Spring in North Pole! (General Conference, Easter, The Breakup)

Hello from us and our little snow bunnies!!

We've had a lot going on in the last month, but let's start with two of the biggest things - Easter and General Conference!

Lydia's had a great first Easter. :) We 'opened' her Easter basket in the morning, then went to church, and had dinner with two other families from our ward. Simple but good!

Lydia got things from both sets of grandparents, plus candy that Mom and Dad ate for her. :) And bubbles, which she loved to watch!

Can you see it over her hand?

Oh and Matt gave me bunny socks. :) 

The Friday before, we had an Easter party with Matt's work - including Lydia's first Easter egg hunt! Which was just me walking over to an egg, letting her hold it, and then setting it back down for a bigger kid to find. :) 

We did Barkley's traditional Easter ears picture, too - this time with an extra participant! :) 

Can you believe this is the FOURTH year in a row that we've done this?? (If you count last year when we lost the ears...) I added all the past pictures back in last year's post!

Getting a picture of the two of them BOTH in ears was tough! We finally got it when Matt and I worked together. Ha!

Two weeks before Easter was General Conference and as usual, I loved it! I kept thinking back to when we were there with Heather a few years ago and had a picnic on the grass between sessions, surrounded by happy, well-dressed people, sunshine, and a million flowers. :) I wish we could've gone back this year with L!!!

2014 General Conference - picnic at Temple Square 🌷

General Conference is put on by our church every 6 months and is like two days of TED Talks, all about the most important things in life!  It's based in Salt Lake City and is always uplifting and inspiring. Every time, it makes me want to be a better version of myself! People come from all over the world to watch in person, filling the 23,000-seat Conference Center for four, 2-hour sessions.

Here's a quote from my favorite talk...

It's just SO good!

We watched from home,

Lydia was ready to take notes. :) 

and had brunch with Katie and Bridger between Sunday's sessions! My friend Katie is a teacher and has the BEST toys - Lydia had fun playing with their little girl (as much as she can 'play' with others at 10 months old) while we ate!

I brought traditional Conference cinnamon rolls of course. :) 

You can watch all of the sessions HERE! Caution: may result in inspiration, guidance and feelings of happiness. ;)

Meanwhile, Instagram has been full of pictures about how beautiful and springtimey it is where everyone else lives. Here's what the first day of spring looked like in North Pole...

Cold and snowy, but pretty!

It's warmed up since then, so we've ventured out a few times. It's sooo nice to go outside and breathe fresh air, even if our trails are covered in slush and mud.

In the past month, we've gone from snow everywhere (feet of it, piled on the side of the road, filling our back yard almost to the TOP of the fence...), to deep puddles and LOTS of slush. It stays so cold here during winter that it never melts. So any snow that's fallen since September was still on the ground at the end of March... and then all melted within a few weeks! It makes a big, slushy, muddy mess that Alaskans call 'the breakup.'

The pic above and below were taken a week apart in the same place. It melts fast, but it's messy!

The snow melting off of rooftops sounded like rain. 

Mid-March... snow and icicles on the roof at church.

So we still can't be outside very much. At the same time, Lydia has gotten to the age where she's not happy just playing at home - she wants to explore! We discovered this great indoor play place on the Air Force base and started going all the time. 

At first she was overwhelmed and could barely muster a grimace.

Where are we?
Who are all these screaming, running children?

But then she made some friends...

and discovered fun toys....

And now she loves it! 

Kayla and I go once a week with our girls. :) This place is a life saver!

Charleeee!

On the drive home (I wasn't driving)

The babies were knocked OUT!

Kayla and I also checked out a baby gym in Fairbanks and the girls had a good time!

L was able to swing again, for the first time since we visited Ca in January! ❤️

SO happy :) 

I met up with Aubrey back at the Air Force base play place too, and got to meet baby Bailey!

My goofy face to make Lydia smile :)

Matt even came with us one Saturday. It was so heartwarming to watch them play together!

I think this is my new favorite video. Those baby squeals!! 

Our happy girl :)

So, yeah, we love the play place. :) She even learned to low-crawl there!

Over the last few weeks she's gone from log-rolling, to low-crawling (on her belly and elbows, which is what she does now), to staaaaarting to lift onto all fours. Maybe soon!

It's all enough to tucker a 10-month-old out! I love my view of her from the diver's seat :)

We've also really enjoyed going to Institute (a class put on by my church, similar to Bible study). They have a nursery (childcare) program just like on Sundays, but I assumed Lydia was too young for it (since on Sundays they start going at 18 months old). She's too wiggly to sit through the 90 minute class with me, so I hadn't been in a while. 

But then I decided to just ASK if they'd let her join the older kids... and they did!! She had a great time and played for 90 minutes without me. She came out with an animal cracker in her hand and crumbs all over her smiling face. :) This was her FIRST childcare-like experience with other kids where she couldn't see me, and she did great!! It was a huge 'win.' 

And we go to the library once or twice a week. :) 

Barkley needs exercise too, so we were happy when the temp rose above 0 and the dog park got busy again!

My view as we left one day:

Bye, friends :) 

Some days (when it was really cold) I'd sit in the car with L and read while Barkley played. We enjoyed this book. :)

But for the last two weeks it's been flooded with melted snow, and is mostly unusable! 

Can't wait for all this slush to melt!!

BUT living in the far north isn't all bad. Because while there's snow on the ground 9 months out of the year, and it gets extremely cold, and there's slush all spring... we do get to see the northern lights, August - April.

One night at the end of March when Matt was gone, I looked out the window and saw...

A little trail of green aurora that got brighter and bigger as I sat on the couch and watched!!!

I mean... to me, that makes up for nasty weather and slushy-muddy stroller walks. I will never forget watching the northern lights from the living room couch!! So, so cool.

Then, on a different night when Matt was gone again, he called me at 1am to tell me to look outside. :) I've never been so happy to be woken up in the middle of the night. 

Do you like my aurora chasing outfit?

I can't get over how cool the northern lights are. :)

As for work, things are going really well! There are 2 weeks left in the semester (3 for me, because I have a week of grading after finals are over). It seems like the semester just started! I'm also happy to report that my class is doing so well that 2 sections have been added to the summer term!

Usually my class is only offered during the school year, but there's been such high demand for online Comm courses that I'll be teaching 2 additional classes this summer. I'm really looking forward to it and am so thrilled that the class I've been polishing and perfecting is succeeding!

My yoga classes are going well too - I just organized my first workshop in Ak! It's all set for next month.

Let's do a quick Lydia update. :)

Our little girl is ten months old! She is sooo close to crawling on hands and knees. She still sleeps 12 hours/night, plus naps.

And she recently discovered Cheerios!

It's really nice that I can be doing other things while she feeds herself now. :)

How many Cheerios can she fit in her fist? :)

Her favorite foods are formula, banana (one day this week ate an entire mashed banana in one sitting), Cheerios, and... Hummusapien's healthy pumpkin bars. :) She seriously loves them.

She stopped nursing at nine months old. :)

All this eating and growing means she graduated to a new high chair. ❤️

And she still loves Safeway trips. :)

I did not buy these.
I took a pic to send Matt bc I thought they were so ridiculous. :) 

Buying flowers for a friend's birthday 💐

Between outings I really enjoy our time at home. 

I've been really into books on CD lately since we drive around so much (we live 30 minutes from everything.) I just finished Little Women and LOVED it!

Thanks to Sarah for the recommendation. :) We've gotten to FaceTime with her a bunch lately which I also love! 

She just moved to NYC and we're all happy to have her back on the same continent. :) Here's a screen shot of the time FaceTime froze as she made this face. 😂

Coincidentally she and Ell both moved in the same month. Now my sisters live in NYC and The OC. Fancyyyyy! Mom went down to help E move into her new apartment.

Let's wrap up this post with a few random things..

Matt FOUND us a great jogging stroller, and cleaned it up in the shower (it was still too cold to use a hose outside). 

Lydia loves it!

And so do I. Hello jogging! It's been forEVER!

And he took Barkley skiing one last time for the season in early April. 

The best meal in Fairbanks is still Fish Taco Friday!

Tacos for two

Ice sculptures of Lucy and Tumnus from Narnia outside the NP library.

We took L to a little event there about service dogs. :)

Lydia's expression when took her to a movie (it was Beauty and the Beast... and I don't think we'll take her back to a movie theatre for a few years!!)

That expression cracks me up!

Barkley enjoying the sunshine...

Hanging out as L played...

I was telling Matt the other day that one of the things I'll miss the most about Alaska is our apartment. I got this pic as I was running out the door one day and was struck by how much I love it. 

I just have this feeling we're not going to live here in Ak much longer!