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

Boring and a Dogsled

This was a week full of homework, work, homework, not feeling well, work, homework, downtime, homework and work.

In our spare time we tried getting on a dogsledding tour - we got on but unfortunately it wasn't what we expected and we were let down when instead of gliding over the ice in a sled pulled by beautiful huskies we were just going through the woods on a wheeled cart (luckily at least pulled by Alaskan Huskies), and then spent time petting dogs and holding puppies. But it's really the only thing worth mentioning that's happened this week so here are some pictures for your enjoyment.

I also practiced my braiding skills on Christopher. One day when we have daughters they are going to ask us how I learned to do hair and I will simply show them these pictures.......and then send them to Anna so they can actually get their hair braided so it looks cute.

Remember to pray and remember to play,

And we'll try to remember to play harder too,

Mr. & Mrs. Andrew

We Got a Dog!!!

Just kidding. We did however dogsit for a full week, and took our job very seriously. The majority of our week was simply filled with going on runs and walks with Fynn. This was actually a really good experience for us as our time dogsitting made us recognize that we are not ready for the responsibility of caring for a living creature. Fynn not only needed to be walked twice a day but also needed to be fed twice a day and had to be let out to go to the bathroom. As Chris said, “How are you ever supposed to leave the house?” Not to mention neither one of us enjoyed picking up dog feces and having to carry it around until we saw a trashcan. So we probably won't be getting our own dog any time soon, but we sure had fun getting on some trails with Fynn.

This week we also spent a fair amount of time in the kitchen. After all, I had gallons on gallons of berries to deal with. So,

We made fruit leather for hiking snacks...

Only a small portion of the fruit leather we made. 

And freezer jam!

We also had the opportunity to take advantage of a sunny day and get some climbing in. We both really wanted to climb at a place called the Sea Cliffs (it's super beautiful and you can only climb it when the tide is low or there will be no place for the belayer to stand). After spending some time bushwhacking and searching for the climbs we were disappointed when they were finally found. All the bolts were completely rusted and although some rusted bolts can still be ok to fall on, it's impossible to tell which ones so we decided not to risk it. *We're more saftey cautious than most of you think - take a moment here to just be proud of us.*

There was a climb that was just off the road which we saw driving to the Sea Cliffs so we decided to do a quick climb there before heading home.

Other than all that our week was filled with lots of work, math homework, and yoga (I'm trying to get into it, and this was a good week as far as actually taking the time – Naomi should be proud). Oh, and we watched a really cool documentary called Breaking Ice with our friends Ben and Camille. Yah, we like glaciers.

Remember to pray and remember to play,

The Andrews