The Road by Cormac McCarthy

I just wanted to recommend this book to all. It's fantastic and kind of heart-wrenching but worth it. Read it!!

Summary of the fall...

okay, okay. so it's been about a million years since i've last posted (and i'm serious - a million!) and i decided that i let you all know that i'm still alive. so shawn got home a week after i got home in october and then we had two weeks to romp and roam and do whatever we want. :) so we went on a little adventure to fairbanks, alaska to go to the hot springs up there. it's about a 7 hour drive north. we coasted into town just as it was starting to get dark, found out where the hot springs were and started driving. now, we were driving our "new-to-us" audi and one of the down falls of it is that the dash lights don't work so when it's dark you can't see the gas gauge. you can probably guess the rest of the story but i'll fill you in just in case you don't get it. :) so we started driving down the road to Chena Hot Springs and the last time i was there i remembered it as being right outside of town. after about a half an hour we started panicking. and then our gas gauge light came on notifying us that we were about to run out of gas. unfortunately for us we had passed the last gas station a bit before and it closed at 8pm. all the normal 24 hour gas stations were all the way in fairbanks, so that didn't help us any. and to add to the suspense a bit more i had no cell service since we were driving down a very narrow valley AND it was -10*F. COLD! remember that i had just come from arizona and shawn from iraq. jumping from +90* to -10* was quite the experience! so we found a little road side motel/restraunt and pulled in. as soon as we walked in the door the old lady gave us an odious look and decided that she didn't like us. i pleaded and pleaded and tried to pull every trick i knew but she would not give us any help or any gas. we decided to try our luck to see if we could make it to the hot springs. we did have a good sleeping bag in the car that would tide us over if we did get stuck out there. we barely made it to the hot springs and were so happy to not have to freeze to death in the snow. so then we got our room and asked and pleaded with the hot springs people to please have pitty on us. did they? nope. i actually overheard them say "not to get involved" with us and our predicament. in the morning after trying everything i could think of i remembered i had roadside assistance (why did it take me all day to figure that one out?!), we called, they brought out some gas and we only had to pay for the gas. so... the moral of the story is (1) that fairbanks people aren't always that helpful (no offense if you're from there - maybe it's just the chena hot springs road people) and (2) always remember roadside assistance! haha! anyhow, on our way home we made sure to stop at north pole, alaska and go to santa's house. unfortunately santa was away getting ready for christmas and was only there on weekends, so i didn't get to sit on his lap. :( as a side note, if you send a letter to the north pole it might just appear on the wall at santa's house. there were tons and tons of letters pinned to the walls there from kids all over the world. it was really fun to read them!

in november we went down to idaho for two and a half weeks to see shawn's family. it was fantastic to get to see all his family. and for those of you who are wondering, yes, shawn did get an elk. the majority of the meat is still in idaho (we'll pick it up in april on our way to north dakota) and we got the jerky shipped up to us. delicious!

then christmas. whew! it's always a busy time of year and this year was no exception. one of the most time intensive presents that i gave was for my parents. i did a charcol drawing of a photo of three moose that i took in 2004. everyone was amazed and astounded :) and it turned out great! i'll put some pictures up here of it when i remember to bring my cable to hook up my camera to the computer. after christmas we went out to crooked lake with my whole family (minus one sister and family and my youngest brother) where a brother-in-law's family owns a cabin out there. you drive right on the ice to get to the cabin (taking a boat didn't quite work on the ice). we played in the snow a lot and built some great snow caves - one of which works kind of like a slip-n-slide with a snow tunnel over it. quite fun! that brings us pretty much up to date and i promise that i'll try to keep everyone current! we don't have reliable internet at our house which makes email and all this other stuff quite difficult.

hope you didn't fall asleep reading this! i'll be sure to have pictures in the future. :)