It is so fun to be here, but there are only a few hours a week of adventuring.  A lot of my time is spent trying to find ways to entertain the kids.  There are a lot of fun activities the community organizes for kids, so we are out and about a lot.  Living in a small two bedroom apartment with three kids is interesting!  I hate having to use quarters to do our laundry and sharing a bathroom with the family is interesting while potty training a two year old.  First world problems, I know!  We also miss our family and friends in "the lower forty-eight" as they say here.

It's also always a shock to pay four dollars for a gallon of milk and it seems like everything costs so much more.  When we returned home last year, it made grocery shopping take on a whole new meaning!

We've done some fun things this year that we didn't get a chance to do last year.  We went to the sand dunes, the kids had so much fun playing in the sand. We also went to Whittier which is a small town you get to through a two and a half mile long tunnel. 

 Small town of Whittier.  You enter into Whittier through a two and a half mile long tunnel on train tracks.

 Sand Dunes!

 View from the most hiked trail in Anchorage, Flattop.

 Nice dumpster, I know!