Christmas in Alaska with the Olver's!

So here we all are in the frozen north! The gang made it up here to see Samuel and to celebrate Christmas. Here are pictures from the past week. We played music, went to North Pole, cooked, ate, and hiked around our village and tried not to get into too much trouble. This is Santa's house at North Pole. The town celebrates him year round, kinda like Leavenworth.

Hannah playin' the drums

Josh on the drums

Sam and Uncle Dan. Sam had a few issues with gas and would stop crying if Daniel held him.

Wandering around with Aunt Margaret. They were going to see the sights but he fell asleep....

Mom and Dad on Christmas Eve. Trying to get in one last feeding before the guests show up!

Me and Sam, he's having his Christmas Eve Dinner.

Sarah and Grace helping get dinner ready

This ice sculpture celebrates Alaska's 50th year as a state this year. The ice sculptor at North Pole did a great job!

At a Christmas shop in North Pole, Josh, Dad, and Margaret.

This is AK's idea of wall decor.....

We found the polar bear! Sarah and Grace with the bear in Santa's shop.

Eating at North Pole McDonald's. Even McDonald's is Christmas Themed.

Hannah and Margaret in the van on the way to North Pole.

The Tanana Valley between Fairbanks and Nenana, white with snow.

First Sponge Bath!

This is after his bath when he was all peaceful! His cord hadn't fallen off yet so he got his first sponge bath with his Nana. He didn't like the water part but he loves the lotion and massage!

Nana washing his little head.

Nana took this pic, a little close, but the face is priceless!

Just after being washed, nice and clean!

Samuel is here!

Ok, so I'm slow at uploading because things have been a little nuts and the pics are in no particular order, but he is here and we have the pics to prove it! I woke up friday morning feeling like I had bad constipation pain and after an hour of intense pain, I realized they were coming about 5 min apart. After a call to the Dr. we headed in to get checked and began the aweful hour long drive in -20 weather. I say aweful not because of the weather, but if you've ever had contractions that hurt so bad you wanted to pass out and you were stuck in a car, you would describe it as aweful too! That and we hit a snow chicken along the way, ripping a hole in the front of our car. Its head it lodged and frozen inside our car and now the car runs colder because we have a massive hole. Ok, so anyways, I got chekced by the dr. and was 5 cm and got to go to the hospital. Long story short after a day of labor, 2 hrs of pushing, and the vacuum helping get him "unstuck", Samuel Gregory arrived Dec 4th at 9:44pm weighing 8lbs 1oz and measuring 21 in long!


In this pic he is 4 days old and still working off the jaundice. He was slightly pumkin colored and the green hat just accents that.

This is his aunt and grandmas watch him get checked out in the nursery!

20 minutes old

Tiny foot prints

Just Born! He didn't cry when he came out or when they were cleaning him. He just looked around....after much harrassment from the nursing staff we got this pic of him using his lungs. Sorry its upside down...I don't know how to fix that....

This is him just 2 hours old laying with me in bed. He looks angelic with the lighting because it was snowing outside and it made a soft glow.

Hi all! Sorry we have not posted in a while, things a been a little crazy! We are still here and we are not frozen yet so I guess that is a good sign! We managed to get our car ready for winter (heaters for oil pan, engine block, etc.) so it will start in the mornings when we have below zero temps. No sooner did we get it done than two days later we hit our first negative temps!

Here is a pregnancy pic of me this week (33 weeks!). I may post a few more as the weeks wear on, but for now you can just expect belly shots. After I have the baby I'll smile and wave in the photo, but while I'm feeling like a lumbering elephant this is as good as its going to get! Baby is doing well and is sitting REALLY low. I've started having contractions here and there with back pain and pressure, so we are excited and hoping that around week 37 or 38 we get some action!Hopefully in the next week or so we will have pics of the babies room and untrasounds, but for now I don't have a recent ultrasound pic and the babies room is full of boxes. We are having some minor storage issues but have (finally) found a storage place that seems to be run by decent people with all their teeth and locks on the doors. Once we get the boxes cleared out, we will take pics!

The ice cometh! Here is the river right outside the village. Clearly the temps are starting to drop, we are seeing more and more ice flow down every day. Can't wait till we can go out and take a stroll on the river. Literally.

The hills that surround us. We were hoping to catch wild life but no such luck that day.

This is the pumkin Jerry carved for halloween and he is very proud. While it didn't win any awards, its #1 in our book! (we think we got screwed, the dude whose won wasn't nearly this creative...)

Ummm, this is a random drive way and Jerry said I had to post this for all the Strongbad fans out there. Something about pumpkins in the snow....there's a joke there, but I guess only certain people are going to get it.

A shot of the town in the snow and the river. Brrrr!

The sunset from where we live. The Northern Lights are starting to form as it gets darker so hopefully soon we will have pics of that, but for now we just have sunset like this one!

Moving to Alaska!

Hello Eveyone! Thought we'd do this blog so all the family/friends who don't have facebook could see pics too! First off, you will note that I am not in any of these pictures. There comes a time in a pregnant girls life when she does not want her picture taken. I may include a belly shot now and again, but I can't promise much. After the baby comes, there will be more photos. For now, enjoy the landscape!

We left on our trek Aug. 30th about mid day from my folks house near Seattle and arrived in the village of Nenana (knee-nana) on Friday Spet 4th about midnight. If there is one thing I learned from this trip, it is to FLY! Those of you who know me know that flying and I do not mix. However, after several days of driving through the crap hole we call Canada, I would have given my right arm to be on a plane and have gotten it over with in 6 hours. And I'm not just saying this because I'm pregnant and didn't want to be traveling. I'm saying this because of the sub standard of living and eating that I experience a long the way. No woman, pregnant or not, wants to stop after 13 hours in a car to eat at a bad cafe and stay in a hotel that was once an old brothel and now houses cockroaches. We stayed in the nicest place in each town and that's what we got. BUT, if you are ever in Price George, I have to recommend the Four Points by Sheridan. The ONLY hotel along the way that even came close to American standards!
Once we got here we found out our UHaul, (driven for us by awesome pastor Clyde Andrews who did it because he 'thought it would be fun') had hit a deer. Everyone and just about everything was ok (Clyde and our belongings, not the truck), and Clyde being the trooper he is didn't let it phase him. He made the 2300 mile drive in just under 3 days. Thanks Clyde!!!!!
So we are here and unpacking. The baby is doing well and while I was VERY tired from the trip, I seem to be bouncing back faster than I had anticipated! The weather is wonderful because its fall already and the air has a freshness to it that you rarely get in the lower 48. The people in the village have also been wonderful, but none so nice as Jerry's folks who let us crash in their guest room the first few days we were here so we could recover. I will post more as the weeks go on, hope everyone is well!

This is a picture we took on our last visit to Nenana, it is the train station in the snow. It was the end of the rail way back when and (if you've ever seen the Disney movie Balto) then you know that this is where the sled dogs took the medicine from the train and mushed it to Nome, saving a town from dying of disease. True story.


This is the Tripod! Its put out on the river every winter and the whole town takes bets on when the ice will melt and it will fall in. Winner gets a prize. Usually one would think that the time would be predictable, but when you are a river thawing from a winter where its 65 below, the thawing could take awhile....

Our names were too long to fit on the staff board, so we are just 'The Thompsons' in 218. But we really are here, we have this board to prove it!

This is the Living Center where we are housed. Nenana being a fishing village there aren't exactly apartments to rent, so the school district built a building with apartments to house the staff! So nice of them!

I guess the plates made it real. We are really here. Watching the Wa plates come off was bitter sweet. (pardon all the dead bugs, it is the wilderness of AK and there is only so much you can do before surrendering to the carnage on your car. I give up, its their final resting place.)

This is what welcomes you to the village! If you look closely you can note the grass growing on the roof. In Wa someone would have called another someone to get it removed, but up here, no one seems to mind nature all that much. It takes over and they are ok with it.

Ok, this pic was supposed to be a cute couples shot of us by a river somewhere in the Yukon Territory. Its just Jerry because what you can't see are the thousands of bugs that are swarming! I stayed in the nice enclosed car and snapped the pic.

This fella here was on the side of the road hangin out in the Yukon. We didn't take it with a zoom, we really are that close and he really didn't care. After several minutes of harassment it was clear he wasn't going to look up for a decent pic. Guess he's used to the stupid tourists.

Just a random pic of the country side. I don't know where we were.....