Still kicking in Kodiak

Hello friends and family,

I have a new phrase for living in Kodiak "just good clean living." If one is going to be happy here on an Island of 13K people in the Gulf of Alaska you need to become one with your environment. What I mean is that you must embrase the outdoors and move at A LOT slower pace than in the lower 48.

I will explain the pictures that I am posting and then get on with the blog. One of the pictures is a picture of our house. I really like our house/townhouse/duplex. It is a 2 bdrm and 1.5 bathroom with a fenced in backyard. The neighbors next store are Brain and Carrie. Carrie is from Sitkah, Alaska and Brian is from Florence, SC. They have a dog that gets along great with Hogan and Brandy.

Another picture is a picture of a cargo ship just like the one that our goods were brought in on. I have NO idea how much it would cost to ship your whole entire house here to Kodiak but, if I had to guess, I would guess too much for me to move here.

The other pictures are from on top of Old Woman's Mountain here in Kodiak. One of the USCG's helicopters and one of the USCG's buoy tender. Hopefully I can throw one in there of me and some friend's on top of the mountail too.

I have made several great friends here and we try our best to keep each other busy. We get together every Friday night at one persons house and have a "themed" dinner and everyone brings a dish. On the weekends (weather permitting) we try to go hike one of the many, many trails here or go to the beach. This past Sunday we tried to prove to ourselves that we could go to the beach in 55 degree weather and have fun!

Our trip to the beach was a great success. We wanted to prove to ourselves that if we were going to be women living in Alaska who's husbands were going to be gone for up to 6 months out of the year that we could do this by ourselves. We managed to build a campfire and cook burgers and hotdogs without a hitch. I have one confession though, we did bring along lighter fluid (and use it). But, hey, it counts! We stayed out there for almost 6 hours! We can not wait to do it again.

Since my last post there has been a few bumps in the road. Hogan cut (rather sliced) his foot on something and had to get 7 stitches. He was also placed on the "physically unable to play list" for at least a week. This is NO fun at all. Also, I have now learned that I have an allergy to blackberries. Luckily a few benadryl took care of that.

A few things to just throw out there just b/c I don't feel like forming paragraqphs.

I saw 2 more bears last Thursday, I was inside they were outside.

Bear season is in full swing and bears are being spotted everywhere even on base where there is always activity going on.

There are no good restaurants here in Kodiak, anyone interested in opening up a restaurant in Kodiak?

I will trade postcards & Alaskan gifts to those who want to send me long sleeved shirts, sweaters and sweatshirts.

We definitely stop and smell the roses here in Kodiak, Alaska. You should too.

Much love to our friends and family back home. We really do miss y'all.