Cozy Christmas Cabin

We were so thankful that we got a couple days off work for Christmas!

Christmas Eve day we hiked out to Cowee Meadows cabin. The snow was absolutely gorgeous, and though it was pretty cold we still enjoyed the two-mile hike.

Bridget Cove behind us

Our Christmas tree for the evening

For dinner we packed out a shepherds dinner (an Andrew family tradition), and it sure tasted good in our candlelit cabin. We also kept up the tradition of reading the Christmas story from Luke 2.

Our time at the cabin was warm, simple, and fun. It was a rare clear night, and the full moon was spectacular. We especially loved how it reflected off the never-ending blanket of snow.

Our cabin in the moonlight

Chris warming up breakfast on the kerosene stove that heated the cabin.

The most spectacular part of our trip was the hike out. While hiking back towards the trailhead we came across three moose! Moose are rarely seen in Juneau, so this was a real surprise.

When we returned to our apartment we opened the only wrapped present under our tree (thanks to the snail mail in Alaska, haha). Although I'm not even sure it counts as a present considering how hard I worked to earn it! My older brother Josh gave me a challenge back in April where if I wrote 30 papers on different topics (mainly books and movies he listed) he would buy me an iPad mini. And I've gotta say, as much as I love my brother we sure have different tastes in books and movies so this this was no easy task. But I did it and he followed through on his end of the deal, so Christmas I unwrapped my new iPad! Thanks Josh! (And sorry Andrew siblings, but your oldest brother won't be in a position to give you sweet opportunities like this anytime soon.)

Unfortunately Christmas went a bit downhill after this. Chris didn't feel the greatest when he woke up, but kept thinking it would shake off. However, by late afternoon the not great feeling didn't go away but instead escalated into the chills and a high fever. We had to cancel our plans to go to dinner with our friends (who ever so graciously then came and dropped off dinner for us - we really do have the best friends!).

We spent the rest of the weekend and the beginning of this week with one of us sick, and then the other, and now - a whole week later - we're both in quarantine recovering from the flu and fighting off pink eye.

Remember to pray and remember to play, 

Mr . & Mrs. Sick-in-Bed-Andrew

A Christmastime Miracle

This snowy and chilly December has been one of love and friendship; and we are really excited to share some pictures with you of our Christmastime miracle.

One day at my job downtown I was talking to my good friend and coworker Liz about our plans for Christmas. I mentioned to her how Chris and I weren't doing gifts other than gear for the PCT and because we're only living in Alaska temporarily we planned to skip the Christmas decorations this year. For those of you who do not know I LOVE Christmas, and I LOVE Christmas decorations! Well, apparently my love for all things Christmas showed in our conversation, and being the astute friend that she is Liz noticed the disappointment I was trying to hide when I told her we decided not to decorate for the season. 

Liz is one of the most thoughtful people I know, so when she noticed this she decided to act. Unknown to me, her and her husband Johnny contacted our friends Ben and Camille and decided to bring Christmas to us. One morning she texted Chris and asked him to hide a key for our apartment so they could sneak in while we were at work and decorate. Of course Chris willingly obliged and our Christmas elves got to work. 

When we got home from work that night we opened our apartment doors to a beautifully decorated Christmas miracle. Our friends did such a great job decorating that even Chris was surprised - and he was in on the secret plan! Being the emotional female that I am I broke into tears, and continued to cry for 20 minutes straight. We were the recipients of such a heartwarming act of service, and one that we are sure to always remember. Since we were on our honeymoon last Christmas this year felt in many ways like our first Christmas, and it was so wonderful to have a home that reflected the season we were celebrating. We are one couple that will definitely always remember our first Christmas tree. 

Wanting to share our love of the season with others we decided to come up with a goodie to give to all of our close friends and ward members. Instead of going with traditional cookies or candies Chris and I decided to give out bags of homemade granola. We made gallons of our favorite granola, and had fun delivering goodie-bags to all the people who have been a part of making our time here in Alaska so meaningful. 

We ended our fun week by making gingerbread houses with Johnny, Liz, Ben, Camille, and a
family that Johnny works with. Though neither Chris or I are engineers or artists we still had fun making little graham cracker and frosting creations. Chris made the yurt that we stayed in for our anniversary, and I tried to make a cabin. Though we have to admit, the best part of the whole night was definitely the company (especially the cuddles from Ben and Camille's little baby Liesel)!

Remember to pray and remember to play,

Mr. & Mrs. Andrew

Yurt in the Yukon

We failed to get a post up covering the first week of December, so we'll fill you in briefly on what went on. The week was busy with school and work, but mostly filled with celebrating our friends new baby! Our friends Ben and Camille had their first child, and we quickly fell in love with their beautiful baby girl. We helped them out with dinner a few times and just tried to spend as much time as we could with their little family.

Following our week of baby celebration for our friends came a week of anniversary celebration for us! Can you believe we've already been married for a full year?! The last year has just flown by, and yet we feel like we've been together forever (which really is a great thing, since we are blessed to be together forever). There's a saying that goes, "the first year of marriage is the hardest," and if there's any truth at all in that statement then Chris and I are going to have the easiest marriage ever. We've loved every moment of the first year, every new thing we've learned about each other, and every adventure we've shared. We are continually in awe at how much more we love each other now than we did a year ago, a month ago, a week ago, or a day ago. Right when we think it's not possible to have any more love, it increases, and it's ever coming more clear what it means to have Christ-like love. We've tried to center our marriage around the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we have definitely seen the blessings from it.

To celebrate the best year of our lives we went on a trip to Whitehorse, Canada. With the help of a ferry and a rental car we were able to stay in the most magical location - an original Mongolian yurt on some private land outside of town. We spent a long weekend snowshoeing, walking around town, swimming in hot springs, talking in Canadian accents using the word "eh" as frequently as possible, and warming up by the wood burning stove in our little orange yurt. It was perfect. So perfect, that I can't adequately describe it with words, so instead here are some pictures and a video that Chris made of our trip.

It was a beautiful sunny day on the ferry to Skagway

It was COLD. Or maybe we were just wimps.

The yurt overlooked a secluded lake 

The inside

Our host informed us that the yurt was actually made in Mongolia, and we were impressed with the intricate hand painting on the supports and door. The owner ran some power cords out to the yurt for lighting and built a weather-proof roof over the top. Mongolian tradition is to step over the threshold with your right foot without touching the door frame.

Don't worry, there was a full bathroom inside our host's home we could
use when we felt the need for running water.

We hoped to be able to take advantage of the secluded location away from light pollution to enjoy the northern lights, but every night the clouds moved in.

Our host let us borrow snowshoes and we trekked around the frozen lake below.
This friendly dog decided to join us, and his confidence was comforting when we would hear cracking and moving of the ice beneath us. 

My hair and Chris's beard got frosty from our breath as we hiked.

Our ferry back to Juneau was late at night, so we threw our sleeping bags
on lawn chairs in the heated solarium and snoozed.

Remember to pray and remember to play,

The Old Married Couple,

Mr. & Mrs. Andrew

P.S. Yes, I, did win the dance off we had while driving around Canada. And though the video may not adequately show it Chris did participate, he just didn't have moves quite as smooth as I did.

Salmon for Thanksgiving

Our good friends Garrison and Brooke Field left town for the holiday week, which means we once again got to stay in their house and watch our best friend Fynn! We sure love this energetic dog:

Trying to have a dance break from studying but Fynn cut in

One of the best hiking buddies around

Chris threatening to eat Fynn's food if he doesn't finish

Staying in a nice home felt like a vacation to us, and also got us excited for our future. I love Brooke's style, and hope to have a house like hers one day (you can check out their cool family blog here).

We had a rare sunny day while the snow was still on the ground, so Chris snapped some incredible pictures.

The morning sun just touching the Mendenhall Towers.

Mt. McGinnis and her reflection on Auke Lake.

The frozen lake in front of Mendenhall Glacier

We found out on Monday that we did not have to work on Thanksgiving, and tried to make some last minute plans. We wanted to volunteer at the community dinner, but unfortunately for us - and fortunately for them - they had enough volunteers who had been signed up for months that our help wasn't needed. Since we couldn't find any other volunteer opportunities and the weather was nice we decided to spend the day hiking.

Chris and I rented a cabin to stay in for Christmas Eve, so we chose to hike out there while the snow wasn't too bad. (Juneau weather is crazy, one day you'll have over a foot of snow and the next it will rain and *POOF* winter wonderland disappears.) It was a fun hike and we loved getting out in the sunlight, which is a rare opportunity in southeast Alaska this time of year - we have very short day light hours, and very rainy weather.

Our future Christmas cabin

At 3pm, Alaska's low winter sun hides behind serrated razor-edge peaks of the snowy mountains 

After our hike we had a nontraditional Thanksgiving dinner of grilled salmon, rosemary sea salt bread, parmesan sweet potatoes, and a kale spinach & pear salad. I even made Chris a pumpkin pie and maple whip cream for dessert (sugar doesn't count on holidays, right?). I loved having a nice kitchen to use to make everything from scratch, and am excited to get back to Utah where all my nice wedding-registry kitchen tools are waiting in a box for me.

Our Thanksgiving feast paired with my
gorgeous surprise "just because" flowers

We had a lot of fun eating our feast and listing off all the many things we're grateful for. A handful of our greatest blessings are our knowledge and understanding of the gospel and Atonement, our perfect marriage, loving families, true friends, the freedoms we enjoy in this beautiful country, Alaska adventures, healthy bodies, education, and employment.

You'll notice that Chris's beard has been trimmed up. The long-hair-shaggy-beard look has been giving off mixed impressions to people we meet. Marijuana is legal in Alaska, and there's the occasional local who mistakenly assumes Chris is into that sort of lifestyle and offer to "hook him up." Then there's the occasional shady guest who checks into the B&B and asks Chris if he knows where to "get the bud." He's always a bit confused in these situations, as Chris is clearly not at all connected to that scene, and how do you awkwardly tell a guest that they are gravely mistaken? Finally - and this one's my favorite - there's the adorable young kids in primary who think Chris looks just like Jesus (parents have confirmed this is the case). And each week as we walk in with senior primary a couple of littles in junior primary start looking. There's this one four year old boy in particular (to help you get the full image he has light blonde hair, thick round glasses, and is normally wearing a vest and a bow tie) who perks up, looks until he gets Chris's attention, and then with bright doe eyes and an infectious smile waves harder than you've ever seen a four-year old boy wave to get the attention of Jesus, I mean Chris. Chris always waves and smiles back to the great delight of this young boy; as a matter of fact the boy will continually wave until he's received some sort of reply from Chris. It's only the most adorable thing ever. Anyways, long story short, we wonder how this beard trim will affect the many images of Christopher Andrew. ;-)

Remember to pray and remember to play,

Mr. & Mrs. Andrew

A Dread-ful Decision

Have you ever thought something sounded like a really good idea, and then you tried it, and realized it was actually a really bad idea? Well I have.

The idea: getting dreadlocks.

The last couple of years I have been fascinated with dreadlocks. There's two different kinds of dreads - the gross kind, and the really pretty-but-edgy&perfectly-hippy kind. And I have been waiting for a chance to transform my hair into the pretty-but-edgy&perfectly-hippy kind for quite some time. Lucky for me I married a guy who also happens to like dreads! One night Chris decided we should just do it, so being well educated by a large variety of YouTube videos we set out to get everything we would need to give me perfect dreads at home.

Not able to see the back of my own head, Chris took on the title of head hairdresser. He got really good at using that metal flea comb to backcomb my hair into locks. And my dreads were born. 

Now as any person who has done their internet research on dreadlocks would know, dreads aren't going to look perfect on day one. They take time to settle and form. However, on day two of the dreadlock journey two things became blatantly obvious to me: thing one - not wanting to hurt me Chris had gone easy on the roots, leaving the top much looser than the bottom, thing two - these dreads were not going to mature into the pretty-but-edgy&perfectly-hippy kind, but had the perfect beginning to mature into the gross kind. 

With thing two weighing heavily on my mind, I was all of a sudden fearful of a third thing that came into my mind: the longer these dreads stay in my hair, the less likely I am to get rid of them while still keeping hair on my head. Admitting that my dream of dreads was a bust, and that I would look even worse with a pixie cut or a bald scalp, I started the long, tedious, multi-day process of brushing out my dreads. 

This part hurt a lot...

If you can't tell from the above picture, my hair was pretty damaged after this experiment. I started deep conditioning and still needed to cut off about three and a half inches. To minimize the amount of length that was removed from my hair I ended up getting some layers as well.

The layers are even more obvious when my hair is curly, or
 pulled back. But still, 3 1/2 inches seems like a lot to me!

We also enjoyed living in a snowglobe this week. The pictures are pretty but don't even give this magical winter wonderland justice. Life in Narnia is spectacular, and we can't help but be in constant awe at all the beauty around us.

By the end of the week there was over a foot of snow!

Our weekend adventure was probably one of our favorites yet. One of our sweet primary girls, Zoey, and her sister Tatum got baptized. Zoey is 11 and Tatum is 9, but they both attend a class younger from where they should be to be with their friends (approved by the bishop and primary president due to family circumstances). Their father isn't a member, and their mother is just starting to come back to church after years of inactivity. We absolutely adore these sweet girls and are so proud of them for the choices that they are making. Zoey is a joy to have in class and has such a fiery testimony for a kid so young and new to the church. She is always asking questions, and her mom told us that she loves class so much that every Sunday she goes home and then teaches her family everything she learned that day. Zoey excitedly asked us to participate in her baptismal service, so I gave the opening prayer and Chris spoke on the importance and blessings of baptism. He also had the opportunity to stand in their confirmation circles on Sunday. It was a special day for both of them, and Chris and I felt validated in our callings as primary teachers -- we're glad we could play a small part in Zoey's learning. We just love seeing the the "aha" moments in our students eyes, and have fallen in love with not just our students, but all the children in the primary. What a blessing it is to teach Heavenly Father's little ones, and be surrounded by their sweet spirits each week. 

Tatum and Zoey on their baptism day.

Remember to pray and remember to play,

Mr. & Mrs. Andrew