Week One

I'm not sure how often I'm going to be updating this. Finding good cell phone reception is tough and typing this much on my phone gets old very quickly. I'll try to update it as often as important events take place. Anyway - getting to the good stuff. The first week here (which has really only been 5 days so far) has been really eventful. We've made numerous shopping trips to various stores around town and I've started to get to know the layout. Some familiar stores and businesses located here: Fred Meyer (two, actually - one has the greatest Starbucks ever in it and that's coming from a strong Starbucks critic from Washington), Walmart, Petco, Famous Footwear, McDonalds (two of them), Taco Bell (two of them), and Chilis. I'm sure there are a lot more but those are the ones I can currently think of. The layout is similar to Airway Heights with low buildings mostly stemming from the main couple roads.
Elson and I are trying to eat healthier including very low amounts of processed foods, no pork, less sugars, more organics, etc. Mostly it's his way of supporting me and I appreciate it! We have decided to keep Kaylani in line with that as well. Also - we have made the decision not to buy a microwave. It definitely sounds a little crazy, but we can survive without it and microwaves (which are expensive, by the way) just encourage eating processed, unhealthy foods (which are also expensive). So this is definitely going to be a period of growth and learning but we are up for it! :)
We had three of his friends over for tacos and they all seemed really nice, one of them shared my love of baklava and borek and they all appreciated the amazingness of Costco and how rough life is without it! I was so glad to find people I could relate to!
One of the first things we did was get Kaylani a pet. We understood that having a relatively small animal that she could play, bond, and grow with was crucial to her happiness here so we went to the animal shelter in hopes of rescuing a dog or kitten for her. Unfortunately, that didn't pan out very well, because the "shelter" was what appeared to be a house turned into a shelter full of extremely hyper, large dogs that even I couldn't control on a leash. The cats were extremely mangy and didn't appear to like humans at all. So, disappointed, we went home and continued searching craigslist. As ended up finding a litter of black lab puppies for very cheap about two hours away, so we took it as an opportunity to travel and got in the car. We arrived to find the cutest trio of females alongside their mom and ended up taking two home! We named them Kodiak and Cookie and they fit in very well with us so far!
On the drive back we saw the most gorgeous mountains that looked like a painting, and then stopped in North Pole to check on Santa. He was there with his reindeer and Kaylani sat on his lap and talked to him for a bit before we headed home.
We are still working on getting settled into our house and waiting for the arrival of our furniture which we just bought! We bought a couch and loveseat, a table set, lamps, and a couple decor items.
The hardest adjustment is definitely for Kaylani, she has a hard time understanding why we left and why we can't just "get in the car and drive to visit". She frequently says things about people being upset with her that she left them all alone and just doesn't quite understand the whole process. But we are taking it day by day and working with her to show her the positive.
Overall, Fairbanks (and the other areas I've seen) is beautiful and the people are really friendly. The air is clean and the weather is similar to Seattle (sweatshirt and flip-flops!). I really enjoy being here and have found a lot of really interesting places to go - like Denali National Park and Chena Hot Springs and in a couple weeks we're going to make the drive down to Anchorage (can you say COSTCO?). I am so thankful to have my amazing husband who has given me this amazing experience and is here to share it with me! Life is good!