A lot of catch up

Hello Friends!
It has almost been a year since our last update. We do apologize for not keeping you all in the loop over the last year.
We are still very much enjoying our time up in the Great Land. It is getting cold. This morning it was 31 degrees, and I actually had to scrape my windshield before leaving. Brrr. No snow on the ground yet, but we are anticipating it soon.

So since we last wrote, Jason and I have moved into a home behind my parents house. The house we are living in was my grandfathers home, and the house that my dad grew up in. It has been here since the 40's, and has taken a lot of our time to do some improvements. We have been enjoying making this our home. We have a lot of land, so I had a nice big garden and a greenhouse full of tomato's and pees. The garden was only a minor success. We had to put a fence around it to keep the moose out, but the moose were still able to get to the outside rows, which were broccoli and the cauliflower!

Jason started working his dream job in March. He is working for the National Outdoor Leadership School, Alaska Branch (www.nols.edu). In April he left for a 30 day trip in southern AZ and NM where he spent 18 days backpacking and then another 12 days climbing. This trip certified him to lead other students when he wanted to. His day to day job is normally to run the equipment room at the branch here in Palmer. This is fun for us, because we don't need ANYTHING anymore as far as gear. We can use whatever we need from NOLS. Jason is leading another trip now in Wyoming, and will be gone for 3 weeks. He has gone to Salt Lake for the Outdoor Retailer show where he got to smooze with all of the manufacturers and meet a lot of fun people in the industry. Gore has invited him out to their plant this Spring to do a tour, and let them spoil him for a week... all of this because he is in charge of purchasing all of the equipment for NOLS Alaska. Needless to say, he is very happy where he is.

Alo is happy with Jason's work too. She gets to go to work with him everyday. The branch is actually on an old farm. There is a lot of open land - so she rules the area and gets to run around outside all day long. Every time I visit the branch, she is sitting on the hill out front looking over the place as if she is in complete control. She will great me, and then lead me right to where Jason is. So I guess, she may be in complete control! :)

I have been working for Wells Fargo as a personal banker since January. I am enjoying my job, and really like working with the people that I am working with. I have also been teaching 2 spinning classes a week. They have recently been changed to 5:30am - so that has been an additional challenge for me, but I am getting used to it.

Jason and I are actually looking forward to this winter, and the slower paced life style that comes a long with it. It is really hard to slow down in the summer time with all of the light, and the mindset to get everything crammed into the 3 month period that we have to work with. We did a lot of white water rafting this summer, and we both bought white water kayaks. I only took my kayak out once, and got so scared that I haven't been back in it. I didn't get the option to ease into it, and I think Jason took me into something that was a little over my ability - defiantly over my confidence level.


Well... this has been a long overdue update, but it is very long. I am going to leave it at this for now, but promise to keep this updated on a more frequent basis.

We hope that this finds everyone doing well.
We would love to hear about updates with those of you that we have not heard from in a while! :)

Next post will include pictures!
Richell, Jason, and Alo