Creek Street

The boys had two days off of school for parent teacher conference.

We ended up exploring Creek Street for the first time.

It was absolutely gorgeous.

The boys had a BLAST.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Thursday morning actually started with parent teacher conferences.

I learned that both teachers were very happy with the boys.

They have adapted to their new classes well and are both excelling in reading and math.

That afternoon we had fun making sugar cookies.

We used Krista's recipes and they turned out AMAZING!

They were more soft and light than we were used to.

I haven't decided if that was because of the different climate,

or if it was because I was running low on flour...

Friday was the day of our explorations.

We spent the morning at home just hanging out.

As per normal, Andrew came home for his lunch break.

We quickly signed our closing papers for selling the house in West Jordan.

Then we went to Wells Fargo to finish signing in front of a notary.

Afterwards we took the boys to McDonald's for lunch.

Andrew went back to work and the boys and I made an impromptu decision to go exploring.

Really, we were in search of the library.

Instead of finding the library, we ended up on Creek Street.

The boys were hilariously excited about the seagulls.

(Although they initially called them ducks.)

 They had fun seeing how many they could count.

They saw almost twenty in just one spot.

After they moved on from the seagulls, they had fun running up and down the board walk.

We weren't in any hurry to leave, but we did find a map, still trying to figure out where the library was.

Some nice locals asked what we were looking for.

They explained that the library had changed locations.

And gave us directions to where we needed to go.

We opted to still spend several more minutes on Creek Street.

And we wandered over to see the boats too.

(Those pictures are at the beginning of this post.)

I loved seeing how much fun the boys were having.

They really didn't want to leave and I had to promise them that we would come back with Dad.

Ketchikan is famous for having TONS of totem polls.

But this is the first one we saw up close.

Finally we headed back out to continue our search for the library.

It was in an area that I hadn't been to before.

I LOVED the view we had from the parking lot.

As I mentioned, it is a new building.

It is a beautiful facility.

The library itself was much quieter than I am used to with Utah libraries.

We had to walk through the main part to get to the children's area.

They have a nice room, separated out for the kids.

Ammon and Peter were thrilled to learn that they already had library cards - 

by virtue of being enrolled in school here.

The systems are all connected.

They happily checked out five books each and we headed home.

The library is 2.1 miles from our house.

We found a more direct route coming home than what we had taken to get there.

We went home just before 3:00 but headed back at 4:00 for a fun craft.

As we arrived, the lights started to flicker.

A minute later, the librarian came and announced that the power was out.

We needed to evacuate the building.

As it turned out, the power on the entire island (and the neighboring island) was out.

Fortunately, the grocery store ran on generators.

We were able to get cold cereal for dinner.

The power ended up being out for about an hour and a half.

It came back just as the sun was about to set.

We had a fun family evening  and enjoyed having our power back on.

After such a long, hard summer with morning sickness, back issues, and moving plans,

I forgot how much fun I could have with my boys being home from school.

It was a great day and so good for me to get out and enjoy life with them.

(Although I think we'll all be happy to return to the normal  schedule come Monday.)

Morning View

The other day Peter opened the door and literally shrieked with delight.

"It looks like Utah out here!"

After a really cloudy and overcast day, he was thrilled to see the sun.

He noted how we are surrounded by mountains, just like in Salt Lake.

And he was excited about the colored leaves.

I was less enthused and just snapped a picture because he wanted me to.

But as I've looked back, I've fallen in love with this picture.

This is the view I have from my front door and my kitchen window.

It is amazing!

Walk Through Town

 

The first week or so we were here, I became semi unconscious.

My iron levels were low, and I was barely functioning.

I started doing better, and that's when I decided to tackle bread making.

The next day I decided I needed another goal.

I decided to walk.

The plan was originally to use the treadmill, but I decided to go outside instead.

I started by just walking down the street to the hospital.

I needed to fill out some paperwork to get my records transferred up here.

Then I went to the pediatrician office to schedule appointments for the boys.

They need to be TB tested within 90 days of starting school here.

These last two pictures were taken out the window from the pediatricians office.

The blue buildings across the water on the second picture are the airport.

As long as I was halfway down the hill, I decided to keep going and walk to Andrew's work.

Once I reached Tongass Ave, I saw this creek.

It actually runs right by our house.

But it is deep down a ravine and we can just here it from where we live.

It was fun to actually see it.

And so pretty too!

As I continued my walk, I noticed this dock area and decided to cross the street for a better view.

The pictures look a lot darker than it actually was.

And they don't capture the beauty and color of the surrounding islands.

This picture shows how low the clouds were hanging that day, although it didn't rain at all.

These are just more pictures of what it looks like to walk down the main street on the island.

You can see that the city is literally built into the mountain side.

There are a lot of really steep roads.

The one in the picture above is relatively flat compared to most of them.

And this is the road coming back out of the Plaza.

I took it when Andrew drove me home on his lunch break.

It was fun getting out and enjoying Ketchikan for the afternoon.

Daily Life

We finally got settled in enough to start thinking about normal life again.

And we realized it was time to get our Halloween costumes.

Originally Ammon wanted to be a very specific Mario.

Before we planned a move, I was going to pull it together for him - 

But they don't make a store bought version, and after the move I didn't want to tackle it.

So we looked at Amazon and he was quickly satisfied with being a Red Power Ranger.

Peter tried several options before settling on Flash.

He considered Superman, Batman, the Hulk and Captain America.

But I think the Flash turned out to be a fun (and less mainstream) choice.

Here is another picture looking down our street.

And I realized that I never really paid attention to what the street looks like continuing up.

One of these days I'm going to walk or drive up there and see what it is like.

Before I left Utah, my mom had gotten in the habit of buying some AMAZING

cinnamon raisin bread.

I tried to buy some here.

It was barely more edible than cardboard.

But I really, really wanted some GOOD bread.

So I decided to make some.

It turned out really well and has been a hit with the family.

We also had a fun and unexpected visit from our upstairs neighbor.

She had made these beautiful socks specifically for Laurie.

Then she measured the boys hands and feet to get working on gifts for them as well!

Peter especially loved having her visit.

New Experiences

One evening I heard a noise just outside our living room window.

I asked Andrew what it was.

He didn't notice and didn't care.

So I dropped it.

The next morning we found out that our trash cans had been knocked over -

By a BEAR!

Um, welcome to Alaska!

 A day or so later we ran across these deer on the way home from school.

Peter was so excited!

I had to stop him from petting them.

Sadly, the day we saw the deer, Ammon had stayed home sick.

So he missed it.

We moved here during the rainiest month of the year.

And we have seen some rain.

We have seen a lot of clouds.

But we have seen a lot more of the sun than we expected based on reputation.

And whether the sun is out in full force or not,

It is beautiful here!

Andrew's branch is the one out of the three here in Ketchikan that is open on Saturday.

He gets to work every other weekend.

And as a trade off, he gets every other Wednesday off.

We spent his first Wednesday off running errands.

These last two pictures are the grocery store parking lot.

(The grocery store is actually in the mall - next to Wells Fargo where Andrew works.)

The picture above and below this comment is the view from the DMV.

We were able to get Alaska drivers licenses and register our car.

It was such a pretty day!

This is our car parked right outside our front door.

This is the view I see from my kitchen window.

I love it!

On Saturday, while Andrew was working, Ammon had a scout activity.

He went shooting at the shooting range.

I was nervous about leaving the "new kid" at the range.

I made sure to find out who the adult was in charge of his group.

I made it a point to tell Ammon (in front of him) that he needed to STAY WITH HIM.

But when I came to pick him up at 1:00 (maybe 1:00 and thirty seconds)

I didn't see that adult anywhere.

And Ammon was gone.

I found a couple of kids who had been in Ammon's group.

They told me he had gone down the trail to the main road.

Fortunately, as I tried not to panic and went out to start the search for my child,

he came walking back up the path.

He had decided to walk home (the wrong way) but had turned around in time to see me pull  up.

So he came back.

PHEW!

Crisis narrowly averted.

We were over six miles away from home.

On a rural 50 MPH road - that was under construction and had no shoulders.

I have no idea why he thought he could make his way home on foot and alone.

But that's Ammon for you.

This is a picture of the foyer in our church.

The chapel is beautiful and we are in love with the wood that was used to build it.