Thursday, May 20, 2010

Life in OK

I can't believe Steve's over halfway done with training, and we only have a few weeks left here. Time has gone by fast as Alec and I try to find fun things to do and Steve's been very busy with training. He's been doing great on all his tests, getting 100% on most of them. About a week and a half ago we definitely experienced Spring in Oklahoma with tornado warnings, softball-size hail, and strong wings. The tornado actually went through the next town south of us, but the hail made a lot of damage to our car (see picture). A few windows broke in our apartment complex, and many homes had holes on their roof from the hail, some holes made all the way through inside the house. Oh man, it was NOT FUN! Then again last Sunday another bad storm came through with strong hail which damaged lots of cars and buildings north of here and didn't come near us, but still was scary to think about the possibility of damaging our rental car too. Then yesterday the whole state of OK was under tornado watch with a few tornados touching down in different areas. I was watching the news all the day long but thank goodness we didn't get much where we live. It was still scary to think about the possibility of a tornado and more hail damage as the news kept saying we had a 9 out of 10 chance for tornados... Wow! Thank goodness for bathrooms! (Where they say it’s the safest place to stay in case of a tornado, if you don’t have a tornado shelter or basement). Besides all this violent weather we've been having fun at the library, parks, malls and hanging out with some people in our ward. Everyone here is very friendly! This whole time I've been here I kept forgetting to take pictures, but a couple days ago I decided to get that camera out. Here are some pics of Alec at the park, who turns 18 months in a couple days!!!
the hail
the carlots of homes look like this, with roofs patched from the holes
Alec eating fruit after the park
Silly boy
At the park







All he wanted to do was push his stroller around for over an hour
Picking "flowers"

Friday, April 16, 2010

AK & OK

It seems like every month it gets busier and busier for us. In the last month we went to Alaska for a week and moved to Oklahoma City. We went house hunting in Fairbanks, AK and found a nice place for us; even though it's another townhome (Steve wonders if we'll ever have our own detached home :)). It's a bigger place though, with 1800 sq ft, and the community has 6 little parks and tennis and basketball courts and a clubhouse. We looked around for 5 days, and this was definitely the best option for us. We're under contract now, so hopefully everything will run smoothly until our closing in a couple months. I flew with Alec with our Skymiles' points, and Steve flew on standby. On the way back, poor Steve couldn't get on a flight and he ended sleeping on an airport for 2 nights before arriving home. I'm so glad Alec and I didn't have the same problem. We started accumulating our AlaskaAir miles now, so that we don't have to run into the same problem in the future. One thing I didn't know about Fairbanks is that it doesn't snow so much there, it's just really cold. Steve's training started a couple weeks ago, and so we got all packed up and managed to fit everything in our Jeep. It was about a 10 hr drive, which we did in 2 days with Alec. I don't think we could have handled more than 10 hrs in a car with an energetic 16-month old. So now we're here in OKC! Steve's been doing great with his training and we have about 11 weeks left here. Then, we'll drive back to Colorado and pack our stuff into the moving truck so Steve can make the long drive to Alaska. Alec and I will stay a couple more days in Colorado then fly there to meet Steve. In between now and then I'm planning on making a trip to Brazil with Alec, because it will sure be hard in the next few years to fly all the way from Alaska to Brazil. Alec has been flying like crazy, and he does pretty good on the plane (hopefully that won't change). Alec has been talking so much (or at least trying to). He tries to copy a lot of things we say. He can say most words in Portuguese, but he sure understands English too. Lately he's been obsessed with a stuffed bear, which he calls him "Buddy" (my parent's Golden Retriever, which he loved). He pretty much thinks all animals are "Buddy." I ask him where Buddy is, and he brings the bear to me then says "WowWow"...which is the sound of a dog barking in Portuguese :) He loves to eat bread, and can say that too. But the funniest thing since he's been watching a Brazilian kid's show every morning, if I count to three in Portuguese, then he yells "Quatro" (which means "4"). It's sooooo cute!! I'm going out every day with him to parks, malls, etc. I'm trying to discover new places to take him to around here. Our life is definitely an adventure!!!

Alec loves this book, he says "Bah Bah" for Brown Bear.

In Alaska
All cars have an electrical chord to plug into to these yellow plugs in the parking lots when it gets really cold
Alec did good while we went house hunting...these are some of his expressions:





Our new home!
The Alaska Pipeline...pretty cool!!

At the airport in Fairbanks
Alec's first Easter hunt!!
It didn't take him long to open the eggs and eat all those M&Ms.

Here in Oklahoma at our furnished apt.

Missing everyone!!

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Good-bye Colorado

So we have a class date and it's April 7, which means we're going to be moving again in the beginning of April to Oklahoma City. Steve's training will last 3 months there and then we'll do our big 5-day move to Fairbanks, Alaska where we'll be living for at least a few years. Steve will be working as an air traffic controller in the Fairbanks airport. I can't believe it's coming up so soon...It will be really sad to leave CO. We've been here so long, and we love it!! We're going to miss our families a lot! I hope we can make good friends up there so we don't feel so lonely. We're sad, but excited at the same time. It will definitely be an adventure for our family :)

Here are some recent pics...

Out to lunch with some co-workers for my farewell
Alec posing for the camera

Love his teeth!

Serious boy

Silly boy

Cute boy

Love this boy!
Eating some candy...