Alaska, and other things

I wish I could start by telling you what an amazing ride its been lately. But really, it has been so stressful, and downright heartbreaking.

Leaving Colorado wasn’t as painful for me as I’d thought it would be. I think because I left the front range / Boulder so long ago, leaving this time meant leaving the West Slope and I honestly could not wait to get out of Silt, Colorado. Good ol’ Silt, Colorado. I do miss our house (the familiarity of it), I miss our backyard, I miss my porch, the birds, the squirrels. I miss the sun. Holy cow, do I miss the sun. I miss stepping outside in the morning and being met by warmth. I miss walking barefoot – everywhere. But I don’t miss the overwhelming sense of ….. not belonging? That I felt there. That we felt there. I felt more at home in Kentucky than I felt on the West Slope. I can’t explain it. I can’t. I’ve tried. But I’m glad we’re gone. It wasn’t the place for us. And we kept being faced with that reality again and again and again.

I left Colorado on May 23rd and headed for Utah. Emery was an angel on the 6 hour drive to St. George. We picked up Chipotle, ate together in our hotel room and she slept with her mama on the bed that night. We got up the next morning and headed to California. Months prior I never would have been able to handle the stress of driving alone with Emery to California. Let alone in a rental car as my husband drove the other direction to Alaska with my car & all of our belongings in tow. But drive, Emery and I did, and it went better than I could have predicted. My little girl is such a road tripper. She loved staying in the hotel. She watched her Winnie The Pooh shows and just stuck it out. An hour-ish from my mom’s house we stopped at this cute little gift shop / wine and cheese shop somewhere in the middle of Central CA and she picked out a little toy for how well behaved she’d been. I was so proud of her! She slept the final hour of our drive. The only sleep she’d had since leaving Utah that morning. What a great travel buddy.

We stayed at my moms for a few days and tried to enjoy our final days in the lower 48. That Sunday before Memorial Day, just after the best visit with my Papa, I found out I was miscarrying my second baby in 6 months. I should have been nearly 8 weeks along. I. Was. Devastated. I spent my last day in California in the Emergency Room in Modesto. There was little time to process it all. The next day we were on our way to San Francisco to return the rental car and jump on a 4.5 hour flight to Anchorage. Words cannot express how much more comfortable I was on that flight knowing my mom, Emery’s Mimi, was just a few rows behind us in case of a medical emergency (for me). Luckily, we made it through the flight. Today, I am still in the process of miscarrying our (would be) baby. It’s surreal. And it’s heartbreaking. But it’s real life. I am one of the 1/100 women who has had back to back miscarriages. If you pray, please pray for us. I don’t understand why this is happening. But, it is and there is no shying away from it.

We’ve been in Alaska for two weeks now. I love our house. I feel like we live in the trees. We have these really big windows that “really bring the trees in” — it’s my favorite part of the house so far. I would probably like our deck more if it weren’t so cold!!! It has been cold since we arrived. I believe we’ve had one all day warm day since arriving. On average, it has been 15 degrees colder here every single day than when we lived here in 2020. I know most Alaskans are way more frustrated than I am. At least I got to experience a beautiful spring in Colorado prior to arriving here. But GEEZ, it better warm up.

I am already looking at a trip to Hawaii in October. A real vacation. Our first since getting married. Now that we have dual incomes, we can hopefully do things like that. If we actually sell our house in Colorado. Don’t even get me started on that. Two contingencies later and these people who want to buy our house & who we have been under contract with for a long time now literally CANNOT SELL THEIR OWN. Maybe pray for that, too.

Speaking of dual incomes– I am back to work. I started last week. It’s a small unit, but at a very large hospital. I am part-time, two shifts a week. I was supposed to start on the unit this week after finishing up hospital wide orientation last week….. but, miscarriage. I have been sidelined since Monday evening. Luckily my manager is great and was able to reschedule my shifts to accommodate letting me attempt to go through this miscarriage naturally. Once I’m back in the hospital 25 hours a week…. I will be sad to leave Emery at home to work, but with it only being 8 shifts a month I know I can not only 1. Handle it but that 2. Emery can also. We interviewed a Nanny last week and she agreed to come work for us. Emery still gets to stay at home and bonus– I get out of the house and put my degrees to use while adding to our income. (And another HUGE bonus– Ben gets to work from his home office 2-3x a week, so we do not have to leave her completely alone with someone).

Side note: it is barely above 50 degrees today and it’s been raining. I am starting to think summer in Alaska will never arrive…..

The weather is definitely starting to get to me– but mostly, I feel comfortable here. I’m ready to finish unpacking and feel better health wise. We have so many updates we’d like to start making to our house so I hope we can accomplish those also, little by little.

I told Ben 5 years minimum. I plan on making the best of this place. I will post pictures of our new Alaska home in a few days 🙂