We love Alaska... BUT...

     Its getting darker outside, its cold season, and the activities have slowed down a bit. The kids have already been through a round of yucky sickness and I was even down for a day with horrible head congestion. After a few days in the house we all got a little edgy; I will admit... it was mainly me. When our normal routine gets thrown off for several days in a row I seem to get grumpy. Im thinking that is a good thing in some ways because that means our schedule must be working for us. Im just so happy Matt was home to help me take care of the kiddos, especially when I was down for a day. We are all doing much better now, but it got us talking about our family and friends. We really do love living in Alaska, but we definitely miss having our families and friends close by. We are excited to head back to Oklahoma for the holidays and we are very thankful we are getting to spend so much time with everyone.
     We, of course, are missing everyone but Im needing to see my Meme so bad! She has been having issues here lately and I hate it that I am not there to see her, help her, and hold her hand. I have been through a lot with my Meme and she has always been there for me; I love her so much. Im ready to spend time with her over the holidays!
     The next two weeks will hopefully go by quickly; Matts on the slope and we have a ton of Halloween activities planned. The kids are enjoying their extended Halloween festivities. Since Matt isn't going to be here for Halloween we went to a Reindeer farm with a Halloween theme and we carved pumpkins last night; kids really enjoyed it, but Laela wasn't a fan of the "eeeewwwyy goooeeeyy" insides, it was hilarious.

This was her reaction... Matt bribed her with Candy just to touch it! 

My boys; I sure do love them!

                               Matt and I really liked the Potato shooting range they had set up!

We did the "Hay Maze" and Laela loved it!

She really wanted to ride "The Hay Tractor" so we did! 

We left with a rice crispy treat that the kids devoured in the car; it was the hardest, most stale, yucky rice crispy ever BUT Laela picked it out and they loved it. 

We carved pumpkins and carved pumpkins and carved pumpkins... 4 to be exact

I will post the final results of all 4 pumpkins very soon! 

I don't even have to tell you who these belong to! 

     I hope you enjoyed my family photos as much as I do; I can't ever pick just a couple! I better head to bed; more fun and crazy life ahead of me tomorrow... Im not sure how I got so lucky! We have a pumpkin painting party tomorrow, we are doing Halloween sugar cookies here next week, we have a Conocophillips party, and then a play group party on Halloween. If we can manage, I'm hoping to also hit a few houses on our street for some actual trick or treating! I think the kids will end up having a very extended but Happy Halloween! 

Yes, its been months... as in 4 months!

I am most likely the worse blogger in the entire world!
When the sun is out and the weather is nice in Anchorage AK, you take full advantage! We really did enjoy our Summer to the fullest. I was in denial at first but I just cant ignore it any longer. FALL is here; its been raining like crazy, chilly, and super windy! We broke out the jackets and have been wearing our boots and sweaters for about a month now. I feel like its been ages since I have written and the only way I can even try to remember all that we have done is to put my IPhotos into date order and relive all of our wonderful memories over again. June, July, and August were so much fun! We had family visit, we went on several new adventures, and we enjoyed every minute! I would say that our summer full of camping, white water rafting, zip lining, riding the RZR, boating, and fishing will be one that won't be forgotten!

We got to go camping several times this summer and were lucky enough to enjoy sunsets like this!

We did the above family pic mid September!

We did these only days later.. Sept 28th

As you can see we had an early snow fall this year! 

My favorite purchase this summer = My camera remote. It has allowed us to catch a few super fun shots that we wouldn't have normally gotten! AMAZING

Now that it has cooled down and the darkness is coming back with a vengeance, we are spending more time inside. We have been doing tons of play dates and watching football :-)

This next week will be exciting because after 3 weeks, Matt will be back from work, and the kids will be absolutely ecstatic. Matt Garner will be here from Canada and we get to show him all around; we really do love this part of hosting... means we get to eat out at all of our favorite restaurants, visit some awesome places, and enjoy some of what AK has to offer.

Ready, set, go... here comes winter fun!