Questival Anchorage! and Wendi is visiting!

Wendi holding our totem--Team L2D2!

Merry Christmas 2016!

Now that I have had a quick refresher course on how to use blogger, I still don't know where to begin this letter.

2016 will be remembered for a lot of things...

1. A winter with never ending freezing rain. (Lame!)

The ice made hiking (or going to the grocery store) interesting/treacherous...

2. A 7.1 earthquake. (Scary! But we were all safe and unharmed.)

The extent of the damage from the earthquake...a couple broken bottles in the laundry room.  (PHEW!)

3. Subsequent emergency preparedness planning...complete with sweet tactical backpacks and family logo patches! (Thanks to Luke's sweet design skills!)

The Hanzon Family Preparedness Crest

4. Homemade Dirty Coke Zeros and Dirty Diet Dr. Peppers (Amazing!)

With sugar free coconut syrup purchased (by the case) from Amazon :)

5. The Broncos won the Superbowl. (Hooray! Finally!)

6. Grandpa Alan let Karrick "drive" the truck while he fed the cows when we visited in March. (He was in heaven!)

Reminds me of when I was a kid!

7. A wildfire near our house. (Again, scary! But again, thankfully, we were all safe and unharmed.)

8. Manda's visit to Denali National Park with her sister Wendi. (Fun!)

At Eielson Visitor Center in Denali National Park

9. A month long visit to Utah in June-July to visit all of our extended families. Plus we finally got to go to a rodeo and see fireworks (in the dark!) for the 4th of July! (Awesome!!)

On Cedar Mountain

10. The summer Olympics!  (Go USA!)

11. A trip to Nabesna in Wrangell St. Elias National Park where Karrick caught his first fish--an arctic grayling. (Yay!)

Devil's Mountain Lodge/Nabesna River

12. Karrick's first tent camping experience in the Chugach National Forest. (So fun!)

Such a beautiful spot!

Happy Camper!

13. Grandma & Grandpa Hanzon's visit for the lantern festival and a trip to Hope. (Wahoo!)

The wind made things a bit difficult, but we did get one lantern to cooperate!

Fall in Hope, Alaska ♡

14. The election of 2016 that is finally over. (Thankfully!)

BUT mostly it will be remembered as the year my sister Kerri passed away.

If you remember from our letter last year, she was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer in October 2015.  She left us on October 26, 2016--just a little over one year later.  I'm grateful for the time I was able to spend with her this past year.  And I'm especially grateful Karrick got to spend time getting to know her.

We are so grateful for the gospel and for our knowledge that we will see her again!  But it truly has one of the hardest things that has happened to me and my family.  We appreciate all of the love and support we have received.  Thank you!

We hope you are all doing well this Christmas season!  And may you all have a wonderful New Year!

Stay tuned for our Christmas letter for 2016!

I have to remember how to use blogger again... 😜

2015 Christmas Letter

Life in AK is never boring and this year has not disappointed. Its always hard to recall everything that has happened and even harder to figure out what to include in a Christmas letter that won’t bore everyone.  So we will give a brief year in review and then let the pictures do the talking.

Luke’s life is filled mostly with work…which is good except when its not.  In February, he was assigned to work on a potential strike relief crew while the operators union and the management worked out their contact squabbles and got a 15 day all expenses paid trip to the Alaskan North Slope during the middle of the winter…  his work has taken him to the slope multiple times this year and has resulted in getting to sit out a snow hurricane for 8 hours in his pick-up until the heavy equipment operators were able to dig their way to their little convoy.  (Thank goodness the trucks had full fuel tanks and everyone had their required extra-warm winter work gear!)  All in all we can’t complain… the oil price collapse has made things interesting but we are just taking things one day at a time and enjoying living in Alaska.  If you’ve never visited, Alaska is punch-you-in-your-face pretty and full of all things big and outdoorsy.  Luke loves living here and enjoys being a dad and going adventuring and cutting new trails in the small forest behind our house.

Manda has had an eventful year as well… In January, she was asked to serve as a member of the Primary (children’s group in our church) Presidency…  there are almost a hundred children our ward and anyone who has tried to organize a hundred sub 11-year olds on a regular basis knows its no small task.  The gig only lasted 9 months but was a challenging and rewarding experience.  The last part of the year has been a bit different than she had imagined.  Her sister Kerri was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and suddenly priorities changed quite quickly.  She has been able to make several visits to see her sister while they try and untangle the sticky web that is metastatic cancer diagnosis and treatment plans.  It has been great for her to go and see her sister so much more frequently and to support her and her family during this difficult time, but challenging as well considering the circumstances.  Please keep Kerri in your thoughts and prayers.  (You can receive updates by joining our Facebook group #courageforkerri)

Christmas letter in progress...

For reals.  Stay tuned!

Merry Christmas 2014

I've neglected this blog, but now it's holiday time
I've decided to recap our year with pictures and rhymes.
In January we escaped to Oahu to soak up some sun.

In February we saw the Piano Guys in concert, it was so much fun!  

And-funny story-we got tickets with friends so we could all experience this show

But our tickets "together" were same seats---different rows!  (...so funny!)

In March Luke decided to run down the street
With reindeer chasing him- they have such quick feet!

Later we travelled to Fairbanks to see sculptures of ice.

In April we thought a new house would be nice.  

It didn't work out--we didn't sell our house in time.  

But in the process it was nice to have such a clean house as mine!!  

(...to bad that didn't last...)

Oh and after some friends from Colorado came up for a clip,

Karrick had his very first (and hopefully last) ambulance trip.

A febrile seizure gave us quite a scare.

If that never happens again, we would surely NOT care!

In May we said farewell to good friends...so lame...

Life in AK now just isn't the same.

In June things were finally all green and awake.
Time for visitors and exploring, for goodness sake!

Our Colorado friends came back to visit this beautiful state.

We hiked Winner Creek Trail with them...it was great!

We went to Seward and Homer with my sister Wendi, my mom & my dad.

We celebrated Karrick's first birthday and he thought the cake tasted bad! (weirdo!)

In July we decided to try dip netting in Kenai.
We came home with 13 salmon to fry!

We hiked up a mountain called Rendezvous Peak
With new friends who had moved to Alaska earlier that week.

They even helped carry our pack and our kid!
We appreciated their help...WE MOST SURELY DID!!

This was also the month Karrick started walking around
and discovered he loves picking rocks off the ground!

August brought adventures to Hope-our favorite new place-and Valdez
We outfitted our truck with a topper for traveling ease.

Luke and his dad rode bikes down Thompson Pass.
They saw breathtaking views as they made it down fast.

And finally it was time for the Alaska State Fair...
We went with Luke's parents and ate milkshakes and corn dogs and had donuts to spare.

My brother Jeff and his wife came up in September to visit for a few days
We went to the Nature Center and Talkeetna and they went to Alyeska for a kid-free get-a-way.

At the end of the month to the lower 48 we flew.
Adventures in Colorado and Utah, we had a slew!

It was so good to see family and so many friends
At the beginning of October our trip came to an end.

Later on in the month it was All Hallows Eve.
We decided Karrick would be a perfect "Sheldon" from Big Bang Theory.

Before we knew it November was here
Karrick still loves playing outside in the cold--without fear!

We had friends over for Thanksgiving dinner in our home.
We tackled some home improvement projects & removing linoleum made us moan!
(Seriously...it was dumb!)

And now it's December-this whole year has really flown!
We still can't believe how much Karrick has grown.

Baby teething is a trial, we've barely survived.
If someone tells you it's easy, they surely have lied.
But other than that our year has been blessed...
(Especially when Karrick started sleeping through the night so we could finally rest!!)
We hope this Christmas season finds you all happy and well
With old friends and new friends and joyous stories to tell!
Love,
the Hanzon family