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Our sweet baby arrived November 19th, 2016, at 11:29 pm, weighing 8 lbs 10.5 oz and measuring 21.5 inches of perfection.

I can’t get enough of him. We’ve had 4 days with him in our arms and it’s heavenly.

(a picture from this very moment)

Yes, postpartum recovery is not easy- sore bum and peeps, sore nipples, exhaustion… but my heart is so full of love. And I have so much gratitude for all the thoughtfulness and help of heavenly and earthly angels along the way.

I still plan on blogging the birth story, but for now, here’s one of our first family pictures. So happy to have sweet baby with us. 

Love love love this sweet boy. And his father too. I just love and appreciate experiencing Chris as a dad. He’s wonderful. I’m excited for all three of us to cuddle in bed tonight, as soon as Apollo wakes from his nap. :)

Apollo Ray Palmer

19 November 2016

11:29 pm

Homer, Alaska

21.5 inches

8 lbs 10.5 oz

I haven’t blogged in almost two weeks! Sorry Alyssa. :)

Much has happened and I’ve learned a lot. BUT our sweet baby isn’t born yet! Hopefully within the next 24 hours he or she or she or he will arrive. I’m 10 days overdue today, but baby and I are both still doing totally fine. Pregnancy has been splendid and I’ll miss it, but I’m really looking forward to having a real baby to play with (aka take care of) and stare at! It’ll be magical. And hard. But really really special.

These pictures are before my stretch marks appeared. I made it, like, 38.5 weeks without stretch marks and now they’re growing everyday. But that’s alright. Chris said they’re just marks of one of the best times of my life. Word.

I love these two girls lots and lots. I maybe already blogged about the girls’ birthdays, but maybe not. They were both born in October and are two years apart.

Natalie being born was one of my favorite days of life. I was so so so happy to become an auntie. And now… I almost have a bebe of my own! I’m getting more and more excited. How amazing it all is and how blessed we are.

Our little babe will be very lucky to have Natalie and Katy around too. They’re so excited to have a baby cousin near by. And it’s so nice that my other sister’s babies will be so close in age to ours. Her little Hudson is just seven? weeks old and it’s so nice that she’s going through everything just before me, which helps me prepare mo’ betta.

Anyhoo, some pictures from Chris and I taking each of the girls out for a special birthday lunch! It was Natalie’s idea I believe, and I think it’s a lovely new tradition that I hope to always do.

Chris and I have some really exceptional and adorable and good looking nieces and nephews. Hopefully we’ll be able to see all the rest of them in January!

Also, one last shout out for me red check Sherpa flannel. Where would I be without it??

I  wish you could see the live photo of our sunday evening family walk. It cracks me up and my belly looks huge, because it must be pretty big in real life.

I enjoy Sundays. I enjoy going to church and setting the Chelsea reset or refresh button on life and self. I love seeing family and friends there. And today I really enjoyed the sacrament meeting talks. I didn’t enjoy sitting on the pews for 3 hours, since I’m heavy with child, but oh well. I can’t lay down everywhere and that’s okay I guess. I’m excited to have our little baby and take it to church and have it be blessed and take care of he or she. I think more people are thinking baby is a girl now, but a few weeks ago there were more boy votes. We don’t really know or have a preference. 

Sooooooo, today is October 30th, which means it’s my sweet Natalie girl’s birthday! She loves animals, Piper included. She’s so funny and curious and asks great questions. She’s helpful and compassionate and likes hearing old stories. This girl made me an aunt 10 years ago and I love her very muchly.

After church today, Chris and I went to family dinner/lunch at Natalie’s house. We made her a card, gave her a jar thing of bean boozled, and her very own can of whipped cream to eat whenever she wants. :) My nieces always get ribs as their birthday meal, so that’s what we ate today. Everyone loves them! Except me, I’m not a big rib fan and usually just have a teeny tiny bite to participate and to eat a bit of meat.

Chris and I came home and had the usual sunday sleepies, so I put on the Addams Family and we took nappies. His nap lasted for most of this weirdo movie, and I missed a few parts. What a bizarre story and kooky family, this Addams. But it’s October, so we must be festive and watch such things. 

As always, the cats napped it up too, and cuddled, then stretched out. Precious.

Then came our family walk with the beautiful sunset, and then my honey boy, Christopher Robin, finished painting the baby’s room that he started yesterday. Nice to have some fresh paint! We painted, I mean Chris painted, I didn’t do any painting… anyway, it’s painted FOG aka light gray. Bold, I know. I love our white walls in the house and now a bit of gray is good too.

I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies tonight and added a bunch of mediocre christmas movies to our netflix watch list. Halloween is almost over and I’m ready for the Christmas season! Hopefully we…. I mean Chris… will get our lights up outside tomorrow.

Tomorrow I get to put the nursery back together! I love that room. We’re taking natalie girl to a birthday lunch tomorrow too. And I need to do some visiting teaching and deliver some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. :) And then it’s FHE and Halloween! Not sure what we’ll do… maybe go out trick or treating with the nieces. Or maybe watch Casper. What a classic. Or maybe we’ll watch a couple hours of Blue Bloods like we often do. Or maybe I’ll go into labor. Who knows! I do hope our bebe isn’t born on Halloween, but sweet babe knows when is best. 

Last niiiiight was the ward Halloween party. It turned out super great in my opinion, and I’m happy happy that it’s over! I do not like being in charge of stuff. I’m totally good helping out from beginning to end, taking orders, giving suggestions, doing whatever, but I’d definitely prefer to not be in charge. So, I’m glad the Halloween party is over and I don’t have to overstress about it anymore. Everything turned out pretty great, except for a poor little boy who was jabbed in the eye with a sword. I guess it’s necessary to write “no weapons” on the flyer now… Also, kids maybe filled up with cupcakes and candy, which parents might not enjoy too much. But the chili cook off was great, the costumes were great, the carnival activities seemed pretty good, and the turnout was really great. Hoppy Halloween!

And here’s my Wilson and Mr. Castaway. I love our costumes. <3

Same ol’ stripes around here. Stripes seem to be my signature color of pregnancy, and of course this nifty to plaid Sherpa flannel that keeps me warm.

Currently I’m annoyed at the dog’s barks. We have a bunch of new neighbors and some new neighborhood dogs that Edel barks with and it’s super annoying to me. Anyway…. I still like her. And I’m so grateful she gets me outside and walking and such. But I don’t want her to wake a sleeping babe with her barking sometimes.

Speaking of sleeping baby, our little one keeps moving around quite a bit and I still love it. I love being pregnant. It’s the best. I love it.

I don’t really love that my pants have been ripping lately, but I just sew them up until they rip again. :) It’s mostly the inner thigh that keeps ripping, I guess because they’ve been so well used haha. Especially now that I only have a few pair of pants low enough and stretchy enough to work for my pregnant body. I tried on some maternity jeans at target a couple times and they didn’t work for me, so still going strong with the regular pants, when I have to have pants on at least.

Today I’m writing thank you cards for all the loving baby gifts we’ve received, and I’m listening to Christmas music! TIS THE SEASON. Well it’s not quite Christmas music season, but whatever. It is definitely pumpkin pie and pumpkin chocolate chip cookie season.

It’s also Halloween season. We’ve got our ward Halloween party tomorrow night that the youth/youth presidencies are in charge of. That’s been plenty of work for me and I’ve over stressed, but oh well. The party will be grand and I look forward to mine and Chris’s costumes! Stay tuned to see how precious and Halloweeny we will be. :)

ALSO Chris is famous. Proud of my Chris the aviator.

Anchorage is 220 miles away, or a four hour drive.

In the summer months, Chris and I make it up there pretty regularly to pick up visitors from the airport and show them around the Kenai Peninsula. In wintertime, we don’t need to go as often, and sometimes the snowy roads want to keep you in Homer. The roads were great though, and so was my Odie’s sandwich on the drive up. Also, super glad I wore my sweat pants in the car. 

Anchorage has costco and the temple for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Other than the airport, that’s why we go to Anchorage. Oh! And for our favorite Moose’s Tooth pizza. :)

A purpose of this trip was also to see one of Chris’s good friends, who was in Anchorage on a big layover of flying a cargo 747 from Hong Kong to AK. It was nice to meet him and hangout and spend time in a cool book store. And we all ate moose’s tooth pizza together with our other good Anchorage friends too. Success.

With a little baby arriving soon, we decided we needed to make a trip to Anchorage to go to da Lord’s temple and da Lord’s costco. ;) My dear mother took care of our animals for us, and so it was nice to not bring Edelweiss, though sometimes it’s really really great to bring her on our trips with us. There’s a hotel that allows pets that we stay at when we have her. But our car was so full of costco and target goods that we would didn’t have any spare room for the pooch. Since we didn’t have Edel, they gave us a non-pet room, which was great! We got Wendy’s frosties and ate them. Funny. Haven’t had a frosty in long time

My dear ol’ dad happened to be in Anchorage at the same time as us! He was at the airport for a few hours going from the slope (work) to California to be with my grandparents. Nice to see him! It had been a while since he’s spending most of his time not at work with his parents.

I just got paid from a bunch of summer work, so it was nice to have monies to stock up on our food storage and get some last things we needed for bebe. And I went to Value Village too, which is always excellent. I found some perfect snow boots and a great basket. I love baskets. And I love thrift stores.

Going to Anchorage = going to the temple, or at least it usually should. :) We helped out with some sealings, along with many other people, and it was really really great. So glad to have a temple in our state and just 200 miles away.

October 17th.

I woke up at 2 am to pee. I wake up frequently to pee. But this 2 am wakeup was especially exceptional because I looked out the window to see beautiful snow fall! The white lit up the night, and I was excited for morning.

Chris and I got up probably about 8:30 or 9 and went for a lovely, snowy walkie with the animals. They were pretty happy about it too! Chris and I ate some snow and enjoyed the quiet stillness that snow brings.

I really love our morning or evening or afternoon walks. Our pup Edel is a lot of work, and in general, the animals wreak a level of havoc on the house, but I love being outside with them. If we didn’t have Edel, I would most likely spend much less time outside, which wouldn’t be good. And the cats… they’re so funny when they follow us on walks, and when they bolt around the trail or on the dead trees. Our walks are definitely a high spot of everyday.

And the snow… it makes everything so beautiful!

Funny picture of Piper in perfect Halloween cat form.

And my little Piper and I, the kitten who made my dreams come true, and now she’s the kitten the keeps me from dreaming…. she doesn’t have the same sleeping schedule as we do and expects to go in and outside through the window as she pleases, which disturbs our slumber. I guess she’s just helping us prepare for a newborn babe that will soon arrive. Thanks for looking out for us, Piper.

Here’s to high hopes for some good snow this winter.

Sunday. I’m 36 weeks pregnant. It’s still pretty dreamy to me and I love it. The baby moves around a lot – my midwife described it as breakdancing on it’s head. I love feeling and watching him or her move and drum around in there. Sometimes it is a steady beat and totally seems like drumming. My lungs and bladder are getting increasingly squished, so I pee a lot, especially at night, and sometimes I breathe heavier than normal. I still feel good and healthy and am staying fairly active, but I wish I was doing more regular exercises. I’ve gained 30 pounds the past 8 months and my belly seems to grow everyday. :) I like to lay down when I can, and subbing a couple days in a row last week was hard for me haha. I didn’t even get to nap at school! I guess that’s normal though, but I remember taking naps  in my kindergarten class back in 1994.

We had nice church meetings today. Sacrament meeting was enjoyable and the songs we sang were so lovely. Sometimes I sing the hymns in portuguese because I just miss that Brazil land and people and it takes me back to so many fond mission memories. Brasil Vitória <3.

After church, Chris and I arrived home with the usual post church hunger, nothing like those fast sundays though. :) I took this nice picture of him playing xbox Star Wars and waiting for rice to cook. I love that Bel is nestled up in the clean sheets and Edel is hanging out by the driftwood pile. Funny. And Chris’s concentration on his star wars games is comical sometimes, and annoying at other times haha. But usually not annoying.

Lately the cats have found a new place to nap. The crib. Bel is in there a lot and Piper recently discovered it. It’s a nice place where Edel can’t reach them to munch away at their fur. 

Speaking of Edel, she and I have had some good hangout time lately. We hang out at home together, go on walks, and we went to the beach to collect driftwood a couple times this week. My patience can get very short with her sometimes, but she surely is patient with me. Very patient. And she’s funny – any time she hears me chomp a carrot or slice an apple or open the fridge to take something out, she’s right there, ready for me to toss her some scraps of produce. Funny girl.

Last night at the beach with honey husband. I love this picture.

Cats… crib… again…

My big belly at the beach the other sunny day. This was the first time I had been to the beach in a while, and I was nice to have such glorious weather while there! Edel looooved swimming and chasing a big stick in the water. And I managed to bend over and gather lots of good driftwood for a nursery project that I hope to complete for babe arrives.

Cats… sleeping…

Dinner! I was doing a one time boat cleaning and got home kind of late, so Christopher had dinner and Blue Bloods waiting for me when I arrived. How wonderful. I had to take a picture of the happy moment.

And the harbor, the day I cleaned a boat at 8 months pregnant. It was worth the monies and quite nice to be in the harbor again. It was so quiet and peaceful and I just listened to stuff, talked with Edel, and scrub scrubbed.

I gotta go pee again and then I should probably brush and floss my teeth and start slumbering. Over and out.

Bel and I have been nesting. I love spending time in the baby’s room! I love reorganizing the tiny shoes, putting away diapers, and finding a home for all the tiny clothes. I love falling asleep in our perfect swivel, rocker, glider chair, and I love the Bel is loving the nursery time as much as I am. 
It’s still a work in progress. But I love being in here. I love our hand me down crib, all the things in the wall, and the dresser that my mom gave us. We still plan on painting the room, probably gray, and I want to make some driftwood ABCs for above the closet. 

 Before the room’s current state, I cleaned it up to this, so that the girls could stay with us for a week while their parents weren’t in town. 

And before that, it was like this. The past year+ that Chris moved his home office out of this room and out of the home, it’s never really gotten very cleaned out. There’s always been extra junk in it, and it’s been the catch all room for anything. The more space you have, the more you fill it, I suppose. I’m glad our house isn’t too big, and that we do work to not accumulate too much stuff. It’s all still a work in progress, but it’s progress!

Time for me to sleep now. I am subbing two days in a row of middle school intensive needs and I’m sure I’ll need some naps! And I’m 35 weeks pregnant. And it’s great. 

My cute little nephew took me for a bike ride today. I’m grateful for FaceTime! How magical. 

I have a little cold and I’m so sneezy right now. 

I love being an aunty. 

And I love having a baby grow inside me. 

My amazing sister gave birth to another healthy, happy boy tonight! I can hardly believe she just had another baby! It all happened super fast and I’m excited to hear more about it tomorrow, and to meet little baby sometime in the next six months. I’m feeling proud of her and her wonderful family. 

Look how happy Brady is. That boy is the sweetest. She gave birth at home, and I think that sounds so fantastic. My midwives do it through our hospital, but home birth sounds great to me someday. 

I had another midwife appointment today, 32 weeks! My iron levels are going up, I didn’t gain any weight the past two weeks, blood pressure is great, belly is measuring normal, no stretch marks… Everything is going pretty great and I’m happy. 

I love feeling sweet baby wriggle inside of me. It’s the best. 

Man, I can’t believe Stacy just had her baby! Can’t wait to hear more about it tomorrow. 

Saturday, what a great invention.

Chris and I stayed up late ish watching Blue Bloods on netflix last night. It’s pretty much what we’re doing every night these days. Normally I’m not into cop or crime shows, but Blue Bloods is hitting the spot for me.  Each episode is about 42 minutes and when once finishes, another is all queued up and ready to roll! It’s hard to say goodnight to the blue blood Raegan family and go to bed, but alas, it must be done.

This morning we laid in bed till a slightly shameful hour of 10:30 or so. But it was nice! The baby was moving a lot in my belly this morning and I love love love that. The cats and dog were being rambunctious while we were sleeping, but we still managed to not get up and going until almost 11 am. These are the days! :)

I made blueberry flapjacks for me while Chris walked the pooch in the rain. When he came back, he ate left over tonkatsu for brunch and played xbox while I took care of my sims haha. Those sims. I spent time cleaning the house, as per usual, and Chris went to his office and did some work for a while. Then we met up at Homer’s perfecto farmers market!

I love our farmers market. What a wonderful place to get healthy produce from our hard working farmers, and to see friends from our community. I hear there’s going to be a feast party at the last market of the year in a couple weeks! We’ll need to go. :)

Only had one boat to clean tonight and husband went to the harbor with me, so it took us 20 minutes. Nice. Boat cleaning is winding down, which is nice.

I have jury duty this month, which is a slight annoyance, but I can handle it. :) I’m happy for where our life is right now. I love having a growing, moving, baby inside of me. I love our home. I love the changing weather. Church is great. Family is great. We’re healthy and happy and things are pretty good in the hood.

(If I would’ve written a couple days ago when I was in a debbie downer mood, my words might not have been the same.:) Great day today though!)

One of my childhood BFFs, Jane, is back in town with her husband, Jeff, sooooo we went flying with them! It’s so nice that flying around has become accessible to Chris, thanks to the fairly affordable airplane he found to rent. Flying isn’t an inexpensive endeavor, but it keeps husband excited and motivated. And duh, the sights are beautiful, especially around here!

Chris and I have flown around Kachemak Bay and over a couple certain glaciers multiple times, but on the weather was so great on Friday that we explored new territory. It was so neato and beautiful. Being up in the air gives quite a different perspective.

I love our bay and our mountains and our glaciers and our ocean and our land and our life. I think it’s okay to call it “ours,” as long as we help take good care of it. But really, it’s all part of God’s magical creations for us, and I’m happy we can enjoy it all.

I can hardly believe I’m 30 weeks pregnant, but week by week, it has happened! Just over 2 months to go till we get to meet our little babe.

I’m able to see my belly button like never before. My belly is still stretch mark free which makes me very very glad. I’m working to get my iron levels back up, but everything is pretty good other than that. I love being pregnant and I love this baby bump very very much.

Bebe was moving lots this morning when I woke up, and I love feeling that. I got to sleep in this morning, and that was nice too. :) I have a midwife appointment shortly, and I don’t really feel like going to it, because I don’t really feel like I need to. But I guess I need stronger relationships with my midwives to prepare better for the birth day!

We’ve been learning how our healthcare works, and so now I need to get our maternity bills paid. Financial stuff is kind of stressful to me sometimes, but it’s part of life.

Yesterday at in our young women class, our lesson was: How can I strengthen my family? We went over this talk by President Uchtdorf and it was so good. Nothing more important than marriage and family and home and homies. :)

Carla girl has been my BFF since we met in 3rd grade. I feel so lucky and blessed to have her as a part of my past, present, and future. She came up to Alaska last week and we of course had lots of fun, ate great food, took pictures, adventured, and laughed ourselves breathless. 

Here’s some pictures from the days she was HOME in AK. 

iSleepy. But I’ll try and post and remain coherent. But when I’m sleepy I can fall asleep and start having mini dreams instantly. I was actually just drooling on my arm like twelve seconds ago. And now I almost just dropped my phone on my face – gotta hate when that happens. 

Buuuuut, today has been a grand day of blueberry picking! We took a couple friends a lot too, which more people can always make adventure merrier. Buuut we didn’t have enough berry pickers ! So I stopped at handy dandy Ulmers on my way out to pick up one up. I got a yummy, fair trade, chocolate bar there too. Thanks, Ulmers! 

I really like chocolate, and I’d like to eat more fair trade chocolate and less regular chocolate. There was an African guy at BYUH who started an organization to help stop child labor in the cocoa plantations in Africa. Well Africa it’s called. Anyway, I can do more to help the world. I’m not saying that me eating fair trade chocolate will change the world, but anyway, it’s better than regular stuff, and like 5x more expensive, but that’s okay. You get what you pay for. 

So Dad called me up about 9 this morning asking about berry picking across the bay. I was cozy in bed at the time, waking up, and thinking about spending a nice day at home taking care of stuffs. I hadn’t even moved to look out the window yet so I didn’t know the daily weather report. My pops said it’d be good to go, but maybe we could go next week too, when it was sunnier. So I decided to think about it, and was feeling kind of tired to adventure. Summer can wear us out up here with lots of visitors, work, and play! Fortunately I have been getting plenty of sleep, but I still get tired. But thank you naps! Oh these baby free, pregnant, summer days. They’re good ones. Looking forward to holding a sweet babe though. 

I decided to go berry picking. I felt like I should so I did. I took Edel (and Piper) for a nice morning walk and playtime, then came home and got ready. I showered, ate some flapjacks, and got a few snacks together, since we’d be gone all day. I was a few minutes behind schedule, but that can happen. 

Jakolof Bay was our destination today. I’d  only been there once before and it had been about 8-9 years. It’s an interesting little place and I want Chris to go too. So the day turned out gray and drizzly, and I’m glad! It kept some bugs away!

We had to do some bushwhacking to find some prime blueberry patches. My pops and I have done plenty of that in our time. This time it was extra worth it because holy berries!  

It was lovely to harvest from the earth’s bounty and plenty. The berries were better than I’d ever seen them, and we each just spent lots of solo time with our berry pickers, filling big ziploc bags. It was a soggy time, but the weather was pretty perf in my opinion, because very few pestering bugs! And I wasn’t hot and sticky worrying about spiders either. 

All of us were decked out in our rain gear, and we picked for a number of hours. I eventually had to pee, and that was slightly difficult, because it was a lot of layers to pull down, and I didn’t want any bugs to get my tush, nor did I want to get poked by Devils club. But alas, you got to do whatchu got to do. 

I got tired and burnt out after a couple hours, and I laid down with my berry picker and dumped berries in my mouth. Hahaha. 

I pretty much stayed in the same tiny area the whole time, with a few big, plentiful blueberry patches. At one point I trekked it up the hillside looking for more berries, but I only found some salmon berries, many of which were surprisingly dying, and lots of thick Devils club. So I decided to go back down the hill because Dad yelled over that there were more berries by my original picking patch. It’s nice he looks out for me so much. He calls me his favorite youngest daughter (or FyD) and he’s my favorite oldest dad. I’ve actually got lots of titles for Dad, many of which come from the childhood days he and Carla and I adventured around the peninsula for years. 

He came back over and we worked on a big berrylicious area together. At this point I was getting fairly wet and bit cold and was ready to be done. When the bugs came out and I had to out on the head net, I knew I was ready to head back to the boat and warm up. So I filled my fourth gallon ziploc bag, said adios to Pa, and headed through the soppy greens with a pack pack full of blueberries. Perfect. 

My backpack was kind of heavy actually, but there was no one around to listen to me complain, so I didn’t complain. I was probably walking down the road kinda funny with my berry filled pack, my berry and baby filled belly, my wet clothes, and full bowels haha. 

As soon as I got back to the boat, I took off my rain gear, put on a dry sweater, and busted out my half of my PBJ. Gotta love them. After I grabbed the tp and wipes and headed to the port a potty at the top of the ramp. And omg, it was so full of poo that I headed straight for the woods instead. So, that was good. :) 

There’s my load of berries. I didn’t get as many as Dad and our two friends, but how awesome to get so many perfect blueberries! They don’t get much better than that! I want to make muffins, lots of smoothies, flapjacks, and more muff muffs. 

Our boat ride back was nice and calm, with plenty of sea birds and sea otters and a seal on the way. We all ate snacks and talked about how great the berry picking was. 

I had a couple boats to clean as soon as we got back, and that went well. I took my fellow boat cleaner girl, Annie, a little bag of blue berries and she was delighted. I’m really grateful she’s in the harbor and that we’ve both been cleaning for 10+ summers. It’s always good to see her. We bring each other treats sometimes and that’s fun. One year she shares some smoked salmon with me, and it was one of the first times I had enjoyed it. And she’s brought me yummy muffins she’s made too. Good stuff. Muff muff. 

At night, it was great to get back home to Edelweiss and our cats and our clean, welcoming home. Oh how I love our home and I love being here. I watched toy story 2, looked at great deals on Craigslist for baby stuff, and I somehow ate a delicious pint of Belgian chocolate haagendaz. Oops. I’m not sure how I ate it all… One delicious, chocolaty bite at a time I guess! I only regret half of it, because what a not healthy load of sugar and fat for me and bebe, but a girl’s gotta have dinner! ;) 

I’d like to find some delicious and healthier ice cream that is nice and chocolatey and doesn’t take advantage of child labor or cocoa plantations and doesn’t mistreat milk cows. :) Normally I get the talenti double dark chocolate gelato which is delish. Yum. But it’s really important to me where my food comes from and I like to be aware and mindful, ideally, not that I always am. 

Guess I should just be eating my delicious blue berries! So grateful for harvest times here in Alaska in our lovely summer. What a good place for us to life and be.