Merry Christmas!

Wow, it has been awhile since I have updated (Sorry Nana!). Lots has happened in the past 2 1/2 months, so I will try to do a quick recap!

• Hans and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary by going on a cruise while Jacob spent the week with Hans' parents in Colorado.
• Hans surprised me with a trip to North Dakota to go and visit Megan and Mike while they were in Bismark! 
• November brought the start of the busy holiday season, and with that visitors! My mom and youngest sister (Sara) came to visit us for Thanksgiving.
• December came and I went to Minnesota for Megan's baby shower on the 10th. We had a great girls weekend, and I can't wait for baby blueberry to come into the world sometime in late February or early March
• The following weekend, Hans had a "boys" weekend in Minneapolis with some friends. They went to the NHL game on Saturday night, and the NFL game on Sunday. This was his first time seeing a NFL gave live, and it was is favorite team playing as visitors (The New Orleans Saints) 
• This bring us up to Christmas! 

Jacob enjoyed coming downstairs this morning to find the family room full of new presents! He has enjoyed playing all day with all his new stuff!

 Stockings before Santa came

 The tree before Santa arrived

 The tree after Santa visited!

 Jacob's new train table and play kitchen

 Stockings after Santa visited!

 My new toy! Thanks hubby!

 The aftermath

 

Pumpkin Picking fun!

Tonight we had a great time going out to a local pumpkin patch! I have never been to one since they are not that popular in AK so this was a great new adventure for all of us! Jacob had a blast walking through the patch trying to pick up all the pumpkins. :) He was so cute stopping at one and trying to pick it up, and then saying help get it! He was able to find 2 small ones that he could carry and brought them home along with 2 larger ones.

The beautiful pumpkin patch!

We had a great time, and I am looking forward to making this a yearly tradition!

Now for an update!

Tomorrow our kitchen update will be completed! We order new cabinets in late August that match our current ones and they have finally come in. So tomorrow the installation company will be out all day to do the install. I am really looking forward to having an actual pantry cabinet in the kitchen!

Next week Thursday, after Hans' is off work we will start our drive down to his parents house in CO to drop Jacob off for the week that we are on our anniversary cruise trip! I am so ready to be on a vacation that we are completely unplugged! I know that I will miss Jacob while we are gone, but we are so ready to have a vacation that is just us! We will get to Mark and Diane's on Friday and then we fly to Tampa on Saturday. Then Sunday we board our cruise ship and sale away for 7 glorious days to the Western Caribbean! Then once we fly back to CO, we will start the drive back home that same day since Hans has to leave that Monday night for a class for work for the remainder of the week. So needless to we have a busy October!

Happy Birthday Hans!

Yesterday was Hans birthday! After he got off work, we had a girl from our new church come over to watch Jacob while we went to dinner and a movie! It was nice to be able to do something together on his birthday.

We are settling very nicely in our new house and town. We have found a new church to go to, and I even went to an event they had on Saturday. Everyone that we have met has been really nice and think that it is cool that we are from Alaska. We have been getting ready to close on the house, which will happen on July 11th! One of the first things that we are going to do once we actually own the house, is have a fence put up to keep Jacob contained. We have been getting quotes and looking at different options for the fence. This past weekend we went to Mitchell to Menards (like Home Depot or Lowe's) to see what they offered and we were very happy to see that they actually sell 8 foot fence panels! So instead of having to have each board attached here at the house, all that would need to be done is the posts put into the ground, and then the 8 ft panels attached! We have decided to go with panels that look like this.....  

 

We are hoping to have the fence installed shortly after we close on the house so that Jacob can play outside a little more and be safe! We are also looking at putting up a playset for Jacob. We priced them out when we were at Menards and can get him a pretty cool one for a good price.  

On onto some pictures! These pictures are from when Jacob and I were in Colorado. One afternoon, Oma, Jessica, Katherine, Julianna, Jacob and I went to a farm that is open to the public. Jacob was just fascinated by the chickens and spent a lot of time by their area. He also liked walking through the little creak they had. The last picture is of Jacob trying to take Oma's new puppy Baron for a walk. 

Vacation booked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In October, Hans and I will be celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary! I have been kicking around the idea of us going on a trip to celebrate. We both enjoy cruises (we have been on 2) and we have the itch to go on another. Without telling him, I have been looking into them and found one that I really liked. I got all the way to the purchase screen and then asked for his opinion. He liked the one that I picked out, but is hesitant due to him changing jobs and not knowing if he will have the leave time available. I asked him if he would be up to booking it if the cruise line still had the cancellation policy that would refund all the deposit up until the "pay by date". He said as long as this was still in effect that we could go ahead and book!!! I called to verify that if we needed to cancel, we would receive the $500 deposit back and we would as long as we cancel by August 2nd!

We will be cruising on the Carnival Legend for 7 beautiful days! We are leaving out of Tampa, FL and will be stopping at Cozumel Mexico,  Belize, Isla Roatan, and Grand Cayman! We are NOT taking Jacob, as this is a mommy and daddy trip! We plan on leaving him with either Hans parents, or my mom (we will let them fight over who gets him for the week!)

I am so excited...October can't get here soon enough! I really hope that we don't have to end up canceling this as we are both looking forward to it!

December already???

Where in the world has the time gone??? I can't believe that it is already December! We have had such a busy few weeks and it is just going to get even more crazy over the next few weeks.

Jacob and I had a really good vacation to CO! We enjoyed spending time with Oma, Boppy, Jessica, Caleb and the twins Julianna (Jules) and Katherine (Kat). We went to the children's museum and had a blast! It is such a neat place to take kids. Another day we went to the Denver zoo and had a great time looking at all the animals. We lucked out the day that we went to the zoo as it was in the 50's. The day before and the day after it was down in the 30's! We also enjoyed shopping (OK, so I enjoyed it more than Jacob!) at stores that we do not have here in AK. Then before Oma and Boppy left for Hawaii, we took the twins and Jacob for pictures. They turned out so so so cute! (look below for some examples!)

Once we were home it was time for Thanksgiving! I cooked a big (19lbs!) turkey along with the fixings. We had Megan and Mike, as well as my dad and my uncle Tom over. Megan made some really yummy rolls to go along with our yummy dinner. :)

The next week and a half will be busy doing things around the house and town. My mom and sister Sara are flying in on Saturday night. Hans and I will be at his companies Christmas party, so we will see them after we leave that. My mom is only staying until Wednesday and then she is flying onto Canada for a few days while Sara stays here with us. Then on the 14th, Sara, Jacob and I will all fly down to Las Vegas and stay there until the 17th when Hans comes down. We will then make our way to my moms in AZ for Christmas and then we are going back to Vegas for NYE!!! During the time that we are down in AZ, Hans will most likely be making a side trip North Dakota to visit a company that he interviewed with this past Monday via Skype! The interview went really good and we have a good feeling about this job prospect!!

OK for some pictures:

Denver Children's Museum

 Pictures from JCP

 

 Mommy and Jacob at the Denver Zoo!

 And last, but not least....Jacob with Santa!