Three weeks old...where has the time gone?

Missing Jamaica

Baby and vacation photos

Elsa Grace Meyer was born 6/25/09. She weighed 9lb. 15 oz. We are home in Kotzebue now enjoying the summer weather (yesterday was 79 degrees!) We had so many photos to download from our camera since we got it back so this posting is going to be pictures from the new baby and our trip to Jamaica in the fall. I will post more from the rest of our trip soon....the pics take like 5 minutes each on our Kotz internet connection.

5 weeks and counting... breakup in Kotzebue

Five weeks left to go with the pregnancy and I'm not sure if I'm more anxious to have this baby or to move. It seems like we go back and forth on a daily basis. As of now, we are eligible to bid out of Kotzebue but we aren't sure we're ready to leave. In a lot of ways Kotzebue has been good for us and we will certainly miss the people we have become friends with here. Although I was initially skeptical of living in housing in such close proximity to all the people Aaron works with, it has been a blessing in disguise and made for a lot of good memories. Not to say there we haven't had our share of challenges, but overall when you chose to be happy where you are, you will be.

Breakup is finally on the finishing end here and as you can see from the pictures, we are mostly on dry ground. Eva loves to "go outside" and help daddy break up ice, clean up after Zoe, go to the playground and ride in the RZR. Zoe got a haircut and is on a weight loss plan after the vet said we put a few too many pounds on her this winter. Aaron is still training to run the Mayor's half marathon when we go to town. Eva and I leave in three weeks and won't be back until the baby is born. Next time I update this blog, we will be a family of four! I can't wait.

Mt. Redoubt

"No sooner had Redoubt volcano quieted down from a morning of unrest and commercial airline activity start to resemble normal when the volcano erupted again late this afternoon, the Alaska Volcano Observatory reported." -Anchorage Daily News

In Kotzebue we're waiting for regular mail and bypass mail which includes groceries like meat and produce. The airport delays have slowed deliveries, but some stuff is still trickling in. We did receive our shipment of organic produce from Washington yesterday. Eva ate two clementines and the whole container of strawberries within five minutes of opening the box. She said, "I love oranges...I love strawberries!" Austin dropped a gallon of Eva's milk this morning, spilling it on the floor, and we immediately rushed to the store to make sure we had some in the fridge. She typically goes through a gallon every other day (that is $10/gallon...you do the math). Fortunately she tolerates canned and boxed milk but sometimes the store runs low even on those items. It’s not much different than having the bad weather which we've had for the past several weeks. Sometimes we didn’t have planes for two days so we are kind of used to it.

I am also getting better at preparing the foods we keep in the freezer for just such an occasion. We have about 15 red salmon from this summer's Kenai trip, some whitefish from Kotzebue sound, and Aaron got half the meat from three caribou he and another guy shot last year. I made a pretty good pot of caribou chili and some caribou and mushroom risotto. The fish tacos were also a hit!

I'm just glad my doctor's appointment in Anchorage isn't until next week....I hope things have calmed by then.