Bad News and a Birthday

Well, Chris and I haven't been able to come up with a good way to put this, but here we go:

We're no longer hiking the Pacific Crest Trail this summer.

We've made this decision primarily because the Sierra Nevada mountains have gotten so much snow so far this year that we no longer have enough time to complete the trail in our window before returning to school late August. We're probably the only Americans who are lamenting that California is headed out of their multi-year drought - I mean why couldn't El Niño just wait one more year for us?! Not wanting to fail before we even started, we've decided not to section-hike by leaving the trail early and instead take the summer to move to a new city (to be determined in March when we hear back from nursing schools). We'll find jobs and continue to save up for our future. After all, we still have a lot of school ahead of us and tuition isn't cheap... and neither are kids (NOT a hint about being pregnant, remember, this is about the future).

We also realized that although thru-hiking the PCT has been a goal that we've looked forward to for the last year, we've looked forward to our dreams of school, a career, and being parents for our entire lives. While it's definitely not a one-or-the-other deal, forgoing the PCT this year will put us ahead for our "big life priorities." We haven't given up on our hike forever, but rather have come to a pivotal point where we've been able to admit to ourselves that although hiking it would be an incredible achievement, it doesn't do much to help us reach our eternal goals. For now the PCT will have to wait on the back-burner--still a dream--but taking second to the things that really matter. I think Dallin H. Oaks said it best when he said, "We should begin by recognizing the reality that just because something is good is not a sufficient reason for doing it. The number of good things we can do far exceeds the time available to accomplish them. Some things are better than good, and these are the things that should command priority attention in our lives."

Wednesday night we had a fun date night. Chris and I decided to go on a run together, and ended up running to the library. We meandered the library and both found some good books that we are excited to read. Nothing beats a free date of exercise and learning.

Chris got in a fight with the ice at the crosswalk

We also celebrated my birthday this week! I must be getting old because when Chris asked what I wanted the only thing I could think of was a bubble bath and time to relax. Working two jobs and 13+ hour days is starting to catch up with me, and I've definitely been feeling a lack of rest and well being lately. Luckily Chris pulled some strings and was able to grant my wish. Friday night we stayed in one of our favorite rooms at the B&B (what will we do when we move back to the lower 48 and no longer have a great connection for more than affordable get-away nights!) and you better believe I enjoyed every bit of that huge Jacuzzi tub and feather bed. On Saturday morning (my actual birthday) we met up with our friends Liz, Johnny, Camille, and Ben for breakfast. After breakfast we headed out to take some fun pictures. Liz and Ben both love photography and thought it would be a fun birthday gift to take pictures for me - they were right! I'm really not much of a model, but Chris makes me look good and it's fun to have some professional grade pictures together. Ben even designed a new top for our blog with one of the pictures he took and the lettering for "The Andrew Family" - we love it! Here's some fun pictures from my birthday for now, and more of our photo-shoot is to come as they finish editing the pictures.

Using the selfie-stick to capture the whole crew
L->R Liz, Chris, Me, Camille, Ben, Jonny

Ben set his camera up on the tripod and did some long exposure shots with the creek. They turned out pretty awesome!

Remember to pray and remember to play,

Mr. & Mrs. Andrew

Bear Redemption

First things first, Chris finally got his redemption of capturing pictures of a bear in the wild! Our weekly glacier went from wonderful to amazing when we saw a beautiful cinnamon-colored black bear that the locals have named Nicki walking around. We were able to watch her for about 45 minutes as she walked around, caught a salmon and ate it for dinner, and then finally scampered off deeper into the woods.

Nicki hunting in Steep Creek

My favorite view of the night.

We used Wednesday to get in a large-mile day of hiking. The Treadwell Ditch Trail on Douglas Island isn't very well maintained once you get a few miles out, but it was a good trail to just knock out miles. It's a level path that follows an old ditch that was used as a flume for a mine back in the day. It's nicknamed "Juneau's Best Training Trail" because of it's length and little elevation change. We hiked 22 miles in one day, and that doesn't even include the walk to the trailhead from the bus stop! It was nice to be able to set up our tent that night, and we have to admit how much we've missed camping. On Thursday we only had about 5 miles back to our bus stop, and though we could feel the miles we put in the day prior, we also couldn't stop our minds from dreaming of the PCT. We know it's going to be hard - but we also think we can do it. And we are excited for the opportunity to try. 

Devil's Club - don't touch!

I look great in candid pictures - I just wanted to drink, but Chris wanted a photo at our turn-around-spot for the day.

Our route - Chris thinks you guys like looking at maps.

On Saturday, we went on a day date to downtown. We decided it was time to splurge a little and buy ourselves a locally-caught-fresh king crab's leg meal. And it was delicious! It was fun cracking open the shell and finding the fresh meat inside. This life by the ocean is pretty fun.

Can you imagine the size of this crab?!

Remember to pray and remember to play,

Mr. & Mrs. Andrew

The Best Part of this Post is the Announcement at the End

I don't have much of an intro this week, so let's just jump into the good stuff....

After work one night (remember we get off at 10pm) we decided it would be fun to do a spontaneous backpacking trip. We asked our friend Ben, a Juneau local, a good place to go and he told us Windfall Lake. This was about a 4.2 mile hike one way, not bad, so we decided to do it. Here are the highlights and the not so highlights of that adventure:

We saw a porcupine climb up a tree! Yah, who knew that porcupines are huge and climb trees?!

We never found a flat place to put up our tent, so at 2:30 in the morning after hiking a little over 5 miles - taking every possible branch in the trail and bushwhacking off the trail hoping to see that "just around the corner" perfect camp spot - we finally admitted defeat and settled for a less than desirable tent location on uneven, hard, bug covered ground. I wouldn't say we cursed Ben's name, but we sure had a lot of "what was he thinking telling us to come here?" moments.

All was forgiven in the morning when we saw the lake in the light. Wow! It was gorgeous, and we had a great morning playing on it. The forest service had canoes for public use, and we spent some time paddling out on the water (it felt SO GOOD TO BE ON THE WATER!). There was also a really nice forest service cabin that you can rent out for $30 a night. The family that stayed there through the night left early in the morning so we had the whole place to ourselves. We definitely want to come back to this lake, as we wanted to spend the whole day there but had to turn back to get to work by 2.

Also this week we did the West Glacier trail - hands down our favorite trail we've done so far. This 7 mile round trip trail takes you up to the Mendenhall Glacier, and from there you can take your time exploring all around this enormous, beautiful piece of ice. There were ice caves, and glacier arches, and waterfalls, and just about everything you could imagine in an Alaskan dream.

Best tasting water you'll ever have.

The weather has been surprisingly warm the last couple of weeks so we decided to go for a swim on Saturday before work. We went out to Auke Lake and played around. Chris had fun using the rope swing, and I started to hate mosquitoes even more than normal as I realized my wet body seemed to be their favorite thing in the forest. Cool fact: Auke Lake looks black because of the tannin from the spruce trees - these are the same chemical compounds found in coffee, tea, and wine. But don't worry, we kept our mouths closed so we're still good on the Word of Wisdom.

On Sunday we taught Primary for the first time. We found out that we were actually just going to be subbing for the Valiant 10 class for 2 weeks and then were going to be permanent teachers of the Valiant 9 class. The teacher of Valiant 10 has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and the primary presidency assumed she would want to be released. She has asked to stay in her calling, so we will sub for her while she is in treatment, and then will take over the other class once she comes back.

Sunday evening we were invited to dinner with another young couple from the ward - Brooke and Garrison. They have the sweetest 14 month year old daughter, and it was so great getting to know all of them better. Brooke cooked halibut to make it a true Alaskan affair. They moved to Juneau the same week we did, so like us, they are new to the area and trying to make friends. After dinner we took a walk by the ocean where we ran into the bishop's family! It was a lot of fun and we look forward to doing more together.

Here's the best part of this post, which is this announcement at the end.........

Next spring, from April to August 2016,

we are going to thru-hike all 2,650 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail! 

Now, for anyone thinking that sounds a little crazy, or a tad bit dumb we want to redirect your questions and concerns to Aunt Susan. After much badgering, uncontrollable pressure, and refusal to take no for an answer, she has forced us into making this decision. Don't believe us? Here's the picture proof:

Our planning is well under the way and you will continue to receive updates as we prepare for this epic adventure. You will also notice changes to our blog as we give it a makeover to include a new page specific to the PCT.

Remember to pray and remember to play,

Mr. & Mrs. We-Make-Crazy-Decisions-Together Andrew