Holiday Traditions

The holiday season passed by quickly and crazily. It felt like several months crammed into just a few weeks' time. Somehow we managed to get in all of our holiday traditions, with fun new things along the way. It's a little late for an update, but it feels like we are just now getting back into routine after the crazy but fun holiday season.

Our Christmas Cookie Baking Marathon is a staple of the holiday season, tiring as it is.

After a whole day of making a mess in the kitchen, we completed the feat. The cookies didn't look so pretty once we got to Illinois and Michigan, but they sure looked nice fresh out of the oven!

On our way back to the Midwest to celebrate the holidays, we had a day to spend in Anchorage. Enjoying a rare Starbucks date, we had a strange request from a guy who noticed us playing around with our camera: take a picture of him with his shirt off and email it to someone. Turns out, he is an up and coming UFC fighter who was heading to Russia for his first big UFC fight. The head person needed a picture of each fighter before the fight. It was very awkward taking this picture in a public Starbucks shop, but it's a funny memory.

Graduation for my Master's program fell during the holiday season, so I was fortunate enough to take part in that as a way to celebrate being DONE forever! I'm grateful for the opportunity to continue my education and accomplish its completion.

Of course, we had some play during our time off down south. Keegen enjoyed driving some new machines.

We bought Keegen a local fox fur from Bethel for Christmas, which still looks like a living animal in this picture.

Liam is a growing, sweet boy.

A very curious and pensive little guy too.

We came home to Bethel with lots of supplies and goodies in tow to get us through the next couple of months, which we purchased on our way through Anchorage. Even Kiah got some presents from the spoil.

We also bought our stocking stuffers for each other while we were in Anchorage. It's our yearly tradition to go to Target or Walmart, split up for a half hour or so, and pick out stocking stuffers. It's fun to do it at the same time because we always end up running into each other in the store and have to quickly rush away so the other person doesn't see what's in our bin. Aaron did pretty good this year for me.

We ended our Christmas season at home after a busy two weeks of travel by watching the movie Elf with homemade German pancakes, a Christmas tradition we started in Zambia three years ago that we brought to Chicago and now Alaska.

It was so great to spend the holiday season with our families down in the lower 48. It's just as good to be back home in Bethel and being able to continue our holiday traditions here too.