newz

Greetings from AK, folks!

I know it has been a while, I had to fly out of town for a while. I will ask that you please take a moment and pray for Mindy Edgar and her loved ones. I posted a memorial to her tonight, so if you get a chance, please check it out.

while I was in Washington, I got the chance to meet Emily and Ernest Van Eaton's newest little girl, Mary. She is ADORABLE!!! So, congratulations to both proud parents and big brothers.

we just found out that Alyse Anderson and her Beau are pregnant



Uncle Harold Parnell is doing well, I am proud to report, he pulled through his surgery with wonderful results and shocked the heck out of the doctors. Please say a prayer for his further recovery.

Nothing more to report, I will try to post again soon

Oh, by the way, I would like to thank Sarah Henderson (3hendos) for helping me with the memorial post.

Please be safe and have a wonderful rest of the week.

Goodnight from the

Dear family and friends,

Please take a moment to remember Mindy Edgar of Eatonville, Washington. She meant so much to everyone who knew her and will be missed. Please be careful and stay safe.



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T.P

I survived!!! My shift went sooo slow. I had one phone call and one check out, that was it! After six hours of watching "That 70's Show" (yes they allow us to have entertainment, I asked), the jokes got old. My highlight??? I went to the bathroom and found there to be no T.P, boy did I have to go! So I gave my loving and sweet hubby a call and had me bring a roll (there was none anywhere, and I had no keys to get to the supply!) Talk about wanting to kill somebody!!! Anyways, Jeremiah and I are heading to Valdez tomorrow. So I will not be posting until Monday or Tuesday. Goodnight from the IglooDwellerz!

CELEBRATE!!! :)

I GOT IT, I GOT THE JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They had me work last night (11pm-7am) It works out perfectly... and it pays 9.50 an hour. I get to sleep while Jeremiah is at work and then can be up with him from 4:30pm-11pm. There is really nothing to do on this shift except for making sure the building is still standing and the computer system is still sorta working (I have bad luck with that part!) Anyways, I am going to go and crash now (I have been up for 21 hours straight). Hope all is well on your end have a good morning/night.

-IglooDwellerz :)

SCORE!!!

Guess what??? I may have scored a job!!! I am so excited, and confident. I am supposed to find out later today or tomorrow if I got it. Keep your fingers crossed. Not much else is going on. We hope that today is a good day for you. I will post more later. Have a great day.

-IglooDwellerz

Vow Renewal

I am going to travel back in time for a bit, and post our vow renewal photos. As all of you know, Jeremiah and I have been married for a year and a half. We had a "military wedding", it was special, but we wanted to do it right! So we had a vow renewal ceremony in a church in Eatonville, Washington and a reception following. We had a great time. During the ceremony, we had a rose ceremony (where we swapped a sinlge red rose as a gift for our one-year anniversary). We also had a ring ceremony, we had tweaked the vows for that to fit our occasion and meaningful to us. We also had a slide show played to our original wedding song. our wedding party had the following people: Gloria Lowe, Ashley Thomas, Monica Vlasik, Mia Snyder (Flower girl), Isabelle Snyder (flower Girl), Scott Snyder (ring bearer), Nick Olson, Jacob Westerlund (best Man), Alyse Anderson (Maid of Honor). Jeremiah and I would like to thank those in the wedding party, those who helped set up and tear down. A special thank you to Sharon Van Eaton ( she helped decorate, and played lovely music for us), Chris Cimino (She worked SO hard and also video taped our ceremony and reception for us), Bob Walters (He took lots and lots of lovely photos to remember this day with, Lanore Callahan (she was the wedding coordinator and did an excellent job), Jean Kilts and Family (they also helped coordinate and decorate as well as doing the food, it was tasty, Finally a big thank you to Mary Schactler and students (They worked after school to put our flowers together and they were gorgeous. (My run on sentance is complete!) Everyone contributed in such a big way from travel, to decoration, to support. We wish we could name everything, but those of you know who you are and hopefully know how thankful we are.

The flower girls and ringbearer were so cute, they provided laughter and a much needed stress relief. The ringbearer decided that he wanted to take a nap once he made it up the isle. I wish I could have done the same!

As I mentioned earlier, Sharon Van Eaton played the piano for our ceremony. She also helped us out in numerous ways leading up to the event.

Pastor Paul Walker of the Eatonville United Methodist Church did an excellent job helping us coordinate and putting our Vows together for us. His words were very well chosen and are a cherished memory for us. Thank You Pastor.

Jeremiah and I did a ring ceremony wich was unique and perfect for us.

The Rose CeremonyWe both took a moment to reflect on our love and life as we listened to our original wedding song, the slide show should be posted at the end of this post enjoy.The Kiss

I now introduce (again) to you Mr. and Mrs. Westerlund

The reception was short, but fun. There were quite a few folks that showed up and lots of good food. Thanks to Jean Kilts (and family) and Lanore Callahan. The reception hall looked wonderful.

All of the guests had a wonderful time getting to visit with one another.

The cake... where to start??? It was soooo yummy. Annyone who is in the Eatonville area, I HIGHLY recommend Truly Scrumptious Bakery. Jenny (the owner and cake lady) did a wonderful job, not only did it look perfect, but it tasted just as good.

Somebody told us that you never get to have a lot of food at your own party, boy, ain't that the truth! What we did have was great!

Every one who gave a speech at the reception had very true and loving words. Terry Van Eaton gave a speech on how you can have a Sears marriage, where if you don't like something, you can take it back and exchange it for something you do like; or you can have a marriage from the Lord, where, yes there are road blocks, but with him you can work it out and grow closer as a result. All in all, this was better than we could have imagined, and the reason is because of everyone involved.

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From a wife's point of view:

If someone would have come up to me when I was a senior and told me that I was going to join the Air Force, learn how to cook, go to Alaska and meet the man of my dreams only a year and a half later... I wouldn't have believed them. I am glad for each trial and tribulation, strength and weakness, for each friend I made along the way for each enemy , for each experience that I have been through. Because without them, I wouldn't have the great family I have today, nor the knowledge that one can only get from living. If things hadn't turned out the way they did, I would not be a wife or have the love of my life to hold and hug each night. Thank God for my life, family, friends, and my husband.

Happy Clamming!!!

Good to see you again!! Jeremiah and I made it back to civilization after our adventure; if you want to call Kenai "civilization". We had crept away from construction and horns for a camping trip. Jeremiah started digging things out of the basement only to find that our queen sized air mattress was (hopefully) still in Fairbanks at his parents. We had two choices, 1) drive ten hours; 2) settle for a matt *sigh*. So, hubby knowing that I love to shop sent me to Fred Meyers (like a Target store for those of you who have no idea what Fred Meyers is), I practically ran to the camping section, and low and behold all of the air mattresses were all on SALE. So, I scored a foot pump (I'll explain that later), and a queen sized air mattress for a grand total of: 27 BUCKS!!! Tell me I'm good! Anyways with a "cat got the canary" smile plastered on my face, I rushed home to help hubby finish packing. We loaded up the car (matches were remembered this time!), gathered up the mutt, and headed out to our favorite spot, Clam Gulch. We arrived at 10:00 pm, (you guys all know what a horrible procrastinator I am) and what did we find? A completely crowded campsite. Both Jeremiah and I had heard that Ninilchik (Alaska is worse than Washington with those weird names), was a better place to get clams anyways. Not knowing where the campsite and beach were, we drove on. We came accross a site that had just opened up two days prior. It was right on the buff over looking the beach and ocean. To make it even better, one of the owners helpers brought us firewood free of charge. Jeremiah immediatly started wrestling with the tent (they get harder and harder each year, at least that was his excuse) while I wrestled with the dog, there were so many other dogs, and they were not leashed up (my one complaint)This is what our home started as, I silently prayed that the tent would just put it's self together so we could curl up under our mound of blankets. The wind was freezing!The Fire King had his fun with making a fire. The wind fought him all the way!

All the while, I was trying to blow up the air mattress. ( Side story: Last year Jeremiah and I ran into the same problem, we left at about 10:00 pm on memorial weekend to go camping, we went to three campsites only to find them full. We drove 37 miles and finally found a place to set up camp. We had the air mattress, but no pump, so what does my oh-so-smart husband do, (at 1:00 am) he uses an emergency tire pump (it sounds like an air compressor) to slowly, but surely, blow the mattress up. I was mortified, it took 40 minutes. Most of the other campers were still awake and drunk, but still it was Utterly the most embarrasing thing in the world at that time, and to make it worse, he set the mattress and emergency tire pump up on the HOOD of our car which was facing the road and the rest of the camp site. I almost died.) This is why I made sure to buy a foot pump. It only took 15 minutes this time and was MUCH quieter. Once we were all set up, we threw a couple of hamburgers on the fire. Even though we made a list to pack and made SURE that matches were at the top, we managed to forget the spatula, so my crafty man widdled a stick down and figured out how to flip the burgers using that.



Lady was so excited, there were so many other pups to play with, and tasty food cooking that must be for her. I think she was trying will a burger patty to jump out of the pan and land in front of her. With no avail she went back to begging.

Despite the fact that it was pretty cold, it was perfect. We even roasted a couple of marshmallows, by that time, I don't think any of us could feel our fingers or toes.



Finally we crashed for the night. Although, a certain mutt kept me awake, trying to sneak a bark here or there and trying to wake us up so she could go out and play with the loose dog that kept sniffing the tent. When we woke up the next morning, the wind was gone, the sky was blue and the view was gorgeous!
We fried some bacon, eggs were not possible due to the lack of spatula.
Lady finally got to play with the other dogs for a few minutes, later we learned that her new friend was named Charlie and got a chance to meet his owners. Low tide was supposed to be at noon. There were supposed to be a lot of people (and there were) going clamming on the beach, the low tide was -4.2. So we packed up our clamming gear and headed down to the beach. The owner gave us some advice and wished us "happy clamming". The Jeep was not very easy to drive through the sand, but we made it. We started to walk through a patch of mud, only to sink about 9 inches. "we've been duped" Jeremiah said as we were laughing at our own stupidity. We finally found the not-so-wet mud and found a good place to start. Jeremiah stuck our clam gun down into the sand in hopes to find a razor clam.
Jeremiah has dubbed me the "Dimple Queen", as I was good at finding the dimples in the sand which had clams under them. My response was to tell him I knew this and I had a very fine set my self! Fifty-eight clams later and we decicded to call it quits.
Muddy, but happy we headed back to camp to start the process of cleaning.


I left the cleaning for Jeremiah ( I get nauseated at these things). I hunted down somebody to give us a refreasher course on how to properly clean the clams. Annie, a young girl helped us out. I took a siesta (thanks to our mutt keeping me up all night, next time I am sleeping on the inside of the bed) and let Jeremiah have fun with the clams. Four hours later we were on our way again.

Jeremiah wanted some ice cream. so we hunted down the only Dairy Queen in the state of Alaska. It was a great treat, however to my dismay I found that not only did jeremiah have a nice sun burn, but my nose and cheeks had gotten a pretty good one as well.

We were pretty exhausted and thankful for a bed we didn't have to blow up. We had a blast and were Happy Clammers in the end. Our next adventure will take place next weekend when we head to Valdez for a couple of days to visit Jeremiah's folks. We hope that you have all had a fun and safe weekend and hope that this next week goes by quickly for you.

Good night from the Igloodwellerz.

cannabalism

Hey there! Howz it goin'??? We have discovered that we have a cannibal amongst us!!! We had our cute, sweet baby cockatiel perched on his play ground thing and sitting on the dinner table while we ate. I put a piece of chicken (fried) on his "plate" just to see if he would eat it. He took a
lot of intrest in it and continued to peck at it (the meat, not just the breading) throughout our
meal. That was the worst example of cannabalism that I've ever seen!!!! Do they have mad-
cockatiel disease??? It gave us a good laugh! He/she has finally
been dubbed with a name (besides it or as Jeremiah calls it, "rat-
monster") We have decided to call it Rube (Ruby if female, Rubert
if male, but Rube all the same). Thankfully he is getting better (he
was a bit sick there for a while). Though, his sense of balance isn't
really improving (he tends to fall over a lot).
Lady, our pup, is doing well; though she is in a bit of trouble for
getting into the trash. We are going to take her camping with us
tonight. It should be an eventful experience. We are going
camping at Clam Gulch. We will go clamming (hopefully with some luck) on Saturday, the tide is
supposed to be -4.2. Yes, we will probably freeze our butts off... It's above zero!!!
Hubby and I have been enjoying long bike rides the last couple of nights, there is this really nice park around our local baseball team's home field that has bike trails (cross country trails in the winter), excercise course, frisbee golf course, and really pretty scenery. We had fun, but I was wiped out (I'm a little out of shape!!!). That is all we have been up to, I will post again tomorrow. We hope that you are all doing well. Goodevening from the IglooDwellerz!!!

No Clammin' Around!!!!!

Hello, and welcome back (to you and us). After some minor road blocks, (operator error), we are happy to be back and able to bring you fun, silly Alaskan fun!!!As I promised to share our clamming experience here it is. I am going to try a different approach to this than I have been, so please bear with me!

Jeremiah and I loaded up the car, the mutt and our sense of adventure (and humor) and headed towards Clam Gulch; 30 miles away from our home

When we arrived, we realized that the high tides had barely beat us. Jeremiah gave a quick demonstration on how to use a clam gun (I had only heard of them). Instead of heading home, we unloaded Lady and walked up and down the beach for a while. (I will hopefully be posting a video of our dog "playing" with the waves, I don't think she understands where her "playmate" goes after she pounces on it!)After tromping up and down the beach for awhile, we all headed up to the bluff above the beach to a camp site over looking the water and mountains.

We got the car all unloaded and then realized that we had packed everything except for the matches. Thankfully we met a nice fellow named Doug. He was here from New Mexico camping. He saved dinner and our whole trip, so a special thank you to Doug!!!Having made a friend who gave us some matches, we finished setting up our base of operation. The wind fought us all the way while trying to start a fire, but eventually Miah got it going.

Lady was VERY busy barking at the slightest wind, smelling every grain of dirt, exploring her 8' by 8' radious. She really had her eye on those Bratwaurst that were strategically place just out of her reach! FOILED AGAIN!! regardless she got lots of treats, attention and yes some of the mouth-watering bratwaurst. I have to brag for just a moment, Jeremiah and I FINALLY mastered how to cook corn on a fire. The picture on the left is a previous attempt from the year before last...


Well, that is all of our Clamming adventure.

Good night from the igloodwellerz!!!