It's been awhile...

Hey everyone! It's been awhile since I posted last, but I've been writing this post over the last few weeks so as you get closer to the end you get closer to now, make sense? Okay good! Now read on!

There are so many things to catch up on! First the snow finally melted a few weeks ago so now we are living in 80 degree weather and everything is blooming, which is beautiful! Second Brian had his birthday and turned 23, third Rusty went to the groomers and came back a whole new man! Fourth the sun is staying up longer so naturally it doesn't get completely dark anymore which sucks when you are trying to go to sleep, but I fixed the problem in our room! Lastly I surprised Kendael for her graduation!

It has definitely been a fun few weeks, we have been taking the dogs on walks almost everyday and they are loving the exercise! Rusty has a bit of a hard time when it comes to the long walks in the middle of the day because he's old and had a ton of fur on him so he basically felt like he was melting. Don't get me wrong I think we all feel like we're melting, going from 30 to 40 degrees to 80 in a week is a rough transition and it has made us very lethargic, but we are getting used to it slowly and trying to stay active. The worst part about it is all the mosquitoes, if you think you've seen giant mosquitoes you are wrong! These things are like dragons coming to attack you. They are giant and I hate them! The best part about the weather is that everything gets greener everyday! I figure by the time I come back in July everything will be done growing.

Brian turned 23 on the 25th of May and it was a very exciting day, more for me than him. He doesn't feel like it's important, but I did so I tried to make him feel special the best I could. I kept asking him what he wanted as a gift and he said he didn't want anything which was not helpful at all! I finally decided that I would make him a special breakfast, dinner, and a cake. For breakfast, which was at like noon, I made him birthday cake pancakes and I put a candle in them, but I promised I wouldn't sing to him. For lunch we were supposed to go on a walk around Chena lakes and have a picnic, but we got held up in Fairbanks doing who knows what. For dinner I was planning on making him homemade Mac N Cheese, but we got invited to have dinner with some friends. We had dinner and everyone sang to Brian and it was awesome! We then helped move some food storage and we saw a herd of elk that this guy has which was totally random, but really cool! Finally we had cake which took me forever to make, but it was worth it and Brian loves his cake!

We took Rusty to the groomers because he was burning up with all his fur! At first we were worried we wouldn't make it on time because I was hanging out with a bunch of ladies from church and Brian had a work thing he had to go to. Needless to say we make it eventually even with hitting every red light on the way there. We dropped him off and went and ran errands for the next 4 hours. We went to the dog park and let Thor run around while we ate our lunch and then we walked around one of the trails. We found a pretty sweet canoe place and we are very excited to try it out this summer. Towards the end we hung out in Petco and waited for Rusty, while waiting Thor discovered the Guinea Pigs and fell in love, literally. He would sit and cry at them while they ran around and when he couldn't see them he would run to the other side of the case and while he would cry he would lick the glass. Every time we would leave the case and walk somewhere else he would drag us back and repeat what he did before. He is very passionate about the things he loves. Eventually Rusty was finished and he looks so adorable! Even though they shaved his face...

I have come up with a solution to the daylight at midnight. It seems like one of those duh ideas, but it has taken us about a month to think this up and I am darn proud of it! We basically bought some black felt and Velcro, the kind with the sticky back. We then measured the window and put the Velcro up and cut our felt which we doubled up because one layer just wasn't enough. I realized right about this time that the Velcro we had gotten was the hook only kind so we didn't have the soft side, but lucky for us the felt sticks to the Velcro all by itself like a charm! I then sewed the two layers together and stuck it to the Velcro. The final result was so beautiful that Brian took the opportunity to scare the crap out of me, in other words it was pitch black!

I made a trip home to Cali for Kendaels graduation and I scared the crap out of her! I hid behind my moms car after we pulled up to my grandparents house and I waited until Kendael came down and I jumped out at her and she screamed and then screamed louder and then cried. It was so fun and then we went to Moe's and had BBQ and I was a happy camper! Then On the 6th of June she graduated!! I'm so proud of her!

I have loved being in California for the last 2 weeks. It has been so wonderful to see all my friends and have girls nights and beach days! I'm so excited for what the next few weeks brings me!