Our Trip the famous Santa Claus House! North Pole, AK

We are so lucky to live in North Pole because any day of the week we can go see santa! Last night Jake and I went to the Santa Claus House (about3 miles from our house). I couldn't believe how big it was! I could have spent hours wondering through and looking at everything. There are thousands of decorations, Alaska gifts and of course Santa. Wednesday through Sunday you can visit Santa and have your photo taken! Just outside there are 2 of his Reindeer which are beautiful animals. We can't wait till Christmas to go back and visit agian!

Penny enjoying a Frosty Paws Ice cream treat!

Hi everyone! Today was a beautiful day! Nothing but blue sky almost the whole day! Jake hung up our new American Flag today! It looks great. I start my new "job" tomorrow morning so I'm really excited about that! This is a short work week for jake! He has a 4 day weekend so he is really looking forward to some much needed rest! We might go camping this coming weekend! Well it is getting late. We miss everyone so much! XOXO

Jake, Jen and Penny

Little Miss Penny!

Hello Everyone! We hope everyone is doing well! Here is a new picture of Jake and I. We took this picture tonight at Midnight!!! I can't believe it's so light out! We are really enjoying being in Alaska! We have finally adjusted to our new home! We have had a busy week! I start my new job on Monday! I will be baby sitting two kids monday-friday! I'm really excited! Jake had another busy week! He had a physcial training test tuesday morning and did great. His unit took a trip to the gas chamber on thursday but didn't go in. Penny is doing good! She really enjoys our afternoon walks! The weather has been great sunny and warm everyday this week. It is really starting to look like summer around here, lots of green trees, green grass and wild flowers. Today was exciting I was on post and saw 3 moose just eating grass! Then on my way back home I saw another cow moose about 2 blocks from our house! They sure are beautiful animals! Well thats all for today! We miss everyone and send hugs-n-kisses!

Love,

Jake, Jen and Penny

Our new home!

we love our new house! It's small but perfect! Thanks Aunt Rose for sofa! We love it!

Happy Mother's Day to our
AMAZING Mom's. We love you
Both with all our hearts. We wish
we were there today but your in our
thoughts. Thank you for being YOU!

All our Love,
Jake, Jen and Penny

Good Morning and Happy Mother's day! Last night we took some "Glamour" Shots of Miss Penny! She has so much character! The picture to the left is all her dumped out "babies"! She drags them all over the house!

Jake drove most of the way from Prince George to Fairbanks. He traded off driving the U-Hual truck with his dad and riding with me our truck. He did an amazing job!

Most of the road looked like this. Although most of the road was paved there we several spots were there was just loose gravel. For most of our trip we were the only people on the road except for the occasional truck driver (going way to fast).

For about 30 miles we saw signs warning drivers about free range Buffalo and We finally found the herd along side the highway. This Buffalo was about 15 feet from the drivers side of the truck! There was about 10 total all but this one was laying in the snow bank. It was really funny cause once penny looked up and saw the buffalo she started barking like crazy!

This is the inside of the Toad Rive Lodge gift shop and diner. All over the ceiling are hundreds of hats from all over the world. There isn't an empty spot. It was really neat to look up and see hats from back home! We even found a Seattle Mariners hat!

When we left Seattle our truck was brand new and shinny clean! Well by the time we arrived at Toad River our truck was a mess. In the back ground is the Canadian Rockies.

Once we left Dawson City we saw so many wild life signs but this was the most graphic! We never did see any sheep along the way but in the snow along the high way you could see tons of little hoof prints.. We did see several moose, deer, eagles, and caraboo.

On our third day we begun traveling through the Northern Rockies! The weather and road conditions changed a lot. At some spots there was so much compact snow and ice we couldn't see the road.

Here is a stretch of the high way between Fort st. John and Fort Nelson. The weather was perfect (but cold) and the road conditions were perfect!

On our second day we arrived in the famous city of Dawson Creek. It is the offical start of the Alaska Highway! We got to spend a lot of time here exploring. It was freezing outside though. With the wind chill it was 11 degrees outside! brrrr.

Penny did very good on our trip! She slept most of the day but when we finally called it a day she was very hyper! We were exhuasted but she was ready to play!

Here is Jake at our first stop on our Big Trip! We left Seattle at 9am and got to Prince George B.C at a little after Mid night. We didn't see much of Prince George we left early the next morning. All we saw was the inside of the Denny's at our hotel! Exciting huh!

Our New Home! It is a small 2 bedroom house about 10min from Fort Wainwright and 20min to downtown Fairbanks.

Hello everyone! Welcome to our first Blog! As everyone knows we moved to Fairbanks, AK last month. Jake has finished his first month at Fort Wainwright and loves it. I have been busy unpacking and decorating our new home! Penny seems to enjoy alaska. She made a new buddy... He is the Black lab next door and his name is Jake! Small world! The weather has been pretty good since we got here. It's hard to believe that locals are already getting ready for the next winter. The one big thing we have had to get used to is how light out it stays at night. Last night it never got dark. We are going to buy room darkening shades this weekend because it is hard to sleep when at 1am and it is still light out! Another things that is way different then home is the size of the Mosquittos. Right now they are all the females and they are the size of nickles. We go outside and are attacked by mosquittos! It's funny because locals call the mosquitto the state bird of alaska! Two days ago we saw moose right by our house! It was really neat to see her standing right by the side of the road. One local told me that Moose, Black Bears and Wolves live all around us. So maybe one day we will have black bears in our back yard! We can't leave penny outside alone because she is so small! But she loves to run in our fenced front yard. She chases the bugs and barks for no reason! Yesterday we had our cable TV and internet installed! It was very exciting for jake to watch the Mariner game! Well Im going get going now. We will update our blog as often as possible! But check out some of our photos from the drive up here!
All our love
Jake, Jen and Penny