Rainbows

We actually had 8 days of sunshine in a row!! It made life in Kodiak so much more bearable. Just having the option of going outside, whether we did or not, was so nice. I think it's supposed to rain today, although the sun won't be up for an hour, so I won't know til then.
On one rainy day last week, we actually had 3 rainbows in one day. It did give me some hope. Without sun, there is no rainbow...there was some sunshine!
On another note, Jacob is so scared of bears, even though we have never seen one. We were driving home from school one day last week, and we started talking about Kodiak bears. (His school is in an area where there are a lot of bears). "Kodiak bears aren't in MA." I said no, they aren't. His response was "they are simply too big to fit on an airplane." What must go on in a 4 year old's mind!!

Rain, rain, more rain

Once again, it has been raining for what seems like forever. We had a really bad storm a couple weeks ago that caused mudslides and a lot of washout on the island. Because of that, the river that the island uses for their main water supply was too dirty to use. As a result, we were on water restrictions for a few days. Now, here we are weeks later, but the problem is back. We are on a strict water restriction right now. If it gets any worse, we will have to boil our water. Once (if) the rain ever stops, things will hopefully get better.
Oh, the joys of living on a secluded island.

Please keep me in your prayers, I am having an incredibly hard time living here right now. Nothing about it feels like home...including my house.

On that note, have a good weekend!!

Another rainy day

It's another rainy day in Kodiak. I have absolutely nothing to do today and I hate that! Back home, I could always find something to do (most of the time it was just hanging out at my parents for a while, but it always managed to fill a few hours in the day). Uggh!

We had a really good day saturday. We went to a place called Fort Abercrombie and took a long (2 hours) hike. It was so nice out and we saw so many beautiful things. We met some friends there, so they were our hike guides since they do that trail a lot. Saturday night, CJ and I had a date...our first one since July! We did a babysitting trade-off with our friends. We watched their kids friday night so they could go on a date. It was a very early night, we were home by 7:30, but it was nice to go out and actually eat dinner and talk.

Sundays bring football, which brings a miserable Julie! It starts at 9:00 a.m here and ends around 8:00. That means that CJ is in front of the t.v from breakfast until after dinner. With 2 kids stuck inside on a rainy day and nowhere to go, it makes for a long day! I keep threatening to get a job on sundays, but CJ knows it's only a threat since there is nowhere to work here!

Fall is settling in. It's been around 33 every morning when I go to the gym. People have all their Halloween decorations up, I really need to get with the program and do that too. It doesn't quite feel like Fall without seeing the leaves change though. I miss Dunkin Donuts pumpkin muffins too! I did figure out how to make my own pumpkin spice coffee, so I don't miss that as much (although it's never the same as from a coffee shop).

I heard that some people check the weather here daily, although it doesn't change too much. The best website to go to is www.kodiakwx.com. That is the site that the pilots use, so it's the most accurate. It actually has some pretty interesting things on it.

Nothing else is new here. I hope everyone is doing well. We miss you all.

Blogging

I have decided to start a blog, due to the fact that I am so bad at e-mailing people back! I love getting and reading e-mails, but unless I respond immediately, I tend to forget to do it. I also feel like I write basically the same thing in every e-mail and it gets a little repetative.

Life in Alaska is very different from Massachusetts. The main reason is that we only see the sun 1 or 2 days a week. The rest of the time it rains. The rain is even different here...it blows sideways, not down. It is very depressing. We actually just had 3 sunny days in a row. It was only 45 degrees out, but everyone spent the last 3 days outside.

The lifestyle here is different too. It's a much slower pace here. In MA, I was dressed and ready to go somewhere by 8:00, whether I had somewhere to go or not. Here, I'm lucky to have eaten breakfast by 8:00. There's NOTHING to do, so no reason to get dressed! Yoga pants and sweatshirts are the common outfit here.

There is really nothing to do here, unless you are a hunter or fisher. With 2 small kids, that's not really an option for me. There is a small Wal-mart downtown that I go to just to get out of the house! (How sad).

Jacob is in pre-school 3 afternoons a week. His teacher is a coast guard wife who teaches out of her house. There are only 5 kids in his class, so he gets a lot of one on one attention. She claims they will be reading by the end of the year...we'll see!

Maia is 14 months and acts like she's 2. I think the "terrible 2's" are starting early here. She definitely has her own mind, and knows exactly what she wants. She and Jacob fight constantly already. This morning he got mad at her for wrecking his Lego house, she in turn head-butted him and screamed. It went back and forth for a couple of minutes, til Maia walked away and hit her head off the wall (which she does when she's mad)! She is a really funny baby.

CJ works less than a mile from home, which is the total opposite of Boston. He comes home for lunch almost every day, and even took Jacob out for lunch a few times. He seems to like his job here. He likes the guys that he works with, which is always good.

As for me...I've been getting up at 4:45 to go to the gym every morning (well, almost), to take a bootcamp class. It is really a good class. I told some people when we left that I would be back next summer either a fat alcoholic or in really good shape. The first one isn't really an option, so I guess I had to start working out!

That's about it for now. I'll update as often as I can!