Happy December!

December is finally here! We are very excited for many reasons...everything is better with Holiday cheer in the air, work and school are winding down before the big break, and we are headed to the east coast in about two weeks! Best of all, we live in North Pole, Alaska!! Not "the" North Pole but does it really matter?! We have the North Pole post office, the Santa Claus house complete with reindeer, and LOTS of snow! Recently I received an email from my mother dearest and included was a list of children's names, addresses, and a brief description of their Christmas wants...

She volunteered my Santa-like skills at her work and of course, parents jumped at the opportunity to have a foe letter complete with a real North Pole stamping...the post office has VERY long lines this time of year but we don't mind waiting for this special touch.

"Santa's" letter may read something along the lines of "Billy, my elves told me you were a very good boy this year and that you love Sponge Bob...blah blah...be sure to thank your parents for threatening you to stay in bed...I don't like peekers when I'm putting my presents under the tree and when you're older, you'll understand" I was always being threatened to stay in bed and I thought my excuses were all so legitimate..."but I heard his footsteps on the roof"..."but I hear sleigh bells"..."but Santa won't come if you and dad are still awake"..."but he needs fresh cookies, more carrots, more milk...more anything!"

If anyone (I'm thinking Andrew's cousins...) would like foe Santa letters (much better than the one above) mailed out to their children, complete with mini descriptions that match their actual Christmas desires, please let me know ASAP. Send me a message via email or facebook and I'll do my best to send them out in time...from the unofficial North Pole :-)

Anyways...
It has been a longggg, slow week of venturing to work in the dark and coming home from work in the dark in -25 degrees...on the upside we will miss Alaska's darkest day of the year, December 21st :-) and it will continue to get colder :-(

School and Andrew's work just happened to be canceled the entire three days of last week because of severe ice (temperatures mysteriously were above freezing for those days and now they are almost -40 this week...). We enjoyed the extra time together and we celebrated Thanksgiving with our wonderful Alaskan friends. Unfortunately, our trip to Anchorage had to be postponed because of the driving conditions...but we were able to celebrate our one-year anniversary at a nice restaurant and catch-up on our black Friday shopping via amazon.com. One year already, YIKES! That went too fast! I can't imagine life with anyone else...it is wonderful :-)

Most importantly, an ugly Christmas sweater party is on our agenda for the weekend...pictures to come!

Enjoy the festivities of the season :-)

Also, if anyone is in need of THIS, let us know and we can expedite the shipping to preserve the freshness ;-) No Joke.