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07-Alaska Trip

Alaska Trip: Day 7 thru 11

Ok – sorry to rush these last few days, however its been a while and I don’t want to lose the memories altogether. I will post one more blog about the Alaska trip titled Alaska Trip: Day 12. It will address the chapel service and the flight home. Until then, here are days 7 through 11:

Days 7 and 8: The process, Things were going well until…

The Process

From here out it was a lot of work. The truck showed up on Day 7 and Jeremy and I were able to unload most of it the first day by ourselves. It was between 30 and 50 below zero the entire time. Jeremy and I wore long johns, jeans, long sleeve shirts, heavy coats, gloves, and ski masks.Frozen hinge At 50 below, you have to address unloading a truck in a special way. Most movers will tell you not to touch a heavy item more then once, meaning when you pick it up, don’t put it down until you have it where its going to go. That won’t work at 50 below. If you have your garage open, and your house door open at 50 below, you are going to freeze you house up. I don’t mean your house will be cold. I mean your pipes will freeze, your toilets will freeze, and the warmest part of your house will be in your fridge! This picture is of the ice on the door hinge – it was 70 degrees inside, but the hinge is also outside at 50 below…

So, how do you unload a truck at sub-arctic temperatures? Well, you have to open the garage while keeping the house closed up tight, even then you turn on the water in the house because there are pipes in the garage. You unload the truck for about twenty minutes at a time, placing all your boxes and furniture in the garage. Then you close the garage and let it start to warm up. You open the house and move things into the house. After you have moved everything in the house, you close up the house, reopen the garage and start the process again.

We took Dana and Logan back to the hotel, but we both wanted to keep moving so, against Dana’s advise, we went back and worked another couple of hours. We actually got more than half the truck unloaded.

Things were going well until…

Things were going well until I pulled when I should have lifted. We were moving his VERY expensive therapeutic mattress which was frozen solid even after being in the garage over night. It has a great warranty unless you tear the handle. The term handle is a misnomer. It has a handle-looking piece of cloth sewn onto the underside of the mattress. I knew not to grab them, but when I slid my hand under the mattress to pull it onto the bed, I really meant to lift it up so Jeremy could push it on the box spring. The tearing sound made me realize that I must have pulled much more than I thought. I felt horrible, but I think Jeremy felt almost as bad for me as he did about the bed… almost.

Days 9, 10, 11: Finally some help, The Kitchen, Some down time

Jeremy unpacking the kitchenI’m not sure which day it was, but Jeremy finally was able to bring home some of the base guys to help us finish up the move. Two of them are also his neighbors. It didn’t take long to get the remaining furniture off the truck and into the house. One of his neighbors also asked that we assist him in getting a heavy TV upstairs for him, so after we got everything in Jeremy’s house, we helped the neighbor move the furniture there as well. The next several days were spent pulling the boxes in from the garage to the house, unpacking the kitchen, etc. By the way, Jeremy has more kitchen trinkets than anyone I know; several pizza cutters, cheese graters, potato pilers, and a cherry de-pitter. It seems like no matter how many boxes we pulled in from the garage for the kitchen, there were more boxes for the kitchen. Ok – I’m exaggerating, it wasn’t that bad, but it did seem never ending.

sewer backupWe did have an unexpected sewer backup in the garage. Apparently, a few months of being empty wasn’t good on the plumbing. But, Jeremy is renting so it was a stress free fix – call the land lord. A plumbing and thawing company was out in no time and we felt like we were on “Dirty Jobs” watching him do his work.

Ice SculptureIt wasn’t all work. We did go out to eat where I confused a rerun NFL game on the screens at the restaurant as current – it was the Patriot playing the Giants and the Giants won. I thought I had just witnessed New England loose a perfect season. We also went to an ice sculpture park which was right next to Santa’s House. It was very cool and I got to slide down an ice slide with my nephew (I wanted to slide down it anyway, but having Logan in my lap made me look less like an idiot). At one point, Jeremy and I boiled water and threw it in the air like we had seen in many youtube videos – it really did evaporate before hitting the ground- some of it turned into a snow like ice that fell to the ground – very cool!

TreesThis was a great trip. A lot of work, but still a trip I will always remember. I was glad I was able to be a part of helping Jeremy get moved and I really enjoyed spending time with Logan who by the end of the trip was calling my uncle. Forget all the Master Card commercials, that’s Priceless! I also got a few really great pictures (like this one that I took from Jeremy’s new back yard).

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Family

Happy Birthday Zander!!!

Today Zander turned 4

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years old.

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Family

Zander Moments

Here are a few Zander moments that you won’t want to miss:

Zander——————

Smells like…

We had just gotten to church and were walking up the sidewalk to service when another group of women all wearing perfumes happened by – Zander sniffed the air a couple of times and stated “Daddy, I think I smell church!”

——————

Too much TV??

Zander spends most church service with the children’s ministry class, but one service when there was no classes I brought him into the main service with me. Zander enjoyed the song service, he sat quietly through the offering, and was truly on his best behavior. Then during the offering, the church started an announcements video loop on the big screens – all scrolling text with upcomming events while the choir sang a lively chorus. Zander looked at the scrolling text and asked “Is it over Daddy?”Zander carving pumpkins

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Too Smart for that trick any more!

Stephanie and I trade off putting Zander to bed and he sometimes puts up a fuss about going down. We have a routine like going ‘potty’ and brushing teeth so when we say, “Zander, go potty” at the end of the night, it raises questions like “Am I going to bed?” If we answer with a simple “Yes”, we sometimes face a fit of “But I don’t want to go to sleep” so we often defer him with simple comments like “Not yet, right now you are going potty” Once he is in bed he will ask to stay up or to play. We defer him with comments like, “Well, I will come in a check on you later and we’ll see” and then check back only after we know he has fallen asleep.

One night, Stephanie said to him “I’ll check on you in a bit” to which Zander replied, “Mommy – are you going to check on me when the sun is up?”

——————

New Mommy?

We’ve been telling Zander that he is turning four in a few days. Today, while riding to the store with Stephanie, Zander asked if he was four yet. Stephanie said, “no, its not your birthday yet”. Zander replied “its very exciting” Then Zander thought for a moment and asked “will I get a new mommy when I turn four?”

Stephanie replied “No – do you want a new mommy?”

“No” he replied

“What do you like about your mommy?” Stephanie asking hoping he would say something good

Zander and Lexi“She’s beauuuuuutiful” Zander cooed.

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First Window Please…

Stephanie took Zander with her to the grocery store to pick up a few items we needed to finish dinner. “We need to get some food, Zander” she explained. When they got to the store, Zander argued, “I thought we were going to get food mommy, I’m hungry”Arches

“We are getting food, Zander. This is the grocery store – they have food – they have lots of food” she replied

“No mommy, we get food in the car”

Apparently, we have gone to fast food way to often lately.