Wintering

It will be March soon and we’ve been in the depths of winter since early November. I’m a bit exhausted from it all! It isn’t and wasn’t the darkness that’s bothered me. In fact, that was truly over hyped in my opinion. It wasn’t that dark for that long and our sun is now setting later than it is in Colorado. No, it’s not the darkness. It’s the freezing, the snow, the ice (so.much.ice) and the grey days and nights. It is so cloudy where we live, so often. We have had plenty of beautiful sunny days just this past month… but it’s usually so freezing it is hard to get out and enjoy them while staying warm. It’s something we’ve really struggled with. Keeping me warm, keeping Emery warm. We had our first real stretch of sunny days when it was simultaneously a high of -10 to -20 and lows down to nearly -25. Last week we had a 40 degree day and it was glorious! It was short lived, but so nice. It’s still as gorgeous as ever here, but so hard to appreciate it from mostly inside my house!

I do miss Colorado. (Surprise!) I miss sunshine. I miss those beautiful and random warm days we’d be gifted with in Boulder. I haven’t lived in the Boulder area since 2021 and I do miss my home. It will always be home to me. The West Slope area we lived in was nothing like my front range home — so different! Didn’t even feel like Colorado to me, so I don’t look back at that time and miss it at all. But Boulder/Denver area was home to me for so many years (12 years?), and I definitely haven’t felt at home since we had to move out of the state in 2021 for Ben’s clerkship. Moving all over for my husband’s jobs over the past several years has taught me a few things. Like…. I don’t want to do it anymore 🙂 I’m not one of those women who can just go with the flow and move around for my husband. Despite my best intentions. I know this now. And he knows this now. No more. The next time we move it will be of my choosing.

I recently realized because of how long the winters last here in Alaska, I’ll have spent my entire pregnancy in the frigid cold! Wild, really. After spending the entire summer in the rain and frigid cold. SOS. I remember those glorious Alaska springs and summers of 2019 and 2020…. oh how I (and everyone I’ve met and talked to here) misses the days of gorgeous Alaska summers. We do still try to get out here and there.

Speaking of my pregnancy — I’m 5.5 months along now with a so-far healthy baby boy. I am due just about the first week of June, and he’s measuring ahead of schedule a bit. I wonder when he’ll make his debut? I wish I was entering my 9th month instead of 5th because I’m ready now 🙂 So ready to meet our baby boy.

We did make a trip out to California in October/November for Disneyland and then again in December for Christmas. I don’t see us leaving Alaska again before the baby is born unless by miracle we’re leaving to move. (I can pray for that, right?!). No baby shower or baby sprinkle this time around. It’s just too hard to get out of this state, sadly.

For now you can find me inside by the fireplace reading a book, or working 2 days a week at the hospital while trying to stay healthy (AK definitely has the most gnarly respiratory virus season I’ve ever experienced), or working on school work (I’m in my second semester of Nurse Practitioner school) and growing this baby until winter is officially over (so probably about 3 weeks before my due date!).

Here’s our baby registry for those who have asked: https://www.babylist.com/list/babyboymonarch2024