Sunday, November 16, 2014

Alaska Day! A sign maybe?

I forgot to mention that John and I chose not to go on our camping trip for our anniversary because we new we'd be going to Alaska the next weekend hehe so that was actually planned and believe it or not October 18th is not only our anniversary, it's also Alaska Day! How perfect, it must be a sign :) Happy 9th Anniversary to us!



http://alaskadayfestival.org/

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Going on an adventure!

Well the cat's out of the bag, John and Em are going on an adventure to Juneau, Alaska! That's right we're moving to the beautiful town of Juneau on the south east peninsula of Alaska. We're SO EXCITED! If you're not familiar with the geography of the state, you can see Juneau on the map below. As you can see Juneau is surrounded by ocean and mountains, but has very few roads and there are no roads leading into Juneau so you can only fly or take a boat to and from Juneau. Wild right? Juneau is a temperate rain forest on the coast of the Gulf of Alaska so it rains quite a bit and is actually warmer than many parts of Alaska, the climate is similar to Seattle. However it is MUCH smaller so you don't get any traffic and in our opinion much prettier :) Juneau is surrounded by mountains that are covered in snow year round and absolutely beautiful. Juneau also has a ski resort that gets snow in the higher elevations, although it rains a lot it snows enough to have lots of fun. Snow shoeing, skiing, ice skating and even ice climbing! This beautiful part of Alaska is called the valley of the Glaciers because there really are a lot of glaciers that have run/bike paths leading straight to some of them from town! How awesome is that?! Mendenhal Glacier is a huge, beautiful glacier on one end of Juneau that has ice caves underneath we can go explore and the glacier lake freezes over in the winter. Locals ice skate on it, instead of a man made one! In the summer time this place is so incredibly green (more green than it is now) surrounded by beautiful mountains and has an ocean full of whales and some of the best fishing in the world. The locals say that after a year, you'll think of whales like we do cows because they're around so often. That is so freaking COOL and I can't imagine getting sick of that sight. The little wannabe marine biologist in Em is ridiculously excited! Juneau also has an awesome running club that puts on a lot of events all year including a marathon and triathlon. Everyone she spoke with up there participates and encouraged her to come join them. There's even an Ironman nearby :)
Although Juneau is known for much less sun than the average place in America and gets a lot of moisture, it is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen when it clears up. How do I know? Well as some of you recently found out, John and I had the opportunity to fly to Juneau a few weeks ago because an old coworker of John's asked if he'd still be interested in Alaska (when John and I were in Poky, he applied for an internship up there, but it didn't work out). His prior coworker had given John's name to Hecla mining company in Juneau because they asked him who would make a good cost analyst. Isn't my husband awesome?! So John applied and after having a successful phone interview they scheduled an onsite, but insisted that Em came because they wanted to make sure that the whole family is on board for this experience. Well that only helped sell Em on the idea and on the last day of the interview at dinner (did I mention they took us to sushi) they offered John the job! While in Juneau, Em set up a meeting with a few people from the school district to discuss potential job opportunities and to give them her resume. That went really well and Em is going to have a lot of opportunities up there. She is getting her final semester of school (student teaching) all set up in Juneau and she's waiting to hear on a few jobs :) Did we mention over the summer they had sped, PE, and adaptive PE jobs :D After talking about it for a while and trying to defend staying in Pullman we decided that it just didn't make sense and that this was way too good of an opportunity and an ADVENTURE. We said "Why Not?" we're young, with no kids or a house holding us back so let's do it! It's going to be quite the adventure and will take some adjusting, but like the locals say you just embrace it and love what Juneau has to offer and you'll love it. Thank you to our friends and family that have been so excited for us and shown their support, it means the world to us. We know some aren't real thrilled, but we are and we know this is what's best for our family at this time so that's what matters! The memories we've made in Pullman and the relationships we've built will stay with us forever. Em wishes she could take her kiddos with her, but technology will have to do. Em's department even chose to support her from Juneau by flying her to San Diego to present at the national CEC conference in April, even though they has already planned on it from Spokane. What an amazing department! Em really knows how to pick em ;) John will be starting work on December 1st and jumping on the ferry November 26th. His new job is going to move ALL of our stuff for us, and it'll be an adventure just getting there. We'll drive our cars to Seattle to jump on a ferry and take a 2 day trip to Juneau with the pups and TJ and then get the rest of our stuff a few weeks later. John is going to fly back down for Christmas and then we will take the kids and Em's car to Seattle and jump on the ferry. We'll be there before New Years! We'll be back in Pullman in May for Em to graduate with her masters! We couldn't be more excited and blessed to have such an amazing opportunity and are looking forward to this great adventure!
 Us in front of the glacier after Em met with the school!
 The waterfall near the glacier!
 Part of an beautiful and sacred memorial. The memorial of St. Theresa!
  The view right after it opened up from the fog :)
Mendenhal Glacier!

For more pictures check out Em's google plus link below.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/108861661253026254795/albums/6076864817279604401?authkey=CKzfiNLf6YCqLA

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Holy Smokes it's already November!

Geesh, I can't believe it's November 4th already. WOW time flies! Em was just saying to someone yesterday that she graduated from college last year, but it feels like it's been many years. Is that possible? How is it that we have lived in Pullman for 2 years now? Not only that, but we have married for NINE YEARS :O that is pretty crazy! So much has happened in 9 years and we have come so far in that time together. John and I picked a beautiful time of year to get married, but it wasn't actually the best time in regards to schedules. We often take a day to go somewhere outdoors and celebrate, but this year we have just been so insanely busy and the weather didn't really play out for us. Instead we grabbed a bite to eat where John got to enjoy a bib and a lot of sauce!

You could say that Em got a pretty amazing anniversary gift, but it wasn't really planned ;) Em enjoyed yet another amazing state conference in Boise at the beginning of the month. She got to see her friend Samo, who she hasn't seen since she moved from Pocatello and attend some great sessions. She even won a small gift for buying a ticket to help a group of students head to the national conference. She also gained a bigger distaste for big cities and the traffic that comes with them. Cities are nice to visit, but we would never want to live in one. I know Boise is a small town for most, but we like really really small towns :) However the day that she left Em's jeep decided to really break down. She had been having some minor problems before hand, but John had done some work on it and thought things were fixed, because they acted fixed for a bit. By the time Em got to work that day, her car was over heating and she had to park it for a while. It continue to over heat so she got to take John's baby on its first long trip and drove it to Boise. When Em got back, John and his friend Mike had done almost all the work they could on her jeep, but it was still struggling so she took it into a shop and they reported a hefty 3,000$ fix and a lady that had a lot of miles on her. So then came the decision...do we fix her or do we trade her in? After getting a second shop's opinion and talking with the Jeep dealership, we decided to get Em a newer car with better gas mileage and whole lot of other updates. The dealership gave us a great deal and Em is quite happy with her new rig which includes heated seats, auxiliary, traction control, and anti lock breaks! She's looking forward to getting bigger tires ;)  

John enjoyed his first conference, a Project Management one in Phoenix Arizona and returned on Halloween. He had an awesome experience and learned a lot. He also received a lot of confirmation on the direction he is going with his career. He got to fly over the Grand Canyon and Mt. Renier, which were both incredible. He looks forward to going to more conferences and traveling more. Oh and Em is pretty proud of herself for encouraging him to look into the idea ;)

On top of Em's conference and her broken down car, she had more news shared with her the day she left for the conference that contributed to the roller coaster ride. She received an email the morning of her trip that the article she wrote with her professor was accepted for publication in the biggest special education journal! She was and is so excited to have such a blessing in her life. Things are already moving along quickly and as soon as it's published she will be able to share it all with you. That is one step closer to a great career for Em and she's extremely grateful for her professor who supported her in the process, this wouldn't have been possible without her. 


Anyway, well welcome to November and the ever extremely ridiculous early time of Christmas. Can we please enjoy Thanksgiving and turkeys? Christmas is great, but the Turkey wants to keep its month and the Klein's would appreciate saving Christmas talk until after Thanksgiving day! The end of the year always brings busy times thanks to school and the holidays, but it'll be over before we know it so we better enjoy it!