Working from Home + Last Visitors of the Year!

Is this not the cutest little office mate you've ever seen?

Working from home is going incredibly well. The semester started at the end of August and this is what my 'office' looks like most days. The pic is from when I was watching student intro videos. It's amazing the variety of students who need to take classes online! In my sections alone there are semipro hockey players, natives in tiny villages, professionals working full time who can't come on campus (including several in the military), a few ambitious Alaskan high schoolers taking college classes early, and regular full-time students. They're almost all from Alaska, in far-away places like Kodiak and Dutch Harbor (Deadliest Catch anyone?) and villages with names I can't pronounce. It's amazing to learn about some completely different lifestyles!

I love my job, and side job too! Yoga has been going really well and Lydia has now slept through more than a month of classes. Hope it keeps up!

Matt's taking a certification class this month on top of regular work so he's been getting home later than ever. He also works with the boy scouts from church one evening every week - they do service projects and get ready for camping and other adventures together and it sounds like fun!

Visiting Dad at work!

And then there are our daily adventures...

Grocery shopping... I laughed out loud when I saw little eyes peeking up at me!
Suggestions on better ways to do this??

Napping after a walk to the library

Watching me cook dinner
(2 months old here)

Morning workout / nap time

Matt turned 27 a couple weeks ago! His birthday was really low key (both of ours were this year), but he got a pair of skis that he's been talking about for MONTHS and can't wait to use them! He would ski to work if he could... Which would be sooo nice if it were possible! 

Now we just need snow :D

And Lydia turned 3 months old! 

She weighs 13 pounds and is in the 70th percentile for height - she's a healthy baby! She's starting to 'talk' now too which is the CUTEST thing ever!

And she's usually happy, except for tummy time or whenever she has to eat from a bottle!

We love her! Being a parent is actually so much fun.

2 months old here 

In the midst of it all, this month we were were lucky enough to get TWO visits from aunts - one from each side of the family! First my Aunt Joann came up from Chicago. It was so good to see her (it had been years) and introduce her to Lydia!

L wearing her moose hat -
she was looking all around! 

It's safe to say she and Aunt J were fast friends.

While she was here we ate our way through Fairbanks. We went to practically every great place to eat in the area... Those are some real vacation goals.

Farmers market right before it closed for the season!

Ladies who lunch!!

We took a trip to UAF to see campus, the botanical gardens, reindeer, etc. Lydi was a little pouty that day which inspired Matt to write this poem!

It has been referred to as poetic genius ;)

We visited an antique car museum - and before you think 'how boring,' let me assure you this place is actually really cool. Lydi was amazed in the shiny, colorful cars, and Matt had never been! Since the museum closes in the winter like a lot of seasonal things in Fairbanks we were glad to fit this in (thanks for the motivation Aunt J!)

Aunt Joann was such a help while taking care of 'life' (always appreciated with a baby!), like the morning we got our SNOW TIRES put on the car ((already!)) and had to wait a couple hours. I was so glad to have a second pair of hands to help entertain The Lyds (she has a lot of nicknames). At least we got to hang out by this toasty fireplace :)

 Doing emails while we waited

She took our Christmas card photo for us (thank you thank you thank you!) and I was happily surprised that we got it done in less than 10 minutes. Team work, people! ;) 

Posing while Matt played with camera settings

She even offered to babysit one night so we could have our first real date since having Lydia. We went to this new Jazz Bistro restaurant and then out dancing - not a bad way to re-start our dates. She got this pic as we headed out the door....

So thoughtful. :) She also came to my yoga class, helped us with EVERYthing around the house, and was incredibly generous! It was such a nice visit! And she left us with the most adorable baby outfit that I can't WAIT for Lydia to fit into.

I mean, look at that fuzzy vest!

Little video from a typical evening...

As ALWAYS happens with visitors, her stay seemed to go by incredibly fast. I'm so glad Lydi got to meet Great Aunt Joann!

Moose-hatting it up at Fairbanks International

Then THIS weekend Matt's aunt Megan came up from Anchorage! She came to see her daughter's HS flag football game (Matt's cousin who drove up with the team) so we got to spend the day with her.

As you can see, she was pretty popular at our house!

We watched Patrice's team win their game by a landslide, and then introduced her to Lydi! It felt like the coldest day we've had in a while so we put Lydi into a bunting for the first time... she's going to be living in these until April June. Good thing we were given like 20 of them when she was born! Poor baby also has her first head cold so we made sure to keep her bundled up.

After the game Megan and I went to General Women's Conference together at the stake center (suuuch a great session) and then got Thai for din with Matt. :)  It's nice having family in Alaska, even though we sometimes forget that we do because they live so far away, dang it. It was a super quick visit but really good to see her and Patrice finally! Can't believe we hadn't made that happen sooner.

We are really impressed by all of our friends / family members who made the huge trek up to Fairbanks this spring/summer/fall to visit - it really means a lot to us! Now that it's about to get really cold/dark and visitors are winding down we're SO glad each and every one of you made it up here.  We're excited to see who else we get to show around Alaska before we leave... two years left! Northern lights, anyone? :) 

I'll wrap up this post by saying how nice this fall has been. 

We've taken lots of walks and tried to be outside as much as possible before the snow comes.

Morning walk
Lydi looking at nature, Barkley running up ahead!

Dog park

One night we went to a HS football game with Lydi which made us feel really old :) This pic has nothing to do with that except it was taken on the way out to the game... and because I'm loving our front porch these days. :D

Do I have the cutest family or what

And this video is such a good example of Matt's creative solutions to things - in this case, Barkley being all wound up from not getting a walk one day. Problem solved!

(AH, one day I'll remember not to take videos in portrait.)

Really soon there'll be snow on the ground and that bike will be replaced with skis!